oated alluringly before his mind. In order to profit by
his apostasy, the convert Paulus de Santa Maria gave out that he had
voluntarily embraced Christianity, the theological writings of the
Scholiast Thomas of Aquinas having taken hold of his inmost convictions.
The Jews, however, mistrusted his credulity, and knowing him well, they
ascribed this step to his ambition and his thirst for fame. His family,
consisting of a wife and son, renounced him when he changed his
faith.... He studied theology in the University of Paris, and then
visited the papal court of Avignon, where Cardinal Pedro de Juna had
been elected papal antagonist to Benedict XIII. of Rome. The church feud
and the schism between the two Popes offered the most favorable
opportunity for intrigues and claims. Paulus, by his cleverness, his
zeal, and his eloquence, won the favor of the Pope, who discerned in him
a useful tool. Thus he became successively Archdeacon of Trevinjo, Canon
of Seville, Bishop of Cartagena, Chancellor of Castile, and Privy
Councillor to King Henry III. of Spain. With tongue and pen he attacked
Judaism, and Jewish literature provided him with the necessary weapons.
Intelligent Jews rightly divined in this convert to Christianity their
bitterest enemy, and entered into a contest with him....

"The campaign against the malignity of Paul de Santa Maria was opened
by a young man who had formerly sat at his feet, Joshua ben Joseph
Ibn Vives, from the town of Lorca or Allorqui, a physician and Arabic
scholar. In an epistle written in a tone of humility as from a docile
pupil to a revered master, he deals his apostate teacher heavy blows,
and under the show of doubt he shatters the foundations of Christianity.
He begins by saying that the apostasy of his beloved teacher to whom
his loyal spirit had formerly clung, has amazed him beyond measure
and aroused in him many serious reflections. He can only conceive four
possible motives for such a surprising step. Either Paulus has been
actuated by ambition, love of wealth, pomp, and the satisfaction of
the senses, or else by doubt of the truth of Judaism upon philosophic
grounds, and has renounced therefore the religion which afforded him so
little freedom and security; or else he has foreseen through the latest
cruel persecutions of the Jews in Spain, the total extinction of
the race; or, finally, he may have become convinced of the truth of
Christianity. The writer enters therefore into an exam