Toledo (French Tolct), Francisco de, a Spanish cardinal, was born at Cordova, Nov. 10, loo-i. Mis edu- cation was gained at the University of Salamanca, and, after receiving his degree, he taught |)hilosopby in the same institution. In 1558 he joinetl the .Jesuits, and was sent to Home to teach theology. Pius V, admiring his eliKiuencc, secnreil bis services as preacher in ordi- iiarv, and Toledo held the position under four succeed- ing popes. At the same lime he was councillor of the Inquisition, and was employed in many ecclesiastical eniDassies. Among others, be went to Germany to urge a league with I'ohind against the Turks. Clement VIII gave him tiio cardinal's hat in 1593. T(dedo died at Home, Sept. 14, 15'JO. His works are chieHy commen- taries: la Joaimvi Enanr/eUu/n (Rome, 1588) : — In XII Capita lioang. secunda Lucum (Venice, IGOl, fol.) : — In Kpislolain Panli ad Bomaiws (Rome, 1(J02, 4to) : — Snm- iiui Casiiiim Conscimtue (ibid. lt>02; Lyons, 1630, 4to). See Antonio, I3ihl. /lisp. Nova ; De Thou, Hist, sui Temp. — Hoefer, A'y«('. Biog. (Jenerule, s. v.
Toledo, Roderigo de, an eminent Spanish eccle- siastic, was born at IJada, in Navarre, about 1170. He was sent to I'aris to complete his education, and on Jiis return hc> attaciie<l himself to Sancho V, king of Na- varre, by whom he was employed to negotiate a peace with Alfonso VIII of Castile. Procuring the favor of Alfonso, he was appointed by him bish(>|) of Siguenza, and was afterwards made archbishop of Toledo. He showed great zeal in the freipient wars with the Moors, often directing in perso-n inroads uiK)n the iMohammedan territory. Nor did he have any less zeal for learning; he persuaded Alfonso to fouiul the University of Palen- cia. At the Fourth Lat.eran Council he not only ha- rangued the fathers in elegant Latin, but gained over the secular nobles and ambassadors by conversing with each of them in his mother tongue. He died in France in 1247, after attending the Council of Lyons convoked by Innocent IV. He wrote several historical works, most of which are still unedited.. His Renun in hispa- ni(i Gcsturuin Chrouicun ((iranada, 1545) is an invalu- able production. It was subse(piently published in a col- lection entitled lUspimia I Uiist nit a, hy Andreas Schott (Frankf. ir>03-8> 4 v(4s. fol.). He also, wrote, IlistoHa A riihinn, published in vol. ii of Andreas .Schott's collec- tion (1603); and subsecpiently (1625) by Krpennius, as an appendi.K to his llisloriu Sdracenicd of Georgiiis Kl- macin. He wrote a history of the Ostrogoths, of the Huns, Vandals, Sucvi, .Mans, and SiUngi, published by R. Bell, in the colleciion entitled Renim lliitpauicarum Scriptores Aliquot (Frankf. 1579, 3 vols, fol.) : — also Bre- viariitm Ecdesire Cdl/iolicce, and others still unedited, — Eiifj. Ci/rliip. Hid;/, s. v.
Toledoth Jeshu (ITT;' ninVn, i. e. History of
Jesus). Under this title a Jewish apocryphal work, or rather libel, is extant, purporting to give the history of Jesus. It tirsl became known to Christians in the loth centurj'; but who was the author of the Tolfduth Jeshu is not known. In reality, we have two such books, each called Toledoth Jeshu, not recensions of an earlier text, but indei)eiident collections of the stories circidating among the Jews relative to the life of Christ. The name of Jesus, which in Hebrew \a Joshua or Jehoshua, is in both contracted into Jeshu by the dropping of an Ain, V,r^ for "IT'^. Elias in Tishbi, s. v. "Jeshu," says,- " Because the Jews will not acknowledge him to be the Saviour, they do not call him Jeshua, but reject the Ain and call him Jeshu." Itabbi Abraham Perizol, or Farrissol, in his book Mcir/fjen Abraham, c. 59, says, " His name was Jeshua, but as rabbi Moses Maimonides has written it, and as we tind it throughout the Talmud, it is written Jeshu. They have carefully left out the Ain because he was not able to save himself." By omit- ting the A in, the Cabalists gave a signification to the name. In its curtailed form it is composed of the let- ters Jod, Shin, Vav, which are taken to stand for IT^^ 131~271 TC«, i. e. "his name and remembrance shaU be extinguished." Ihis is the reason given in the Toledoth Jeshu.
The Toledoth Jeshu was known to Luther, who con- densed it in his Schem llainphoras (see his Werke [Hemberg, 1566], v, 509-535), as the following passage (p. 515) will show: "The proud evil spirit carries on all sorts of mockery in this book. First he mocks God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and his Son Jesus Christ, as you may see for yourself, if you believe as a Christian that Christ is the Son of (iod. Next he mocks us, all Christendom, in that we believe in such a Son of God. Thirdly, he mocks his own fellow-Jews, telling them such disgraceful, foolish, senseless affairs, as of brazen dogs and cabbage-stalks and such like, enough to make all dogs bark themselves to death, if they could under- stand it, at such a pack of idiotic, blustering, raging, non- sensical fools. Is not that a masterpiece of mockery which can thus work all three at once? The fourth mockery is this, that whoever wrote it has made a fo(d of himself, as we, thank God, may see any day." Vol- taire also knew the work ; for in his Lettres sur les Juifs ((Euvres, i, 69, p. 36) he says, "L2 Toledos Jeschu est le plus ancien ecrit Juif qui nous ait ete transmis contre notre religion. C'est une vie de Jesus- Christ, toute contraire a nos Saints Evangiles : elle parait etre dii premier siecle, et meme ecrite avant les evangiles." He evidently seems to identify this work with the one mentioned by Justin Martyr in his colKxpiy witli Try- phon, xvii, 108. Of the two widely differing recen- sions of this book of unknown authorship, the lirst edition was published by Wagenseil, in his Tela Iipiea Satame, etc. (Altdorf, 1681) ; the second by Huldrich, at Le^'den, in 170.5, under the title Historia Jeschum Naza- 1-eni, a JudfEis Blaspheme Corrupta. Neither can boast of an anti(iuity greater than, at the outside, the 12th century. It is difficult to say, with certainty, which is the earlier of the two. Probably both came into use about the same time; the second certainly in Germany, for it speaks of Worms in the (ierman empire. Accord- ing to the first, Jesus was born in the year of the world 4671 =B.C. 910, in the reign of Alexander JamiiBus (B.C. 106-79)! According to the second, he was born in the reign of Herod the Proselyte, i. e. B.C. 70-4. A comparison of both shows so many gross anachronisms as to prove that they were drawn up at a very late date, and by Jews singularly ignorant of the chronology of their history. As to the contents, its blasphemies are too gross and grotesque to need further notice. Being a late and detestable compilation, put together out of fragmentary Talmudic legends, all respectable Jews themselves have regarded it as utterly contemptible.