ODO (Eudes) OF CHÂTEAUROUX°

ODO (Eudes) OF CHÂTEAUROUX° (d. 1273), chancellor of the University of Paris from 1238. Odo was probably one of the judges at the public trial of the Talmud in 1240. Appointed cardinal bishop of Tusculum (Frascati) in 1244, he returned as papal legate to France in 1245 to preach the Crusade. A violent opponent of the Talmud, Odo was incensed by a letter from Pope Innocent IV (1247) instructing him to give back to the Jews any copies which had survived the auto-dafé of 1242 (see talmud , Burning of). Adopting a high moral tone in his reply, Odo reproached the pope with having been duped by the wiles of the Jews, and repeated the verdict of Gregory IX that the Talmud prevented Jews from becoming Christians. It would be disgraceful, he said, for books which had been solemnly and justly burned in public to be returned to the Jews at the instance of the pope. On May 15, 1248, he issued a formal condemnation of the Talmud, forbidding copies to be returned. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: S. Grayzel, Church and Jews in the XIIIth Century (19662), index; idem, in: W. Jacob et al. (eds.), Essays in Honor of Solomon B. Freehof (1964), 220–45. (Nicholas de Lange)