Neighbors: Jews and Judaism in the Life of St Neilos the Younger

In this essay, the reader is taken step by step through the purportedly anti-Jewish passages of the Life of St Neilos the Younger, which are mainly known through the episode(s) of the encounter with the figure of the Jewish doctor, Shabbetay Donnolo. There are exposed the biblical and other traditional references that underlie the literary construction of these passages in the hagiography, and to at least partially explain through these references the otherwise puzzling situations described as historical in the Life. Particularly significant is the episode in which a man whose relative had killed a Jew is threatened with crucifixion. Neilos intercedes for this innocent man by addressing the Jewish judge with an exhortation to honor the Old Testament law, casting the terms of this law in seemingly ambiguous, but ultimately biblical, terms.