Citations et traductions du Guide des égarés dans le Pugio fidei de Ramon Martí (Barcelone, xiiie siècle)

Abstract

Written between 1269 and 1284 in the Convent of Saint Catherine in Barcelona, Ramon Martí’s Pugio fidei (“The Dagger of Faith”) is a lengthy handbook intended for Mendicants engaged in preaching to the Jews (and the Muslims). The argumentation is founded on passages drawn from multiple sources, including Arabic and Jewish ones, reproduced in the original language (in Hebrew characters, when it comes to Arabic), translated and commented by the author himself. Among these passages, fourteen citations/mentions of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed. They display two particularities that may prove to be very significant for the study of the Guide’s reception: on the one hand, the passages cited correspond to the original Arabic, Ibn Tibbon’s or Al‑Ḥarizi’s translations, and, on the other hand, Ramon Martí chose to provide his own translation for all of them, even though it appears that a complete Latin translation had been circulating since the beginning of the 13th century (particularly in Dominican circles). The article is followed by several appendices, including the complete and comparative citation, on three columns, of each passage according to: 1) the 17th century editor, who uses several manuscript copies of the Pugio fidei, some of which are lost today; 2) Ibn Shmuel’s edition for Ibn Tibbon’s version; 3) the Paris manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Héb. 682) and Schlossberg’s edition for Al‑Ḥarizi’s version. For each of the passages, the critical apparatus also gives the alternative readings in the autograph manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève 1405), unknown by the editor, which is the most complete witness of the Pugio fidei’s textual tradition.

Keywords

• Ramon Martí
• Pugio fidei
• Ibn Tibbon
• Al‑Ḥarizi
• religious controversy
• predication