One of the most tragic occurrences in Judaism’s long history is the frequent acceptance of alien, often heathen and Christian notions, thinking the notions are Jewish.[1] This phenomenon occurred not only among the uneducated masses; rabbis also fell prey to it, simply because they lacked sufficient knowledge of Jewish history, philosophy, and theology. The story of Rabbi Hasdai Crescas (1340-1410 or 1411) and his impassioned battle against Christianity is a good example of this phenomenon.
In 1391, the Christian Spanish population rioted against their fellow Jewish citizens, killing many of them and destroying their long-established and flourishing communities. Many Jews rushed to convert to Christianity to save their lives. The hostilities continued for about one hundred years, on and off, until 1492, when the remaining Jews were viciously expelled from Spain or forced to convert.
The Jewish leadership reacted to the mass conversions after 1391 by attempting to convince their lost brethren to return to Judaism, pointing out what they considered to be the illogical elements of Christian belief. One of the attempts was a short book written by Hasdai Crescas in 1398, The Refutation of the Christian Principles.[2]
Crescas had been greatly affected by the persecutions; his son was killed during the brutal riots. His book aimed to prove that Christian beliefs were mistaken. He based his arguments on two logical premises: (1) religion must conform to the truth, be rational, and not teach irrational beliefs, and (2) each of its teachings must recognize that God can only do good.
Hasdai Crescas
Rabbi Hasdai Crescas was the Chief Rabbi of Saragossa, Spain, and served as a diplomat in the royal court of Aragon, holding the title Member of the Royal Household. As a young man, he was a merchant and wrote poetry. He was a student of the famous Rabbi Nissim Gerondi and the teacher of the well-known Rabbi Joseph Albo. He is remembered primarily for his philosophical treatise “Light of the Lord,” in which he attacked Aristotelian rationalism and the views of his great predecessor, Maimonides. He respected the brilliance of both philosophers but rejected their writings because some Jewish intellectuals used them to justify their desertion of Judaism.
Crescas’s Philosophy
Crescas was more of a theologian than a philosopher. Unlike Maimonides, who first focused on philosophy and then applied it to the Torah and Judaism generally, Crescas focused first on what he considered Jewish views and attempted, often unsuccessfully, to use what he understood as philosophy to Judaism. Thus, for example, Crescas, according to some scholars, and contrary to Maimonides, may have believed in the transmigration of souls, the idea that souls are reincarnated in future humans and animals.
As we will see, he also, most likely unintentionally, accepted many Christian notions, such as original sin, thinking that they were Jewish thoughts.
The Basic Teachings of Christianity According to Crescas
Crescas identified ten fundamental Christian beliefs:
- The original sin of Adam was passed on to his descendants.
- This sin was removed with the death of Jesus.
- A trinity exists: God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
- The Son took on flesh and became human in Mary’s womb.
- Mary remained a virgin before, during, and after Jesus’ birth.
- When the priest utters certain words, he transforms wafers and wine into the body and blood of Jesus.
- He who has not been baptized has no share in the world to come.
- The messiah has come.
- Christians were given a new testament and do not need to observe all the laws in the Hebrew Bible.
- Demons exist. The demons were originally good angels, but they sinned due to jealousy and pride from the very first instant of their existence. They were punished by being deprived of free will, and they became wicked.
Inconsistencies in Crescas’s Writings
Crescas’s Refutation is a polemical book designed, as previously said, to refute Christian beliefs. At the same time, his Light of the Lord is a philosophical work in which he details his personal beliefs. There are some contradictions between the two works. Apparently, but by no means certainly, this was done because the rabbi felt that it was proper to sometimes lie and say what he did not believe to accomplish his goal of saving Jews from error.[3]
Thus, for example, although Crescas believed that life after death is only achieved by the observance of mitzvot, the biblical commandments, he says the opposite in his Refutation that “he who worships God can achieve [life in the world to come] naturally using his speculative life [that is, using reason] which causes pleasure to his soul.” He may have adopted this position in the Refutation, arguing that thinking alone can secure life after death, since it was consistent with his introductory statement about the falsity of Christian beliefs—that faith, not thinking, is essential—and his insistence that a religion must teach what is rational.
Similarly, while he rejects the belief in original sin in his Refutation because it is illogical to suppose that innocent and righteous descendants should be punished for the misdeeds of their ancestors, he accepts this Christian idea in his Light of the Lord, the book that expresses his beliefs.[4]
He states that Jews were absolved of the original sin when they were circumcised. This idea about being absolved was a Christian teaching – that before the appearance of Jesus, circumcision saved the Jews from the impact and punishment of the original sin. Perhaps, he was inconsistent to emphasize the importance of circumcision, which Christianity said was unnecessary, but this is unlikely. More likely, he made a mistake.
This was not his only error. He states in his Light of the Lord, contrary to logic, that just as good descendants can benefit from the past good deeds of ancestors, the opposite is also true: the evil descendants of the patriarch Isaac are rewarded because of the meritorious act of Isaac when he agreed to be sacrificed in Genesis 22.[5]
Crescas was also in error in his view regarding demons. Many of the Jewish masses before and after him were convinced that demons plotted and performed terrible acts in the dark corners all around them, and both his Refutation and his Light state that he also believes in them. He even cites what he considers to be biblical proof for the existence of demons.[6]
Demons in the Bible
To back up his claim, Crescas draws on sources from the Bible. For example, Deuteronomy 32:17 relates, “they [the Israelites] sacrificed to demons that were no gods.” Similarly, Leviticus 17:7 mandates that the Israelites stop these sacrifices, “they shall no longer slay their sacrifices to satyrs.”
A host of talmudic rabbis rejected the notion that demons exist.[7] However, there were also many, such as Crescas, who accepted the superstitious notion.[8]
Maimonides’ Interpretations of the Biblical Verses
While Crescas believed that scriptural verses affirmed the existence of demons, Maimonides disagreed. Maimonides[9] understood that the Bible was stating that the Israelites had sunk so low that they worshipped imaginary things that did not exist. It is as if the verses are saying: “they sacrificed to what they considered to be demons, that in truth were not gods or demons,” and “they shall no longer slay their sacrifices to imaginary demons and satyrs.”
What, Then, Was Crescas Refuting About the Christian View of Demons?
Curiously, Crescas focuses his disputation upon a single detail, not the existence of demons, but “the Christian belief that in the first instant of [their] existence, they [the demons] sinned with jealousy and maliciousness.” He presents several arguments to demonstrate that the angels can’t be both a good divine creation and “sinners” at the very same “instant of creation.”
He does not mention that not all Christians hold the view that the “sin” occurred in “the first instant of existence,” nor does he state his view about when the demons came into existence. However, he believed that God did not create evil, that demons were good when they were made, and subsequently, that God created demons to test, reward, and punish human beings.
Summary
The story of Rabbi Hasdai Crescas and his book, which refuted what he considered to be Christianity’s fundamental principles, and the book in which he expressed his beliefs, highlights the tragedy that many Jews, including prominent, well-educated Jewish leaders, teachers, and rabbis, absorbed non-Jewish ideas —a phenomenon that tragically continues today.
At the very moment when the religious life of many Jews was being quashed, when many felt they had to convert to Christianity to save their lives and their families, when Jewish leaders felt obliged to issue refutations of Christianity to save them from such a mistake, Jewish leaders, like Crescas, wrote pamphlets and books refuting Christianity that unconsciously labeled fundamental Christian beliefs as Jewish, including belief in an original sin and the idea that demons control their lives.
The Jews of the fourteenth century, as well as many before and after, were convinced that malicious devils exist. This was a relic of ancient heathen fears and the basis of many stories in the Christian Gospels where Jesus is portrayed as combating and defeating them.
So engrained and absolute had this non-Jewish teaching become in the Jewish mind that Jewish leadership could only differentiate the Jewish thinking from the Christian by focusing on a relatively minor arcane view of just some of the Christian thinkers as to when the demons were created, and argue that the time frame was wrong.
Undoubtedly, Rabbi Hasdai Crescas had good cause for writing his The Refutation of the Christian Principles. Many Jews were murdered by Christian riots, including his only son. Jewish communities were destroyed, and a host of Jews converted to Christianity to avoid future persecution. As a leader of Spanish Jewry, he felt obliged to do what he could to return the converts to Judaism.
His Refutation was based on the premise that religion can only teach what is rational and that God can only create what is good. Yet, curiously, his misguided opinion about demons was so firmly embedded in his mind that, like many other Jews, he was unable to see that his thinking about these creatures was not rational, and that, contrary to his attempt to rationalize his conviction, demons do not serve good divine purposes.
Crescas’s positions regarding demons and original sin are just two of many examples demonstrating that many, in fact, nearly all, Jews absorbed pagan and Christian notions that are contrary to rational Judaism, Maimonides being a remarkable exception.
[1] For example, many people do not realize that when they say “gosh almighty” they are speaking about the Christian Holy Ghost and when they say “bloody” they are talking about the blood of Jesus or when they say “knock on wood” they are referring to the crucifixion cross.
[2] An English translation with commentary was composed by Daniel J. Lasker of Ben-Gurion University in 1992.
[3] He was not the only rabbi to do so. Some years earlier, Nachmanides was involved in a dispute sponsored by the Spanish king in Barcelona in 1263. Nachmanides had to support the views of Judaism against those presented by Christian clergy and Jewish apostates. During the confrontation, Nachmanides took the position that the tales told in the rabbinical Midrashim were not true in order to protect himself from the position taken by his opponents who believed that some Midrashim supported Christianity. Actually, Nachmanides believed that the midrashic stories were true history.
[4] Some other rabbis in the Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 22b, Shabbat 145b–146a and Yevamot 103b also accepted this Christian notion.
[5] Isaac’s agreement to be sacrificed was assumed by other thinkers as well, even though Genesis itself seems to imply that Isaac had no idea what his father Abraham planned to do to him, and even repeatedly asked his father what was happening.
[6] Rashi also believed in the existence of demons.
[7] Including Rashi’s grandson Rashbam.
[8] These conflicting approaches to the subject are discussed in E. E. Urbach’s The Sages, 161–165, as well as others.
[9] Guide of the Perplexed 1:7, 3:22 and 46.
A host of talmudic rabbis rejected the notion that demons exist.[7] However, there were also many, such as Crescas, who accepted the superstitious notion.[8]
Not all Rabbi are made equal.
Some believe in foolish ideas and that against Jewish traditional values that Maimonides adovacatred for.
The Jews of the fourteenth century, as well as many before and after, were convinced that malicious devils exist. This was a relic of ancient heathen fears and the basis of many stories in the Christian Gospels where Jesus is portrayed as combating and defeating them.
Jews were influenced by their neighbors and it caused them to fall into wrongful thinking.
And this continues today with many Jews believing in the Zohar and God having an actual body.
Is education, valuing education over money, valuing Jewish values and etc.
Are these all essential to help develop the Jewish mind?”
Yes.
The story of Rabbi Hasdai Crescas and his book, which refuted what he considered to be Christianity’s fundamental principles, and the book in which he expressed his beliefs, highlights the tragedy that many Jews, including prominent, well-educated Jewish leaders, teachers, and rabbis, absorbed non-Jewish ideas —a phenomenon that tragically continues today.
How do we stop this?
How do prevent this from happening?
Is the task impossible since, all Jews have free will to choose foolish ideas even if we persuade them to not believe in them?
The solution is more study. Crescas apparently did not understand that original sin is not a Jewish concept. He needed to learn about its origin and why it makes no sense.
Study is a solution But how should we study Rabbi?
Where should we study?
What books to read
What universities to attned?
We should study wherever information can be found.
I disagree with you.
There are many shows and movies about demons that helped me get through life.
No one believes they actually exist.
he was unable to see that his thinking about these creatures was not rational, and that, contrary to his attempt to rationalize his conviction, demons do not serve good divine purposes.
I think the concept of demons can help people thrive with my life being an exampler
Demons are good only if they help us become better in every way.
I agree with Rabbi Drazin. I don’t believe in demons. Demons do not exist. Instead, I identify demons as evil human thoughts. I agree that demons are good only if people recognize that their bad thoughts were wrong and if they learn from them to better themselves.
This is my view.
‘”He presents several arguments to demonstrate that the angels can’t be both a good divine creation and “sinners” at the very same “instant of creation.”’
****
In fact, demons are, according to Christian belief, “fallen angels”. So, God created all angels good, but some of them, led by Lucifer, rebelled against God. In fact, Lucifer imagined that he had power similar to God’s and that he could create like him. So he went astray and rebelled against God. But there is a contradiction here because Christians also believe that angels do not have their own will, like humans, but only carry out God’s will, so it is unclear how they could have rebelled.
(The Quran, however, says that God created man after angels and ordered angels to bow down to man. However, some refused because they considered themselves better than humans since God created them from “fire” and humans from earth. So that worshiping humans, that is, something lower than them, would be humiliating. And from those angels who did not want to bow down to man, demons emerged.)
You are correct, Julian. Many people, because of ignorance, fear, misunderstanding of nature, accepting the notions of fools, and other reasons, among all people, even Jews, had irrational ideas that held them back from study and developing themselves and the world.
Perhaps because people are flawed with flawed thinking sometimes we believe things that do not logically make sense until we think and think.
Very true.
Can we make our own demons through our imagination Israel?
Yes we can. But we need to be careful about doing so.
Why is the concept of angel and demons? Why do they exist?
Why does God allow them to exist?
Is God the almighty, a flawed being who allows non-sense to exist in this world?
Why do we have imaginatory things existing in our minds?
Is our minds flawed with a sense of “DREAMY” thoughts
Why create humans with a flawed sense of thinking in the first place Drazin?
is our dna flawed from the start?
Is there such thing as an advanced human being that has a 0% chance of thinking about demon and angels?
We can better ourselves.
Why do we humans have to exert ourselves?
Why did God not create better humans?
I feel like God is being lazy.
Perhaps God wanted humans to learn the value of improvement. If He created everyone as angels, there would be no need for improvement.
I agree with you except that I would stress that God most likely wanted people to have free will and not be puppets.
Why is not being a puppet a good thing?
If we only make good actions aren’t we thriving to be the best we can?
I am also interested in your response to Steve’s question. Good question, Steve.
No. Il cristianesimo cattolico è molto chiaro e poetico su questo: gli angeli avevano il libero arbitrio esattamente come noi, come Adamo ed Eva.
Gli angeli erano tutti spiriti buoni con grandissime potenzialità, ognuna diversa dall’altra ma in grado di unirsi in una convergenza di armonie perfetta.
Gli angeli sono stati messi innanzi una prova: scegliere se continuare ad essere fedeli a Dio fidandosi di Lui e rispettando la Sua decisione di incarnarsi nella Sua ultima creatura, cioè gli esseri umani, (e alla faccia di chi lo considera “pigro”, considerando quanto ha dato e quanto continua a dare per il suo Creato! Voi non avete la minima idea di che cosa fosse l’umanità prima del peccato originale secondo i cristiani), e soprattutto rispettando la decisione di nascere da una donna umana (la donna vestita di sole, la sempre vergine), oppure scegliere di ribellarsi e andare per la propria strada.
Lucifero non solo non volle saperne di servire creature inferiori, ma non volle nemmeno saperne di servire un Dio che a suo pensare (di Lucifero) voleva umiliare se stesso in quel modo.
Si disse: “Io conosco le parole, io c’ero quando ha Creato, Io posso essere Dio di me stesso. Io sono”. E così cadde. E non da solo. Questo è stato il suo vero peccato imperdonabile: portare altri sul suo stesso percorso. Quello che fa ancora oggi.
Vi deve entrare nella mente che Dio non è un essere imperfetto e non ha creato creature imperfette, ha creato creature in grado di cambiare poiché nessuno è immutabile come Lui nel tempo, a meno che Lui non voglia che tu lo sia. A scapito della tua autodeterminazione, però.
Tutt’oggi gli angeli Santi, benché siano super obbedienti e chiedano il permesso per poter agire, hanno ancora oggi un loro libero arbitrio.
Esattamente come gli angeli caduti, che pur essendo ribelli sanno molto bene di non poter superare un certo limite senza doverne rendere conto a Dio.
Studiate meglio il cristianesimo, perché, delle tre cosiddette religioni abramitiche, è ad oggi – forse- la religione con la teologia migliore in assoluto.
Saluti!
I do not understand this language. Could I get a translation?
Rabbi Hasdai Crescas had good cause for writing his The Refutation of the Christian Principles, dear Rabbi Israel Drazin, Many Jews were murdered by Christian riots, including his only son. Jewish communities were destroyed, and a host of Jews converted to Christianity to avoid future persecution. As a leader of Spanish Jewry, he felt obliged to do what he could to return the converts to Judaism.
His Refutation was based on the premise that religion can only teach what is rational and that God can only create what is good. Yet, curiously, his misguided opinion about demons was so firmly embedded in his mind that, like many other Jews, he was unable to see that his thinking about these creatures was not rational, and that, contrary to his attempt to rationalize his conviction, demons do not serve good divine purposes.
Crescas’s positions regarding demons and original sin are just two of many examples demonstrating that many, in fact, nearly all, Jews absorbed pagan and Christian notions that are contrary to rational Judaism, Maimonides being a remarkable exception. Best, stephen
We agree.
Israel,
Did Maimonides have any supernatural beliefs?
I know he had a negative perception about woman?
Did he have any spiritual belief that you would considered backwards?
Everyone makes mistakes, even the great Maimonides, even Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
What did Maimonides say that you think was mistaken?
I think he was wrong about what happens to a person’s intelligence when he dies and I think that like Aristotle he did not respect women as he should. On both points, he was misled by the thinking of the time.
Thank you for sharing a wonderful article on Rabbi Crescas, Rabbi Drazin. I agree with Rabbi Crescas that religion must be rational and teach only rational beliefs. I also agree with him that God can only do good things. Koerbagh would agree with Crescas that our thinking is what secures eternal life. I disagree with Crescas about the existence of demons. Both Maimonides and Koerbagh said that demons do not exist. Koerbagh adds that demons may refer to evil human thoughts. Despite that, I still think Crescas was brilliant. He was not a rationalist like Maimonides, but he was a very brilliant thinker, perhaps on par with Maimonides and Spinoza in terms of intellect. Rabbi Crescas in a systematic way refuted Aristotelian scientific thought long before Newton and Galileo. However, the Aristotelian philosophical conception that nature is subject to laws of cause and effect has not been rejected or refuted.
PS Like Maimonides and Aristotle, Rabbi Crescas was a determinist in the sense of all that happens is the result of Divine will.
I agree that Crescas was an intellectual, but my point was that he like many of us being in a non-Jewish environment, adopt ideas without thinking even though they are contrary to Judaism. Regarding your point that the three believed that nothing happens on earth unless God wills it to happen is not the belief of rationalist nor of Maimonides, Koerbagh, and Crescas.
Very interesting post, that raises several questions. 1) With regard to reason vs. mitzvot, perhaps Crescas believed that the use of reason would lead one to observe the mitzvot and thus there may not have been a contradiction between the two volumes; 2) If circumcision would absolve Jews of original sin as you report Crescas maintaining, then did Crescas not believe that women were Jews?; 3) If Crescas believed that God did not create evil, how does he understand the verse in Isaiah (45:7) that specifically declares that G!d is the creator of evil; and 4) For Crescas, was Satan a demon?
Thanks in advance for any light you can shed. And whether or not you can do so, thank you and yasher ko’ach for your blog!
Dear J. B., the following are answers to your questions: (1) It is possible to understand what Crescas meant as you suggest. (2) You raise an interesting point. The foolish idea that circumcision saved Jews from original sin only applied to males. According to the foolish idea, women who do not circumcise themselves are not saved from original sin. This is further proof of how illogical the idea is. (3) Many Hebrew words were mistranslated in the King James English translation. The proper translation, as many scholars recognized is a word like “calamites.” The prophet was saying that God created everything and sometimes what He created was misused by humans resulting in calamites. But most rational thinkers believe that all of creation is good and it is illogical to think that God wanted evil to exist. (4) I do not know what Crescas thought about Satan, but he most likely thought Satan was a demon.
I agree with you that the word was mistranslated. Maimonides and Crescas said that God does not create evil. God is good and only does good things.
Is there any christian beliefs that we should adopt or tradition we should adhere by?
No. Even ideas that at first seemed reasonable have been twisted to become harmful at worst and not helpful.
Rabbi Drazin, with all due respect, I disagree that we should not adopt any Christian ideas. I think it is not a bad idea to adopt good Christian ideas or beliefs, or, for that matter, from any faith, if they are rational, new, and make sense. Indeed, Maimonides accepted many ideas from the Greek pagan Aristotle that were not Jewish. Maimonides said we should take the truth from whoever speaks it. I like some ideas from Thomas Aquarius and I agree with some of Jesus’ teachings, such as his commandment to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. However, this does not make me a Christian. I am convinced that Jesus never claimed to be God. I agree with you that we must be careful not to adopt bad Christian ideas, but how is Jesus’ teaching to love everybody harmful and not helpful?
You are certainly correct that the truth is the truth no matter what its source. However, the teaching to love your neigbor as yourself and to love the stranger as yourself were copied from the Torah, the latter is in the Torah 36 times. Maimonides interpreted love of God as learning to know as much about God as possible. He realized that the ancients thought that thinking came from the heart therefore they spoke of heart which we should translate as mind.
I agree with you.
We agree.
I agree with Maimonides that the best way for people to get knowledge of God is through studying nature. The Knowledge of God comes from nature. I also take as God’s word the religious command that everyone must love the neighbor as himself. This is the golden rule: to treat others as you want to be treated, and the negative form, what you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others. I also think fear of God consists in our conscience, when we do wrong. The fear of God cannot consist in the fear of God itself. One should not fear God. I also think that a person cannot say he loves God if he does not love his neighbor.
We agree again, my friend Turk.
Sometimes religious leaders can make us believe in things that were never true. Their words are voltiate good or really bad.
You are right, Steve.
Thank you. its amazing how people of authority can make people believe in rape that never occured, demons that don’t exist, crimes that happened that never get prosecuted. the only key thing to make out of this is authority is never the determination factor to determine whether or not something is true. Something is true because it is true and we use reason to get to it.
You are correct, Steve. We must always think, and never accept anything without doing so and being convinced by reason that it is true.
Why is reasoning so important?
one word can be a difference in a person’s life
Thinking is extremely important. It is only through thinking, not chance, that people can improve themselves and the world.
Why is the act of thinking so profound?
Why does thinking make someone humane or not?
i find it awfully strange just thinking can cause someone to live a good life or not.
Aristotle said correctly that it is thinking that distinguishes humans from animals and plants. Genesis 1 states God created humans in the image of God, which Maimonides explained means God gave humans the ability to think and make choices. Every day at multiple times, people need to make decisions. They do so with this gift from God. But it does not work properly if it is not trained by learning.
Thank you for the clear understanding Rabbi Israel Drazin.
Thank you for the excellent analysis. i always appreciate it.
Thank you for the compliment, Steve.