Journal of the History of Ideas

Abstract:

This article retells the surprising discovery of a considerable Jewish influence on Christian scholasticism in the Middle Ages. While most students of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas knew that both had read Jewish philosophy, only the rediscovery of especially Maimonides's Guide of the Perplexed by Jewish philosophers in the nineteenth century showed the whole extent of the scholastics' dependence on Jewish predecessors – especially where they do not refer to them specifically. This Jewish discovery naturally faced Catholic resistance, if not denial, and turns thus into an interesting chapter in the history of theological ideas.