Pulgar, Isaac

Pulgar, Isaac, a Jewish convert to Christianity, flourished at Avila, in Spain, about 1300 to 1349. He was a friend of Abner of Burgos, better known (after his baptism) as Alphonso of Valladolid, against whom he afterwards wrote a polemical work entitled ס תשובות, "The Book of Answers." He also wrote, besides some other works which are still in MS., a work under the title וַכּוּחִ הִתּוֹנַי עַם הִפַּילוֹסוֹŠ, "A Contest between an Orthodox and a Philosopher," wherein he endeavors to reconcile the difference between philosophy and faith, and which was reprinted after a Paris MS. in the זקֵנַים טִעִם of E. Ashkenasi (Frankf. a. M. 1854), p. 12-19. Pulgar was the first to say that "the belief in the Messianic redemption is not an essential point of Judaism, with which it stands or falls, although many passages in the prophets speak of the coming of the Messiah." See Fiirst, Bibl. Jud. iii, 110 sq.; De Rossi, Dizionario Storico degli Autori Ebrei, p. 266 (Germ. transl. by Hamberger); the same, Bibliotheca Judaica Antichristiana, p. 93; Gratz, Geschichte der Juden, 7:337 sq., 485 sq. (2d ed. Leips. 1873); Wolf, Bibl. Hebr. i, 1259. (B. P.)