The following documents are drawn from the Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XVII, which covers the final years of Alexander VII (1662–1667) and the full pontificate of Clement IX (1667–1669). After a comprehensive search of the entire 106,000-line volume for all terms associated with Jews — including Iudaei, Hebraei, synagoga, ghetto, neophyti, cathecumeni, iudaica caecitas, iudaica perfidia, and related vocabulary — two documents bear substantively on the Jews, both issued by Alexander VII in spring 1663 and both — remarkably — issued within six weeks of each other.
The first, Constitution CDXXIX (March 6, 1663), is a comprehensive confirmation and renewal of all privileges granted since Paul III to the Archiconfraternity of the Annunciation of Neophytes and Catechumens of Rome — the institution that housed, fed, catechized, and supported Jews who had converted or were in the process of converting to Christianity. It is an unusually long and complex document, incorporating texts of earlier papal briefs going back to Pius IV and recording the full institutional history of the house for converts in Rome.
The second, Constitution CDXXXIII (April 17, 1663), is the beatification breve of Pedro de Arbués, the first inquisitor of Aragon, who was assassinated in the cathedral of Zaragoza in 1485 by a group of conversos — descendants of Jews who had converted to Christianity — acting out of fear of the Inquisition’s investigations. His beatification, nearly two centuries after his death, carries enormous weight in the history of Jewish-Christian relations: it enshrined the official narrative that his murderers were motivated by “Jewish perfidy,” made him a martyr of the faith against Jewish hatred, and placed the imprimatur of papal sanctity on the Aragonese Inquisition that he had served.
Clement IX’s brief pontificate (1667–1669) produced no documents touching explicitly on Jews in this volume.
I. Pope Alexander VII — Confirmatio et, Quatenus Opus Sit, Innovatio Brevium Pii IV et in Eis Relatarum, Necnon Pii V Litterarum, ad Favorem Domus seu Hospitalis ac Archiconfraternitatis et Monasterii SS. Annunciationis Neophytorum et Cathecumenorum de Urbe: Confirmation and, Insofar as Necessary, Renewal of the Briefs of Pius IV and Those Cited Therein, and the Letters of Pius V, in Favor of the House, Hospital, Archiconfraternity, and Monastery of the Most Holy Annunciation of Neophytes and Catechumens of Rome (March 6, 1663)
Constitution CDXXIX. Alexander VII, year VIII. Dated at Rome, at Santa Maria Maggiore, under the Fisherman’s Ring, March 6, 1663, pontificate year VIII. Source: Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XVII, pp. 135–144.
Preamble: The Pope’s duty toward those who have emerged from Jewish blindness
Alexander VII, to perpetual memory of the matter.
Acting as — though unworthy — the vicar on earth of Him who enlightens every man coming into this world, we attend with devoted care to the state of all the faithful, and especially of those who, having been converted by God’s gift from Jewish blindness (ex iudaicà caecitate) to the knowledge of the true light, have devoted themselves to divine service under the sweet yoke of religion, and assiduously labor at the works of Christian charity and piety.
§1. The petition of Cardinal Odescalchi, protector of the house of neophytes
Our beloved son Benedict, Cardinal-Priest of the title of Sant’Onofrio called Odescalchi, the current protector of the house or hospital and archiconfraternity and monastery of the Most Holy Annunciation of the Neophytes and Catechumens of Rome with us and the Apostolic See, has lately set forth to us that — although the happy-memory Pope Pius IV, our predecessor, had by certain letters in the form of a brief issued January 23, 1560, approved and confirmed by apostolic authority the indults, privileges, and graces granted by various Roman Pontiffs, his and our predecessors, to the said house or hospital and archiconfraternity and monastery — there afterward issued from the same Pius IV other letters likewise in the form of a brief, of which the tenor is as follows:
[The document then incorporates verbatim the text of Pius IV’s brief, which itself incorporates Paul III’s founding grants. The substance of Paul III’s original establishment, as narrated in the incorporated text, is as follows:]
Pius IV, to perpetual memory. Among the other concerns of the Roman Pontiff who bears Christ’s vicar on earth, that concern above all urges his mind — to lead back to the bosom of the Church those whom Satan’s perfidy has alienated from Christ’s faith. It is fitting that he add the strength of apostolic protection to those things which his predecessors are said to have providently done and granted for the benefit of neophytes.
§2 [incorporated]. The praepositus, administrator, rector, governor, economist, ministers, and other persons of the archiconfraternity of the converted Jews, Hebrews, and infidels of our beloved City set forth to us that — while the happy-memory Paul III, our predecessor, upon learning that certain Hebrews or Jews, divinely inspired, had cast off the shadowy blindness in which they were then held and, converted to the knowledge of the true light, had been cleansed at the font of holy Baptism; and that, on account of the diverse gifts and graces granted to them by the benignity of the Apostolic See, very many other Hebrews or Jews, inflamed by a similar desire, wished to cast off that same blindness and to acknowledge the true light of God — since there existed in the said City no place in which those so converted from Jewish blindness to the faith of Christ could be received, Paul III, inclined by the supplications then presented to him on behalf of Giovanni da Torano, rector of the parish church of Saint John of the Market in the Campitelli district of the City, granted to the same Giovanni license and faculty to have constructed, from goods bestowed on him by God and from the alms of the faithful, one monastery for girls and one hospital, under the invocation of Saint Joseph or another as seemed good to Giovanni, for men — Jews and others to be converted to the faith of Christ — near the said church of Saint John; and after it was built, he erected it perpetually as a monastery and hospital of the said converted Jews, and applied and appropriated to them in perpetuity all goods given and to be given to them for their endowment; and in the said monastery and hospital he instituted one archiconfraternity as the head of all other confraternities and hospitals, monasteries, and other places of converts wherever instituted and erected, subjecting those confraternities, monasteries, hospitals and places immediately to that archiconfraternity as members dependent upon it.
§4. The disputed jurisdictional question: Gregory XV’s constitution versus the protector’s privileges
Between the said Cardinal Odescalchi as protector on one side, and the Vicar General of Rome in spiritual matters on the other side — the latter claiming that the privileges and exemptions granted to the house or hospital and monastery by the Pius IV briefs could not stand against Gregory XV’s constitution Inscrutabili, decrees of the Congregation of the Council, and a further decree issued September 29, 1660, by a congregation of cardinals and prelates on the apostolic visitation of the churches and pious places of the City — certain controversies and dissensions had arisen concerning the exercise of jurisdiction and exemption in the said monastery, to the not-inconsiderable detriment of spiritual discipline and divine worship.
§5. Alexander VII’s resolution: the protector’s jurisdiction is confirmed; Gregory XV’s constitution cannot impede it
We therefore, wishing by our own motion — not at any person’s instance, but from our certain knowledge and our pure liberality and from the fullness of apostolic power — to provide that what was providently ordained by our said predecessors through those letters concerning the governance, administration, direction, and jurisdiction of the said house or hospital and monastery should have its full effect in all things and remain inviolate and uninjured, by the tenor of the present letters confirm and approve the Pius IV letters and Pius V letters aforesaid and all their contents, and as far as is necessary newly issue them.
§5 [continued]. Decreeing that the constitution of Gregory XV our predecessor, and any other apostolic constitutions and ordinances and resolutions and decrees issued thereon — as far as they might impede the free exercise of jurisdiction, both spiritual and temporal, over the said house or hospital and monastery, granted to the said Cardinal Odescalchi and the protector for the time being by those Pius IV and incorporated letters — shall in no way obtain or have place; but that the said Odescalchi and the protectors for the time being shall be able and obligated to use, enjoy, and avail themselves freely of the privileges, exemptions, prerogatives, and other things granted to them by those Pius IV letters, in all things and throughout, exactly as if the said Gregory XV constitution and the said resolutions and decrees had not been issued with respect to this matter.
§6. [Standard derogation clause, stripping force from all contrary provisions including Gregory XV’s Inscrutabili as applied to this institution’s protector.]
Given at Rome, at Santa Maria Maggiore, under the Fisherman’s Ring, March 6, 1663, in the eighth year of our pontificate.
Source. Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XVII, pp. 135–144. Alexander VII, Constitution CDXXIX, Confirmatio, et, quatenus opus sit, innovatio Brevium Pii IV et in eis relatarum, necnon Pii V litterarum, ad favorem domus seu hospitalis ac archiconfraternitatis et monasterii SS. Annunciationis neophytorum et cathecumenorum de Urbe, cum decreto quod Gregorii XV aliaeque super exemptorum privilegiis emanatae constitutiones apostolicae, quoad impediendum liberum exercitium iurisdictionis tam spiritualis quam temporalis in domo seu hospitali ac monasterio praedictis cardinali protectori pro tempore existenti per Brevia praedicta concessum, nequaquam locum habeant, March 6, 1663. Translated from the Latin.
Historical note. The Archiconfraternity of the Most Holy Annunciation of Neophytes and Catechumens — the casa dei neofiti — was Rome’s principal institution for the reception and integration of Jewish converts to Christianity. Founded under Paul III in 1543, it provided housing, food, clothing, a dowry for women who converted, vocational training, and legal protection to converts during the vulnerable period after baptism when they had left the ghetto community but not yet established themselves in Christian society. The institution was headed by a cardinal protector and enjoyed extensive privileges exempting it from the jurisdiction of the ordinary diocesan authorities — a privilege that had generated repeated conflict with successive Vicars General of Rome and with the regulatory framework established by Gregory XV’s Inscrutabili (1622), which had generally subjected exempt institutions to renewed episcopal oversight.
Constitution CDXXIX resolves this jurisdictional conflict squarely in the protector’s favor. Its practical effect is to insulate the casa dei neofiti from the Vicar General’s jurisdiction — including from the apostolic visitation program Alexander VII himself had established in 1660 — and to re-anchor its governance in the chain of privileges running from Paul III through Pius IV and Pius V. The protector (Cardinal Odescalchi, the future Pope Innocent XI) retains sole authority over the institution.
What the document reveals incidentally is the full early history of the casa dei neofiti as narrated in the incorporated Pius IV brief: Paul III’s 1543 decision to build it near San Giovanni de’ Mercato in the Campitelli district, the original dedication to Saint Joseph, the subsequent move under Pius V to the church of San Basilio in the Monti district, and the institution of the archiconfraternity as head of all similar institutions for converts throughout Christendom. The document also confirms that the institution operated both a monastery for female converts and a hospital for male converts — a gendered structure reflecting the different social situations of men and women who left the ghetto community.
The language used for Jews throughout this document is unvarying: they are held in “blindness” (caecitas), from which conversion brings “light.” The archiconfraternity itself is described as serving “converted Jews, Hebrews, and infidels” — a grouping that reveals the institution’s self-understanding as addressing not only Roman Jews but all non-Christians who might convert. The financial dimension is also significant: the casa dei neofiti was funded in part by the compulsory ten-ducat annual tribute on every Hebrew synagogue in the Papal States (see Vols. VII and XIV), meaning the Jewish community was involuntarily subsidizing the institution designed to facilitate defections from it.
II. Pope Alexander VII — Breve Beatificationis Petri de Arbues, Canonici Metropolitanae Ecclesiae Caesaraugustanae, Primi Inquisitoris in Regno Aragoniae: The Beatification Breve of Pedro de Arbués, Canon of the Metropolitan Church of Zaragoza and First Inquisitor in the Kingdom of Aragon (April 17, 1663)
Constitution CDXXXIII. Alexander VII, year IX. Dated at Rome, at Santa Maria Maggiore, under the Fisherman’s Ring, April 17, 1663, pontificate year IX. Source: Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XVII, pp. 154–156.
Preamble: The honor due to Christ’s strongest athletes
Alexander VII, to perpetual memory of the matter.
Just as the righteous Judge crowns in heaven with the crown of justice the strongest athletes of Christ who have come through great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, and through whose precious death religion has been defended, faith enriched, and the Church strengthened — so it is fitting that they be honored on earth with the devout veneration of the faithful, so that those who stand before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple may deign to aid our weakness with their intercession. To this end, intent with devoted care on our pastoral office by which, by divine appointment, we preside over the governance of the Catholic Church, we gladly hear the pious entreaties of the Catholic faithful.
§1. The cause of Pedro de Arbués: martyrdom at the hands of men infected with Jewish perfidy
Since, therefore, at the prayers of our most beloved son in Christ Philip, Catholic King of the Spains, and of our beloved sons the Grand Inquisitor and all the ministers of the holy Inquisition of the Spains, and of the deputies especially in the Kingdom of Aragon against heretical depravity, and also of the chapter of the metropolitan church, clergy, jurors, and people of the city of Zaragoza, processes were duly and rightly drawn up concerning the holiness of life, virtues, martyrdom, cause of martyrdom, the prodigy of the effervescence and multiplication of blood, and other miracles wrought by God through the intercession of the servant of God Pedro de Arbués — called in his lifetime Master of Épila — canon of the said metropolitan church of Zaragoza and first inquisitor in the said Kingdom of Aragon appointed by apostolic authority:
who, while faithfully and with the greatest zeal for the Catholic faith exercising the office of inquisitor, was savagely cut down by certain notary assassins infected with Jewish perfidy (iudaicà perfidia infectis), out of hatred of the same Catholic faith, and was asserted to have received the palm of martyrdom;
and those same processes were most carefully discussed in the congregation of our venerable brothers the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church appointed to the sacred rites, and a full and distinct report of all that was done in the cause was at last made before us — and the said congregation of cardinals, with our assent, judged that it could at some point safely proceed to the solemn canonization of the said servant of God Pedro Arbués, in accordance with the rite of the Holy Roman Church and the disposition of the sacred canons, in view of the fact that this concerns a martyr with a prodigy and miracles maturely discussed and formally approved:
§2. The beatification: title, cult, office, feast day
Hence it is that we, inclined by the pious supplications humbly presented to us regarding this matter by the said King Philip, inquisitors, chapter, clergy, jurors, and people, and by the counsel and unanimous assent of the said cardinals, grant that the said servant of God Pedro Arbués shall henceforth be called by the name of Blessed; and that his body and relics may be exposed to the veneration of the faithful (not, however, to be carried about in processions); that images of him may be adorned with rays or splendors; and that the office of him shall be recited under the double rite, and mass shall be celebrated of him as a martyr who was not a bishop, each year according to the rubrics of the Roman breviary and missal, on September 17, the day on which he gave up his spirit to his Creator.
These things in the following places only: in the cathedral church of Zaragoza, where the canon received the palm of martyrdom and where his body rests; in the churches of the General Inquisition of the Spains and of Saint Martin of the Inquisition of the Kingdom of Aragon, where he exercised and received by apostolic authority the office of inquisitor; and in the mother church of the town of Épila, where he was born — and as far as masses are concerned, also by the assembled priests.
§3–5. The beatification celebrations; standard clauses
§3. Furthermore — for the present year only, reckoning from the date of these letters — we grant the faculty of celebrating the solemnities of his beatification in the above-named churches with the office and mass under the greater double rite, on a day to be established by the Ordinary and announced within six months. In Rome, in the church of Santa Maria of Montserrat of the nation of the Kingdom of Aragon, we permit the same to be celebrated within two months, however only after those solemnities have been celebrated in the Basilica of the Prince of the Apostles.
§4. Notwithstanding apostolic constitutions and ordinances, and the decrees on non-cult issued thereon, and all other contraries whatsoever.
§5. We will moreover that the same faith shall be given everywhere, both in court and outside it, to transcripts or copies of the present letters — even printed ones — subscribed by the hand of the secretary of the aforesaid congregation of cardinals appointed to the sacred rites and sealed with the seal of its prefect, as would be given to the present letters themselves if they were exhibited or shown.
Given at Rome, at Santa Maria Maggiore, under the Fisherman’s Ring, April 17, 1663, in the ninth year of our pontificate.
Source. Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XVII, pp. 154–156. Alexander VII, Constitution CDXXXIII, Breve beatificationis Petri de Arbues, canonici metropolitanae ecclesiae Caesaraugustanae, primi inquisitoris in regno Aragoniae, April 17, 1663. Translated from the Latin.
Historical note. The beatification of Pedro de Arbués is one of the most consequential documents in the entire Bullarium series for the history of Jewish-Christian relations — not because of its legal effects on Jews directly, but because of its symbolic and theological meaning within the architecture of anti-Jewish Catholic tradition.
Pedro de Arbués (c. 1441–1485) was a canon of Zaragoza cathedral who was appointed in 1484 as one of the first inquisitors of the newly established Aragonese Inquisition under Tomás de Torquemada. The Inquisition’s jurisdiction extended specifically to baptized Christians — and in Aragon in the 1480s, this meant above all the large population of conversos: descendants of Jews who had converted to Christianity, many under duress following the 1391 pogroms and the 1412–1414 campaigns of Vincent Ferrer. The Inquisition investigated whether these conversos were secretly continuing to practice Judaism — a crime against the faith that could result in execution. Arbués was part of this apparatus from its beginning.
On September 14–15, 1485, Arbués was stabbed while praying at his seat in Zaragoza cathedral, and died the following day. The assassins were a group of converso families who feared that the Inquisition’s investigations would expose their secret Judaizing and destroy them. The conspiracy reached into some of the wealthiest and most prominent converso families in Aragon. The reprisals were severe: dozens were tried, executed, and had their property confiscated. The murdered inquisitor’s blood was reported to have miraculously boiled and flowed, and he was immediately hailed as a martyr.
The beatification breve’s language is precise in its attribution. Arbués was killed by “certain notary assassins infected with Jewish perfidy” (a notariis quibusdam sicariis, iudaicà perfidia infectis) — a formulation that attributes the assassination not to specific individuals acting for specific personal reasons of self-preservation but to an essence, a quality of character (“infected” with “Jewish perfidy”), as if the crime were an expression of Judaism itself rather than of fear. The phrase iudaica perfidia — “Jewish perfidy” — was a standard term of theological opprobrium with a history stretching back through the medieval period to the patristic era; its deployment here in a formal papal document beatifying a martyr gave it renewed official weight.
The cause of martyrdom as established is equally significant. Arbués was killed not for his personal virtue but for his office: in odium eiusdem catholicae fidei, “out of hatred of the Catholic faith.” This made his assassination not a political act by frightened conversos trying to protect their families and property, but a religious act of aggression against the faith — which in turn made him a martyr in the technical theological sense, killed out of hatred of Christianity. The implication is that the conversos who killed him, despite their baptism, were motivated by their residual Judaism — by the “perfidy” they had inherited — rather than by any comprehensible secular motive.
The document also establishes the geography of the new cult: it is strictly limited to Zaragoza cathedral, the churches of the Spanish Inquisition, the church of his birthplace, and (in Rome) the Aragonese national church. The cult is thus from the beginning explicitly institutional — tied to the Inquisition itself — and nationally bounded. The Spanish Inquisition had long sought Arbués’s beatification as a vindication of its mission; Alexander VII’s grant came at a moment when the Inquisition remained active and its authority over conversos and the question of crypto-Judaism in Spain remained live.
Arbués was eventually canonized in 1867 by Pius IX, at the same consistory that beatified a large group of Japanese martyrs and the Ugandan martyrs — a moment when the papacy was under political siege from the new Italian state, and the canonization of an inquisitor and a set of martyrs to non-Christian violence carried clear political resonances. The 1663 beatification by Alexander VII was the necessary first step in that process.