| This dissertation analyzes the theology of nature of the Hasidei Ashkenaz (German Pietists), a school of Jewish moralists and speculative theologians who flourished during the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. While the Pietists are generally depicted as intellectually-isolated and concerned solely with the mystical and otherworldly, I argue that the natural order as a whole, and its microcosm, the human body, were central to Pietistic thought. Moreover, their writings on these subjects mirror those of contemporary Christian thinkers, who were increasingly preoccupied with the interplay between science and theology. Many of the ostensibly supernatural elements of Pietistic thought—their writings on monsters, wonders, magic, demons, and so on—are in fact rooted in high medieval debates over the very boundaries between the realms of the natural and supernatural. This study thus reassesses the interplay between medieval European Jews and Christians, and helps to chart the limits of and boundaries between science and mysticism in the high Middle Ages. |
