This Week in Christian History: EWTN Launches, Francis Xavier Goes to Japan, Pope Attacks Talmud

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, August 12, 2018

Pope Orders Talmud Copies to be Burned - August 12, 1553

Pope Julius III, who reigned as head of the Roman Catholic Church from 1550 to 1555. | (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

This week marks the anniversary of when Pope Julius III issued a decree ordering the confiscation and burning of all copies of the Talmud in Italy.

The decree came in reaction to a heated dispute between two Christian publishers of Hebrew literature in Venice, with charges being made by one publisher that the other was printing works against the Roman Catholic Church.

Julius III decreed that the Talmud and related works were blasphemous and should be destroyed. The following month, a large pyre was erected in Rome and used for destroying the texts.

"Subsequently the Inquisition ordered all rulers, bishops, and inquisitors throughout Italy to take similar action. The orders were obeyed in the Papal States, particularly in Bologna and Ravenna, and in Ferrara, Mantua, Urbino, Florence, and Venice, the center of Hebrew printing, and also in 1559 in Cremona" explained the Jewish Virtual Library.

"The ban against publication of the Talmud ... was temporarily lifted (1564) by Pius IV. However, confiscation of Hebrew works continued in Italy, especially in the Papal States, down to the 18th century."