Alfonso, Pedro

Alfonso, Pedro formerly rabbi Moses of Huesca, in Aragon, was born in 1062. At the age of forty-four he was baptized in the cathedral of his native city, on St. Peter's day, and in honor of the saint and his godfather, the king Alfonso, he took the name of Pedro Alfonso. He was, besides being physician to the king, Alfonso VI, a very learned and fine writer of the mediseval Church, highly praised by all Spanish writers. He wrote a defence of Christianity, and a refutation of Jewish incredulities, in the form of a dialogue between Moses and Pedro Alfonso, under the title of, Dialogi in quibus Impiae

Judaeorum Opiniones Credentissimis tom Naturalis quam Coelestis Philosophiae Argumentis Confutantur, etc. (Cologne, 1536), a work spoken of in high terms, and which has since been in great use in Spain. He also wrote a Disciplina Clericalis, a very popular book, which was translated into French in the 13th century. The date of Alfonso's death is not known. The Disciplina Clericalis was edited by F.W.V. Schmidt (Berlin, 1827). See Furst, Bibl. Jud. 1:36; Kalkar, Israel und die Kirche, page 22; Bartolocci, Bibl. Rabb. 4:69; Antonii Bibl. Hisp. 2:7; Wolf, Bibl. Hebr. 3, No. 1824; Lindo, History of the Jews of Spain and Portugal (London, 1848), page 55; Furst, in Delitzsch's Saat auf Hoffnung (1876), 13:142 sq. (B.P.)