Christ, and against the blessed Virgin, fables that are manifestly beyond all explanation, erroneous abuses, and unheard–of stupidities – yet this is what they teach and feed their children, and render them totally alien to the Law and the Prophets, bearing patent testimony to the only–begotten Son of God, who was to come in flesh, they be converted to the faith, and return humbly to their Redeemer.”

“The public burning in the great square of Paris was a first indication that a living, growing Judaism would not be allowed to survive in a Europe ever more under the sway of the sword–perverted cross. And what was written on those destroyed pages? Here are lines “picked from the Talmud at random,” as distinguished rabbi Emil Bernhard Cohn put it, ‘…to lift a corner of the veil’:

Love of humanity is more than charity. The value of charity lies only in love, which lives in it. Love surpasses charity in three respects: Charity touches only a man’s money; love touches the man himself. Charity is only for the poor; love is for both poor and rich. Charity is only for the living; love is for both living and dead. Love without reproof of errors is no love. He who judges his neighbor leniently will himself be judged leniently by God. Let man always be intelligent and affable in his God–fearing. Let him answer softly, curb his wrath and let him live in peach with his brethren and his kin and with every man, yes, even with the pagan on the street, in order that he be beloved in heaven and on earth, and be acceptable to all men. The kindly man is the truly God–fearing man.”

1247 CE: RETURN OF TALMUDS

August: Pope Innocent IV orders confiscated Talmud copies to be returned to the Jews.