The consequences of this disputation at Barcelona were by no means harmless. De Penyaforte was resolved upon compassing the conversion of the Jews, and permitted nothing to turn him from his fixed determination. He obtained from King Jayme a letter of protection which would enable his protégé Pablo Christiani to go on long missionary journeys, and thus the Jews were exposed to the caprice of the Jewish Dominican friar. What had failed of success in Barcelona, with an antagonist like Nachmani, might perhaps be successful in other places with less skilful opponents. Strict commands were issued to the congregations in Aragon, and in the adjoining districts of southern France, to enter into discussion with Pablo Christiani at his invitation. The Jews were to listen to him quietly, either in their synagogues or wherever they chanced to be, to answer his questions meekly, and to hand over to him all such books as he required for his demonstrations. They were also to defray the expenses of his mission. The despair of the Jews at such demands may well be imagined. Whether victorious or defeated, they were subjected to torments and extortion.
As in spite of the protection granted to him by the king, Pablo Christiani did not meet with a hearty welcome among his former co-religionists, he followed in the footsteps of Nicholas-Donin, and denounced the Talmud, asserting that it contained passages of hostile import directed against Jesus and Mary. He went to Pope Clement IV, and repeated to him the charges against the Talmud. The pope, at his request, issued a bull (1264) to the Bishop of Tarragona, commanding him to confiscate copies of the Talmud, and to submit them to the examination of the Dominicans and Franciscans; if found to be blasphemous, they were to be burnt. Pablo Christiani, the apostate, in person brought this bull to Spain. Thereupon King Jayme ordered (1264) that the Talmud be examined, and the passages containing abuse and slander be struck out. The duty of acting as censors was entrusted to the Bishop of Barcelona, De Penyaforte, and to three other Dominicans, together with Pablo Christiani. This commission marked the passages in the Talmud which were to be obliterated, and thus for the first time censorship was exercised by the Dominicans against the Talmud in Spain. The censorship was on the whole less destructive in Aragon than in France, where the whole Talmud was condemned to the flames. The reason of this comparative mildness was explained by the fact that Raymond Martin, a member of the Dominican order and of the board of censors, and the writer of two anti-Jewish works, was convinced that several passages in the Talmud bore witness to the truth of Christianity, and were certainly traditions derived from Moses, and that therefore the Talmud should not be utterly destroyed.
The hurtful effects of the disputation of Nachmani have not yet been enumerated. They even affected the man himself, who was the accredited representative of Spanish Judaism in the post-Maimunic age. Nachmani found himself obliged to publish, for his co-religionists, a true and accurate report of the proceedings at Barcelona, in order to oppose the missionary machinations of Pablo Christiani, and to rebuke the unjustifiable vainglory of the Dominicans over the victory, which they declared that they had gained at the disputation held at the court.
He made no secret of the matter, but gave a copy of his pamphlet to the Bishop of Gerona, and as the latter raised no objection, copies of the account of this disputation were dispatched to various countries where Jews dwelt (about 1264). As might have been expected, Nachmani by this proceeding drew down upon himself the still fiercer hatred of the Dominicans. Pablo Christiani, who obtained a report of the disputation, and who understood Hebrew, selected from it passages that contained gross blasphemies against the Christian religion, and notified De Penyaforte, his superior, the fanatical general of the Dominicans, of them. The latter then, in conjunction with a brother friar, instituted a capital charge, and lodged a formal complaint with the king against the author and his work. Don Jayme was obliged to assent to the charge; but he did not entrust the trial to a court composed of Dominicans, but called together an extraordinary commission, and invited Nachmani (or as he was called by the Christians, Bonastruc de Porta) to defend himself, and ordered that the proceedings be conducted in his presence. Nachmani was in a very unpleasant position, but his staunch truthfulness did not fail him. He admitted that he had stated many things against Christianity in his pamphlet, but he had written nothing which he had not used in his disputation in the presence of the king; and he had asked from the king and the general of the Dominicans for liberty of speech to utter these things, and had obtained permission. He ought not to be made answerable and condemned for expressions in his written account which had remained unrebuked in his oral defense.
The king and the commission acknowledged the justice of his vindication; nevertheless, in order to avoid provoking the order of the Dominicans or De Penyaforte, Nachmani was sentenced to exile from his native land for two years, and his pamphlet was condemned to be burnt. The Inquisition had not yet attained an all-powerful position. The Dominicans were, however, by no means satisfied with this comparatively mild sentence, as they had expected a much more severe punishment. It appears that they intended to summon Nachmani before their own tribunal, where they would undoubtedly have condemned him to death. King Jayme offered energetic opposition to this project. He gave to Nachmani a sort of charter, which stated that he could be accused in this matter only in the presence of the king (April, 1265). The Dominicans were naturally very much enraged at the mildness of the king, and at the apparent encroachment on their judicial prerogative to decide upon questions of life and death. They appealed to Pope Clement IV, complaining that the king had permitted the author of a pamphlet which grossly insulted Christianity to go unpunished. The pope, who at that time was harboring other grudges against the king of Aragon, addressed a very severe epistle to him. He upbraided him for a number of sins, ordering him to deprive Jews of public offices, and to inflict heavy punishment on that arch-villain who, after taking part in a religious discussion, had published a pamphlet as a trophy of his heresy (1266). It cannot be fully ascertained whether the king obeyed the pope regarding Nachmani or not, or what his sentence was. At any rate, it appears that one punishment was meted out to him, namely, that he was to be banished from the country. At the age of seventy, Nachmani left his fatherland, his two sons, his school and his friends, and went into exile. He made his way to the Holy Land, being filled with the same intense longing as his spiritual kinsman, Jehuda Halevi. He went a step further than the latter, maintaining that it is the religious duty of every Jew to dwell in Judæa. Thus fate had done him a kindness, assisting him in the performance of a command, and helping him to fulfil his ardent desire. He set out on his journey by ship, and landed at Jean d'Acre (1267), which at that time was still in the hands of the Christians. Thence he made haste to start for Jerusalem (9th Ellul—12th August).
Nachmani's feelings were deeply stirred on beholding the condition of the Holy Land and the Sacred City. He suffered even keener disappointment than Jehuda Halevi. The Mongols or Tartars, under the Sultan Hulagu, had committed fearful ravages in the land a few years previously (1260). This savage monarch, after conquering the eastern Caliphate, had turned his attention to the Sultanate of Egypt, captured the fortresses on the Euphrates, Damascus, Aleppo, and Baalbek, and forced his way into Palestine. Jerusalem was transformed into a heap of ruins; all its inhabitants had forsaken it (1260). The Jews had connected these extraordinary events with their hopes for the Messiah. The "hateful, deformed men of the East," who had subdued both the oppressors of Israel, the followers of Jesus and of Mahomet, might perhaps bring near unto Israel the hour of redemption. An enthusiast circulated a new revelation said to have been given through Simon bar Yochaï, the medium so frequently appealed to by mysticism, and it declared that the devastations of the Mongols were the sufferings which must precede the coming of the Messiah.
Nachmani entered Palestine a few years after the Mongols had been expelled from the country by the Sultan of Egypt. He beheld many ruins, and apostrophized them in eloquent words, saying, "The more holy the place, the greater its desolation; Jerusalem is more desolate than the rest of Judæa, and Judæa in turn more desolate than Galilee." The Jews of the Holy City had either been slain or scattered; the scrolls of the Law had been rescued by some who fled to Shechem. Two thousand Mahometans and three hundred Christians had again settled in Jerusalem, but only one or two Jewish families were discovered there by Nachmani, and, as before, they enjoyed the privilege of farming the dye-works. The Jewish pilgrims, who had come to Jerusalem from Syria, erected a synagogue at Nachmani's suggestion. Upon Mount Olivet, opposite the ruins of the Temple, Nachmani breathed forth his deep distress over the desolation of the Holy City; but it was not the song of Zion that arose from his excited mind. Nachmani did not possess that divine gift of grace, the poetical genius of Jehuda Halevi, the fancy that is able to re-people deserts, re-establish destroyed kingdoms, chasten sorrow, and ease the heart from pain. He uttered his lament in the verses of other poets.
This exile from Spain did not rest content with erecting synagogues and organizing congregations in the land which for a long time had been his spiritual home, but he also founded in it a home for the study of Jewish science, which had died out there since the conquest of Jerusalem by the crusaders. He gathered a circle of pupils around him, and people came in crowds even from the district of the Euphrates to hear him. Even Karaites are said to have sat at his feet, as for instance Aaron ben Joseph the Elder, who became famous in later times. Although he was no friend of free scientific thought, and thoroughly adhered to Talmudic Judaism, yet Nachmani, as a son of Spain, had obtained sufficient general culture to fertilize the desert of the Oriental Jews. Even his theory of the Kabbala, which he first transplanted into Palestine, where it afterwards spread far and wide, had at least the merit of presenting new points of view, of which his co-religionists, either on account of their ignorance or their partiality for the Talmud, had no idea. He strove at least to explain the irrational in a rational manner, and thus combated stupidity and indifference. He was particularly successful in arousing an interest in the exposition of Holy Writ, of which the Oriental Jews were entirely ignorant. With this end in view, Nachmani composed his Commentary to the Bible, and especially his chief work, the Exposition of the Pentateuch. In this work he brought into play his peculiar genius, his warm and tender disposition, his power of clear thinking, and his mystical dreams. Like numberless men before and after him, he discovered his own philosophy in this Book of books, and interpreted it from his point of view. He did not make much of the Kabbala in his Commentaries; merely touched upon it lightly. But precisely by his careless allusions, he magnified its importance. Narrow, enthusiastic minds searched eagerly for the hidden meaning of these suggestions, and took more notice of Nachmani's Kabbalistic hints, than of the clear ideas to be found in his work.
Nachmani's method of exegesis did not altogether escape the reproach of his contemporaries, chiefly because in his Commentary he made attacks upon Maimuni, and spoke still more violently against Ibn-Ezra. A devotee of philosophy and two enthusiastic students of it wrote a refutation of his works, prefacing it by a satire, in which the mysticism of Nachmani was especially made ridiculous. Pious men, on the other hand, held him in high honor as a particularly orthodox rabbi, and just as his Talmudical works were diligently read and used, so his Commentary became a favorite study of the mystics.
During his three years' stay in Palestine, Nachmani kept up a correspondence with his native land, whereby Judæa and Spain were brought into closer connection. He sent copies of his works to his sons and friends, and gave them descriptions of the condition of their ever unhappy ancestral country. He thus once again awoke an ardent longing for the Holy Land, and induced several persons of an enthusiastic turn of mind to emigrate thither. Nachmani died after having passed the age of seventy (about 1270), and his remains were interred in Chaifa, next to the grave of Yechiel of Paris, his companion in misfortune, who had gone into exile before him.