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Azariah dei Rossi

Azariah ben Moses dei Rossi(Hebrew:עזריה מן האדומים) was an Italianphysician,Jewishrabbi,and scholar. He was born atMantuainc.1511; and died in 1578.[1]He was descended from an oldJewishfamily which, according to tradition, was brought byTitusfromJerusalem.He was known among Jews asAzariah min-Ha'adumim(Azariah of the Red Family), a play on his name as well as a possible allusion to the fact that he lived in Catholic Italy, Rome being regarded as a spiritual heir ofEsau(Edom, from Hebrew`-d-m,red). Combining an insatiable desire for learning with remarkable mental power, Dei Rossi early in life became exceptionally proficient inHebrew,Latin,andItalian literature.He became known for his critical thinking and erudition.[2]He studied simultaneouslymedicine,archeology,history,Greek and Roman antiquities,andChristianecclesiastical history. When about the age of thirty he married and settled for a time atFerrara.Later he was found atAncona,Bologna,Sabbionetta,and again at Ferrara. In 1570a terrible earthquakevisited the last-named city and caused the death of about 200 persons. The house in which Dei Rossi lived was partly destroyed; but it happened that at the moment he and his wife were in their daughter's room, which remained uninjured. During the disturbances consequent upon the earthquake Dei Rossi lived in an outlying village, where he was thrown into association with a Christian scholar, who asked him if there existed a Hebrew translation of theLetter of Aristeas.Dei Rossi answered in the negative, but in twenty days he prepared the desired translation, which he entitledHadrat Zekenim.His account of the earthquake, written shortly after, is entitledKol Elohim;he regarded the earthquake as a visitation ofGod,and not merely as a natural phenomenon.

Azariah dei Rossi
Bornc.1511
Mantua,Margravate of Mantua,Holy Roman Empire
Died1578 (aged 66–67)
Mantua,Duchy of Mantua,Holy Roman Empire

Dei Rossi referred to his hometown Mantua as a "happy city" as it was a safe haven or a creative mecca for Jews at the time.[3]

Me'or Enayim

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Meor Einayim

He is known chiefly for his bookMe'or Enayim(English, Light of the Eyes) in which he used critical methods to test the literal truth of theAggadah,the non legalistic and narrative portions of theTalmud.His views were sharply criticised byJudah Loew ben Bezalel(the Maharal of Prague) in the latter'sBe'er ha-Golah.Its publication sparked a vehement condemnation and controversy.[4]It is a work of historical research.[5]Joseph Caro demanded the book be burned.[6]

Dei Rossi's great work,Me'or Enayim( "Light of the Eyes" ) (Mantua, 1573-75;Berlin,1794;Vienna,1829;Vilna,1863-66), includes the two works already mentioned and a third entitledImre Binah.The latter is divided into four parts; the first part contains a survey of the Jews at the time of theSecond Temple,narrates the origin of theSeptuagint,points out the contradictions between some of the beliefs of theTalmudistsand the proved results of scientific research, records the origin of the Jewish colonies inAlexandriaandCyrene,chronicles the wars ofSimon bar Kokhbaagainst theRomans,etc. Dei Rossi quotes from the writings ofPhilo,whose orthodoxy he questions. He criticizes him for having allegorizedBiblicalnarratives of facts, and points out that theAlexandrianphilosopher never gives the traditional interpretation of the Biblical text. (However, he also offers a possible defense of Philo, and reserves a final judgment.)[7]

In the second part Dei Rossi criticizes a number of the assertions of theTalmudists(some of the criticisms were already extant and many of his criticisms were repeated by later commentators), and gives explanations of variousaggadicpassages which can not be taken literally (as, for instance, the aggadah which attributes the death of Titus to agnatwhich entered his brain while he was returning to Rome). The third part is devoted to a study of Jewish chronology and translations from the writings of Philo,Josephus,and others, with commentaries. His critique of Philo is novel and ahead of its time.[8]The fourth part deals with Jewish archeology, describing the shapes of thepriestlygarments and the glory of the Second Temple, and giving thehistory of Queen Helen and her two sons.

Attitude of his contemporaries

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Dei Rossi's followed the burgeoningscientific methodof inquiry in his work and did not rely solely upon tradition. But this way of dealing with subjects which the multitude reverenced as sacred called forth many criticisms on the part of his contemporaries. Prominent among his critics wereMoses Provençalof Mantua (to whom Dei Rossi had submitted his work in manuscript),Isaac Finziof Pesaro, andDavid Provençal,who endeavored to defend Philo. Dei Rossi appended to some copies of theMe'or Enayiman answer to the criticisms of Moses Provençal, and a dissertation entitledTzedek Olamim,in which latter he refuted the arguments of Isaac Finzi. Later he wrote a special work entitledMatzref la-Kesef(published byHirsch FilipowskiatEdinburgh,1854, and included byZunzin the Vilna edition of the "Me'or" ), in which he defended his "Yeme 'Olam" against its critics. Dei Rossi, however, also had to contend with those who considered his "Me'or 'Enayim" as a heretical work.Joseph KarocommissionedElisha Gallicoto draw up a decree to be distributed among all Jews, ordering that the "Me'or 'Enayim" be burned. But, Joseph Karo dying before it was ready for him to sign, the decree was not promulgated, and the rabbis of Mantua contented themselves with forbidding the reading of the work by Jews under twenty-five years of age.

The "Me'or 'Enayim" attracted the attention of many Christian Hebraists, who translated parts of it into Latin.[9]

Dei Rossi was the author of a collection of poems (Venice,n.d.), among which are several of a liturgical character.

Joseph JacobsandIsaac Broydé,"Ross, Azariah ben Moses dei".Jewish Encyclopedia(Funk and Wagnalls, 1901–1906) cite the following bibliography:

References

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  1. ^Weiss, Moshe (2004).A Brief History of the Jewish People.Rowman & Littlefield. p. 124.ISBN9780742544024.The leading Torah scholar during the Italian Renaissance was Rabbi Azariah Rossi (1511–1578), who translated into Hebrew the letters of Aristotle, which contained discussions between Ptolemy II and the seventy Jewish elders who...
  2. ^Malkiel, David (2013)."The Artifact and Humanism in Medieval Jewish Thought".Jewish History.27(1): 21–40.doi:10.1007/s10835-012-9169-z.ISSN0334-701X.JSTOR24709729.S2CID254594796.
  3. ^"Introduction:" Under the Happy Shadow and Secure Protection "".Jewish Theatre Making in Mantua, 1520-1650:1–32. 31 July 2022.doi:10.1017/9781641892513.002.ISBN9781641892513.
  4. ^Weinberg, Joanna (1978)."Azariah Dei Rossi: Towards a Reappraisal of the Last Years of His Life".Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Classe di Lettere e Filosofia.8(2): 493–511.ISSN0392-095X.JSTOR24304990.
  5. ^Bonfil, Robert(1988)."How Golden was the Age of the Renaissance in Jewish Historiography?".History and Theory.27(4): 78–102.doi:10.2307/2504998.ISSN0018-2656.JSTOR2504998.
  6. ^Whitfield, Stephen J. (2002)."Where They Burn Books..."Modern Judaism.22(3): 213–233.doi:10.1093/mj/22.3.213.ISSN0276-1114.JSTOR1396717.
  7. ^Naomi G. Cohen, "Philo Judaeus and the True Torah Library";Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought41(3), Fall 2008.
  8. ^Weinberg, Joanna (1993)."An Apocryphal Source in the Me' or 'Enayim of Azariah de' Rossi".Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes.56:280–284.doi:10.2307/751378.ISSN0075-4390.JSTOR751378.S2CID195051563.
  9. ^Giulio Bartoloccitranslated ch. ix. and xxii., in his "Bibliotheca Magna Rabbinica";Samuel Bochart,ch. xvi. and xxi., in his "Hierozoicon" (Leyden, 1712);Buxtorf,ch. ix., xlii., and lix., in his "Tractatus de Antiquitate Punctorum" (Basel, 1648); idem, ch. l. and lx., in his translation of the "Cuzari" (ib. 1660); idem, ch. lvi. and lviii., in his "Dissertatio de Letteris Hebraicis" (ib. 1662); Hottinger, ch. lvi., in his "Cippi Hebræi" (Heidelberg, 1662); Meyer, ch. viii., xiv., and xix., in his version of the "Seder 'Olam"(Amsterdam, 1699); Morin, ch. iii., v., vii., viii., ix., xix., xx., and xlviii., in his" Exercitationes Biblica "(Paris, 1638);Anton van Dale,ch. ix., in his "Dissertatio Super Aristeam" (Amsterdam, 1708); Voisin, ch. ii., viii., xv., xvi., xxii., xlv., li., lvi., lvii., and lix., in his edition ofRaymund Martin's "Pugio Fidei" (Paris, 1651); Voorst, ch. xxiii., xxv., xxxiii., and xxxv., in his translation of the "Ẓemaḥ Dawid" (Leyden, 1644). Ch. xvi. has been translated into English by Raphall ( "Hebrew Review and Magazine," ii. 170), and ch. lx. by Bishop Lowth, in the introduction to his translation of Isaiah (London, 1835).

Editions

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  • Azariah de Rossi,The Light of the EyesTranslated from the Hebrew with an introduction and annotations by Joanna Weinberg (New Haven, Yale UP, 2001), 864 pp. (Yale Judaica 31).
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Singer, Isidore;et al., eds. (1901–1906)."ROSSI, AZARIAH BEN MOSES DEI".The Jewish Encyclopedia.New York: Funk & Wagnalls.

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