Pope Clement VIII — Caeca et Obdurata: Approval of the Constitutions of Paul IV and Pius V Concerning the Laws and Ordinances to Be Observed by Jews Everywhere; and Their Expulsion from All Cities and Lands of the Papal States Except Rome, Avignon, and Ancona (1593 AD)
The blind and hardened perfidy of the Hebrews is not only ungrateful to our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ, the Son of God, promised to them and born according to the flesh from the seed of David, but does not even acknowledge the great mercy of holy Mother Church, patiently awaiting their conversion; and what is more, repaying Christian piety with injury in place of grace, it does not cease every day to commit so many enormous excesses, to perpetrate so many detestable crimes, to the grievous harm of the very Christians who, as testimony of the true faith and in memory of the Lord’s Passion, and so that they may at length repent, mercifully tolerate and receive them — so that we, moved by the grave complaints brought to us on this account, are constrained by the duty of our pastoral office to apply some timely remedy to this evil.
§ 1–2. Paul IV had prescribed certain laws for Jews in the Papal States; Pius V renewed them and expelled the Jews from all places except Rome and Ancona
Formerly, Paul Pope IV, our predecessor of happy memory, through his letters issued in the first year of his pontificate, had at that time, with sound and salutary counsel, prescribed certain laws which the Jews dwelling in the lands of the ecclesiastical dominion were bound to observe. And afterwards Pius Pope V, likewise our predecessor of revered memory, not only renewed those same laws, but also abrogating many indults and privileges by the obtaining of which the Jews were defending themselves against those same laws, restored and firmly commanded those same laws to be observed against them; and finally through other letters of his commanded them to go into perpetual exile from all cities, lands, and places of the temporal ecclesiastical dominion, save only Rome and Ancona, as is more fully contained in their letters.
§ 3. The Jews gradually obtained many indults against those laws from subsequent popes; abusing them to the grave harm of Christians
Since, however, though these measures proceeded from this Holy See with excellent reason, the Jews themselves in the course of time little by little attempted to free themselves from these bonds, and perhaps from other of our predecessors — who, in order to attract them from their darkness to the knowledge of the true faith, judged that the mildness of Christian piety should not be denied them — extorted some tolerances or indults concerning these matters; and then afterwards, abusing them contrary to the pious intention of those same predecessors, they proceeded so far that against divine, natural, and human laws, with great and serious usury on monies which they exact especially from the poor and needy, with illicit monopolies and usurious agreements, with frauds and deceits in contracting, they miserably drained, circumvented, despoiled of their goods, and above all reduced to extreme poverty and beggary — indeed very nearly to servitude — very many citizens and inhabitants of the ecclesiastical temporal dominion wherever they dwell, but especially humble men and above all country-dwellers and simple people; and moreover they committed many other and more serious crimes and outrages, and most willingly lent their services and what assistance they could to every depraved and wicked person in perpetrating crimes.
§ 4. Clement VIII renews and confirms Paul IV’s and Pius V’s constitutions; revokes all contrary indults
We therefore, led by these and other most grave reasons, have judged that this nation must absolutely be expelled from most of our peoples — among whom experience has taught that it brings far more harm than any good that can be hoped from it. And yet, lest when wholly cast out from our dominion it turn to nations that do not know Christ and thereby recede further from the way of salvation promised by the prophetic voice to the remnant of Israel, we have decided not to expel it from certain larger cities near us where it can more easily be kept within the bonds of law and by the severity of judges in its duty. And accordingly, following in the footsteps of those same predecessors Paul and Pius, we first of all approve and renew their constitutions and letters, whose tenors we wish to be held as expressed in these presents, and add to them the force of perpetual, inviolable, and unshaken firmness.
Then, instructed by experience and the facts themselves, all and each of the things — if any perchance were granted by Pius IV of holy memory, Sixtus V, and other Roman Pontiff predecessors of ours, or on their command as is asserted, in favor of those same Jews, both in the beloved City itself and in whatever other cities, lands, towns, and places of the temporal ecclesiastical dominion where they dwell, whether in general or in particular, even by motu proprio, or under pretext of a cause and an onerous title, even inducing the force of a solemnly concluded bilateral contract, or otherwise granted — privileges, permissions, indults, or chapters, all and each of whose tenors we hold as expressed and inserted word for word in these presents, insofar as they are contrary to or concede anything beyond the aforesaid constitutions and letters of those same predecessors Paul and Pius V and the present letters, we by the tenor of these presents revoke, cancel, abolish, and annul, and decree them to be and to remain void, cancelled, and wholly null.
§ 6. All Jews ordered to depart the Papal States within three months; exceptions for Rome, Avignon, and Ancona only; severe penalties for remaining
By this our constitution, to be perpetually valid, we command and mandate that all and whatever Jews of either sex dwelling in whatever cities, even the Bolognese and Beneventan, towns, lands, castles, and places — even of those holding any jurisdiction, preeminence, title, insignia, or exemption under the same temporal dominion — shall depart entirely, within three months to be counted from the day of publication of the present letters in the Roman Curia, from the boundaries of that same temporal and Ecclesiastical State, and go elsewhere. And we command those — both those who are now there and others who may perhaps attempt to enter the said State hereafter — to remain in perpetuity hereafter absent from all the aforesaid temporal dominion without any hope of return, except only for the city of Rome, the Avignonian city, and the city of Ancona; so that whatever Jews, whether travelers, present, or future, found at any time after the lapse of the aforesaid term in whatever city, town, place, or location of the said dominion, even of those of the aforesaid domicellans and barons, shall be despoiled of all their goods, and those goods applied to the treasury; and each one of them who shall be found of sufficient age and bodily strength to sustain that punishment shall by that very fact be condemned to the galleys for the rest of his life. And this shall be everywhere observed throughout the whole aforesaid State — the city of Rome, the Avignonian city, and the city of Ancona excepted — and those who are now there or elsewhere within the aforesaid State, if they prefer to betake themselves to the said cities rather than elsewhere, and for the aforesaid reasons and for prosecuting trade, transactions, and commerce with the Oriental merchants — and because especially those who are near to our and this See’s sight, we hope will be restrained from crimes by fear of punishment and that at least some of them may more easily come to know the light of truth — we judge they are to be tolerated there.
§ 7. Those permitted in the three cities commanded to observe the statutes of those cities and all apostolic constitutions concerning Jews
But to those same Jews — all and singular — whom we permit to dwell in only the three aforesaid cities, we command that they inviolably observe the statutes of the aforesaid cities concerning the favor of Christians, and also the edicts of the Ordinaries and magistrates, and especially our own and the aforesaid Paul IV’s and Pius V’s predecessors’ and other apostolic and canonical constitutions which dispose anything concerning those same Jews.
Given at Rome, at the Quirinal Hill, in the year of the Lord’s Incarnation 1593, on the fifth day before the Kalends of March, in the second year of our pontificate.
Dated February 25, 1593; pontificate year 2.
Source. Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. X, pp. 22–25. Pope Clement VIII, Caeca et Obdurata, on the approval of Paul IV’s and Pius V’s constitutions concerning the Jews and their expulsion from the Papal States. Translated from the Latin.