When the Jews Learned Logic from the Pope: Three Medieval Hebrew Translations of the Tractatus of Peter of Spain

The ArgumentIt is well known that theTractatusof Peter of Spain was one of the most popular logic textbooks in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Less known is theTractatus'sconsiderable reputation and diffusion among the Jews, as evidenced by five translations, two commentaries, and what appears to be anabbreviatio— if not of theTractatusitself, then of a similar work. The present article attempts to understand the phenomenon of theTractatus'spopularity and offers an analysis of the three translations whose authors are known — those by Shemaryah ha-Ikriti, Abraham Abigdor, and Judah b. Samuel Shalom — and their subsequent fate. The more popular versions of Abraham Abidgor and Judah Shalom provided Jewish students, many of whom would likely become physicians, with a grounding in logic comparable to that of their Christian counterparts.