Origin from 1232
A ban pronounced in 1232 by Rabbi Solomon of Montpellier, joined by two of his students, forbidding the study of Maimonides' philosophical writings, chiefly the Guide for the Perplexed and parts of the Mishneh Torah, on the ground that they were leading readers away from a literal faith. The ban provoked a counter-ban from Maimonides' own defenders in Provence and Spain. The controversy reached its most severe and, for both sides, most regretted point later the same decade when Dominican authorities burned copies of Maimonides' books in Montpellier and Paris, an event both camps came to describe as a shared catastrophe rather than a victory for either.
Facts
Origins
Language of CompositionHebrew, the language of the rabbinic ban issued by Rabbi Solomon of Montpellier. 1 Origin Period Place of OriginMontpellier, in Provence 1 Historical OriginPart of the broader Maimonidean Controversy dividing northern French rabbinic authorities, generally opposed to the study of philosophy, from scholars in Provence and Spain who defended Maimonides' work; letters, sermons and counter-bans passed between the two camps for years afterward 1 Disputed
Point in DisputeWhether Solomon of Montpellier's own faction appealed directly to the Dominican inquisition against their rabbinic opponents, and so bore direct responsibility for the 1232 burning of Maimonides' books, is disputed among historians of the controversy. 2 Learn More
A Ban Placed on a Book, Not a Man
Maimonides had been dead for nearly three decades when the ban against his writings was pronounced, which makes the herem of 1232 a dispute about a legacy rather than a living man. Rabbi Solomon of Montpellier, together with two of his students, David of Montpellier and Jonah Gerondi, persuaded rabbinic authorities in northern France to prohibit the study of Maimonides' philosophical works, above all the Guide for the Perplexed and philosophically inflected portions of his legal code the Mishneh Torah, arguing that reading them drew Jews away from literal faith and toward a philosophy dangerous to it. The northern French rabbis who issued the ban held real institutional authority, but they were acting against a figure who by 1232 was already revered across much of the Jewish world as its greatest living legal mind, dead or not.
That mismatch, an entrenched regional authority against an already towering posthumous reputation, is what made the ban explosive rather than merely controversial. Scholars in Provence and in Spain, where Maimonides' influence ran deepest, did not accept the northern ruling as settled and organized a defense of his work almost immediately, setting two camps of rabbinic authority against each other over how his legacy should be read.
When Both Sides Called the Fire a Catastrophe
The Maimonidean Controversy did not stay a war of words for long. Herem was answered with counter-herem as the two camps traded bans, letters and sermons through the early 1230s, each side appealing to its own network of communities for support. Then, later in the same decade, Dominican inquisitorial authorities in France burned copies of Maimonides' books, including the Guide for the Perplexed, in Montpellier and Paris. Historians dispute exactly how that burning came about, and in particular whether Solomon of Montpellier's own faction appealed to the Christian inquisition against their rabbinic rivals, a charge his opponents leveled at the time and one that remains genuinely contested rather than settled.
What is not disputed is the effect the burning had on the controversy itself. Proponents and opponents of Maimonides' philosophy alike read the fire as a shared disaster, a case of an internal Jewish legal dispute drawing in an outside power against Jewish books and, implicitly, against Jewish communities more broadly. That shock did not end the underlying disagreement about how much philosophy Judaism could safely absorb, a question that continued to surface in Jewish thought for centuries afterward, but it discredited the tactic of escalating an internal rabbinic dispute by appeal to outside force, a lesson later generations of rabbinic authority took seriously.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Maimonides, Figures The ban targeted Maimonides' writings decades after his own death, not the man himself.
Paris, Cities This source names Paris directly: "Maimonides' books in Montpellier and Paris, an event both camps came to describe as a shared catastrophe rather than a victory for either."
This source names Solomon directly: "A ban pronounced in 1232 by Rabbi Solomon of Montpellier, joined by two of his students, forbidding the study of Maimonides' philosophical writings, chiefly the Guide for the Perplexed and parts of..."
This source names Spain directly: "own defenders in Provence and Spain."
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