get the charges reduced to sodomy, but it didn’t really matter since the punishment was the same: burning at the stake. The bishop remembered the old days, when sexual transgressors were torn apart by wild beasts, but since so many of them were women these days, the judges had gotten lenient in their sentencing.
“If one man sins, will you be angry with the entire community?” asked the rabbi. “For even your Lord Jesus had a thief and a traitor within his most trusted circle of apostles.”
“A traitor who was a Jew.”
“They were all Jews! Christ himself was born a Jew.”
“In outward appearance only.”
Ah. That was the ace. Rabbi Loew had finally run afoul of the boundary marker of faith, which held that the divinity of Christ filled the heavens before the first day of Creation, and therefore predated the existence of Judaism. The bishop shifted in his seat, waiting to see how the rabbi would get himself out of this trouble spot.
The rabbi weighed and tested his words, then said, “In your Gospel it is written that Jesus cried out, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. If Jesus is indeed your Lord and Master, then why don’t you obey his command and forgive us?”
Some of the congregation sat there scratching their chins and considering this point, while others leapt to their feet and cursed Rabbi Loew for using the Lord’s name in such a way. Popel responded with a brilliant rhetorical strategy that turned the tables on his adversary. “First tell me how you would explain that, Rabbi.”
The hall grew hushed, expectant.
“I think we can all agree that there are natural differences between the nations of the world,” the rabbi said.
Many of the people nodded.
“And so it is natural for people to react differently to the same events.”
The rabbi paused to see if they were still following him.
“Therefore, when someone speaks out against my faith, I do not try to stop him from speaking. I listen in order to understand his position so that we may clarify the matter.”
The rabbi went on: “Some believe that one’s faith is strengthened when people are forbidden from speaking against it, but that is not so. What strength does a man show when he forbids his opponent from defending himself?”
By God, even some of the Germans were agreeing with him on that. Think of the converts we could make with a man like this rabbi on our side, thought the bishop.
Popel rushed in. “You make it sound as if we are talking about the difference between hard-boiled eggs and soft-boiled eggs. What about when the other man speaks blasphemy, as in this heretical book which was published in Italy barely ten years ago?”
He held up a copy of dei Rossi’s Meor Enayim.
The rabbi let slip an oath in his Judeo-German dialect that sounded like “Weh ist mir.”
Popel challenged him directly. “This arrogant and impious author dares to question the traditional chronology of the Bible! What do you have to say to that, Rabbi?”
“I would advise every pious Jew in the land not to read such a book, or even to hold it in his hands. Such heretical words deserve to be burned in the fire.”
“Then you agree that the Inquisitional authorities have the right to prohibit certain books?”
“I didn’t say that. I said it deserves to be burned. But the rabbis have discussed the matter and have reached a compromise, and have ruled that the book is forbidden to any person under the age of twenty-five. That is our way.”
“Most cunningly does Satan mask his magic under the appearance of religion,” said Popel, quoting directly from the unpublished Compendium Maleficarum. “For know you all that this selfsame Jew, this Yankev ben Khayim, did confess under torture that the book that you revere above all others, the perversely heretical Talmud, which is written in the infernal alphabet of the Chaldeans that can only be read by magicians and sorcerers—”
He brandished the volume like an assault weapon, and the crowd drew back in terror of the strange writing.
“—which you Jews are flooding the country with like so much excrement from your filthy printing presses, does state quite clearly that Jesus practiced magic, and it compares Christianity to a form of heresy.”
The predictable uproar followed, and the city guards had to come between the hordes of outraged Christians and the fearful tribe of Jews huddled together for warmth, their knees trembling beneath their tattered cloaks. The Christians accused the Jews of conspiring with