Saul Merari

Very little is known about Saul ben Joseph Merari, an Italian Jewish scribe. Although the extant manuscript of Sefer ḥerev pifiyot (The Double-Edged Sword) does not mention the name of an author, but rather the initials of the scribe who copied it, scholars believe that Merari indeed composed the text. The work, written in the form of a dialogue between a Jew and a Christian priest (who is not particularly well educated), mentions a range of contemporaneous events, figures, and literary works. In addition to Sefer ḥerev pifiyot, Merari produced copies of at least two other manuscripts containing Jewish-Christian polemical texts.