The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

82 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context
to the archpriesthood of Uceda, despite the archbishop of Toledo's
wish that he should resign. He was then imprisoned for six years.
Inflexible resolution and personal austerity characterized his career. 69
'Converses' suffered no discrimination at the university founded in
1500 by Ximenes at Alcala de Henares (Latin: 'Complutum'). The
'Complutensian Polyglot' Bible (6 vols., 1513-1517, the work began
in 1502), produced thanks to Ximenes' personal initiative and patronage,
was the first Bible with parallel Hebrew, Greek, Latin (and for
the Pentateuch) Aramaic texts ('a work equal to a miracle' 70 ). The
Pope's approval was given in 1520. For this work, significant MSS
('vetustissima et castigatissima', says the Prologue, vol. I) and competent
editorship were sought, the latter from among converted Jews
(Alfonso de Zamora, Alfonso de Alcala, Pablo Coronel), and other
teachers such as A. Nebrija, el Pinciano, Diego Lopez de Zufliga, Juan
de Vergara and Demetrio Ducas. 71 Four of the Hebrew Codices used
survive, but the form of the text also presupposes MSS from no later
than the ninth century with the simpler Babylonian punctuation. 72
Some of these MSS (probably only Arabic MSS) were apparently considered
worthless and sold to fireworks' makers in 1739, 73 but their
survival in Spain until the expulsion testifies to the strong Babylonian
influence in medieval Spanish Jewry. Although it has been claimed by
J. Llamas 74 that the Targum Onqelos apograph of the Complutensian
Polyglot was MS Villa-Amil n. 6, I have compared both texts and
there are so many differences, both in the vocalization as well as in
the consonantal texts, that it is impossible to affirm the paternity of
Villa-Amil n. 6 with regard to the Complutensian Targum Onqelos.
What is more probable is that from the MS Escorial 6-1-5 we could
get one of the apographs transcribed by Alphonso de Zamora in MS
Villa-Amil n. 4, namely for the Hagiographa. The rest of the books
69. H.C. Lea, History of the Inquisition in Spain, IV (1906), 618ff.
70. Alvaro Gomez de Castro, De rebus gestis a Francisco Ximenio Cisnerio,
archiepiscopo toletano, Libri octo (Compluti: apud Andream de Angulo, 1569), fol.
38v.
71. M. Bataillon, Erasme et I'Espagne (1937),passim.
12. P.E. Kahle, The Cairo Geniza (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1959), pp. 124-29.
73. M. Rico Revilla, La Poliglota de Alcala. Estudio. historico-critico (Madrid:
Imprenta Helenica, 1917), pp. 71-79.
74. J. Llamas, 'Los manuscritos hebreos de la Universidad de Madrid', Sef5
(1945), p. 279.