2016; 14: 1–10, DOI: 10.1515/tra-2016-0001
Open Access
Evyatar Marienberg
Jews, Jesus, and Menstrual Blood
Abstract
This article examines how concepts related to menstruation and menstrual blood were used by medieval Jews
to insult the Christians’ God and his mother. One of the central concepts used in these exchanges was the claim
that Jesus was conceived while Mary was menstruating. The article checks this and similar claims when they appear, among other places, in polemic works, such as the rather famous Toledot Yeshu (“The Genealogy of Jesus”),
and in the Jewish chronicles about the massacres of Rhineland Jews during the first crusade of 1096.
Keywords
Jews, menstruation, Jesus, Niddah, ben ha-niddah, Jewish/Christian polemics
Received 18 May 2016
Accepted 23 June 2016
Medieval Jews and Christians have often exchanged blows. Some of those, in particular when they came from the
Christian side who generally had political power, were physical. Other exchanges, probably more common, were
verbal. In this article, a unique type of verbal blows, coming from Jews and targeting Jesus, will be explored. What
unites them is the association they create between Jesus and menstrual blood.
Mother-targeted insults
Many languages have in their stock of insults one or more terms or phrases which refer to the mother instead
of the one directly being insulted. Often, these insults describe the mother as a sex worker: an Israeli may yell,
after being cut off by another driver, “Ben Zonnah”; a French may articulate “Fils de pute”; a Spaniard may shout
“Hijo de puta.” English speakers have in their repertoire at least two formulas, which are, interestingly enough, not
exactly the equivalent of the previously mentioned expressions: “Son of a bitch” and “Your mother’s a whore.”1
Why these expressions are considered as insults?2 Among other reasons, maybe because they try to shake one’s
social status. The fact that one’s mother had “illegitimate” sexual relations might mean that the insulted person is
not a fully legitimate descendant of his/her father. Anyone can be his or her father. In a system where the place
in society is based on paternal lineage, such an insult will logically be of an even bigger power.
Jews, when speaking the local vernacular, used most probably the same expressions their neighbors did. But like
many cultural and linguistic minorities, they have also created some insults of their own. One of these will be at
the center of this article.
I wish I knew if women use such expressions in the same frequency as men. I do not.
On the raison d`être and function of insults, see the good introduction of Yves Bonnardel, “Sale bête, sale nègre, sale gonzesse... : identités
et dominations vues à partir d’une analyse du système des insultes,” Cahiers antispécistes 12 (1995), pp. 36-45.
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Ben ha-Niddah in Rabbinic Sources
According to Jewish law, a woman who did not immerse herself in a ritual bath after her last period is impure and
referred to as Niddah.3 It is forbidden to have sexual relations with her. What happens if she nevertheless has
relations and conceives?4 Several texts from the Talmudic period discuss such a scenario:
Rabbi Simon ha-Timni acknowledges the fact that if one cohabited with his wife while she was Niddah, although
such relations are punishable by the Karet,5 the newborn is not Mamzer, because Mamzer comes only from
[relations with] kin.6
Abbaye said: “All agree that if one cohabited with a menstruant… the child [born from this union] is not a
Mamzer.“7
A Mamzer (commonly translated as “bastard”), a child who is the result of various kinds of forbidden relations, is
not allowed to marry “normal,” “kosher” Jews. In these sayings, Simon ha-Timni, a Palestinian Jewish sage from the
second century CE, as well as Abbaye, a Babylonian Jewish sage from the third and fourth centuries CE, are said
to declare that a child born to a menstruant is not to be considered a Mamzer, an extremely derogatory category,
with harsh social consequences. Does this mean such a child is perfectly “normal,” or does he or she belong to
another special class?
A rabbinic text called Massekhet Kallah (“The Tractate of the Bride”), one of the so-called “Minor Tractates,” to be
found in printed versions of the Talmud at the end of the section of Nezikin, seems to suggest a child of this kind
has something special, and not in a positive way, about him/her.8 In fact, in one of the paragraphs of this short
text, a relationship is made between a behavior which is considered to be negative and being conceived to a
Niddah. Such an offspring is called Ben ha-Niddah, literally, the son of the menstruant:
Rabbi Judah says: “The brazen to Hell, the timid, to Paradise”. Brazen - Rabbi Eliezer says: “[This characteristic
is that of a] Mamzer”; Rabbi Joshua says: “[Of a] Ben ha-Niddah”; Rabbi Akiva says: “[Of one who is both] Mamzer
and Ben ha-Niddah.” The elders were once sitting by the gate when two young lads passed by. One covered his
head and the other uncovered his head. Of him who uncovered his head Rabbi Eliezer said: “Mamzer.” Rabbi
Joshua said: “Ben ha-Niddah”. Rabbi Akiva said: “[He is both] Mamzer and Ben ha-Niddah”. Rabbi Akiva was asked:
“What induced you to contradict the opinion of your colleagues?” He replied: “I will prove it concerning him”.
He went to the lad’s mother and found her sitting in the market selling beans. He said to her: “My daughter, if
you will answer the question I will put to you, I will bring you to the life of the world to come!” She said to him:
The term niddah is used in Jewish tradition with regard to menstruation: it implies “a menstruating woman,” “menstruation,” “laws related
to menstruation,” etc. The root of the term means wandering or exclusion and is most certainly related to the exclusion of the menstruating
woman from various social activities.
4
One should remember that according to many medieval authorities, of all faiths, even the period of actual bleeding (which is not necessarily
the case here) is fertile. See Evyatar Marienberg, “Female Fertility in Talmudic Literature” (Hebrew), Hebrew Union College Annual 86-87 (20132014), pp. 47-94, and in particular pp. 69-90.
5
The Karet is generally understood in the Jewish tradition to be a premature death, by “the Hands of Heaven.” See BT Moed-Katan 28a; PT
Bikkurim 2.1 (64c); Semahot 3, 8. See also Jonah ben Abraham Gerondi (1200-1263), Sha’arei Teshuvah III, 124. Regarding the medieval controversies about the exact definition of the Karet, see Israel Moses Ta-Shma, “Karet,” Encyclopaedia Judaica ; Hanna Kasher, “On the Meanings
of the Biblical Punishment of Karet (Excision) and the Midrashic ‘He has No Share in the World to Come’ according to Maimonides” (Hebrew),
Sidra 14 (1998), pp. 39-58. The opinion that the Karet is a divine punishment was not shared by all Jews. See, for example, Josephus Flavius,
Jewish Antiquities III, 12.1, or the twelfth century Karaite author Judah ben Elijah Hadassi in his Eshkol ha-Kofer (Hebrew), Eupatoria 1836, 266267. See also Evyatar Marienberg, “Qui coierit cum muliere in fluxu menstruo… interficientur ambo (Lev. 20:18) - The Biblical Prohibition of
Sexual Relations with a Menstruant in the Eyes of Some Medieval Christian Theologians,” in: Shoshannat Yaakov: Jewish and Iranian Studies in
Honor of Yaakov Elman, Edited by Shai Secunda and Steven Fine, Brill, Leiden 2012, pp. 271-284.
6
Tosefta (Lieberman) Yevamot 6, 9: “‫”מודה ר' שמעון התימני בהבא על אשתו נדה שאע"פ שהן בהכרת שאין הולד ממזר שאין ממזר אלא משאר בשר‬. See also
Mishnah Yevamot 4, 13.
7
BT Yevamot 49a-b: “‫ שאין הולד ממזר‬...‫”אמר אביי הכל מודים בבא על הנדה‬.
8
Various theories were suggested regarding the date and origin of this text, generally hesitating whether it is from the Talmudic period (third
to sixth centuries CE), or from the Geonic Period (seventh to tenth centuries CE). The most recent comprehensive study of this text reaffirms
its Talmudic origin, dating it around the fourth or fifth century. See David Brodsky, A Bride without a Blessing: A Study in the Redaction and Content of Massekhet Kallah and Its Gemara, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2006.
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“Swear it to me!” Rabbi Akiva took the oath with his lips but annulled it in his heart. He said to her: “What is
the status of your son?” She replied: “When I entered the bridal chamber I was Niddah and my husband kept
away from me. But my best man had intercourse with me and this son was born to me.” Consequently the
child is both a Mamzer and the son of a Niddah. At that moment, it was said: “Blessed be the God of Israel Who
Revealed His Secret to Rabbi Akiva son of Joseph!”9
This story is interesting, intriguing, and troubling, all at the same time. Ignoring many of this story’s questionable
aspects, I will raise only one question: who was this terrible child, this Ben ha-Niddah, who walked, in front of three
respected sages, with his head uncovered?
Ben ha-Niddah and Jesus
The above-mentioned paragraph from Massekhet Kallah is extensively quoted nowadays in anti-Jewish websites,
as a proof of Jewish attacks against Christianity, and as an example of the immoral behavior of Talmudic rabbis.10
The second claim is out of the scope of this study. But what about the first accusation? Is this text related to
Jewish-Christian polemic?
If the bareheaded youngster in the story is Jesus, as some claim, if his mother is Mary, the story is certainly a
polemical one. The question is, therefore, simple: who’s that boy? The text does not provide any “historical”
information on the child in question. Some early scholars of Judaism thought it is nevertheless about Jesus. This
was, for example, the opinion of Gustaf Dalman (1855-1941),11 as well as of Samuel Krauss (1866-1948), at least
according to his statement in the Jewish Encyclopedia, that
The incident of Jesus concerning the dispute with the Scribes12 was copied by the rabbinical sources (Kallah…)”13
This theory is possible, but does not seem to have textual proofs. None of the ten manuscripts used by Michael
Higger in preparing his critical edition of this text14 mentions anything about Jesus or Mary. Some may argue that
the anonymity in the text might be a result of an internal Jewish censorship, which omitted the name of Jesus and
Mary from the text in order not to make it a target for Christian rage, and that this censorship was successful and
happened a long time before the composition of the earliest extant manuscripts of this text. Others may say that
even if such an assertion was never in the text itself, Jewish readers had an oral tradition linking the anonymous
boy with Jesus, and possibly that this was indeed the case in the mind of its earliest redactors. Both theories are
possible, but hard to prove.15 Obviously, a third option that this text has nothing to do with Jesus or any other
specific person is also possible.
Regardless of the exact original relations, if any, between this text and the figure of Jesus of Nazareth, and the
intentions of its author(s), it is evident that from a certain moment in history, it was indeed associated with Jesus.
Kallah (Soncino Translation, with modifications) 1, 16: “‫ רבי יהושע אומר בן‬,‫ רבי אליעזר אומר ממזר‬,‫ עז פנים‬.‫ ובוש פנים לגן עדן‬,‫רבי יהודה אומר עז פנים לגהנם‬
‫ רבי אליעזר‬,‫ ואחד גילה את ראשו זה שגילה את ראשו‬,‫ אחד כסה את ראשו‬:‫ ועברו לפניהם שני תינוקות‬,‫ פעם אחת היו זקנים יושבין בשער‬.‫ רבי עקיבא אומר ממזר ובן הנדה‬,‫הנדה‬
‫ הלך אצל‬,‫ אמר להן זה אני אקיימנו‬,‫ היאך מלאך ליבך לעבור על דברי חביריך‬:‫ אמרו לו לרבי עקיבא‬.‫ ובן הנדה‬,‫ ממזר‬:‫ רבי עקיבא אומר‬.‫ בן הנדה‬:‫ רבי יהושע אומר‬.‫ ממזר‬:‫אומר‬
‫ היה רבי עקיבא‬,‫ אמרה לו הישבע לי‬,‫ אני מביאך לחיי העולם הבא‬,‫ אם את אומרת לי דבר שאני שואלך‬,‫ בתי‬,‫ אמר לה‬,‫אמו של תינוק וראה שהיתה יושבת ומוכרת קיטנית בשוק‬
.‫ נמצא התינוק ממזר ובן הנדה‬,‫ והיה לי בן זה‬,‫ ובא עלי שושביני‬,‫ ופירש ממני בעלי‬,‫ אמרו לו כשנכנסתי לחופה נדה הייתי‬,‫ אמר לה בניך זה מה טיבו‬,‫נשבע בשפתיו ומבטל בלבו‬
‫ באותה שעה אמרו ברוך ה’ אלוהי ישראל שגילה סודו לרבי עקיבא בן יוסף‬,‫אמרו גדול היה רבי עקיבא שהוביש את רבותיו‬.”. See also Kallah Rabbati 2.
10
A simple search of the words “akiba kallah oath” will show dozens of such sites.
11
Gustaf Dalman, Jesus Christ in the Talmud, Midrash, Zohar, and the Liturgy of the Synagogue, Deighton, Bell and Co., Cambridge 1893, pp. 33-39.
12
It seems not less possible that the text in Luke 2:46, in which Jesus interacts with sages in the Temple, is the one mocked.
13
Samuel Krauss, “Jesus of Nazareth”, Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. VII, 1904, p. 170.
14
The Treaties of Kallah: Kallah and Kallah Rabbati (Hebrew), Edited by Michael Higger, New York 1936.
15
The claim that this text is related to Jesus was also mentioned and rejected by Morris Goldstein in his Jesus in the Jewish Tradition, New York
1950, p. 72. See also Heinrich Laible, Jesus Christus im Thalmud, Leipzig 1891, pp. 33-39; Michael Higger, Horeb 2 (1936), pp. 286-287; Solomon
Zeitlin, “Erroneous Statements on Paul in Doctor Klausner’s Book”, Jewish Quarterly Review 34:1 (1943), p. 120; Eric Zimmer, Society and Its
Customs (Hebrew), Jerusalem 1996, p. 19 note 14. Peter Schäfer, in his Jesus in the Talmud, Princeton University Press, 2007, does not mention
Kallah at all, probably because of the presumption it is, like many rabbinic-midrashic works, a later text (when compared to the Babylonian
Talmud), and the simple fact that it is not part of the Babylonian Talmud.
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The Jewish composition known as Toledot Yeshu (“the Genealogy of Jesus”), a kind of Jewish counter-gospel, is hard
to date. The fact that it has many versions, with significant differences between them, makes this task particularly
hard. Many of these versions include some traditions that are possibly from the Talmudic period and also later
material. Around the tenth century, possibly earlier, this family of texts had achieved some stability.16 The Toledot
Yeshu is important for our discussion because in some of its manuscripts,17 a strangely similar anecdote to the
one in the Massekhet Kallah appears:
And [Jesus], this villain, passed in front of our Rabbis, straight, and uncovering his head….The second one [of
the Rabbis] said: “He is a Mamzer, and a Ben ha-Niddah.”18
Was this identification between Jesus and the child from the Tractate of Kallah the genuine idea of the author(s)
of the Toledot Yeshu, or was the text of the Tractate of Kallah already considered to be written about Jesus, is a
question I cannot answer. Moreover, as Yaacov Deutsch has showed,19 the inclusion of the claim that Mary was
menstruating during Jesus’ conception is absent in some early versions of these texts.
Regardless of the question where and when Jesus was first called Ben ha-Niddah, one may ask why this
association happened. Why was his mother described as a Niddah at the time of his conception? In fact, this
accusation, although not self-evident, is not particularly surprising. Jesus of Nazareth was probably considered
by many Jews, and probably also by others, since the very beginning of Christianity, to be the fruit of adultery.
These claims should not surprise anyone. Both the Gospel according to Matthew and the Gospel according to
Luke claim that Jesus was born to a woman who was engaged to a certain man, but did not have sexual relations
with him.20 According to Matthew, even Joseph, her fiancé, thought at first that she had relations with another
man.21 Obviously, if one has little faith, and excludes sophisticated methods of artificial insemination or In Vitro
technologies, one must conclude that Mary’s son is a product of relations she had with Joseph or with another
man.
This theme continued to haunt Christians for centuries: Origen (184-253) responded to the accusation
that Jesus was a result of adultery,22 Augustine (354-430) also felt the need to answer to similar
accusations by Jews.23 It seems Jews continued, throughout their history, to say Jesus was a bastard
(Mamzer).24 A millennium after Origen, in the thirteenth century, Peter of Reims acknowledged in a sermon that
See about the dating of this work in Yaacov Deutsch, “New Evidence of Early Versions of Toldot Yeshu” (Hebrew), Tarbiz 69.2 (2000), pp. 177197. See also Jean-Pierre Osier, L’Évangile du Ghetto, ou comment les juifs se racontaient Jésus, Paris 1984; Joseph Dan, “Toledot Yeshu”, in Encyclopaedia Judaica; Ora Limor, “Judaism Examines Christianity: The Polemic of Nestor the Priest and Sefer Toledot Yeshu” (Hebrew), Pe’amim
75 (1998), pp. 114‑125; Jeremy Cohen, “The Crucified Jesus, Jewish Memory, and Counter-History” (Hebrew), Zmanim 68-69 (1999-2000), pp.
12-27. More recently, see Peter Schäfer, Michael Meerson and Yaacov Deutsch (eds.), Toledot Yeshu (The Life Story of Jesus) Revisited: A Princeton
Conference, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2011, as well as the critical edition mentioned below.
17
An impressive modern critical edition of the Toledot Yeshu, which includes an online database, is Michael Meerson and Peter Schäfer (eds.),
Toledot Yeshu: The Life Story of Jesus: Two Volumes and Database, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2014. A widely used older edition is by Samuel Krauss,
Das Leben Jesu nach Jüdischen quellen, Berlin 1902.
18
“‫ ענה השני ואמר ממזר ובן הנדה‬...‫”ועבר אותו רשע [ב]פני רבותנו בקומה זקופה וראשה גלה‬. Quotation of one of the readings in the version of Ms Strasbourg
(Strasbourg, Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire Ms. 3974 [Héb. 48]). See also in Samuel Krauss, idem., p. 39. On this manuscript and its
importance, see William Horbury, “The Strasbourg Text of the Toledot,” in: Peter Schäfer, Michael Meerson and Yaacov Deutsch (eds.), Toledot
Yeshu (The Life Story of Jesus) Revisited: A Princeton Conference, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2011, pp. 49-59. For variants of this motif, see the following manuscripts and the page numbers where they appear in the Meerson & Schäfer edition: JTS6312 (p. 66); JTS1491 & Strasb3974
(p. 83); JTS2221 (p. 99); JTS2343 (p. 114); Benayahu25 (p. 128); Yale5 & JTS2337 & Leipz17 (p. 143); Parma2300 & Parma2091 (p. 198); Leipz17
& Harv57 (p. 217); Manch1989 & Amst442 (p. 242).
19
Yaacov Deutsch, “New Evidence of Early Versions of Toldot Yeshu”, pp. 181-182.
20
Matthew 1:18-21 ; Luke 1:26-38.
21
Matthew 1:19.
22
Contra Celsum, I, 28
23
See Bernhard Blumenkranz, “Augustin et les juifs, Augustin et le judaïsme,” Recherches Augustiniennes 1 (1958), p. 227. See also Bruce D. Chilton,
“Jésus, le mamzer (Mt 1.18),” New Testament Studies 47.2 (2001), pp. 222-227.
24
An early text that might be related to this subject is the saying attributed to Simon ben Azzai in Mishnah Yevamot 4, 14, “I found a roll of
genealogical records in Jerusalem and therein was written ‘So-and-so is a bastard [having been born] from a forbidden union with] a married
woman” (Ms Kaufmann: “ ‫)”אמ' שמעון בן עזיי מצאתי מגילת יחסים בירושלם וכתוב בה איש פלוני ממזר מאשת איש‬. For another medieval example, see a Jewish hymn that begins with the words “Those who consider a Mamzer as God” (“‫)”התומכים ממזר לאליל‬, discussed in H. Merhavya, “The Caustic
Poetic Rebuke (Shamta) in Medieval Christian Polemic Literature” (Hebrew), Tarbiz 41 (1971), p. 95. Some attribute this text to Yannay, the
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“alas, blessed Mary, how many people nowadays treat you in their way as a prostitute, if I may put it so!”25
A number of modern jokes do exactly the same.
In this light, the fact that Jews wanted to add to their own biography of Jesus the claim that his mother not only
had relations with a stranger (although, possibly, unknowingly) but was also Niddah at the time of his conception
is not unexpected. This idea is formulated in the beginning of the Toledot Yeshu, in the story of the conception
and birth of Jesus. There are countless differences between the versions, but versions that include a section
about the birth of Jesus generally state that his father was not the spouse (or fiancé) of his mother, but another
man. This man is commonly described as a neighbor, who either pretended to be her fiancé, or simply raped
her. In some versions, the fiancé was named Joseph, and the evil neighbor Yohanan (“John”). In others, Joseph is
the villainous neighbor, while Yohanan is the fiancé. Jesus is therefore a Mamzer, a bastard. In many manuscripts
in which a section about the conception of Jesus exists, it is said that Mary was Niddah at that moment. Jesus is,
therefore, also, justly, according to this claim, a Ben ha-Niddah.26
Let us see an example, again from the version of the Toledot Yeshu commonly called Ms Strasbourg. Here, one
finds the following discussion between Mary and Joseph Pandera, which she thinks to be John (Yohanan), her
fiancé:
And she was telling him: “Do not touch me, as I discharged a menstrual blood! …he did not think nor cared
about her words; he lay with her, and she became pregnant from him.27
Later, the text of this version, and of many others, speaks almost consistently about Jesus as the Ben ha-Niddah.
Ben ha-Niddah in the 1096s Chronicles
In medieval Jewish literature, the Toledot Yeshu is not unique in making the assertion that Jesus was conceived
while Mary was menstruating. It also appears in several other medieval sources whose origins can be more
specifically dated and identified. One example comes from Germany, from the beginning of the twelfth century,
in a few chronicles describing the persecution of the Rhenish Jewish communities at the time of the first crusade
in 1096. In one of these works, written only a few years after the events, before 1106,28 it is claimed that the dying
Jews,
The virgins, and the fiancées, and the fiancés, [all] looked through the window and shouted, at the top of their
voice, and said: “Look and see, our God, what we do to sanctify Your Great Name, without replacing Your
Divinity by the hung one, crucified, a seed loathed, discarded and rejected by his generation, a Mamzer, a son
of the Niddah, a son of fornication.”29
famous poet who probably lived in the sixth or seventh century in Palestine (on him, see Laura S. Lieber, Yannai on Genesis: An Invitation to
Piyyut, Hebrew Union College Press, Cincinnati 2010). Others do not accept this attribution.
25
“Sed heu, beata Maria, quot hodie suo modo, ut ita dixerim, scortantur tecum.” Quotation from D. L. d’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Mass
Communication in a Culture without Print, Oxford - New York 2001, pp. 116-117. I am grateful for Prof. Jean-Claude Schmitt (EHESS) for sharing
this text with me.
26
See in the following manuscripts, and the page numbers where they appear in the Meerson & Schäfer edition: JTS8998 (p. 60); JTS6312
(p. 66); Petr274 (p. 72); Strasb3974 & JTS1491 (pp. 82-83); JTS2221 (pp. 97-98); JTS2343 (pp. 114-115); Benayahu25 (p. 127); Yale5 & JTS2337
& Leipz17 (pp. 139-142); Parma2300 & Parma2091 (pp. 195-198); Leipz17 & Harv57 (pp. 213-217); Manch1989 & Amst442 (pp. 240-241);
BenZvi961 & Princ28 (pp. 260-271).
27
“‫”והיתה אומרת לו אל תגע בי שפרשתי נדה לא? חשב ולא חשש לדבריה ושכב עמה ונתעברה ממנו‬. Quotation from Meerson & Schäfer edition, p. 82. See also
Krauss, idem., p. 38.
28
I use the dating system of the chronicles adopted by Lena Roos in her important book “God Wants It!” The Ideology of Martyrdom of the Hebrew Crusade Chronicles and Its Jewish and Christian Background, Brepols, Turnhout 2006.
29
“‫ בלי להמיר אלהותך בתלוי נצלב נצר נסאב‬,‫ מה אנו עושים על קידוש שמך הגדול‬,‫ אלהינו‬,‫ הביטה וראה‬:‫והבתולות וכלות וחתנים הביטו בעד החלונים וצעקו בקול גדול ואמרו‬
‫ ממזר ובן הנידה ובן הזימה‬,‫”ונתעב ומשוקץ בדורו‬. See A. M. Habermann, Edicts of Germany and France (Hebrew), Jerusalem 1971, p. 101. This citation is
from the anonymous chronicle from Mainz. An almost identical version exists in another chronicle, written by Salomon ben Samson, probably
between 1140 and 1146. See it in Habermann, idem., p. 31. For an English translation, see Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade,
Berkeley 1987. An important collection of articles on the issue is found in Yom Tov Assis, Jeremy Cohen, Aharon Kedar, Ora Limor, and
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The author of this chronicle claims that Jews used the expression Ben ha-Niddah in front of Christians. Is this
report trustworthy? It is obvious that one cannot assert with certainty that the dying shouted exactly what one
finds in the chronicles, as these works are, after all, later literary compositions that aim at glorifying the dying
and giving some theological sense to the events. In particular, the decision of some of the dying to kill their
family members had no precedents in rabbinical Judaism and had to be explained somehow by the following
generations.30 Having said that, the chronicles were written between 10 (or even less) and 50 years after the
events and by authors from the same communities. Moreover, although some historians assert that the Jews
were probably afraid of pronouncing in public radical opinions against Christianity, an idea which perhaps should
be reexamined,31 it is necessary to remember that in our case, these Jews had absolutely nothing to lose, and
from their point of view, everything to win. Refusing a conversion, these Jews realized that they were probably
going to be massacred. At least some of them wished to die as martyrs.32 In some cases, this desire was even
larger than the will of the Christians to kill them. In such conditions, it is probably not unreasonable to imagine
that some Jews used in public an arsenal of charged blasphemies against the religion of their persecutors.
The chronicles were written in Hebrew, the plausibly only written language of Ashkenazi Jews at that time.33 If
the dying shouted such charges against Jesus, what language did they use? Did they speak only to God, by using
the Hebrew, God’s own language, or did they want at that precise moment to humble and to enrage the crowd
by using the vernacular? As the chronicles speak constantly about communication between the Jews and their
persecutors or their possible aids, it makes sense that also in these last moments, the doomed Jews would have
wanted to have their last victory by insulting their enemies in a language they understood.34
If the dying indeed shouted in the vernacular that Jesus was a Ben ha-Niddah,35 it is an example, although unique
and extremely dramatic, that lay Christians had the occasion to hear this accusation from Jews. Nevertheless, for
an insult to be effective, it should not only be heard in a language one understands but should also be considered
Michael Toch (eds.), Facing the Cross: The Persecutions of 1096 in History and Historiography, Jerusalem 2000. For some remarks about the role
of women in the events, see Shlomo Noble, “The Jewish Woman in Medieval Martyrology,” in Charles Berlin (ed.), Studies in Jewish Bibliography,
History and Literature in honor of I. Edward Kiev, New York 1971, pp. 347-355. See also Lena Roos, ibid., as well as Eva Haverkamp, Hebräische
Berichte über die Judenverfolgungen während des Ersten Kreuzzugs, Hanover 2005.
30
On this, see Haym Soloveitchik, “Religious Law and Change: The Medieval Ashkenazic Example,” AJS Review 12 (1987), pp. 205-222, as well
as, more recently, Lena Roos, ibid.
31
See David Berger’s opinion, “…it appears that the assertiveness and self-confidence of Ashkenazic Jews were remarkable, and the view that
most of the sarcastic comments in Jewish polemic were intended for internal consumption should probably be modified though not entirely
discarded.” (David Berger, The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages, Philadelphia 1979, p. 23). See a somehow different opinion in
Hanne Trautner-Kromann, Shield and Sword: Jewish Polemics against Christianity and the Christians in France and Spain from 1100-1500, Tübingen 1993, pp. 184-190.
32
On this, see Israel Jacob Yuval, “Vengeance and Damnation, Blood and Defamation: From Jewish Martyrdom to Blood Libel Accusations,”
(Hebrew), Zion 58 (1992-1993), pp. 33-90.
33
Except maybe some texts that might be in some kind of a “judéo-français.” Regarding these, see the interesting remarks of Moché Catane,
“Les gloses en français,” in Simon Schwarzfuchs, Rachi de Troyes, Paris 1991, p. 136, as well as the good introduction by Marc Kiwitt in http://
www.jewish-languages.org/judeo-french.html. More bibliography and information about judéo-français vocabulary is to be found in the first part
of William Sayers, “Ancien judéo-français étupé `ayant un prépuce, incirconcis’: glose biblique - et insulte religieuse?,” Zeitschrift für romanische
Philologie 115 (1999), pp. 234-237. The birth date of Yiddish is generally considered to be later, unless one considers a few dozen words in Salomon ben Isaac’s (Rashi, 1040-1105) exegetical works to be an early hint of Yiddish. See Jerold C. Frakes, Early Yiddish Texts 1100-1750, Oxford
University Press, 2009, pp. 1-3.
34
We do have proof, although from the thirteenth century, that Jews used insults both in Hebrew and in the vernacular: “Struck by anathema
is not the one who calls his colleague ‘Mamzer’, ‘Ben ha-Niddah’, or slave, but only one who says it in the vernacular language [for example,]
Fils à pute’” (“‫)”חרם עבריינות אינו בקורא לחבירו ממזר ולא בן הנדה ולא עבד כי אם האומרו בלשון לעז פי"ץ אפוט‬. This decision is attributed to Yehiel ben Joseph
of Paris (died circa 1265). See Ritual Decisions of Rabbenu Yehiel of Paris and of Rabbis of France (Hebrew), edited and annotated by Eliyahou
Dov Pinès, Jerusalem 1980, 12, p. 17. The insult “fils-à-pute” is given in the text in French, in Hebrew characters. Most of the experts of medieval halakhic literature agree that the decrees attributed to Rabbi Yehiel of Paris were passed on orally to his students who then transcribed
them. On the Jewish medieval anathemas (“Herem”), see Simcha Goldin, “The Role and Function of the Herem and the Takanah in the Medieval
Ashkenazic Community” (Hebrew), in David Assaf (ed.), Proceedings of the Eleventh World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem 1993, pp. 105112. This edict is targeting internal affaires of the Jewish community, but because of its presumed author, it is of a special interest for us here.
Yehiel of Paris certainly knew all types of Jewish blasphemies against Christianity, as well as their fatal consequences for the Jewish community
when the ecclesiastical authorities discovered them. Yehiel was the main protagonist of the Jewish side in the affair that led to the burning of
the Talmud in Paris in the fifth decade of the thirteenth century. Is his experience somehow connected to his declaration that certain insults
are graver when they are pronounced in the vernacular? This interesting question will remain, unfortunately, open.
35
I believe that Ivan Marcus argues also for the use of the vernacular for the insults. See, for example, in Ivan Marcus, “From Politics to Martyrdom: Shifting Paradigms in the Hebrew Narratives of the 1096 Crusade Riots”, Prooftexts II (1982), p. 49: “[The Jews] go out of their way to
hurl invective upon invective at their Christian attackers… The language is hostile and aggressive.”
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by the listeners as insult. Would such an expression be considered as insulting by a Christian crowd? Again, the
answer is likely positive. A connection between the Savior, or in fact any other human, and menstrual blood would
not be perceived as a neutral, “scientific” claim, in a medieval European setting. Jews and Christians shared the
opinion that the farther the one is from menstrual blood, the better he/she is. This toxic substance can affect,
and often harm, humans, animals, plants, and some objects. Worse than all, a person conceived by a woman who
was menstruating at the time, was considered to be at risk to suffer from leprosy or other diseases. With these
well-known concepts, an accusation such as the one discussed above was certainly considered severe.36
Mary, the Fornicating Woman
It is indisputable that some Jewish expressions offending Mary were known to ecclesiastical authorities, at least
from the thirteenth century. One of the charges against the Talmud, which finally led to the burning of countless of
its copies in Paris in June 1242,37 was the ridiculous and offensive way Mary was presented in Jewish sources. The
Church authorities knew that Mary was called, in certain Jewish texts, “the fornicating woman.” In the Extractiones
de Talmut, a collection of Jewish texts compiled by Odo of Châteauroux (c. 1190 – 1273) and other members of
the university of Paris, with the aim of exposing what they saw as blasphemous and ridiculous in the Talmud,
one finds, in the section which contains attacks against the Christian faith, the rather faithful Latin translation of
a Jewish litany which was sung in the synagogues on Yom Kippur:
The nations call “Your Holiness” to a son of adultery; Your chosen ones despise the one conceived by the
fornicating woman.38
This text was not unique.39 Given that the ecclesiastical authorities knew about the Jewish derogatory name
of “fornicating woman” for Mary, it seems quite possible that they had knowledge as well of the Ben ha-Niddah
blasphemy. The fact that these two blasphemies, “Mary the fornicator” and “Mary the Niddah” are mentioned
often together in Jewish sources40 may support such a theory. Still, until a medieval Christian text mentioning
explicitly the insult Ben ha-Niddah is found, this suggestion cannot be proven. Did common Christians know about
the expression(s) against Mary, used by their Jewish neighbors? I think this is quite plausible. It is possible that
they heard such insults directly from Jews, in tense moments. It is also possible that they heard about them from
clergies who learned, via Hebraists and converts, about the existence of these insults in the Jewish community.
Did Jews know that Christians knew about these expressions? At least from the thirteenth century onward, I
The link between the term Ben ha-Niddah and Jesus exists in many other Jewish works, and the following provides just two examples from
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Some decades after the composition of the chronicles, in a commentary on the Tractate of Kallah by
Abraham ben Nathan ha-Yarhi (1155-1215) from the city of Lunel in Provence, one finds again this equation, when Abraham ben Nathan
ha-Yarhi declares that the terrible child in this tractate is Jesus. See Abraham ben Nathan ha-Yarhi, Perush Massekhet Kallah Rabbati (Hebrew),
Edited by Baruch Toledano, Tiberias 1906, p. 4. About this work, see Michael Higger, “Yarhi’s Commentary on Kallah Rabbati,” Jewish Quarterly
Review 24 (1933-1934). About a century later, Abraham Abulafia (1240 – after 1291), a colorful wondering author who spent most of his time
in the South of Europe (Spain, Italy, Greece, Sicily, Malta, and Corfu), mentioned the same title in regard to Jesus. Abulafia bases this equation on some well-constructed numerical grounds. A Jewish tradition that the father of Jesus was a Roman soldier by the name of Panther/
Pantera/Pandera is attested already by Origen in his Contra Celsum 1, 32 (see also in BT Sanhedrin 67a.) The numerical value of the letters in
the expression “Yeshu ben Pandera” (Jesus son of Panther, “‫ )”יישו בן פנדרא‬and those in the expression “Yesh Mamzer Ben ha-Niddah” (“There
is a Mamzer, son of the Menstruant,” “‫)”יש ממזר בן הנדה‬, sum up, in each expression, says Abulafia, to the same value of 713, which certainly
proves, according to Abulafia, that this equation is correct (see in Moshe Idel, “Abraham Abulafia on the Jewish Messiah and Jesus”, in Moshe
Idel, Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah, Albany 1988, pp. 52-53 and p. 59 note 36).
37
On the different aspects of this event, see the major collection edited by Gilbert Dahan and Elie Nicolas, Le brûlement du Talmud à Paris
1242-1244, Paris 1999, specifically the introduction by Dahan, pp. 7-20, and the bibliography by Nicolas, pp. 243-246.
38
BnF, latin 16558, f. 230: “Goym cognominant sanctitatem tuam infanti de adulterio / et eleuati abhorrent calefaccionem mulieris fornicarie”.
The Hebrew text is “‫ נשואיך משקצים יחום אשת הזמה‬,‫”הגויים מכנים קדשתך לעול הזימה‬. The word Goym (in this context, the non-Jews) was kept in the
Latin, as this was the title of the hymn. The Hebrew and Latin citations come from H. Merhavya, idem., p. 101. For more information about
this manuscript and its authors, see Gilbert Dahan, “Les traductions latines de Thibaud de Sézanne,” in Gilbert Dahan and Elie Nicolas, idem.,
pp. 95-120. See also Jeremy Cohen, “Scholarship and Intolerance in the Medieval Academy: The Study and Evaluation of Judaism in European
Christendom,” American Historical Review 91:3 (1986), p. 609 ; William Chester Jordan, “Marian Devotion and the Talmud Trial of 1240,” in Bernard Lewis and Friedrich Niewöhner (eds.), Religionsgespräche im Mittelalter, Wiesbaden 1992, pp. 61-76.
39
See another example in Moshe Halamish, “Old Version of Aleinu Le-Shabbe’ah” (Hebrew), Sinai 110 (1992), pp. 262-265.
40
We have seen an example of this in the chronicles about the events of 1096.
36
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suspect some did: copies of the Talmud were burned on grounds of heresy, that is, what Christians considered
as disloyalty of Jews to the Old Testament, but also of blasphemies against Christianity, Jesus, and Mary. Jews
probably knew why Christians burned their books.
Menstrual blood in the biography of Jesus
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the exact links between Jesus and the menstrual blood of Mary
become a growing issue of concern for some major Christian authors.
Many medieval authors adhered to the Gallianic concept that the human fetus is nourished in the mother’s womb
by menstrual blood or by some part of it.41 For this reason, menstrual blood is not discharged during the pregnancy.
After delivery, this blood turns into milk,42 which also explains why the menstrual cycle does not reappear immediately
after childbirth, and why its appearance might be delayed even more if the woman breastfeeds her baby. This
supposed nourishment in the womb by the menstrual blood, although necessary for the fetus, was considered to
contain risks. As this blood contains poisonous substances, concluded the experts, it not only nourishes the fetus
but also, unfortunately, causes some harm. Several childhood illnesses, in particular measles and smallpox, were
considered to be the body’s attempt to get rid of the remains of this poisonous menstrual blood.
Was Jesus himself also nourished by this poisonous substance? Could the Purest of all have been in touch with
this impure liquid? The stakes were high. If Jesus was nourished from it, his purity might have been tainted. But if
he had not, his human nature might not be perfectly equal to all other humans, something that could amount to
a dangerous theological pitfall as well.
The solutions Christian theologians suggested were of several types. Some said that Mary, and also other female
saints, did not menstruate at all.43 Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) concluded that all humans, including Jesus, are
nourished only from a purified part of the mother’s menstrual blood. Normally, this blood is still not completely
pure, because it is “drawn” by lust and intercourse. However, in Jesus’ case, where lust and intercourse were not
involved, the blood forming him was totally pure.44
Polemical writings of some Jewish authors reveal they were aware of the importance of this issue to Christians.
Some did not miss the opportunity to attack Christianity.45 An interesting example appears in Nizzahon Vetus
(“The Ancient Victory”) from the end of the thirteenth century or beginning of the fourteenth century in Germany.
The author of this work is aware of a Christian theory that Mary did not have her period at the time of Jesus’
conception, pregnancy, and delivery:
And if [the Christian] say that [Jesus] was not tainted in her belly because the period of Mary stopped and
[Jesus] entered her as a spirit and left without pain nor the dirt of blood…46
See in Rudolph E. Siegel, Galen’s System of Physiology and Medicine: An Analysis of His Doctrines and Observations on Bloodflow, Respiration,
Humours and Internal Diseases, Basel-New York 1968.
42
A similar concept is also testified in the Talmud, see, for example, BT Niddah 9a. See also an interesting English text from the seventeenth
century: “...milke (sic) is none other thing than blood made white”. Quotation from Patricia Crawford, “Attitudes to Menstruation in Seventeenth-Century England”, Past and Present 91 (1981), p. 51. See also Danielle Jacquart and Claude Thomasset, Sexualité et savoir médical au
moyen âge, Paris 1985, p. 99-100; John W. Baldwin, Les langages de l’amour dans la France de Philippe Auguste, 1997, p. 305.
43
See, for example, in Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, The religious significance of food to medieval women, Los Angeles 1987,
pp. 138, 214, 239. See also Claude Thomasset, “De la Nature féminine”, in Georges Duby and Michelle Perrot (eds.), Histoire des femmes - le
Moyen Age, Paris 1991, pp. 58 and 66.
44
Thomas Aquinas, Summa III, q. 31, a. 5 (“Whether the flesh of Christ was conceived of the Virgin’s purest blood?”). See http://www.sacredtexts.com/chr/aquinas/summa/sum482.htm.
45
I use the word “attack” although some of these answers were maybe only for internal usage. On this aspect of polemical literature, see
Hanne Trautner-Kromann, idem..
46
“...‫”וא”ת לא נטנף במיעיה כי חדל להיות למרים אורח כנשים ונכנס רוח בתוכה ויצא בלי צער ובלי טינוף דמים‬. Quotation from David Berger, idem., art. 6, p. 5.
41
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Later, the author of the work ridicules this idea by using the calendar of the Christians. On the second day of
February they celebrate Lichtmess,47 the day of Mary’s post-partum purification, he notes. But if Mary did not
menstruate, nor suffered from a post-partum impurity, what exactly do they celebrate? The Christian calendar
itself proves, he concludes, that Mary, as all women, had her period, and then, was purified.
Other Jews attacked some Christian responses to this dilemma by using accepted scientific concepts of the time.
This is the method used in an earlier Hebrew work, known as the Vikkuah le-ha-Radkak (“Disputation of Rabbi
David Kimhi”),48 maybe composed in thirteenth-century Italy.49 The anonymous author uses first the medical
idea of his time that animals are not nourished, while in the womb, from a menstrual blood, but that humans
are. Therefore, because of the poisonous character of this blood, humans are born weak, while other animals,
spared from this poison, are born strong. He takes this idea, and confronts it with the Christian ideas just
mentioned:
[If it is true what the Christian says, that] Jesus’ mother had conceived from the Holy Ghost, and [that he] was
not nourished in his mother’s womb from that filthy blood, he should have been able to walk from the day
of his birth, and talk, and should have been intelligent like when he was thirty years old! [All this was not the
case:] he did come out from the known place, small as all babies, defecating and peeing like all children. [ipso
facto – Jesus was nourished from the menstrual blood].50
The logical consequence is thus clear. Jesus, like every other human, was not shielded from the menstrual blood
while in his mother’s womb.
Jesus was not shielded from this impure phenomenon later in his life also, said Jewish polemicists. Worse: this
time, he approached it on purpose. In fact, unlike the previous case, where the New Testament itself did not
provide basis for the assertion that Mary was menstruating (but did provide a basis to assert she was fornicating),
Jesus’ indirect contact with impure blood issued from a woman’s body, whether it was menstrual blood or not,
is clearly attested in the Gospels:
Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the
edge of his cloak. She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” Jesus turned and saw her. “Take
heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.51
In the thirteenth century, Joseph ben Nathan Official, a French Jew, possibly from the city of Sens, wrote the
following accusation against Christians in his polemical work, using the New Testament story:
Your Master was impure and a liar: a woman who was menstruating for twelve years arrived in front of him,
and he touched her garment and cured her, according to your words. He thus made himself impure, and
transgressed the words of the Torah.52
«‫»ליכ”ט מית”ה‬. See also David Berger, ibid., p. 237.
It was shown already by Frank Talmage and others that the attribution of this work to Kimhi (Narbonne, circa 1160 - circa 1235) is false. Talmage suggested that the text was written by the end of the twelfth century or in the thirteenth century, maybe in the region of Milan. See an
introduction to this text, followed by a translation, in Frank Talmage, “An Hebrew Polemical Treatise, Anti-Cathar and Anti-Orthodox”, Harvard
Theological Review 60 (1967), pp. 323-348. This article was reprinted more recently in Frank Ephraim Talmage, Apples of Gold in Settings of Silver:
Studies in Medieval Jewish Exegesis and Polemics, Edited by Barry Dov Walfish, Toronto 1999. See also David Berger, “Christian Heresy and Jewish
Polemic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” Harvard Theological Review 68.3-4 (1975), pp. 292-295.
49
Are the possible origin of this work, and the fact that Aquinas, although spending the height of his academic career in Paris, was Italian,
related? I leave this question open.
50
“.‫ [ש]נתעברה אמו ממנו מרוח הקודש ולא ניזון במעי אמו מאותו דם הטינופת ראוי היה להלוך על רגליו מאותו יום שנולד ולדבר ולהיות משכיל בכמו שהיה כשהגיע‬,‫אם כן ישו‬
‫ ומשתין כשאר ילדים‬,‫ ומוציא צרכיו‬,‫ קטן כשאר הקטנים‬,‫ וזה יצא ממקום הידוע‬.‫”לשלושים שנה‬. Quotation from The Book of the Covenant and other Writings
(Hebrew), Edited by Frank Talmage, Jerusalem 1974, p. 87.
51
Matthew 9:20-22 (NIV).
52
Joseph ben Nathan Official, Sepher Joseph ha-Mekane (Hebrew), Edited by Judah Rosenthal, Jerusalem 1970, Gospels, 12 (p. 128):
“‫ אם כן טמא עצמו ועבר על דברי תורה‬.‫ לדבריכם‬,‫ נדה של י”ב שנה באה לפניו ונגע בלבושה ורפאה‬.‫”אדונכם טמא היה ושקרן‬.
47
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A slight difference between the way the story is told in the Gospels, and the way Joseph ben Nathan tells it,
seems of great significant. In the New Testament, in all its three accounts of the story,53 the woman touches Jesus’
garments. In Joseph ben Nathan’s version, which seems to be based on Matthew, it is the other way around. Even
in his adult age, the Savior of the Christians had contact with this abominable impurity and was actively seeking it.
Conclusion
Jews and Christians shared the opinion that menstrual blood is a negative substance and that sexual relations
during menstruation can be harmful for the child born from them. Around the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
Jews used this concept in polemics by claiming that Jesus was conceived during menstruation. In the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, Jews had a new claim: contrary to the opinion of some Christians that Jesus was saved,
even in his mother’s womb, from the menstrual blood, Jews asserted that he was not. Even in his adult life Jesus
was said to be in contact with a Niddah. The medieval Jewish biography of Jesus was full, from the very beginning
to the end, with assertions about contacts with one of the most despised and impure substances these Jewish
men could think of: menstrual blood.
Evyatar Marienberg is an Associate Professor at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA).
In addition to the version from Matthew given above, see the much longer ones in Mark 5:24b-34 and Luke 8:42b-48, where the claim that
the woman touched Jesus, and not the other way around, is repeatedly emphasized.
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