Compiled for traditional Catholic scholarly purposes from the standard edition:
Thomas de Cantimpré, O.P. Bonum Universale de Apibus. Ed. Georgius Colvenerius. Douai: Balthazar Bellerus, 1627.
Full text available: https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_UM5bV2aYqGAC
About the Author
Blessed Thomas of Cantimpré, O.P. (Sint-Pieters-Leeuw, 1201 — Louvain, 15 May 1272) was a Flemish Dominican theologian, encyclopedist, hagiographer, and preacher, born of noble parentage in the Duchy of Brabant. Educated at Liège under the trivium and quadrivium, he entered the Canons Regular of St. Augustine at the Abbey of Cantimpré near Cambrai in 1217. After fifteen years as a canon and priest, he transferred to the Order of Preachers at Leuven in 1232, subsequently studying under Blessed Albertus Magnus at Cologne and later at Paris. He served as Magister of philosophy and theology at Leuven from ca. 1240, becoming subprior and lector in 1246. The final period of his life was spent as an itinerant preacher throughout Brabant, Germany, Belgium, and France, for which he received the title Praedicator Generalis. He is venerated as Blessed by the Order of Preachers.
His two major works are the De Natura Rerum (ca. 1228–1244), a twenty-book natural encyclopedia used by preachers, and the Bonum Universale de Apibus (The Universal Good of Bees, ca. 1256–1263), dedicated to Blessed Humbert of Romans, then Master General of the Friars Preachers. The Bonum Universale is a compendium of moral theology, practical clerical instruction, and exempla, organized around the sustained allegory of the beehive and its inhabitants. It survives in over 120 manuscripts and was printed at Deventer (before 1478), Paris, and three times at Douai (1597, 1605, 1627). The first modern critical edition, with German translation, was produced by Julia Burkhardt (Von Bienen lernen, Schnell & Steiner, 2020).
The Blood Libel Passage: Book II, Chapter 29, §23
Background and Significance
The Bonum Universale contains the first systematic and extended literary theorization of the Blood Accusation in Latin literature — a passage so historically influential that modern scholarship identifies it as the founding document of the Blood Libel accusation as a literary and theological genre. The relevant section is found in Book II, Chapter 29, §23, under the chapter heading:
“Cur Iudaei Christianum sanguinem effundant quotannis.”
“Why the Jews shed Christian blood every year.”
This section is remarkable for three interlocking theological arguments, all belonging squarely to the Adversus Judaeos tradition inherited by the medieval Dominicans from the Fathers:
- Deicide and hereditary punishment: Thomas grounds the Jews’ alleged affliction in the deicidal cry of Matthew 27:25 (“His blood be upon us and upon our children”), arguing that the Jewish people as a whole have inherited a bodily punishment — a shameful, flowing affliction — as the direct consequence of their acceptance of guilt for the Crucifixion.
- Jewish spiritual blindness (caecitas): The Jews’ misinterpretation of their own prophetic tradition — taking a figurative prophecy in a literal, carnal sense — is attributed to their permanent spiritual blindness (caeci semper Iudaei). This connects the passage to the ancient patristic doctrine of caecitas Iudaeorum, classically treated by St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom.
- Supersessionism and the only cure: Thomas’s Jewish convert-informant reveals that the “Christian blood” prescribed by their own prophet as the only cure for their affliction was in fact the Eucharistic Blood of Christ — available only through conversion and reception of the Sacraments. The diaspora and its sufferings end only in baptism.
Thomas attributes his theological information to a Jewish convert, identified by modern scholars (H. L. Strack, Albert Ehrman) as most probably Nicholas Donin, the apostate French Jew who in 1239–1240 brought the charges against the Talmud before Pope Gregory IX that led to the Paris Disputation and the burning of the Talmud in 1242.
The Latin Text and Translation
I. Section Heading
(Bonum Universale de Apibus, II.29, chapter heading; Colvenerius ed., p. 304)
Latin:
Cur Iudaei Christianum sanguinem effundant quotannis.
English:
Why the Jews shed Christian blood every year.
II. The Annual Lot — The Organized Conspiracy of the Jewish Communities
(Bonum Universale de Apibus, II.29.23, p. 304; Colvenerius ed., Douai 1627)
Latin:
“Certissime sciatis, Iudaeos de singulis provinciis sorte decidere, qua congregatio vel quam civitas sanguinem Christianum ad caeteras congregationes mittere debet.”
English:
“Know most certainly that the Jews of every province decide by lot which congregation or which city is to send Christian blood to the other congregations.”
(Cited in: “Blood Accusation,” Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906, s.v., referencing II.29.23 of the Colvenerius edition)
III. The Theological Justification: Deicide, Blindness, Diaspora, and Supersession
(Bonum Universale de Apibus, II.29.23, pp. 304–306; Colvenerius ed., Douai 1627)
The following passage constitutes the theological heart of the section, immediately following the narrative exemplum of the ritual murder of a young Christian girl. In it, Thomas gives the theological rationale for the alleged Jewish practice, drawing on a conversation with a Jewish convert:
Latin:
“…facinoris, per macula sanguinis; ut per hanc importune fluidam proles impia inexpiabiliter crucietur, quousque se ream sanguinis Christi recognoscat poenitens, et sanetur.
Praeterea audivi quendam litteratissimum Iudeorum nostris temporis conversum ad fidem, dixisse: quendam quasi prophetam eorum in extremo vitae prophetasse Iudeis, dicentem,
Certissime vos, inquit, scitote nullo modo sanari vos posse ab illo quo punimini verecundissimo cruciatu, nisi solo sanguine Christiano.
Quod verbum caeci semper Iudaei et impii rapientes, induxerunt omni anno in omni provincia fundendum sanguinem Christianum, ut tali sanguine convalescant.
Et addidit: Male, inquit, intellexerunt verbum, sanguinem intelligentes Christiani cuilibet; sed prorsus illum sanguinem, qui in salutem peccaminum quotidie funditur in altari, quem, quicunque nostrum conversus ad fidem Christi, sumpserit ut decuerit, mox sanatur ab illa maledictione paterna.”
English:
“…of the crime, through the stain of blood; so that through this inopportune, ever-flowing [affliction] the wicked offspring may be inexpiably tormented, until, repenting, it shall acknowledge itself guilty of the blood of Christ, and be healed.
Moreover, I heard a certain most learned man among the Jews of our time, converted to the faith, say: that a certain one who was as it were a prophet among them had, at the end of his life, prophesied to the Jews, saying:
‘Know most certainly,’ he said, ‘that in no way can you be healed from that most shameful torment by which you are punished, except by Christian blood alone.’
This saying the Jews — always blind and always impious — seizing upon it, ordained that every year in every province Christian blood is to be shed, so that by such blood they might grow strong.
And he [the convert] added: ‘They misunderstood the saying,’ he said, ‘understanding it of the blood of any Christian whatsoever; but it is wholly that blood which is daily poured out on the altar for the salvation of sins — which whoever among us, converted to the faith of Christ, shall have received as is fitting, is at once healed from that paternal curse.'”
(Latin text cited verbatim in: Irven M. Resnick, “Cruentation, Medieval Anti-Jewish Polemic, and Ritual Murder,” Antisemitism Studies 3, no. 1 [2019], p. 104, n. 36; explicitly identified as Bonum Universale de Apibus, II.29.23, pp. 304–306, Colvenerius ed.)
Commentary on the Theological Themes
Deicide and Hereditary Guilt (“proles impia… ream sanguinis Christi”):
The phrase “se ream sanguinis Christi recognoscat” — “it acknowledges itself guilty of the blood of Christ” — is a direct application of Matthew 27:25: “Sanguis eius super nos et super filios nostros” (“His blood be upon us and upon our children”). Thomas treats the deicidal cry not merely as a historical event but as a self-imposed hereditary curse actively perpetuated in each generation of Jews. The affliction (cruciatus) from which they suffer is presented as simultaneously bodily punishment and providential summons to repentance. This reflects the mainstream patristic teaching: the dispersed, suffering condition of the Jewish people as sign and consequence of their rejection and murder of the Messiah.
Jewish Spiritual Blindness (“caeci semper Iudaei”):
The phrase “caeci semper Iudaei et impii” — “the Jews, always blind and always impious” — is one of the starkest expressions of the patristic doctrine of caecitas Iudaeorum in any medieval Latin text. The adverb semper (always) is decisive: Thomas is not describing an accidental or correctable ignorance, but a constitutive, habitual blindness to the spiritual meaning of their own Scripture. The Jews cannot read their own prophets correctly because they read carnally (literally, ad litteram) rather than spiritually (spiritualiter). This is the classical Augustinian diagnosis: the Jews carry the Scriptures as blind men carry a lantern that illuminates the road for others but not for themselves.
The Diaspora as Divine Punishment (“maledictio paterna”):
The term “maledictio paterna” — “the paternal curse” — is Thomas’s name for the collective punishment inherited by the Jewish people from the cry of Matthew 27:25. It is “paternal” in the sense of ancestral — passed from the fathers to the children, as Scripture itself prophesied (cf. Dt 28; Lv 26). This framing understands the entire Jewish diaspora — its statelessness, wandering, subjection, and humiliation in Christian lands — as the living embodiment and ongoing temporal consequence of deicide. The scattered, suffering condition of the Jewish people functions as providential witness: testimony to the truth of the Crucifixion and to the justice of God.
Supersessionism (“illum sanguinem qui… funditur in altari”):
The climax of the passage is supersessionist: the “Christian blood alone” (solo sanguine Christiano) that can heal the Jews of their ancestral curse is the Eucharistic Blood of Christ poured out daily at the altar of the New Covenant — not the literal blood of Christians murdered in ritual. The Jewish prophetic word was spiritually true but carnally misread. This reversal is Thomas’s central theological move: the entire horror of the Blood Accusation narrative, as he presents it, flows ultimately from Jewish incapacity to read figurally. The cure is conversion and the Sacrament. The Jews who convert and receive Communion are healed instantly (mox sanatur) from their paternal curse.
Sources
- Primary Text (1627 edition):
Thomas de Cantimpré, O.P. Thomae Cantipratani… Bonum Universale de Apibus. Ed. Georgius Colvenerius. Douai: Balthazar Bellerus, 1627.
https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_UM5bV2aYqGAC - Critical Edition:
Burkhardt, Julia, ed. Von Bienen lernen: Das Bonum universale de apibus des Thomas von Cantimpré als Gemeinschaftsentwurf. Analyse, Edition, Übersetzung, Kommentar. 2 vols. Klöster als Innovationslabore, 7. Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2020. - Scholarly Article (source of the cited Latin text, II.29.23):
Resnick, Irven M. “Cruentation, Medieval Anti-Jewish Polemic, and Ritual Murder.” Antisemitism Studies 3, no. 1 (2019): 104–140.
https://doi.org/10.2979/ANTISTUD.3.1.05
https://www.academia.edu/103293964/Cruentation_Medieval_Anti_Jewish_Polemic_and_Ritual_Murder - Jewish Encyclopedia (English rendering of the “annual lot” passage):
“Blood Accusation.” Jewish Encyclopedia (1906).
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3408-blood-accusation - Wikipedia, Thomas of Cantimpré (section heading; identification of Nicholas Donin):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_of_Cantimpr%C3%A9 - Wikipedia, Blood Libel (identifies II.29.23 as the earliest literary formulation):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel - Burkhardt edition review:
Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale (2020).
https://journals.openedition.org/ccm/10449 - Catholic Encyclopedia, Thomas of Cantimpré:
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14693c.htm
All translations are the compiler’s own from the Latin. Theological commentary is offered in its historical context and in accordance with the patristic tradition (Augustine, Chrysostom) from which Thomas drew.