What is it about?
Beginning in the mid-fifteenth century, Catholic theologians, and in particular a famous and influential one named Juan de Segovia, began to reassess the way they thought about the relationship of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The article shows how Juan used the Bible to explain how Islam was closer to Christianity than Judaism, a position that may have amplified Christian anti-Jewish attitudes.
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Why is it important?
The common medieval, Christian theological view of Judaism insisted that the religion of the ancient Hebrews was a stepping stone to the Christian faith, and that the ongoing practice of Judaism bore witness to this role. This supersessionism, the idea that Christianity superseded Judaism, articulated, at one and the same time, the idea that there was a historical continuity between Judaism and Christianity, as two religions of the bible, and the idea that Christianity is superior to Judaism. Juan de Segovia and several other prominent theologians in the mid-fifteenth century presented arguments that accentuated the discontinuity of Judaism and Christianity and highlighted points of continuity of Christianity and Islam, a significant if subtle adjustment of attitude regarding the relationship of the three principal monotheistic faiths.
Perspectives
It's very interesting to me that scholars experimented with the idea of Christian-Muslim proximity as the Ottoman threat grew. They always presented it within arguments for conversion to Christianity. But with the fall of Constantinople, the growth of Ottoman naval power, Ottoman expansion in the Balkans, and the difficulty faced time and again when the papacy tried to gather western powers into a crusade that might restore the Christian east, this reordering of the relationship of the three "Abrahamic" religions may imply much more. Were they trying to imagine ways to adapt to Muslim rule, should the Ottomans continue their westward expansion into Italy and beyond?
Christopher Ocker
Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Juan de Segovia: A Hierarchy of Errors, the Bible, and the Jews, March 2026, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004755703_012.
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