the name of one of them and divide by nine, and six remains, and [when you divide] the other [name] five remains, then if the two of them fight with one another, whichever fighter has a higher remainder will be victorious. But if a gentile fights with a Jew, the one with a remainder of five, that is, a lower one, will be victorious…. Thus claim the philosophers.196
In Sefer Gematriyot, Judah utilizes the same system for determining the outcome of a different sort of battle—that between a husband and wife. When the numerical equivalents of the names of a man and woman are added together, then divided by nine, each possible remainder is equated with a certain astrological outcome, such that the future success or failure of the match can be determined in advance.197
The “sums of the philosophers,” then, were adapted from the Secretum secretorum, a work attributed to “the Philosopher” (Aristotle), and one in vogue among contemporary “philosophers,” scholars learned in natural philosophy and occult sciences. Of course, the Pietists were enamored of gematriyah in general, and so a system that prognosticated on the basis of alphanumerical equivalences must have particularly piqued their interest. But the fact that in this instance, as in their use of sarei kos u-bohen, they sought out divinatory practices specifically from among “the philosophers” indicates that their predilection for gematriyah is not a sufficient explanation for the presence of this practice in their writings. Indeed, while the Secretum secretorum was translated into Hebrew during the medieval period (as Sod ha-Sodot), the earliest attestations of the latter are from the early to mid-fourteenth century,198 while the manuscript of Sefer Gematriyot is likely from the late thirteenth or early fourteenth.199 Thus, the citations from the Secretum secretorum in the Pietistic works may well be the earliest on record. Alternatively, the Pietists could have been exposed to the contents of Secretum secretorum even before it had been translated into Hebrew, or at least into the version that has survived. (Indeed, it is striking to note that Eleazar titled his own magnum opus Sodei Razya, the “Secret of Secrets.”)
While oral transmission of these contents seems most plausible, it is not impossible that the Pietists had access to, and could have read, Latin or vernacular texts of the Secretum secretorum—which, as we have seen above, were extremely widespread. After all, Sefer Hasidim is replete with tales of Jews who come into possession of grimoires, collections of magical spells,200 and there is some evidence that certain Ashkenazic Jews in the Pietists’ circles knew Latin and even read Christian texts. According to one exemplum in Sefer Hasidim: “A certain man told his friend, ‘I dressed like a priest and passed myself off as a gentile’ [during a period of persecution] so that they would think he was a priest and not hurt him. Another said, ‘I studied Christian books (sefer galhim),’ and when he was among the gentiles he would recite hymns in their language.”201 Casual references to Pietistic knowledge of Latin, and of details of Christian belief and observance, appear in other passages as well. Thus, Judah is well aware of the fact that Christians recite Psalms in their liturgy and is troubled by the fact that “the book of Tehilim, which David composed for the sake of heaven, and transmitted to the Levites to sing over the sacrifices [in the Temple], are used by [Christian] priests, who recite them before their idolatry.”202 Yet Judah himself unselfconsciously refers to mizmorim (chapters of Tehilim) as “Psalms”203 (שמלש). Further evidence from Sefer Hasidim indicates that Christian maidservants would sing Christian hymns (shir shel avodah zarah) as lullabies to the Jewish children in their care.204 Nor did exchanges of this sort take place only among marginal figures like servants and children: “One must not teach a Christian cleric (Hebrew?) letters, or play pleasant music in his presence, lest the cleric use that tune before his idolatry. And a tune used before idolatry must not be used by a Jew in praise of the Holy One, blessed be He.”205 Given a culture in which contacts between Jews and Christians took place so frequently, and in which Jews could be expected to know details of Christian practice,206 and, in some cases, to have access to Latin books, it should come as no surprise that encounters with Christian “philosophers” would yield knowledge of the kinds of natural magic that the Pietists incorporate into their own writings and texts.
Indeed, contacts of this sort may also account for the Pietists’ invocations of “wondrous” animals for theological ends. We have noted above that the twelfth century saw the rise of bestiaries, illustrated compendia that described the character and properties of numerous real and fantastic animals. These texts survive in many distinct recensions and consisted mainly of late antique animal lore, compiled from texts like the Historia Naturalis of Pliny, the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, and the late antique Physiologus.207 The twelfth- and thirteenth-century bestiaries contained much “scientific” data, and many of their contents were themselves incorporated into high medieval scientific encyclopaedias. Nevertheless, bestiaries were hardly intended to be abstract compilations of objective facts; rather, these texts were explicitly concerned with discerning the underlying spiritual meaning of the animals they described—the properties of various animals symbolized or shed light upon doctrines such as the Incarnation, Christ’s resurrection, and so on. Scientific (albeit wondrous) facts about animals are thus invoked not as ends in themselves, but rather for the light they shed on the theological and spiritual truths that they represent. This hermeneutical methodology is remarkably similar to that expressed by the Pietists. In both instances, the (sometimes fantastic) traits of animals are significant not in themselves, but primarily for the light they cast on ‘wondrous’ theological propositions—whether the powerful presence of an invisible God, or the ability of a divine being to become incarnate in a human womb.208
But the linkages between medieval bestiaries and the Pietists’ discussions of animals run deeper than just this conceptual parallel. As noted above, some of the animal properties known to the Pietists could have been observed empirically; others, like the fire resistance of the salamander, are alluded to in rabbinic writings.209 But many of the facts about animals that the Pietists blithely invoke do not appear in any known works by prior Jewish authors that the Pietists would have encountered. Here again, the bestiaries provide us with a solution to the question of the Pietists’ sources. For example, the notion that weasels are able to resurrect one another through the administration of a certain medicinal herb, which the Pietists invoke as a confirmation of God’s power to resurrect the dead, appears nowhere in prior rabbinic literature, but is widespread in the bestiary texts, where weasels are said to revive their children when they die by administering a herb (usually rue) (Figure 1).210 This “fact” was popularized in narrative texts like Marie de Frace’s Eliduc,211 and was also included in subsequent scientific encyclopaedias, such as the popular De proprietatibus rerum of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, composed in early thirteenth-century Magdeburg.212 The notion that lions hunt by trapping their prey in magic circles appears in Bartholomew’s work too,213 as well as in numerous twelfth- and thirteenth-century bestiaries.214 The magic circle appears in these bestiaries’ illustrations as well (Figure 2).
Ashkenazic Jews would have had occasion to learn about bestiaries and their contents via oral transmission. After all, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the information about animals contained in bestiaries and encyclopaedias was hardly confined to written documents. Rather, information about the natural world and its theological implications was frequently fodder for Christian preaching. Works in the developing genre of Ars predicandi suggested that the properties of things in nature be invoked in sermons, leading preachers to marshal data culled from bestiaries, animal fables, and works of natural history for their moralistic and theological implications.215 The thirteenth-century German text Proprietates rerum naturalium adaptate sermonibus de tempore per totius anni circulum, for instance, collected wondrous facts about animals and organized them so that they could be interspersed in sermons at the appropriate point in the liturgical year.216 Indeed, medieval bestiaries were frequently combined
