BOOK: Giannozzo Manetti, "Against the Jews and the Gentiles"

Giannozzo Manetti: Against the Jews and the Gentiles. Books I–IV. Edited by Stefano U. Baldassarri and Daniela Pagliara. Translated by David Marsh. The I Tatti Renaissance Library, Vol. 79. Harvard University Press, 2017. 9780674974975. xix + 487 pp.

We have seen two books by Manetti in the I Tatti Renaissance Library before: first his Biographical Writings and more recently his Translator's Defense. I'm not quite sure what to make of this present book, though. Given the title I was expecting some sort of argument that might try to convince a person why christianity is the true religion, rather than judaism or ancient Greco-Roman paganism. Perhaps something like this will show up in a subsequent volume (the present one contains books I–IV, while the whole work has ten books, but I'm not too sure if they intend to translate the rest; the present volume isn't labelled “volume 1” on the title page); but the current volume hardly ever tries to argue against these alternatives, except here and there in book I. After that, Manetti is mostly content to present christianity and perhaps thinks that this is enough by itself to demonstrate that it is the correct religion.

Book I is a short overview of pre-christian history and religions. It includes short sections about ancient Egyptian and Greek religion (1.22–3) and a bit more about the ancient Roman one (1.24–6). There's an interesting section about the ridiculous proliferation of minor deities, such as: “They had Proserpina preside over budding grains, Volutina over seed husks (involumenta), Patelena over seeds that open (patescunt) to release the ear of corn, Ostilina when the grain is level with the new spikes (from an archaic verb ostire ‘to be level’), Florea over the flowering grain, Matura over the maturing crop, and Runcina over the grains that are plucked from the earth (runcantur).” (1.24) I agree that this is silly, but I suspect that the ancient Romans themselves didn't take all these minor deities all that seriously either. And anyway, aren't things like the hierarchy of angels in christian theology just as ridiculous?

Manetti also points out the many well-known instances of immoral behaviour of the ancient gods (1.32–6): “What about Jupiter, the father of them all, who is called best and greatest in solemn hymns, as we said? Did he not spend his entire life in acts of rape, adultery, and incest?” (1.34) But I'm not sure if that's actually a downside. It makes these gods easier to relate to. They are like slightly oversized people, with recognizable human appetites, impulses, foibles, etc. By contrast, the christian god is very much more alien. His actions make much less sense, and are overall much more monstrous. Did Jupiter ever nearly exterminate all humankind with a gigantic flood? Did he ever claim that all people were somehow inherently guilty because supposedly a distant ancestor of theirs had broken some sort of ridiculous injunction about eating fruit? Oh, and speaking of Jupiter's adultery, wasn't Mary married when god impregnated her? Anyway, sometimes I like to think that if I ever wanted to take up a religion, I'd find something like ancient paganism much more congenial than those horrible abrahamic religions; but then I realize that the closest thing extant today to ancient pagan religions is probably modern hinduism, and that looks like it's a total mess too, so I guess I'm just going to have to keep being non-religious... :)

More than half of book I, however, is about the ancient Jews; sort of like a very short summary of the old testament, I guess, which made for fairly interesting reading since I've never read the old testament itself. Mostly Manetti has a pretty good opinion of the Jews here, praising them for sticking with the true god while all other nations turned to idolatry (1.31, 43–4). Towards the end of the book he has some objections against the laws of Moses: that the rewards promised for obeying them and threats for disobeying them are all physical and temporal rather than having something to do with the afterlife(1.90–2); that sacrifices etc. involve countless silly rules full of “obstacles, enigmas, and obfuscations” (1.97–8); and I like his argument against the prohibition of pork consumption: pigs are only useful as food, so this prohibition is “contrary to nature” (1.100). He cites Juvenal's “famous phrase: ‘a beast born for a feast’ ” (1.100). I love the rhyme here; it must be a translator's contribution since it doesn't appear in the Latin text on the facing page (“animal propter convivia natum”).

Book II is an overview of Jesus's life, so you could say it's mostly a summary of the gospels, and for some reason Manetti also includes extensive quotations from the Paschal Song of Sedulius, a 5th-century christian poet. Much as with book I, this was fairly interesting as I haven't read the bible and so found the story relatively new, although of course one absorbs bits and pieces of it from popular culture even without trying to. Some parts of it were also familiar from earlier volumes in the ITRL series, e.g. Sannazaro's Virgin Birth and Vida's Christiad. The later parts of this book get a little less interesting as Jesus seemingly just walks around with his disciples and heals random people here and there and reanimates the occasional dead person or three (2.130–1, 134, 175–80). One of these, Lazarus, has been dead for four days, so I imagine he must be getting rather ripe and beginning to look like a proper zombie :] But really, what a splendid tale it would make if, instead of walking around all meek and getting himself crucified, Jesus had raised an army of zombies and marched on Jerusalem, taking the forces of the Romans and the Pharisees head-on! Actually it *almost* comes to this at one point: “Rocks were split, and tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints were raised from the dead. After His resurrection, they came out of the open tombs and entered the holy city of Jerusalem and appeared to many.” (4.63)

Some of the episodes were familiar to me from before, e.g. the one where he kicks moneychangers out of the temple (2.109–10); but Manetti also explains why they were there to begin with, which I didn't know. During certain festivals, people were supposed bring an animal to sacrifice, “and so that those with little wealth or money were not denied such victims, they assigned moneychangers to certain parts of the temple — together with the animal vendors” (2.110), so you could borrow money and then buy an animal. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, fleecing the believers is a big part of religion after all, and yet I *was* a bit surprised that the arrangement was as blatant and shameless as this...

Book III is about Jesus's teachings and was probably the least interesting (to me, that is) in this book. There are longish sections about the sermon on the mount (3.2–22), his arguments with the Pharisees (3.54–8, 9–69), miscellanous answers to questions by various people (3.72–90), especially his disciples (3.91–101); and there's lots and lots of parables (3.102–41). Many of the episodes here are well-known, but it was nice to see them all in one place: do unto others etc. (3.52), render unto Caesar etc. (3.67), let him cast the first stone etc. (3.70). One parable that struck me as a bit odd and frankly rather despicable appears in 3.120–2: a man, before going on a long journey, entrusts various sums of money to his slaves. Those who received more money end up investing it and make a good profit, while the one who received very little money doesn't want to risk it and just buries it to keep it safe. When the master returns, he praises the investor slaves but rebukes the last one for not making any profit. This is disgusting. Why did he give him less money than the other two slaves to begin with? Why didn't he give them clear instructions on what to do with it? And why is there no recognition of the fact that investing money for profit is immoral because the profit can only come from exploiting other people's labour? This parable would be all right if it were told in a way that makes it clear that we should sympathize with the saver slave rather than with the investor slaves or with the master — but it wasn't told that way, or at least I didn't get that impression. The whole thing struck me as something that belongs more in the gospel of supply side Jesus...

Book IV, the shortest in this volume, is about Jesus's final days — from the last supper to his resurrection — and thus forms a kind of natural continuation of book II. Much of this was already familiar to me, e.g. from the Christiad. It always strikes me as a sad story. If you disregard the religious aspects to it, it's basically the story of a mostly harmless weirdo hippie getting brutally tortured and executed by powerful groups who fear that he might threaten their racket. One part that surprised me a little was Manetti's long rant against anyone that had anything to do with Jesus's capture and execution (4.71–6) — after all, weren't they supposed to be simply fulfilling god's plan by doing so? If you really believe that crucifying Jesus was necessary to wash away the original sin, shouldn't you be grateful to the people who crucified him?

Manetti seems to mostly blame the whole thing on the Jewish priests, and on the general public whom the priests whipped up into a frenzy of anti-Jesus hatred. He presents Pilate in a fairly positive light, trying to fairly ascertain whether Jesus is actually guilty of anything (4.38–9) and trying, unsuccessfully, to dissuade the mob from demanding Jesus's death (4.44–6). Nevertheless he later includes Pilate in his rant against people who contributed to Jesus's death, and notes Pilate's subsequent suicide with approval (4.72).

There's an interesting passage about the various miracles that followed his death (4.61–8), notably an eclipse; Manetti argues that it couldn't have been a natural event, “because it was then the Jewish Passover, which is solemnly celebrated with a full moon. But a natural eclipse of the sun occurs only during a new moon.” (4.65–6.)

I also found the translator's introduction at the beginning of the book quite interesting. It turns out that Manetti was not only a scholar but also a successful businessman and diplomat: “he was the tenth wealthiest man in the entire city of Florence” (p. vii). He translated the New Testament into Latin, “the first scholar to do so since Jerome” (p. x). I was amused by the translator's occasional jabs at Manetti's “ponderous prose” (pp. xvi, 447).

At one point Manetti mentions “ibises, which we commonly call storks” (1.74). Now that he mentions it, they do look a bit similar. But judging by their wikipedia pages, they aren't *that* closely related to storks; they're closer to pelicans instead.

From a passage where god is threatening those who disobey his laws: “The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, and the part of your body where your excrement passes will be afflicted with scabies and with an itch that cannot be cured.” (1.91) And: “you will eat the fruit of your womb and the flesh of your sons and your daughters. [. . .] Besides, the sons and daughters will feed in secret on the flesh and the filth of afterbirth that comes from between her thighs and additionally on the children who were born in that hour” (1.91). And the name of that act? The aristocrats!!! :)))

There's a long list of afflictions that struck the evil King Herod, including: “[. . .] his private parts, decaying with rot, teemed with worms. There was also an incredible odor; an erection, which was particularly obscene because of its offensive stench” (2.61) What else can you say to this other than that the bible must have been written by some really sick and depraved people :))) So maybe I should read it after all...

A couple of phrases that I didn't know were of biblical origin: pearls before swine (3.19), a house divided (3.54) — I had honestly thought that last one came from American politics, perhaps because Lincoln used it in a well-kown speech.

Overall, this book was a fairly interesting read as a sort of very short introduction to christianity, but didn't strike me as having accomplished much to argue against judaism and paganism like its title had led me to expect. But I guess I shouldn't complain about this; it's not like Manetti had a large crowd of Jews and pagans waiting for him to try converting them; the target audience for his book could hardly have been anyone other than his fellow christians. This makes the whole thing something of an exercise in patting oneself on the back, but then, there's nothing really wrong with that either.