THROUGHOUT THIS STUDY I have emphasized the positive aspects of the Jews’ perception of the Spanish kingdom and its history; they also had feelings of hatred, anger, and loathing aroused by the recurring abuses by the Spanish Crown and its institutions, as well as by the common people. The suffering of the Jews in the diaspora was a central theme of books of historiography and chronicles such as Ibn Verga's Shevet yehudah and Profayt Duran's Ma’amar zikhron hashemadot, as well as of the stories of the exiles that were included in Seder eliyahu zuta. In all these, feelings of admiration and abhorrence, attraction and repulsion, towards the Spanish kingdom in all its cultural and social senses existed side by side.

Attraction to and repulsion from Christian culture played an important role in Jewish historical consciousness. The image of Rome was constructed on a congeries of contradictory emotions and perceptions. Previous studies have emphasized the manifestations of hatred for the historical Rome— which represented the medieval Christian world—and the hopes for its destruction. But there was also admiration for Roman culture and appreciation of its accomplishments. The polarity of these positions ought not to surprise us, for in historical consciousness, as in other mental domains, we do not always find cognitive logic or systematic order, and complexity, contradiction, and chaos often dominate. In relation to ancient Christianity and in particular to Jesus, ambivalent attitudes were also found. On the one hand, there was the perception of early Christianity as part of Second Temple Judaism and as a deviation that stemmed from good but mistaken intentions. On the other, there was the growing historical knowledge that contemporary Christianity was essentially different from Jesus's original intentions, and later Christianity was held responsible for the deviation. Jesus was regarded as the crux that, at one and same time, belonged yet did not belong to Jewish history. Although the contemporary Church was perceived as an institution that had deviated from its original values, Jews did not disregard its glorious history and cultural achievements. The exempla and hagiography of the Church served as moral and polemical raw material, and Jews became cognizant of the moral and intellectual power of distinctly Christian values and institutions, especially the papacy.