YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 9002 10656 7028 • miLIE •'VMVIEIKSJnnr* ■ ILHIBMJfSF • Deposited by the Linonian and Brothers Library THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS, f FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD DOWN TO MODERN TIMES. BY IIENRY HART JNIILMAN, D. D. BEAN OF ST. PAUL'S. REPRINTED PROJI THE NEWLY REVISED AND CORRECTED LONDON EDITION. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY IIURD AND HOUGHTON. BOSTON: WILLIAM VEAZIE. 1804. RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. CONTENTS OF VOL. III. —♦— BOOK XX. JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. PAGE Effects of the Great Revolutions in the World, from the Fourth to the Eighth Century— Restoration of the Persian Kingdom and Magian Religion—Jews of Mesopotamia—Babylonian Talmud—Estab¬ lishment of Christianity — Attempts at. Conversion — Constantine — Julian — Rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem — Theodosius and St. Ambrose — Conflicts between Jews and Christians — Conver¬ sions in Minorca and Crete — Tumults in Alexandria —Fall of the Patriarchate 9 BOOK XXI. TIIE JEWS UNDEIi THE BARBARIAN KINGS AND THE BYZANTINE EMPERORS. Irruption and Conquests of the Barbarians — Trade of the Jews — Slave-Trade — Decrees of Councils — Of Pope Gregory the First — Conduct of the Christians to the Jews — Arian Kings of Italy — Pope Gregory the First — State anterior to the Rise of Moham¬ medanism in the Eastern Empire — Insurrections of the Samari¬ tans— Laws of Justinian — Dispute about the Language in which the Law was to be read— State of the Jews in the Persian Domin¬ ions — Persecutions — Civil Contests — Conquest of Syria and Jerusalem by the Persians — Reconquest by the Emperor Hera- elius 53 BOOK XXII. JUDAISM AND MOHAMMEDANISM. Jews in Arabia — Jewish Kingdom in Homeritis — Rise of Mohammed — Wars against the Arabian Jews— Progress of Mohammedanism — State of Spain — Cruel Laws of the Visigothic Kings — Conquest of Spain by the Moors — Persecuting Laws in France . . .94 vi CONTENTS OF VOL. III. BOOK XXIII. GOLDEN AGE OF JUDAISM. PAGE The Jews under the Caliphs — Rise of Karaism — Kingdom of Khosar — Jews under the Byzantine Empire —Jews Breakers of Images — Jews of Italy — Jews under Charlemagne and Louis Debonnaire— Agobard, Bishop of Lyons — Jews in Spain — High State of Liter¬ ature— Moses Maimonides 12G BOOK XXIY. IRON AGE OF JUDAISM. Persecutions in the East,—Extinction of the Princes of the Captivity — Jews in Palestine— In the Byzantine Empire — Feudal System — Chivalry — Power of the Church — Usury — Persecutions in Spain — Massacres by the Crusaders — Persecutions in France — Philip Augustus — Saint Louis — Spain — France — Philip the Fair — War of the Shepherds — Pestilence — Poisoning of the Fountains— Charles the Fourth—Charles the Fifth—Charles the Sixth — Final Expulsion from France — Germany — The Flagellants — Miracle of the Host at Brussels 1G3 BOOK XXY. JEWS IN ENGLAND. First Settlement —William Rufus — Ilenrv II. — Coronation of Rich¬ ard I. — Massacre at York — King John — Spoliations of the Jews — Henry III. —Jewish Parliament — Edward I. — Statute of Juda¬ ism — Final Expulsion from the Realm 236 BOOK XXYI. JEWS EXPELLED FROM SPAIN. Superiority of the Jews of Spain—Early Period — Alfonso VIII.— Ferdinand III.— Alfonso X., the Wise — Siete Partidas — Attempt at Conversion —Ferdinand IV. — Alfonso XI. — Pedro of Castile and Henry of Transtamare—Zeal of the Clergy—Pope Benedict XIII. — Conversions— Vincent Ferrer —New Christians—The Inquisition — Ferdinand and Isabella — Expulsion of the Jews from Spain — Sufferings in Italy — In Morocco —In Portugal — Their subsequent History in the two Kingdoms .... 271 CONTENTS OF VOL. III. vii BOOK XXVII. jews of italy. page Early Period — The Popes — The Family of Peter Leonis — Martin V. 332 BOOK XXVIII. Jews in Turkey —In Italy — In Germany before the Reformation — Invention of Printing — Reformation — Luther — Holland — Ne¬ gotiation with Cromwell—False Messiahs — Sabbathai Sevi — Frank, &c. — Spinoza 344 BOOK XXIX. modern judaism. Change in the relative State of the Jews to the Rest of Mankind — Jews in Poland — In Germany — Frederick the Great — Natural¬ ization Bill in England — Toleration Edict of Joseph II. — Jews of France —Petition to Louis XVI. — Revolution—Bonaparte— More recent Acts for the Amelioration of the Civil State of the Jews — General Estimate of the Number of Jews in Africa, Asia, Europe, America — Conclusion 391 BOOK XXX. Survey of Influence of the Jews on Philosophy, Poetry, History, &c. 433 Index 463 HISTORY OF THE JEWS. BOOK XX. JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. Effects of the Great Revolutions in the World, from the fourth to the eighth Century— Restoration of the Persian Kingdom and Magian Religion — Jews of Mesopotamia — Babylonian Talmud — Establishment of Chris¬ tianity — Attempts at Conversion — Constantine — Julian — Rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem — Theodosius and St. Ambrose — Conflicts between Jews and Christians—Conversions in Minorca and Crete — Tumults in Alexandria— Eall of the Patriarchate. The middle of tlie third century beheld all Israel thus incorporated into their two communities, under their Papacy and their Caliphate. The great events which succeeded during the five following centuries, to O O 7 the end of the seventh or the middle of the eighth, which operated so powerfully on the destinies of the whole world, in the East as well as in the West, could not but exercise an important influence over the con¬ dition, and, in some respects, the national character of the Jews. Our History will assume, perhaps, its most intelligible form, if we depart in some degree from a dry chronological narrative, and survey it in relation to the more important of these revolutions in the history of mankind. 1st. The restoration of the Magian religion in the East, under the great Persian © © 7 © monarchy which arose on the ruins of the Parthian 10 reestablishment of magianism. book xx. empire. 2dly. The establishment of Christianity as the religion of the Roman empire. 3dly. The invasion of the Barbarians. 4thly. The rise and progress of Mohammedanism. I. The first of these points we have in some degree anticipated. The Prince of the Captivity probably rose to power in the interval between the abandonment of the Mesopotamian provinces by Hadrian, about 118 a. c., and the final decay of the Parthian kingdom, about 229 a. c., when that empire, enfeebled by the conquests of Trajan, and by the assumption of inde¬ pendence in the Persian province, held, but with a feeble hand, the sovereignty over its frontier districts. But his more splendid state seems to have been assumed after the accession of the Persian dynasty. The reappearance of the Magian religion as the dominant faith of the East, after having lain hid, as it were, for centuries among the mountains of Iran, is an event so singular that it has scarcely received the notice which it deserves in history. It arrested at once the progress of Christianity in the East, which was thrown back upon the western provinces of Asia and upon Europe, not without having received a strong though partial tinge from its approximation to that remarkable faith. The great Heresiarch Manes at¬ tempted to blend the two systems of belief, — an at¬ tempt the less difficult, as many among the more suc¬ cessful of the early heretics had already admitted into their creed the rudiments of Oriental philosophy, which formed the oroundwork of Magianism. But Manes met the fate of most conciliators; he was rejected, and probably both himself and his proselytes violently persecuted by both parties.1 In what manner the i Compare Hist, of Christianity, ii. 322, &c. Book XX. JEWS OF MESOPOTAMIA. 11 sovereigns of Persia, and their triumphant priesthood, conducted themselves at first towards their Jewish subjects in Babylonia, we have little certain intelli¬ gence. Under Ardescliir, Fire Temples arose in all quarters. A new or a revived religion is never wanting in zeal, and zealous religionists are rarely tolerant. Collision was inevitable. Some stories, which bear the stamp of authenticity, appear to intimate persecution. The usage of the Jews in burying the dead was offensive to the Magians ; and there were certain days in which no light was permitted to be burning, except¬ ing in the Fire Temples.1 The Jews were unwillingly constrained to pay this homage to the Guebre cere¬ monial.2 It is said that a fire-worshipper came into a room in Pumbeditha, where Abba Bar Hona lay ill, and took away the light. R. Jelmda cried out, " Oh, merciful Father! take us under thy protection, or lead us rather into the hands of the children of Esau " (the Romans).3 But on the whole their condition must have been favorable, as the pomp of their Prince, the wealth of his subjects, and the flourishing condition of the Mesopotamian schools,4 are strong testimonies to the equitable and tolerant government of their Persian 1 Jost, Judenthum, ii. 141. When B. Jochatian, in Tiberias, heard of the establishment of the religion of the Guebres, he fell to the earth in grief and dismay. 2 Jost, Geschichte, iv. 308. 3 Another saying is not so intelligible; it is a Babylonian saying; " Rather under the Arabs than under the Romans, rather under the Romans than under the Guebres, rather under the Guebres than under the learned Jews (the learned were very hot-headed in those regions), rather under the learned than under widows and orphans." God severely visited any offence against widows or orphans. Jost, Judenthum, ii. 142. 4 .Tost, Geschichte, iv. 305. See, on the schools and succession of teachers at Pumbeditha, which threw into the shade Xahardca and Sura, Jost, iv. 310 et seq. 12 THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD. Book XX. rulers.1 The Oriental cast, which many of their opinions had assumed as early as the Babylonian Captivity, and the prevalence of the cabalistic philos¬ ophy, which, in its wild genealogy of many distinct aeons or intelligences, emanating from the pure and uncreated light, bore a close analogy to the Dualism of the Magians, — and its subordinate hierarchy of im¬ material and spiritual beings, angels, or genii, — would harmonize more easily with, or at least be less abhor¬ rent from, the prevailing tenets of the Magians than the more inflexible Christianity, which rejected the innovations of Manes. The compilation of the Babylonian Talmud,2 as it shows the industry of its compilers, seems to indicate likewise the profound peace enjoyed by the Jewish masters of the schools. This great work was com¬ menced and finished under the superintendence of Rabbi Asche.3 This celebrated Head of the schools 1 In some instances they introduced slight deviations from the Law. or rather from the Mischna, in favor of their new masters. The rule to abstain from all intercourse with the heathen for three days before each of their holy days, was limited in the case of the fire-worshipping to the holy day itself. Though Rab declared it a sin to learn anything of a Magian, yet the Jews studied astronomy in common with them. Jost, p. 14-3. 2 The Abbd Chiarini, an Italian, proposed to publish a French translation of the whole Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds (p. 52). In his Theorie du Judaisme, and in his Talmud de Babylone, Leipsic, 1831, he explained his views and intentions. He met with strong opposition. His death, how¬ ever, while tending the sick of the cholera, in 1832, unhappily cut short his labors. s Chiarini assigns the date of the Talmud of Babylon to the fifth and be¬ ginning of the sixth century. R. Asche died A. d. 427. It was finished seventy-three years after the death of Asche by R. Jose (p. 35). It is anterior to the Koran, which borrows from, perhaps quotes it. Chiarini says that it has three characteristics which distinguish it from that of Jeru¬ salem. I. The confusion with which it envelops the doctrines. II. The subtlety and suppleness which its teachers display in their unequal contest with violence and hard necessity. III. The bitterness and hatred with which they look on all who have contributed to the servitude of the Jews, especially the Christians. Each Talmud has books and chapters wanting Book XX. ITS INFLUENCE ON EUROPEAN OPINIONS. 13 introduced a new mode of teaching; his scholars met twice in the year, and received each time two portions of the Law and of the Mischna, the whole circle of Jewish study, which had been divided into sixty parts. Their comments on their appointed task were brought back on the next day of meeting, the best were selected and harmonized, and from these in thirty years 1 grew the Gemara, which with the Mischna, forms the Baby¬ lonian Talmud,2 that wonderful monument of human industry, human wisdom, and human folly. The reader at each successive extract from this extraordi¬ nary compilation hesitates whether to admire the vein of profound allegorical truth, and the pleasing moral ajiologue, to smile at the monstrous extravagance,3 or in the other. On the borrowing of the Koran from the Talmud, read the excellent treatise of Geiger, Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthum genommen.* 1 Cliiarini makes it about a century or more in its full growth. 2 Cliiarini points out one more remarkable distinction between the Baby¬ lonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, — the substitution in the Babylonian of com¬ merce in the place of agriculture; p. 57. 3 There is undeniable truth and justice in the severe words of Edzard, quoted by Cliiarini, i. 277: —l; Credat Judasus Apella ista impia atque blas- phema de Deo asserta, crebras Eabbinorum contradictiones, innumeras ab- surditates et falsitates, plusquam aniles fabulas, pessimas et ut plurimum ridieulas Scripturce sacras detorsiones, ineptas argumentationes, abjeetas de verbo divino locutiones; evidentissima mendacia, plusquam ethnicas superstitiones, ipsam denique ad magiam et varii generis peccata alia rnul- tiplicem instructionem qiue singulis Gemara; paginis maximo numero oc- currunt . . . esse divina oracula Moisi in Monte Sinai tradita, ut ad posteros propagerentur." But may it not be well to look at the same time to the beam in our own eye? If the Christianity of the Middle Ages were sys¬ tematized and cast into one great authoritative book (that Christianity which, as sanctioned and maintained by the Infallible Church, is virtually * The first edition, I., of the Babylonian Talmud is that of Bomberg, Venice, 1550. II. Justiniani, Venice, 1546-50. III. Frobenius, Basil. 1578-9-80. (But the pas¬ sages hostile to Christianity were expunged by order of the Council of Trent.) IV. Cracow, 1603-5. V. Lublin, 1617-22. VI. Amsterdam, in 4to, 1644. VII., VIII. Frankfort on the Oder, 1697, 1715-21. IX. Amsterdam or Frankfort on the Maine, 1714, 1721. There are other later editions. On the translations of separate Treatises and Chapters, see Wolf and Chiarini, p. 45 et seq. 14 THE TALMUD AND THE GOSPEL CONTRASTED. Book. XX. to shudder tit the daring blasphemy. The influence of the if^lmud on European superstitions, opinions, and evert literature, remains to be traced ; to the Jew the.Talmud became the magic circle, within which the national mind patiently labored for ages in performing the bidding of the ancient and mighty enchanters, who drew the sacred line, beyond which it might not ven¬ ture to pass.1 II. The Western Jews must have beheld with deeper dismay, and more profound astonishment at the mysterious dispensations of Providence, the rival religion of Christianity (that apostasy, as they es¬ teemed it, from the worship of Jehovah) gradually extending over the whole of Europe, till at length, under Constantine, it ascended the imperial throne, attributed to the Holy Spirit of God), would there be not found the same conflict between the most exalted and the most debasing notions of the Godhead; the same profound piety and the same gross superstition; the same pure morality and the same doubtful moral chicanery; the same solemn trifling; the same occasional wisdom, the sarin; folly and the same fraud; the same miserable devilry (" chacun de nous en a mille a gauche et dix mille a droite: " so says 11. Huna — Chiarini, p. 289); the same trust in the providence and presence of God; the same irreconcilable and re¬ morseless hatred of men of other faith (only that in the Jews, being few and feeble, these passions mostly evaporated in idle curses, in the Christians led to acts of merciless massacre); and the same purity, love, and charity? If on the one hand the gleams of light, wisdom, humanity, love of God, are more rare and feeble in the Talmud (take such a precept as this, " One touch of compunction in the heart of man is worth many and many flagel¬ lations,"— Chiarini, p. 305, — compared with the monkish manuals of self- scourging); on the other hand apply the great principle, "pessima est eor- ruptio optimi; " how much more natural, more pardonable, is this jealous hedge drawn around the imperfect Law, than the engrafting of such low- am! darkling, if not barbarous and wicked precepts, on the peaceful, pure, simple, and beneficent Gospel! See further on the Talmud, the close of this Book. 1 " Deptiis la naissance jusqu'a la mort, depuis lapointe du jour jusqu'au lever des etoiles, dans leurs maisons ainsi que dans la Synagogue, leur vie privee et publique n'est qu'une suite de ceremonies niinutieuses et des pratiques legales qui se trouvent consignees dans le Talmud." Chiarini, p. 181. A. C. 270-323. DECLINE OF THE PATRIARCHATE. 15 and became the established religion of the Roman world. The period between the death of' "tphb Patri¬ arch, R. Jeliuda the Holy, and the accessioiV^of .'Con- stantine to the empire, bad been barren of important incidents in Jewish history. The Patriarchate Tiberias seems gradually to have sunk in estimation. This small spiritual court fell, like more splendid and worldly thrones, through the struggles of the sover¬ eign for unlimited sway, and the unwillingness of the people to submit even to constitutional authority. The exactions of the pontiff, and of the spiritual aristocracy — the Rabbins — became more and more burden¬ some to the people. The people were impatient even of the customary taxation.1 Gamaliel succeeded Je¬ liuda, Jeliuda the Second, Gamaliel. This pontiff was of an imperious character ; he surrounded himself with a sort of body-guard; at the same time he was out¬ shone by his competitors in learning, Simon ben Laches and R. Joelianan, whose acknowledged superiority tended still farther to invalidate the supremacy of the Patriarch.2 A temporary splendor was thrown around the Jew¬ ish name by the celebrity of Zenobia, the famous Queen of Palmyra, who was of Israelitish descent. But the Jews of Palestine neither derived much ad- 1 At a period considerably later, the Apostles of the Patriarch are called in a law of llonorius devastators. It is asserted in the life of Chrysostom that the heads of the synagogues were displaced if they did not send in enough money. 2 Whoever wishes for a more full account of these rivalries, jealousies, and feuds in the school of Tiberias, may read the sixth chapter of Jost's xivth Hook. There is one striking saying of R. Joehanan, showing the Rabbinical character: " A learned Bastard is to be preferred to an ignorant High P riest," p. 102. For other sayings of R. Joehanan, see Jost, Juden- tlium, ii. 147. The teachings of the Sopherim are intimately interwoven with the Law, and to be held in equal, if not higher estimation. On Simon hen Laches — his reproof of the pomp and pride of his Nasi, p. 150. 16 ZENOBIA — CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. Book XX. vantage from the prosperity, nor suffered in the fall of that extraordinary woman.1 Her favorite, Paul of Samosata, seems to have entertained some views of attempting an union between Judaism and Christian¬ ity ; both parties rejected the unnatural alliance. The Jews spoke contemptuously of the wise men who came from Tadmor, and Paul of Samosata was rejected by the orthodox church as an intractable heretic.2 On the formal establishment of Christianity, under Constantine the Great, the more zealous Jews might tremble lest the Synagogue should be dazzled by the splendor of its triumphant competitor, and, recognizing the manifest favor of the Divinity in its success, refuse any longer to adhere to a humiliated and hopeless cause ; while the Christians, after having gained this acknowledged victory over Paganism, might not un¬ reasonably expect that Judaism, less strongly opposed to its principles, would relax its obstinate resistance, and yield at length to the universally acknowledged dominion of the new faith. But the Rabbinical authority had raised an insur¬ mountable barrier around the Synagogue. Masters of the education, exercising, as we have shown, an un¬ ceasing and vigilant watchfulness, and mingling in every transaction during the whole life of each indi¬ vidual ; — still treating their present humiliation merely as a preparatory trial from the ever-faithful God of their 1 Jost, Gescliichte, iv. 167: "Von dem angeblichen Judenthum dieser sogenannten Kaiserin von Palmyra wissen die Rabbiner nichts." Juden¬ thum, ii. 155. 2 Euseb. Hist. Ecc. vii. 27; Milman, Hist, of Christianity, ii. p. 256. The Jews repudiated with equal determination this attempt to reconcile the two religions. R. Jochanan refused to receive Palmyrenian proselytes. The Rabbis, like the Christians, reprove the irreligious pomp and luxury of the Palmyrene Court. Jost, ii. 157. A. C. 270-323. ATTEMPT TO CONVERT THE JEWS. '17 fathers, and feeding their flock with hopes of a future deliverance, when they should trample under foot the enemy and oppressor; — enlisting every passion and every prejudice in their cause ; occupying the studious and inquisitive in the interminable study of their Mischna and Talmuds ;1 — alarming the vulgar with the terrors of their interdict; while they still prom¬ ised temporal grandeur as the inalienable, though per¬ haps late heritage of the people of Israel; — consol¬ ing them for its tardy approach by the promise of the equally inalienable and equally exclusive privi¬ lege of the children of Israel, — everlasting life in the world to come;2—these spiritual leaders of the Jews still repelled, with no great loss, the aggressions of their opponents. At the same time unhappily the Church had lost entirely, or in great degree, its most effective means of conversion, — its miraculous powers, the simple truth of its doctrines, and the blameless lives of its believers. It substituted authority, and a regular system of wonder-working, which the Jews, who had been less affected than might have been sup¬ posed by the miracles of our Lord and his Apostles, had no difficulty in rejecting, either as manifest impos¬ tures, or works of malignant and hostile spirits. In fact, the Rabbins were equal adepts in these pious frauds with the Christian clergy, and their people, no 1 Chiarini states, with some truth, that it was one of the objects of the Talmud " d'tdever une muraille de separation entre les Juifs et les autres peoples de la terre, en prJsentant a ses compagnons d'infortune des rem- parts plus solides dans la haine et dans l'orgueil que ceux des villes dont ils venaient d'etre ddpossedes." p. 21. 2 It is a curious illustration of the growing alienation between the Jews and the Christians that Origen seems to have kept up an amicable inter¬ course with many Jews. Jerome, a century later, was obliged to submit to a secret and nocturnal intercourse with his teacher. Epist. ad Pamnn Compare Vitringa, De Syn. Vet. VOL. III. 2 18 CONFERENCE BEFORE POPE SYLVESTER. Book XX. less superstitious, listened with the same avidity, or gazed with the same credulity, on the supernatural wonders wrought by their own Wise Men, which ob¬ scured, at all events neutralized, the effects of the miracles ascribed to the Christian saints. Magical arts were weapons handled, as all acknowledged, with equal skill by both parties. The invisible world was a province where, though each claimed the advantage in the contest, neither thought of denying the power of his adversary. A scene characteristic of the times is reported to have taken place in Rome; the legend, it will easily be credited, rests on Christian authority.1 A conference took place in the presence of Constantine and the devout empress-mother, Helena, between the Jews and the Christians. Pope Sylvester, then at the height of his wonder-working glory, had already tri¬ umphed in argument over his infatuated opponents, when the Jews had recourse to magic. A noted en¬ chanter commanded an ox to be brought forward; he whispered into the ear of the animal, which instantly fell dead at the feet of Constantine. The Jews shouted in triumph, for it was the Ham-semphorasli, the inef¬ fable name of God, at the sound of which the awe¬ struck beast had expired. Sylvester observed with some shrewdness, "As he who whispered the name must be well acquainted with it, why does he not fall dead in like manner?" The Jews answered with contemptuous acclamations, — " Let us have no more verbal disputations, let us come to acts." " So be it," said Sylvester; " and if this ox comes to life at the l Even Baronius doubts the authority of this legend. It appears first in the later Byzantines. Zonaras. t. iii. in init.; Simeon Metaphrastes, pars ii.; Glycas, p. 491 (edit. Bonn); Nicephorus, vii. 36; Cedren. t. i. p. 491 "edit. Bonn). A. C. 320. BAPTISM OF THE PATRIARCH HILLEL. 19 name of Christ, will ye believe?" They all unani¬ mously assented. Sylvester raised his eyes to heaven, and said with a loud voice, — " If he he the true God whom I preach, in the name of Christ, arise, O ox! and stand on thy feet." The ox sprang up, and began to move and feed. The legend proceeds, that the whole assembly was baptized. The Christians, by their own account, carried on the contest in a less favorable field than the city of Rome, and urged their conquests into the heart of the enemy's country. Constantine, by the advice of his mother Helena, adorned with great magnificence the city which had risen on the ruins of Jerusalem. It had become a place of such splendor that Eusebius, in a transport of holy triumph, declared that it was the New Jerusalem foretold by the prophets. The Jews were probably still interdicted from disturbing the peace or profaning the soil of the Christian city, by entering its walls. They revenged themselves by rigidly excluding every stranger from the four great cities which they occupied — Dio Ctesarea (Sep- phoris), Nazareth, Capernaum, and Tiberias. " As it was the ambition of the Jews to regain a footing in the Holy City, so it was that of the Christians to establish a church among the dwellings of the circumcised. This was brought about by a singular adventure. Hillel had succeeded his father, Judah the Second, in the patriarchate. If we are to believe Epiphanius, the Patriarch himself had embraced Christianity, and had been secretly baptized on his death-bed by a bishop. Joseph, his physician, had witnessed the scene, which wrought strongly upon his mind.1 The house of 1 Epiphanii Haereses, c. 30. Epiphanius asserts that he heard the whole of this from Joseph himself when 70 years old. 20 JOSEPH THE PHYSICIAN". Book XX. Hillel, after his death, was kept closely shut up by his suspicious countrymen. Joseph obtained entrance, and found there the Gospel of St. John, the Gospel of St. Matthew, and the Acts, in a Hebrew translation. He read and believed. When the 'young Patriarch, another Judah (the Third), grew up, Joseph was appointed an apostle, or collector of the patriarchal revenue. It seems that Christian meekness had not been imbibed with Christian faith, for he discharged his function with unpopular severity. He was detected reading the Gospel, hurried to the synagogue, and scourged. The bishop of the town (in Cilicia) inter¬ fered. But Joseph was afterwards seized again and thrown into the Cydnus, from which he hardly escaped with his life. This was not the wisest means of re¬ covering a renegade; Joseph was publicly baptized, rose high in the favor of Constantino, and attained the dignity of Count of the Empire. Burning with zeal, — it is to be hoped not with revenge,—he turned all his thoughts to the establishment of Christian churches in the great Jewish cities. He succeeded under the protection of the government, and with the aid of a miracle. As he commenced an edifice on the site of a heathen temple in Tiberias, the Jews enchanted the lime which was to be used for mortar, — it would not burn. But Joseph having sanctified some water with the sign of the cross, the spell was dissolved, and the building arose to the discomfiture and dismay of his opponents. The laws of Constantine, with regard to the Jews, throw more real light on their character and condition.1 1 Constantine in a public document declared that it was not for the dignity of the Church to follow that most hateful of all people, the Jews, in the celebration of the Passover. A. C. 340-360. STATUTES OF CONSTANTINE. 21 The first of these statutes appears to authenticate the early part of the history of Joseph, and was, no doubt, framed in allusion to his case.1 It enacted that if the Jews should stone, or endanger the life of, a Christian convert, all who were concerned should be burned alive. This statute shows the still fiery zeal of the Jews, and their authority within the walls of their own synagogue ; nor had they any right to complain, if proselytes to the established faith should be pro¬ tected from their violence under the severest penalties. The second more intolerant clause of this statute pro¬ hibited all Christians from becoming Jews, under the pain of an arbitrary punishment; and, six months before his death, a third decree was issued by Constan- tine, prohibiting Jews from possessing Christian slaves.2 The reason assigned for this law was that it was un- See the Apostolic Canon: EI Tig emanonog ?) uk?Mg K^ypinbg vtiotevei /xerd 'lovbaluv, 7] eopTu&i fier' avruv, bexerai avruv tu. rr/g boprr/g gsvia olov dtpjpa, ?) tl roiovrov, Kadaipelcdu • el be Xa'inbg t?, utpopiQo&w. LXII. apud Coteler. Pat. Apost. ii. 451. 1 "Judyeis et majoribus eorum et Patriarchis volumus intimari: quod si quis post banc legem aliquem, qui eorum feralem fugerit sectam, et ad jDei cullum respexerit, saxis aut aliofuroris genere (quod nunc/(en cognov- imus) ausus fuerit adtentare, mox flammis dedendus est, et cum omnibus suis participibus concremandus. Si quis vero ei populo ad eorum nefariam sectam aecesserit, et conciliabulis eorum se applicaverit, cum ipsis poenas meritas sustinebit." Cod. Theodos. Tit. xvi. viii. 2 There is some doubt whether this law was so early as Constantine, and whether Constantine did more than prohibit the circumcision of slaves. The law stands thus in Ritter. Cod. Theodos.: " Si quis Judieorum Chris- tianum mancipium, vel cujuslibet alterius sectre, mercatus circumciderit, minime in servitute retineat circumcisum, sed libertatis privileges, qui hoc sustinuerit, potiatur." If the Jews were altogether prohibited from buying such slaves, the prohibition to circumcise them would seem superfluous. Later statutes show that they had many Christian slaves. Eusebius, how¬ ever, writes thus, as in the text: 'AAUd nal 'lovbaioig pr/beva Xpianavbv hopo&etei 6ovTieveiv ' prj yap depirov elvai trpodytoipovtaig nal nvpionrovoig, Tovg vrro tov ourypog TisTivrpupevovg Cpybb bov'kelag imuyeodai • e'l 6' evpe&eirf Tig roiovrog tov pev avela&ai kTiEvtiepov, tov be Crpxla xpyputuv Ko?ia&o&ai. Euseb. Yit. Const, iv. 27. 22 COUNCIL OF ELVIRA. Book XX. just that those who had been made free by the blood of Christ should be slaves to the murderers of the Prophets and of the Son of God. There was another civil law, of great importance, affecting the Jews; they were constrained to take upon themselves certain public offices, particularly the decurionate, which, from the facility with which the Emperor and his predecessors had granted exemptions, had become burdensome. The law, however, shows that the right of the Jews to Roman citizenship was fully recognized. The Patriarchs and the Rabbins had the © same exemption from all civil and military offices as the Christian clergy. In the markets the Jews had their own officers to regulate the price of things sold among themselves, and were not subject to the ordi¬ nary discursor or moderator.1 But still earlier than these statutes of Constantine, Spain, the fruitful mother and nurse of religious perse¬ cution, had given the signal for hostility towards the Jews, in a decree passed at the Council of Elvira (II- liberis), which is curious, as proving that the Jews were, to a great extent, the cultivators of the soil in that country. It was a custom for the Jewish and Christian farmers and peasants to mingle together at the festive entertainments given at the harvest-home, or at other periods of rural rejoicing. The Jews were 1 Cod. Theodos. xii. viii. 3, 4. Chrysostom records a revolt of the Jews in the reign of Constantine, an attempt to rebuild their Temple, and to violate the laws which prohibited their entrance into the Holy City; and that the insurgents were punished by having their ears cut off, branded as slaves, and sold in great numbers. Le Beau (Bas Empire, i. 167) ventures to date this insurrection in the year a. c. 315. I am inclined to hesitate as to receiving, on the authority of an oration, or rather invective, of Chrysostom, a fact so important, of which there is no other trace in history, or, as I believe, in Jewish tradition. S. Chrys. Horn. 2 in Judseos. A. C. 340-360. EXCESSES OF THE JEWS. 23 wont in devout humility to utter their accustomed grace before the feast that the Almighty would, even in the land of the stranger, permit his rains, and dews, and sunshine, to fertilize the harvests. The Christians appear to have been offended at this, apparently very innocent, supplication. The decree of the Council proscribed the meeting of the two races at these festi¬ vals, and prohibited the blessings of the Jew, lest, per¬ haps, they might render unavailing the otherwise powerful benedictions of the Church.1 It is said that the Jews in the East revenged them- selves for these oppressive laws against their brethren by exciting a furious persecution against the Christians, in which the Jews and Magians vied with each other, in violence.2 The- increased severity of the laws enacted by Con- stantius, the son and successor of Constantine, indicates the still darkening spirit of hostility,3 but the Jews, unhappily, gave ample provocation to the authorities. The hot-headed Israelites of Alexandria mingled them¬ selves in the factions of Arians and Atlianasians which distracted that restless city. They joined with the Pagans, on the side of the Arian Bishop, and com¬ mitted frightful excesses, burning churches, profaning them with outrages which Athanasius shrinks from 1 " Admoneri placuit possessores, ut non patiantur fructus suos quos a Deo percipiunt cum gratiarum actione a Judaus benedici; ne nostram irri- tam et infirmam faciant benedictionem. Si quis post interdictum facere usurpaverit, penitus ab ecclesia abjiciatur." c. 49, Concil. Illberst. a. d. 305. " Si vevo aliquis clericus sive iidelis fuerit, qui cum Judteis cibum sump- serit, placuit eura a communione abstinere." c. 50. I liave connected the two statutes together, as explanatory of each other. 2 Sozomen. H. E. ii. 9: e?anrei be ical 'Iovbaiovg Tpbnov nva (j>v a e l in o fiaoKaviag n pop to day pa tuv Xpionavuv enno^epupevovg. 3 Cod. Theodos. xvi. 7. 24 CHRISTIAN PILGRIMS TO THE HOLY CITY. Book XX. relating, and violating consecrated virgins. An insur¬ rection in Judaea, which terminated in the destruction of Dio Caesarea, gave another pretext for exaction and oppression.1 The Jews were heavily burdened and taxed; forbidden, under pain of death, from possessing Christian slaves, or marrying Christian women; and the interdict of Hadrian, which prohibited their ap¬ proach to the Holy City, was formally renewed.2 These laws likewise throw light on their condition. Their heavy burdens may indicate that the Jews possessed considerable wealth ; the possession of Christian slaves leads to the same conclusion; and the necessity of the enactment against marrying Christian women shows that, in some ranks at least, the animosity between the two races had considerably worn away. But the pro¬ hibition against entering Jerusalem was still further o o embittered by the distant view of the splendor which the new city had assumed. Christian pilgrims crowded the ways which led to the Holy City,3 where the wood of the true cross — the discovery of which by a sin¬ gular chance is ascribed to a Jew — began to dissemi¬ nate its inexhaustible splinters through the Christian world. The church of the Holy Sepulchre, built by the Empress Helena, rose in lofty state, and crowned the supposed hill of Calvary, on which their ancestors had crucified Jesus of Nazareth ; while the hill of Moriah lay desecrated and desolate, as it had been left by the plough of the insulting conqueror. 1 Socrates, H. E. ii. 33: "Et interea Judneorum seditio qui Patricium nefarib in regni specie sustulerant." Aurel. Victor in Constant. This evi¬ dently means that they had set up their Prince as an independent sovereign. 2 Sozomen. H. E. iii. 17. 3 Compare the Itinerary from Bourdeaux to Jerusalem, and Wesseling's notes; Ilieronym. Oper. i. 10-3; the famous passage in Greg. Nyssen on the abuse of pilgrimage. The fullest account of these early pilgrimages is in Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzuge, c. i. A. C. 361. JULIAN THE APOSTATE. 25 If tlien the Jews beheld with jealous alarm the rival religion seated on the imperial throne, and the votaries of Jesus clothed in the royal purple ; if they felt their condition gradually becoming worse under the statutes of the new emperors; if they dreaded still further aggressions on their prosperity ; they must have looked with no secret triumph to the accession of Julian, the apostate from Christianity. Before long their elation was still further excited by a letter written from the Emperor, addressed to " his brother," 1 the Patriarch, and the commonalty of the Jews. Julian seemed to recognize the Unity of God, in terms which might satisfy the most zealous follower of Moses.2 He pro¬ ceeded to denounce their oppressors, condescended to excuse his brother, annulled the unequal taxes with which they were loaded, and expressed his earnest hope that, on his return from the Persian war, the great designs he had formed for their welfare might be fully accomplished. The temporal as well as the religious policy of Julian advised his conciliation of the Jews. Could they be lured by his splendid prom¬ ises to embrace his party, the Jews in Mesopotamia would have thrown great weight into his scale in his campaign against the Persians ; and in his design of depressing Christianity, it was important to secure the support of every opposite sect. Probably with these views the memorable edict was issued for the rebuild¬ ing of the Temple on Mount Moriah, and the restora¬ tion of the Jewish worship in its original splendor.3 1 tov udeTicpov "IovAov tov aideotfiuTciTov Harpidpxyv• 2 etc [iziCpvap evxuc Tioir/t£ tpr/g jsaal^eiaq ru tzuvtuv Kpscrrovi kcu fyfuovpyu 0e. Julian.^Epist. xxv. 8 Theodoret assigns the following reason for Julian's design to rebuild the Temple. He sent to inquire of the Jews why they had ceased to offer sacrifice. They replied, that it was not lawful for them to sacrifice but in 26 ATTEMPT TO REBUILD THE TEMPLE. Book XX. The execution of this project was intrusted, while Julian advanced with his ill-fated army to the East, to the care of his favorite, Alypius. The whole Jewish world was in commotion ; they crowded from the most distant quarters to he present and assist in the great national work. Those who were unable to come envied their more fortunate brethren, and waited in anxious hope for the intelligence that they might again send their offerings, or make their pilgrimage, to the Temple of the God of Abraham, in His holy place. Their wealth was poured forth in lavish profusion; and all who were near the spot, and could not contribute so amply, offered their personal exertions. Blessed were the hands that toiled in such a work ; and unworthy was he of the blood of Israel who would not unlock, at such a call, his most secret hoards.1 Men cheerfully surrendered the hard-won treasures of their avarice ; women offered up the orna¬ ments of their vanity. The very tools which were to be employed were, as it were, sanctified by the ser¬ vice, and were made of the most costly materials: some had shovels, mallets, and baskets of silver; and women were seen carrying rubbish in robes and mantles of silk.2 Men, blind from the womb, came forward to lend their embarrassing aid; and the aged tottered along the ways, bowed beneath the weight of some burden which they seemed to acquire new strength to support. The confidence and triumph of the Jews was unbounded; some went so far in their profane one place, the site of their Temple. Julian, who looked on sacrifice as the one sign of true religion, and that which distinguished the rest of mankind from the Christians, immediately gave orders fi^: the restoration of the Temple. Theodoret's is .one of the earliest and most graphic descriptions of the whole transaction. H. E. iii. 20. i Greg. Naz. iv. iii.; Theodoret, iv. 20. 2 Sozomen, v. 22. A. C. 363. INTERRUPTIONS TO THE WORK. 27 adulation as to style Julian tlie Messiah. The Chris¬ tians looked on in consternation and amazement. Would the murderers of the Son of God be permitted to rebuild their devoted city, and the Temple arise again from " the abomination of desolation " ? Mate¬ rials had now accumulated from all quarters, some say at the expense of the Emperor, but that is not probable, considering the costly war in which he was engaged. Nor were the Jews wanting in ample resources: timber, stones, lime, burnt brick, clay, were heaped together in abundant quantities.1 Already was the work com¬ menced ; already had they dug down to a considerable depth, and were preparing to lay the foundations, when suddenly flames of fire came bursting from the centre of the hill, accompanied with terrific explosions. The affrighted workmen fled on all sides, and the labors were suspended at once by this unforeseen and awful sign. Other circumstances are said to have accom- "jc oppr/g. They always ended in blood¬ shed. 2 The severer Rabbins prohibited the theatre. " lis deniqne, qui a ludis abstinuerunt, multi Judajorum accensendi, qui a Rabbinis srepius admoniti, coronam tlieatralem, veluti ccetum irrisorum, quem ingredi Plasmista pro- hibuerat, sanctitatis studio fugerunt." Miiller, De Genio /Evi Theodosiani, p. 60, with note. The Rabbinical authority was at its weakest in Greek Alexandria. s The Jews and Christians, like the Blues and Greens in Constantinople, seem to have espoused the cause of different actors, m t5£ it?ieov dia tovq bpxjjGTug tuirETToteiiuvTO na-&' kavTihv. A. C. 415. ORESTES, PREFECT OF ALEXANDRIA. 43 terminated without bloodshed. Orestes, Prefect of Alexandria, determined to repress these sanguinary tumults, and ordered his police regulations to he sus¬ pended in the theatre.1 Certain partisans of Cyril, the Archbishop, entered the theatre with the innocent de¬ sign, according to Socrates, on whose partial authority the whole affair rests, of reading these ordinances. Among the rest was one Hierax, a low schoolmaster, a man conspicuous as an adherent of the Archbishop, whom he was wont frequently to applaud by clapping his hands (the usual custom in the Church) whenever he preached. From what cause does not appear, hut the Jews considered themselves insulted by his presence, and raised an outcry that the man was there only to stir up a tumult. Orestes, jealous of the Archbishop, who had usurped on the civil authority, ordered Hierax to he seized and scourged. Cyril sent for the princi¬ pal Jews, and threatened them with exemplary ven¬ geance if they did not cause all tumults against the Christians to cease. The Jews determined to antici¬ pate their adversaries. Having put on rings of palm- bark that they might distinguish each other in the dark, they suddenly, at the dead of night, raised a cry of fire about the great church, called that of Alexander. The Christians rose, and rushed from all quarters to save the church. The Jews fell on them, and mas¬ sacred on all sides. When day dawned, the cause of the uproar was manifest. The militant Archbishop instantly took arms, attacked with a formidable force the synagogues of the Jews, slew many, drove the rest out of the city, and plundered their property.2 1 Perhaps these regulations might appoint different days for the different classes of the people to attend the theatre: this supposition would make the story more clear. a Baronius relates this act of the Archbishop with characteristic coolness: 44 THE ARCHBISHOP CYRIL. Book XX. The strong part which Orestes took against the Archbishop, and. his regret at the expulsion of the thriving and industrious Jews from the city, seem to warrant a suspicion that the latter were not so en¬ tirely without provocation. Both, however, sent repre¬ sentations to the Emperor ; but, probably before he could interfere, the feud between the implacable Pre¬ fect and the Archbishop had grown to a greater height. Cyril, it is said, on one occasion advanced to meet his adversary, with the Gospel in his hand, as a sign of peace ; but Orestes, suspecting probably that he had not much of its spirit in his heart, refused this offer of conciliation. There were certain monks who lived in the mountains of Nitria. These fiery champions of the Church seized their arms, and poured into the city to strengthen the faction of the Patriarch. Embol- dened by their presence, Cyril openly insulted Orestes — called him heathen, idolater, and many other op¬ probrious names. In vain the Prefect protested that he had been baptized by Atticus, a bishop in Con¬ stantinople. A man, named Ammonius, hurled a great stone at his head : the blood gushed forth, and his affrighted attendants dispersed on all sides. But the character of Orestes stood high with the inhab¬ itants. The Alexandrian populace rose in defence of their Prefect; the monks were driven from the city, Ammonius tortured and put to death. Cyril com¬ manded his body to be taken up, paid him all the honors of a martyr, and declared that he had fallen a victim to his righteous zeal in defence of the Church. Even Socrates seems to shrink from relating; this un- Christian conduct of the Patriarch. Cyril himself was " Ex Judaeis nonnullos neci dat, alios expellit e civitate, eorumque fortunas a multitudine diripi permittit." Sub ann. 415. A. C. 414-429. HILARY, BISHOP OF POITIERS. 45 ashamed, and glad to bury the transaction in oblivion. Before long, however, his adherents perpetrated a more inhuman deed even than the plunder and expulsion of the Jews : it must he related, to show the ferocious character of their antagonists. There was a woman, named Hypatia, of extraordinary learning, and deeply versed in the Platonic philosophy. She lived in great intimacy with Orestes, and was suspected of encourag¬ ing him in his hostility to the Patriarch. This woman they seized, dragged her from her chariot, and, with the most revolting indecency, tore her clothes off, and then rent her limb from limb. By another account Cyril himself is accused as having instigated, from jealousy of the fair Platonist's numerous hearers, this horrible act. It is grievous to add, that, through bribes and interest at the imperial court, the affair remained unpunished: nor do we hear that the Jews obtained either redress or restoration to their homes and property. We gladly avert our eyes to catch a few occasional gleams of better feeling among the Christian hierarchy towards the subjects of our History. The history and the laws of the Empire thus show the Jews in almost every province, not of the East alone, hut of Greece, the Islands, Italy, Gaul, Africa, and Spain.1 It is re¬ lated that such was the spirit of love produced by the example of the good Hilary, in his diocese of Poitiers in Gaul, that at his funeral the Israelites were heard chanting in Hebrew their mournful psalms of lamenta¬ tion for the Christian Bishop.2 Some traits of friendly feeling, and of amicable correspondence with respecta- 1 Socrates, H. E., iii. 13. 2 Honorat. Vit. S. Hilarii. 46 FALL OF THE PATRIARCHATE. Book XX. ble Jews, occur in the elegant works of Sidonius Apol- linaris.1 In the mean time the Jewish Patriarchate, after having exercised its authority for nearly three centu¬ ries, expired in the person of Gamaliel. Its fall had been prognosticated by many visible signs of decay and dissolution. The Jews, ever more and more dispersed, became probably a less influential part of the popula¬ tion in Palestine ; at least those in the Holy Land bore a less proportion to the numbers scattered throughout the world; and thus the bonds of authority over the more remote communities gradually relaxed. A law of Honorius gave a signal blow to its opulence : it prohibited the exportation of the annual tribute 2 which the collectors of the Patriarch levied on the Jews throughout the Empire, from Rome,3 probably from the Western Empire. Five years after, it is true, this law was repealed, and the Patriarch resumed his rights ; but the Jews were deprived, by another statute, of the agency, — an office, now apparently become 1 Yet Sidonius must apologize for his favorable disposition to a Jew: " Gozolas natione Judaeus . . . cujus mihi quoque esset persona cordi, si non esset secta despeeta . ." Ep. iii. 4, and iv. 5. " Judaeum pnesens charta commendat, non quod mihi placeat error, per quem pereunt invo- luti. . . . Sed quia neminem ipsorum nos decet ex asse damnabilem pro- nunciare, dum vivit. In spe enim adhuc absolutionis est, cui suppetit posse converti." vi. 11. See also Greg. Tur. ii. c. 21. 2 Jost attributes the gradual decline of the Patriarchate (at an earlier period) to the falling-off of its revenues: " Wenn wir nicht irren, so hatte die Schwiiche des Patriarchats ihren Grand im Versiegen der Einnahmen, die ihm in friiherer Zeit zugeflossen waren." Judenthum, ii. 158. They then began to send out their collectors: " . . . quos ipsi Apostolos vocant, qui ad exigendum aurum atque argentum a Patriarcha certo tempore diriguntur, e singulis Synagogis exactam summam adque susceptam ad eundem reportent." Cod. Theodos. xvi. 14. Compare, on the title aivo(7TO?i,og, Julian. Epist. xxv. Epiphanius de Uteres. 30, and the note on this law in Ritter's Cod. Theodos. 8 Cod. Theod. xvi. 15. Book XX. THE TALMUD. 47 lucrative, which, their active habits of trade enabled them to fill with great advantage to themselves. At length a law of Theodosius,1 which has been differently understood, either stripped the Patriarch of the honor¬ ary title of Prefect, which had been assigned to him by former emperors, and thus virtually destroyed his authority; or, as some — inaccurately, I conceive — suppose, expressly abolished the office. The crime imputed to the Patriarch was his erecting new syna¬ gogues, in defiance of the imperial laws. At all events, Gamaliel — even if after this statute he maintained the empty name of Patriarch — at his death had no successor; and this spiritual monarchy of the West was forever dissolved.2 It may be said that the domin¬ ion passed into the hands of the Rabbinical aristocracy. The Jerusalem Talmud had already been compiled, as a new code : it embodied and preserved the learning of the schools in Palestine, which, before the fall of the Patriarchate, had almost come to an end. But the later compilation, the Talmud of Babylon, eclipsed the more 1 Cod. Theodos. xvi. On the title of Agentes in Rebus, compare note on Law 24. 2 Cod. Theodos. xvi. 22: — " Quoniam Gamalielus existimavit se posse impune delinquere, quod magis est erectus fastigio dignitatum." He was ordered to surrender his patent (codieillum) of office as honorary Prefect, " Ita ut in eo sit honore in quo ante Prasfecturam fuerat constitutus, ac deinceps nullas condi faciat Synagogas: et si quaj sint in solitudine, si sine seditione possent deponi, perliciat." The same edict prohibited the circumcision, by him or any other Jew, of any Christian. Christian slaves were to be emancipated according to the law of Constantino. Compare Law 26. On the other hand, a law of Theodosius the younger prohibited the de¬ priving the Jews of their synagogues, and burning them. If any syna¬ gogues, since the passing of the law, had been consecrated as churches, or for Christian uses, sites were to be given of equal dimensions. Any offer¬ ings (donativa) which had not been consecrated to Christian uses were to be restored; if consecrated, an adequate price was to be paid. But while the old synagogues were permitted to stand, no new ones were to be built. Cod. Theod. xvi. 25. 48 MODERN TRANSLATORS OF Book XX. obscure and less perfect work of tlie Palestinian Jews, and became the law and the religion of the whole race of Israel. The Talmud remains as a whole secluded in its mysteries, except to those who are not only Hebrew scholars, but who have mastered the later and less classical Hebrew (if it may be so said) of the Rabbins.1 In our days perhaps the Talmud, revealed in all its secret lore, might obtain a fair hearing and a dispas¬ sionate judgment. But immediately after, or indeed before its final compilation had begun, three ages of intense, bitter, unforgiving hatred between Jew and Christian had intervened — ages of division too natural, too inevitable, when Christians hated each other for far less glaring differences, and with even more impla¬ cable cordiality, than they did the Jews. During this period the Christian considered himself involved in an inextinguishable blood-feud with the Jew, the mur¬ derer as he was esteemed of the Saviour; and the Jew, scattered, despised, downtrodden, could not but look with the gloomiest envy on the Christian, who had succeeded in conquering the world to his faith, an achievement which, in his high days of hope, he had thought to have been his own glorious destiny. He therefore shut himself up in his pride, as if his race were still the chosen, though as yet sorely tried and i Some separate treatises may be read translated into Latin or into mod¬ ern languages, a few in the great Thesaurus of Ugolini. The vast scheme of Chiarini, who proposed to publish the whole Babylonian Talmud, trans¬ lated into French (his single volume contains only the first treatise, the Beracoth), was cut off by his untimely death, in 1832. M. Pinner of Ber¬ lin issued proposals even on a larger scale for the publication of the whole Talmud, with a German translation, and copious notes and illustrations. Only the first volume appeared (at least I, as a subscriber to the work, have received but one, in folio, Berlin, a. r>. 1812). I presume that the work has been discontinued, for what reason I know not. Book XX. THE TALMUD. 49 heavily burdened, people of God. In later times, when the schism grew wider and wider, the only way (as we shall find it was proposed in the Middle Ages) to extirpate obstinate Judaism, was to burn and de¬ stroy, and utterly root out the Talmud. The Talmud therefore became more dear to the Jew, who was little inclined to unfold its lore to the blind, prejudiced Christians, unable to comprehend, and unworthy of being enlightened by its wisdom. As better times came on, Christian scholars, Lightfoot, Selden, the BuxtorfFs, Meuschen, Wolf, Bartolocci, dug into those hidden mines, from the love of knowledge and the de¬ sire of illustrating the origin of their own religion. Go O Eisenmenger undertook the hateful task of disclosing all the mysteries of Rabbinical learning, only to make the Jews more detestable to the Christian world, and to expose them to more merciless persecution. The title- page of his work is " Judaism Exposed " (Entdecktes Judenthum). It is, according to Eisenmenger, a pro¬ found and true statement of the frightful manner in which the obdurate Jews curse and scoff at the Holy Trinity, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, mock at the Holy Mother of Christ, throughout insult the New Testament, the Apostles and Evangelists, the whole religion of Christ. Odious as was the spirit and intention of Eisenmenger, his reading was vast, his industry indefatigable (two enormously thick quarto volumes are crowded with citations in the original, and with translations). I have never heard his accuracy seriously impeached. But the grave defect of the book is, that passages from the Talmud are heaped together indiscriminately with passages from the modern writ¬ ings, writings of times when cruel persecution, as well as contempt, had for centuries goaded the miserable VOL. HI. 4 50 MODERN TRANSLATORS OF Book XX. Jews to tlie only vengeance in which, besides over¬ reaching in trade, they could indulge, —writings in their own secret, unintelligible language, such as the " Tol- dotli Jesu," and the other " fiery weapons of Satan," published later, to the horror and detestation of Chris¬ tian Europe, by Wagenseil.1 Of all the Jewish books, early and late, the extracts in Eisenmenger, read with this caution and in the more generous spirit of our times, form certainly a most curious and instructive collection. Take the strange, monstrous Oriental hyperboles, in which the barbarized Jews endeavored to describe the Undescribable, to represent under im- anerv the Inconceivable Godhead and His attributes : the wild, sometimes profound, and almost sublime alle¬ gories, which Eisenmenger, and probably the more ignorant Jews themselves, understood literally, as they did the strange apologues and parables. Consider the philosophy of the Talmud without the apologetic re¬ serve and prudent suppression of the modern Jewish writers, or without the remorseless literalness of most Christian expositors ; without receiving it as altogether a mystery of esoteric wisdom, skilfully and subtly couched in language only really intelligible to the initiate, but as the growth of the human mind in a very peculiar condition, a legendary and a scholasti¬ cism, and a mysticism of half-European, half-Asiatic cast. But this would require a perfect mastery of Rabbinical Hebrew in-its gradual development and ex¬ pansion, as well as a calm and subtle, and penetrating, l The "Tela Ignea Satan®." Wagenseil himself admits the wretched trash about the birth and early life of the Saviour, in the " Toldoth Jesu," to be very modern: "nam est omnino recens seu abortus," p. 25. I ap¬ prehend that it was crushed out of the maddened hearts of the Jews by the Inquisition — a miserable revenge, but still revenge! It first appeared in the " Pugio Fidei" of the Spanish monk Raymond Martin. Book XX. THE TALMUD. 51 I would almost say, considering tlie subjects often in discussion, a reverential judgment, — the gift of few men, of still fewer who are likely to devote their minds to what after all might prove but a barren study. So alone should we know what the Jews have been, what they may be, and fully understand their writings and their later history. A religious mind would be above all indispensable; but the combination of religious zeal with respect for the religion of others is the last and tardiest growth in the inexhaustible soil of Christian virtue.1 1 The calm and sober chapters of Jost, in his " Judenthum," on the Tal¬ mud (Judenthum, ii. pp. 202-222), deserve to be read and studied. See his distinction between the Halacha and the Midrasch, p. 21-3. " While, as the Halacha was the very life of the religion, it rigorously enforced the Law in all its strictest observances, with all the subtlety and inge¬ nuity by which its provisions had been fenced about, and guarded by the most minute definitions, so the Midrasch was the element of the most boundless intellectual activity, or of thought and opinion, ' des Denkens und Meinens.' All which did not belong to the Law it assumed as its prov¬ ince; the conceptions of God, of angels and spirits; notions of the being and destiny of man in this world and the next; the moral law in all its bear¬ ings; the treatment of the historical events in the Jewish annals; the pos¬ sible meaning of every expression in the Holy Scriptures; the reconcile¬ ment of seemingly contradictory characters of Biblical persons; popular traditions and proverbs; popular belief and superstition, even particular observances of the Law, as far as they could be brought into relation with such inquiries, — in short, an endless world of actual life and creative im¬ agination was contained in the Agada or Midrasch." The Agada represents God as acting and speaking as appears to the writers necessary for His purposes; it brings forward holy men and women of the old times before the eyes of its hearers as conversing with God and with spirits; it permits God and the angels to mingle in the commerce and strife of men, often to act according to their wish; on the holy it bestows miraculous powers of the most extraordinary kind. They heal the sick of whom art has despaired, kill with a word or a look .... all nature is under their command They have unlimited power over evil spirits. The Agada seizes all sorts of tenets and opinions, which are not accordant with Jewish language and views, to mould them after its own fashion; it takes up Pythagorean and Platonic, Alexandrian and Gnostic, Persian and other Oriental notions, and turns them into Jewish. Hence the infinite charm of variety, and the delight of the Jews to wander in this wild garden; 52 THE TALMUD. Book XX. hence the acknowledged impossibility to introduce anything like tenets, or even to la^ down principles of tenets." This fertile imagination of the Jews had already allowed itself free play in the apocryphal books, such as the ivth (so called) Esdras, the Ascension of Isaiah, the Book of Enoch; to say nothing of the Jewish part of the ^Dfacula Sibvllina. Compare Ewald, especially on the ivth book of Esdras, xvii. 63, Ac.; Hilgent'eld, Die Jiidische Apocalyptik. Pinner, in his preface, has cited the opinions of many other learned men as to the real character and contents of the genuine Talmud. See, too, Salvador (Jiisus Christ et sa Doctrine) for a defence of the Talmud. BOOK XXL \ . THE JEWS UNDER THE BARBARIAN KINGS AND THE BYZANTINE EMPERORS. Irruption and Conquests of the Barbarians — Trade of the Jews— Slave- Trade — Decrees of Councils — Of Pope Gregory the First — Conduct of the Christians to the Jews — Arian Kings of Italy— Pope Gregory the First— State anterior to the Rise of Mohammedanism in the East¬ ern Empire — Insurrections of the Samaritans — Laws of Justinian — Dispute about the Language in which the Law was to be read — State of the Jews in the Persian Dominions — Persecutions— Civil Contests — Conquest of Sjn-ia and Jerusalem by the Persians — Reconquest by the Emperor Heraclius. The irruption of the Northern Barbarians during the latter half of the fourth to about the end of the fifth century so completely disorganized the whole frame of society, that the condition of its humblest members could not but be powerfully influenced by the total revolution in the government, in the posses¬ sion of the soil, and in the social character of all those countries which were exposed to their inroads. The Jews were widely dispersed in all the provinces on which the storm fell — in Belgium, along the course of the Rhine — in such parts of Germany as were civilized — in Gaul, Italy, and Spain. An early law of Constantine1 shows them as settled at Colonia Agrippina (Cologne), another in Macedonia and Illy- ricum. The Western Emperors legislate concerning the Jews as frequently as the Eastern. In Gaul, Council after Council, not only those which denounce their commerce in slaves, but others in every part, in 1 Cod. Theodos. xvi. 3.12. 54 IRRUPTION OF THE BARBARIANS. Book XXI. Bretagne, at Agde, in the South, show them as liv¬ ing on terms of free intercourse with the Christians ; the clergy alone were forbidden to share in their feasts, or to admit them to their own hospitable hoards.1 We have seen them mourning over a humane Bishop of Poitiers; so too over another Bishop, Gallus of Cler¬ mont, whose bier they followed weeping, with lighted torches.2 They are employed by another Bishop of Clermont (Sidonius Apollinaris) in offices of trust. The laws of the Burgundians define the mulct for a Jew who shall strike a Christian with fist or cudgel or whip or stone, or pull his liair.3 If he lifted his hand against the sacred person of a priest, the penalty was death and confiscation of goods.4 In Italy we shall have full account of their state and condition. The decrees of the Council of Elvira have already recognized them as land-owners and cultivators of the soil in Spain. Of the original progress of the Jews into these countries, history takes no notice ; for they did not migrate in swarms, or settle in large bodies, but sometimes as slaves, following the fortunes of their masters ; sometimes as single enterprising traders, they travelled on and advanced as convenience or profit tempted, till they reached the verge of civilization. On them the successive inroads and conquests of the Barbarians fell much more lightly than on the native inhabitants. Attached to no fixed residence, with lit¬ tle interest in the laws and usages of the different provinces ; rarely encumbered with landed property or 1 Concil. Venet. (Vannes, can. 21) Agathensis (Agde). The Council of Elvira did not confine this prohibition to the clergy. 2 Gregor. Tur. Vit. Patr. c. vii. 8 Baronius, Ann. a. d. 445-9, 449-61. 4 Leg. Burgund. (apud Canciani, xix.). De Judajis qui in Christianum manum prassumerint inittere. Book XXI. MIGRATIONS OF THE JEWS. 55 with immovable effects; sojourners, not settlers, den¬ izens rather than citizens, they could retreat, before the cloud burst, to the more secure and peaceful dwellings of their brethren, and bear with them the most valu¬ able portion of their goods. True citizens of the world, they shifted their quarters, and found new channels for their trade as fast as the old were closed. But the watchful son of Israel fled to return again, in order that he might share in the plunder of the uncircum- cised. Through burning towns and ravaged fields he travelled, regardless of the surrounding misery which enveloped those with whom he had no ties of attach¬ ment. If splendid cities became a prey to the flames, or magnificent churches lay in ashes, his meaner dwell¬ ing was abandoned without much regret, and with no serious loss ; and even his synagogue might perish in the common ruin, without either deeply wounding the religious feelings of the worshippers, who had no pecu¬ liar local attachment to the spot, or inflicting any very grievous loss on a community who could reestablish, at no great expense, their humble edifice. If, indeed, individuals experienced considerable losses, their whole trading community had great opportunities of reim¬ bursement, which they were not likely to overlook or neglect in the wild confusion of property which at¬ tended the conquests of the invaders. Where battles were fought, and immense plunder fell into the power of the wandering Barbarians, the Jews were still at hand to traffic the worthless and glittering baubles with which ignorant savages are delighted, or the more use¬ ful but comparatively cheap instruments and weapons of iron and brass, for the more valuable commodities, of which the vendors knew not the price or the use. These, by the rapid and secret correspondence which, 56 THEIR TRADE. Book XXI. no doubt, the Israelites had already established with their brethren in every quarter of the world, were transported into more peaceful and unplundered re¬ gions, which still afforded a market for the luxuries and ornaments of life. Already in the time of Gregory the First, a more perilous traffic had begun. Some of the clergy had dared, or had been compelled by want, to alienate the sacred vessels and furniture of their churches to the profane hands of the Jew merchant. Gregory declares with horror1 that the clergy of Vena¬ fro had sold to a Jew two silver cups, two crowns with dolphins, the lilies of two others, six larger and seven smaller pallia.2 It seems that the sale was illegal, and the Jew could be forced to regorge his prey. Gregory, as we shall hereafter see, was generally just and hu¬ mane to the Jews. As to the particulars of this com¬ merce, we have no certain information, as, in truth, the fact rests rather 011 inference than on positive data ; but if it existed to the extent we believe, it must have been highly lucrative, when the venders were ignorant barbarians, and the purchasers intelligent, and, prob¬ ably, not over-scrupulous traders, well acquainted with the price which every article would bear in the dif¬ ferent markets of the civilized world. Nor is it im¬ probable that, by keeping alive the spirit of commerce, which might otherwise have become utterly extinct amid the general insecurity, the interruption of the usual means of communication, and the occupation of the roads by wild marauders, the Jews conferred a great advantage on society, by promoting the civiliza¬ tion of these wild and warlike hordes. But we have ample evidence that one great branch of commerce fell almost entirely into the hands of the Jews — the in- l " Quod dici nefas est." 2 S. Greg. Epist. i. 55. Book XXI. THE SLAVE-TRADE. 57 ternal slave-trade of Europe. It is impossible to sup¬ pose but that this strange state of things must have inspired a sort of revengeful satisfaction into the mind of the zealous Israelite. While his former masters, or at least his rulers, the Christians, were wailing over their desolate fields, their ruined churches, their pil¬ laged monasteries, their violated convents, he was grow¬ ing rich amid the general ruin, and perhaps either purchasing for his own domestic service, at the cheapest price, the fairest youths, and even high-born maidens, or driving his gangs of slaves to the different markets, o o o ~ where they still bore a price. The Church beheld this evil with avowed grief and indignation. In vain popes issued their rescripts, and councils uttered their inter¬ dicts ; the necessity for the perpetual renewal both of the admonitions of the former, and the laws of the lat¬ ter, show that they had not the power to repress a practice which they abhorred. The language of these edicts was, at first, just and moderate. The Christians had, probably, the wisdom to perceive that, however apparently disgraceful to their cause, and productive of much misery, this trade had also its advantages, in mitigating the horrors and atrocities of war. Servitude o o was an evil, particularly when the Christian was en¬ slaved to an Infidel or Jew, but it was the only alter¬ native to avoid massacre. Conquering savages will resjDect human life only where it is of value as a dis¬ posable article, — they will make captives only where captives are useful and salable. In the interior of Africa, it may be questionable how far the slave-trade increases or allays the barbarity of warlike tribes. No doubt many marauding expeditions are undertaken, and even wars between different tribes and nations entered into, with 110 other motive or object of plunder 58 EDICTS CONCERNING SLAVERY. Book XXL except the miserable beings which supply the slave- marts ; but where the war arises from other causes, it would probably terminate in the relentless extermina¬ tion of the conquered party, if they were not spared, some may say, and with justice, for the more pitiable fate of being carried across the desert as a marketable commodity. But with the northern tribes, the capture of slaves was never the primary object of their in¬ vasions ; they moved onward either in search of new settlements, or propelled by the vast mass of increas- ing population among the tribes beyond them : at this period, therefore, this odious commerce must have greatly tended to mitigate the horrors of war, which the state of society rendered inevitable. From the earliest period after Christianity assumed the reins of the Empire, the possession of Christian slaves by the circumcised had offended the dominant party. Constantine issued a severe law, which pro¬ hibited the Jew, under pain of confiscation of prop¬ erty, from buying a Christian slave ; but this law was either never executed, or fell into disuse.1 It was re- enacted by Theodosius, with the addition, that such as were slaves before the issue of the decree were to be redeemed by the Christians.2 A law of Honorius3 only prohibited the conversion of Christian slaves to Judaism, not interfering with, or rather fully recogniz¬ ing, the Jews' right of property in their bondsmen.4 1 1 Cod. Theodos. xvi. Sozomen. 'Iovdaiuv 6e Evo/io&eTTjoav fir/deva 6ov?iov (hveladai tuv srtpag aipeoeog. The slave was confiscated to the public treasury. H. E. iii. 19. 2 Cod. Theodos. iii. 1. 5. The date is a. c. 384. 3 1 Cod. Theodos. xvi. 8. 3. The law is dated a. c. 415. 4 Jost, Judenthum, ii. 158. mentions Abahu, a wealthy and enlightened Jew of Cresarea, who was on friendly and familiar terms with the Roman proconsul, and though he conversed in Greek with the proconsul, and allowed his daughters to be taught Greek, still lived in amity with the Book XXI. DECREES OF COUNCILS AS TO SLAVERY. 59 After the evil had grown, through the incessant bar¬ baric wars, to a much greater magnitude, the Council of Orleans 1 (a. c. 540) took the lead, but with great fairness and moderation, in the laudable attempt to alleviate its baneful effects on the religious as well as the temporal state of the slave. That assembly en¬ acted, u That if a slave was commanded to perform any service incompatible with his religion, and the master proceeded to punish him for disobedience, he might find an asylum in any church : the clergy of that church were on no account to give him up, but to pay his full value to the master." The fourth Council of the same place (a. c. 541) goes further: " If a slave under such circumstances should claim the protection of any Christian, he is bound to afford it, and to re¬ deem the slave at a fair price." Further: " Any Jew who makes a proselyte to Judaism, or takes a Chris¬ tian slave to himself (probably as wife or concubine), or by the promise of freedom bribes one born a Chris¬ tian to forswear his faith, and embrace Judaism, loses his property in the slave. The Christian who has ac¬ cepted his freedom on such terms shall not presume to fulfil the condition, for a born Christian who embraces Judaism is unworthy of liberty." The first Council of Macon (a. c. 582) enacts, " That according to the laws, both ecclesiastical and civil, the conditions by which a Christian, either as a captive in war or by purchase, lias become slave to a Jew, must be re¬ spected. But since complaints have arisen that Jews living in the great and small towns have been so shameless as to refuse a fair price for the redemption Rabbins, and even lectured in the synagogues. He was served by Gothic slaves, and had an ivory chair. 1 Labbe. Concil. sub ann. GO TOrE GREGORY THE FIRST. Book XXI. of such bondsmen, no Christian can he compelled to remain in slavery ; hut every Christian lias a rio-ht to redeem Christian slaves at the price of twelve solidi,1 (to such a price had human life fallen,) either tore- store them to freedom, or to retain them as his own slaves ; for it were unjust that those whom our Saviour has redeem'd by his hlood should promt in tin* fetters of un-Christiun persecutors.'" These laws produced little effect ; for in the first place they calculated, far beyond the character of the apy, on the predominance of Chris¬ tian charity o\er the love of lucre, hotli in the clerpy and the laity. Besides, tin- whole administration of law had fallen into the worst disorder. Every king¬ dom, pro\inee, or district had its separate jurisdiction ; no uniformity of system could prevail ; and where the connnonaltv, many of the administrators of the law, and e\en the clergy, could neither write nor read, the written rescripts of councils were often hut a dead letter. The Fourth Council of Toledo ( v. r. Goo) recognized the practice of Jewish slave-dealing as in full force. The Tenth, at the same place ( v. c. boo), complains that " even the clergy, in defiance of the law, sold captives to Jews and heathens.'" At the close of the sixth century, one of the wisest and most humane pontiffs filled the Papal chair, Gregory the First. The Pope in his pastoral letters alternately denounces, hewails, and, hy authoritative rehuke and appeal to the better feelings, endea\ors to suppress, this "cruel and impious" traffic, which still existed in Italy, Sicily, and the South of France. lie writes to Fortunatus, Bishop of Naples, "that he has received an account that a Jewish miscreant has huilt an altar, and 1 According to the calculation adopted by Gibbon for this period, about bils. of our money. A. C. 590-60-1. POSSESSION OF, AND TKADE IN, SLAVES. G1 forced or bribed bis Christian slaves to worship upon it."1 The prefect was directed to indict corporal chastisement on the offender, and to cause all the slaves to receive their freedom. The next year he writes to Venantius, Bishop of Luna in Tuscany, rebuking him for permitting Christian slaves to come into the power of Jewish masters, contrary to his duty. Those who had been long in the possession of such masters were to be considered as villains attached to the soil (the Jews, it should seem, were considerable landed proprie¬ tors or cultivators of the land in Italy). But if the Jew resisted, or abused his seigniorial right to trans¬ plant the slave2 from the soil to which he belonged, he was to lose his lease of land, as well as his right over the slave. Gregory distinguishes between the pos¬ session of and the trade in slaves. No Jew or heathen, who was desirous of becoming a Christian, was to be retained in slavery. Lest the Jew should complain that he is robbed of his property, this rule is to be ob¬ served : if a heathen slave, bought as an article of 7 O trade, within three months after the sale, and before he finds another purchaser, shall wish to embrace Chris¬ tianity, the Jew shall receive the full price from a Christian slave-purchaser; if after that time, he shall immediately obtain his freedom, as it is evident that the Jew keeps him not for sale, but for service.3 This 1 The altar was dedicated to the blessed Elias: a singular circumstance, if true, as it should seem that the Jew tempted other Christians besides slaves to this " saint-worship," so contrary to the spirit of his own religion. The Jew, it is insinuated in the charge, had bribed the Bishop to conniv¬ ance. Greg. Epist. lib. ii. ep. 37. 2 " Quod si quispiam de his vel ad alium locum migrare, vel in obseqtiio suo retinere voluerit, ipse sibi reputet qui jus colonarium temcritate sua, jus vero juris dontinii sui severitate damnavit." Lib. iii. epist. 21. 3 This appears from a second letter to Fortunatus, Bishop of Naples, lib. v. ep. 31. The Pagan or Jewish slave who wished to embrace Christianity " in libertatem modis omnibus vindicetur." 02 the tope orrosES tiie slave-trade, book xxi. was, as it were, within the dominions of the Papacy, at least, almost bordering on the Pope's own particular diocese. In the Gallic provinces, as prohahly his power was less implicitly acknowledged, so his tone is less peremptory. The slaves in such cases were to he repurchased out of the goods of the Church. Gregory writes to Candidus, a preshyter in Gaul : " Dominic, the hearer of this letter, has with tears made known to us, that his tour brothers have been bought by the Jews, and are at present their slaves at Narbonne. We direct you to make inquiry into the transaction, and, if it be true, to redeem them at a proper price, which you will charge in your accounts, i. e. deduct from the annual payment made to Rome."1 Three years earlier he had written to Januarius, Bishop of Cagliari, in Sardinia, rebuking him, because certain slaves, belonging to Jews, who had taken refuge in a church, had been given up to the unbelievers. lie here declares u that every slave so seeking baptism be¬ comes free, and the treasures of the poor (/• <'• ^ie goods of the Church) are not to sutler loss for their redemption." 2 There is in his very curious letter to Fortunatus, Bishop of Xaples, an approval of his ardent zeal in favor of Christian slaves bought bv the Jews in the Gallic provinces. The Pontiff had intended entirely to interdict the trade. But a certain Jew, Basilius, with several others, had waited upon him, and stated that this traffic was recognized by the judicial author¬ ities, and that it was only by accident that Christian 1 Lib. vi. epist. xxi. 2 u Sive oliiu Cliristianus, sive nunc fuerit baptbatus, sine ulln Christi- anorum pauperum dumno religioso ecclesiastical' pietatis patrociniu in liber- tatem modis omnibus vindicetur." Epbt. lib. iii. 9. Book XXI. GREGORY WRITES AGAINST SLAVERY. 63 slaves were bought among the heathen.1 In a solemn tone, the Pontiff thus writes to Thierri and Theode- bert, Kings of the Franks, and to Queen Bruneliaut: "We are in amazement that, in your kingdom, Jews are permitted to possess Christian slaves. For, what are Christians but members of Christ's body, who, as ye know, as we all know, is their Head ? Is it not most inconsistent to honor the Head, and to allow the members to be trampled on by His enemies ? We en¬ treat your Majesties to expel this baneful traffic from your dominions : so will ye show yourselves true worshippers of Almighty God, by delivering His faith¬ ful from the hands of their adversaries."2 Another letter of Gregory, to Leo, Bishop of Catania in Sicily, establishes the curious fact that the Samaritans were likewise widely dispersed, and shared this traffic with the Jews: — "A circumstance, both revolting and contrary to the law, hath been made known to us, — a circumstance, if true, worthy of the strongest repro¬ bation and the heaviest punishment. We understand that certain Samaritans resident at Catania buy heathen slaves, whom they are so daring as to circumcise. You must investigate this affair with impartial zeal, take such slaves under'the protection of the Church, and not suffer these men to receive any repayment. Be¬ sides this loss, they must be punished to the utmost extremity of the law." 3 According to the Roman law, which still prevailed in Sicily, the penalty of circum¬ cising slaves was death and confiscation of proper¬ ty. In all other respects, this wise and virtuous Pon¬ tiff religiously maintained that tolerance towards the Jews which they enjoyed, with few exceptions, during l Lib. vii. 2. 35. 2 Lib. vii. 2.115,116. 8 Lib. v. epist. 32. Compare lib. vii. epist. 22. 01 THE SYNAGOGUE AND THE CHURCH. Book XXI. this period of confusion, and oven for some time after the conversion of the Barbarian monarehs to Chris¬ tianity.1 For all this time the Church was either sadly occu¬ pied in mourning over the ravages which enveloped the clergy and people in common ruin, or, more nobly, in imparting to the tierce conqueror-, the humanizing and civilizing know led^e of ('hristianity. It had not the power — we trust, in those times of adversity, that best school of Christian 'virtue, not the will — to perse¬ cute. There is a remarkable picture of the state of the Jews in Africa, in a tract printed anions the works of St. Augustine, called the "Altercation between the Synaixo^ue and the Church." a The date of this rec¬ ord is uncertain ; but it seems earlier, rather than later, as Basiiaye supposes, than the Vandal conquest of that region. The Synaf Paris and Soissons, with the fierce and ignorant ardor of a man who hoped by his savage zeal for the Christian faith to obtain remission for his dreadful violations of every Christian virtue, compelled, the Jews, who seem to have been numerous and wealthy, to receive baptism. Put it was remarked that these compulsory converts were but doubtful believers; they observed their own Sabbath as strictly as that of the Church. Chilperic, whom Gregory of Tours calls the Nero of Francis was a theologian, in his own estimation, of the highest authority. lie wrote on the Trinity and the Incarnation. The orthodox detected manifest Sabellianism in the royal tract, which, nevertheless, the king would impose by summary edicts on his sub¬ jects. Chilperic would personally cominee the Jews of their blind error. There was a certain Priscus, a vender of ornaments, perhaps a jeweller, in his court. The king one day, pulling the Jew gently by the beard, ordered the good Bishop of Tours, (ireoory, the historian, to lay his episcopal hands upon him — the sign of prosclytism. The Jew resisted. " () stubborn at Cagliari, >vlio had insulted the synagogue which he had abandoned, bv attacking it on the day of the Passover, and placing an image of the Virgin within it. " The Jews," observes the Pope, "are forbidden to build new synagogues, hut we have no right to deprive them of the old." 1 1 here is a letter ot Gregory appointing a provision for certain converted Jewish females, "rationahili moderatione coneurrere, ne victus, quod alisit, inopiam patiautur." Epist. iii. 31. The Jews on the farms of the Church in Sicily were to have their payments lightened. Epist. iv. G. Compare vii. 33. Book XXI.. GREGORY PROHIBITS FORCIBLE MEASURES. 67 soul and incredulous race!" said the king, and pro¬ ceeded to ply the Jew with theological arguments. Priscus resolutely asserted the Unity of God, averred that He neither had nor could have a Son, a consort in his power. The king argued in vain ; the hishop tried his skill with gentler and better reasoning, hut with as little effect. The Jew stood firm ; the king tried blandishments, hut with no greater result. He then took to more powerful reasoning; he threw the obstinate unbeliever into prison. The Jew sought to gain time, promised, after he had married his son to a Jewish maiden at Marseilles, to consider, of course to yield to the royal teacher. But the king had more convincing allies than the good hishop. Phatir, a Christian proselyte, at whose baptism the king had been sponsor,— thus his son by a closer tie than birth,— perhaps from some old grudge, rushed into the syna¬ gogue with his armed followers and murdered the defenceless Priscus. The murderers took refuge in the Church of St. Julian. The king, to do him justice, sent troops to seize and execute them. Phatir fought his way through (his accomplices killed each other), and found an asylum in the kingdom of Burgundy, where he was afterwards killed. Some of the Gallic prelates, Yirgilius of Aries, and Theodore of Marseilles, followed the example of Chilperic's zeal. They com¬ pelled the Jews in their respective dioceses to submit to baptism. But there were merchants among them, it would seem, of wealth and widespread connections ; these men appealed to Pope Gregory. Gregory in his letter1 positively prohibits all force. He argues with simple good sense, that, however the bishops may have been moved by love for the Redeemer, the compulsory 1 Epist. i. 45. Compare xi. 15. 68 MOHAMMEDANISM. Book XXI. convert will- no doubt revert to his former belief; gentle persuasion is the only sure means of chanoine; tlie heart. The Pope himself, as we have seen, employed these more Christian, though occasionally more politic, and doubtless more effective, means of conversion. lie forbade, as we have said, all outrage or insult ; hut, as we have aLo seen, he executed rigidly the Laws of Asylum, hv which the Jews daily lost their slaves ; and while hv his protection he appealed to their better feelings, he laid a temptation in the way of their avarice, hv offering remission of taxes to all converted Jews. AVe shall hereafter set* the manner in which Spain maintained its dark distinction of heinu; the first as well as the most ardent votary of religious perse¬ cution, and the fatal consequences of her implacable intolerance. Scarcely had the world heixnn to breathe after the successive shocks which its social state had received from the inroads of the Northern barbarians, — scarcely had it beoun to assume some appearance of order, as the kingdoms of the (ioths, the Vandals, the Lombards, and the Franks successively arose upon the broken ruins of the Roman Empire, — ■when Mohammedanism suddenly broke forth, and, spreading with irresistible rapidity over oreat part of Asia, the north of Africa, and Spain, effected a complete revolution in the oo\em¬ inent, the manners, and the religion of half the world. The Persian kingdom fell at once, and the Marian religion was almost extinguished. In the Asiatic prov¬ inces, Christianity, excepting in Armenia, was reduced to an inconsiderable and persecuted sect. A magnifi¬ cent mosque took the place of the Jewish Temple on the summit of Moriah. The flourishing; churches of Africa, the dioceses of Cyprian and Augustine, were A. C. 622. INFLUENCE OF THE REVOLUTION TRACED. 69 yielded up to the interpreters of the Koran, and the Cross found a precarious refuge among the mountains of the Asturias, while the Crescent shone over the rich valleys of Spain and the splendid palaces of Grenada and Cordova. Such a revolution, as it submitted them to new masters, could not hut materially affect the condition of the Jews. In most respects, the change was highly favorable ; for, though sometimes despised and persecuted by the Saracenic emperors and caliphs, in general their state was far less precarious and de¬ pressed than under the Christians ; and they rose to their great era of distinction in wealth, cultivation, and in letters, under the mild dominion of the Arabian dynasty in Spain. In order to trace the influence of this great revolu¬ tion, we return to the East, and survey the state of the Jews : I. Under the Byzantine empire ; II. Under the later Persian monarchs ; and III. In Arabia. The Greek empire was rapidly verging to decay; the im¬ perial court was a scene of intrigue and licentiousness, more like that of an Asiatic sultan than of the heir of the Roman name. The capital was distracted by fac¬ tions, not set in arms in support of any of those great principles which dignify, if they do not vindicate, the violence of human passions, but in assertion of the superior skill of dancers and charioteers. The circus, not the senate, was the scene of their turbulence ; the actor, not the orator, was the object of popular ex¬ citement. An eunuch, Narses, and a Thracian peasant, Belisarius, alone maintained the fame of Rome for valor and ability in war. The Church was rapidly increasing in power, but by no means, notwithstanding the virtues and talents of men like Chrysostom, in the great attributes of the Christian religion, — wisdom, 70 THE JEWS PERSECUTED AS HERETICS. Book XXI. holiness, and mercy. The Jews, probably by their industry as traders and their connection with their brethren in the East, ministered considerably to the splendor and luxury of the imperial court. But the fall of the Patriarchate, and the dispersion of the com¬ munity in Palestine, which seems entirely to have lost the centre of unity with the religious capital, Tiberias, lowered the whole race in general estimation. They were no longer a native community, or, it might almost be said, a state, whose existence was recognized by the supreme power, and which possessed an ostensible head, through whom the will of the sovereign might be communicated, or who might act as the representa¬ tive of the nation. They sank into a sect, little differ- ing from other religious communities which refused to o ~ acknowledge the supremacy of the established Church. In this light they are now considered in the imperial laws.1 Hitherto they had enjoyed the rights of Roman citizenship ; but the Emperors now began to exclude from offices of honor and dignity all who did not conform to the dominant faith. This was the great revolution in their state : from followers of a different religion they were degraded into heretics ; and the name of heretic implied all that was odious and execrable to the popular ear, — all that was rebellious to civil and ecclesiastical authority. It was a crime to be put down by the rigor of the law; and the law put forth its utmost rigor at the hands of the ruling power. In the sixth year of Justin the Elder, a law was promulgated to the following effect:—Unbelievers, heathens, Jews, and Samaritans shall henceforth undertake no office of magistracy, nor be invested with any dignity in the state; neither be judges, nor prefects, nor guardians of cities, lest they 1 Cod. J. de Hoer. et Manich. c. 12. A. C. 493-530. THE SAMARITANS. 71 may liave an opportunity of punishing or judging Christians and even bishops. They must be likewise excluded from all military functions. In case of the breach of this law, all their acts are null and void, and the offenders shall be punished by a fine of twenty pounds of gold. This law, which comprehends Samar¬ itans as well as Jews, leads us to the curious fact of the importance attained by that people during the reigns of Justin and Justinian.1 Hitherto their petty religious republic seems to have lurked in peaceful insignificance. Now, not only do its members appear dispersed along the shores of the Mediterranean, shar¬ ing the commerce with their Jewish brethren in Egypt, Italy, and Sicily, but the peace of the empire was disturbed by their fierce and frequent insurrections in Palestine. Already in the preceding reign, that of Zeno, their city of Sichem, which had now assumed the name of Neapolis (Naplous), had been the scene of a sanguinary tumult, of which we have only the Christian narrative, — the rest must be made up, in some degree, from conjecture. The Samaritans still possessed their sacred mountain of Gerizim, on which they duly paid their deAmotions. No stately temple rose on the summit of the hill, but the lofty height was consecrated by the veneration of ages.2 It is not im- 1 A curious law (Cod. Theodos. xiii. v. 18) had united the Jews and Samaritans in the privilege or the exemption from serving in the corn-ships which supplied Constantinople. This seems to have been the function of the Navicularii in question in this law, and probably applied to the Jews and Samaritans in Alexandria, where they coexisted in the time of Ha¬ drian. The greater part, as poor and employed in petty trade (inopes, vilibusque commerciis occupati), were to be exempt; the men of substance (idonei facultatibus) were not to be excused from this public duty, 2 Procopius, De ZEdilrciis, v. 7. Procopius ignorantly asserts that there never had been a temple on Gerizim. He also strangely misrepresents the words of Christ, which he cites as if predicting that the true worshippers (the Christians) should 72 THEIR EXPULSION FROM GERIZIM. Book XXL probable tliat the Christians, who were always zealously disposed to invade the sanctuary of unbelief, and to purify, by the erection of a church, every spot which had been long profaned by any other form of worship, might look with holy impatience for the period when a fane in honor of Christ should rise on the top of Mount Gerizim. The language of our Lord to the o o woman of Samaria, according to their interpretation, prophetically foreshowed the dedication of that holy mountain to a purer worship. No motive can be suggested so probable as the apprehension of such a design, for the furious, and, as we are told, unprovoked attack of the Samaritans on the Christian church in Naplous. They broke in on Whit-Sunday — slew great numbers — seized the Bishop Terebinthus in the act of celebrating the Holy Eucharist — wounded him — cut off several of his fingers, as they clung with pious tenacity to the consecrated emblems, which the invaders misused with such sacrilegious and shameless fury as a Christian dare not describe. The bishop fled to Constantinople, appeared before the Emperor, showed his mutilated hands, and at the same time re¬ minded him of our Lord's prophecy. Zeno commanded the offenders to be severely punished, expelled the Samaritans from Gerizim ; and the Christians had at length the satisfaction of beholding a chapel to the Virgin on the peak of the holy mountain, surrounded by a strong wall of brick, where, however, a watch was constantly kept to guard it from the Samaritans. During the reign of Anastasius, some Zealots, led by a woman, clambered up the steep side of the precipice, reached the church, and cut the guard to pieces. They worship on Gerizim. This leads to the notion that the Christians were contemplating the building a church there. A. C. 493-530. REBELLION IN SAMARIA. 73 then cried out to their countrymen below to join them; but the timid Samaritans refused to hearken to their call; and Procopius of Edessa, the governor, a man of prudence and decision, allayed the tumult by the punishment of the offenders. This chapel was still further strengthened by Justinian; and five other churches, destroyed by the Samaritans, rebuilt.1 The rankling animosity between the two religions — aggravated, no doubt, by the intolerant laws of Justin¬ ian, hereafter to be noticed — broke out in a ferocious, though desperate insurrection. It originated in a col¬ lision between the Jews and Samaritans, and the Chris¬ tians ; many houses were burned by the Samaritans. Justinian, enraged at the misconduct of the Prefect Bassus, deposed him, and ordered his head to he cut off on the spot. A certain Julian, by some reported to have been a robber chieftain, appeared at the head of the Samaritans. He assumed, it is averred, the title of King, and even had some pretensions to the character of a Messiah. All around Naplous they wasted the possessions of the Christians with fire and sword, burned the churches, and treated the priests with the most shameless indignities. By one account Julian is said to have entered Naplous while the games Avere celebrating. The victor Avas named Nicias; he had won the prize from the JeAvish and Samaritan chariot¬ eers. Julian demanded his religion, and on his reply that he Avas a Christian, instead of conferrino; the croAvn ' O upon him, had his head struck off. The Avhole district was a desert; one bishop had fallen in the massacre, and many priests Avere thrown into prison or torn in pieces. A great force was sent into the province ; and, 1 Vit. S. Sabas. Joann. Malala, p. 446, Edit. Bonn.; Theophan. i. p. 274. Compare Le Beau, viii. 118. 74 SUPPRESSION OF THE REBELLION. Book XXI. after a bloody battle, the Samaritans were defeated, Julian slain, and Silvanus, the most barbarous enemy of the Christians, taken and put to death. One, how¬ ever, of the insurgents, named Arsenius, found his way to Constantinople. He was a man of great eloquence and ability, and succeeded in convincing the Emperor, who was usually entirely under the priestly influence, as well as the Empress, that the Christians were the real authors of this insurrection. The ecclesiastics of Palestine were seized with amazement and terror at the progress of this man — whom they characterize as " a crafty and wicked liar " — in the favor of the Em¬ peror. They had recourse to St. Sabas, and induced him to undertake a mission to Constantinople in their defence. The venerable age (he was ninety years old) and the sanctity of Sabas triumphed over, it may be feared, the reason and justice of Arsenius. The Samaritans were condemned ; the leaders of the insur¬ rection adjudged to death ; the rest of the people ex¬ pelled, and interdicted from settling again in Naplous; and, by a strange edict, the Samaritans were no longer to inherit the property of their fathers. Arsenius him¬ self bowed to the storm, and embraced Christianity ; many of the Samaritans, at the preaching of Sabas, or more probably to secure their property to their children, followed his example, or pretended to do so, with hy¬ pocrisy which may offend, but cannot surprise. The Emperor offered magnificent presents to Sabas ; the holy man rejected every personal advantage ; but re¬ quested a remission of taxes for his brethren, whose fields had been wasted and property burned in the recent tumults. This apparent success in converting the great part of an obstinate race of unbelievers to the true faith, with A. C. 528-531. LAWS OF JUSTINIAN. 75 some other events of the same nature, no doubt en¬ couraged Justinian in his severe legislative enactments against the Jews and Samaritans. These nations were confounded with the recreant or disobedient sons of the Church, the heretics ; they were deprived of all civil dignities, and at the same time compelled to undertake the offices attached to those dignities. Every burden of society was laid upon them ; but the honor and dis¬ tinction which should be the inseparable rewards of such public services were sternly denied. They might be of the Curia, but the law which made sacred the person of the Curiales, and made it a crime to strike them, to put them to the torture, to exile them, had no application to the Jew, the Samaritan, or the heretic.1 The proselyting zeal which dictated the constitutions of Justinian entered into the bosom of families, under the specious pretext of securing Christian converts from the unwarrantable exercise of the parental authority. Either supposing that the law which forbade the intermarriages of Samaritans or Jews with Christians was perpetually eluded, or providing for the case of one party becoming a convert while the other adhered to his faith, Justinian enacted that among parents of different religions the chief authority should rest with the true religion. In defiance of the father, the children were to be under the care of the mother; and the father could not, on the ground of religion, refuse either a maintenance or his necessary expenses to the child.2 " Unbelieving parents, who have no other well - grounded cause of complaint against their believing children, are bound to leave them their property, to afford them a main¬ tenance, to provide them with all necessaries, to marry them to true believers, to bestow on them dowries and 1 Nov. Constit. 45, c. 1. 2 Cod. Just. i. v. 12. 1. 76 LAWS OF JUSTINIAN. Book XXI. bridal presents according to tlie decree of the prefect or tlie bishop." Further, the true believing children of unbelieving parents, if those children have been guilty of no act of delinquency towards their parents, shall receive that share of their inheritance, undiminished, which would have fallen to them if their parents had died intestate; and every will made in contravention of this regulation is declared null and void. If they have been guilty of any delinquency, they may be in¬ dicted and punished ; but even then they have a right to a fourth part of the property.1 The above edict included both Jews and Samaritans: in the following, an invidious distinction was made. In litigations between Christians and Jews, or Christians among each other, the testimony of a Jew or a Samari¬ tan was inadmissible ; in the litigations of Jews among each other, the Jew's testimony was valid; that of a Samaritan as of a Manichean of no value. Another statute enacted that the synagogues of the Samaritans should be destroyed, and that whoever attempted to rebuild them should be severely punished. The Samaritans were entirely deprived of the right of be¬ queathing their property: only true believers might presume to administer to the effects of a heretic, whether he died with or without a will. Thus no Samaritan had more than a life-interest in his property ; unless his son was an apostate, it was forever alienated, and went to a stranger or to the imperial treasury. No Samaritan might bear any office, neither teach nor plead in courts of law : impediments were even placed in the way of his conversion ; if he conformed in order to obtain an office, he was obliged to bring his wife and children with him to the church. Not merely 1 Cod. Just. i. v. 13. 1. A. C. 531-555. MILDER DECREE OF JUSTINIAN. 77 could he not bequeath, he could not convey property to an unbeliever ; if he did so, it was confiscated to the treasury. The children of mixed marriages must be believers, or forfeit their inheritance ; or where this was partly the case, the unbelieving children were excluded. " The true believers alone inherit: if none are members of the Church, it passes to the nearest re¬ lations ; in default of these, to the treasury. The pre¬ fects and bishops are to enforce these statutes in their respective districts, and the infringement of them is to be punished by the severest penalties." These cruel statutes — which sowed dissension in the bosom of every family, caused endless litigations among the nearest relatives, almost offered a premium on filial disobedience, and enlisted only the basest motives on the side of true religion — were either too flagrantly iniquitous to be put in execution, or shocked the cooler judgment of the Imperial legislator. A decree was issued a few years after, modifying these enactments, but in such a manner as perhaps might tempt the sufferers to quote, if they had dared, the sentence of their own wise king, — " The tender mercies of wicked men are cruel." In this edict, after some pompous self-adulation on his own clemency, Justinian declared, that, on account of the good con¬ duct of the Samaritans, attested by Sergius, Bishop of Ctesarea, who, to his honor, seems to have interposed in their behalf, the rigor of the former laws was miti¬ gated. The Samaritans were permitted to make wills, to convey property, to manumit slaves, to transact all business with each other. It abandoned all claims of the treasury upon their property ; but it retained the following limitation, " because it was just that Christian heirs should have some advantage over unbelievers." O 78 FRESH INSURRECTION IN CiESAREA. Book XXI. Where part of the family had embraced Christianity, and the father died intestate, the children who were true believers inherited to the exclusion of the rest. But in case the latter, at a subsequent period, were converted, they were reinstated in their inheritance, with the loss only of the interest of those years during which they remained obstinate. Where the father made a will, the unbelieving heirs could not claim more than a sixth part; the rest could only be ob¬ tained, as above, by the change of their religion. A deceitful peace, maintained by the establishment of a proconsul in Syria, with a considerable body of troops, lasted for about twenty-five years. At the end of that time a new insurrection took place in Caisarea. The Jews and Samaritans rose, attacked the Christians, demolished the churches, surprised and massacred the Prefect Steplianus in his palace, and plundered the building. The wife of Steplianus fled to Constanti¬ nople. Adamantius was commissioned to inquire into the origin of the tumult, and to proceed against the guilty with the utmost rigor. Of the real cause we know nothing. Adamantius condemned the insur- gents, executed many, confiscated the property of the most wealthy, probably for the restoration of the churches, and reduced the whole province to peace. As the Samaritans will appear no more in this His¬ tory, I pursue, to its termination, the account of this people. The Samaritans found means to elude these laws by submitting to baptism, resuming their prop¬ erty, and then quietly falling back to their ancient faith. A law of Justin, the son of Justinian, denounces this practice, and reenacts almost the whole iniquitous statute of his father.1 How far these measures tended 1 This singular law exempted the Samaritan peasants and husbandmen Book XXI. CLOSE OF SAMARITAN HISTORY. 79 to the comparative extinction of the Samaritan race, we cannot ascertain ; but at this time they had so almost entirely in their hands the trade of money- changing, that a money-changer and a Samaritan, as afterwards a Jew and an usurer, were equivalent terms. Yet, after this period, few and faint traces of their existence, as a separate people, appear in history. In the seventeenth century, it was discovered that a small community still dwelt in the neighborhood of their holy mountain, and had survived all the vicis¬ situdes of ages, in a country remarkable for its per¬ petual revolutions ; that they still possessed the copy of the Law in the old Samaritan character ;1 and even to this day their descendants, a feeble remnant of this once numerous people, are visited with interest by the traveller to the Holy Land.2 The zeal of the Emperor, while it burned more from its harsh provisions. Their cultivation of the soil did not concern themselves alone, but the welfare of the state, and especially the power of paying taxes to the state. Besides, the laboring on the soil presupposes a want of higher knowledge, which may naturally keep husbandmen from discovering the superiority of the Christian religion. Keeping the Sab¬ bath, or performing any act which might throw suspicion on the sincerity of his conversion, subjected the Samaritan to exile or other punishment. No one was to be baptized until properly instructed. No Samaritan might have a Christian slave; a Samaritan captive, on turning Christian, acquired his freedom. 1 I do not remember that they attracted much notice among the earlier pilgrims or crusaders. The Samaritans were found by the traveller Pietro della Valle, in Cairo, Jerusalem, Gaza, Damascus, and Aleppo. Benjamin of Tudela speaks of one hundred Samaritan families in Sichem. After the Reformation the learned world were interested with a correspondence entered into with them by the famous Joseph Scaliger. R. Huntingdon, chaplain to the British Factory of Aleppo, sent to Europe more copious in¬ formation. Their copy of the Old Testament was brought to Europe, and assumed great importance in Biblical criticism. 2 The Samaritans have in modern times been visited over and over again by curious travellers. Their numbers seem at last to be dwindling away, so as to threaten their total extinction. See the latest, a very in¬ teresting account, by Mr. Grove, in a recent volume of Vacation Travels. 80 SUPERSTITION OF THE AGE. Book XXI. fiercely against tlie turbulent and disaffected Samari¬ tans, in whose insurrections the Jews of Palestine seemed to have shared both the guilt and tlie calami¬ ties, did not neglect any opportunity of attempting either by force, or, we can scarcely hesitate to add, fraud, the proselytism of the Jews dispersed through¬ out the Eastern empire. The two great means of con¬ version were penal laws and miracles — sometimes compulsion. Among the boasted triumphs of the re- conquest of Africa from the Vandals was the reduction to the true faith of Borium, a town on the borders of Mauritania, where the Jews are said to have had a splendid temple, 110 doubt a synagogue more costly than usual.1 The miracles indeed of this age are almost too puerile to relate; we give one specimen as characteris¬ tic of the times. It was the custom of the Church to distribute the crumbs of the consecrated Host which might remain, to children, summoned for that purpose from their schools. While Menas was Bishop of Con¬ stantinople, the child of a Jewish glass-blower went to the church with the rest, and partook of the sacred elements. The father, inquiring the cause of his delay, discovered what he had done. In his fury he seized the child, and shut him up in the blazing furnace. The mother went wandering about the city, wailing and seeking her lost offspring. The third day she sat down by the door of the workshop, still weeping, and calling on the name of her child. The child answered from the furnace, the doors were forced open, and the child discovered sitting unhurt amid the red-hot ashes. His account was that a lady in a purple robe, of course the Blessed Virgin, had appeared and poured water 1 Procop. de iEdif. vi. 2. The temple was said to be of the age of Solomon. BOOK XXI. MIRACLES AND COUNTER-MIRACLES. 81 / on the coals that were immediately around him. The unnatural father was put to death, the mother and child baptized.1 Such were the legends which were to convince that people who had rejected the miracles of Christ and his Apostles. The Jews were too wise or too superstitious, too quick and adroit, not to work counter-miracles, too credulous and ignorant not to believe them. In an age of daily wonders, wonders cease to be wonderful; familiarity with such solemn impressions destroys their solemnity and impressive- ness ; they pass away, and are as rapidly effaced as the ordinary business of life. Good and evil spirits were by common consent invested with powers bordering on omnipotence ; each party saw nothing but the works of devils in the alleged miracles of the other.2 The laws were probably little more effective, and deeply imbued with the darkness of the age. An Imperial decree, not easily understood, and not worth much pains to understand, was issued, to establish an uniformity in the time at which the Jewish Passover and the Christian Easter were celebrated.3 The Jews were forbidden, under heavy pecuniary mulcts, from following their own calculations. In the same edict, with singular ignorance of the usages of the people for whom he was legislating, Justinian prohibited the Jews from eating the Paschal Lamb, a practice which they had discontinued for five centuries.4 But the Emperor had an opportunity of inflicting upon Judaism a more fatal blow, of which, it is probable, he himself did not 1 Evagr. H. E. iv. 36. 2 " Der Thalmud ist eben so voll kindischer Mahrchen aus der neuen Zeit, wie die Kirchenschriftsteller der erwahnten Jahrhunderte." Such is the ingenuous confession of Jost, v. 194. 8 Procop. Hist. Anc. c. 28; Basnage, viii. 350. 4 Basnage, Hist, des Juifs. VOL. III. 6 82 DISPUTE AS TO LANGUAGE TO BE USED. Book XXI. apprehend entirely the important consequences. A schism had arisen in the synagogues, between the teachers and the commonalty, the clergy and the laity of the Jews. With a singular abandonment of their jealousy of all foreign interference in what may be called the domestic concerns of their religion, an appeal was made to the Emperor, and the conflicting parties awaited his mandate on a subject where, one might have supposed, they would rather have looked for the interposition of their God. The great point in dispute was the language in which the Scripture was to be read,1 and the expositions made, in the synagogue. On the decision the dominion of the Rabbins depended, — it trembled to its foundations. With the fall of the Patriarchate, the connection of the scattered synagogues of the West with Palestine had been interrupted. The schools had likewise been entirely closed, or fallen into disrepute. The Semicha, or ordination by the imposi¬ tion of hands, formerly received in Palestine, was sus¬ pended. The learned youth were obliged to seek their education in the schools of Babylonia. Thus they lost the sanctity which still, in popular opinion, attached to whatever came from the Holy Land. They probably were strangers, and by no means well acquainted with the Western languages. The people, who had now entirely forgotten both the Hebrew of the Scriptures and the vernacular language of Palestine, began im¬ periously to demand the general use of Greek transla¬ tions. The craft of the Rabbins was in danger; it rested almost entirely on their knowledge of the orig¬ inal Hebrew writings, still more of the Mischnaioth and Talmudic Comments. Hebrew was the sacred language, and, the language of learning once super- 1 See Jost, v. 181 et seq. Book XXL DEMAND FOR GREEK TRANSLATIONS. 83 seded by Greek, the mystery would be open to profane eyes, and reason and plain common sense, instead of authority, might become the bold interpreters of the written Law, perhaps would dare to reject entirely the dominion of tradition. In vain had been all their pain¬ ful and reverential labors on the Sacred Books. In vain had they counted every letter, every point, every mark; and found mysteries in the number of times in which each letter occurred in the whole volume, in its position, in its relation to other letters. The deep and hidden things of the Law were inseparable from the Hebrew character. Besides its plain and obvious mean¬ ing, every text was significant of higher matters to the ears of the initiate. All the decisions of the schools, all the sayings of the Rabbins, were locked up in that sacred language. The Misehna, and the Talmud it¬ self, might become a dead letter ; for if the Scriptures were read in the vernacular tongue, the knowledge of Hebrew might cease to be a necessary qualification of the teacher. The Rabbins had much reason, and more stubborn prejudice, on their side. The elder Wise Men had always looked with jealousy on the encroach¬ ment of Greek letters. " Cursed be he that eateth swine's flesh, and teacheth his child Greek," had been an old axiom, perhaps, from the time of the Asmoneans. They were fighting for life and death, and armed them¬ selves with all the spiritual terrors they could assume. They fulminated their anathemas ; they branded their opponents as freethinkers and atheists. At length the affair came before the Emperor. Whether his passion for legislation, which sometimes, even the Christian bishops complained* induced Justinian to intrude into concerns beyond his province, led him to regulate the synagogue; or whether the disputes ran so high as to 84 SEPTUAGINT TRANSLATION. Book XXI. disturb the public peace, and demand the interference of the supreme authority ; or whether the appeal was, in fact, voluntarily made; an edict was issued, which is still extant among the imperial constitutions.1 It enacted that no one, who wished to do so, should be prevented from reading the Greek Scriptures in the synagogue; it enjoined those who read Greek to use the Translation of the Seventy, which had been ex¬ ecuted under the special, though less manifest, in¬ fluence of the Holy Ghost, because the prophecies relating to Christianity were most clear in that transla¬ tion ; but it did not prohibit the version of Aquila, or any other. It positively interdicted the use of the Mischna, as the invention of worldly men, which mis¬ led the people into miserable superstition. None of the Archiperacitse, the readers of Peracha, or Extracts of the Talmud, on pain of confiscation of goods, and corporal chastisement, were to forbid the use of other languages, or dare to utter ban or interdict against such practices. On the other hand, freethinking, atheism, and such crimes, were to be severely pun¬ ished ; whoever denied the existence of God, of the angels, the Creation, and final judgment, was con¬ demned to death. The law terminated with a solemn admonition to read the Scriptures, so as to improve their spirits and hearts, and increase in knowledge and morality. The law was wise and moderate ; but, as Jost observes, the Emperor probably prevented its operation by betraying too openly its object, — the con¬ version of the Jews. The spirit of the age was against him ; the Rabbins eventually triumphed,— the Talmud maintained its authority. In his former persecuting edicts, the short-sighted l Nov. Const. 146. Book XXI. THE JEWS IN PERSIA. 85 Emperor had alike miscalculated his own strength and the weakness of the Jews. Rome, in the zenith of her power, might despise the discontents of a scattered people, or a mutinous province, hut in these disastrous times it was dangerous for the feeble Eastern empire to alienate the affections of the meanest of its subjects. The Jews had the power, and could not he expected to want the desire of vengeance. Even in the West they were of some importance. During the siege of Naples by Belisarius, the Jews, who loved the milder dominion of the Gothic kings, defended one quarter of the city with obstinate resolution, and yielded only when the conqueror was within the gates.1 On the eastern frontier, now that the Persian monarchy on the Tigris was an equal match for the wreck of the Roman empire on the Bosphorus, an oppressed and unruly population, on the accessible frontier of Syria, holding perpetual intercourse with their more favored, though by no means unpersecuted brethren in Babylonia, might be suspected of awaiting with ill-suppressed impatience the time when, during some inevitable collision beween the two empires, they might find an opportunity of vengeance on masters against whom they had so long an arrear of wrong. The hour at length came; but, as the affairs of the Jews in the Eastern empire, at least in Palestine, are now inseparably moulded up with those of Persia, we turn our attention to the Eastern Jews, briefly trace their history down to the time of Justinian, and then pursue the mingled thread to the appearance of Mohammed. II. From the death of R. Asche, who commenced the Babylonian Talmud, dark were the days of the children of the Captivity. During the reigns of the 1 Procop. de Bello Gothico, i. 10, p. 53, Edit. Bonn. 86 THE JEWS IN PERSIA. Book XXL Persian kings from Izdigerd to Kobad, from about 430 to 530 (a. c.), tlie dominant Magian religion oppressed alike the Christian and the Jew. The Sabbath, say the Jewish traditions, was taken away by Izdigerd.1 Still, however, the Rescli-Glutha, or Prince of the Captivity, maintained his state, and the famous schools of Nahardea, Sura, and Pumbeditha were open. Civil discords had nearly destroyed the enfeebled state ; and the house of David, from whose loins the princes of the Captivity deduced their rank, was wellnigli ex¬ tinct. Here, as elsewhere, great jealousies existed between the temporal and spiritual power : the former attempted, the latter would not endure, encroachment. The rupture took place When it might have been expected that they would have lived in the greatest harmony; for the Prince of the Captivity, II. Huna, had married the daughter of R. Chanina, the master of the schools, a grandson or great-grandson of R. Asclie, who commenced the Talmud.2 But ambition listens not to the claims of blood and kindred. The Rescli-Glutha, or his judge, attempted to interpret the Talmud in the presence of the Wise Man. Chanina resisted this usurpation of his province. The Resch- Glutlia decoyed Chanina into his power, sat in judg¬ ment on him, ordered his beard to be shaved, and cast him forth, interdicting all the inhabitants of the city from affording him shelter, or the necessaries of life. Chanina (we have no better history than this legend to offer) wept and prayed. A pestilence broke out in the royal family, and every sonl perished except a 1 Jost, v. 222; but Jost is obliged to admit that the history of these Per¬ sian persecutions, in which several Resch-Gluthas, Rabbis, and learned men were put to death, is altogether confused and obscure. 2 Jost, v. 226. There are two versions of the story; I have blended some particulars of both. A. C. 430-530. THE LEGEND OF CHANINA. 87 child, with which the widowed daughter of Chanina, the Prince's wife, was pregnant. Chanina dreamed a dream : he saw himself in a grove, whei*e he cut down all the stately cedars; one young plant alone remained. He was awakened as by a violent blow on the head; an old man stood by, who said, " I am the lord of this grove, the King David." He reproached the dreamer for having thus cut off all the lofty cedars of the house of David, and forcibly reminded him of his duty to watch over the single scion of the royal stock. Chanina waited night and day by his daughter's door ; neither the fiery heat of noon, nor torrents of rain, could in¬ duce him to remove till the child was born. He took the infant and superintended his education with the most diligent care. In the mean time a certain Paphra, distantly allied to the royal house, bought, like the Roman Didius, the princely dignity, and enjoyed it for fifteen years. At that convenient time he came to a most ignoble end: a fly flew into his nose, and made him sneeze so violently that he died ! The young Zutra ascended the throne. During; his reign of O o twenty years, an enthusiast, named Meir, brought ruin on the whole community. He proclaimed himself, most probably, a Messiah ; he pretended that a fiery column preceded his march, and with four hundred desperate followers he laid waste the country. The Persian king, Kobad, speedily suppressed the insur¬ rection. Meir was put to death, and all the heads of the Captivity were involved in his fate. The Prince of the Captivity, Zutra, and R. Chanina, his tutor, were hanged. This great insurrection took place in 530 A. c., a year before Nushirvan's accession. At this disastrous period, many of the Babylonian Jews wandered from their afflicted settlements ; some, it is 88 chosroes — the " everlasting peace." book xxi. believed, found tlieir way to the coast of Malabar. A son of Zutra fled to Tiberias, where lie renewed the Semicha, or laying-on of bands ; and, it is supposed, contributed to disseminate tlie Babylonian Talmud among tlie Jews of the West. Chosroes the Just, or Nushirvan, who ascended the throne of Persia in the fifth year of Justinian, 581 a. c., was not more favorable to the Jews of Babylonia. Their schools were closed by authority. But so great was the impatience of the Palestinian Israelites under the oppressive laws of Justinian, that they looked with anxious hope to, and are reported by Christian writers to have urged, by an offer of 50,000 men, and by the splendid prospect of the plunder of Christian Jerusalem, the hostile advance of the Persian monarch.1 These hopes were frustrated by the conclusion of an " ever¬ lasting peace " between Justinian and Nusliirvan, in which the pride of Rome was obliged to stoop to the payment of a great sum of money. The " everlasting peace " endured barely seven years, and the hopes of the Jews were again excited; but their day of ven¬ geance was not yet come. After extending his con¬ quests to Antioch, Nushirvan was constrained by the ability of Belisarius to retreat. Peace was again concluded, Jerusalem remained unplundered, and the Jews and Samaritans were abandoned to the vindictive justice of their former masters. Under Hormisdas, the successor of Chosroes Nushirvan, the Babylonian Jews were restored to their prosperity. Their schools in Pumbeditha, Sura, and Nahardea were reopened. A new order of doctors, the Gaonim, the Illustrious, 1 Theophan. Chronogr. p. 274, Edit. Bonn.; but Theophanes has con¬ fused the dates, and places this offer at the commencement of the reign of Justinian. See Basnage, and Jost's criticism on Basnage. A. C. 531-579. INVASION OF CIIOSROES. 89 arose ; and their prince resumed his state. After the fall and death of the weak Hormisdas, the Jews espoused the party of the usurper Bharam,1 or Yaranes, against the son of Hormisdas, Chosroes the Second, the rightful heir of the throne, and by no means, I believe with Gibbon, the parricide, who fled to implore, and obtained, the assistance of Maurice, Emperor of the East. Among the executions which followed the © triumphant restoration of Chosroes to the throne of his ancestors, the Jews had their full share.2 There was a new Antioch built by Nushirvan, and peopled with the inhabitants of the old city, whom he trans¬ ported thither, and who were struck with agreeable astonishment at finding the exact counterpart of every house and street of their former residence. The Jews formed a considerable part of this community, and when the storm first burst on the city, Mebod, the general of Chosroes, inflicted on them the most dread¬ ful penalties for their disloyalty: some were cut off by the sword, others tortured, others reduced to slavery. But this was vengeance, not persecution ; the Jews submitted, and made their peace with Chosroes. When that king, summoned alike by gratitude and ambition, prepared to burst on the Byzantine empire, to revenge on the barbarous usurper Phocas the murder of his friend and protector Maurice, and that of his five sons, the Palestinian Jews were in a state of frantic excite¬ ment, still further aggravated by the persecutions of Phocas, who compelled a great number of their brethren to submit to baptism. Ever rash in their insurrections, they could not wait the appointed time : tliey rose in Antioch, set the splendid palaces of the principal in- 1 Theophylact Simocatta, v. 6. 7, p. 218, Edit. Bonn. 2 Gibbon, c. xlvi. viii. p. 193, Edit. Milman. 90 SURRENDER OF ANTIOCH TO CHOSROES. Book XXI. habitants on fire, slew numbers, treated the Patriarch Anastasius with the worst indignity, and dragged him through the streets till he died.1 Phocas sent Bonosus and Cotto against the insur- gents, who defeated them with great loss, and re¬ venged, as far as they had time, the outrages which had been committed in all quarters. But they were compelled to retreat, and the Jews beheld, in a par¬ oxysm of exultation, the unresisted squadrons of Chos- roes pouring over the frontier: Antioch surrendered without a blow. Chosroes turned towards Constantinople; his gen¬ eral, Carusia, advanced to the conquest of Palestine and Jerusalem.2 The Jews arose at his approach; from Tiberias and Nazareth they joined him in great numbers, till their force amounted, according to report, to 24,000 men. Before the capture of Jerusalem, new causes of exasperation were added to the dread¬ ful arrears of ancient vengeance. In Tyre it is said that/tlie incredible number of 40,000 Jews had taken up their dwelling. They sent secret messengers to all 1 Theoph. Chronog. p. 457, Edit. Bonn. Chronicon Paschale. This brief notice merely says, uvypsdrj vko /yrpanuTuv, p. 699, Edit. Bonn. 2 Theophylact Simocatta, v. 6, 7, p. 216, Edit. Bonn. Simoeatta's account of the Babylonian Jews, their commerce, their wealth, their disposition to ally themselves with the Persians to revenge themselves on the Romans, is curious: tuv yap 'lEpoaolvpuv vno OvEorra- aavov tov avronparopop aHovruv, tov te vaov spnsTTpapEvov ufrpodovvTsp ttoaAoi tuv 'lovda'iuv rfjv 'Pupaluv uXkt/v ek t>/p HaXaiGTivrip up Tovp M^- Sovp Kac npbp Tpv apxbyovov Ti&qvr/v psTavaaTEvovoiv, r/p 6 npoTrarup ktvyxivev uv 'A^p/iap' tu TLpiurara to'lvvv ovtol kpTiopevoupevoi Kali tt/v bpv&pav nepaLovpevoi i}aTiarrav, nEpiovo'iap pEyaXap nepie- Bu/JXovto- evtev&ev /cat ttpop rap aruaeip nal rap bafivTiuviap tuv drjpuv EKKavoELp ETOLporara diuMcrfraivov egtl yap novppov to s&vop nal utuoto- TCLTOV O slaughter against the Catholics." 1 There was a vast confederacy, it was averred and believed, among the Hebrews, in Spain and beyond the sea, to exterminate the Christian faith. The affrighted and obsequious churchmen instantly passed a decree to confiscate all the property of the Jews to the royal treasury, — to disperse the whole race, as slaves, through the country, — to seize all their children under seven years of age, to bring them up as Christians, marry them to Chris¬ tian wives, and to abolish forever the exercise of the Jewish faith. A great flight of the Jews probably took place ; for AVitiza, the successor of Egica, attempting too late to heal the wounds by conciliation, granted them permission to return into the Gothic states, with full rights of freedom and citizenship.2 He even com- 1 "Ausu tvrannico inferre conati sunt ruinam patriae ac populo universo . . . sed et regni fastigium sibi (ut priemissum est) per conspirationem usurpare maluerunt . . . ut suum quasi tempus invenisse gaudentes di- versas in catholicos exercerent strages." The statute (c. viii.) does not alone refer to their foreign connections, but also in the address of the king are these words: " Nuper manifestis confessionibus indubie pervenimus, hos in transmarinis partibus Ilebraos alios consuluisse ut unanimiter contra genus Christianum agerent." 2 Read Mariana (1. vi. c. 19). Witiza began (as Mariana admits) nobly: he recalled from exile many persons whom his father had driven from their homes, restored their confiscated possessions, honors, and dignities. He ordered a'l the papers relating to charges of treason to be burned. Rut he soon yielded himself to flatterers, kept many concubines with the pomp of queens; and, a greater crime, he issued an edict permitting the clergy and monks to marry, — an abominable and foul law, which nevertheless found favor with the many, even with most (que a muchos y a los mas dio gusto). He issued another law refusing obedience to the Pope. Finally, to complete, his wickedness, he abrogated the laws against the Jews, and allowed them to return to Spain. 122 CONQUEST OF SPAIN BY THE MOOES. Book XXII. pelled or persuaded a Council at Toledo, presided over by the arclibishop, to concur in this act of toleration. This Council is indignantly declared illegitimate and heretical by the annalists of the Church of Rome.1 But the vows of the Jews had been heard, or their intrigues had been successful. They returned, and to the en¬ joyment of all rights and privileges of freedom, — not indeed under Christian kings, but under the dominion of the Moorish Caliphs, who established their rule over almost the whole of Spain.2 The munificence of these sovereigns bears the appearance of gratitude for valu¬ able services, and confirms the suspicion that the Jews were highly instrumental in advancing the triumph of the Crescent. At all events, when Toledo opened her gates to the Moorish conqueror (whether the Jews were openly or secretly active in the fall of the city), with what infinite satisfaction must they have beheld the capital of the persecuting Visigothic kings, of Recared, and Sisebut, and Ervig, and the seat of those remorseless Councils which had forcibly baptized or exiled their devoted ancestors, or deprived them of their children, now become the palace of kings, if not kindred in lineage, yet Monotlieists like themselves, under whose rule they knew that their brethren in the East and in Africa were permitted to enjoy their lives and their religion undisturbed, under whom they found 1 The Council is not admitted 10 the honor of a place in Labbe, who re¬ fers to Baronius, sub ami. 701. 2 The Mohammedan historians of the conquest of Spain acknowledge the Jews as their allies. It is probable that in the invasion itself they were deeply involved. Of the Berbers, who formed the great mass of Turks, a vast number were Jews (Judaism had spread wide in Northern Africa). There can be no doubt that the African Jews were in correspondence with their brethren in Spain. On the capture of Granada, of Toledo, of Seville, the Jews were intrusted with the occupation of these cities, while the Mos¬ lems passed on to other conquests. See Gayangos Hist, of Mohammedan Dynasties of Spain (Orient. Trans. Fund), pp. 280, 284, and Note, p. 531. Book XXII. DECREE OF CLOTAIRE II. 123 equal justice, rose to liigli honor, at least labored under no proscription, dreaded no persecution ! How much more must they have exulted when they were sum¬ moned to assume the command of this great city, and to maintain it for their Moslem deliverers ! The re¬ ward of their prayers or of their acts for the success of Islamism was a golden age of freedom, of civiliza¬ tion, and of letters. They shared with and emulated their splendid masters in all the luxuries and arts which soften and embellish life, during that era of high, though, if we may so say, somewhat barbaric civilization, under which the southern provinces of Spain became that paradise for which they were de¬ signed by nature. France had obeyed the signal of Spain, and hung out the bloody flag of persecution. But her measures were ill combined, and probably worse executed ; for many of the fugitives from Spain sought and found comparative security among their brethren in Gaul.1 Early in the seventh century, A. c. 615, Clotaire the Second, in a council of the clergy, issued a decree dis¬ qualifying the Jews from all military or civil offices which gave them authority over Christians. But by a strange provision the Jew who should attempt to attain or exercise his power, was to be baptized by the bishop with all his family, as if, instead of suffering a penalty, he was to be graciously admitted to a privi¬ lege.2 The Council of Rlieims (627) annulled all 1 Jost somewhat quaintly complains that they were persecuted with bad sermons: " Von der Geistlichkeit iiberall mit schlechten Predigten gequiilt wurden; " v. 149. Sulpicius, Bishop of Bourges, a famous preacher, aided the effect of his sermons b}' hunting the obstinate Jews out of his diocese. 2 The whole statute (Concil. Paris, can. xv.) is obscure: " Ut nullus Ju- dseorum qualemcunque militiam aut actionem publicam super Christianos aut petere a principe aut agere prsesumat. Quod si tentaverit, ab Epis- 124 EDICT OF DAGOBERT. Book XXII. bargains entered into by Jews for tire purchase of Christian slaves; that of Chalons, on the Marne, pro¬ hibited the Jews from selling Christian slaves beyond the frontier of the kingdom.1 The devout Dagobert, it is said, though probably with as little truth, insti¬ gated, like his contemporary Sisebut of Spain, by the Emperor Heraclius, issued an edict commanding all Jews to forswear their religion or leave the kingdom.2 o & But in the northern part of France this edict was so little enforced, that a Jew held the office of tax-col- lector at the Gate of St. Denys in Paris.3 In the South, where they were far more numerous and wealthy, they carried on their trade with uninterrupted success. In the great rebellion of the Gallic part of the Visigothic kingdom, Paul, who had usurped the throne, and Hilderic Count of Nismes had recalled the copo civitatis illius, ubi actionem contra canonum statuta competeret, cum omni familia gratiam baptismi consequatur." 1 Concil. Remense, can. xi.; Concil. Cabill. IX., circiter ann. 650. 2 See back, p. 111. This tale is thus told in the curious Chronicle of Rabbi Joseph ben Joshua ben Meir, translated for the Oriental Fund by M. Bialloblotski:—" And it came to pass in the twenty-first year of his reign, that Heraclius, being very wise in the knowledge of the planets, saw in his wisdom the kingdom of Rome foil in his days under the soles of the feet of the circumcised. And this Belial said in his heart, ' The Lord will do this glorious thing on behalf of the Jews only, for they are cir¬ cumcised.' And his wrath was kindled against them; and he commanded in all the cities of his kingdom to kill all the Jews who refused to change their glory for that which doth not profit. And he sent messengers to Dagobert, king of France, that he also might act according to this wicked saying. And Dagobert hearkened unto him; and many Jews changed their glory, and many were slain with the edge of the sword in France in those days. May the Eternal avenge the blood and repay vengeance to his enemies! Amen and Amen! And Heraclius, the Belial, knew not this word related to the Nazarenes, for like unto us they are circumcised." Vol. i. p. 10. Rabbi Joshua is a late writer, but may have known traditions from earlier documents, which have not been detected in those writings by modern scholars. The Christian authorities are silent on these persecutions. 8 Gesta Dagoberti. Book XXII. SUCCESS OF THE JEWS IN FRANCE. 125 Jews into the realm.1 King Wamba, the predecessor of Ervig, on the suppression of the rebellion took vengeance on the Jews by reenforcing the persecuting edicts of Sisebut I. ; but in later days the wiser mon- arclis of the Visigothic kingdom in France altogether go £5 renounced the intolerant policy of the Merovingian race. 1 Archbishop Rodriguez, quoted by Amador de los Rios, p. 31; Mariana, vi. 13. King Wamba reigned a. c. 672-680. BOOK XXIII. golden age of judaism. The Jews under the Caliphs — Rise of Karaism — Kingdom of Khosar — Jews under the Byzantine Empire — Jews Breakers of Images — Jews of Italy — Jews under Charlemagne and Louis Debonnaire — Agobard, Bishop of Lyons — Jews in Spain — High State of Literature — Moses Maimonides. We enter upon a period which I shall venture to de¬ nominate the Golden Age of the modern Jews. To them, the Moslem crescent was as a star, which seemed to soothe to peace the troubled waters on which they had been so Ions agitated. Throughout the dominions o O O of the Caliphs, in the East, in Africa, and in Spain; in the Byzantine empire ; in the dominions of those great sovereigns, Charlemagne, his predecessor, and his suc¬ cessor, who, under Divine Providence, restored vigor and solidity to the Christian empire of the West, and enabled it to repel the yet unexhausted inroads of Mohammedanism ; everywhere we behold the Jews not only pursuing unmolested their lucrative and enterpris¬ ing traffic, not merely merchants of splendor and opu¬ lence, but suddenly emerging to offices of dignity and trust, administering the finances of Christian" and Mo¬ hammedan kingdoms, and travelling as ambassadors between mighty sovereigns. This golden age was of very different duration in different parts of the world. In the East it was, before long, interrupted by their own civil dissensions, and by a spirit of persecution which seized the Moslemite sovereigns. In the Byzantine Book XXIII. JEWS UNDER THE CALIPHS. 127 empire, we are greatly in want of authentic informa¬ tion, both concerning the period in question and that which followed it. In the West of Europe it was soon succeeded by an age of iron. In Spain, the daylight endured the longest—to set in deep and total darkness. The religious persecutions of the Jews by the Mo¬ hammedans were confined within the borders of Arabia. The Prophet was content with enforcing uniformity of worship within the sacred peninsula which gave him birth. The holy cities of Mecca and Medina were not to be profaned by the unclean footstep of an unbeliever. His immediate successors rose (or degenerated, shall we say ?) from stern fanatics to ambitious conquerors. " The Koran or the sword ! " was still the battle-cry ; but whoever would submit to the dominion of the tri¬ umphant Caliph, or render himself useful in the exten¬ sion of his conquests, might easily evade the recognition of the Prophet's title. The Jews had little reason to regret, or rather had ample cause to triumph in, the ruin of their former masters. The kings of Persia, who had sometimes vouchsafed to protect, but had sometimes cruelly persecuted the Jews, were now cast from their thrones without any compassion, or rather with inward feelings of triumph and revenge, from their Jewish subjects. Whether they paid tribute to a Marian or Mohammedan sovereign, was to the Jews o o 7 indifferent. Feeble governments are in general more tyrannical, more iniquitous in the distribution of justice, more rapacious in their taxation, than strong ones. An Islamite sovereign on the throne of Damascus or Bag;- o o dad would not be more oppressive than a Byzantine on the throne of Constantinople, or a Persian on the throne of Ctesiphon. The Jew would receive as sub¬ stantial — and not more capricious —justice from an 128' SALE OF RHODIAN COLOSSUS TO A JEW. Buok XXIII. Islamite Cadi as from a Roman Prefect or Magi an Satrap. The capitation-tax, or whatever form tlxe new assfes'sment Lore, if as inexorably exacted, was more simple, less ingeniously extortionate than that of the Byzantine Exchequer, or the Persian Treasury. His religion the Jew knew too well to be odious, to be despised, often persecuted, by Gueber and Christian. Doomed indeed by the laws of Omar to perpetual in¬ feriority, it might be more respected, it could not be trampled on more contemptuously or more mercilessly than by the Magian or the Christian. Though, doubt¬ less, during the terrible conflict and the general plunder which attended on the Mohammedan conquests, the wealth of the Jews did not escape, yet in the East, as in the North, they would not scruple to make up their losses, by following in the train of the yet fierce and uncivilized conqueror, and by making use of their superior judgment, or command of money, to drive a lucrative bargain with the plunderer. Whenever a commissariat was wanting to the disorganized hordes o o which followed the Crescent with irresistible valor, the corn-ships or caravans of the Jews would follow in the wake of the fleet or army. At the capture of Rhodes, the celebrated fallen Colossus, which once bestrode the harbor of that city, one of the wonders of the world, was sold to a Jew of Emesa, who is reported to have loaded nine hundred camels with the metal.1 The greater and more certain emoluments of the mercantile life would lead the Jews to addict themselves more and more to traffic, and to abandon the cultivation of the soil, which they had hitherto pursued in many places. For, as the Moslemite sovereigns levied a dispropor- tioned tribute on the believer and the unbeliever, the 1 Theophanes, Chronographia, i. p. 327, Edit. Bonn. BOOK XXIII. JEWS UNDER THE CALIPHS. // M29 former paying only a tenth, the latter a fifth, or" even a,' third, of the produce, the Jew would readily cede his land, which remunerated him so ill, for trade wh-ich offered, at least, the chance of rapid wealth.1 In every respect the Jew, under his Mohammedan rulers, rose in the social scale. The persecution of their Arabian brethren, if known by the Jews scattered over the wide face of the Persian and Roman empires, would be heard almost with indifference. The Arabian Jews, in fact Bedouins like the rest of the Arabs, had no relations with their remote brethren. The bloody scenes at Nadhir, at Koraidha, at Khaibar, were but the collisions of hostile Arab tribes ; and beyond the boundaries of Arabia, the sword of religious persecution had been sheathed. The religious sympathies of the Jews would be more disposed towards, at least be less sternly hostile to, the Monotheism of Islam than to the Fire-worship of Persia, or what they, in common with the Mohammedans, did not scruple to condemn as the Polytheism of the Christians. There was no Moham¬ medan Priesthood like the Magian and Christian hie¬ rarchy, whose pride and duty it was to compel mankind to accept their faith. Proselytism no doubt had its temptations and advantages, and so went on to some extent; but the sincere religious Jew was not searched out, and followed into his privacy, to detect his hateful opinions. He was not proscribed by the law as almost as bad as a heretic. The Caliph, the successor of the Prophet, was content with the submission, something approaching to adoration from the true believer, but this was the Moslem's special privilege and distinction. To the rest of the world his toleration might be con- temptuous, condescending, but it was still toleration ; 1 Jost, vi. 14. VOL. III. 9 130 JEWS AS TEACHEES OF THE CALIPHS. Book XXIII. it was not an active, busy, nbiquitous scrutiny of the faith and opinions of his subjects. Provided they de¬ meaned themselves peaceably and paid their tribute, they might go to the Synagogue rather than to the Mosque. Mohammedanism had borrowed so much from Judaism, that there was not that constant and flagrant opposition between their habits and modes of life. The circum¬ cised Mohammedan could not object to the circumcised Jew ; the aversion to swine's flesh was common ; the Koran was full of recognitions of the sanctity of the Mosaic Law ; and altogether the Eastern cast of their usages approximated the Mohammedan and the Jew much more intimately than the Jew and the Christian. The Jew, though usually at this time become monog¬ amous, could hardly, in the face of his patriarchs and kings, hold polygamy to be licentious or unlawful. The wealthy Jews among the Mohammedans some¬ times followed the example of their masters. There was another link, which perhaps joined them more closely, at least in aversion to Christianity, — the com¬ mon hatred of images and image-worship. When the Caliphs began to delegate to others the sword of conquest or extermination, and to establish themselves in the splendid state of peaceful sovereigns, the Jews were equally useful in teaching these stern barbarians the arts and luxuries of civilized life. They spoke a kindred language. Hebrew and Arabic are the two most prolific branches of what are now called the Semitic family of tongues. The Hebrew literature was admirably adapted to the kindred taste of the Arabians. The extravagant legends of the Talmud would harmonize with their bold poetical spirit; their picturesque apologues were the form of instruction in which the Arab tribes had ever delimited to listen to o A. C. 63^644. THE COINAGE INTRUSTED TO A JEW. 181 moral wisdom ; even the niceties of their verbal dis¬ putes would not be without charm to their masters, who soon began to pay attention to the polish of their own rich and copious language. Already, in the time of Omar, the second Caliph, and his successor Abdalmelech, a trust of great importance, the coinage, had been committed to the care of a Jew. Either shocked that faithful Moslemites should use money stamped with an image, or eager to assume that dis¬ tinction of sovereignty, the uttering coin, the Caliph instructed the Jew to substitute the emphatic sentence, " Say there is one God, one." 1 The traffic of the Jews would disseminate that coin which their art had enabled them to provide. But it was not by mechan¬ ical operations alone, like the coinage, or by traffic, in which, as single traders, or even as mercantile firms, they pervaded the whole East as well as the West, that the Jews rendered invaluable services to the Bar¬ barian conquerors, and aided very powerfully in rais¬ ing them from the chieftains of wild, marauding tribes into magnificent, in some respects enlightened, sover¬ eigns. In the interworking of European civilization, its knowledge, sciences, and arts, into the Oriental mind, who were so qualified to be the mediate agents as the Jews ? Besides the rigid Rabbinical Jews, who formed their constituted communities, there were no doubt a great number who, perhaps, held more loosely to the tenets of their forefathers, and were the de¬ scendants and representatives of the Grtecized Jews in the time of our Saviour. It is well known that the works of many of the great Greek writers, especially their natural philosophers, writers on medicine (Jewish physicians were in great repute in the East as in the 1 A1 Makrizi, Hist. Mon. Arab. Tychsen, quoted by Jost, vi. 15. 132 JEWS UNDER THE CALIPHS. Book XXIII. West), metaphysical philosophers, were, sooner or later, translated into the Arabic. And who so likely to be the translators as the Jews, who stood between the Asiatic and European races ? By traffic, residence, perhaps habits, they were familiar with Greek, and acquired Arabic, as a kindred language to their own, with great facility : Arabic, indeed, to a great extent became the vernacular tongue of the Jews.1 Hebrew, Rabbinical Hebrew, became a sort of sacred language. 7 O O We know what took place to a great extent under the flourishing dominion of the Mussulmans in Spain, when Europe, seeking her old lost treasures of arts and knowl¬ edge among the more enlightened descendants of the O O O Arabs, found the learned Jews of Cordova and Toledo, as it were, half-way between the East and West, and "used them as intermediate agents in that intellectual intercourse. So, in all probability, at an earlier period, in Damascus and Bagdad, the Jews were the most active interpreters, not only of the Western languages, but of the Western mind, to the conquerors. The Caliph readily acknowledged as his vassal the Prince of the Captivity, who maintained* his state as represen¬ tative of the Jewish community; probably, through him the tribute was levied on his brethren. A singu¬ lar story is told of Omar the Second, which illustrates the high degree of credit which the Jews were per¬ mitted to attain in the court of the Caliphs. Omar, a secret follower of Ali, whose name was still cursed in the mosques, was anxious to reconcile his people to the name of the Prophet's vicar upon earth. An innocent comedy was got up in his court, in which a Jew played i Compare E. Renan, Langues Semitiques, p. 164. Basnage claims as a Jew Honain, the famous translator of many works from Greek into Syriac. (D'Herbelot, art. " Honain.") Euclid, and the Almagest of Ptolemy, some works of Hippocrates and Galen, were translated by him and his scholars. Book XXIII. ANECDOTE OF OMAR II. 133 a principal part. The Jew came boldly forward, while the throne was encircled by the splendid retinue of courtiers and people, and asked in marriage the daugh¬ ter of the Caliph. Omar calmly answered, " How can I give my daughter in marriage to a man of another faith?" "Did not Mohammed," rejoined the Jew, " give his daughter in marriage to Ali ? " " That is another case," said the Caliph, "for Ali was a Mos- lemite, and the commander of the faithful." "Why, then," rejoined the Jew, " if Ali was one of the faith¬ ful, do ye curse him in your mosques ? " The Caliph turned to the courtiers and said, " Answer ye the Jew ? " A long silence ensued, broken at length by the Caliph, who arose, and declared the curse to be rejected as impious, and ordered these words to be sub¬ stituted in the prayer: "Forgive us, Lord, our sins, and forgive all who have the same faith with us." At a later period, a. c. 753, under Abu Giafar Almansor, we find the Jews intrusted with the office of exacting a heavy mulct laid upon the Christians. It was a tax which comprehended ecclesiastics, monks, hermits, those who stood on columns.1 The sacred vessels of churches were seized, and purchased by the Jews. Under this fostering government the schools flourished; those in Sura and Pumbeditha were crowded with hearers : the Gaonim, or the Illustrious, were at the height of their fame;2 they formed a sort of senate, and while the Prince of the Captivity maintained the sovereign ex¬ ecutive power, they assumed the legislative. Their reign was for the most part undisturbed, though some¬ times a rapacious Caliph or an over-zealous Iman might l Kiovirag rtp 0ec5 evapEOTOvvrac. Theoph. Chronog. 357, p. 663, Edit. Bonn. '■* Jost gives a list of these teachers, mostly undistinguished men, from the Seder Haddoroth. Anhang, vi. p. 354. 184 THE KARAITES. Book XXIII. make them feel that the sword of authority still hung over them, and that the fire of zealous Islamism was not yet burned out. Giafar the Great is reported to have framed an edict to force Jews and Christians to embrace Islamism. The Sultan Vathek held them in contempt and dislike. His brother and successor, Motavakel, was a sterner persecutor. He issued an edict that all the Jews and Christians in his empire should wear a leather girdle, to distinguish them from the faithful. He prohibited them from sitting on the Divan of Justice. At first he only forbade their use of iron stirrups; but he degraded them still farther; they were no longer to mount the noble horse, they were only permitted to ride the mule or the ass. This debasing distinction is still put in force by law or by usage, enforced by popular hatred, in many parts of the Turkish dominions.1 On the whole, however, the long and unaccustomed interval of peace, and the free intercourse with their enlightened masters, introduced a spirit of bold inquiry, which threatened, even at this zenith of its power, to shake the dominion of the Rabbins to its basis.2 The Karaites, the Protestants of Judaism, who perhaps had never entirely been extinct, began to grow again into a formidable sect. The older Karaites (it is quite un¬ certain when they assumed the name) probably fell into disrepute through the abuse of their doctrines by the unpopular Sadducees. After the fall of Jerusalem, Pharisaism, under its more regular and organized form, Rabbinism, obscured her once dangerous rival. The 1 Some add that their houses were marked or defaced by images of swine, apes, or devils. Jost, vi. 85; D'Herbelot, Bibl. Orient., art. "Mota¬ vakel." 2 The great Jewish astronomer Mashalla was held in high honor at the court of the Caliph Almamon, a. c. 831. Basnage, ix. 2. A. C. 717. AN"AN THE KARAITE. 135 Sadducean doctrine was probably too loosely rooted in the heart to withstand the hour of trial. The present world displayed such a scene of interminable dreariness to those who denied a world to come, that we cannot wonder if their creed refused to support them when the first obstinacy of resistance had worn away. The Sad- ducees dwindled into an unnoticed sect; and, though the worst part of their doctrines might retain a secret hold on the hearts of the unprincipled, it could no longer balance the prevailing power of Pharisaism, which was the main support both of the spiritual and temporal throne — the sole acknowledged doctrine of the national universities. Karaism was now revived in its purer form, rejecting entirely the authority of tra¬ dition, and resting its whole faith on the letter of the written Law. The Mischna, the Gemara, the Cabala — all Talmudic lore — the Karaites threw indignantly aside. The Luther of this Reformation, which perhaps was not less rapidly diffused for its similarity to the simpler creed of Islamism, was named Anan, who, with his son Saul, revolted from Rabbinism. What is known con¬ cerning the lives of these men, rests chiefly on the authority of the Rabbins, and must be received with the same mistrust as the accounts of our own Reformers from the writings of their adversaries. In a contest for the succession to the Princedom of the Captivity, or to some other high office, Anan was passed by, and his younger brother appointed. Embittered by the affront, Anan assembled the wreck of the Sadducean party, so called probably by contempt, and persuaded them to name him to the dignity. Tumults arose ; the govern¬ ment interfered ; and Anan was thrown into prison. He recovered his freedom, some say by a large sum 136 ARTICLES OF THE KARAITE BELIEF. Book XXIII. of money, which his followers gladly paid, as he gave out that he had been visited in a dream by the Prophet Elias, who encouraged him in his adherence to the pure Law of Moses. But his success was chiefly owing to an artifice suggested by an Arabian philosopher, whom he met with in the prison. He demanded of the Vizier a public disputation with his adversaries, and represented the only cause of their differences to be a dispute about the period of the new moon. The Caliph was a dabbler in astronomy; and Anan, by dexterously adopting his opinion, obtained a triumph.1 The Kara¬ ites retired to the neighborhood of Jerusalem, to main¬ tain in peace their simple creed, in their adherence to which the sight of the Holy City might confirm them. They hoped that thus a pure and righteous people might be ready to hail the accomplishment of its last Article. The following were, and still are, the Articles of the Karaite belief: — I. That the world was created; II. That it had an uncreated Creator; III. That God is without form, and in every sense One ; IV. That God sent Moses; V. That God delivered the Law to Moses ; VI. That the believer must deduce his creed from the knowledge of the Law in its original language, and from the pure interpretation of it; VII. That God inspired the rest of the prophets ; VIII. That God will raise the dead ; IX. That God will reward and punish all men before His throne ; X. That God has not rejected His unhappy people, but is purifying them by affliction, 1 Anan the Karaite, according to Scherina Gaon and Abraham ben David, was contemporary with R. Juda Gaon, who died in 763 a. c. Mordecai makes him contemporary with Caliph Abu Giafar, who began to reign 754 a. c., — no great difference. The Karaites have been described in Triglandius de Karaitis, Woolf, Bibliotheca Hebraica, and " Mordecai." Other tracts may be found in Ugolini's Thesaurus. Book XXIII. JEWISH KINGDOM OF KHAZAR. 1ST and that they must daily strive to render themselves worthy of redemption through the Messiah, the Son of David. The Karaites formed a regular community, under their Nasi, which name afterwards gave place to that of Hachim ; they have since spread into many coun¬ tries, where they are hated and denounced as heretics by the Rabbins. They found their way from the East into Spain at the height of Jewish prosperity and learning. They made more progress in the Christian states than among the Arabic Jews. They were met with jealous opposition by the Rabbinical authorities ; they made proselytes from their familiarity with Arabic, more vernacular with the Jew than the Rabbinical Hebrew. But all intermarriages were forbidden by the dominant party ; their trade was discouraged ; they had no great or eloquent writers, and had dwindled away almost to nothing before the great expulsion of the Jews from Spain.1 Their chief settlements in later days have been in Poland and the East of Europe, in the Taurus, and in Tartary. If their own writers deserve credit, at a period not very distant from this, the Jews in the East attained to a still more eminent height of power and splendor. Judaism ascended the throne of a great kingdom on the west of the Caspian Sea, — a kingdom before the strength of which the Persian monarchy trembled, and endeavored to exclude its inroads by building a vast wall, the remains of which still excite the wonder of the traveller : while the Greek empire courted its alliance. The name of this realm was Khazar, or Khozar ;2 it was inhabited by a Turcoman tribe, who had gradu- 1 There seems likewise to have been a Sadducaic sect in Spain. 2 Basnage discredited the whole story, as he could not trace the existence of such a kingdom; but De Guignes, and the more recent accounts of the Russian empire, have satisfactorily proved that point. 138 jews under the byzantine empire. book xxiii. ally abandoned their nomadic habits and maintained considerable commerce : their capital, Bilangiar, was situated at the mouth of the Wolga, and a line of cities stretched across from thence to the Don. They exchanged dried fish, the furs of the north, and slaves, for the gold and silver, and the luxuries of southern climates. Merchants of all religions, Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans, were freely admitted, and their superior intelligence over his more barbarous subjects induced one of their kings, Bulan (a. c. 740), to em¬ brace the religion of the strangers. By one account he was admonished by an angel; by another, he decided in this singular manner between the conflicting claims o o of Christianity, Moslemism, and Judaism. He examined the different teachers apart, and asked the Christian if Judaism was not better than Mohammedanism, — the Mohammedan, whether it was not better than Christi¬ anity. Both replied in the affirmative ; on which the monarch decided in favor of Judaism. According to one statement secretly, to another openly, he embraced the faith of Moses, and induced learned teachers of the Law to settle in his dominions. Judaism became a necessary condition on the succession to the throne, but there was the most liberal toleration of all other forms of faith. The dynasty lasted for above two cen¬ turies and a half; and when R. Hasdai, a learned Jew, was in the highest confidence with Abderrahman, the Caliph of Cordova, he received intelligence of this sovereignty possessed by his brethren, through the am¬ bassadors of the Byzantine Emperor. After consider¬ able difficultv Hasdai succeeded in establishing a cor- respondence with Josepli, the reigning king. The letter of Hasdai is extant, and an answer of the King, which does not possess equal claims to authenticity. A. C. MO-IOOO. JEWS BREAKERS OF MAGES. 139 The whole history has been wrought out into a relig¬ ious romance called Cosri, which has involved the question in great obscurity : Basnage rejected the whole as a fiction of the Rabbins — anxious to prove that " the sceptre had not entirely departed from Israel" ; Jost inclines to the opinion that there is a groundwork of truth under the veil of poetic embellishment. More modern writers admit without hesitation, and almost boast of the kingdom of Khasar.1 We travel westward, not, as usually, to sadden our eyes and chill our hearts with tales of persecution and misery, but to behold the Jews the companions and confidential ministers of princes. We pause to glean the slight and barren information which we possess of the state of the Jews in the Byzantine Empire. The writers of the opposite party accuse the Jews as insti¬ gators and abettors of the iconoclastic Emperors (the destroyers of images) ; and a fable, equally irreconcil¬ able with chronology and history, has been repeated of their zeal in this, by some called sacrilegious, warfare. It is said that they instigated the Caliph Yezid the Sec¬ ond to order the demolition of images in his dominions.2 The outraged saints were revenged by the untimely death of Yezid, attributed to their prayers. The suc¬ cessor of Yezid acknowledged, it is added, his father's impiety, and determined to wreak vengeance on his advisers. They fled; but two of them, resting near a fountain in Isauria, beheld a youth driving an ass laden with petty merchandise. They looked on him with fixed eyes, saluted him as the future Emperor, but at the same time they strongly urged his compli- 1 Cassel, in Ersch unci Griiber, p. 21. 2 Cedrenus, i. 789, Edit. Bonn. With this account Zonaras and Theoph- anes mainly agree. 140 JEWS IN ITALY. Book XXIII. ance with the second commandment of the Law.1 Un¬ fortunately, among the few facts which are known of the period is this, that Leo the Isaurian, in the early part of his reign, persecuted the Jews. It is highly probable that, when the Emperors gave the signal for havoc, the Jews, stimulated by covetousness as well as religious zeal, would not he the last to strip or break in pieces, or melt the costly ornaments, and even the images themselves, made of the precious metals. We may conceive the religious horror which the devout image-worshipper would feel, when the unclean hands of the circumcised either seized, or bought from au¬ thorized plunderers, the object of his profound adora¬ tion, and converted it, like any other object of traffic, to profane uses. But, inured to hatred, the Jew would have no fear to encounter it for the gratification at once of his revenge and his avarice. We know little further of their state, hut that they were under the avowed protection of some of the succeeding Emper¬ ors. Constantine Copronymus, probably on account of his hatred of images, was called a Jew ; 2 and Niceph- orus and Michael the Stammerer are named, as ex¬ tending their paternal care over this usually proscribed race.3 In Italy we know little of the condition of the Israel¬ ites ; hut the silence of history concurs with the single fact with which we are acquainted, to represent those days as days of peace. The Pope Zacharias found it 1 Enough of Leo's early life is known utterly to confute this fable. Leo, though an Isaurian, left his native country early. The whole family was transported to Thrace by Justinian; Leo was in Justinian's guard in 705. Le Beau, xii. 175, relates these idle fictions. 2 Theophanes, Chron. p. 617, Edit. Bonn. 8 Michael the Stammerer, perhaps on account of his equal toleration, was called by some a Jew, by others the sink of all religions. Basnage, ix. 9. A. C. 741-771. JEWS UNDER CHARLEMAGNE. 141 necessary to interdict not only the old grievance, the possession of Christian slaves by Jews, but also un¬ lawful sexual intercourse and marriage between the two races. Whatever guilt, either of secret perfidy1 or prayer for the success of the invader, might attach to the Jewish inhabitants of the South of France during the invasion of that country by the Moors of Spain, yet, when the barrier of the Pyrenees was established by the valor of Charles Martel, and by the ability of the new race of sovereigns who succeeded to the feeble Merovingians, Pepin and Charlemagne, these monarchs not merely refrained from all retribution, but displayed the more enlightened policy of conciliation towards their wealthy and useful subjects.2 Though even under Charlemagne, at the commencement of his reign, they were treated with the old Roman or religious contempt; they were disqualified, like slaves, infamous persons, Pagans, and heretics, from bringing criminal actions ;3 though they were prohibited from hiring the lands of Christians, or letting their lands to Christians (a proof that they were still cultivators of the soil),4 yet the legislator, as time advanced, seemed to become- more liberal. The Jews were only restricted in the 1 They are accused of betraying Toulouse to the enemy; but the siege of that city by the Moors appears altogether apocryphal. The singular custom which certainly existed for a considerable period in Toulouse, by which a syndic or representative of the Jews was constrained to appear before the authorities and receive three boxes on the ear, originated no doubt in some other unknown cause. See Hist, de Languedoc, ii. p. 151. See also, infra, p. 155. 2 Beugnot, Juifs d'Occident, p. 74. 3 " Placuit ut omnes servi ... ad accusationem non admittantur, omnes etiam infamise maculis aspersi, et turpitudinibus subjectse personse, here- tici etiam sive Pagani sive Judsei." Capit. i. 1. 4 " Non liceat Christianis Judseorum neque Paganorum res emphj'teosis vel conductionis titulo habere, neque suorum similiter eis accommodare." Addit. 3, c. xv. 142 TRADE OF JEWS WITH THE EAST. Book XXIH. possession of Christian slaves, subjected to the general marriage law of the empire, commanded to observe the prohibited degrees, and to conform to the general law of dower. The offender was liable to a fine of one hundred sous, and to suffer one hundred stripes.1 Their commerce was unrestricted, except by a limita¬ tion enforced on Charlemagne, rather by the irreverent covetousness of the clergy than by the misconduct of the Jews. Bishops, abbots, and abbesses were only prevented by a severe inhibition from pledging or sell¬ ing to the circumcised ■ the costly vestments, rich fur¬ niture, and precious vessels of the churches.2 To the flourishing commerce of the Israelites the extended dominions of Charlemagne opened a wide field. From the ports of Marseilles and Narbonne their vessels kept up a constant communication with the East. In Nar¬ bonne they were so flourishing, that, of the two pre¬ fects, or mayors of the city, one was always a Jew; and, as we shall presently see, the most regular and stately part of the city of Lyons was the Jewish quar- 1 "Nulli Christianorum vel Judseorum liceat matrimonium contrahere nisi prsemissa dotis promissione. Illud tamen fore prascipimus ut si quis Christianus vel Christiana, aut Judaeus vel Judaea, nuptiale festum cele- brare voluerit, non aliter quam sacerdotali benedictione intra sinum sanctse ecclesiae perceptfi, conjuginm cuipiam ex iis adire permittimus. Quod si abs¬ que benedictione sacerdotis quispiam Christianorum vel Judseorum noviter conjugium duxerit; aut 100 principi solidos exsolvat, aut 100 verberatus publice flagella suscipiat." Was this law really carried into execution? and were the Jews compelled to be married in Christian churches? Did the Jews prefer the payment of the fine? and was it, in so far, a tax on their marriages? If the Jews would scruple to enter the church, many eccle¬ siastics doubtless would hold their churches desecrated by the presence of Jews, and certainly would not bless an unbaptized Jew. 2 " Ut singuli, episcopi, abbates, et abbatissae diligenter considerent the- sauros ecclesiasticos ne propter perfidiam aut negligentem custodiam ali¬ quot! aut de geminis aut de vasis reliquo quoque thesauro perditum sit; quia dictum est nobis quod negotiatores Judcei, necnon et alii, gloriantur, quod quicquid illis placeat, possent ab eis emere." Capit. a. c. 806; Bou¬ quet, v. p. 677. Book XXIII. THE JEWS AS FINANCIERS. 143 ter. The superior intelligence and education of the Jews, in a period when nobles and kings, and even the clergy, could not always write their names, pointed them out for offices of trust. They were the physi¬ cians, the ministers of finance, to nobles and monarchs. As physicians they alone perhaps (for they had taught the Arabians) kept up the sacred traditions of the art, the knowledge of the properties of drugs, which had come down from the East and from the Greeks. They were in the courts of kings, in the schools of Salerno and Montpellier. It is true that if their medical skill (which all mankind must submit to the necessity of employing) forced them into places of trust and honor, it exposed them to inevitable dangers. If they were successful, they were liable to the suspicion of sorcery and unlawful dealing;. Knowledge and magic were so o o o closely allied in the popular mind, that a wonderful cure wrought by a Jew could not be wrought by sci¬ ence, still less by divine aid, therefore must be wrought by diabolic aid. If they were unsuccessful, the dying patient must have been the victim, not of incurable malady or even of ignorance ; the Jewish physician must knowingly have administered poison, as in the case of Zedekiah, the physician of Louis the Pious, accused of the death of Charles the Bald. As financiers too we find them in the courts of kings and of the great vassals, encountering all the hatred which attaches to the levying heavy, mostly ill-appor¬ tioned, taxation upon an impoverished people. Their wisest measures probably, as beyond the political econ¬ omy of the age, would be arraigned as the most cruel and iniquitous ; yet they were unable or unwilling to decline these perilous dignities, by which, honestly or dishonestly, they obtained great opportunities of advan- 144 ISAAC AMBASSADOR TO BAGDAD. Book XXIII. tage, and stored up wealth to themselves, to he the righteous or unrighteous pretext for the plunder by the sovereign whom they served, or the vengeance of the people whom they stripped. In them the possession of wealth was sufficient proof of extortion and iniquity. At all events, they were usurers ; and whether they exercised usury on what might now be called fair or un¬ fair terms, usury was in itself a sin and a crime. They rose even to higher dignities: when Charlemagne, o o o ' either with some secret political design, or from an ostentatious show of magnificence, determined on send¬ ing an ambassador to the splendid Caliph, Haroun al Raschid, Europe and Asia beheld the extraordinary spectacle of a Jew, named Isaac,1 setting forth on this mission, with two Christian counts, who died on the road, and conducting the political correspondence be¬ tween the courts of Aix-la-Chapelle and Bagdad. It cannot be wondered if this embassy gave rise to the wildest speculations in that ignorant age, both as to its objects and its event. It was given out that the Caliph granted Judaea as a free gift to Charlemagne ; others limited his generosity to Jerusalem, others to the keys of the Holy Sepulchre. The secret objects probably never transpired beyond the councils of Charlemagne; but it was known that Isaac returned with presents of a wonderful nature from the East. Among these was an enormous elephant, of such importance that his death is faithfully chronicled by the monkish annalists ; jewels, gold, spices, apes, a clock, and some rich robes, 1 His acquaintance with the language and manners of the East no doubt designated the Jew for this mission. One reads in Basnage with surprise: " On est (itonne de ce que l'Empereur choisissait un Juif pour cet emploi, pendant qu'il avoit dans ses dtats un si grand nombre de sujets capables de le remplir." Charlemagne would have been puzzled to find many subjects capable, without the Jew, of negotiating in the East. Basnage contradicts himself in the next sentences. A. C. 798-814. JEWS UNDER LOUIS DfiBONNAIRE. 145 doubtless of silk. To these were added, by universal tradition, tlie keys of tlie Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.1 Isaac acquitted himself with such ability that he was intrusted by his imperial protector with another mis¬ sion to the same quarter. The golden age of the Jews endured, in still-increas¬ ing prosperity, during the reign of Charlemagne's suc¬ cessor, Louis the Debonnaire, or the Pious. At his court the Jews were so powerful that their interest was solicited by the presents of nobles and princes. His most confidential adviser was a Jewish physician, named Zedekiah. The wondering people attributed Zedekiah's influence over the Emperor to magic, in which he was considered a profound adept. The monkish historians relate, with awe-struck sincerity, tales of his swallowing a whole cart of hay, horses and all, and flying in the air like Simon Magus of old.2 A sort of representative of the community, the defender of their privileges, the master of the Jews,3 resided 1 Eginhard. Vit. Carol. M. This was magnified, in later days, into a grant of Jerusalem and the whole of Judaea, but, according to the quaint speech attributed to Ilaroun al Raschid, as the Emperor lived so far off, and if he moved his troops to Palestine the provinces of France would re¬ volt, the Caliph therefore would still defend the country, and pay over the revenues to Charlemagne. The grant is affirmed by the monks of St. Gall (apud Pertz, the Annales Fuldenses, ibid.), and by the Saxon poet: — " Persarum denique princeps Hunc Aaron, idem fuerat cui subditus, Indis Exceptis, Oriens totus : curaverat ultro Ejus amicitise se foedere jungere firmo. Nam gemmas, aurum, vestes, et aromata crebro Ac reliquas Orientis opes direxerat ilii; Ascribique locum sanctum Ilierosolymarum Concessit proprise Caroli semper ditioni." Lib. iv. apud Pertz. The death of the elephant Bubalas is recorded by Eginhart, sub ann. 810. Monach. Engolism. apud Pertz. 2 Chronic. Hirsaugen. 3 This title was borne by Evrard, who appears in the inquiry on the charges advanced by Bishop Agobard. vol.in. 10 146 PRIVILEGES GRANTED TO THE JEWS. Book XXIII. within the precincts of the court. The general privileges of the race were preserved with rigid equity. They were permitted to build synagogues ; their appeals were listened to with equal — their enemies said with partial —justice; they had free power to traffic, and to dis¬ pose of real or personal property; even their slave- trade was protected.1 They had moreover interest enough to procure the alteration of certain markets, which were customarily held on their Sabbath, to an¬ other day. They began to be recognized as under the special protection of the Emperor, as in later days in feudal language they were " the men of the Emperor." 2 They were to appear at the court annually, or every two years, to render their accounts in the king's chamber (no doubt they were taxed with rigid impar¬ tiality), and to do the Emperor service.3 Besides this general protection, several charters are extant, granting special privileges to certain Jewish communities and individuals. One to certain Jews of Languedoc, se¬ curing to them the right of possessing and holding in perpetual tenure certain hereditaments, of which they had been unjustly despoiled. This showed that they were land-owners on a considerable scale. They were to hold these estates, with the houses and other build¬ ings, lands cultivated and uncultivated, vineyards, meadows, pastures, watercourses, mills, rights of way. 1 " Habeant etiam licentiam mancipia peregrina emere, et intra imperium nostrum vendere, et nemo tidelium nostrorum pnesumat eorum mancipia peregrina sine eorum consensu baptisare." Charta Lud. Pii, 32, 33, 34; Bouquet, iv. '2 The Jews certainly had the power of holding allodial property in the Narbonnese, by the grants of Pepin le Bref, Charlemagne, and Louis the Pious, the historians of Languedoc say, " parce qu'ils y etoient tres puis- sants eten grand nombre." Compare Hist, de Languedoc, i. Notes, p. 739. 8 See this remarkable charter, Histoire de Languedoc, i., preuve 75, p. 322. Book XXIII. AGOBARD, ARCHBISHOP OF LYONS. 147 They held these estates in full right of property, of alienation, gift, or exchange, without let or hindrance.1 Another to a certain Domat Rabbi, and his grandson Samuel,2 granting them exemption from various tolls and taxes — permission to hire Christian slaves, who were, however, not to be forced to work on Sundays and holidays — and generally to deal in slaves within the limits of the Empire. Every litigation with a Christian was to be settled by the evidence of three Jews and three Christians. It forbade all persons to encourage their Christian slaves in disobedience under pretence of being Christians and seeking baptism.3 It took the persons of the above-named under imperial protection.4 Their death was to be punished at the price of ten pounds of gold. They were not to be submitted to the ordeal of fire or water, nor scourged — but allowed in every respect the free observance of their Law. Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, beheld with jealous indignation this alien people occupying the fairest part of his city, displaying openly their enviable opulence. t It was, " Actum Francofurdi palatio regis, in Dei nomine feliciter. Amen. Ita ut deinceps annis singulis, aut post duorum annorum curricu¬ lum, mandante missionum ministro, ad nostrum veniant palatium, atque ad cameram nostram fideliter, unusquisque ex suo negotio ac nostro deser- vire studeat." Charta Lud. Pii, 32, 33, 34; Bouquet, 624. 2 Charter to Domat Rabbi, apud Bouquet, vi. 649. 3 " Suggesserunt etiam iidetn Judsei Celsitudini nostra de quibusdam hominibus, qui contra Christianam religionem suadent mancipia Hebra- orum sub antentu (obtentu) Christiana3 religionis contemnere dominos suos etbaptisari; vel potius persuadent illis ut baptisentur ut a servitio domi- uorum suorum liberentur, quod nequaquam sacri canones constituunt, immo talia perpetrantes districta anathematis sententia puniendos dijudicant." This alludes to a canon of the Council of Gangra. No wonder that the clergy were indignant at the imperial favor towards the Jews. Compare Agobard's Letter. There are two similar precepts in favor of other Jews, p. 650. 4 " Sub mundebundo et defensione nostra." 148 COMMISSION UNDER COUNT EYRARD. Book XXIII. Tlieir vessels crowded the ports — their hales encum¬ bered the quays — their slaves thronged the streets. In a Christian city, the Church seemed to veil its head before the Synagogue. He endeavored, by the exercise of his episcopal authority, to prevent that approximation of the two races which seemed rapidly advancing.1 He forbade his flock, among other things, to sell Christian slaves to the Jews —to labor for the Jews on Sundays — to eat with them during Lent — to buy the flesh of animals slain by them — or to drink their wine. As far as he could he prohibited all social intercourse, which seems not to have been uncommon. The Jews considered these laws of Agobard an in- © fringement of their rights; they appealed to their royal protector for redress. A commission of inquiry was issued, a commission which Agobard describes as terrible to the Christians, mild to the Jews,2 and at the head of it was Count Evrard, called in other places protector of the Jew^s. The Archbishop was com¬ manded to withdraw his obnoxious edicts. Agobard was at Nantes. He declared himself ready to submit to the royal decree, but proceeded to offer a petition to the kino; against his adversaries. He accused them (a © © n strange charge!) of selling to the Christians meat unclean to themselves, because the Mosaic law about slaying cattle was not rigidly observed, which, he said, 1 Louis the Pious granted exemptions to Jews, who held his diplomas, from certain tolls and taxes characteristic of the times. 1. Teloneum, tax on goods conveyed by water carriage; Paraverdum, the obligation to fur¬ nish post-horses for the public use on the military roads; Mansionaticum, free quarters for soldiers; Pulveraticum, tax levied on farmers pro labore et pulvere; Cespitaticum, obligation to make hedges on the road-sides; Ripaticum, duties on landing goods on quays; Portalicium, port-dues; Tranaticum, toll on sledges, &c.; Ccenaticum, provisions for soldiers on march. 2 " Christianis terribilis, Judaiis mitis." A. C. 830. AGOBARD'S CHARGES AGAINST THE JEWS. 149 they called Christians' meat, and wine unclean, as partly spilled on the ground. He accused them of cursing daily the Christians and Christ in their syna¬ gogues. He accused them of the insufferable pride with which they vaunted the royal favor ; that they went freely in and out of the royal palaces; that the highest; persons solicited their prayers and blessings ; that they boasted of gifts of splendid dresses to their wives and matrons from royal and princely donors.1 He complained of the bad effects produced by the con¬ cession of the change of the market-day from the Jew¬ ish Sabbath, the Saturday, and that the Jewish had many more hearers than the Christian preachers, and, indeed, were held by the uninstructed to be the better preachers.2 He added the more weighty charge, that the Jews frequently stole Christian children to sell them as slaves. This petition was followed by a long theological argument, to prove the wisdom and justice of persecuting the Jews •— the most detestable of unbe¬ lievers.3 The Archbishop pressed St. Paul into his 1 De insolentia Juda?orum, Oper. Agobardi: " Dum enim gloriantur, mentientes simplicibus Ohristianis, quod cari sintvobis propter Patriarchas; quod honorabiliter ingrediantur in conspectu vestro et egrediantur; quod excellentissimse personse cupiant eorum orationes et benedictiones; et fa- teantur talem se legis auctorem habere velle qualem ipsi habent . . . dum ostendunt praicepta ex nomine vestro, aureis sigillis signata, et continen- tia verba, ut putamus non vera; dum ostendunt vestes muliebres, quasi a consanguineis vestris vel matronis Palatinorum uxoribus eorum directis," &c. 2 " At dicunt imperiti Christiani melius eis prcedicare Judieos quam presbyteros nostros." M. Bedarride (Les Juifs en France, en Italie, et en Espagne, Paris, 1859) observes with justice on this fact:— "II paralt qu'ils comptaient parmi eux des hommes a qui le talent de la parole n'etaitpas etranger, puisqu'ils prechaient publiquement. II paralt, de plus, que ces prddicateurs parlai- ent la langue du pays, puisqu'ils etaient ii portee de se faire entendre des Chretiens," p. 85. M. Bedarride mentions conversions from Christianity to Judaism, among which was " un diacre du Palais, nommd Putho." 3 " Ex quibus demonstratur quam detestabiles habendi sunt inimici veri- 150 FAILURE OF AGOBARD'S MISSION. Book XXIII. service. He cited, with as little justice, the example of many of the most illustrious bishops — Hilary and Sidonius Apollinaris, Ambrose, Cyprian, Athanasius, besides a host of Gallic bishops and Gallic councils. He entered into long; details of the absurdities taught o o by the Rabbins, their anthropomorphic notions of the Deity (among the rest he charged them with holding the eternity of the letters of the alphabet, and the assertion that the Mosaic Law was written many ages before the world began), and of the blasphemies which they uttered concerning Christ.1 It was all in vain : the Court turned a deaf ear to his complaints, and Agobard set off for Paris, to try the influence of his personal weight and character before his sovereign. He was received with cold civility — constrained to wait in an antechamber while the councillors of state laid his appeal before the King — and then received permission to retire to his diocese.2 He wrote another despatch, bitterly inveighing against the influence and conduct of the Grand Master of the Jews. But his sorrows were poured forth more fully into the confiden- tatis, et quomodo pejores sunt omnibus incredulis, Scripturis divinis hoc docentibus, et quam indigniora omnibus infidelibus de Deo sentiant et rebus coelestibus." Ibid. 1 Many of these charges are very curious, as showing that some of the stranger notions in the Talmud, of course made infinitely more strange by misconception and misrepresentation, were current concerning the Jews in Europe. 2 He humbly acknowledges that he was overawed by the manifest favor of the Court towards the Jews: "Nupercum in Palatio tempus redeundi nobis jam fuisset indultum, suavissima Dilectio vestra sedit [the coun¬ cillors were Adalhard, Wala, and Elisachar, who then reigned supreme over Louis the Pious], et nudivit me mussitantem potius quam loquentem contra eos qui Judieoruin querelas astruebant." Adalhard and Wala were of the high ecclesiastical party. Agobard contents himself with urging more justly the protection of certain slaves of the Jews, who desired baptism. But he admits that the Jews ought to be paid for the loss. On Adalhard and Wala, see Latin Christianity, ii. p. 246, &c. Book XXIII. CHARLES THE BALD. 151 tial bosom of Nebridius, Bishop of Narbonne, whom he called upon to cooperate with him in separating the Christians from a people who, he says, " are clothed with cursing as with a garment. The curse penetrates into their bones, their marrow, and their entrails, as water and oil flow through the human body.1 They are ac¬ cursed in the city and the country, at the beginning and ending of their lives ; their flocks, their meat, their granaries, their cellars, their magazines, are accursed." His denunciations were as unavailing as his petitions: while an instance is related of an officer of the palace joining the synagogue, the Archbishop was constrained to complain once more of the violence offered to a Jewess who had embraced Christianity.2 In the reign of Charles the Bald, the Jews maintained their high estate, but dark signs of the approaching Age of Iron began to lower around.3 Amilo, Archbishop of Lyons, the successor of Agobard, accuses the Jews, who were tax-gatherers, of forcing the poor peasants in remote districts by the cruelty of their exactions to deny Christ.4 But the active hostility of the clergy was no longer checked by the stern protection of the royal authority. In Lyons many converts were made, 1 " Scientes . . . omnes qui sub lege sunt, sub maledicto esse, et indutos maledictione sieut vestimento, qure intrat sicut aqua in interiora eorum, et sicut oleum in ossa eorum," &c. 2 Agobard of Lyons was a prelate in some respects in advance of his age: he dared to condemn many popular superstitions. On image-worship he adopted the moderate view, nearly that of the Council of Frankfort; above all, he wrote a treatise of great power and strong sense against judicial ordeals. 8 Jewish merchants (negotiatores), by a law of Charles the Bald, were to pay a tenth in duty, while the Christians paid an eleventh. Cap. Car. Calv. apud Balusium. 4 " Quidem ipsorum qui in nonnullis civitatibus inlieitc; constituuntur, solent in remotioribus locis Christianos pauperes et ignaros pro eodem telonio acriter constringere, deinde ut Christum negent persuadere." 152 CHARLES THE SIMPLE. Book XXIII. by whose agency so many children were seduced from their parents, that the Jews were obliged to send their offspring for education to the less zealous cities of Yienne, Macon, and Aries. Remigius, later Arch¬ bishop of Lyons, announced his triumph to the King, and desired that the Bishop of Aries might be ad¬ monished to follow the example of his zeal. The Councils began again to launch their thunders; that of Meaux (a. c. 845) reenacted the exclusion of the Jews from all civil offices. This decree was followed up by that of Paris (a. c. 845) ; but in the distracted state into which the kingdom soon fell, probably these ordinances were not executed. If it be true (but of its truth there is not much probability) that Charles the Bald was poisoned by the famous Jewish physician of his father, Zedekiah, an act, which so weakened the royal authority, was a measure most pernicious to his countrymen. The Jews thenceforth, instead of being under the protection of a powerful monarch, fell rapidly under the dominion of those countless petty independent sovereigns who rose under the feudal system, whose will was law, and whose wants would not submit to the slow process of exaction and tribute, but preferred the raising more expeditious supplies by plunder and massacre. An edict of Charles the Simple, among other gifts, bestows on the Archbishop of Narbonne all the lands and vineyards possessed by the Jews, however acquired, in the whole county (a. c. 897). The King seems to have had no doubt of his right to give, the Archbishop no doubt of the justice of receiving, this donation ; these properties had before belonged to them. It would seem that the Jews were no longer to hold real property. Still commerce, even in the rudest and most anar- A. C. 845-897. THE GERMANIC KINGDOMS. 153 chical times, is a necessity of mankind. Bnt in all these Germanic kingdoms in general, the kings, princes, warriors, were too proud to engage in what they held to be base and degrading occupations ; the serfs were too indigent and down-trodden to rise above daily labor. The cities with their guilds had not yet risen to, or recovered, their mercantile importance. Yet the inter¬ change of commodities between remote countries was O never entirely broken off; foreign wares found their way from one region to another ; the diffusion of articles of necessity or of luxury might be precarious, inter¬ rupted, irregular, yet it never entirely ceased. Europe was never without some of the precious treasures, the stuffs, the spices, of Asia ; queens and high-born ladies must be decked with jewels ; rich stuffs were demanded for the array of knights, for the housings of their coursers.1 The Church above all, from her own wealth or the wealth of her votaries, must have gold and velvet and precious stones for her vessels and monstrances ; her censers must be filled with frankincense. Spices for banquets, or even for more common use, were still supplied; medicinal drugs, many of which came from the East, were furnished, it is probable, as well as ad¬ ministered, by Jewish physicians, who were everywhere: above all, the slave-trade, the traffic in captives taken in war, was still active. The inroads of the Northmen, and later of the Hungarians, no doubt gave it new life. The constant legislation on that subject, even to a late period, shows how deeply the Jews were concerned in this traffic, which in those days brought much property 1 The monk of St. Gall mentions a Jewish merchant, a favorite of Charle¬ magne, " qui terrain repromissionis ssepius adire, et inde ad cismarinas provincias multa pretiosa et incognita solitus erat afferre." De Gest. C. M. i. 18. 154 JEWISH FLEETS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN. Book XXIII. and little discredit to the Jew, thus dealing to Christians some revengeful satisfaction for their insults and wrongs. The Jews probably alone, the wealthier of them, had capital; they alone had mutual intelligence and corre¬ spondence ; they frequented every fair and market; they knew and communicated to each other the prices of commodities ; they were a vast mercantile firm spread through Europe, and having some, it might be precarious, connection with their brethren in the East, in Africa, in Spain, in most Mohammedan countries. Trade alone, active prosperous trade, will account for their vast numbers, their dangerous wealth, even their rising intellectual importance. There was silent con¬ tinued intercommunication of thoughts and ideas be¬ tween the East and West, as well as constant traffic in material things. In the North of Germany and in Northern France their position and influence were seemingly not so high; they were, however, already in a certain sense under special imperial protection. But the vast numbers which were found in all the flourish¬ ing German cities on the Rhine, and their great and tempting wealth before the Crusades, must have been the growth of previous centuries. Their relation to the Christian merchant - citizens till that outburst of fanaticism seems in general to have been amicable. In the South of France we hear of Jewish fleets on the Mediterranean. The Norman piracies probably, mak¬ ing peaceful navigation next to impossible, rather than want of capital or activity, put an end to these enter¬ prises. We may safely therefore dismiss as an unhistoric legend their betrayal of Bordeaux to the Normans,1 whom they must have been wise enough to know to be 1 This accusation is found in the Ann. Bertin. sub ann. 847. They are also accused of betraying Barcelona to the Moors, a. c. 853. A. C. 889. MOHAMMEDAN CORDOVA. 155 their most fatal enemies. The incessant and increasing; hostility of the bishops in Languedoc and Dauphiny betrays the jealousy as well as the aversion of these prelates. Towards the end of the ninth century (a. c. 889), the Archbishop of Sens, from some motive which the monk Oleron thinks fit not to reveal, expelled the Jews from his diocese.1 Even the strange usage that the Syndic of the Jews in Toulouse presented himself three times a year to receive a box on the ear from the Christian mayor, shows at once their importance and their odiousness to the Christians ; an usage of which the well-attested barbarous close seems to prove the historic truth, though its origin is lost in obscurity.2 A stern, iron- handed magistrate struck the poor Syndic with such force as to scatter the brains of the unfortunate un¬ believer. But even the title of Syndic implied the regular and organized community. The Jews appealed to the King against this and other acts of oppression. The King answered that " they only suffered the penalties due to their sins."3 It was in Spain that the golden age of the Jews shone with the brightest and most enduring splendor. Yet, during its earlier period, from the conquest by the Moors till towards the end of the tenth century, when, while Christian Europe lay in darkness, Moham¬ medan Cordova might be considered the centre of 1 " Judseos certa de causa, ab urbe expulit." Apud Bouquet, viii. 237. 2 It is attributed to the betrayal of Toulouse by the Jews to the Saracens, and its recapture by Charlemagne, who punished their treachery by this ignominious ordinance, and with a fine of a certain number of pounds of wax, no doubt for religious uses. But Basnage has well exposed the anach¬ ronisms and want of historic truth in the whole story of the capture (not the siege, which is confounded with that of Toulouse by the Saracens), and its recovery by Charlemagne. Hist, des Juifs, torn. xx. ch. 3. 8 Vit. S. Theodardi, apud Bouquet, vii. 156 MOSES "CLAD IX SACKCLOTH." BookXXIII. civilization, of arts, and of letters, though we are cer¬ tain that the Jews, under the enjoyment of equal rights and privileges, rivalled their masters, or rather their compatriots, in their advancement to wealth, splendor, and cultivation ; though they had their full share, or, perhaps, as more intelligent, a disproportionate share, in the high ministerial and confidential offices of the court; though, by the perpetual intercourse kept up with their brethren in the East, we may safely infer that by land along the North of Africa,1 and by sea along the course of the Mediterranean, their commerce was pursued with industry and success ; yet we have not much distinct information concerning their state and proceedings. In fact, it is difficult to discriminate them from the race among whom they lived on terms of the closest amity during these halcyon days. In emulation of their Moslemite brethren, they began to cultivate their long disused and neglected poetry; the harp of Juclah was heard to sound again, though with something of a foreign tone, — for they borrowed the rhythm peculiar to the Arabic verse. Yet, though but a feeble echo of their better days, we would gladly explore this almost hidden source of Jewish poetry. There too Rabbinism, while its throne was tottering to decay in the East, found a refuge, and commenced a new era of power and authority. The Talmud was translated into Arabic, under the auspices of Moses " clad in sackcloth." Moses was one of the most learned men of the East. A sincmlar adventure cast O him upon the hospitable shore of Spain, and through him the light of learning, which, by the rapid prog¬ ress of the iron age of Judaism in Babylonia, by the 1 According to Condd, (Hist, des Arabes, i. 144,) the Jews were very nu¬ merous and prosperous at Tunis and in Morocco, ii. 234. A. C. 980. MOSES IN THE SYNAGOGUE. 157 extinction of the authority of the Prince of the Captiv¬ ity, the dispersion of the illustrious teachers, and the final closing of the great schools, seemed to have set forever, suddenly rose again in the West, in renewed and undiminished splendor. Four Babylonian Rabbins, of great distinction, of whom R. Moses was one, fell into the hands of a Spanish pirate.1 The wife of Moses accompanied him in his voyage; the high-minded woman, dreading defilement, looked to her husband for advice; Moses uttered the verse of the Psalm : " The Lord said, I will bring again from Baslian, I will bring again from the depths of the sea." She plunged at once into the ocean, and perished.2 Moses was brought as a slave to Cordova, and redeemed, though his quality was unknown, by a Jew. One day he entered the synagogue, clad as a slave in a scanty sackcloth. Nathan, the judge of the Jews in Cordova, presided. In the course of the debate the slave dis¬ played such knowledge that Nathan exclaimed, " I am no more judge ; yon slave in sackcloth is my mas¬ ter, and I am his scholar." Moses was installed by acclamation as head of the community. Moses, and his son and successor, Enoch, enjoyed the protection of Hasdai, the son of Isaac, the minister of the Caliph; and though the learned preeminence of this family was disturbed by the rivalry of R. Joseph, to whom the task of translating the Talmud had been committed, yet such was the popularity of his grandson, Nathan, and such the wealth of his compatriots, that as often as the 1 A. c. 990. The name of one of these Rabbins has not been preserved. One was R. Shemariah ben Elchanan, who was bought by the Jews of Alexandria, ignorant of his learning. He became head of the community at Alexandria. The third was R. Huschiel, who was bought at Tunis. He became head of the community at Kairouan. The fourth was R. Moses. 2 Compare Basnage, ix. 130, and Jost, vi. 107. 158 MOSES MAIMONIDES. Book XXIII. head of the Jewish community went forth to enjoy the delicious refreshment of the groves and gardens near Cordova, he was attended by his admiring disciples in immense numbers, and in most sumptuous apparel. It is said that seven hundred chariots swelled his pomp. The long line of learned descendants, which formed the great school of Arabico-Jewish learning, belongs to the history of their literature, for which our work has not space. This line stretched away to the end of the twelfth century, when it produced its greatest ornament — the wise Maimonides, the first who, instead of gazing with blind adoration and unintelligent wonder at the great fabric of the Mosaic Law, dared to survey it with the searching eye of reason, and was rewarded by dis¬ covering the indelible marks of the Divine wisdom and goodness.1 The life of Maimonides marks an epoch in the civil as well as in the literary and philosophic history of Judaism; and that life is a most instructive exposition of the extent and influence of Judaism, of the state and condition of the Jews at that eventful period. He was born at Cordova, March 30, 1135. His father, a distinguished Talmudist, was the author of a Commentary on the Astronomic Treatise of Alfar- ghani. His father was his first instructor ; but in the Arabian schools he was a disciple of Aben Pace. The 1 There are many Lives of Maimonides. I would venture to recommend a singularly clear and fair statement of his life and his opinions in the Etudes Orientales of M. Franck, author of an excellent book (La Kabbale, Paris, 1861). I subjoin the concluding sen¬ tences on the More Nevochim: " Ce livre, comme nous l'avons dtja dit, peut etre eonsiddrb comme la premiere tentative du Rationalisme, et par cette qualitd seule, de quelque manibre qu'on le juge, il acquiert dans l'his- toire gc'nfrale des idees une incontestable importance. Mais il inspire ^galement le respect par les puissantes facultds de l'auteur, la prodigieuse souplesse de son esprit, la varietd de ses connaissances, 1'dldvation de son spiritualisme, enfin par la lumifere qu'il r^pand sur quelques-uns des points les plus obscurs de l'histoire de 1'esprit humain." p. 360. A. C. 1135. EDUCATION OF MAIMONIDES. 159 youth of Maimonides witnessed the great revolution in the relation between Islamism and Judaism. To the wise tolerance, the peaceful harmony, which had raised the Ommyad Caliphs to their height of splendor, suc¬ ceeded, when Maimonides was thirteen years old, the fanatic dynasty of the Almohades. Abd-el-Mouhmen, the founder of the dynasty, was a predecessor of Philip II., rather than a successor of the Abderrahmans. The fanatic Caliph issued a decree that, on pain of exile, the Jews and the Christians must alike embrace Islam¬ ism. Many Jewish families, as in the later days of the Inquisition, made a base and hypocritical profession of Mohammedanism. Among these was the family of Maimonides, and, at sixteen years old, the great doctor of the Synagogue, the glory of Israel, the second Moses, was a professed Mohammedan. But the profound study of the religious writings of his people wrought convic¬ tion in the mind of the vouth. Before the ao-e of «/ O twenty-three he had composed a treatise on the Calen¬ dar, commented certain parts of the Talmud, and begun his great work on the Mischna (the Porta Mosis, translated by Pococke). Maimonides with his father and his family determined to leave the inhospi¬ table shores of Spain. Africa was under the dominion of the Almohades ; but the persecuting laws were executed with less severity. He passed to Morocco, dwelt some time at Fez, and then embarked for the Holy Land. He reached St. Jean d'Acre, and from thence made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He finally settled at Fostat, the port of Cairo. The famous Sala- din had founded the Fatimite Empire. The Vizier of Saladin, the Kadhi al FMhel, took the learned Jew under his protection ; and at Fostat the fame of Mai¬ monides, as the most skilful physician, as the most 1G0 THE "MORE XEVOCHIM." Book XXIII. profound philosopher, and the oracle of the religious belief among the most enlightened Jews and Arabians, grew to its height. At the early dawn Maimonides used to pass oyer to Cairo to transact his business in the capital; he was the Court physician. On his re¬ turn, such were the crowds of all classes and orders who came to consult him on all questions, medical, phil¬ osophical, religious, that he had hardly time to snatch a hasty meal: he was compelled to intrude on the night for his profounder studies. Thus oppressed with busi¬ ness, Maimonides found time to complete his volumi¬ nous medical, philosophical, and theological writings.1 His fame chiefly rests on the More Nevocliim, " the guide to those who have lost their way." Maimonides may be held as the founder of Rationalism ; the first who endeavored 011 broad principles to establish the harmony of reason and religion. He was the specu¬ lative parent of Spinosa and of Mendelssohn. His knowledge was vast; he was master not only of the Bible, but of all the Talmudic writings, of the genuine 1 Maimonides was probably one of the first of his nation, notwithstanding their stud)' in Spain and elsewhere of astronomy, who anticipated most Christians in the bold assertion that the heavenly bodies were not created for the sole use of man. The assertion itself, and the arguments by which it is maintained, are equally remarkable. " It is shown by demonstration that the distance from the centre of the earth to the supreme altitude of the planet Saturn is a journey of nearly 8700 years, reckoning 365 days in the year, and forty miles for each day's journey, according to the mile in the Law, which is of a thousand cubits." Maimonides deduces from this the insignificance of the earth as compared to all the celestial spheres, of man as compared to the earth: " and from the height of the heavens do not we learn how limited is our apprehension of Almighty GodV " (Lib. iii. cap. xiv.) The chapters on the Origin of Evil, in which he urges and ex¬ pands the notion, much received in later times, that it is the privation of Good, are very curious, and deserve the study of the philosopher and divine. Like all Jewish philosophers, Iris great tenet is the absolute In- corporeity of God (lib. i. cap. xxvi., &c.) On the meaning of the Law being written by the finger of God, see lib. i. cap. Ixvi. His favorite phrase is that the Law " speaks the language of the sons of men. Book XXIII. IRON AGE OF JUDAISM. 161 Aristotle, and of the Aristotelian Arabic philosophies ; he had read earlier Eastern writings, with how severe a critical spirit remains to be determined. He was a pro¬ foundly religious man. On such subjects as the Unity of the Godhead, the Creation, the Providence of God, 011 Foreknowledge and Freewill, while he asserts the power and authority of Reason, he limits its range with calm severity. He discusses all these questions with the freedom and fulness of the best Christian school¬ men, but without their arid logic and cold, subtle dialectics. To my judgment his spiritualism is more pure and lofty. During his life, such was the awe of his name that men hardly dared to reprove the fearless reasoner. After his death he was anathematized by the more superstitious of his brethren. But in later ages, the more enlightened the race of Israel, the higher has stood the fame of him whom his ardent admirers proclaimed a second Moses.1 We revert to a sadder spectacle — the rapid progress of the Iron Age of Judaism, which, in the East and in the West, gradually spread over the Jewish com¬ munities, till they sank again to their bitter, and, it might almost seem indefeasible, inheritance of hatred and contempt. They had risen but to be trampled down by the fiercer and more unrelenting tread of oppression and persecution. The world, which before seemed to have made a sort of tacit agreement to allow them time to regain wealth that might be plun¬ dered and blood that might be poured forth like water, now seems to have entered into a conspiracy as ex- 1 The More Nevochim I only knew with the aid of Buxtorf's translation. A large part, however, may now be read in the French of M. Munk, whose profound Hebrew learning, wide range of philosophical inquiry, and perspic¬ uous language are full guaranties for the trustworthiness of his translation. vol. iil 11 162 THE SPANISH INQUISITION. Book XXni. tensive, to drain the treasures and the hlood of this devoted race. Kingdom after kingdom, and people after people, followed the dreadful example, and strove to peal the knell of the descendants of Israel; till at length, what we blush to call Christianity, with the Inquisition in its train, cleared the fair and smiling provinces of Spain of this industrious part of its population, and self- inflicted a curse of barrenness upon the benighted land.1 1 By far the most complete, I fear the most veracious, account of the persecutions of the Jews during the Middle Ages, has been collected, with his indefatigable industry, by Dr. Zunz in the preliminary chapters to his Synagogal Poesie des Mittelalters, Berlin, 1855. It fills about forty-three pages, from pp. 15 to 58. It is interspersed with extracts from Hebrew poetry translated into German. In some parts it rests on Jewish authorities, occasionally manuscript. It is a most hideous chronicle of human cruelty (as far as my researches have gone, fearfully true). Of the number of victims of course I cannot speak with full reliance. Perhaps it is the more hideous, because the most continuous, to found among nations above the state of savages. Alas! that it should be among nations called Christian, though occasionally the Mahommedan persecutor vied with the Christian in barbarity. BOOK XXIV. IRON AGE OF JUDAISM. Persecutions in the East — Extinction of the Princes of the Captivity — Jews Palestine — In the Byzantine Empire —Feudal System — Chivalry — Power of the Church — Usury — Persecutions in Spain — Massacres by the Crusaders— Persecutions in France — Philip Augus¬ tus — Saint Louis — Spain — France — Philip the Fair— War of the Shepherds—Pestilence — Poisoning of the Fountains—Charles the Fourth — Charles the Fifth — Charles the Sixth — Final Expulsion from France — Germany—The Flagellants — Miracle of the Host at Brussels. Our Iron Age commences in the East, where it wit¬ nessed the extinction of the Princes of the Captivity by the ignominious death of the last sovereign, the downfall of the schools, and the dispersion of the com¬ munity, which from that period remained an abject and degraded part of the population. Pride and civil dis¬ sension, as well as the tyranny of a feeble despot, led to their fall. About the middle of the ninth century, both the Jews and Christians suffered some persecu¬ tion under the Sultan Motavakel, a. c. 84T. His edict was issued prohibiting their riding on lordly horses; they were to aspire no higher than humble asses and mules ; they were forbidden to have an iron stirrup, and commanded to wear a leather girdle. They were to be distinguished from the faithful by a brand-mark, and their houses were defaced by figures of swine, devils, or apes. The latter addition throws some im¬ probability on the story.1 After the reign of Motava- 1 See ante, p. 134. 164 DECLINE OF THE CALIPHATE. Book XXIY. kel, the Caliphate in the East fell into confusion, split up into separate kingdoms under conflicting sover¬ eigns.1 About this time Saccai was Prince of the Captivity. Towards the middle of the tenth century (a. c. 9-34), David ben Saccai held that high office. Under David hen Saccai the Resch-Glutha resumed the pomp, title, and independence of a king. The Jews boast that, while his weaker ancestors had con¬ descended to pay tribute, David refused that humiliat¬ ing act of submission. But it was the feebleness of the Caliphate under Muctador, rather than the power of the Resch-Glutha, which encouraged this contumacy.2 It has been conjectured that the interval during both these periods,8 from a. c. 81T to about a. c. 916, was filled by a line of hereditary princes. The learned aristocracy, the Heads of the Schools of Sura and Pum- beditha, by whom the power of the Resch-Glutha, which sometimes aspired to tyranny, was limited,4 seem like¬ wise to have been hereditary. The race of that of Sura expired, and the Rescli-Glutha, David hen Sac¬ cai, took upon himself to name an obscure successor called Om. Tob.5 Om. Toh's incompetency became apparent, and R. Saadiah was summoned from Egypt. Saadiali was a great opponent of the doctrine of the transmigration of the soul, then a received article of the Jewish creed. Perpetual feuds distracted this singular state. The tribunals of the Resch-Glutha and of the Masters of the Schools, the civil and spiritual 1 Jost, vi. 84, 85. 2 The obscure intrigues which led to the elevation of David ben Saccai may be read in Jost, vi. 96. 8 Ganz, Tsemach David, p. 130; Basnage, iv. 4; Jost, vi. p. 77, &c. 4 David ben Saccai attempted also to nominate the chief of the School of Pumbeditha. This caused great discord and confusion. 8 In Jost, the rival of Saadiah, Om. Tob, is Ii. Semaiah. A. c. 934. last prince of the captivity. 165 powers, were in perpetual collision. David, the Prince, on some dispute about money, laid his ban on Saadiah. Saadiah hurled back the ban upon the Prince, and transferred the sovereignty to his brother. For seven years this strife lasted, till at length peace was restored, and the whole community beheld, with the utmost satis¬ faction, the Prince of the Captivity, who, on the death of his brother, regained his uncontested authority, en¬ tering the house of the Master of the School to cele¬ brate together the joyful feast of Purim. The peace remained unbroken till the death of the Prince of the Captivity and that of his son. Saadiah became the guardian of his grandson. Saadiah was a man noted for the strictest justice, and his literary works were esteemed of the highest value. Both the great dignities seem to have been united in the person of Scherira, who ruled and taught with uni¬ versal admiration in the School of Pherutz Schabur from 967 to 997 a. c. Pherutz Schabur was a city five miles from Babylon. It is asserted, no doubt with the usual Jewish exaggeration, that this city was in¬ habited by 900,000 Jews. At the end of thirty years Scherira felt the approach of age, and associated his son Hai in the supremacy. But the term of this high office drew near. A violent and rapacious sovereign, Ahmed Kader, filled the throne of the Caliphs. He cast a jealous look upon the powers and wealth of this vassal sovereign. Scherira, now one hundred years old, and his son Hai, were seized either with or with¬ out pretext, their riches confiscated, and the old man hung up by the hand. Hai escaped to resume his office, and to transmit its honors and its dangers to Hezekiah, who was elected Chief of the Captivity. But, after a reign of two years, Hezekiah was arrested 166 BENJAMIN OF TUDELA. Book XXIV. with his whole family by the order of the Caliph, Ab- dallah Kaim ben Marillah (a. c. 1036.) The Schools were closed. Many of the learned fled to Egypt or Spain (the revulsion in Spain under the Almohades had not yet taken place) ; all were dispersed. Among the rest two sons of the unfortunate Prince of the Captivity effected their escape to Spain, while the last of the House of David (for of that lineage they fondly boasted), who reigned over the Jews of the Dispersion in Babylonia, perished 011 an ignominious scaffold. The Jewish communities in Palestine suffered a slower but more complete dissolution. If credit is to be given to the facts relating to the revolutions in the East, in that singular compilation, the " Travels of Ben¬ jamin of Tudela," which bears the date of the following century, from a. c. 1160 to 1173,1 we may safely select his humiliating account of the few brethren who still clung, in poverty and meanness, to their native land.2 There is an air of sad truth about the statement, which seems to indicate some better information 011 this sub¬ ject than on some others. In Tyre, Benjamin found 400 Jews, glass-blowers. The Samaritans still occupied 1 The object of this author seems to have been not unlike that of the celebrated Sir John Mandeville, besides the account, seemingly credible, of the countries which he really visited, to throw together all he had ever heard or read of the strange and unvisited regions of the farther East. — Original Note. 2 Much lighfhas been thrown on the Travels of Benjamin of Tudela by the new edition and English translation, with valuable Notes and Essays, especially by Dr. Zunz, published by Asher, Berlin, 1840. It seems clear that Benjamin of Tudela, probably as a merchant, travelled as far eastward as Bagdad. So far his descriptions are perfectly trustworthy. Dr. Zunz has traced the names of many of the Rabbins and distinguished men of whom Benjamin writes, and vouches for their accuracy. Beyond Bagdad, Benjamin writes from hearsay, with a large admixture of fable, in parts curiously resembling Marco Polo. See Asher's Preface; and Dr. Zunz, in his valuable Essay on the Contributions of the Hebrews to the Science of Geography, vol. ii. Book XXIV. DISPEKSION OF THE JEWS. 167 Sichem; but in Jerusalem there were only 200 de¬ scendants of Abraham, almost all dyers of wool, who had bought a monopoly of that trade. Ascalon con¬ tained 153 Jews; Tiberias, the seat of learning and of the kingly patriarchate, but fifty. This account of Benjamin is confirmed by the unfrequent mention of the Jews in the histories of the later Crusades in the Holy Land, and may, perhaps, be ascribed in great measure to the devastations committed in the first of these depopulating expeditions. It is curious, after surveying this almost total desertion of Palestine, to read the indications of fond attachment to its very air and soil, scattered about in the Jewish writings. Still it is said, that man is esteemed most blessed, who, even after his death, shall reach the land of Palestine and be buried there, or even shall have his ashes sprinkled by a handful of its sacred dust. " The air of the land of Israel," says one, "makes a man wise;"1 another writes, " He who walks four cubits in the land of Israel is sure of being a son of the life that is to come." " The great Wise Men are wont to kiss the borders of the Holy Land, to embrace its ruins, and roll themselves in its dust." " The sins of all those are forgiven who inhabit the land of Israel." He who is buried there is recon¬ ciled with God as though he were buried under the altar. The dead buried in the land of Canaan come first to life in the days of the Messiah. He who dies out of the Holy Land dies a double death. Rabbi Simeon said,2 "All they who are buried out of the land of Canaan must perish everlastingly; but for the just, God will make deep caverns beneath the earth, by which they will work their way till they come to the land of Israel; when they are there, God will breathe 1 Bava Bathra. 2 Ketuboth. 168 JEWS IN THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE. Book XXIY. the breath of life into their nostrils, and they will rise again." 1 In the Byzantine Empire, if we may place any re¬ liance, as we surely may, on the same authority, the numbers of the Jews had greatly diminished. Corinth contained 300 Jews ; Thebes, 2000 silk-workers and dyers. Two hundred cultivated gardens at the foot of Parnassus. Patras and Lepanto contained a small number; Constantinople, 2000 silk-workers and mer¬ chants, with 500 Karaites. They inhabited part of Pera, were subject to the ordinary tribunals, and were often treated with great insult and outrage by the fanatic Greeks. We pursue our dark progress to the West, where we find all orders gradually arrayed in fierce and im¬ placable animosity against the race of Israel. Every passion was- in arms against them. The monarchs were instigated by avarice ; the nobility by the warlike spirit generated by chivalry ; the clergy by bigotry; the people by all these concurrent motives. Each of the great changes which were gradually taking place in the state of the world seemed to darken the condition of this unhappy people, till the outward degradation worked inward upon their own minds. Confined to base and sordid occupations, they contracted their thoughts and feelings to their station. Individual and national character must be endowed with more than ordinary greatness if it can long maintain self-estimation after it has totally lost the esteem of mankind ; the 1 " Postquam Judasi patria pulsi, et extorres facti sunt, amant terra; ejus cineres tarn impotenter ut miras felicitatis loco habeant, si cui contigit vel mortuo ibidem sepeliri, vel pugillo illius pulveris post fata conspergere, vel viventi ibidem degere." From the Dissertation of John a Lent de Pseudo- Messiis, apud Ugolini, Thesaurus — a melancholy picture of wretched depression and frantic hope. Book XXIV. THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 169 despised will usually become despicable. I proceed in a few brief sentences (all my limits will allow) to ex¬ plain the effects of the more remarkable changes in society which developed themselves during these dark ages, as far as they affect the character and condition of the Jewish people : 1st. The feudal system ; 2d. Chivalry; 3d. The power of the clergy ; 4th. The almost general adoption of the trade of money-lending and usury by the Jews themselves. I shall then pursue the course of time, which will lead us successively to the different countries in which the Jews were domi¬ ciliated. I. In that singular structure, the feudal system, which rose like a pyramid from the villains or slaves attached to the soil to the monarch who crowned the edifice, the Jews alone found no proper place. They were a sort of outlying caste in the midst of society, yet scarcely forming part of it; recognized by the con¬ stitution, but not belonging to it; a kind of perpetual anomaly in the polity.1 Their condition varied ac¬ cording to the different form which the feudal system assumed in different countries. In that part of Ger¬ many which constituted the Empire, the Jews, who were always of a lower order than their brethren in Spain and in the south of France, were in some respects under the old Roman law. By this law their existence was recognized, freedom of worship in their synagogues was permitted, and they were exempted from all military service. The last was a privilege not 1 Comp. Beugnot. Juifs d'Occident, Introduction, pp. 58, 59: " Qui- conque ne trouvait pas sa place dans la hkTarchie fdodale n'dtait rien. . . . Tels ont dtd les Juifs au sein de la feodalite, prives de tout espdce de droits quand chacun venait d'en acqudrir; isolds au milieu d'une societe qui avait rdgld ses rangs a manure a n'oublier personne. partout ils dtaient traitds comme dtrangers, et dans ce temps l'etranger dtait un ennemi." 170 POWER OF THE GREAT FEUDATORIES. Book XXIY. likely to be extorted from them. The noble profession of arms would have been profaned by such votaries. The whole Jewish community were considered as special servants of the imperial chamber, i. e., the Em¬ peror alone could make ordinances affecting the whole body, and the whole body could demand justice or make appeal to their liege-lord. But this imperial right would not have been recognized by the great vassals as allowing the Emperor to seize, punish, plunder, or in any manner to interfere with the Jews domiciliated in their several feuds. In fact, while the community was subject to the liege-lord, the great feudatories and the free cities either obtained by charter, of which there are numerous instances, or assumed with a strong hand, or were persuaded by the Jews themselves to accept, dominion over the Israelitish inhabitants of their domains. The high and remote tribunal of the Emperor would afford inadequate protection for any oppressed Jew ; he was glad to have a nearer and more immediate court of appeal. Travelling, as the Israelites perpet¬ ually did, from town to town, from province to province, the fierce baron might respect the passport, which was always absolutely necessary, of some powerful noble, some princely bishop, or some wealthy community of free burghers, while he would have smiled in scorn at the general imperial edict for allowing Jews to pass unmolested. In some cities, as in Worms, there were regular officers appointed to protect the Jews, who could not perform any of their ceremonies or processions in public without these guardians to shield them from the violence of the populace. In France and in Eng¬ land they were the property of the king. It will appear hereafter how the kings granted them to favorites, like lands, resumed them, and treated them altogether as Book XXIV. THE FEUDAL SYSTEM IN NAPLES. 171 goods pertaining to the Crown.1 In Italy, at least in the South, besides the doubtful protection of the Em¬ peror, they acknowledged the more powerful authority of the Pope. They were supposed to be in some manner under the special jurisdiction of the See of Rome.2 In the Norman kingdom of Naples the feudal system soon makes its appearance. Sichelgaite, wife of Roger Duke of Apulia (son of Robert Guiscard), bequeaths the revenue of the Jews in the city of • Sa¬ lerno to the Church of Our Lady.3 Duke Roger makes over the Jewry and all the Jews, except those of his proper domain, to the Archbishop of Salerno.4 In the South of France they seem to have been considered as a kind of foreign vassals of the great feudatories ; in the North, of the king. For while the edicts of the 1 In France, according to Gul Brito, King Philip Augustus (see here¬ after), who at one time only demanded for himself' a fifth part of the debts due to the Jews, might legally have taken the whole: — " Et poterat totum. sibi tollere si voluisset. Nec prsejudicium super hoc fecisset eisdem, Tanquam servorum res et catalla suorum." Lib. i. 2 Thomas Aquinas (Summa 22, x. 10) lays down the axiom that the Jews are slaves of the Church (the Church in its widest sense), " quia cum ipsi Judiei sint servi Ecclesite." He proceeds to the question, whether if the slave of a Jew becomes Christian he becomes free without any price being paid for his redemption? It is answered in the affirmative, because, the Jews themselves being slaves of the Church, the Church can dispose at her will of the property of her slaves. This applies to persons born in slavery, or if, being infidels, they had been bought for the purpose of do¬ mestic slavery. If the slaves had been bought merely for the purpose of sale, they were to be brought to market in three months. This clause (if it does not refer to former times) seems to imply an active slave-trade still going on in Europe and in the hands of the Jews. I may take the opportunity of adding that Thomas Aquinas takes the milder view (that of Pope Gregory the Great), as to tolerating the religious rites of the Jews, and condemns the forcible baptism of Jewish infants against the will of their parents. 8 Charter quoted from Pirrus, Sicilia Sacra. 4 Charter of Duke Roger, Muratori, Antiq., vol. i.; Depping, p. 150. 172 JEWS SOLD, BEQUEATHED, PAWNED. Book XXIV. sovereign for their expulsion and readmission into the land were recognized in the North, they seem to have been executed either imperfectly or not at all in the South. The general effect of the feudal system was to detach the Jews entirely from the cultivation of the soil, though it worked more slowly in some countries — in the South of France and in Spain — than in others. They could not .be lords, they were not serfs, — they •would not serve, or by the older law were exempted from military service to their lords. But this almost extra-legal protection under the great vassals was of course subject to every caprice of the lawless and ignorant petty chieftains wdio exercised these local sovereignties.1 It was obtained only by proving to the liege-lord that it was his interest to protect; and his eyes, blinded by ignorance and perhaps bigotry, could only be opened to his real interests by immediate and palpable advantages. The Jew must pay largely for precarious protection ; he was only tolerated as a source of revenue, and till almost his life-blood was drawn, it would be difficult to satisfy the inevitable demands of a needy and rapacious master. The Jew thus often became a valuable property; he was granted away, he was named in a marriage settlement,2 he was be- 1 "A l'exemple des Rois, les Barons s'f'taient approprids Ies Juifs. Un Baron disait 'mes Juifs' comme il disait ' mes terres,' quand il f'numdrait ses revenus." Depping, p. 174. 2 In a contract of marriage between Rostang de Pasquier and the daughter of Bernard Atto, Viscount of Nismes, Agde, and Beziers, " damus tibi et filise nostra unum Judaum et unum burgensem in Biterris, Burgensem, Raymondam Durante, Judaeum Benjamin, ambo cum tenezonibus eorum, et successores eisdem, et cum eisdem tenezonibus." Here the Burgher and the Jew were granted in the same manner. Histoire de Languedoc, ii.; Preuves, 419. William of Montpellier adds to her dower all his Jews of Montpellier. Ibid. 478. Aymeric, Viscount of Narbonne, endowed his wife, a. c. 1087, with the city of Narbonne and the taxes on the Jews therein. Ibid. ii. 266; Preuves, p. 557. Book XXIV. CHIVALRY. 173 queathed,1 in fact he was pawned,2 lie was sold, he was stolen.3 Permission to the Jew to employ his industry for his own profit implied a share in that profit to the lord.4 Even churchmen of the highest rank did not © disdain such lucrative property. Louis, King of Pro¬ vence, grants to the Archbishop of Aries all the posses¬ sions which his predecessors have held of former kings, including the Jews. Philip the Fair, after contesting the property of forty-three Jews, bought of his brother, Charles of Yalois, all the Jews of his dominions and lordships. These Jews produced four hundred and thirty francs six sous every quarter; a Jew of Rouen, Samuel Viola, brought in to the same king three hun¬ dred livres a quarter.5 II. Chivalry, the parent of so much good and evil, both in its own age and in the spirit which has descended from it and has become infused into the institutions and character of modern Europe, was a source of almost unmitigated wretchedness to the Jew, unless in so far as 1 Raymond of Trincavel in his will bequeaths a Jew. Histoire de Langue- doc, ii.; Preuves, 550. 2 The same Raymond of Trincavel pawns all his customary rights to payments in kind, of honey, canelle, and pepper, from the Jews on feast- days. Ibid. 8 Thibault, Count of Champagne, made a treaty with King Philip that neither should retain the Jews of the other. Some of Thibault's Jews had taken refuge from his oppressions in the territory of the King. His widow reclaimed them. There was a long negotiation about the property of Cressolin, a very rich Jew. Ibid. 4 A modern writer has well expressed this: " lis pouvaient donner un libre eours a leur industrie commerciale a la charge de partager de gre ou de force avec les Seigneurs les profits qu'ils en avaient retires. C'est ce qui explique pourquoi les Seigneurs dtaient si soigneux de conserver les Juifs qui leurs apparte.naient. C'dtait la portion la plus productive de leur Seigneurie. Aussi la personne des Juifs 5tait elle un objet de commerce: on se les vendait, on se les donnait, quelquefois les Seigneurs se les volaient les uns les autres, et ne permettaient plus au Juif qui se trouvait sur leurs terres de retourner dans celles de leurs maitres." Bedarride, Les Juifs en Italie, en France, et en Espagne, p. 103. 6 Other instances in Depping. 174 CLOVIS, KING OF THE FRANKS. Book XXIV. the splendor which the knight might display in his arms and accoutrements was a lucrative source 6f traf¬ fic. The enterprising Jew often probably made a con¬ siderable commission on the Milan corselet, the Damas¬ cus or Toledo blade, the gorgeous attire which the knight wore, or the jewels in which his lady glittered in the tournament.1 Magnificence was the fashion of the times, and magnificence would often throw the impoverished noble into the power of the lowly man of traffic. But the knight was bound by the tenure of his rank to hate and despise the Jew. Religious fa¬ naticism was inseparable from chivalry. When Clovis, the King of the Franks, embraced Christianity, while the pious preacher was dilating on the sufferings of the crucified Redeemer, the fiery convert sprang up and exclaimed, " Had I and my brave Franks been there, they dared not to have done it." The spirit of this speech was that of the knighthood of the Middle Ages. What they could not prevent they could revenge. The knight was the servant of God, bound with his good sword to protect His honor, and to extirpate all the enemies of Christ and His Virgin Mother. Those enemies were all unbelievers, more particularly the Jew, whose stiff-necked obstinacy still condemned him ; every Jew was as deadly a foe as if he had joined in the frantic cry of Crucify Him ! Crucify Him! The only refuge of the Jew from the hatred of the knight was in his contempt. The knight was not suffered to profane his sword with such vile blood; it was loftier revenge to trample him underfoot. But the animosity without the pride of this chivalrous feeling descended 1 This has not escaped the author of that noblest of historical romances, Ivanhoe, who on this point is as true to history as in the rest of the work he is full of the loftiest spirit of poetry. Book XXIV. THE POPES PROTECTORS OF THE JEWS. 175 to the lower orders; he who could not presume to show his zeal for his Redeemer on the person of a Mos- lemite unbeliever, contented himself with the humbler satisfaction of persecuting a Jew. In awful disregard of the one great Atonement, it was a prevailing feeling that men might wash away their sins by the blood of their infidel fellow-creatures. We shall see this inhu¬ man sentiment dreadfully exemplified in the history of the Crusaders. III. The power of the clergy, no doubt, tended greatly to increase this general detestation against the unhappy Jew. Their breath was never wanting to fan the embers of persecution. In that age of dark¬ ness, hatred of heresy and unbelief was the first article in the creed of him who taught the religion of love. o But it is remarkable that not only were there splendid and redeeming instances of superiority to this unchris¬ tian spirit (they will hereafter be noticed), but it was only in the dark and remote parts of the Christian world that this total gloom prevailed. Light still shone in the centre. Of all European sovereigns, the Popes, with some exceptions, have pursued the most generous policy towards the Jews. Among the exceptions it is melancholy not to be able to inscribe the great name of Innocent III. without some reservation. Inno¬ cent's first edict about the Jews is one of calm and enlightened humanity. Though it opens with the usual ill-omened phrase concerning Jewish perfidy, yet it confirms all the favorable statutes of his predeces¬ sors, protects their synagogues, their cemeteries, their festivals from insult; condemns in strong terms compul¬ sory baptism, and places their persons and property under the safeguard of the law.1 But in later days 1 Innocent. Epist. ii. 302. 176 INNOCENT III. AND IY. Book XXIY. Innocent coold not behold their wealth, their power, their influence in France, without jealousy. In a letter to the Count of Nevers, with words tending to inflame the worst passions, he declared them to be under the wrath of God, branded with the curse of Cain, guilty of the blood of the Redeemer.1 He is indignant that they should be employed in finance and in the collec¬ tion of taxes; imputes to the French nobles that they render more than equal justice to the Jews in their litigations with Christians about debts ; he threatens the Count with the severest chastisement as guilty of this favor towards the enemies of God.2 But if there be a shade of darkness on the bright fame of Innocent III., there is a gleam of light thrown on the dark char¬ acter of Innocent IV., by his remarkable enactment in favor of the Jews of Germany.3 In Italy, and even in Rome, the Jews have been more rarely molested than in other countries. They have long inhabited in Rome a separate quarter of the city, but this might have been originally a measure at least as much of kind¬ ness as contempt — a remedy against insult rather than an exclusion from society.4 The adversaries 1 " Quanto magis ergo divinam formidare potes offensam quod favorem prrestare non metuis, qui unigenitum Dei filium cruci affigere praesumpse- runt, et adhuc a blasphemiis non quiescunt." Innocent III., Epist. x. 190. 2 Among the strange charges brought by Innocent III. against the Jews is that they sell the milk of women for ordinary milk to nourish Chris¬ tian children: "Ita similia Judaeis mulieribus facientibus de lacte quod publiee venditur pro parvulis nutriendis." They trampled the wine-presses in linen stockings, drew out the best wine for themselves, and sold the refuse to the Christians, even though that wine might be used for the Holy Eucharist. 3 This calm, firm, enlightened edict will shortly appear at full length. 4 The Ghetto, Judaea, .Tudaica, Judaearia; hence the Venetian Giudecca; in Verona, La Zuecca. Muratori, Antiq. Ital. Dissert., &c. See the curious grant, quoted above, from Roger Duke of Apulia to the Archbishop of Sa¬ lerno and his successors (a. c. 1090) of all the Judaea and Jews of that city, BOOK XXIV. JEWS OF GERMANY, AND OF ROME. 177 of the Roman Church may ascribe this to " the wisdom of the serpent," which discovered the advan¬ tages to be derived from the industry of the Jews, rather than to " the gentleness of the dove"; but where humanity is the result, let us not too invidiously explore its motives. Since the reign of Innocent II. (1130), at the accession of the Pope, the Jews have been permitted to approach the presence of the Pontiff, and to offer a copy of their Law.1 The Pontiff re¬ ceives their homage, and mildly expresses his desire that their understandings may he enlightened to per¬ ceive the hidden meaning of their own sacred volume. O In the remote provinces it is to he feared that religious animosity was often aggravated by that hatred which unprincipled men feel towards those who possess the secret of their crimes. The sacred property of the Church was still often pawned by the licentious monks or clergy. No one would dare to receive the sacred pledge but a Jew, who thus frequently became odious, not only as an importunate creditor, but as exposing, by clamorous and public demands of payment, trans¬ actions never meant to meet the light. As early as the reign of the Emperor Henry I., among the pious Emperor's gifts to the Monastery of Monte Casino was a vest or altar-cloth, which he redeemed from a Jew, to whom it had been pledged for fifty gold pieces.2 Gui- fred, Archbishop of Narbonne, in order to raise money excepting those of his own domain or those whom he may have brought with him, " quod hue ego tantum conduxero." There was a Giudecca in Constantinople. See the curious grant of the Doge of Venice, ibid. 1 The first act of this kind took place on the visit of Innocent II. to Paris. The Pope replies, " May God remove the veil which is now over your eyes!" Sugerii Abbat. Vit. Ludovic. Grossi; Bouquet, xii. 58. The Jews had also a place at the coronation of the Emperors at Rome. Pertz, Leges, ii. 192. 2 Leo Ostiensis, ii. 43. VOL. III. 12 178 HOLY WEEK—STONING THE JEWS. Book XXIV. to buy the Bishopric of Urgel for his brother, sold the crosses, the reliquaries, the vessels, and all the plate or the Church of Narbonne to certain Jewish goldsmiths, who trafficked with them in Spain.1 The Chapter of Strasburg complain that the Abbot Godfrey, of the Monastery of St. Leonard, had pledged the Missal, Moralia Job (St. Gregory's book), a gilded cross and chandeliers, two altar-cloths, three copes, and a cha¬ suble for five marks to the Jews of Einheim ; a chalice, three chasubles, and four books for nine marks and twenty deniers to the Jews of Rodesheim.2 In many cases it was religion itself which seemed to the Christian clergy to impose the duty of persecution. In Beziers, at the beginning of the Holy Week (of the week during which the sufferings of the Redeemer on the cross and his divine patience were represented, in symbol and in language, to the eyes and to the heart of the believer, not forgetting his sublime words of prayer for his enemies, even the Jews), it was an an¬ cient usage to pelt the Jews with stones, — a perilous license for a fierce rabble. The preacher mounted the pulpit, " You have around you," he said, " those who crucified the Messiah, who deny Mary the Mother of God. Now is the time when you should feel most deeply the iniquity of which Christ was the victim. This is the day on which our Prince has graciously given us permission to avenge this crime. Like your pious ancestors, hurl stones at the Jews, and show your sense of His wrongs by the vigor with which you resent them." 3 The bishop who put down this prac¬ tice, Raymond of Trincavel, was accused of having 1 Hist, de Languedoc, ii. p. 184. 2 Schceffler, Alsatia Diplomatica, Note sub ann. 1215. Compare for England, Madox, Hist, of the Exchequer, p. 153. 8 Ex Chronic. Gaufredi Yosiensis. Apud Bouquet, xii. 194. Book XXIV. AVARICE OF THE JEWS. 179 been bribed: no other motive conld be suggested for this act of humanity, justice, and piety.1 IY. But avarice and usurious practices were doubt¬ less charged, not without justice, against the race of Israel. In the nation and in the individual, the pursuit of gain as the sole object of life, must give a mean and sordid cast to the character. To acquire largely, whether fairly or not, was the highest ambition of the Jew, who rarely dared or wished to spend liberally. All the circumstances of the times contributed to this debasing change. The more extended branches of o o commerce were almost entirely cut off. Their brethren in the East had lost their wrealth; the navigation of the Mediterranean was interrupted by the Norman pi¬ rates ; the slave-trade had entirely ceased or was pro¬ hibited, as well by the habits of the times as by law. In the cities and free towns they were excluded by the jealous corporate spirit from all share in the burghers' privileges. The spirit of the age despised traffic, and the merchant is honorable orily where he is held in honor. The Jews no doubt possessed great wealth; what was extorted from them is ample proof of the fact, and some of them by stealth enjoyed it; but even the wealthiest and most liberal were often obliged to put on the sordid demeanor and affect the miserable poverty of the poor pedlar of their own nation, whose whole stock consisted in his pack of the cheapest port¬ able articles. This necessity of perpetual deception could not but have a baneful effect on the manners and mind of the people. Their chief trade seems to have been money- lending, of which, till they were rivalled and driven 1 Hist, de Languedoc, ii. 488. The Jews of Beziers then lived in a sepa¬ rate quarter surrounded with walls. 180 THE LOMBARDS. Book XXIV. out of the open market by the Lombards, they were the sole possessors. This occupation was not likely to diminish either their own sordid meanness or their un¬ popularity. The ignorance of the age denounced all interest for money alike as usury. The Jew was judged out of his own Law, and all the Scriptural denunciations against usury were brought forward, especially by the clergy, to condemn a traffic of which they felt and submitted to the necessity. The condem¬ nation of usury by the Church, as unlawful, contrib¬ uted, with the violence of the times, to render the payment of the usurer's bond extremely insecure. He argued, not unfairly, that the more precarious, the greater ought to be his gains : he took refuge in fraud from violence and injustice. Society was at war with the Jew. Some sudden demand of tribute, or some lawless plunderer, would sweep away at once the hard- wrung earnings of years;1 the Jew, therefore, still practised slow and perpetual reprisals, and reimbursed himself from the wants of the needy, for his losses from the violent. Demolish his secret hive, like the ant, the model suggested by his wise king, he would recon¬ struct it again, and ever at the expense of his enemy. It was, generally throughout the world, the Christian, who according to our universal Master of nature, would spit upon and spurn the Jew ; and the Jew, who, when he found his advantage, would have the pound of flesh nearest the heart of his bondsman. It 1 Montesquieu thus observes of the Middle Ages: " Le commerce passa a une nation pour lors couverte d'infamie, et bientdt il nefut distingue des usures les plus affreuses, des monopoles, de la levee des subsides, et de toutes les manieres malhonnetes d'acqu^rir de l'argent. Les Juifs, enrichis par leurs exactions, ^taient pilles par les princes avec la meme tvrannie: chose qui consoloit le peuple, et ne les soulageoit pas." Esprit des Lois, xxi. 20. A. C. 1160. THE LOMBARDS. 181 was a contest of religious zeal which had degenerated into the blindest bigotry, and associated itself with the most ferocious and unchristian passions, against indus¬ try and patience, which had made a forced but inti¬ mate alliance with the most sordid craft and the most unfeeling avarice, to the utter extinction of every lofty principle of integrity and honor. Attempts were constantly made to restrict the exac¬ tions of the Jews from the poor : they were prohibited from taking in pawn the tools of the artisan and the implements of husbandry. By a law of Philip Augus¬ tus the interest on loans was limited to two deniers per week on the livre : this would amount to above forty per cent. Later the rate of interest was doubled, for it was found that the debtor was compelled by the Jew to inscribe a larger sum than he actually bor¬ rowed. Interest on debts was generally limited to the year, to prevent — which it did not do — all accu¬ mulation. The weekly interest was manifestly in¬ tended for the debts of the poor. There is a very curious parchment roll in the French royal archives,1 according to which (probably during one of the ex¬ pulsions of the Jews) certain inhabitants of the small town of Vitry, about five hundred, claimed sums said to have been extorted from them by the Jews to the amount of eight hundred and forty-four livres nine sous. This may show how widely these exactions spread, and how they affected the poorest classes of society. It shows, too, the utter insecurity of all these debts, and that the Jews, almost the only holders of that rare commodity, money, could hardly be expected to refrain from making as rich a harvest as possible during their short gleam of broken sunshine. 1 Cited by M. Depping. Compare bis book, p. 180. 182 IRON AGE OF JUDAISM IN THE WEST. Book XXIY. It is time to proceed to our melancholy task, the rapid picture of the Iron Age of Judaism in the West. The first dark scene in our tragic drama is laid in a country where we should least expect to find it, the Arabian kingdom of Grenada. It took place when the Golden Age was in all its brightness, a foreshadowing of darkness to come. It was brought on by the im¬ prudent zeal of the Jews. The nation was in the highest degree of prosperity and esteem : R. Samuel Levi was at once prince of his own nation and vizier of the king, Mohammed ben Gehwar, when one of the Wise Men, Joseph Hallevi, attempted to make con¬ verts among the Moslemites. The stern orthodoxy of Islamism took fire, the rash teachers were hanged, the race persecuted, and fifteen hundred families, of whom it was said that he who had not heard of their splendor, their glory, and their prosperity, had heard nothing, sank into disgrace and destitution.1 A few years after, the Christian monarch, Ferdinand the Great, as though determined not to be outdone in religious zeal by his rival, the Moslemite king, before he undertook a war against the Moors, determined to let loose the sword against the Jews in his own terri- tories. To their honor, the clergy interfered, prevented the massacre, and secured not only the approval of their own consciences, but likewise that of the Pope, Alexander the Second, who, citing the example of his predecessor, Gregory the Great, highly commended their humanity.2 The sterner Hildebrand assumed a different tone ; he rebuked Alfonso the Sixth for having 1 Basnage, ix. 5. This was near a century before the persecution from which Maiinonides took refuge in Egypt. 2 " Noverit prudentia vestra nobis placuisse quod Judaeos qui sub vestrit potestate habitant, tutati estis ne occiderentur: non enim gaudet Deus effusione sanguinis, neque laetatur perditione malorum." Alexander II. Berengario, Vice-Comiti Narbonensi (circa 1061). Book. XXIV. THE CRUSADES. 183 made laws restoring to the Jews certain rights, sub¬ mitting, as the Pontiff declared, the Church to the synagogue of devils.1 During this whole period of contest between the Christians for the recovery of Spain and the Mussulmans in their desperate defence of their conquests, the Jews stood on a perilous neutral ground. Their creed was obnoxious in different degrees to both. If they could have lived a peaceful life, they were disposed to submit quietly to the conqueror : but their wealth tempted the cupidity of both ; both were inclined to employ them in the unpopular but lucrative functions of financiers and tax-gatherers ; and their own propensities to gain induced them to undertake these offices under Christian or Mohammedan rulers. Of all people the zealous Jews must have beheld with the greatest amazement the preparations for the Crusades, when the whole Christian world, from the king to the peasant, was suddenly seized with a reso¬ lution to conquer the Holy Land of their fathers, in order that they might be masters of the sepulchre of the crucified Nazarene. Though they had been so long exiled from that holy soil, though the few Jews who dwelt in Palestine were but as strangers in the land, Jewish tradition had still clung, as has been said, with undying fondness to their rightful ownership, to the hopes of returning to that blessed country. Their restoration to Judaea, to Jerusalem, was to be the great work — the final triumph of the Messiah, whensoever or wheresoever He should appear. And now of that 1 " Dilectionem tuam monemus ut in terra tua -Tiulreos Christianis domi- nari, vel supra eos potestatem exercere, ulterius nullatenus sinus. Quid est enim Judteis Christianos supponere vel hos eorum judieio subjicere, nisi ecclesiuvn Dei supprimere et Satanse synagogam exaltare, et dum inimicis Christi velis placere, ipsum Christum contemnere." Greg. VII. Epist., apud Baronius, sub. ann. 1080. 184 s GAIN TO THE JEWS. Book XXIV. . "O, • land to breathe the air of which was wisdom, to tread the soil of which seemed to the living happiness, to the buried a share in the first resurrection, the Christians were about to usurp the lordship. The followers of Jesus, the false Messiah, were to take possession of the realm which awaited the coming of the true Messiah. But the times must have opened a most extensive field for traffic and usury ; and no doubt the Jews, suppressing their astonishment, did not scruple to avail themselves of such a golden opportunity of gain. Nothing was too valuable, too dear, or too sacred, but that it might be parted with to equip the soldier of the Cross. If the more prudent and less zealous monarchs, like our William the Second, or nobles or churchmen, profited by the reckless ardor of their compatriots to appropriate, at the lowest prices, their fair fields and goodly inheritances, no doubt the Jews wrung no un¬ profitable bargains from the lower class of more needy and as reckless adventurers. Arms and money must be had ;1 and the merchant or usurer might dictate his own terms. But little did this prudent people foresee the storm which impended over them.2 The nation was widely 1 Even towards the close of the Crusades the princes, knights, even the clergy, were dependent on Jewish money-lenders for the sums requisite for their own equipment and that of their followers. The Lateran Council, which is the fullest exposition of the privileges of the Crusaders, contains the following canon: — '' Judoeos vero ad remittendas usuras per siccularem compelli prcecipimus potestatem, et donee illis remiserint ah universis Christ! fidelibus per excoinmunicationis sententiam eis omnino communio denege- tur. Ilis autern qui Judabs debita solvere nequeunt in praesenti, sic Prin- cipes sseculares utili dilatione provideant: quod post iter arreptum, usquequo de eorum obitu vel reditu certissime cognoscatur, usurarum incommoda non incurrant, compulsis Judaeis proventus pignorum, quos interim ipsi per- ceperint in soi'tem, expensis deductis necessariis, computare, cum hujusmodi beneficium non multum videatur habere dispendii, quod solutionem sic prorogat, quod debitum non absorbet." Mansi, Concil. xxii. p. 1097, et seq. 2 The Jews had been accused, at an earlier period, the beginning of the A. C. 1097. THE FIRST CRUSADE. .^* 0.-85. fL* tTf dispersed in Germany; some statutes of KingiLhdislaue ' show their existence in Hungary; in Bohemia th^y ' had rendered good service, and lived on amicatfitf-terrus with the Christians ; in Franconia they were nuniei^gs y but their chief numbers and wealth were found in the flourishing cities along the hanks of the Moselle and the Rhine. When the first immense horde of un¬ disciplined fanatics of the lowest order, under the command of Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penni¬ less, and under the guidance of a goose and a goat, assembled near the city of Treves, a murmur rapidly spread through the camp, that while they were ad¬ vancing to recover the sepulchre of their Redeemer from the Infidels, they were leaving behind worse un¬ believers, the murderers of the Lord.1 In the words of Jewish tradition, no doubt generally faithful in its record of their calamities, " the abominable Germans and French rose up against them, — people of a fierce countenance that have no respect to the persons of the old,- neither have they mercy upon the young, — and they said, ' Let us be revenged for our Messiah upon the Jews that are among us, and let us destroy them from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be had no more in remembrance ; so shall they change their glory and be like unto us ; then will we go to the East.' " With one impulse the Crusaders rushed to llth century, of stimulating the persecutions of the Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem by the Mohammedan Sultans Azed and Hakim in Egypt. These sovereigns had destroyed the Christian temple over the Holy Sep¬ ulchre. Cedrenus, ii. 486 (Edit. Bonn); Zonaras. Radulph Glaber has a story of the persecutions of the Jews at Orleans on account of (premature) information given to the Mussulmans of an intended crusade. Compare Le Beau, Hist, du Bus Empire, xiv. p. 202. 1 " Nos Dei hostes, inquiunt, Orientem versus, longis terrarum tractibus transmissis, desideramus aggredi, cum ante oculos sint Judoei, quibus inimi- citior extitit gens nulla Dei." Guibert Abbas, ad ann. 1095. 186 ENGELBERT, BISHOP OF TREVES. Book XXIV. the city, and began a relentless pillage, violation, and massacre of every Jew they could find. In this hor¬ rible day men were seen to slay their own children, to save them from the worse usage of these savages. Women, having deliberately tied stones round them¬ selves that they might sink, plunged from the bridge, to save their honor and escape baptism. Their husbands had rather send them to the bosom of Abraham than leave them to the mercy, or rather the lustful cruelties, of the Christians.1 The rest fled to the bishop's palace as a place of refuge. They were received by the bishop, Engelbert, with these words: — "Wretches, your sins have come upon you ; ye who have blas¬ phemed the Son of God and calumniated His Mother. This is the cause of your present miseries, — this, if ye persist in your obduracy, will destroy you body and soul forever." He reproached them with their dis¬ regard of Daniel's prophecy of our Lord's coming, and promised protection to their persons, and respect to their property, on their conversion and baptism. Micha, the head of the Jews, mildly requested instruction in the Christian tenets ; the bishop repeated a short creed; the Jews, in the agony of terror, assented. The same bloody scenes were repeated in Metz, in Spiers, in Worms, in Mayence, in Cologne. It was the Sabbath in Spiers ; ten were slain ; a woman killed herself to escape pollution. The bishop (all bishops were not like Engelbert of Treves) saved the rest, for, says Jewish tradition, " he had compassion on them, and he delivered them out of the power of the enemy." 1 Brower, Ann. Trevirenses, i. p. 571, describes this scene, and would persuade his readers that the Jews were driven to desperation only by their fears. He says nothing of the previous massacre. The Jews "non parce- rent setati, cui etiam Christian! pepercissent." The affair at the bridge he turns against the Jews: " Liberos parentes letho ipsi potius quam offerri baptismo vellent stolidf: jactitabant." Book XXIV. MASSACRE OF JEWS AT MAYENCE. 187 The bishop is accused, not by the Jews, of having received a large bribe for his mercy. Did his Christian flock suppose that his humanity could not be accounted for but by his venality ? In Worms the Jews took refuge in the bishop's palace ; all their houses were pulled down ; all that had not escaped were put to the sword. The books of the Law were trampled underfoot; none were spared but children and sucklings, who were forcibly baptized, in Jewish language, " defiled with the proud water." Many killed themselves ; the brother slew his brother, the neighbor his neighbor, the father his sons and daughters, the bridegroom his bride, the husband the wife of his bosom. The bishop's house was surprised; all, except a very small remnant, fell by the hands of the murderers or their own. About eight hundred perished; a young Levite stabbed a noble kinsman of the bishop, and of course was cut to pieces. In Mayence again they fled to the bishop's palace, but in vain ; a massacre of 1300 took place ; the women killed themselves, and some of the old men covered themselves with their praying garments, and said, " He is the Rock ; his works are perfect." Sixty lay concealed in the bishop's treasure-house ; they fled to the Rheingau to their brethren there, were pursued and slain, all but two, Uri and Isaac, who were forcibly baptized. Isaac's two daughters were also forcibly baptized. Isaac slew his polluted daughters, lit a fire in his house, and offered a burnt-offering as an atone¬ ment ; then the two went into the synagogue, and, as they saw the flame arise, slew themselves. In Cologne the terror was overwhelming, but here the power of the bishop, again the protector of the Jews, was more equal to his humanity. The synagogues were sacked, the books of the Law trampled in the dust; but the 188 MASSACRE OF JEWS AT MAYENCE. Book XXIV. bishop sent them into the neighboring villages, with directions that they should be well treated. One obstinate man, probably a Rabbi, Isaac, refused to fly; he was dragged into the church, where he spat upon and blasphemed the Image ; he was put to death, and his death, with that of a woman, are the only murders recorded at Cologne in the Jewish Chronicle.1 The locust band passed on;2 everywhere the tracks of the Crusaders were deeply marked with Jewish blood. A troop, under Count Emico, offered the same horrid sacrifices to the God of Mercy, in the cities on the Maine and the Danube, even as, far as Hungary, where the influence of the king, Coloman, could not arrest his violence.3 How little horror these massacres ex- 1 Many of these incidents are from the very curious Chronicle of Rabbi Joseph ben Joshua ben Meir, the Sphardi, translated from the Hebrew for the Oriental Fund by C. H. F. Bialloblotskv, London, 1835. The names of other cities and towns in the book of R. Joshua are so disguised that it is impossible to make them out. Some of the scenes, especially that in Mirah, are very striking. It is curious to compare the general tone of the monkish annalists of the Crusades: " Per orbem universum omnium Christianorum consensu decretum est, ut omnes Judrni ab illorum terris vel eivitatibus funditus pcllerentur. Ilique universi odio habiti, expulsi de eivitatibus, alii gladiis trucidati, alii fluminibus necati, diversisque mortium generibus intereinpti. Nonnulli etiam sese diversa clade interemerunt." Radulph. The Chronieon Virdun. says, " Quanquam a multis improbetur factum et religioni adversari judicetur." Apud Bouquet, xiii. That they sent all these Jews to hell (ad Tartara demittunt) is a common phrase. The number of the Jews massacred is of course variously stated. Some Jewish accounts give only 5000, seemingly heads of families. Aventinus (Annal. Bohem.) gives 12,000 in Bavaria and the cities on the Danube. The Add. to Lambert of Aschaffenburg thus relates the massacre at Mayenee: "Apud Moguntiam vero utriusque sexus Judtvi numero mille et quatuor decern interfecti sunt, et maxima ])ars civitatis exusta est. Judiei qui per diversas provincias, metu compellente, Christiani facti sunt, iterum a Christianitate paulatim recesserunt." Sub ann. 1097. Compare Sig. Gembl. sub ann. 1096. 2 It is curious that R. Joshua (my book was written before the appearance of the translation) uses the same image: " The locusts have no honey, and yet go they forth, all of them, by bands." Prov. xxx. 27, p. 30. 3 Macius represents less favourably the conduct of the King of Hungary. " Rexque Ungarorum, persuasus principibus hoc facere, non restitit." c. xv. Book XXIV. HENRY IV. INTERPOSES. 189 cited may be judged from the coolness with which they are related by the faithful representatives of the spirit of the times, the monkish historians. The Emperor Henry the Fourth alone saw their atrocity; in an edict issued from Ratisbon, he permitted such Jews as had been baptized by force to resume their religion, and ordered their property to be restored. At this period many took refuge in Silesia and Poland. Nor were the persecutions of the Jews in the First Crusade confined to Europe. On the capture of Jeru¬ salem by Godfrey of Boulogne, all the Jews in the Holy City — so reports Jewish tradition — were put to the sword by the devout worshippers of Him who wept over the foreseen doom of the children of Jeru¬ salem on its first capture.1 Half a century elapsed for the Jews to multiply again their devoted race, and to heap up new treasures to undergo their inalienable doom of pillage and mas¬ sacre. A second storm was seen gathering in the o o distance ; and, like a bird of evil omen which predicts the tempest, the monk Rodolph passed through the cities of Germany to preach the duty of wreaking ven¬ geance on all the enemies of God. The terrible cry of " HEP," the signal for the massacre of the Jews (supposed to be an abbreviation of " Hierosolyma est perdita"— Jerusalem is lost) ran through the cities of the Rhine. The Jews knew who were included under the fatal designation of Christ's enemies; some made a timely retreat, but frightful havoc took place in Co¬ logne, Mayence, Worms, Spiers, and Strasburg. They found an unexpected protector, the holy St. Bernard,2 1 Dr. Zunz, Notes to Benjamin of Tudela, pp. 89, 396. 2 I have elsewhere observed the curious fact, that of the biographers of St. Bernard among the moderns are two converted Jews, Neander and the Pere Ravaignan. 190 ST. BERNARD. Book XXIY. who openly reprobated these barbarities, and, in a letter to the Bishop of Spiers, declared that the Jews were neither to be persecuted nor put to death, nor even driven into exile. Jewish tradition does justice to St. Bernard: " And he [God] sent after this Belial [Rodolph the Monk] the Abbot St. Bernard from Clair- vaux, a city that is in Tzarphath [France]. And he called also after their manner, saying, ' Let us go up into Zion, to the sepulchre of the Messiah. But take thou heed that thou speak to the Jews neither good nor had, for whosoever toucheth them is like as if he had touched the apple of the eye of Jesus; for they are His flesh and hone; and my disciple Rodolph has not spoken aright — for of them it is said in the Psalms, " Slay them not, lest my people forget."' . . . . And he took no ransom of the Jews, for he spake good of Israel from his heart If it had not been for the compassion of the Lord that He had sent this priest, there would have none escaped or remained of these. Blessed be he that ransometh and delivereth ! " In other places, to which St. Bernard's influence did not extend, the Jews bought security at a heavy price.1 If in truth St. Bernard was disposed to mercy, other churchmen, who approached the nearest to St. Bernard 1 " And in other places the Jews gave their silver and their gold to deliver their lives from destruction; they withheld nothing from them of all they demanded, and the Lord delivered them." R. Joshua, p. 119. In Cologne an aged Jew refused to submit to baptism. A fierce Crusader struck off his head, placed it on the roof of a house, and trampled the body underfoot. The Jews appealed to the mayor; the body was removed and buried in their cemetery. They purchased of the bishop, by pledging their houses and all their property in the city, the strong castle of Wolkenberg, in which they defied the wild assaults of the rabble. A murder was com¬ mitted on two young Jews near Wolkenberg. The Jews bought of the bishop the surrender of the murderer. They put out his eyes; he died in three days. The Jews' fierce exultation of triumph was, " Thus may all thy enemies be destroyed, 0 Lord!" p. 121. A. C. 1147. PETER THE VENERABLE. 191 in influence and authority, spoke a different language. Peter the Venerable, the Abbot of Clugny, addressed a letter to the Kino; of France, denouncing the wick- edness of sparing the most detestable and impious Jews, while they wage war on the less detestable and impious Saracens.1 He would not condemn them to a general massacre (such was his mercy), ibut in pure charity only to general pillage. For their great crime, according to Peter the Venerable, besides their obduracy and blindness to the Saviour, was not their cruel and grinding usury, but the receiving of stolen goods, the furniture and sacred vessels of the Church, which they treated with contumely so dreadful that it might not be thought of, much less described in words.2 1 "Sedquid proderit inimicos Christianas spei in exteris aut remotis finibus insequi ac persequi, si nequam blasphemi, longe Saracenis deieriores Judaei, non longb a nobis, sed in medio nostro, tam libere, tam audacter, Christum, cunctaque Christiana Sacramenta, impune blasphemaverint, conculeaverint, deturpaverint. ... Si detestandi sunt Saraeeni (quia quamvis Christum de Virgine, ut nos, natum fateantur, multaque nobiscum de ipso sentiunt, tamen Deum, Deique fllium quod magis est, negant, mor- temque ipsius ac resurrectionem, in quibus tota summa salutis nostra est, diffitentur), quantum execrandi et odio habendi sunt Judaei, qui nihil prorsus de Christo vel fide Christiana sentientes, ipsum virgineum partum, cunctaque redemptionis humanae sacramenta abjiciunt, blasphemant, sub- sannant! " 2 " Non inquam ut occidantur admoneo, sed ut congruente nequitise suae modo puniantur, exhortor. Et quid congruentius ad puniendos illos impios modus, quam ille quo et damnatur iniquitas, et adjuvatur charitas. Quid justius quam ut his quae fraudulenter lucrati sunt, destituantur; quae ne- quiter furati sunt, ut furibus, et quod pejus est, hucusque audacibus et impunitis, auferantur! Quod loquor omnibus notum est; non enim de simplici agricultura, non de legali militia, non de quolibet honesto et utili officio, horrea sua frugibus, cellaria vino, marsupia nummis, areas auro vel argento cumulant, quantum de his, quae ut dixi dolose Christicolis sub- trahunt; de his quae furtim furibus empta vili pretio res carissimas compa- rant." He goes on to say that the Jews bought of thieves censers, crosses, consecrated chalices; that they insulted these holy vessels. ". . . . quia, ut a veracibus viris audivi, eis usibus ccelestia ilia vasa ad ejusdem Christi nostrumque dedecus nefandum illi applicant, quos horrendum est cogitare, et detestandum dicere." Petri Venerab. Epist. 192 PETER'S PLAN OF TREATING THE JEWS. Book XXIV. Peter arraigns a royal statute, an antiquated and dia¬ bolic statute,1 whicli secured the Jews in the possession of such property, and did not compel them Jo declare from whence they had obtained it. The Abbot forgot the ordinances which had so frequently prohibited the clergy from selling or pawning the sacred treasures. The law may have been intended to shield such eccle¬ siastics from shame and punishment. With the zeal¬ ous Peter these men perhaps were no better than thieves, thus alienating the inalienable property of their churches. His conclusion is 2 that it was just that the Jews should be plundered without scruple or remorse, in order that the expense of a war against one race of Infidels should be maintained by the ill-gotten and justly confiscated wealth of another race of Infidels. Throughout this Crusade the absence of the Emperor Conrad in the Holy Land deprived the Jews of their legal protector, so that many cruel acts of individual murder took place, despite the merciful intervention of St. Bernard and the Pope, at Mayence, at Bacharach, at Aschaffenburg (where a woman drowned herself to avoid baptism), at Wurtzburg, where the rabble 1 " Insuper ut tam nefarium furum Judaeorumque commercium tutius esset, lex jam vetusta, sed vere diaboliea, ab ipsis Christianis principibus processit, ut si res ecelesiastica, vel quod detenus aliquod sacrum vas apud Judamm repertum fuerit, nec rem sacrilego furto possessam reddere, nec usquam furem Judaeus prodere compellatur. Manet inultum scelus de- testabile in Judreo, quod horrida morte suspendii punitur in Christiano. Pinguescit deinde et deliciis affluit Judasus, unde laqueo suspenditur Christianus." 2 Auferatur ergo vel ex maxima parte imminuatur Judaicarum divitia- rum male parta pinguedo; et Christianos excercitus, qui ut Saracenos expugnet, pecuniis vel terris propriis Christi Domini sui amore non parcit, Judseorum thesauris tam male acquisitis non parcat. Reservetur eis vita, auferatur pecunia, ut per dextras Christianorum adjutas pecuniis blasphe- mantium Juda;orum expugnetur infidelium audacia Saracenorum. Hsec tibi, benigne, Rex, scripsi, amore Christi, tuique atque exercitus Chris- tiani." Epist. Petri Venerab. apud Bouquet, xv. p. 611. Book XXIY. SECOND CRUSADE. 193 accused tliem of drowning a young man who was made a martyr. The army passed on, as the Jews record with triumph, to perish by plague, famine, and the sword. " The Jews returned to dwell in quiet throughout the land of Ashkinaz [Germany]." An attempt to raise the old terrible cry of Hep, before the Crusade of Frederick Barbarossa, was put down by the stern vigor of the Emperor. The Jews testified their gratitude by lavish presents.1 The Pope, Euge- nius the Third, espoused the same humane part; and it has been conjectured that his release of all debts due to Jewish usurers was a kind of charitable injustice, to diminish the general odium against this unhappy people. The turbulent Rodolph was shut up in his cloister. These atrocities, however (and I cannot lament my want of space, which prevents me from entering more at large into such and similar crimes), were the acts of a fanatic mob in the highest state of religious intox¬ ication. We must now behold a mighty sovereign and his barons uniting in deeds, if less sanguinary, not less unjust. Both in the North and South of France,, the Jews were numerous and wealthy.2 They boast that they were as numerous as when they went forth from Egypt.3 In the South they were the most flour¬ ishing ; they were more mingled with the people, were not entirely dispossessed of their landed property, and 1 R. Joshua, 186., 2 See the payments made by the Jews to the Bishop of Beziers, Hist, de Languedoc, ii. 293 (Preuves, 209). William Viscount of Montpellier, grants the appointment of a Jew (or Saracen) as Bavle in Montpellier, p. 442 (a. c. 1146). Preuves, p. 46. Lands pledged to Jews, ib. (Preuves, p. 101). 8 " Tantus vero tamque innumerabilis in illis regnis propemodum Judae- orum numerus fuit ut altero tanto plures fuisse dixeris quam olim ex Egypto egressi sunt." Schevet Judah, 186. vol. iii. 13 194 JEWISH SEMINARIES IN FRANCE. Book XXIV were sometimes called to manage the finances of the great feudatories. In Narbonne, according to Benja¬ min of Tudela, who visited them, they held great domains under the protection of the princes of the land. In Beziers, in Montpellier, they still drove a most prosperous traffic. They had great establish¬ ments in Lunel, where there was a famous synagogue, in St. Gilles, in Aries, in Carcassonne. In Toulouse, Roger, Viscount of Carcassonne, had a Jew for his minister of finance. In these and other southern cities lived their most distinguished Rabbis, and flour¬ ished their most prosperous schools. In the North they were spread throughout the country; hardly a large city or town was without them. Their syna¬ gogues in Troyes, Dijon, Macon, vied in the learning of their Rabbis, and in the wealth of the communities, with Beziers, Montpellier, and Marseilles. While the Christians were but scantily instructed in the cathedral schools, the Jewish seminaries of learning flourished in. many cities. But Paris was their headquarters. Jew¬ ish tradition and the monkish Christian annals agree in their numbers, their wealth, their luxury ; they had numerous households, domestic servants, " worshippers of strange gods; " the Christianity of those days was idolatry to the Jews. That they possessed, in Paris and its neighborhood, lands, houses, meadows, vine¬ yards, barns, and other immovable property, was sadly shown when the edict for the confiscation of all these possessions was issued. It is said by the monkish writers that they owned half Paris.1 1 " And the Jews multiplied in Paris in those days, and waxed very mighty in riches and goods, and they took unto themselves man-servants and maid-servants, the daughters of strange gods, from every one whom they chose." R. Joseph, p. 191. " Siquidem .... multitudo maxima Judaeorum Parisiis habitabat, quae Book XXIV. CRIMES ATTRIBUTED TO THE JEWS. 195 But public detestation lowered upon them with a threatening aspect. Stories were now propagated, and found an easy belief among ignorant and prejudiced minds, of the most blasphemous and sanguinary crimes perpetrated by the Jews. A renegade monk accused them of intelligence with the infidel sovereigns of Pal¬ estine. No deaths could take place under mysterious circumstances but, if Jews were to be found, the Jews were guilty of the murder. It was generally believed that they often decoyed Christian children into their houses, and crucified them alive ;1 that, by bribery or theft, they would obtain possession of the consecrated Host, and submit it to every kind of insult. Yet both king and nobles felt that to this odious race they stood in the humiliating relation of debtors. The lavish ex¬ penditure caused by the Crusades, and the heavy exactions of the government, made it necessary to raise de diversis orbis partibus ob pacis diuturnitatem illuc convenerat." Vin¬ cent de Beauvais, quoted in the Fortalitium Fidei, p. 193. " Ubi longam habentes conversationem in tantum ditati sunt quod fere medietatem totius civitatis sibi vindicaverant." Vincent de Beauvais and Rigord (Bouquet, xvii.) use the same words. 1 It was the same in German}'. See in R. Joshua, where they are accused of throwing a child into the water (in that case there was no child), and of having drowned a Gentile girl who had fallen into the Rhine near Biberich. When they arrived at Cologne, all who were in the Jewish barges were thrown into the river, and there was a general cry to force the Jews to be baptized. It must be added that the Emperor Frederick Bar- barossa seized the opportunity of fining the city of Cologne 500 pieces of gold, the bishop 4200. p. 178. " Certissimk enim" (so writes an author quoted in the Fortalitium Fidei) " compertum est quod omni anno in qualibet provincia sortes mittuntur, quae civitas vel oppidum Christianum sanguinem aliis civitatibus tradat." "And they began to hate them more, and found false accusations against them, saying that every year they nailed a Gentile on a cross in a cave; and so they embittered their lives." R. Joshua. The monk Rigord is even more minute and particular. He says that the Jews every year, at Easter, descended into their caves, and perpetrated the cruel and impious rite. Rigord, in Bouquet, or in Guizot, Coll. des Mdmoires. 196 EXPENDITURE CAUSED BY CRUSADES. Book XXIV. money on any terms.1 Their only alternative lay be¬ tween the Jews and the few Lombard money-lenders, whom St. Bernard seems to mean when he denounces certain Christians as more extortionate usurers than the Jews. Thus the Jews had a hold upon almost all the estates of the country ; they had mortgages on half Paris, — this perhaps was their ownership, — and scarcely any one but had some article in pawn ; even the clergy, whose pleasures were not without expense, had still committed vessels, reliquaries, even reliques, to the profane hands of these relentless extortioners, who probably scrupled little to wring the greatest profit from the general distress.2 These vessels they were charged with misusing in the most revolting and o o o contemptuous manner; they made the chalices serve 'as porringers for their children. The Jews stood to the rest of society something in the relation of the pa¬ tricians in early Rome and in Athens to the impover¬ ished commonalty, but without their power; it is said, indeed, that they imprisoned their debtors in their own houses.3 Such was the state of affairs on the accession of the ambitious Philip Augustus. The predecessor 1 See the remarkable letter of Innocent III., quoted above, to the Count of Nevers. Not only were the widows and orphans despoiled of their in¬ heritance, but the Church of her tithes, " Cum Judaii castella et villas detineant occupata, qui ecclesiarum pradatis de parochiali jure contemnunt penitus respondere." Epist. x. 190. Also to the Bishop of Auxerre, "Juda;i qui cum villas, prredia et vineas emerant decimus ex eisdem ec- clesiis et personis eeclesiasticis debitas reddere contradicunt." Epist. x. 61. 2 " Sed et vasa sacra pro instante ecclesiaj necessitate sibi nomine vadei supposita tain vililer traetatant, quod eorum infantes in calicibus offas in vinofartas comedebant, et cum eis bibebant." Quoted in Fortalitium Fidei. " And they laid against them false accusations, saying, ' Ye take the silver vessels and the goblets which are in the churches as a pledge, and despise them, and give to drink out of them unto your sons and your daughters for the sake of displaying them.' " R. Joshua, p. 191. 3 " Alii Parisiis in domibus Judseorum sub juramento adstricto, quasi in carcere tenebantur captivi." Rigord, apud Bouquet, xvii. Book XXIV. PHILIP AUGUSTUS OF FRANCE. 197 of Philip Augustus, Louis VII., though he had passed a severe law against Jewish converts to Christianity who had relapsed to Judaism, punishing them with death and mutilation, yet had been so mild to the Jews as to merit a rebuke from Pope Alexander III. It is his reproach by a historian of the day, that, though a defender of the Church, yet from excessive cupidity he had favored the Jews too much, and given them privileges contrary to the laws of God and of the realm.1 During the youth of Philip Augustus, it is said that a Jew (whether, as is often the case, the fre¬ quent mention of a crime had excited some man of disordered imagination to perpetrate it) had crucified a youth named Richard at Pontoise; 2 the body was brought to Paris, and wrought many miracles. No sooner had Philip ascended the throne, than he took a short way to relieve his burdened subjects, by an edict which confiscated all debts due to the Jews, and com¬ manded them to surrender all pledges in their hands.3 1 Apud Bouquet, xii. p. 186. 2 " Saint Richard, dont le corps repose dans l'Eglise de S. Innocent des Champeaux a Paris, fut ainsi tigorge et crucifid par les Juifs, et inerite par ce martyre de monter dans le royaume des cieux." Rigord, in Guizot, p. 15. Jost seems to admit the truth of the crucifixion of Richard of Pontoise, I know not on what grounds. I can conceive such things at a later period of the persecutions. At such later period Rabbi Joseph acknowledges that in the city of Nosa( ?) in Germany, a Hebrew, a foolish man, met a Gentile girl, and slaughtered her and cast her into the midst of a well, before the face of the sun, for he raved with madness. The result was a rising of the people, in which the murderer was killed; many Jews were broken on the wheel, among them the brothers of the murderer. His mother was buried alive. The bishop exacted a heavy tine from all the Jews. p. 219. 3 The hatred of the Jews to Philip Augustus was indelible. R. Joseph thus announces his birth: "And in his old age he [Louis VII.] begat a son, and he called his name Philip, and by surname Deodatus, and others called him Augustus; and he was an oppressor of the Jews from his birth, and from the womb, and from his conception." p. 141. " And Philip (he came to the throne at fifteen) was pleasing in the sight 198 CONFISCATION OF JEWISH PROPERTY. Book XXIV. Among the effects a golden crucifix, and a Gospel, adorned with precious stones, were found. Soon after this the Jews were peacefully assembled in their syna¬ gogues on the Sabbath (February 14) J when suddenly all these buildings were surrounded by the royal troops, the Jews dragged to prison, while the officers took possession of their houses. A new edict • followed (April), which confiscated all their immovable goods, houses, vineyards, fields, barns, wine-presses, to the use of the king and his successors,2 and commanded them instantly to sell their movables and to depart from the kingdom. As they had in vain appealed to the king, who was as hard as a rock or as iron,3 so in vain they appealed to the nobles and to the ministers of the Gospel.. Holy bishops as well as fierce barons closed their ears against the supplications of unfortunate cred¬ itors and obstinate unbelievers. Obliged to part with of his servants, because he was an oppressor of the Jews. And when he was chosen, he executed judgments among them, for they accused them wrongfully; but every year they shed innocent blood, and Israel was brought very low." p. 176. 1 " Venerabilis ergo Philippus rex quod vivente patre diu mente clausum gestaverat et ob patris reverentiam perficere formidaverat, in ipso regni initio zelo Dei flammatus, aggressus est. Nam ad ipsius mandatum capti sunt Judaei per totam Franciam in Synagogis suis in Sabbato." Vincent. Bellov. in Fortalit. Fidei. As Philip's accession was at the age of fifteen, he must have been a precocious persecutor. Alberic des Trois Fontaines thus relates the act of Philip, sub ann. 1182: " Et quia Judseos odio ha- bebat et multos in eis de nomine Jesu Christi blasphemare audebat, omnes eorum debitores a debitis absolvit, quinta parte summse fisco retenta, et eodem anno omnes de regno ejecit, datis prius induciis vendendi supel- lectilea suas, et parandi ea qua? necessaria sunt egressui, antequan eos omnino ejiceret. Domos autem et vineas et alias possessiones retinuit fisco." 2 " Quant a leurs domaines tels que maisons, champs, vignes, granges, pressoirs, et autres immeubles, il (le Roi) s'en reserve la proprifitfi pour ses successeurs en trone de France et pour lui." Rigord. 8 " II eut plus facile d'attendrir les rochers, et changer le fer en ploinb, que de faire renoncer Tame du Roi tr6s Crfitien, a la resolution que Dim lui avait inspire." Rigord. Book XXIV. READMISSION OF JEWS INTO FRANCE. 199 their effects at the lowest prices, the Jews sadly de¬ parted, amid the execrations of the people, and bearing away little bnt their destitute wives and children, from the scenes of their birth and infancy. Some submitted to conversion ; some offered, in vain, splendid presents to the king and to the nobles. The decree was rigidly executed in the royal domains ;1 in the South of France the great vassals paid less respect to the royal edict, even where it had authority, and the Jews were still found in those provinces, sometimes in offices of trust. But, strange as it might appear to them, the nation was neither more wealthy nor the public burdens less grievous, after this summary mode of wiping off the national debt. Before twenty years had elapsed, France beheld her haughty monarch bargaining with this detested race for their readmission into the coun¬ try, and, what is no less extraordinary,2 the Jews, forgetting all past injustice, in the steady pursuit of gain, 011 the faith of such a king, settling again in 1 In 1181, when Philip Augustus banished the Jews from his kingdom, they had two synagogues in Paris: one in the City, Rue de la Juiverie, was, after their expulsion, turned into a church, by the name of S. Mary Magdalene in the City; the other was in the Rue de-la Tacherie, which formerly had the name of La Juiverie. In 1198, when recalled into France by the same king, they repaired the synagogue in the Rue de la Tacherie, and established a second in an ancient tower of one of the walls of Paris, near the cloister of S. Jean de Greve. This tower and the ad¬ jacent street were called " Pet au Diable," in mockery, it is said, of this synagogue. They had two cemeteries, one in the Rue Galande, the other at the bottom of the Rue de la Harpe, near the banks of the Seine; lower down on the river was a mill for their exclusive use. They had afterwards establishments in the Cul de Sac de S. Faron, Rue de la Tisanderie, hence called Cul de Sac des Juifs, in the Rue de Judas, Mont S. Genevieve, in the Rue des Lombards, in the Rue Quincampoix in the City, and in the Enceinte du Palais. From Dulaure, Hist, de Paris, i. p. 526. 2 Ordonnance des Rois, 1198. "And in the year 4958 Philip, the king of Tzarpath (France) allowed the Jews to dwell in Paris against the will of the nation, but they did not lengthen out their days there, for they cast them out a second time into another country." R. Joseph, p. 220. 200 LAW RELATING TO LOANS. Book XXIV. this inhospitable kingdom,1 and filling many streets of Paris which were assigned for their residence. It was not till twenty years after, that an edict was issued to regulate their usurious exactions and the persons to whom it might be lawful to lend money. This ordi¬ nance, by tacitly sanctioning all transactions but those inhibited, recognized at once the extent, the legality, and the importance of these affairs. The Jews be¬ came as it were the standing and authorized money¬ lenders of the realm. They were forbidden to lend to those who lived by daily labor, and therefore had nothing to pledge for their debts, — to any monk or regular canon, without consent of the abbot or his chapter, signified in their letters-patent. They were forbidden to take in pawn any church-ornaments, any vestment stained with blood, any ploughshare, any ani¬ mal used in husbandry, or unwinnowed corn. Knight, burgess, or merchant must give an assignment of some hereditament, tenement, or rent, with consent of the lord. The Jew was rescued from violence in enforc¬ ing his just demands. The interest was limited to two deniers on the livre per week (more than 40 per cent.). The other articles of this decree regulated the payment of existing debts. Philip Augustus and some of his barons made another ordinance for the regulation of debts to Jews. It enforced their hav- i ing a common seal as the register of their debts under 0 o appointed officers. This ordinance limited the interest 1 Jost is almost as indignant against his forefathers as against the king: " Beide Theile maehten sich keine Erklarungen, keine Ehrenrettungs-Ver- suche, keine Versprechungen: Beide Theile waren geldgierig, und beide schlossen den Vergleich, jeder in der Absicht den andern zu beriicken: die Juden wollten durch Wucher die alten Verluste ersetzen; der Konig hoffte durch sie seinen Schatz zu fullen; wenigstens nahm er vorher so viel, dass er dem andern Theile Zeit lassen konnte sich zu erholen." vi. p. 272. A. C. 1223. LAWS AS TO INTEREST — LOUIS VIII. 201 to the same amount; all old debts were to be re- sealed on a stated day. If the debtor was on his travels, the debt was to be officially recorded and the interest due thereon. No church-property was to be pledged without the assent of the count or baron. As soon as a loan is paid over to a debtor, both par¬ ties shall swear that the sum received is in accord¬ ance with the agreement; if this is not done, the creditor loses his right, the debtor is liable to punish¬ ment by the king. No debt is good without the sig¬ nature and seal of the parties, unless the Jew has some gold, silver, or valuable article in pawn. Two substantial men in each city shall keep, one the seal, the other the roll of the debt. These men must take an oath not to affix the seal without having carefully investigated the transaction; every town shall keep a notary for Jewish business, and give security for the accuracy of all the legal instruments. In the South the condition of the Jews was still comparatively pros¬ perous ; it was among the bitter charges of Pope In¬ nocent the Third against Raymond, the heretical Count of Toulouse, that he employed Jews in high official situations. On the accession of Louis VIII., A. c. 1223, he grati¬ fied his impoverished barons with a new decree, which at once annulled all future interest on debts due to the Jews, and commanded the payment of the capital within three years, at three separate instalments.1 The Jews were declared attached to the soil, and assigned as property to the feudatories,2 or rather recognized as 1 Ordonnances des Rois, A. c. 1298. Second Ordinance, Sept. 1. 2 Ordonnances des Rois, i. 47. See the words of the statute in Hallam, Middle Ages, i. p. 167. The preamble is declared to be enacted, " per assensum Archepiscoporum, Episcoporum, Comitum, Baronum et Militum 202 SAINT LOUIS. Book XXIV. property "belonging to them of right; no one might receive or retain the Jew of another. In the crusade against Raymond, the seventh Count of Toulouse, it was among the terms of his submission, that he should no longer employ Jewish officers. Louis IX. ascended the throne a. c. 1226; a man whose greatness and whose weakness make us alter¬ nately applaud and reprobate his claim to the desig¬ nation of Saint. But his greatness was his own, his weakness that of his age. Unhappily it was this darker part of his character which necessarily predominated in his transactions with the Jews. Already during his minority an edict had been passed, again prohibit¬ ing- all future interest on debts due to Jews. Louis himself entered into the policy of forcing them to give up what was considered the nefarious trade of usury. Another law (soon after his accession) recognized the property of each baron in his Jews, whom he might seize by force on the estate of another.1 In 1234, Louis, for the welfare of his soul, the souls of his father and all his ancestors, annulled one third of all debts regni Franciae qui Judseos habent et qui non habent." a. c. 1223. " Ordi- navimus de statu Judseorum quod nullus nostrum alterius Judaeos recipere potest vel retinere." It was renewed with some alterations in 1230. In 1278 the seneschal of Carcassonne is ordered to compel the Jews, who had transferred themselves from the Jewry of the king (the king had by this time acquired greater power in the South) in Beziers to that of the bishop, to return to their former synagogue. The bishop was fined and ordered to destroy the new synagogue which he had built for them. Hist. deLanguedoc, iv. p. 27. They are said to be " taillables a la volontd " of their lords, iv. 75-98. 1 " Ubicunque aliquis invenerit Judaeum suum licitfe capere poterit tan- quam proprium servum." On this M. Depping justly observes, " C'est ainsi que les planteurs d'Am^rique reclament leurs negres partout oil ceux- ci se sont rdfugifs. Les Juifssoumis aux Barons n'^taient done gufere meil- leurs que les esclaves dans les colonies, si n'est qu'on les laissait exercer leur industrie," the gains of which they claimed to share, and often con¬ fiscated. Depping, p. 190. A. C. 1226-1234. HE REPRESSES USURY. 203 due to Jews.1 No bailiff might arrest or maltreat a Christian for any debt due to a Jew, or force him to sell his hereditaments. The populace readily con¬ curred with their devout monarch in the persecution of their creditors. Louis was actuated by two motives, both grounded on religion : one, implacable hatred towards the enemies of Christ; 2 the other, a conscien¬ tious conviction of the unlawfulness of usury.3 The Lombards and Cahorsins shared in the devout abhor¬ rence of the saintly monarch, but the Christians were left to the tender mercies of the Church; the king took upon himself the duty of repressing the usuries of the Jews, at least those which were his own (it may be doubtful how far he interfered with those of his feudatories), or preventing their poison from infecting his realm.4 Much of his injustice may be traced to a desire of converting the Jews from usurious money- lenders into laborious artisans. It may be observed, too, that even the pious king, in his zeal for the Crusades, had been obliged to borrow of the Jews, even on usurious terms. There is a singular struggle between conscience and bigotry in the good king, 1 " Quietavit . . . tertiam partem totius debiti quod debebant Judaeos." 2 "Aussi vous dis je, me dist le roy, que nul si n'est grand clerc et th^o- logien parfait ne doit disputer aux Juifs, mais doit l'homme lay, quand il oit mesdire a la foy Chrtitienne, defendre la chose non pas seulement des paroles, mais a bonne espee tranchant, et en frappant les mddisans et mes- crnos et hreredes nostri, prout melius nobis videbimus expedire." The Bar¬ ons no doubt seized them as the property of the king. Liber Albus, p. 255. a Lingard, of our historians, has related this with the greatest spirit and felicity from Wikes and M. Westminster. Wikes is full; Westminster more pitilessly brief: "Ac in ipsa Passione Dominica apud Londinium de quadam proditione Baronibus simul ac civibus inferenda, omnes fere Judsei trucidati sunt, thesauro incomparabili assumpto in Judaismo." p. 286 (sub ann. 1264). 260 BATTLE OF LEWES. Book XXV. in the domains of the Countess of Winchester. Robert Grostete, the wisest and best churchman of the day, then Archdeacon of Leicester, hardly permitted the Countess to harbor this accursed race ; their lives might be spared, but all further indulgence, espe¬ cially acceptance of their ill-gotten wealth, would make her an accomplice in the wickedness of their usuries.1 After the battle of Lewes, the king, with the advice of his Barons (he was now a prisoner in their camp), issued a proclamation to the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of London, in favor of the Jews. Some had found refuge, during the tumult and massacre, in the Tower of London ; they were permitted to return with their families to their homes. All ill-usage or further moles¬ tation was prohibited under pain of death. Orders of the same kind were issued to Lincoln ; twenty-five citizens were named by the king and the Barons 2 their special protectors; so also to Northampton. The king (Prince Edward was now at war with the Barons, who had the king in their power) revoked the grant of the 1 Bead the remarkable letter of Robert Grostete, then Archdeacon of Leicester, afterwards the famous Bishop of Lincoln, to the Countess on this subject, as showing the feelings of the most enlightened churchman in those times towards the Jews. His mercy, if it was mercy, would spare their lives. " As murderers of the Lord, as still blaspheming Christ and mocking His Passion, they were to be in captivity to the princes of the earth. As they have the brand of Cain, and are condemned to wander over the face of the earth, so were they to have the privilege of Cain, that no one was to kill them. But those who favored or harbored them were to take care that they did not oppress Christian subjects by usury. It was for this reason that Simon de Montfort had expelled them from Leicester. Whoever pro¬ tected them might share in the guilt of their usuries." There are some sentences evidently pointed at the king, for his dealings with them, and his connivance (by extorting, it is presumed, a share in their ungodly gains) in their nefarious practices: "Principes quoque qui de uSuris, quas Judaei a Christianis extorserint, aliquid acceperint, de rapina vivunt et sanguinem eorum quos tueri deberent, sine misericordia bibunt et induunt." Epist. Bob. Grostete, p. 36, Rolls Publication. 2 Trivet, A. J., p. 166. A. C. 1264 IMPROVED CONDITION OF THE JEWS. 261 Jews to his son ; with that the grant to the Caorsini, which had not expired, was cancelled. The justiciaries appointed by the prince to levy the tallage upon them were declared to have lost their authority; the Jews passed back to the property of the king. The king showed his power by annulling many debts and the interest due upon them to some of his faithful followers, avowedly in order to secure their attachment.1 It was now clearly for the king's interest that such profitable subjects should find, we may not say justice, but some¬ thing like restitution, which might enable them again to become profitable. The king in the parliament, which commenced its sittings immediately after the battle of Lewes, and continued till after the battle of Evesham, restored the Jews to the same state in which they were before the battle of Lewes. As to the Jews in London,2 the Constable of the Tower was to see not only that those who had taken refuge in the Tower, but those who had fled to other places, were to return to their houses, which were to be restored, except such as had been granted away by the king; and even all their property which could be recovered from the king's enemies. Excepting that some of the Barons' troops, flying from the battle of Evesham, under the younger Simon cle Montfort, broke open and plundered the synagogue at Lincoln, where they found much wealth, and some excesses committed at Cambridge, the Jews o 7 had time to breathe. The king, enriched by the for¬ feited estates of the Barons, spared the Jews. We only find a tallage of 1000 pounds, with promise of exemption 1 " Ut nobis devotiores et ad obsequium nostrum promptiores efficiantur." See the Instrument, A. J., p. 167. 2 Writ to the Mayor and Sheriffs, A. J., p. 161; Parliamentary Writ, p. 164. 262 GROSTETE, BISHOP OF LINCOLN". Book XXV. for three years, unless the king or his son should un¬ dertake a Crusade.1 Their wrongs had, no doubt, sunk deep into the hearts of the Jews. It has been observed that oppres¬ sion, which drives even wise men mad, may instigate fanatics to the wildest acts of frenzy; an incident at Oxford will illustrate this. Throughout these times the Jews still flourished, if they may be said to have flourished, at Oxford. In 1244 certain clerks of the University broke into the houses of the Jews and car¬ ried away enormous wealth. The magistrates seized and imprisoned some of the offenders. Grostete, as bishop of the diocese (Oxford was then in the diocese of Lincoln), commanded their release, because there was no proof of felony against them.2 We hear nothing of restitution. The scholars might indeed hate the Jews, whose interest on loans was limited, by Bishop Grostete, to twopence weekly in the pound, — between 40 and 50 per cent. Probably the poor scholars' security was not over-good. Later, the studies in the University are said to have been interrupted, the scholars being unable to redeem their books pledged to the Jews.3 Four-and-twenty years after the outbreak of the scholars, years of bitterness and spoliation and suffer¬ ing, while the Chancellor and the whole body of the University were in solemn procession to the reliques of St. Frideswide, they were horror-struck by beholding a Jew rush forth, seize the cross which was borne be¬ fore them, dash it to the ground, and trample upon it 1 Warrant, A. J., p. 167. 2 " Bona eorura innumerabilia asportaverunt." Wikes, sub ann. 1244. "... quia nullus apparuit qui eos directe convincere posset de crimine feloniae." Ibid. 3 Compare Luard. Preface to Grostete Epistolse, p. lxix.; for the latter fact, A. J., p. 209. A. C. 1244-1288. JEWS AT OXFOKD. 263 with the most furious contempt. The offender seems to have made his escape in the tumult, hut his people suffered for his crime. Prince Edward was then at Oxford; and, by the royal decree, the Jews were im¬ prisoned, and forced, notwithstanding much artful delay on their part, to erect a beautiful cross of white marble, with an image of the Virgin and Child, gilt all over, in the area of Merton College;1 and to present to the proctors another cross of silver, to be borne in all future processions of the University.2 The Jews en¬ deavored to elude this penalty by making over their effects to other persons. The king empowered the sheriff to levy the fine on all their property.3 The last solemn act of Henry of Winchester was a statute of great importance. Complaints had arisen that the Jews, by purchase, or probably foreclosure of mortgage, might become possessed of all the rights of lords of manors, escheat wardships, even of presentation to churches. They might hold entire baronies with all their appurtenances. The whole was swept away by one remorseless clause. The Act4 disqualified the Jews altogether from holding lands, or even tenements, except the houses of which they were actually pos¬ sessed, particularly in the city of London, where they might only pull down and rebuild on the old founda¬ tions. All lands or manors were actually taken away ; those which they held by mortgage were to be restored to the Christian owners, without any interest on such bonds. Henry almost died in the act of extortion ; he 1 Walter de Merton purchased of a Jew the ground on which the front of his College now stands, Nov. 12, 1272. 2 Wood's Hist, and Antiq. of Oxford, ad ann. 1288. 8 See king's warrant, &c., A. J., p. 170. 4 See the Act, which the author of Anglia Judaica discovered in the Bodleian, p. 188. 264 DEATH OF HENRY III. Book XXY. had ordered the arrears of all charges to he peremp¬ torily paid, under pain of imprisonment. Such was the distress caused by this inexorable mandate, that even the rival bankers, the Caorsini, and the Friars themselves, were moved to commiseration, though some complained that the wild outcries raised in the syna¬ gogue on this doleful occasion disturbed the devotion of the Christians in the neighborino; churches.1 © © The death of Henry released the Jews from this Egyptian bondage ; but they changed their master, not their fortune. The first act of Edward's reign, after his return from the Holy Land, regulated the affairs of the Jews exactly in the same spirit: a new tallage was demanded, which was to extend to the women and children; the penalty of non-payment, even of arrears, was exile, not imprisonment. The defaulter was to proceed immediately to Dover, with his wife and children, leaving his house and property to the use of the kino;. The execution of this edict was committed, © ' not to the ordinary civil authorities, but to an Irish bishop (elect) and to two friars.2 This edict was fol¬ lowed up by the celebrated Act of Parliament con¬ cerning Judaism,3 the object of which seems to have been the same with the policy of Louis IX, of France, to force the Jews to abandon usury, and betake them¬ selves to traffic, manufactures, or the cultivation of land. It positively prohibited all usury, and cancelled all debts on payment of the principal. No Jew might distress beyond the moiety of a Christian's land and goods ; they were to wear their badge, a badge now of 1 Anglia Judaica, p. 196. 2 See Commission, p. 198. 8 See the Act translated from the Norman-French. It is remarkable that the king admits, notwithstanding, that they (the Jews) are and have been very profitable to him and his ancestors. A. C. 1272-1279. ADULTERATION OF THE COIN. 265 yellow, not white, and pay an Easter offering of three¬ pence, men and women', to the king. They were permitted to practise merchandise, or labor with their hands, and — some of them, it seems, were still ad¬ dicted to husbandry — to hire farms for cultivation for fifteen years. On these terms they were assured of the royal protection. But manual labor and traffic were not sources sufficiently expeditious for the enterprising avarice of the Jews. Many of them, thus reduced, took again to a more unlawful and dangerous occupa¬ tion, clipping and adulterating the coin. In one day (Nov. 17, 1279) all the Jews in the kingdom were arrested. In London alone, 280 were executed, after a full trial; many more in other parts of the kingdom. A vast quantity of clipped coin was found, and con¬ fiscated to the king's use.1 The king granted their estates and forfeitures with lavish hand. But law, though merciless, and probably not over-scrupulous in the investigation of crime, did not satisfy the popular passions, which had been let loose by these wide and general accusations. The populace took the law into their own hands. Everywhere there was full license for plunder, and worse than plunder. The king was obliged to interpose. A writ2 was issued, addressed to the justiciaries who had presided at the trials for the adulteration of the coin, Peter of Pentecester, Walter of Heylynn, John of Cobham, appointed justiciaries for the occasion. It recited that many Jews had been indicted and legally condemned to death, and to the forfeiture of their goods and chattels; but that certain Christians, solely on account of religious differences, 1 Ann. Waverl., sub ann. 1278: " Inventa est maxima summa reton- sionis [clipped coin] apud eos quse totaliter devenit ad fiscum Regis, ad magnum damnum totius regni et gravamen." 2 See the Writ, in A. J., p. 208. 266 THE FRIARS PREACHERS. Book XXY. were raising up false and frivolous charges against men who had not been legally arraigned, in order to extort money from them by fear. No Jew against whom a legal indictment had not been issued before the 1st of May was to be molested or subject to accusation. Those only arrested on grave suspicion before that time were to be put upon their trial. Jewish tradition attributes the final expulsion of the Jews to these charges, which the king, it avers, did not believe, yet was compelled to yield to popular clamor.1 But not all the statutes, nor public executions, nor the active preaching of the Dominican Friars, who undertook to convert them if they were constrained to hear their sermons (the king's bailiffs, on the petition of the Friars,2 were ordered to induce the Jews to 1 Schevet Judah: " Hac arte evertere Judseos aggressi Christiani fingunt et dictitant, adulterasse monetam." Though these charges were disproved, the king would not acknowledge his belief of their innocence, p. 110. 2 The petition of the Friars was, "Quod omnes Judoeos, ubicunque loco- rum in Ballivis vestris conversantes, efficaciter moneatis et inducatis, quod in locis ubi vobis de consilio Fratrum ipsorum magis expedire videhitur ad audiendum verbum Dei conveniant; et illud ab iisdem Fratribus, absque tumultu, contentione vel blasphemia, audiant diligenter et benigne." A. J., p. 219. The king was graciously pleased to accede to the wishes of the Dominicans, and to issue instructions accordingly, to be valid so long as he should think fit. The king did more: he generously waived his claim for seven years to more than a moiety of the goods of the converts; the other half was given to maintain the poor in the Hospital for Converts, already founded on ground now occupied by the Rolls Court. (The king had before granted deodands on the Jews to the Friars Preachers.) There are in An- glia Judaica several appointments of wardens, and other documents relating to this house and chapel. It is still more curious that allowances were made to converts from Judaism, after the grant of the house to the Master of the Rolls, out of the revenue of the house. One in the time of Richard II. to a female, said to have been the daughter of a bishop (Episcopi) of the Jews; she had one penny a day. Another as late as James II.; the convert had 1 id. a day (A. J., p. 220). Among the strange anomalies of the time was an action for defamation against certain persons (it was a litigation about the dower of a Jew's wife), for asserting that the Jewess had been baptized. A. J., p. 231. A. C. 1286. HONORIUS IV. REBUKES THE CLERGY. 267 "become quiet, meek, and uncontentious hearers), could either alter the Jewish character, still patient- of all evil so that they could extort wealth, or suppress the still-increasing clamor of public detestation, which de¬ manded that the land should cast forth from its in¬ dignant bosom this irreclaimable race of rapacious infidels. Still worse, if we may trust a Papal Bull, the presence and intercourse of the Jews were dangerous to the religion of England. In the year 1286, the Pope (Honorius IV.) addressed a Bull to the Arch¬ bishop of Canterbury and his suffragans, rebuking them for the remissness of the clergy in not watching more closely the proceedings of the Jews. The Archbishop, indeed, had not been altogether so neglectful in the duty of persecution. The number and the splendor of the synagogues in London had moved the indignation, perhaps the jealousy, of Primate Peckham. He issued his monition to the Bishop of London to inhibit the build¬ ing any more of these offensively sumptuous edifices, and to compel the Jews to destroy those built,within a prescribed time. The zeal of the Bishop of London (Robert de Gravesend) outran that of the Archbishop; he ordered them all to be levelled to the ground. The Archbishop, prevailed on by the urgent supplications of the Jews, graciously informed the bishop that he might conscientiously allow one synagogue, if that syna¬ gogue did not wound the eyes of pious Christians by its magnificence.1 But the Bull of Honorius IV. was something more than a stern condemnation of the usurious and extortionate practices of the Jews ; it was a complaint of their progress, not merely in inducing Jewish converts to Christianity to apostatize back to Judaism, but of their not unsuccessful endeavors to i A. J., pp. 302-304. 268 EXPULSION OF JEWS FROM ENGLAND. Book XXV. tempt Christians to Judaism. " These Jews lure them to their synagogues on the Sabbath [are we to suppose that there was something splendid and attractive in the Synagogue worship of the day ?] ; and in their friendly intercourse at common banquets, the souls of Christians, softened by wine and good eating and social enjoyment, are endangered." 1 The Talmud of the Jews, which they still persist in studying, is espe¬ cially denounced as full of abomination, falsehood, and infidelity. The king at length listened to the public voice, and the irrevocable edict of total expulsion from the realm was issued. Their whole property was seized at once, and just money enough left to discharge their expenses to foreign lands, perhaps equally inhospitable.2 The 10th October was the fatal day. The king benignantly allowed them till All Saints' Day; after which all who delayed were to be hanged without mercy. The king, in the execution of this barbarous proceeding, put on the appearance both of religion and moderation. Safe- conducts were to be granted to the sea-shore from all parts of the kingdom. The Wardens of the Cinque Ports were to provide shipping and receive the exiles 1 " Pnefati quoque Judaei non solum mentes fidelium ad eorum sectam pestiferam allicere moliuntur, verum etiam illos qui salubri ducti consilio infidelitatis abjurantes errorem ad lucem catholics; lidei convolarunt donis multimodis ad apostatandum inducere non verentur." They invite Chris¬ tians on the Sabbath to their synagogues, " quamobrem plferique Christi- cola; pariter Judaizant." They buy Christian servants of both sexes. . . . " Christiani et Judiei in domibus propriis ssepe conveniunt, et dum simul comessationibus et potationibus vacant, erroris malitia pra;paratur." Apud Raynaldum, sub ann. 1286. 2 The Act for the expulsion of the Jews has not come down to us; we know not, therefore, the reasons alleged for the measure. Of the fact there can be no doubt (see Report on the Dignity of a Peer, p. 180), and there are many documents relating to the event, as writs to the authorities in Gloucester and York, to grant them safe-conduct to the ports where they were to embark. A. C. 1290. NUMBER OF EXILES. 269 with civility and kindness. The king expressed his intention of converting great part of his gains to pious uses, hut the Church looked in vain for the fulfilment of his vows. He issued orders that the Jews should he treated with kindness and courtesy on their journey to the sea-shore. But where the prince by his laws thus gave countenance to the worst passions of human nature, it was not likely that they would he suppressed by his proclamations. The Jews were pursued from the kingdom with every mark of popular triumph in their sufferings ; one man, indeed, the master of a vessel at Queenborough, was punished for leaving a considerable number on the shore at the mouth of the river, when, as they prayed to him to rescue them from their perilous situation, he answered, that they had better call on Moses, who had made them pass safe through the Red Sea ; and sailing away with their remaining property, left them to their fate.1 The number of exiles is variously estimated at 15,060 and 16,511; all their property, debts, obligations, mort¬ gages, escheated to the king. Yet some, even in those days, presumed to doubt whether the nation gained by the act of expulsion, and even ventured to assert that the public burdens on the Christians only became heavier and more intolerable.2 Catholics suffered in the place of the enemies of the Cross of Christ. The 1 Coke's Institutes, p. 508. Matt. "Westminster, sub ann. 1290. 2 " Sane quantum emolument! regis lisco deperiit per relegationem .Ju- dseorum a regno, multo amplius eidem per deplorabilem quintas decimoe totius regni quam extorsit a Catholicis exaggerationem: sic quoqne pro inimicis Christi crucis immisericorditer puniuntur." Wikes adds, " Nec quatenus ajstimari potest occasione tanti sceleris deperiit, praesertim cum non tantum tallagiis, sed et placitis, denariis, escha;tis, et exeniis cerarium Domini Regis consueverunt mftltipliciter augmentare." Wikes, sub ann. 1290. 270 SPOILS LEFT BY THEM. Book XXV. loss to the Crown was enormous.1 The convents made themselves masters of the valuable libraries of the Jews, one at Stamford, another at Oxford, from which the celebrated Roger Bacon is said to have derived great information; and long after, the common people would dig in the places they had frequented, in hopes of finding buried treasures. Thus terminates the first period of the History of the Jews in England. 1 " Great," writes the author of Anglia Judaica, " were the spoils they left behind them. Whole Rolls, full of patents relating to their estates, are still remaining in the Tower, which, together with their rents in fee and their mortgages, all escheated to the King." p. 244. BOOK XXVI. JEWS EXPELLED FROM SPAIN. Superiority of the Jews of Spain — Early Period — Alfonso VIII. — Ferdi¬ nand III.— Alfonso X., the Wise — Siete Partidas — Attempt at Con¬ version— Ferdinand IV. — Alfonso XI.—Pedro of Castile and Henry of Transtamare — Zeal of the Clergy — Pope Benedict XIII. — Conver¬ sions— Vincent Ferrer — New Christians—The Inquisition — Ferdi¬ nand and Isabella—Expulsion of the Jews from Spain — Sufferings in Italy — In Morocco — In Portugal — Their subsequent History in the two Kingdoms. France and England had thus finally, it might appear, purified their realms from the infection of Jew¬ ish infidelity. Two centuries after their expulsion from England, one after that from France — Spain, disdain¬ ing to he outdone in religious persecution, made up the long arrears of her dormant intolerance, and as¬ serted again her evil preeminence in bigotry. The Jews of Spain were of a far nobler rank than those of England, of Germany, and even of France. In the latter countries they were a caste, — in the former, as it were, an order in the state. Prosperous and wealthy, they had not been, generally, reduced to the sordid occupations and debasing means of extorting riches, to which, with some exceptions, they had sunk in other countries. They were likewise the most enlightened class in the kingdom ; they were possessors and culti¬ vators of the soil; they were still, not seldom, minis¬ ters of finance; their fame as physicians was generally acknowledged, and no doubt deserved, — for they had 272 SPAIN — POWER OF THE JEWS. Book XXYI. in their own tongue, or in Arabic, the best books of the ancient writers on medicine, and, by their inter¬ course with the East, no doubt obtained many valuable drugs unknown in the West. Jewish tradition, which took the form of legend, looked back to Spain as the scene of a golden age. " For more than six hundred years beautiful and flour¬ ishing Spain might be looked on as the happy land, the earthly Paradise. There party-madness had not in¬ flamed the inhabitants against each other, and disturbed the sweet domestic peace. Every one might worship God in his own manner, without on that account being despised and hated. Even Israel, that oppressed and persecuted people, found in happy Spain a haven of freedom. Every one sat under his shady fig-tree or cluster-laden vine, singing hymns of thanksgiving to the mighty God of Israel, who again had mercy on His people, and gave them rest so long unknown. There were great men who sprang from the stock of Israel, men of learning, men of wisdom, poets, artists, whose names even to our own days are held in honor." 1 It might have been difficult for the author of these glowing sentences to make out his six centuries of peace. The Moorish persecution, which drove Maimonides from his native land, and other persecutions, related in my former pages, break in on this bright and serene retro¬ spect. Whatever they were in other lands, in Spain they were more than a people within a people — they were a state within a state. The heads of the com¬ munity, whether as princes or Rabbins, exercised not only religious, but civil authority also; they formed a full judicial tribunal in criminal as well as ecclesiasti- 1 I cannot call to mind from what Jewish writer I transcribed this, but can vouch for its accuracy. A. C. 1212. ALFONSO VIII. — BATTLE OF ALARCOS. 273 cal affairs ; adjudged not only in cases of property, but of life ; passed sentences beyond that of excommuni¬ cation, sentences of capital punishment. Many of the hostile statutes of the Kings and of the Cortes aim at depriving them of this judicial power; they are to cease to have judges. Even as late as 1391 they put to death, as unsound, Don Joseph Pielion.1 It was only at that time, under John I., that they were de¬ prived of this right. We have seen the commencement of the Iron Age in Spain ;2 we must ascend again the stream of history to trace the gradually and irregularly darkening doom of the race in the Spanish peninsula. Mariana would give the authority of history to the passion of the renowned Alfonso VIII. (a. c. 1158- 1213) for the beautiful Jewess of Toledo, Rachel. To the judgment of God, for the sin of the king and his adultery, was attributed the loss of the great battle of Alarcos (a. c. 1195). The nobles released the king from the bonds of his unholy love by murdering the unhappy Jewess. The subject has been a favorite with Spanish dramatists.3 In the great crusade of the Chris¬ tian kings, of Castile, of Aragon, and of Navarre, which won the crowning victory of Navas de Tolosa (a. c. 1212), the wild cry, which had rung through the cities of France and on the Rhine against the Jews, o ' was raised in Toledo. The king and the nobles in¬ terposed,4 but it is said not before 12,000 miserable Jews had been maltreated or fallen by the sword. The 1 Amador de los Rios, p. 188. 2 See p. 211. 3 Lope de Vega, Mirademescua, Diamante, and La Huerta. I have read Diamante's play, which is very spirited. Huerta's is a more regular tragedy. See Mariana, xi. c. 18. 4 Mariana, xi. c. 23. VOL. III. 18 274 ALFONSO THE WISE. Book XXVI. triumph of the Christians threatened to he as fatal to the Jews as their arming for battle against the unbe- o o lievers; but the conquering monarch had power to restrain their ferocity. Better times came with better kings. The silence of history as to the state of the Jews during the reign of Ferdinand the Saint, from 1217 to 1252, shows at least that he had a nobler title to sanctity than as a persecutor. Scarcely more is known than that at his remonstrance on the impracticability of branding the Jews with a peculiar dress, and so arraying the two races in irreconcilable hostility and exposing one to daily and habitual contempt, the mild Honorius III. suspended the execution of the stern law of his prede¬ cessor, Innocent III., unless under further instructions from the Papal See.1 Alfonso the Wise of Castile commenced his long reign in a. c. 1252. Already, before his father's death, in the settlement of the affairs of the city of Seville, the Prince showed manifest signs of favor to the pro¬ scribed race. He conceded to them certain lands ; in Seville he gave them three mosques for synagogues. Their Jewry was enclosed by a wall which reached from the Alcazar to the Carmona Gate. He bestowed other heritable possessions on opulent Jews. He en¬ couraged the residence of learned and distinguished o o Jews in the city. The Jews, in gratitude, presented 1 " Quare nobis fuit, tam ex dicti regis [Ferdinand III.] quam ex tua parte humiliter suppiicatum, ut executione constitution^ super hoc edictse tibi supersedere de nostra provisione liceret, cum absque gravi scandalo procedere non valeat in eadem: volentes igitur Iranquillilati dicti regis el regni paterna solicitudine providere, prxsentium tibi auctoritate mandamus, quatenus executionem constitutionis supradictse suspendas, quamdiu ex- pedire cognoveris, nisi forsan super exequandam eamdem apostolicum mandatum speciale reciperes." Honor. III. ad Archepiscopum Toletanum, April, 1219. A, C. 1252. THE " SIETE PARTIDAS." 275 to him a key of exquisite workmanship for the cathe¬ dral of Seville, with the inscription, " God will open ; the king will enter in." The same words in Hebrew characters ran round the ring of the key.1 Soon after his accession Alfonso founded professorships at Seville, at Toledo, and other places, for the cultivation of the Hebrew language and literature. Perhaps the grant, under a sealed letter, to the metropolitan church of Seville, to impose the same capitation-tax on the Jews which prevailed in other dioceses of Spain, may have been in some degree a protective measure. It is but natural, and no unfair imputation, to suppose that the zeal of the clergy would be somewhat mitigated by this tribute. Such useful tributaries would be less hateful, for money is a great peace-maker. But when the wise and just Alfonso was called on to draw up the great Statute Laws of the realm (the Siete Partidas),2 he was constrained to make concessions to the sterner spirit of the times. In this code there is a severe enactment against the public preaching of Judaism and the endeavor to make proselytes (this ordinance, like all of the same class, betrays some dread of the strength of Judaism). There is an inhibition (perhaps a mer¬ ciful one) for all Jews to keep within their houses on Friday, on pain of being exposed to insult and injury from the excited Christians. They are excluded from all public offices. The Christians are interdicted from living in familiarity with Jews. Jews are forbidden to have Christian servants ; and finally they are con¬ demned to wear some mark on their dress distinguish- 1 There is another version of this story, which would suppose that the Jews were not quite so grateful. The words in Hebrew, it is said, were, — " The king of all the earth [meaning their Messiah] shall enter in." Amador de los Rios, p. 49, with note. 2 Siete Partidas, vii. 24. 276 PRIVILEGES GRANTED TO THE JEWS. Book XXVI. ing them from other vassals of the realm. This last and severest clause was perhaps inevitable. The au¬ stere old Pope, Gregory IX., had retracted the conces¬ sion of the mild Honorius III. (a.c. 123-1). He had exacted from all the kings of Spain the strict enforce¬ ment of the canon of the Lateran Council concerning the distinctive dress of the Jews (a. c. 1235). The same Pope had issued two Bulls, one to the King of Castile, one to the whole of Spain, commanding, in the spirit of St. Louis, the interdiction of the Talmud to the Jews. But the execution of this ordinance, in Spain, was impossible. On the other hand, there were enactments in this code of a more liberal character. The Jews were permitted to rebuild their synagogues; severe penalties were attached to the Christian who should profane them. The Jews were exempt from arrest (save in cases of robbery or murder) on the Sabbath, lest the quiet of their religious observances should be disturbed. And there was a provision, that Jews who became Christians were to be held in honor; they were not to be reproached, neither themselves nor their families, with their Jewish blood. They were to be masters of their own possessions, to share with their brethren, and to inherit according to Jewish law, as if still Jews. They might hold all offices and honors open to other Christians. This privilege was no doubt connected with a noble and generous movement for their conversion to the 87), pp. 102, 209, 270. "And many ivere left halting between two opinions: they feared the Lord, yet swore by the image of the uncireumeised, and went daily into their churches, and they have increased and become mighty unto this day." Rabbi Joseph, p. 027. 2 Mr. Borrow, Bible in Spain, p. 233 (see also the story on p. 300), gives this extraordinary conversation between himself and a .Tew who passed for a Christian. " Have you reason," savs Mr. Borrow, " to suppose that many of you are to be found among the priesthood V " Abarbanel: " Not to sup¬ pose, but to know it. There are many such as I amongst the priesthood, and not amongst the inferior priesthood either. Some of the most learned and famed of those of Spain have been of us, or of our blood at least; and many of them at this day think as I do. The}' perforin all the Catholic ceremonies, and then sit down upon the floor and curse." Abarbanel men¬ tions an archbishop who, having acknowledged his inclinations at heart to Judaism, died in the odor of sanctity. Book XXVI. JEWISH BLOOD IN SPAIN. 829 At tlie burning of a young Jewish woman, Philip III. had the weakness to shudder. The Inquisitor declared that the king must atone for this crime by his blood. He was bled; the pale guilty blood burned by the executioner.1 At all events, if Jews did not, as they certainly did, still defile the soil of Spain, their contaminating blood lingered in the veins of the greatest and noblest, — the dukes with the most magnificent titles and hereditary dignities. That blood, both in Spain and Portugal, was as ineffaceable as negro blood in the United States of America, — the pure red of princes, even of kings, was tainted. The shrewd Venetian ambassador, in the reign of Philip the Second and his successor, ob¬ serving how deeply the priesthood, as well as the laity,2 were polluted with Jewish blood, doubted whether their Christianity was more pure than their descent. And as late as towards the close of the last century, it is told of Pombal, that the King of Portugal, Joseph I., proposed to issue an edict that all who were descended from Jews should wear a yellow cap. Pombal appeared in the Council with three yellow caps. The king de¬ manded the meaning of this strange accoutrement: o o " One is for your Majesty, one for the Grand Inquisitor, one for myself." 1 Grdgoire, Regeneration des Juifs, quoted by M. Bedarride, note, p. 553. 2 " E chi sa la poca conscienza, che la maggior parte cosi dei preti, cosi dei laici tiene nelle cose essenziale, e che niolti di loro frescamente des- cendono da Mori e da Ebrei, dubita grandemente, che il cuore e l'animo non corresponda alle apparenze. Alle Gerbe, innanzi che si perdesse il forte, molte passarono a i Turchi, lasciando i compagni e la fede. Alcuni nella Goletta, poco fa trattarono di darla agli infideli: e in Murcia, come scrissi, si scoperse una grandissima copia d' Ebrei." Relazione di Paolo Tiepolo, 1563 (in the reign of Philip II.), vol. v. p. 18. See also Relazione di Soranzo, 1565, p. 82. 330 CHARLES II. — PERSECUTION". Book XXVI. Spain — even in her lowest decrepitude—indulged in what might seem the luxury of persecution. The Marlas, and other former Popes of blessed memory." He proceeds to protect their synagogues, their rites, their privileges, usages, and constitutions, as far as they do not violate public morals, or insult the Catholic faith. No Christian shall compel a Jew, even of the most tender age, to baptism; no one shall disturb them in their festivals ; they must pay on their part respect to the Christian worship of God. Pope Martin repealed all the hostile statutes of the Spanish Antipope, Peter of Luna: it was a temptation to annul the acts of an Antipope. Martin V. also restrained the zeal of the monks, who endeavored to compel the Jews to bap- 1 On the character of Martin V., Latin Christianity, vi. 73. 2 There is another version of this story. The Pope refused to accept the book; the Emperor took it and said: " Your laws are just and good; none of us rejects them; but ye observe them not as ye ought." The Pope added: " May God remove the'veil from your eyes, that ye ma}r behold the ever¬ lasting light." He blessed them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. L'Eufant, Cone, de Constance, ii. 167. Book XXYII. POLICY OF POPE MARTIN. 343 tism, by prohibiting the traffic of Christians with them. He annulled the order of the General of the Domini¬ cans to compel them to hear sermons ; he gave full license for trade with Jews. These were wise measures; how far counselled by the poverty or parsimony of Pope Martin, — how far his imputed avarice, which, at the close of his life, left him master of a great treasure, prompted them, — neither the traditions of the grateful Jews nor the taunts of Martin's enemies, as far as I have observed, furnish any evidence. We have seen the violent Bull of Eugenius IV.; the wise and humane edict of Nicolas V. relating to the Jews of Spain ; the reception of the wretched fugitives from Spain, at Genoa, and at Rome. I shall hereafter show the conduct of the later Popes to the children of Israel.1 /' v - 1 See the preceding Book. [ ■ ' BOOK XXVIII. Jews in Turkey — In Italy — In Germany before the Reformation — Inven¬ tion of Printing — Reformation — Luther — Holland — Negotiation with Cromwell — False Messiahs — Sabbathai Sevi — Frank, &c. — Spinoza. Proscribed in so many kingdoms of Europe, exiled from Spain, the Jews again found shelter under the protection of the Crescent. In the North of Africa, the communities which had long existed were con¬ siderably increased. Jews of each sect, Karaites as well as Talmudists, are found in every part of that region. In many countries they derive, as might naturally he supposed, a tinge from the manners of the people with whom they dwell; and, among these hordes of fierce pirates and savage Moors, their char¬ acter and habits are impregnated with the ferocity of the land. In Egypt their race has never been ex¬ terminated; they once suffered a persecution under Hakim (a. c. 1020), which might remind them of the terrors of former days, but they seem afterwards to have dwelt in peace : Maimonides was the physician of Saladin. But the Ottoman Empire, particularly its European dominions, was the great final retreat of those who fled from Spain. 50,000 are estimated to have been admitted into that country, where the haughty Turk condescended to look down on them with far less contempt than on the trampled Greeks. The Greeks were Yeshir, slaves, they held their lives on sufferance ; the Jews, Monsaphir, or visitors. They BooKXXVm. JEWISH TRADE IN THE LEVANT. 845 settled in Constantinople and in the commercial towns of the Levant, particularly Salonichi.1 Here the Rab¬ binical dominion was reestablished in all its authority; schools were opened; the Semicha, or ordination, was reenacted; and R. Berab entertained some hopes of reestablishing the Patriarchate of Tiberias. The Os- manlis beheld with stately indifference this busy people, on one hand organizing their dispersed communities, strengthening their spiritual government, and laboring in the pursuit of that vain knowledge which, being beyond the circle of the Koran, is abomination and folly to the true believer, even establishing that mys¬ terious engine, the printing-press; on the other, ap¬ propriating to themselves, with diligent industry and successful enterprise, the whole trade of the Levant. Their success in this important branch of commerce reacted upon the1 wealth and prosperity of their corre¬ spondents, their brethren in Italy. At a somewhat later period the famous Savonarola founded a Monte della Pieta in Florence with the avowed purpose of rescuing the poor from the exactions of the Israelites, whom he denounced with his own peculiar vehemence. The good Friar might well undertake this work of © © charity, if the Jews obtained thirty-two and a half per cent, on their loans, with compound interest.2 But the 1 Rabbi Joseph describes a terrible fire at Salonichi, which broke out in the house of a Jew grocer, Abraham Catalan, and destroyed eight thousand houses, and two hundred lives were lost: " Woe unto the eyes which have seen eighteen of our prayer-houses, and our glory, and the books of our Law, and the believers of our Law, become a burning and a fuel of fire." The misery which followed this fire caused a great plague, " until those who buried became weary, and the mourners and bewailers ceased. And the Jews retained no strength at that time, and Israel became very low." The grocer whose house took fire was imprisoned by the Turks, and died in prison. R. Joseph, ii. 403. 2 Villari (Vita di Savonarola, i. 278) says that this enormous amount of interest is stated in the decree which founded the Monte della Pieta. The precariousness of the security should be taken into account. 346 JEWISH TRADE IN VENICE. Book XXVHL Friar was not content without an edict, hunting the Jews out of the land.1 As early as 1400 the jealous republic of Venice had permitted a hank to be opened in their city by two Jews. In almost every town in Italy they pursued their steady course of traffic. They were established in Verona, Genoa, Pisa, Parma, Mantua,2 Pavia, Padua, Sienna, Bassano, Faenza, Florence, Cremona, Acpiila, Ancona, Leghorn,3 besides their head - quarters at Rome.4 Their chief trade, however, was money-lend¬ ing ; in which, at least with the lower classes, they seem to have held a successful contest against their old rivals, the Lombard bankers.5 An amiable enthusiast, 1 " La pestifera voragine e pessimo veneno della usura, gia supportata in Firenze 00 anni, da quella pessima e di Dio inimica setta Ebraica." The Jews were allowed a year to depart. Ibid. p. 279. 2 Henry II. of France permitted the Jew merchants of Mantua to come into the cities of the kingdom. " And they went into the king's gate, and bowed themselves before him to the ground; and he accepted their persons and made a release to them according to the hand of our God upon him: and they went from him in peace, for he was a faithful man." R. Joseph, ii. 154. Probably from this time, if not before, the Jews crept unobserved into France. R. Joshua also relates that the Regent Duchess of Mantua took away the Jews' burial-ground in that city, for which God visited her with the death of the Duke, her eldest son (467). 8 At a somewhat later period (under the Medici) it became a proverb in Leghorn, that a man might as well strike the Grand Duke as a Jew. 4 Many Jews were slaughtered at Rome in the great siege by the Con¬ stable Bourbon (R. Joshua, p. 72). On the coronation of Charles V. at Rome, the Jews had been threatened with pillage. " And had it not been for the mercies of the Lord, which never fail, the Jews would have been soon given up to pillage on that day. For the men of the Emperor gaped with their mouths, hissed, and gnashed with their teeth against them, but the Lord delivered them " (p. 114). There are many curious details, as to the Jews in all the cities of Italy, in Ersch und Griiber. pp. 155, 163. 5 In Rabbi Joshua's History (for, like Tacitus, he affected to write Annals and Histories) there are a few incidents relating to the Jews of Italy. He himself resided usually near Genoa, or at Rome. One is perplexing enough. " The Jews also Lautrec grievously oppressed when he was at Milan, and commanded them to put green helmets on their heads as high as those of the Muscovites [?], in order to deride the people of the living God. ILow- beit the Eternal suffered him not, but thrust him out that day from the Book XXVIII. BERNARDINO DI FELTRE. 34T Bernardino di Feltre, moved to see the whole people groaning under their extortions, endeavored to preach a crusade, not against their religion, hut against their usury. His language towards the Jews was full of wisdom and humanity ;1 but the effect was, in many places, to raise the populace against them. Nor indeed did the preacher altogether abstain from language which could not but inflame the popular mind : " The Canon-law prohibits all intercourse with Jews, specially their employment as physicians ; the presence of Chris¬ tians at feasts is expressly interdicted. Yet did the Jew Leo celebrate the wedding of his son with a feast which lasted eight days, and how many crowded to his ban¬ quets, to his balls ! In the present day everybody who is suffering from illness openly calls in a Jewish doctor." 2 This was in Piacenza ; the infuriated rabble territory of Milan" (p. 22). The Jews had been expelled by the Fregosi, no doubt from commercial jealousy, from Genoa. " But in those days the Jews returned to dwell at Genoa, for the Adorni were men of kindness to¬ wards the Jews, and they brought my brother-in-law, the Rabbi Joseph, the son of David, thither, contrary to the laws of that perverted city, and he abode there many days, and was physician unto them." This was during the plague. R. Joseph was ill of this plague for forty days, but recovered (p. 39). There is a curious passage in the Continuation of the Chronicle of the Abbas ITspergensis, which says that, at the storming of Rome by the Con¬ stable Bourbon, the Jews, who were numerous in the city, not only bought their own security, but made vast sums by purchasing the plunder at the cheapest prices: " Juda:i, quorum magnus numerus illic, ne sint omnia sancta Roma:, persolutis pretiis sese redemerunt, ex prseda omnis generis vili empta, ingens lucrum facientes " (p. 357). The Jews assert that they suffered in the general plunder and massacre. Both accounts are probably true. Compare Ersch und Griiber, p. 152, note. 1 " Si de Hebr&'is loquendum est, dicam, quod in aliis civitatibus dico: neminem, quantum cuique sua anima cara est, posse nocere Hebraeis, in persona sive in facultatibus, sive in quacunque alia re: nam etiam Judaeis justitia, Christiana pietas, et dilectio exhibenda est cum et illi naturae humanae sint." Acta SS. p. 910. 2 Acta SS. Sept. 30; Annal. Placentini, apud Muratori, xx. 945. Much of this, with the citations, is from Cassel, Ersch und Griiber, pp. 150, &c. 348 THE MONTI DELLA PIETl. Book XXVIII. wreaked their rapacity or their vengeance; gibbets were loaded with Jews; some were torn in pieces, their bodies cast to the dogs or wild animals. Bernar¬ dino di Feltre sought better means for rescuing his be- o o loved poor from the hands of the usurious Israelites. He attempted to enforce the doctrines of his sermons by active measures of benevolence, the establishment everywhere of banks on a more moderate rate of in¬ terest for the accommodation of the poor, called Mounts of Piety, — Monti della Pieta. He met with great success in many towns ; in Mantua, Monselice, Monte- fiore, Rimini, and Brescia: in Padua he forced the Jews to close their banks, from whence they had drawn an enormous profit. But the people were either so deeply implicated with their usurious masters, so much the slaves of habit, or so much repressed by the honest shame of poverty, as to prefer secret though more disadvantageous dealings with the Jews, to the o © 7 publicity required in these new banks. The scheme languished, and in many places speedily expired. The conduct of the Popes, as of old, varied, as bigotry, policy, or humanity predominated in the char¬ acter of the Pontiff. In 1442, Eugenius the Fourth had deprived the Jews of one of their most valuable privileges, and endeavored to interrupt their amicable relations with the Christians; they were prohibited from eating and drinking together: Jews were ex- o o o eluded from almost every profession, were forced to wear their badge, to pay tithes ; and Christians were forbidden to bequeath legacies to Jews. The succeed¬ ing Popes had been more wise or more humane. In Naples, the celebrated Abarbanel became the con¬ fidential adviser of Ferdinand the Bastard, and of Alphonso the Second; the Jews experienced a reverse, Book XXVIII. PAUL III. EAYORS THE JEWS. 349 and were expelled from that city by Charles the Fifth. Some of the Popes, wiser than the Most Catholic Kings, began to discover that hv casting forth the Jews, Christendom cast forth Jewish wealth from her kingdoms. They began to perceive and to be jealous of the Turks, whose stately indifference had permitted the Jews to settle and to trade in their dominions, and had thus secured a much larger share of the money- market of Europe.1 They were unwilling to lose such profitable subjects. Leo X. in an edict rebuked the popular preachers who inveighed against the tables of the Jewish money-changers. Paul III. openly espoused the cause of the Jews expelled from Portugal, and the New Christians against whom the Inquisition continued to work with all its stern and implacable vigilance. The Pope forbade in his own dominions all such cruel investigations. He granted an amnesty for all former offences.2 His aim was to encourage the prosperity of his rising port, Ancona. In this city the Pope per¬ mitted Turks, Jews, heretics, to trade with perfect freedom without any inquiry into their creed. They paid the same taxes as Christians ; they were not com¬ pelled to wear their ignominious badge. It was espe¬ cially permitted that Jews and New Christians from Portugal and Algarve should fully enjoy this privilege. Ancona rapidly grew in opulence, and in commerce, 1 " Xe ad eas nationes quae Christum Salvatorem nostrum se conferant." Cassel, p. 152. "Et quia tanta multitudo istorum est apud Turehas et in. partibus Africa et sicut Judsei vivunt, et quod pejus est; contra aliquos fuit a Papa consistorio temporibus meis propositum et fuit determinatum quod viverent sicut Judtei." Ibid., from a letter of Coutinho, Bishop of Algarve. 2 " lmpetravano del Papa una perdonanza generale di tutti li crimini che haveano commessi contra la santa e cattolica fede fine ai di che si pub- licasse la bulla della Inquisitione nel regno di Portugalla." MS. authority quoted by Cassel. 350 MILD RULE OF JULIUS III. Book XXYIII. the parent of opulence. There were two Jewish communities, an Italian and a Levantine synagogue. Julius III. not merply confirmed the wise edict of his predecessor, hut, on the establishment of the Inquisition at Rome on account of the perilous progress of the Reformed opinions, he specially exempted the Jews of Ancona from this jurisdiction. The Cardinals and other delegates of the Papal power were instructed to pay the utmost respect to the religious observances of the Jews. They were forbidden, under pain of the Papal displeasure, to inquire into the religious observ¬ ances or religion of the Jews, or into their former confession of Christianity, to dispute with them, to drag them into their courts, to burden or molest them in any way. Nevertheless, under Julius III. the Jews were en¬ dangered by a rash proselyte. A Franciscan friar, Corneglio of Montalcino, embraced Judaism, circum¬ cised himself, and " set his face as a flint" to preach against Christianity in the streets of Rome. He was seized and burned. Julius issued a mandate, consid¬ ering the circumstances, of no great severity. The Talmud, to which the guilt of the conversion of the friar was attributed, was ordered everywhere to be burned: at Rome, at Bologna, and at Venice. Through¬ out Italy the Jews, dreading some more awful ven¬ geance, sat in terror, — they fasted and put on sack¬ cloth, — but the merciful Pope was contented with punishing their books ; no violence was committed on the Jews.1 But the reawakening zeal of the Popes, startled from its serene and mild slumbers by Protestantism, 1 Rabbi Joseph, ii. 523: "And he was long-suffering with them, because he delighteth in mercy." Rook XXVIII. HARSH POLICY OF PAUL IV. 851 soon returned to its ancient bigotry and ignorance, ignorance the parent and offspring of bigotry. They hastened to discard their wiser policy, to reject the first dawnings of political economy, which in calmer times had forced themselves into their councils. The stern and haughty Pope, Paul the Fourth, renewed the hostile edicts; he prohibited the Jews from holding real property ;1 that which they held was to be sold, and within six months: therefore property estimated at 500,000 crowns was sold for a fifth of that sum. The Pope endeavored to embarrass their traffic, by regulations which prohibited them from disposing of their pledges under eighteen months; deprived them of the trade in corn and in every other necessary of life, but left them the privilege of dealing in old clothes.2 Paul IV. first shut them up in their Ghetto, a confined quarter of the city, out of which they were prohibited from appearing after sunset; he reduced them to one synagogue, — the rest were to be de¬ stroyed.3 They were to wear a distinctive dress; they were not to work on the Christian Sabbath, to keep their accounts in Italian or Latin, not to have any con¬ versation with Christians, not to practise among them as physicians. Pius the Fourth relaxed the severity of his predecessor. He enlarged the Ghetto, and re¬ moved the restrictions on their commerce ; he per¬ mitted them to hold real property up to a certain value, 1500 ducats; to have direct conversation with 1 Bullarium, ann. 1555. 2 " Nullam mercaturam frumenti vel horrei aut aliarum rerum usui humano necessariarum." Art. 10. 8 According to Bartolocci (iii.), there were nineteen synagogues in Cam¬ pania, eight in Umbria, thirty-six in the March, thirteen in Romagnola, eleven at Bologna, two at Benevento, six at Avignon, nine at Rome, thir¬ teen in other parts of the Roman States. They paid 1380 scudi annually to the Hospital of the Catechumens at Rome. 352 SIXTUS V. — TOLERATION. Book XXYIII. Christians ; to wear a black instead of a yellow hat; the owners of the houses in the Ghetto were prohib¬ ited from exacting exorbitant rents; the Jew became almost a citizen and a man. Pius the Fifth expelled them from every city in the Papal territory, except Pome and Ancona; he endured them in those cities with the avowed design of preserving their commerce with the East; in other respects he returned to the harsh policy of Paul IV. Gregory the Thirteenth pursued the same course; a Bull was published, and suspended at the gate of the Jews' quarter, prohibiting the reading of the Talmud, blasphemies against Christ, or ridicule against the ceremonies of the Church. All © Jews, above twelve years old, were bound to appear at the regular sermons delivered for their conversion; where it seems, notwithstanding the authority of the Poi >e and the eloquence of the Cardinals, that their behavior was not very edifying. At length the bold and statesmanlike Sixtus the Fifth annulled at once all the persecuting or vexatious regulations of his pred¬ ecessors, opened the gates of every city in the eccle¬ siastical dominions to these enterprising traders, secured and enlarged their privileges, proclaimed toleration of their religion, subjected them to the ordinary tribunals, and enforced a general and equal taxation.1 The great events of this period — the invention and rapid progress of printing, and the Reformation — could not but have some effect on the condition of the Jews. This people were by no means slow to avail themselves of the advantages offered to learning, by the general use of printing. From their presses at Venice, in Turkey, and in other quarters, splendid specimens of typography were sent forth,2 and the respect of the 1 Sixtus V. limited the interest on loans to 18 per cent. 2 E. Joseph speaks of Eabbi Tobias PbuaJl as one of the first who used Book XXVIII. PRINTING—THE REFORMATION. 353 learned world was insensibly increased by the facilities thus afforded for the knowledge of the Scriptures in the original language, and the bold opening of all the mysteries of Rabbinical wisdom to those who had suf¬ ficient inquisitiveness and industry to enter on that wide and unknown field of study. A strong effort was made by struggling bigotry to suppress all these works, which a pusillanimous faith knew to be hostile, and therefore considered dangerous to the Christian religion. Pfeffercorn, a convert from Judaism, earnestly per¬ suaded the Emperor Maximilian to order the entire destruction of all books printed by the Jews. The cele¬ brated Capnio, or Reuchlin (such are the names by which he is best known), interfered; he abandoned certain books, which contained offensive blasphemies against the Redeemer (the Nizzachon and the Toldoth Jesu), to the zeal of his antagonist, —but pleaded, and not without success, the cause of the sounder and more useful parts of Jewish learning. The Reformation affected the people of Israel rather in its remote than in its immediate consequences. It found the Jews spread in great numbers in Germany and Poland. They were still liable to the arbitrary caprice of the petty sovereigns or free cities of the Empire. But great changes had already come over the Jews in Germany. The days were long gone by when, according to the fine expression, the Imperial Eagle brooded over the Jews to protect and to prey upon them; when, according to the Sachsen-Spiegel,1 the press for Hebrew works: " His mind also did not rest until he had prop¬ agated the good doctrine which is the perfect Law among Israel; and he instituted the printing-office at Sabionetta, his dwelling-place, which was under the government of the Lord Vespasian Gonzaga Colonna, (exalted be his glory!) from whence the Law goeth out unto all Israel." ii. 475. 1 Sachsen-Spiegel, quoted by Cassel. vol.in. 23 354 IMPERIAL TAXATION OF THE JEWS. Book XXYIII. the Emperor Titus, or his father, Vespasian, had made over all, or a third of the Jews forever to his succes¬ sors the Roman Emperors ; when the haughty Hohen- stauffen, Frederick I., could grant as a favor to the Duke of Austria all the Jews and usurers in his domain without any molestation or interference from the Im¬ perial Courts ;1 when in a more merciful spirit, in the proclamations of the Truce of God, with the clergy, women, nuns, husbandmen, merchants, travellers, fish¬ ermen, Jews came under the general protection.2 By Frederick II., whose stern Imperial despotism con¬ trasted with his wise policy as King of Sicily,3 the Jews had been first declared serfs of the Imperial Chamber. Later emperors, Rodolph of Hapsburg, Louis of Bavaria, Charles IV., Wenceslaus, Sigismund, had asserted the same broad and indefeasible supremacy, or rather pro¬ prietorship in all the Jews of the Empire.4 Certain taxes had been levied upon the Jews, with more or less regularity, according to the poverty or the power of the Emperor, as protection-money (they were at all times, not alone during the Truce of God, under the peace of the Emperor). The amount of this, usually paid on St. Martin's Day, was somewhat arbi¬ trary ; there was also the head-penny, paid on the coronation of the Emperor; and, it seems, a golden penny specially belonging to the Imperial Treasury which he could not alienate.5 But the power of the Emperor had long been on the wane. Half of the Jew-tax had been ceded, or wrung from him by the 1 See the Grant, in Pertz, Leges, ii. p. 101. 2 See the proclamations of the Trenga Dei, ibid. p. 207. 8 See back, p. 333. 4 Compare Cassel, in Ersch und Griiber, p. 85 et seq. 6 The account of these various taxes and offerings in Cassel is not quite so clear as might be desired. Book XXVIII. WENCESLAUS, KING OF THE ROMANS. 355 Electors and sovereign princes, who still, however, acknowledged the right of the Emperor to do as he would with the Jews, to kill them or burn them, of course to tax them according to his good pleasure. The Golden Bull reserved the Imperial rights, but, to a certain extent, made over their protection, and in consequence the power of oppressing them, to the sovereign princes.1 The Jews were still, at least in theory, under Im¬ perial protection, if not as serfs, as a kind of vassals. But the power of the Emperor had sunk still more. In the great strife between the princes of Germany and the free cities towards the close of the fourteenth century, both parties at one time came to a kind of truce, and magnanimously agreed to suspend their hos¬ tilities in order to persecute and plunder the Jews. At Nuremberg (in the year 1889) it was resolved, by common consent, that neither princes nor cities should pay their debts or interest to the Jews; that all con¬ tracts and pledges should be demanded back. The only commerce between Christian and Jew should be of sale and purchase. The Emperor, or rather King of the Romans, the feeble Wenceslaus, only stipulated for his share, a large share, of the spoil. The king's chief councillors, Duke Frederick of Bavaria, the Bish¬ ops of Bamberg, Wiirzburg, Augsburg, the Margrave of Nuremberg, the Counts of Oeting and Wertheim, bought the sovereign's assent to their robbery, by a percentage on their gains. The cities paid 40,000 florins, the Bishop of Wiirzburg and the Duke of Bavaria, each 15,000. The king ratified the compact, commanded the Jews (he their protector) to surrender their pledges, and proclaimed that whatever prince, 1 See the declaration of Albert Achill (a. c. 1462), Cassel, p. 86. 356 PERSECUTIONS IN GERMANY. Book XXVIII. count, knight, or squire would not aid the Throne against the Jews should be placed under the ban of the Empire.1 Yet in his own dominions, in Prague, Wen- ceslaus was afterwards accused of favoring the Jews.2 Rupert, the Palsgrave, the Anti-king of the Romans, followed a wiser and more humane policy. On his coronation day he took the Jews of Oppenheim and Nuremberg under his special protection, and induced persecuting Nuremberg to do the same. What they were to pay to the city appears not; but every Jew and Jewess of full age was to pay yearly a gulden to the royal treasury.3 They were the property of the king, but they made payments to the cities as well as to the king. On these terms also the Jews of Cologne, Mayence, Frankfort, Worms, Spiers, Landau, Schel- stadt, Ratisbon, Colmar, Haguenau, Miihlhausen, Kai- sersberg, and Eherhausen obtained letters of enfran¬ chisement. In Frankfort they had a special right of appeal from the Imperial tribunal to that of the city. I havq no space to enlarge on the local oppressions and persecutions, which may be detected at every pe¬ riod during this intermediate century in almost every province and city in Germany, sometimes told with frightful but significant brevity : 4 their frequent ejec¬ tion, and worse than ejection, by the Landgrave of Thuringia; popular commotions in Nuremberg, Frank¬ fort, Worms, almost everywhere ; massacres in Gotha and Erfurt; their expulsion from the Mark of Branden¬ burg. Excluded from one city or state, they found 1 See the authorities for this in a recently published book, Hoefler, Ru- precht von der Pfalz, pp. 74-77, with citations. 2 Ibid. pp. 86, 88, 91. 8 Ibid. p. 377. Rupert had raised money on the Jew-tax, perhaps for his inroad into Bohemia. See also p. 356. 4 " Judsei occisi," " combusti," perpetually occurs in the chronicles. Book XXVIII. JEWS OF PEAGUE. 357 refuge in another till the storm blew over. It is © clear, however, that wherever they had an opportunity, though usually more addicted to money-lending and the sale of gold trinkets and jewelry, they opened larger branches of traffic. In Poland they seem early to have entered into the great corn-trade of that king¬ dom. On the history of the Jews in Prague alone I would willingly have dwelt; that community which boasts itself the oldest, at times has been the most prosperous, but which has suffered the most frightful disasters, — that community, with all its hoary traditions, and its wild, crowded, weed-and-hemlock-overgrown cemetery, the graves and the epitaphs of which might seem to reach up to the remotest antiquity, and in which a Jewish " Old Mortality " might spell out records of times when Bohemia was still heathen. Rabbi Joseph boldlv declares that the Jews " had dwelled in Prague v © from the day that they were led captive." Strange traditions tell of their removal, prophesied by the heathen Queen Libussa, of their solemn reception a century after by Duke Hostiwit. Jewish learning has lately illustrated their history, and turned passages into romance out of a history more wonderful and romantic than romance. The Sippurim of Dr. Wolff Pascheles has well been called the Acts of the Jewish Martyrs.1 In the Hussite wars, and later, in the days of Luther, the Jews of Prague were suspected by the Reformers of fidelity to the Catholic Emperors ; they were strangely accused of aiding the Turks, the common enemies of the Emperor and the Reformers. But the tradition 1 Compare Sippurim, by Wolff Pascheles, Prague, 1838-1856; and an able notice of this curious book which contains two or three very powerful and characteristic tales, in Fraser's Magazine, Dec. 1862. 358 CONFLAGRATIONS IN GERMANY. Book XXVIII. of their sympathy with the Imperialists is preserved by Rabbi Joseph. " Then Bohemia rebelled against her king and her God, because of the wrath of the Luther¬ ans : and in these days they drove out the Jews from the provinces of Bohemia and of Prague the capital; and they removed from thence in wagons, and went into Poland and abode there. And many died on the road, and many were slain by the edge of the sword." 1 They returned, at least some of them, under Emperor Ferdinand, " who spake kindly to them," and invited them back. It is believed that they showed their grat¬ itude by their fidelity, and by useful service during the Thirty Years' War. During the Reformation period, about a. c. 1542, terrible conflagrations broke out in many cities of Germany which were laid to the account of the Jews. "In that year," writes Rabbi Joseph, "there were burned in Germany many cities both large and small, and their smoke went up toward heaven ; and it was not known who had kindled the fire, and they wrong¬ fully accused the Jews and the shepherds [peasants ?], saying, ' Ye have done this wicked thing;' and they chastised them and afflicted their souls, so that the Jews confessed what never came into their hearts ; and they burned them with fire." As if to prove their guiltlessness, " God took away their reproach " (writes the Rabbi) ; " Linz was burned after they went out: it was a great city, the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth ; and only twenty houses were left in the midst thereof; and it was a lasting heap for many days." The tone in which Luther spoke of the Jews varied, as on many other points not immediately connected 1 Rabbi Joseph, ii. p. 337. A. C. 1542. LUTHER'S OPINION OF THE JEWS. 359 with his main object, according to the period of his life, and the light in which he viewed the race. As sordid usurers he detested them, and at first he seems to have approved of violent means of conversion ; hut at other times he spoke of them with humane consideration rather than anger, and reprobated all means of attempt¬ ing their conversion, except those of gentleness and Christian love.1 1 Dr. Scheidler, in his article Juden Emancipation, in Ersch und Griiber, p. 271, reverses this view. According to the dates of his citations, Luther began by being more mild and just, and ended in being more fiercely cruel and fanatical against the Jews. In his Exposition of the Twenty-second Psalm (a. c. 1519) are these words on the conversion of the Jews: — " Daher ist das Wiithen einiger Christen (wenn die andem noch Christen konnen genannt werden) verdammlich, welche meinen sie thun Gott daran einen Dienst, wenn sie die Juden auf das gehassigste verfolgen, alles Bose liber sie denken, und bei ihrem beweinenwiirdigsten Ungliick ihrer noch mit dem aussersten Hochmuth und Verachtung spotten; denn sie vielmehr sollten, nach dem Exempel dieses Psalms (Ps. xiv. 10, und Paulus Rom. ix. 1, 2), von Herzen fiber sie traurig seyn, sie bedauern, und ohne Unter- lass fiir sie beten. Dergleichen Gottloser Christen theilen sowohl zum Christlichen Namen als Volke durch diese ihre Tyrannie nicht geringern Abbruch, und sind an der Gottlosigkeit der Juden schuldig; sintemal sie dieselben durch dieses Exempel der Grausamkeit gleichsam mit Gewalt vom Christenthum zuriick treiben, da sie vielmehr sollten mit aller Freund- lichkeit, Geduld, Gebeth, Sorgfalt, herbeizieher.. Und diese ihre Wuth vertheidigen noch einige sehr abgeschmackte Theologi, und reden ihnen das Wort; indem sie aus grossem Hochmuth daher plaudern, die Juden wiiren der Christen Knechte und dem Kaiser unterworfen. Ich bitte euch darum, sagt mir, wer wird zu unserer Religion iibertreten, wenn es auch der aller- sanftmfithigste und geduldigste Mensch ware, wenn er siehet, dass er so grausam und feindselig, und nicht allein nicht Christlich, sondern mehr als viehisch von uns tractirt wird. . . . Die meisten Passions-Prediger thun nichts anders als dass sie der Juden Muthwillen, so sie an Christo veriibet, sehr schwer und gross maehen, und die Herzen der Glaubigen wider sie erbittern; so dass das Evangelium einzigund allein damit umgehet, dass es uns in diesem Stficke die Liebe Gottes und Christo einzig und allein aufs hbchste anpreise." Is it possible that later in life Luther (alas, for the power of polemic strife to harden the heart!) should do more than declare the conversion of the Jews impossible? " Doubt not, beloved in Christ, that after the Devil you have no more bitter, venomous, violent enemy, than the real Jew, the Jew in earnest in his belief." Luther inveighs against their usury with all the fierceness of the darkest of the dark ages. Is it credible that he should give 360 THE REFORMATION. Book XXYIII. It was partly by affording new and more dangerous enemies to tlie power of the Church that the Refor¬ mation ameliorated the condition of the Jews ; they were forgotten or overlooked in the momentous con¬ flict : but to a much greater extent, by the wise maxims of toleration, which, though not the immediate, were not less the legitimate fruits of this great revolution in o o the European world.1 The bitterness of religious this counsel to those who asked the question, What was to be done by Christians with that accursed and reprobate people ? "I. Burn their syn¬ agogues and schools; what will not burn, bury with earth, that neither stone nor rubbish remain. II. In like manner break into and destroy their houses. III. Take away all their prayer-books and Talmuds, in which are nothing but godlessness, lies, cursing, and swearing. IV. Forbid their Rabbis to teach, on pain of life and limb. V. Forbid them to travel: 'as they are neither lords nor officials [Amtsleute], nor traders, they should stay at home'! YTI. Interdict all usury: 'we are not their subjects, but they ours.' VII. In the hands of all young Jews and Jewesses should be placed flails, axes, mattocks, spades, distaffs, spinning-wheels, and let them get their livelihood in the sweat of their brow, as should all the children of Adam." There are above 400 pages, mostly of bitter vituperation (Luther's Werke, p. 2471), but with vigorous argument against the Jews, curious but most painful to read (2290-2032). Walch's Edition, t. xx. p. 2478. 1 Rabbi Joshua's account of the Reformation is so curious as to be worthy of insertion: "And it came to pass, when the Pope Julius [the Second] began to build the great high place which is in Rome [St. Peter's], that he sent the Franciscan Friars into all the districts of the uncircumcised. And he gave them power to loose and to bind, and to deliver souls from perdition. And they departed and cried with a loud voice, ' Take off the earrings of your wives and daughters [the words in Exodus xxxii. 2] and bring them for the building of the high place; and it shall come to pass when ye shall come, that ye shall save the souls of your generation from perdition.' And it came to pass, after the death of Julius, that the Pope Leo sent again, and they went, as before, into the cities of Ashkenaz [German}-], and they were lifted up. And it came to pass whenever the Germans would speak, say¬ ing, ' How could ye say this thing? and how can the pope do it?' they answered them proudly, saying, ' Ye shall be cursed if ye do not believe, for there is no faith in you; and ye shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.' And there was one Martin [Luther], a monk, a skilful and wise man, and he also said unto them, ' Why are ye not ashamed when ye let your voice be heard on high speaking such dreams ? ' And the priests could not give an answer; and they behaved with madness after their manner, and they anathematized him in the year 1518, and the wrath of Martin was much Book XXVIII. JEWS IN THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 361 hatred was gradually assuaged; active animosity set¬ tled down into quiet aversion ; the popular feeling be¬ came contempt of the sordid meanness of the Jewish character, justified no doubt by the filthy habits, the base frauds, and the miserable chicanery of many of the lower orders who alone came in contact with the mass of the people, rather than revengeful antipathy towards the descendants of those who crucified the Re¬ deemer, and who, by their obstinate unbelief, inherited the guilt of their forefathers. During the Thirty Years' War the Jews, it has been said, assisted with great valor in the defence of Prague, and obtained the protection and favor of the grateful Emperor. Before this, the Reformation had been the remote cause of another important benefit, — the open¬ ing the free cities of Holland, where a great number of Portuguese Jews settled, and vied in regularity, enter¬ prise, and wealth with the commercial citizens of that flourishing republic.1 The Jews of Amsterdam and other cities bore a high rank for intelligence and punc¬ tuality in business. From Holland they long looked for some favorable opportunity which might open the exchange, the marts, kindled. And Martin opened his mouth and preached with a loud voice against the pope, and against the dreams and the abominations of the popes, but still he delighted in THAT MAN [Jesus], and many gathered them¬ selves unto him. And he made them statutes and ordinances, and spake revolt against the wise men of the Church; and he would explain from his own heart their law and the: words of Paul; and they went not after the precepts of the popes; and their laws are two different laws until this day." i. p. 430. 1 In 1590, three Portuguese Jews were hospitably received in Holland. Many soon followed. The first synagogue was founded in 1598. The States publicly avowed their determination to open a place of refuge for those who were expelled by the tyrannical governments of Europe. About twenty years after, German Jews settled in Holland, but their first com¬ munity was not formed in Amsterdam till 1630. Ersch und Griiber, p. 120. 362 JEWS UNDER THE TUDORS. Book XXYIII. and the havens of England to their adventurous traffic. But the stern law of Edward I. was still in force, and though, no doubt, often eluded, the religious feeling of the country, as well as the interests of the trading part of the community, would have risen in arms at a propo¬ sition for its repeal.1 Yet it can hardly he doubted that Jews must have walked the streets of London, and, though proscribed by the law, must, by tacit, per¬ haps unconscious, connivance, have taken some share in the expanding commerce of England during the reign of the Tudors.2 If it were not a creation of Shakspeare, it would be difficult to believe his Shylock a pure creation, or to suppose that the poet drew en¬ tirely from his own mind the Jewish character and feelings, the mutual heart - deep hatred of Jew an cl Christian.3 It was not, however, till the Protectorate 1 I know not on what authority Amador de los Rios asserts that England was among the first countries which received the Spanish Jews on their ex¬ pulsion from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella. He names London, York, and Dover as three cities where they settled, p. 419. He says (p. 410) that they built synagogues in London as well as in most of the ifanseatic towns, and drove a flourishing trade. 2 " I pass over a period in our own history, in which it is supposed there were no Jews in England, — the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles I. My researches might show that they were not then unknown in this coun¬ try. Had there been no Jews in England, would that luminary of the law, Sir Edward Coke, have needed to inveigh against the Jews as ' Infidels and Turks' ? — delivering them all alike to the Devil; stigmatized and infamous persons, ' perpetui inimici,' says Littleton, ' and not admissible as wit¬ nesses.' " Disraeli, Genius of Judaism, 240. 8 This is more remarkable if, as Charles Lamb has done, with his fine originality of criticism and felicitous language, we contrast Shylock with Marlowe's Jew of Malta: " Marlowe's Jew does not approach so near to Shakspeare as his Edward II. does to Richard II. Shylock, in the midst of his savage purpose, is a man; his motives, feelings, resentments, have something human in them: 'If you wrong us, shall we not revenge'?' Barabbas is a mere monster brought in with a large painted nose to please the rabble. He kills in sport, poisons whole nunneries, invents infernal machines. This is just such an exhibition as a century or two earlier might have been played before the Londoners by the Royal command, when a general Book XXVIII. THE PROTECTORATE. 363 of Cromwell that the Jews made an open attempt to obtain a legal reestablishment in the realm. The strength of ancient prejudice, cooperating with the aversion of a large part of the nation towards the gov¬ ernment, gave rise to the most absurd rumors of their secret proposals to the Protector. It was bruited abroad, and widely believed, that they had offered <£500,000 on condition of obtaining St. Paul's Church for their synagogue, and the Bodleian Library to begin business with. Harry Martin and Hugh Peters were designated as the profane or fanatic advisers of this strange bargain.1 Another equally ridiculous story was propagated of certain Asiatic Jews, who sent a depu¬ tation to inquire whether Cromwell was not the Mes¬ siah, and went to Huntingdon with the ostensible de¬ sign of buying the Hebrew books belonging to the University of Cambridge, but with the real object of Searching the Protector's pedigree to find whether he could claim Jewish descent. The plain fact was this : a physician of great learning and estimation among the Jews, Manasseh ben Israel,2 presented a petition pillage and massacre of the Hebrews had been previously resolved on in the Cabinet." Lamb's Specimens, p. 31. It is very curious that the Jews have the same story, only with every¬ thing reversed. Shylock, the Jew, is the liberal, unsuspecting merchant. Antonio, the Christian, insists on the forfeited pound of flesh. But the noble Portia is even more cruelly used; she is employed in that worst and basest calling to which women can be self-degraded, the procuress who is to inveigle the gentle Jessica. The whimsical part is, that the Jews place the story at Rome, in the time of Pope Sixtus V. (Elizabeth's contem¬ porary) ; the Pope plays a great part in it. Shakspeare's authorities for his version ascend high in the Middle Ages. It is almost more whimsical that the story, in its Jewish form, found its way into Gregorio Leti's Life of Sixtus V. See Sippurim, No. iv. p. 202, &c. 1 This rumor is mentioned in Manasseh ben Israel's Defence of the Jews, p. r. 2 See Manasseh Ben Israel, Sein Leben und Wirken, von Dr. M. Kay- serling (Berlin, 1861) — a careful, and seemingly accurate, account of the life of this remarkable man. 364 CROMWELL—MANASSEH BEN ISRAEL. Book XXVIII. to the Protector for the readraission of his countrymen into the realm. The address was drawn with eloquence and skill; — it commenced by recognizing the hand of God in the appointment of Cromwell to the Protector¬ ate ; it dexterously insinuated the instability of all gov¬ ernments unfavorable to the Jews, and it asserted the general joy with which the ambassadors of the Re¬ public had been received in their synagogues in Hol¬ land and elsewhere.1 Manasseh ben Israel issued a second address to the Commonwealth of England. He complimented the general humanity of the nation, stated his sole object to be the establishment of a synagogue in the kingdom ; he adroitly endeavored to interest the religious enthusiasm of England on his side, by declar¬ ing his conviction that the restoration of Israel, and of course the Last Day, was at hand. He did not neglect the temporal advantages of the woiddly, the profits to be derived from their traffic ; and concluded with ex¬ pressing his sincere attachment to a Commonwealth abounding in so many men of piety and learning. Whether moved by one or all these reasons, Cromwell summoned an assembly of two lawyers, seven citizens of London, and fourteen divines, to debate the ques¬ tion, first, whether it was lawful to admit the Jews; secondly, if lawful, on what terms it was expedient to admit them. The lawyers decided at once on the legality ; the citizens were divided ; but the contest among the divines was so long and so inconclusive, that o & 7 Oliver, having so spoken that one present asserted, " 1 have never heard a man speak so well," at length grew weary, and the question was adjourned to a more favor¬ able opportunity.2 It is a curious fact of the times, 1 See the Vindicise Judaicse, in the Phoenix, vol. ii. pp. 391 et seq. 2 " When the Jews desired leave to have a synagogue in London, they Book XXYIII. JEWS READMITTED BY CHARLES II. 365 that so far were some of the Republican writers from hostility to the Jews, that Harrington, in his " Oceana," gravely proposes disburdening the kingdom of the weight of Irish affairs, by selling the island to the Jews. The necessities of Charles II. and his courtiers quietly accomplished that change on which Cromwell had not dared openly to venture.1 The convenient Jews stole insensibly into the kingdom, where they have ever since maintained their footing, and no doubt contributed their fair proportion to the national wealth. I have not thought it expedient to interrupt the course of my History with the account of every adven- offered him, when Protector, £60,000. Cromwell appointed a day for giving them an answer. He then sent for some of the most powerful among the clergy and some of the chief merchants of the city to be present at their meeting. It was in the long gallery at Whitehall. Sir Paul Rycant, who was then a young man, pressed in among the crowd, and said he never heard a man speak so well in his life as Cromwell did on this occasion. When they were all met, he ordered the Jews to speak for themselves. After that he turned to the clergy, who inveighed much against the Jews as a cruel and accursed people. Cromwell, in his answer to the clergy, called them ' Men of God,' and desired to be informed by them whether it was not their opinion that the Jews were to be called, in the fulness of time, into the Church. He then desired to know whether it was not every Chris¬ tian man's duty to forward that good end all he could. Then he flourished a good deal on religion prevailing in this nation, the only place in the world where religion was taught in its full purity. ' Was it not,' he said, ' then, our duty in particular to encourage them to settle where they could be taught the truth, and not to exclude them from the light, and leave them among false teachers, Papists and idolaters ? ' This silenced the clergy. He then turned to the merchants, who spoke of their falseness and meanness, and that they would get their trade from them. ' And can ye really be afraid,' said he, ' that this mean and despised people should be able to pre¬ vail in trade and credit over the merchants of England, the noblest and most esteemed merchants of the whole world V ' Thus he went on till he had silenced them too, and so was at liberty to grant what he desired to the Jews." Spence's Anecdotes, p. 215. Burnet gives rather a different view of Cromwell's policy. He wished to avail himself of their rapid and accurate intelligence on foreign affairs. Burnet's Own Times, i. 122, Oxford Edition. 1 " Under Charles II. Lord Keeper North found no difficulty in swearing a Jew on his Pentateuch." Disraeli, p. 241. 366 FALSE MESSIAHS. Book XXVIH. turer who, from time to time, assumed the name of the Messiah. It is probable that the constant appearance of these successive impostors tended, nevertheless, to keep alive the ardent belief of the nation in this great and consolatory article of their creed. The.disappoint¬ ment in each particular case might break the spirit and confound the faith of the immediate followers of the pretender, but it kept the whole nation incessantly on the watch. The Messiah was ever present to the thoughts and to the visions of the Jews: their prosper¬ ity seemed the harbinger of his coming; their darkest calamities gathered around them only to display, with the force of stronger contrast, the mercy of their God and the glory of their Redeemer. In vain the Rab¬ binical interdict repressed the dangerous curiosity which, still baffled, would still penetrate the secrets of futurity. " Cursed is he who calculates the time of the Messiah's coming," was constantly repeated in the synagogue, but as constantly disregarded. That chord in the national feeling was never struck but it seemed to vibrate through the whole community. A long list of false Messiahs might be produced,—in France, in Fez, in Persia,1 in Moravia; but their career was so short, and their adventures so inseparably moulded up with fictions, that I have passed them by.2 Some few, however, I will endeavor to rescue from oblivion. During the 1 Benjamin of Tudela relates at length the insurrection and death of David Elroy, a Persian. Asher's Edition, pp. 122,127. 2 See the curious treatise of John a Lent, De Pseudo-Messiis, in Ugolini, Thesaurus. Moses Cretensis, a. c. 434 (see p. 32). Dunaan in Nigra, a city of Arabia Felix, a. c. 520. Some Jews hailed Julian, some Mohammed, as the Messiah (see Baronius, a. c. 1009; Math. Paris.); a Syrian, a. c. 721; one in France, 1137; in Persia, 1138; in Spain, 1157; in Fez, 1167 (fide Maimonides, Epist. ad Judteos in Massilia agentes); another beyond the Euphrates, who went to bed a leper and rose a man of great beauty; in Morocco, David Almasser, a great Cabalist, 1174. Book XXVIII. SOLOMON MOLCHO. 367 reign of Charles V. a man named David appeared in the Court of the King of Portugal; he announced that he had come from India, sent by his brother, the King of the Jews, to propose an alliance in order to recover the Holy Land from the Sultan Solyman. Many of the forced Christians believed in him. He passed through Spain, where he made many proselytes; into France, to Avignon, into Italy. He inscribed banners with the holy name of God. In many cities, Bologna, Ferrara, Mantua, many believed that he was commis¬ sioned to lead them back to the Holy Land. He had even an interview with the Pope. But some of his more sagacious brethren detected the imposture; and he fell for a time into contempt. The false David was followed by a false Solomon. There was a Portuguese New Christian, who apostatized openly to Judaism, and set up, as the prophet of the movement, Solomon Mol- cho. It does not indeed appear that either David or Solomon Molcho assumed the title of Messiah. The Jews relate that Solomon was utterly ignorant while he was a Christian; immediately at his circumcision the Lord gave him wisdom ; he became rapidly endowed with profound knowledge; he became master of the Cabala; he possessed inspiring eloquence. He preached Judaism before kings ; even the Pope, Clement VII., admitted him to an audience, and gave him a privilege to dwell wherever he would. Solomon Molcho seems to have been permitted to pour out his apocalyptic rhapsodies (pages of them may be read) without re¬ straint. Bishops, the Bishop of Ancona, — princes, the Duke of Urbino, — from credulity, curiosity, or com¬ passion, protected him against his enemies. Two of his prophecies, inundations of the Tiber in Rome, earth¬ quakes in Lisbon, could hardly fail of accomplishment. 368 SAMUEL BRETT. Book XXVIII. But lie came to a woful end. He attempted to convert the Emperor at Ratisbon. Charles was hard-hearted; the Prophet and the Prince, David and Solomon, were thrown into prison. After the peace with Solyman the Turk, they were conveyed to Mantua. Solomon was condemned to he burned as an apostate Christian. He was offered his life and a maintenance if he would recant his recantation and asain become a Christian. He answered, " like a saint and an angel of God," with steadfast refusal. He was cast into the fire ; " and the Lord " (so closes the Jewish relation) " smelled the sweet savor, and took to Him the spotless soul." 1 Yet there were Jews who believed that the fire had no power over him, and that he departed — God only knew whither. But there was one who appeared in more enlightened days, in the middle of the seventeenth century, who demands a more extended notice. This man formed a considerable sect, which — notwithstanding that the conduct of its founder might, one would suppose, have disabused the most blind and fanatic enthusiasm — long existed, and still continues to exist. In_ the year 1655, a certain Samuel Brett published a Narrative of a great Meeting of Jewish Rabbins in the Plain of Ageda, about thirty miles from Buda, in Hungary, to discuss their long-baffled hopes of the Messiah, and to consider the prophetic passages applied by Christian writers to their Redeemer. The author declared himself an eye-witness of the pomp of this extraordinary general assembly, where 300 Rabbins l R. Joseph seems in great perplexity about him: ''And would to God I could write in a book with certainty and security, whether the words were true or not!" Whether he was impostor, fanatic, or madman, may be reasonably doubted. His visions favor the last conclusion. Rabbi Joseph, 149,192. A. C. 1666. SABBATHAI SEVI. 369 pitched their tents, and gravely debated, for seven days, this solemn question. But the authority of Samuel Brett is far from unexceptionable. The Jews, partic¬ ularly Manasseh ben Israel, disclaim the whole trans¬ action as a groundless fiction. Many circumstances of the Narrative — the setting Pharisees and Sadducees in array against each other, and the manifest design of the whole to throw odium on the Church of Rome — concur in inducing me entirely to reject the story.1 But a few years after the date of this real or fictitious event, in 1666, the whole Jewish world, coextensive almost with the globe itself, was raised to the highest degree of excitement by the intelligence of the appear¬ ance and the rapid progress of a pretender who had suddenly risen up in Smyrna, and assumed the name and the authority of the Messiah. Sabbathai Sevi was the younger son of Mordechai Sevi, who first followed the mean trade of a poulterer at Smyrna, and after¬ wards became broker to some English merchants. He was born a. c. 1625. Sabbathai was sent to school, where he made such rapid progress in the Cabala, that in his eighteenth year he was appointed a Hakim or Rabbi; he even then had many followers among the youth, and indeed among the elders of the place, with whom he practised rigid fasts, and bathed perpetually in the sea. At twenty years old he married a woman of great beauty and rank among his people, but declined all conjugal connection with her. The father cited him for this neglect of his duty: he was forced to give a bill of divorce. A second time he married ; and a second time, on the same plea, the marriage was dis¬ solved. Sabbathai announced that " the voice from 1 Brett's Narrative is printed in the Phoenix, a collection of scarce tracts. Some of Brett's errors may have arisen from ignorance rather than from mendacity. vol. hi. 24 370 HIS PROSELYTE, NATHAN BENJAMIN". Book XXVIII. heaven " assured him that neither of these women was the meet and appointed partner of his life. His parti¬ sans asserted that he was actuated by a holy desire of triumphing over human passion : his enemies gave a different turn to the affair. Still his fame increased. He sometimes fasted from Sabbath to Sabbath, and bathed till his life was endangered ; yet his beauty, which was exquisite, seemed daily to increase. His whole body was said to breathe a delicious odor, which the physician of the family, suspecting to be perfume, declared, on examination, to be a natural exhalation from the skin. He now began to preach and to an¬ nounce himself openly as the Son of David, and had the boldness to utter, in proof of his divine mission, the Ineffable Name, Jehovah. The offended Rabbins, horror-struck at this double crime, declared him worthy of death, and denounced him before the Turkish tribu¬ nal. Sabbathai took refuge in Salonichi. There the Rabbins again rose against him. He fled to Egypt; thence to Jerusalem. As he passed by Gaza, he made an important proselyte, named Nathan Benjamin, who, admitted trembling to his presence, declared, by the great Almighty and dreadful God, that he had seen the Lord in his cherub-borne chariot, as Ezekiel of old, with the ten Sephiroth murmuring around him like the waves of the sea: a voice came forth, — "Your Re¬ deemer is come ; his name is Sabbathai Sevi; he shall go forth as a mighty one, inflamed with wrath as a war¬ rior ; he shall cry, he shall roar, he shall prevail against his enemies.''''1 In Jerusalem, Sabbathai preached, and proclaimed himself the Messiah, with such success, that the Rabbins trembled before him ; and the Elias of the new sect, Nathan of Gaza, had the audacity to issue an 1 Baiah xlii. 13. A. C. 1666. PROGRESS OF SABBATHAI. 371 address to the brethren of Israel, in which he declared that before long the Messiah would reveal himself, and seize the crown from the head of the Snltan, who would follow him like a slave. After residing thirteen years in Jerusalem, Sabbathai made a second expedition to Egypt, where he married again ; by the account of his enemies, a woman of light character, — by that of his partisans, a maiden designated as his bride by the most surprising miracles. She was the daughter of a Polish Jew, made captive by some marauding Muscovites. At eighteen years of age she was suddenly seized from her bed by the ghost of her dead father, set down in a burying-place of the Jews, where she was found, told her story, and declared that she was the appointed bride of the Messiah. She was sent to her brother in Amsterdam; thence to Egypt. After passing three years more in Jerusalem, Sabbathai went openly into the synagogue, and proclaimed himself the Messiah. A violent commotion took place ; the Rabbins launched their interdict against him : he fled to his native place, Smyrna. There the ban pursued him ; but the people received him with rapture. One Anakia, a Jew of high rank, denounced him on the Exchange as an im¬ postor. The unbeliever returned to his home, fell from his chair, and died : this singular accident was at once recognized as from the hand of God. The Rabbins feared to pursue their interdict; Sabbathai assumed a royal pomp; a banner was borne before him with the words, " The right hand of the Lord is uplifted." He divided among his partisans the kingdoms of the earth ; he named his two brothers Kings of Judah and Israel; he himself took the title of Kino; of the Kings of the O O Earth. One man, of high rank, nearly lost his life for opposing the prevailing delusion. The Head of the 372 FAME OF SABBTHAI. Book XXVIII. Rabbins was degraded; the Vice-President openly espoused the party. The fame of Sabbathai spread throughout the world. In Poland, in Germany, in Hamburg, and Amsterdam, the course of business was interrupted on the Ex¬ change, by the gravest Jews breaking off to discuss this wonderful event. From Amsterdam inquiries were sent to their commercial agents in the Levant; they received the brief and emphatic answer, " 'T is he, and no other." In the mean time rich presents were poured in to the Court of Sabbathai, and embassies were sent from the different communities of the Jews, — some of these were detained three or four weeks before they could obtain an audience. His picture was surmounted by a crown of gold ; the Twenty- first Psalm was sung before him, and a public prayer offered in the synagogue, in which he was acknowl¬ edged as the Messiah. In all parts, as if to accom¬ plish the memorable words of Joel, prophets and prophetesses appeared: men and women, youths and maidens, in Samaria, Adrianople, Salonichi, Constan¬ tinople, and in other places, fell to the earth, or went raving about in prophetic raptures, exclaiming, it was said, in Hebrew, of which before they knew not a word, " Sabbathai Sevi is the true Messiah of the race of David: to him the crown and the kingdom are given." Even the daughters of his bitterest opponent, R. Pechina, were seized, as Sabbathai had predicted, with the same frenzy, and burst out in rapturous acknowledgment of the Messiah in the Hebrew lan¬ guage, which they had never learned. One wealthy Israelite, of Constantinople, more cautious than the rest, apprehending that this frenzy would bring some dreadful persecution against the Jews, went to the A. C. 1666. EXCITEMENT AMONG PERSIAN JEWS. 373 Grand Vizier, and requested a certificate that he had never been a believer in the Messiah. This reached the ears of the partisans of Sabbathai; they accused their crafty opponent of treasonable designs against the Turks, brought forward false witnesses, and the over¬ cautious unbeliever was sentenced to the galleys. Among the Persian Jews the excitement was so great that the husbandmen refused to labor in the fields. The governor, a man, it would seem, of unusual mild¬ ness, remonstrated with them for thus abandoning their 7 o work, instead of endeavoring to pay their tribute. " Sir," they answered with one voice, " we shall pay no more tribute, — our Deliverer is come." The gov¬ ernor bound them in an obligation, to which they readily acceded, to pay 200 tomans if the Messiah did not appear within three months. But Sabbathai had now advanced too far to recede : his partisans were clamorous for his passing over to Constantinople, to confront the Grand Seignior. lie arrived, escorted by a vast number of his friends, and was received with the loudest acclamations by the Jews of Constanti¬ nople. ,The Sultan was absent, — he demanded an audience of the Grand Vizier. The Vizier delayed till he had received instructions from his master. The Sultan sent orders that Sabbathai should be seized and kept in safe custody. The Grand Vizier dis¬ patched an Aga and some Janizaries to the dwelling of Sabbathai, but the superstitious Aga was so over¬ awed by the appearance of Sabbathai, " bright," he said, " as an angel," that he returned trembling and confounded to his master. Another Aga was sent, and returned in the same manner. Sabbathai, how¬ ever, surrendered himself of his own accord ; he was committed to the Castle of Sestos, as a sort of honor- 374 SURRENDER OF SABBATHAI. Book XXVIII. able prison, where his partisans had free access to him. From thence he issued a manifesto, suspending the fast religiously kept on the 9th of August, on account of the destruction of Jerusalem, and ordered the day to be celebrated, with the utmost festivity, as the birth¬ day of the Messiah Sabbathai Sevi. In Sestos he ad¬ mitted a deputation from Poland into his presence, whom he astonished with his profound knowledge and ready application of the Cabala. But there was in Constantinople one stubborn unbeliever, named Nelie- miah, who for three days resisted all the arguments of the Messiah, and at the end, openly proclaimed him an impostor. The partisans of Sabbathai rose in the ut¬ most fury; and, when Sabbathai threatened his oppo¬ nent with death, rushed forward to put his mandate in execution. The Rabbi burst out of the chamber, and fled, pursued by the adherents of Sabbathai; escape was hopeless, when he suddenly seized a turban from the head of a Turk, placed it on his own, and cried aloud, " I am a Mussulman." The Turks instantly took him under their protection, and he was sent to Adrianople to the Sultan, who summoned Sabbathai to his presence. Sabbathai stood before the Grand Seign¬ ior ; he was ignorant of Turkish, and a Jewish rene¬ gade was appointed as interpreter. But the man before whom the awe-struck Agas had trembled, now before the majesty of the Sultan, in his turn, totally lost his presence of mind; when the Sultan demanded whether he was the Messiah, he stood in trembling silence, and made no answer. He had some reason for his appre¬ hensions, for the Sultan made him the following truly Turkish proposal: — " That he, the Sultan, should shoot three poisoned arrows at the Messiah : if he proved invulnerable, the Turk would himself own his Book XXVIII. HE BECOMES A MUSSULMAN. 375 title. If he refused to submit to this ordeal, he had his choice, to be put to death, or to embrace Moham¬ medanism." The interpreter urged him to accept the latter alternative: Sabbatliai did not hesitate long; he seized a turban from a page, and uttered the irrev¬ ocable words, " I am a Mussulman." The Grand Seignior, instead of dismissing him with contempt, ordered him a pelisse of honor, named him Aga Mo¬ hammed Effendi, and gave him the title of Capidgi Basha. Consternation at this strange intelligence spread among the followers of Sabbathai ; prophets and prophetesses were silent, but Sabbathai was daunted only by the death-denouncing countenance of the Sultan. He issued an address to his brethren in Israel: — "I, Mohammed Capidgi Basha, make it known unto you that God hath changed me from an Israelite to an Ismaelite. He spake, and it was done : he ordered, and it was fulfilled. Given in the ninth day of my renewal according to His holy will." He most ingeniously extracted prophetic intimations of his change both from tradition and Scripture. In the book called Pirke Elieser it was written, " that the Messiah must remain some time among the unbeliev- ' ers." From the Scripture the example of Moses was alleged, who " dwelt among the Ethiopians " ; and the text of Isaiah, " he was numbered among the trans¬ gressors." For some time he maintained his double character with great success, honored by the Moslem- ites as a true believer, by the Jews as their Messiah. Many of the latter followed his example, and embraced Islamism. St. Croix had frequently heard him preach in the synagogue, and with so much success, that scarcely a day passed but Jews seized the turbans from the heads of the Turks, and declared themselves Mus- 376 DEATH OF SABBATHAI. Book XXVIII. sulmans. His Polish wife died ; he again married the daughter of a learned man, who was excommunicated, on account of the unlawful connection, by the Rabbins. She also embraced Islamism. At length the Rabbins, dreading the total extinction of Judaism, succeeded in gaining the ear of the Sultan. The Messiah was seized, and confined in a castle near Belgrade, where he died of a colic, in the year 1676, in the fifty-first year of his age.1 It might have been expected that his sect, if it sur¬ vived his apostasy, at least would have expired with his death ; but there is no calculating the obstinacy of human credulity: his followers gave out that he was transported to heaven, like Enoch and Elijah ; and, notwithstanding the constant and active opposition of the Jewish priesthood, the sect spread in all quarters. His forerunner, Nathan of Gaza, had abandoned his cause on his embracing Islamism, and prophesied against him in Italy and Corfu. But it is the most extraordinary fact of all, that Nehemiah, his most vehe¬ ment opponent, recanted his enforced Islamism, and after all embraced Sabbathaism. A prophet of Smyrna proclaimed that the Messiah would reappear in 111^ years. But the doctrine of Michael Cardoso, wdiich spread rapidly from Fez to Tripoli, and even to Egypt, wTas the most extravagant; — the Son of David, he said, would not appear till all Israel were either holy or wicked: as the latter was far the easier process, he recommended all true Israelites to accelerate the com¬ ing of the Messiah, by apostatizing to Mohammedan¬ ism ; — numbers, with pious zeal, complied with this advice. Sabbathaism still exists as a sect of Judaism; 1 I have gathered from various Jewish and Christian accounts of Sabba- thai Sevi. See Jost, t. viii. There is a Life of Sabbathai in the Sippurim, ii. 55. A. C. 1676. JACOB FRANK — ISRAEL BAAL-SCHEM. 377 though, probably, among most of its believers, rather supported by that corporate spirit which holds the fol¬ lowers of a political or religious faction together, than by any distinct and definite articles of belief. But in the middle of the last century, an extraor¬ dinary adventurer, named Frank, organized a sect out of the wrecks of the Sabbathaic party. Before the appearance of Frank, an earlier sect, that of the Hassidin,1 the New Saints, the Pietists, had spread from Podolia, its birthplace, into Wallachia, Moldavia, Hungary, Gallicia. Its founder was named Israel Baal-Schem, the Lord of the Home, or Israel the Wonder-Worker. The sect had its special worship, its books of faith, its doctors, called Tsadikin (the Just). It claimed the Zohar as its organ, but the Zohar with its mysticism alone, and that mysticism reduced to its simplest form. Its sole worship was prayer, prayer sublimed to silent contemplation, ravish¬ ment, ecstasy. The whole thought was centred on God, but on God alone. It is strange how limited, after all, are the forms of religious extravagance: whatever the faith, Indian, Heathen, Jewish, Christian, Mohammedan, this detachment from earth, this con¬ centration on the Invisible, is the aim and the boast. But Nature will have her course ; the exhausted mind loses its command over the body. The Hassidin not only threw aside all the cumbrous ceremonial of the Talmudists, they threw aside likewise the restraints of morality, even of decency. With the founders and leaders of this vast sect, there was the wild mixture 1 Compare, on these Hassidin, Jost, and a long note at the end of Franck, La Kabbale, which contains extracts from the Autobiography of Solomon Maimon, — a curious and rare book. Solomon Maimon joined the sect for a short time, obtained full insight into their tenets and practices, and, after a strange ramble through all conceivable creeds, settled down as a follower of Kant. 378 THE HASSIDIN— THE ZOHARITES. Book XXVIII. of enthusiasm and imposture, with which this mysticism has sometimes commenced, into which it has almost always degenerated. Israel the Wonder-Worker as¬ sumed unbounded spiritual power; he could absolve from all sins ; he maintained his power by working miracles; his prayer could cure all diseases. He was endowed with all knowledge, with the gift of prophecy. A witness, at one time a convert to this creed, dis¬ covered before long that this extraordinary knowledge was derived from a vast army of spies, great acuteness in reading the countenances of men, and skill in in¬ ducing them to reveal the secrets of their thoughts. The sect, spread through a large part of the Judaism of Eastern Europe, resisted alike its proscription by the Talmudic Rabbins and the attempt of the Govern¬ ment to enslave and to convert the race ; it is said still to exist, for these religious lunacies are immortal, un¬ less absorbed by some kindred fanaticism. Frank and his followers, a very few years later, assumed the name of Zoharites. The founder astonished the whole of Germany, by living in a style of Oriental magnificence, encircled by a retinue of obsequious adherents. No one knew, or knows to this day, the source of the enormous wealth with which the state of the man was maintained during his life, and his sumptuous funeral conducted after his death. The early life of Jacob Frank did not forebode this splendor. He was born in Poland ; in his youth he had been a distiller of brandy, and wandered into the Crimea, thence into Turkey, where he acquired great fame as a Cabalist. He returned to Podolia in his thirty-eighth year, and gathered together the wrecks of the followers of Sab- bathai Sevi. He was persecuted by the Talmudists, revenged himself by throwing himself under the pro- Book XXVIII. THE ZOIIARITES. 379 tection of the Bishop of Kaminiek, publicly burned the Talmud, announced himself a believer in the Zoliar, and promulgated a new creed. Yet for a time he attempted to maintain his lofty intermediate eclecticism. But those were not the days, nor was Poland the country, in which men could safely halt between two opinions. The Bishop, his protector, died. The Rabbins, his deadly enemies, denounced him at Warsaw to the Government and to the Papal Nuncio, as an apostate Jew, and a heretic Christian. His creed was certainly neither pure Judaism nor or¬ thodox Christianity. The Zoharites began to see the fires of persecution already prepared for them, and themselves at the stake. They set forth for Turkey. As the first pilgrims entered Moldavia, the stern Kadi was as intolerant of men neither Jews, nor Christians, nor Mussulmans, as the Christians. They were left to be plundered by the populace. Those who remained behind openly embraced the Catholic faith, yet retained them secret Judaism. Many were detected, and sent forth, with their beards half-sliaved, to the scorn and insult of the people. Some were condemned to hard labor. Yet many succeeded in concealing their doubt¬ ful opinions, intermarried, founded families, and at¬ tained rank and honor in Warsaw. Frank himself was imprisoned in the fortress of Czentschow. When this fortress was taken by the Russians he was set free. He travelled as ostensibly a Catholic Christian, but levying vast sums of money from his countrymen through Poland, Bohemia, Moravia. The new creed leant towards Christianity rather than Islamism. It rejected the Talmud, but insisted on a hidden sense in the Scriptures. It admitted the Trinity and the In¬ carnation of the Deity, but preserved an artful ambi- 380 DEATH OF JACOB FRANK. Book XXVIII. guity as to the person in whom the Deity was incarnate, whether Jesus Christ or Sabbathai Sevi. As, how¬ ever, the gread head of this sect, Jacob Frank, after¬ wards openly embraced Christianity, and attended mass, he scarcely belongs to Jewish History. Suffice it to say that this adventurer lived in Vienna, in Brunn, and in Offenbach, with a retinue of several hundred beauti¬ ful Jewish youth of both sexes ; carts containing treas¬ ure were reported to be perpetually brought in to him, chiefly from Poland, — he went out daily in great state to perform his devotions in the open field, — he rode in a chariot drawn by noble horses ; ten or twelve Hulans in red and green uniform, glittering with gold, rode by his side, with pikes in their hands, and crests on their caps, eagles, or stags, or the sun and moon. Water was always carefully poured over the place where he had paid his devotions. He proceeded in the same pomp to church, where his behavior was peculiar, but grave and solemn. His followers believed him im¬ mortal, but in 1791 he died ; his burial was as splendid as his mode of living, -— 800 persons followed him to the grave. But with his body the secret of his wealth was interred ; his family sank into a state of want, and almost beggary. In vain they appealed to the credulity, to the charity of their brethren; they fell into insig¬ nificance, and were obliged to submit to the ordinary labors of mortal life.1 But while these men, half enthusiasts, perhaps more than half impostors, agitated the Jewish mind in the more rude and barbarous parts of Europe, and formed sects hateful alike to Jew, Christian, and Islamite,— 1 Peter Beer, in his Geschichte der Juden, is the great authority for the life and opinions of Jacob Frank. See also Jost, viii. 2-31. See, too, a note at the end of Franck, La Kabbale. A. C. 1791. BENEDICT SPINOZA. 381 sects which soon either died out or dwindled away into insignificance and oblivion, — the despised race of Israel produced a man in every respect the direct opposite to these crazy or designing fanatics or impostors. He formed no creed, organized no sect, had during his lifetime no single avowed follower, yet long after his death he has risen to extraordinary fame and in¬ fluence. Towards the latter half of the seventeenth century lived, in an obscure village in the neighborhood of the Hague, a Jew by birth, the influence of whose writings for good or for evil has been extensive, beyond that of most men, on the thoughts and opinions of modern Europe. The Politico-theological Treatise of Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza is the undoubted parent of what is called the Rationalist system, and from his arid and coldly logical Pantheism has grown up the more exuber¬ ant and imaginative Pantheism of modern Germany. It may be truly said that to Judaism mankind owes the doctrine of the Unity, the distinct and active Person¬ ality and Providence of God; from a Jew came forth the conception most antagonistic to the conception of the Godhead revealed through Moses, and accepted, as its primary truth, by Christianity. Such modes of thought as Spinoza's, however concealed, not from timidity, but because they were the inward, almost un¬ conscious, workings of his own mind, would naturally lead to indifference for, and what would seem con¬ temptuous neglect of, the rigid and minute cere¬ monies of his people, and for the authority of his people's acknowledged teachers: and this neglect would vaguely and indistinctly transpire, and from its vagueness and indistinctness appear the more odious and repulsive to the popular feeling. Spinoza was denounced and ex- 382 CHARACTER OF SPINOZA. Book XXVni. pelled from the community as a dangerous apostate.1 The excommunication fell light upon his calm, solitary, self-concentrated, and self-sufficing mind. Though Spinoza always treats Christianity with respect, and throughout his famous Treatise cites the Evangelic © © writers as of equal authority with those of the Old Testament, he can certainly at no period of his life have been called a Christian. The fundamental axioms of his philosophy are utterly irreconcilable, not only with the peculiar and vital doctrines of Christianity, hut even with the moral system of Socinus and his school. Spinozi ceased to be a Jew in language as well as in thought and in conviction. Though deeply read in the works of his Jewish forefathers, he wrote in the learned Latin of the day; for he wrote, if in his time for himself and a few congenial readers, for man¬ kind, not for his own people. This remarkable man had all the virtue, the abste¬ miousness, the self-denial, the frugality, and, as far as we know, the purity of the most rigid ascetic. He was entirely above the proverbial reproach of his race, avarice. He had no wants beyond the simplest suste¬ nance. He engaged in no trade, followed no calling; mathematical and scientific instruments (which it seems that he constructed, perhaps for sale), and books, were his only expense. He was as superior to ambition. An enlightened German prince offered to found and endow a professorship for him, on one not illiberal con¬ dition, that he should not assail the established religion. 1 " The form of excommunication, dated 1656, may be read (it is the old, terrible form, with all its awful curses) in the Supplement to Spinoza's works (p. 290). No one might communicate with him orally or by writing, no one show him any favor, no one be under the same roof with him, or within four ells' distance, no one read any writing executed or written by him." Book XXVIII. SPINOZA. 883 Spinoza gratefully declined the dazzling offer. The in¬ struction of youth would interfere with his entire and exclusive devotion to his philosophical studies ; though he professed great respect for religion, he would not tram¬ mel the freedom of his speculations by any restriction. This was the admirable part of his character; his intrepid assertion of the absolute freedom of human thought, his perfect independence, and consecration of his whole life to the laborious and conscientious inves¬ tigation of truth, and this with no zealous ardor for proselytism, no fanatic hatred of religion, such as broke out later in Europe. He was content to dwell almost alone (though he would willingly admit the intercourse of congenial minds), in the hermitage of his own thoughts, and we must remember that though his kin¬ dred, the Jews, could proceed no further than a harm¬ less excommunication (his life was once attempted), half a century had hardly elapsed, since religious, mingled with political fury, had reddened the streets of the Hague with the blood of the De Witts, and Grotius had suffered a long and ignominious imprisonment. If ever any man was pure intellect, it was Spinoza. He had neither passions nor affections, of imagination not a gleam ; to him, imagination was the source of all fallacy and delusion. He had no domestic ties, — none, as far as we know, of the appetencies of our nature. He had friendships, but friendships which grew out of mental sympathies alone, a common interest in mathe¬ matical and scientific researches, inquiries into moral and metaphysical truth. Such was his relation, shown by his correspondence, with very acute and distinguished men, Oldenburg, Blyenberg, Leibnitz. But it may be fairly said that the strength of Spinoza was his weakness. His virtue isolated him, not only 386 THE THEOLOGICO-POLITICAL TREATISE. Book XXVIII. liumous Ethics, he adheres to his reverence for virtue, will not altogether yield up the immortality of the soul, and admits a certain retribution after life; " virtuous souls, as partaking of the Divine wisdom, will endure forever; " to the vicious he seems to assign something like a natural extinction. But how he reconciled this with his great system, appears to baffle the sagacity of those who judge him most fairly and most charitably. Throughout the Theologico-political Treatise, he writes as a Theist; his leading political object is anti-Judaism, to show that all nations are, and ever were, equally with the Jews, under the providential care of God. The name of Atheist he indignantly rejects 1 (and, in¬ deed, however their consequences may seem the same to a theologian, the words Atheist and Pantheist are in aeterna sapientia. quae sese in omnibus rebus et maxim6 in niente humana et omnium maxime in Chrislo Jesu manifestcivit, longe aliter sentiendum. Nam nemo absque hac ad statum beatitudinis potest pervenire, utpote quae sola docet quod verum et falsuin, bonum et malum sit. Et quia, uti dixi, liaec sapientia per Jesum Christum, maxime manil'estata fuit, ideo ipsius discipuli eandem, quatenus ab ipso ipsis fuit revelata, praedicaverunt, sese- que spiritu illo Cliristi supra reliquos gloriari posse ostenderunt." Epist. xxi. ad Oldenburg, Opera, i. p. 510. These Epistles are the most curious, perhaps most trustworthy, deposi¬ tories of Spinoza's opinions. They were published in his lifetime. They answer the objections raised by his friends, men of great acuteness, to the views maintained in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. They are the vain struggles of the strong man to break the bonds in which he has inex¬ tricably involved himself. The Resurrection of Christ he explained away in a spiritual sense. See the remarkable passage in the Letter xxiii. p. Ill, to Oldenburg. Olden¬ burg, in his reply, strongly presses him with the usual arguments. He re¬ joins, " Christi passionem, mortem, et sepulturam tecum literaliter accipio; ejus autem resurrectionem allegoric^." p. 419. 1 " Priino ait parum interesse scire cujus gentis ego sum, nec quod vitae institutum sequor. Quod sanb si novisset, non tam facile sibi persuasisset, me Atheismum docere. Solent enim Athei nummos et divitias ultra modum quaerere, quae ego semper certe contempsi; quod omnes qui me norunt, sciunt." Epist. xcix. p. 629. Compare also the newly discovered Trea¬ tise De Deo et Homine. Supplem. ad B. de Spinoza Opera, Amsterdam, 1862. 884 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY OF SPINOZA. Book XXVIII. from the common vices and follies of mankind, but from all real knowledge of human nature, from that great part of the vast domain of philosophy, the mental constitution of the human race. With his unrivalled power of abstraction, of reducing everything to meta¬ physical entities, ahpost all truths to mathematical truths, his delight was in everything to approach as nearly as possible to the forms of geometry,— to make, as it were, an algebra of metaphysical science.1 Of the religious instincts, of the universal, if not inborn, notion of God as a Providential Agent; of the religious wants, hopes, and fears, he had no comprehension, for he had no ex¬ perience. The philosophy of Spinoza, his metaphysical system, in its close logical coherence, lies beyond the scope, and could not find room in the space of this work.2 I would consider him as a born Jew, yet, if I may so say, the protantagonistic adversary of Judaism, more especially of Rabbinical Judaism; and as an obscure Jew, in process of time, taking in his toils, and claimino; as his followers, some of the leading intellects 1 O of modern Europe. Spinoza began, like other philosophers of his race, with an aversion for, almost an absolute hostility towards, the anthropomorphism of the Hebrew Scriptures. From this, Philo had taken refuge in Allegory, Maimonides in what bordered on Rationalism ; it had been held by most thoughtful men, at least amono; Christians, to be O ' O 7 1 He uses this strange illustration, singularly characteristic of his mathe¬ matical metaphysics: " Huec non miror, quia credo quod Triangulus, si loquendi facultatem haberet, eodem modo diceret, Deum eminenter trian- gulum esse, et Circulus divinam naturam eminente ratione circularem esse, et hac ratione quilibet sua attributa Deo adscriberet, similernque se Deo red- deret reliquumque ei deforme videretur." Epist. xlvii. p. 658. 2 I would refer, for the only just, candid, and distinct view of the whole, to the Introduction to the French translation of his works by M. Emile Saisset. Book XXVIII. HIS SYSTEM ANALYZED. 385 an anthropomorphism only of language. But Spinoza carried this principle, as it were, into die Moral Being, at least into our conceptions of the Moral Being of God. Those conceptions of the active love, goodness, righteousness of God, were not merely inadequate, and far below their transcendent- and inconceivable excel¬ lence, but were utterly without meaning. It was as unphilosophical, as entirely a figure of speech, to speak of the justice, mercy, patience, forbearance, loving- kindness of God, as of his right hand, his footstool, or his countenance ; not merely was God without corpo¬ reity, but his moral nature was without kindred, affinity, or resemblance to the same qualities in man. These attributes were reflected back by man from his nature upon God, whom he, as it were, created in his own image. Thus, in his remorseless logic, Spinoza cut off all religious motives and incentives to virtue, rooted up the foundations of morality in our conceptions of God, and in the relations of God and man. And this did a man, himself of unimpeachable virtue, who, if his icy words ever kindle to any warmth, it is in commenda¬ tion of purity, of kindness, of humanity, of universal charity ; who even, in one of his letters, makes the dis¬ tinct admission that the wisdom of God is the ground- work of truth and falsehood, good and evil; that that wisdom was preeminently manifested in Jesus Christ and his Apostles ; and that in the practice of such virtues consists true and enduring beatitude. In this contradiction the old Jew, or the unformed Christian, might seem to linger indelibly, if almost unconsciously, in the mind of Spinoza.1 In his latest work, his Post- 1 " Denique ut de tertio etiam capite mentem moam clarius aperiam, dico ad salutem non esse omnino neeessaria, Christum secundum carnem noscere [he utterly denied the Incarnation], sed de a-terno illo tilio Dei, hoc est Dei vol. iii. 25 Book XXVIII. SPINOZISM. 387 absolute opposition). He repudiates, too, Materialism; he does not identify God with gross and brute matter.1 But God, according to Spinoza, being the whole uni¬ verse, the one primal Substance, all emanating from Him as attributes of his Being, or existing but as modes or affections of his Being; God, being the immanent, not the passing,2 Cause of all things, was immutable — everywhere and in all respects alike immutable. I cannot soar to the speculative, but rather dwell on the practical part of his system, as contrasted with that of his original faith, and with that of Christianity, — the rejection of that active Theism, which is the first axiom of both these religions —indeed, it may be said, of all religion. This immutability of God, and the conse¬ quent immutability of all that God was, or that was God, bound up all things in an inevitable necessity. Of course all supernaturalism was discarded ; miracles were believed only from the ignorance of man or his superstition ; it is difficult to find room even for the remotest influence of Providential government. The free will of man was but an illusion of his pride; in¬ deed any free will of God seemed equally inconceiv¬ able.3 The individual man could not be other than he was. For it is difficult to understand how any man, 1 " Attamen quod quidam putant, Tractatum Theologico-Politicum eo niti quod Deus et Natura, per quam massam quandam, sive materiem cor- poream, intelligunt unum et idem sunt, tota errant via." p. 509. 2 " Transeuntem." Neither of our words transient or transitory quite expresses the thought of Spinoza. 3 Read in Mons. E. Saisset's Introduction to the French Translation the excellent chapter " Du Libre Arbitre," p. 146 et seq.: *' D'ou vient done que la masse entiere du genre humain proclame le libre arbitre? C'est que la masse entiere du genre humain vit sous l'empire de l'imagination et des sens, dans un profond oubli de la raison. Le vulgaire n'est-il pas con- vaincu que l'ame meut le corps a sou grd? Or, peut-on concevoir qu'une pensee donne du mouvement a une dtendue? . . . Et tout ce que je puis dire a ceux qui croient qu'ils peuvent parler, se taire, en un mot, agir, en vertu d'une libre decision de l'ame, c'est qu'ils revent les yeux ouverts." 388 BAYLE'S LIFE OF SPINOZA. Book XXVIIL predestined, as it might seem, by the irresistible impulse of his nature, could be anything but what he became. Nero could be only Nero; the matricide was the con¬ sequence of his unalterable nature. Paul could be but Paul; he had no merit, as he could not choose but be an apostle and a martyr. During his own time (till the posthumous publica¬ tion of his Ethics, his system cannot be said to have been complete), and in the following period, Spinoza was more denounced, dreaded, and hated, than read. The world contented itself with the contemptuous sarcasm, that his system was only the philosophic dream of an obscure Jew. Though he wrote in Latin, — the language of European learning, — and had long been disclaimed by, and had disclaimed his race, I doubt not that with the natural apprehension and aversion to his tenets mingled much of the disdain and detesta¬ tion which still in the general mind adhered to his descent. The most sceptical of sceptics, Bayle (as is the wont of sceptics, who seem glad to throw over some one more obnoxious to the religious preposses¬ sions of the age than themselves), in an elaborate Life of Spinoza, acute, desultory, but copious and amusing, denounced him as a bold and declared Atheist. His virtuous life Bayle acknowledges, on the testimony of the peasants among whom Spinoza lived, and refrains from taunts upon his Jewish origin. From this Article of Bayle was probably derived most of the knowledge of Spinoza which prevailed till towards the close of the last century. His name was the by-word for Atheism and impiety. By degrees, however, Spinoza could not but find a place in histories of philosophy ; and histo¬ rians were not content to rest on the authority or on the citations of Bayle. His works were translated into Book XXVIIL M. DE SAISSET'S " INTRODUCTION." 389 German ; and with the rise of what is called " the German school of criticism," as also with that of Ger¬ man philosophy, his name and his influence became more and more manifest and avowed. Lessing spoke of him with respect, almost with reverence. Goethe (whose abstract speculations found vent chiefly in his poetry, and that poetry, even in its most abstruse views, and its wildest dreams, though fathoming the depths of human thought, singularly distinct and luminous) declared, it is said, that the three master-spirits which had formed his mind were Shakspeare, Linnasus (in Goethe must be remembered the discoverer of the metamorphoses of plants), and Spinoza. He who knows the influence of Goethe upon the mind and thought of Germany, and through Germany on that of Europe, will hardly think that the name of Spinoza ought not to find room in the History of the Jewish race. It is still more extraordinary that the religious mystic Novalis found, or fancied that he found, in Spinozism a philosophical system which supplied the wants and harmonized with the aspirations of his pious mind.1 In France there has been a curious contro¬ versy. No Frenchman must be acknowledged as the teacher of so unpopular a writer as Spinoza. The memory of Descartes must be relieved from this im¬ putation, and M. Cousin, with his wonted patriotism, has undertaken this desperate task, — desperate, for Spinoza himself declares that he was a follower of Des¬ cartes, — that he began with the study of the works, deduced much of his reasoning from the axioms, of Descartes, and avowedly adopted his method. But France, in the translation of his works and in the In¬ troduction of M. Emile Saisset, has, with a distinct and 1 On Novalis compare M. de Saisset's Introduction. 390 SPINOZISM RECEIVED IN GERMANY. Book XXVIII. eminently judicious disclaimer of Spinozism, done jus¬ tice, not more than justice, to the character and to the writings of the remarkable Jew. In Germany most of the philosophers, Schleiermacher, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel (Fichte especially), paid him the homage, either of transplanting his system into their own, or of trans¬ muting it into another form. BOOK XXIX. MODERN JUDAISM. Change in the relative State of the Jews to the Rest of Mankind — Jews in Poland — in Germany — Frederick the Great — Naturalization Bill in England — Toleration Edict of Joseph II.—Jews of France — Petition to Louis XVI. — Revolution — Bonaparte — More recent Acts for the Amelioration of the Civil State of the Jews — General Estimate of the Number of Jews in Africa, Asia, Europe, America— Conclusion. I have followed the sect of Sabbathai and his dis¬ ciples to the close of the eighteenth century; I have placed in strong but appropriate contrast the singular phenomena of the life and philosophy of Spinoza. I must now retrace my steps, and terminate this History by a rapid sketch of the more important events which influenced the condition of the Jews in the different countries of the world, during that period, down to our own days. The lapse of centuries, and the slow im¬ provement in almost the whole state of society, had made a material alteration in the relative position of the Jews towards the rest of mankind. They were still, many of them, wealthy; but their wealth no longer bore so invidious and dangerous a proportion to that of the community at large as to tempt unprincipled kings, or a burdened people, to fill their exchequer, or re¬ venge themselves for a long arrear of usurious exaction, by the spoliation of this unprotected race. A milder spirit of Christian forbearance with some, of religious indifference with others, allayed the fierce spirit of animosity, which now, instead of bursting forth at 392 CHANGE IN THE STATE OF THE JEWS. Book XXIX. every opportunity, was slowly and with difficulty ex¬ cited and forced to a violent explosion. Still, in the midst of society, the Jews dwelt apart, excluded by ancient laws from most of the civil offices, by general prejudice and by their own tacit consent from the common intercourse of life ; they were endured because mankind had become habituated to their presence, rather than tolerated on liberal principles, still less courted by any overtures for mutual amity. The Jew was contented with this cessation of hostilities: he had obtained a truce ; he sought not for a treaty of alliance. Where commercial restrictions were removed, he either did not feel, or disdained, civil disqualifications. So long as he retained, unmolested, the independent gov¬ ernment of his own little world, he left to the Gentiles to administer the politics of the kingdoms of the earth. If he might be permitted to live as a peaceful merchant, he aspired not to become statesman, magistrate, or sol¬ dier. So that the equal law protected him in the acqui¬ sition and possession of personal property, he had no great desire to invest his wealth in land, or to exchange the unsettled and enterprising habits of trade for the more slow returns and laborious profits of agriculture. He demanded no more than to be secured from the active enmity of mankind; his pride set him above their contempt. ' Like the haughty Roman, banished from the world, the Israelite threw back the sentence of banishment, and still retreated to the lofty conviction that his race was not excluded, as an unworthy, but kept apart, as a sacred people ; humiliated indeed, but still hallowed, and reserved for the sure though tardy fulfilment of the Divine promises. The lofty feeling of having endured and triumphed over centuries of intolerable wrong, mingled among the Jews with the Book XXIX. RABBINICAL DOMINATION. 393 splendid recollections of the past and the hopes of the future, which were sedulously inculcated by their Rab¬ binical instructors ; and thus their exclusion from the communities of the world, from the honors and privi¬ leges of social life, was felt, by those who were high- minded enough to feel at all, rather as a distinction than a disgrace.]' This at once compelled and voluntary un- socialness was still the universal national characteristic of the Jews: yet in process of time they became in some degree assimilated to the nations among whom cd rd they lived; their relative state of civilization materially depended on the manners of the surrounding people, and there was nearly as great a difference between the depressed and ignorant Jew of Persia, the fierce fanatic of Barbary or Constantinople, and his opulent and enlightened brethren of Hamburg or Amsterdam, as between the Mussulman and Christian population of the different countries. The dominion of the Rabbins was universally recognized, except among the Karaites, whose orderly and simple congregations were frequent in the East, in the Crimea, in Poland, even in Africa. Rabbinism was still the stronghold and the source of the general stubborn fanaticism: yet even this stern priestcraft, which ruled with its ancient despotism in more barbarous Poland, either lost its weight, or was constrained to accommodate itself to the spirit of the age, in the West of Europe. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Poland, Galicia, and the adjacent provinces, had long been the headquarters of the Jews.1 Into these regions they had spread at an early period, silently and obscurely, 1 Cassel, in Ersch und Griiber, pp. 130-138, enters into many minute de¬ tails on the settlement in Poland and Galicia, and Red Russia. In Kiew the}'' were in great numbers in the year 1113. A persecution followed the death of Swatopulk. 394 CASIMIR THE GREAT. Book XXIX. from Hungary, Moravia, Bohemia. Some had taken refuge from the atrocities perpetrated by the early Crusaders as they passed through those realms ; some from the persecutions by the Flagellants, and those which arose out of the Black Plague. It is usual to date their flourishing state and protection by the pater¬ nal government from the reign of Casimir the Great in the fourteenth century.1 Casimir, however, only con¬ firmed a law of Duke Boleslaw, the regent of the realm during the minority of his nephew.2 This was the first enlightened edict which secured to the Jews with un¬ usual precision their privileges, their rights, and their duties, as subjects. Boleslaw, and still more Casimir avowed the policy that by encouraging the Jews they encouraged the commerce of the kingdom. They had the premature wisdom to appreciate the value of trade and industry to the wealth and happiness of their coun¬ try. To the influence of a beautiful Jewish mistress, Esther, was attributed, probably to a certain extent not without justice, this humane policy of Casimir the Great.3 Esther was permitted to bring up her daugh¬ ter by the king in her own faith ; the sons had liberal appanages. Many circumstances concurred in advan¬ cing the comparative security, with the security, the 1 Casimir reigned from 1337 to 1370. 2 See Depping, p. 237, who translates the original charter of 1264, first published in Arehiv fur Geschichte, Vienna, 1826. In case of a mulct, they paid, as in the South of France, so much pepper1 instead of so much mone3T. Boleslaw adopts the maxim of some of the Popes, that the modern Jews are not guillv of the blood of Christ. 8 Casimir's law, however, is dated 1343; Esther was not his mistress till 1350. All his subjects were not so tender or so courteous to the Jews, " quorum foetor olidus usque in hanc diem perseverat." Dlugloss, Hist. Polon. quoted by Cassel. Cassel will not subscribe to the passage in the Corpus Polon. Hist. ii. 602: "Hujus Hester opera gens Judaica magnas praerogativas in Polonia a rege adepta est, cum novas turn quam ipsis Boles- laus . . . concesserat." p. 132. Book XXIX. JEWS OF SLAVONIA. 395 numbers, wealth, and influence of the Jews in this part of Europe. In the Slavonian kingdoms the feudal system never prevailed to the same extent as in Ger¬ many and the West. Though under the royal pro¬ tection, the Jeivs were not the liegemen, the vassals of the royal chamber, the property of the king. The Slavonian clergy never, even when the Papal power was recognized, attained the same authority ; the no¬ bility were in constant strife with the hierarchy; the Canon-law had far less power. In vain did the clergy make, as under the reign of Sigismund I.,1 a desperate struggle to draw the rio-id line of demarcation between the Jew and the Christian, to prohibit social and com¬ mercial intercourse, to demand their exclusion from offices of State and public service, even to enforce the peculiar and distinctive dress upon the Jew. The Jews living on the estates, and under the protection of the independent nobles who would brook no inter¬ ference with their authority, defied the edicts of synods and even of kings. Not that the kings were adverse to them ; the greatest and the best, as John Sobieski, looked on them with favor, and maintained them in their rights and in their industry. Nor indeed were the Slavonian Jews always secure against the calumnies, against the popular tumults, the plunders, and the massacres perpetrated so much more frequently, so much more cruelly, in Western Europe. Posen and Cracow, the chief seats of the most powerful Roman Catholic hierarchy, may claim distinctive infamy for these persecutions. The building of a synagogue in Posen was the signal for a rumor about an insult to the 1 1506-1526: " Indignum et juri divino contrarium censentes, ejus generis homines aliquibus honoribus et officiis inter Christianos fungi debere." Apud Cassel, p. 133. 396 THE CHILD-MURDER FABLE RENEWED. Book XXIX. Host, an outbreak of the populace, and pillage and murder of the Jews. In Cracow, in 1407, a priest, Budeeky craftily spread a report of a murdered child. The authorities of the city would have protected the Jews ; but the great bell tolled (it is said, through some mistake), the mob rose, the Jews' houses were fired, and a terrible conflagration wasted the city. The Crusaders against the Jews sometimes followed the fatal examples of the Crusaders to the Holy Land. In 1464 the Jews were plundered in Cracow, and thirty men killed. In 1500, the gates of the Jewish quarter, notwithstanding the king's protection, who had removed the Jews to a safer place, were forced by another band of Crusaders, and a great slaughter perpetrated. Even as late as 1737 in Posen, as in 1758 in Iview, the child- murder fable rose anew against the Jews. An appeal was made to the Pope, Benedict XIV. His successor, Clement XIII., did not shrink from the investigation. By his orders the Nuncio wrote to Count Bruhl, com¬ manding that nothing should be done on hearsay evi¬ dence — nothing without clear and substantial proof.1 Wonderful as it may seem, such things have taken place in our own times, in the nineteenth century. It needed Russian Imperial Ukases to interpose. In the province of Witepek, in 1805, a child was found drowned in the Dwina ; the Jews were accused of the murder. In 1811, a child eight weeks old disappeared out of its cradle ; the Jews were arraigned as having stolen it for their evil purposes. The process lasted till 1827. An Imperial Ukase appeared in 1817, pro¬ hibiting such charges, yet they continued to be made 1 " C'est pour qa, que dans le cas des pareilles accusations l'on ne doit pas appuyer le jugement sur les dits fondements, mais aux preuves ldgales, qui peuvent regarder l'affaire et rendre certain le crime qu'on leur impute." Quoted by Cassel, p. 134. A. C. 1737. CONDITION OF THE POLISH JEWS. 397 and heard till 1835, — the date of the great Imperial Edict concerning the Jews. Nevertheless, the Jews » * in Poland gradually grew up into a middle ofdpr ffie* tween the nobles and the serfs ; the only mid/tG order} between the nobles, however gallant yet the haughtiest" in Europe and most contemptuous of trade or Industry,, and the serfs perhaps the most degraded, wrecked,, and unimproved in their condition and in their minds. Almost every branch of traffic was in the hands of the Jews. They were the corn-merchants, shopkeepers, innkeepers. In some towns they formed the greatest part of the population ; in some villages, almost the whole.1 If heavily, it does not appear that they were exorbitantly taxed, either by the nobles or the govern¬ ment.2 The Jews suffered with the rest of the inhabitants of that unhappy country, when Poland and its neigh¬ boring provinces, already in the middle of the seven¬ teenth century,3 became the battle-ground, hereafter to be the prey of its ambitious neighbors. In an invasion by the Grand Duke of Muscovy, in 1655, ofi twelve thousand Jews in IVilna, when that city was laid waste with fire and sword, eight thousand submitted to bap- 1 Schlosser ascribes their settlement to the deliberate policy of Casimir the Great: — "Kasimir namlich wollte Gewerbe, Handel, Regsamkeit schaffen, nicht langsam entstehen sehen: er wollte Geld und Deutsche ins Land ziehen; die damals gedriickten Juden folgten seinem Kufe am ersten, und er begiin- stigte ihre Einwanderung. Die zalilreichin Galizien einwandernden. Juden bemiichtigten sich bald aller Gewerbe und Geschiifte, welche eintriiglich gemacht werden kbnnen ohne miihsam zu seyn und kbrperliche Arbeit zu fordern, und drangten sich auf diese Weise als Biirgerstand in die Mitte einer Nation von Herrn und leibeigener Bauern. Diese Juden vermehr- ten sich, wie in /Egypfen, und iiberliessen gem Ehre und Rang im Staat anderen, wenn ihnen nur das Geld bleibe." Schlosser, Weltgeschichte, iv. p. 1G2. a Cassel, in Ersch und Griiber, p. 134. 8 1674 to 1697. 398 HERESY OF ZACHARIAS OF NOVOGOROD. Book XXIX. tism; four thousand, more heroically obstinate, were burned alive.1 If Poland was hospitable, Russia Proper, from an¬ cient times, was sternly inhospitable to the race of Is¬ rael. Paulus Jovius, in his " Embassies," relates that they are hated by the Russians. The mischievous race could not be permitted to dwell within their frontiers; the Jews are accused of having perfidiously furnished the Turks with iron artillery. There was a deeper and more enduring cause of this enmity. Towards the end of the fifteenth century (in 1490), in Novogorod, a Jew named Zacharias, with the aid of some of his brethren (it is added, through the mysterious and at¬ tractive Cabala, with the dark sentences of which he bewildered their minds), induced several Priests and many Boyars to renounce Christianity : to believe that Moses alone had a divine mission; that the whole Gos¬ pel was a fable; that the Christ was not yet come. One of the converts, a priest, Alexis, took the name of Abraham ; his wife that of Sarah.2 They became Jews in all but the rite of circumcision, which, to avoid de¬ tection, they had the prudence or the cunning to dis¬ pense with. The sect spread rapidly among Ecclesias¬ tics and Boyars. It was embraced among the rest by Zozimus, Archimandrite of the Monastery of St. Simon. They still performed the Christian ceremonies, and kept the fasts of the Church with the utmost rigor. The two leading heretics, Denis and Alexis, became 1 " Le Grand Due de Moscovie est entre dans la Pologne d'un autre cot£ que le roi de Su5de: il a assitfgd Vilna, qui est la capitale de la Lithuanie, qu'il a pris par force, ou il a tout fait mettre a feu et a sang. De douze mille Juifs qui y ont et6 trouv^s, il y en a eu liuit mille qui ont compost et qui ont re<;u le bapteme, et quatre autres mille, avec la loi de Moise grav^e dans leur cceur, ont dtd brules, n'ayant pas voulu se convertir." Lettres de Guy Patin. ii. 208, dated 21 Sept., 1655. 2 Compare Cassel, p. 135. A. C. 1490. BANISHMENT OF THE HERETICS. 399 archpriests, one of tlie Cathedral of the Assumption, one of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel. The sovereign, I wan III., listened, without suspicion of her¬ esy, to the Cabalistic teaching of these men. The Princess Helena became a convert. Even more won¬ derful, the Archimandrite Zozimus was promoted to the Metropolitan throne of All the Russias. " The son of Satan sat on the throne of the Holy Saints who had Christianized the realm." At length the dire spir¬ itual conspiracy was discovered by Gennadius, Arch¬ bishop of Novogorod. The Czar could not but summon a council of Bishops, Archimandrites, Abbots, and Priests. Before this council the depositions were laid, implicating a great number of ecclesiastics and laymen at Novogorod, Moscow, and other cities. Zozimus only and Kouritzin, the Secretary of State, were not in¬ volved in the charge. Zozimus was obliged to listen O O while the others were arraigned by the zealous Arch¬ bishop as guilty of cursing Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin, of spitting on the crucifix, of calling the sacred images idols, and biting them with their teeth while they seemed to kiss them with their lips ; of casting them into foul places; of denying Paradise and the Resurrection of the Dead. Some were for putting the accused, even priests of the highest rank, to the tor¬ ture, and condemning them to death. The mild Iwan interfered; the council by his direction was content with launching an anathema against the terrible heresy, and banishing its adherents. The zealous Archbishop, Gennadius, sent some of the most notorious to Novo¬ gorod (the council was held at Moscow). These were set on horses, with their faces to the tails, their gar¬ ments turned inside out, and with horned caps, like the paintings of the Devil, and crowns of straw, with 400 DISMISSAL OF THE METROPOLITAN. Book XXIX. a writing thereon, " Behold the Host of Satan!" They were thus paraded through the streets ; the rab¬ ble spat upon them, and jeered them, " Lo, the Ene¬ mies of Jesus Christ! " The mildness of this punish¬ ment among the rude Muscovites might put to shame the bloody hecatombs and flaming Autos-da-Fe of more civilized kingdoms. Zozimus, the Metropolitan, still wore the mask of consummate hypocrisy. In public he was a pious Christian ; it is said that he practised the Christian virtues. In secret he mocked at the ldnor- o dom of God, at Christ, and the Resurrection; " at Him who never was and never will be." In the palace of the Metropolitan, in the palace of the Secretary of State, meetings were held, it was said, sumptuous ban¬ quets, in which the Cabala, with its profound questions, its subtle allegories, its astrology, were the common conversation. A general Pyrrhonism spread abroad; monks and laymen were heard in public discussing the mysteries of the Holy Trinity. Zozimus abused his power by degrading orthodox and advancing Judaizing priests. lie affected the fullest Christian toleration: " Bear no malice to any one, not even to heretics : the pastors of the Church should always and only preach peace." At length some discovery was made. It is not known how far these secret proceedings were divulged to the sovereign. But the wise Iwan would avoid the scandal of the degradation of a Metropolitan, — a Met¬ ropolitan promoted by himself. Zozimus was quietly dismissed and sent back to his monastery. He was afterwards (we may perhaps mistrust the charges of his enemies), on account of drunkenness, removed from that of St. Simon to that of the Trinity. But Kou- ritzin, the Secretarv of State, long enjoyed the favor Book XXIX. JEWS IN THE ARMY OF KOSCIUSKO. 401 of his master. This Crypto-Judaism lurked long in the bosom of the Russian Church; when it was entirely extinguished, if extinguished, remains unknown.1 Russia in the following centuries still adhered to her hostility to the Jews; but her ambition was too strong for her intolerance. As province after province was added to her vast empire, and as of almost all these provinces a large part of the population, at least the wealthiest and most industrious, were Jews, expulsion was impossible ; Russia did not conquer to rule over a desert. Her policy became of necessity more wise and humane. The partition of Poland, or rather the two partitions, with the enormous share which fell into her iron grasp, gave her nearly half a million of Jew¬ ish subjects. Though, like other Poles, they were un¬ willing subjects (many Jews fought bravely in the army of Kosciusko), yet their numbers, their wealth, their importance, enforced only moderate oppression. Of the millions of Jews upon the face of the earth, loosely and vaguely estimated at five, seven, or eight millions, two millions2 are subjects of the Russian em¬ pire. I return to the subject. Poland was the seat of the Rabbinical Papacy. The Talmud ruled supreme in the public mind; the syn¬ agogues obeyed with impljcit deference the mandates of their spiritual superiors, and the whole system of education was rigidly conducted, so as to perpetuate the authority of tradition. Lublin and Cracow were the great seats of Jewish learning. How far in more recent times these barriers have been broken down by the more free and liberal spirit of Western Judaism, 1 All this is from Karamsin's Hist, of Russia (French translation), t. vi. pp. 242-250. 2 Cassel, Ersch und Griiber, gives for the year 1838: — In Russia, 1,507,995 souls; in Poland, 453,046, of which 36,390 are in Warsaw. vol. hi. 23 402 JEWS IN" WESTERN EUROPE. Book XXIX. it would be bard to determine. We have seen in the last Book some insurrections, — insurrections which ended in almost general submission, and so added to the strength of the ruling authority. In the West of Europe, during all this period, those great changes were slowly preparing, which, before the close of the century, were to disorganize the whole framework of society. The new opinions not merely altered the political condition of the Jews, as well as that of almost all orders of men, but they penetrated into the very sanctuary of Judaism, and threatened to shake the dominion of the Rabbins, as they had that of the Christian priesthood, to its base. It is singular, however, that the first of these daring innovators, who declared war alike against ancient prejudices and the most sacred principles, excluded the Jews from the wide pale of their philanthropy. The old bitter and contemptuous antipathy against the Jews lurks in the writings of many of the philosophic school, especially those of Gibbon and Voltaire. It was partly the leaven of hereditary aversion, partly, perhaps, the fastidious¬ ness of Parisian taste, which dreaded all contamination from a filthy and sordid, as well as a superstitious race ; but, most of all, it arose from the intimate relation of the Mosaic with the Christian religion. The Jews were hated as the religious ancestors of the Christians; and, in Paley's phrase, it became the accustomed mode of warfare " to wound Christianity through the sides of Judaism." Strange fate of the Jews, after having suf¬ fered centuries of persecution for their opposition to Christianity, now to be held up to public scorn and de¬ testation for their alliance with it!1 1 Montesquieu, if he may be justly reckoned with this school, is a bright example of the opposite spirit. Read the striking letter, supposed to be ad- A. p. 1750. FREDERICK THE GREAT. 408 The legislation of Frederick the Great almost, as it were, throws us back into the Middle Ages. In 1750 7 O appeared an edict for the general regulation of the Jews in the Prussian dominions. It limited the num¬ ber of Jews in the kingdom, divided them into those who held an ordinary or an extraordinary protection from the Crown. The ordinary protection descended to one child, the extraordinary was limited to the life of the bearer. Foreign Jews were prohibited from settling in Prussia; exceptions were obtained only at an exorbitant price. Widows who married foreign Jews must leave the kingdom. The protected Jews were liable to enormous and special burdens. They paid, besides the common taxes of the kingdom, for their patent of protection, for every election of an elder in their communities, and every marriage. By a strange enactment, in which the king and the merchant were somewhat unroyally combined, every Jew on the mar¬ riage of a son was obliged to purchase porcelain, to the amount of 800 rix-dollars, from the king's manufac¬ tory, for foreign exportation. Thus heavily burdened, the Jews were excluded from all civil functions, and from many of the most profitable branches of trade — from agriculture, from breweries and distilleries, from manufactures, from innkeeping, from victualling, from physic and surgery. Nor in more enlightened countries was the public mind prepared for any innovations in the relative con¬ dition of the Jews. In England, from the time of Charles II., they had lived in peace in their two com¬ munities of Portuguese and German origin. At first, dressed on the occasion of the burning of a young Jewess in an Auto-da-Fd at Lisbon, to the Inquisitors, showing that the persecution of the Christians in Japan was only an antitype of theirs. Esprit des Lois, xx. 14. 404 JEWS OFFER TO BUY ST. PAUL'S. Book XXIX. indeed, the favor which was said to be shown to them by Cromwell was looked on with jealousy by the Roy¬ alists after the Restoration. A remonstrance was ad¬ dressed to the King.1 It dwelt on the mischiefs per¬ petrated by the Jews from the time of AVilliam the Conqueror to that of Edward I.; their privileges ob¬ tained by bribery, their usuries, and malpractices; their expulsion from the realm at the petition and amid the general joy of the nation. They had returned, resumed their fraudulent practices, and in their pros¬ perity presumed to offer to buy the Cathedral of St. Paul's for a synagogue. The remonstrants prayed for a commission to seize their property for the people's use, and to banish them forever from the kingdom. They were in some danger in those loose days. Some of their wealthiest were threatened with the seizure of their whole property, as illegally trading, even as residents in the land, by some of the profligate cour¬ tiers (Mr. Rycant and others), who, no doubt from their Christian zeal, declared both their estates and lives to be forfeit. The Earl of Berkshire betrayed the secret of that zeal; he pretended to have received a verbal order from the King to prosecute them and seize their estates, unless they made agreement with him. To do the King (Charles II.) justice, he received their petition graciously, utterly denied the verbal order, and gave them permission to enjoy the same favor as before, so long as they should live peaceably and in obedience to the laws.2 1 Mrs. Everett Greene, Calendar of State Papers, 1666, p. 366. There is a petition from two converted Jews to share in the charity of Henry III. settled on the Rolls House. The Master of the Rolls of that time had charged the estate with 2021. Os. id. for the charity, p. 171. 2 See the notice of the Petition of Emanuel Martinez Dormido (doubtless a Portuguese Jew) and others in behalf of the Jews trading in and about London, in Mrs. Everett Greene's Calendar of State Papens, Aug. 22,1664, p. 672. A. C. 1753. THEY PROPOSE TO PURCHASE BRENTFORD. 405 The Jews had obtained relief under James II. from an alien-duty, which restricted their traffic; the in¬ dulgence was revoked under William III. The Lord Treasurer Godolphin was tempted with an offer of the Jews to purchase the town of Brentford (was it the situation or the dirt of Brentford which attracted the Jews?) at the price of <£500,000, —r-it might be a million. Godolphin dreaded the fanaticism of the clergy and the jealousy of the merchants, and declined the offer.1 Under Queen Anne a regulation was made to facili¬ tate conversions among the Jews ; the Chancellor was empowered to enforce from the father of a convert to Christianity a fair and sufficient maintenance. The baptism of a rich and influential person of the sect, named Moses Marcus, excited a considerable sensation at the time. At the beginning of the eighteenth cen- O O o tury, the cause of the Jews was brought forward under the unpopular auspices of Toland the Free-thinker. In 1753 a more important measure was attempted. A Bill was introduced into Parliament for the naturali¬ zation of all Jews who had resided three years in the kingdom, without being absent more than three months at a time. It excluded them from civil offices, but in 1 " The Jews offered my Lord Godolphin to pay 500,000/. (and they would have made it a million), if the government would allow them to purchase the town of Brentford, with leave of settling there entirely, wi h full privilege of trade, &c. The agent from the .Jews said that the affair was already concerted with the chief of their brethren abroad, that it would bring the riches of their merchants hither, and of course an addition of more than twenty millions of money to circulate in the nation. Lord Molesworth was in the room with Lord Godolphin when this proposal was made, and, as soon as the agent was gone, pressed him to close with it. Lord Godolphin was not of his opinion. He foresaw that it would pro¬ voke two of the most powerful bodies in the nation, the clergy and the merchants. He gave other reasons, too, against it, and, in fine, it was dropped." Spence's Anecdotes, 215. 406 THE NATURALIZATION BILL. Book XXIX. other respects bestowed all the privileges of British subjects. The Bill passed both Houses, and received the royal assent. But the old jealousies only slum¬ bered, — they were not extinguished. The nation, as if horror-struck at finding those whom it had been accustomed to consider as outlaws thus suddenly intro¬ duced into its bosom, burst into an irresistible clamor of indignation. The Mayor and citizens of London (for mercantile jealousy mingled with religious preju¬ dices) took the lead in denouncing this inroad on the Constitution and insult on Christianity.1 The bishops were everywhere insulted for not having opposed the Bill. The Bishop of Norwich on his Confirmation circuit was hooted in almost every town. At Ipswich the youths who were to be confirmed called out for circumcision. A paper was affixed on the door of one of the churches, that his Lordship would the next day, Saturday, their Sabbath, confirm the Jews, on Sunday the Christians. The pulpits thundered: a respectable clergyman, Tucker, who had written a defence of the measure, was maltreated by the populace. The ministry and the Houses of Parliament found it necessary to repeal the obnoxious statute.2 The number of the Jews in England was then reck¬ oned at 12,000. In Italy, till the French Revolution, the Jews en¬ joyed their quiet freedom. In Rome they were confined to their Ghetto, and still constrained to listen to period¬ ical sermons. In the maritime towns they continued 1 Among the arguments for the Naturalization Bill in England was the manifest extent to which the Jews had contributed to the wealth and pros¬ perity of the great trading cities of Europe— Amsterdam, Leghorn, Venice. a Coxe's Lives of the Pelhams. In this work there is a good account of . the debate, with an abstract of the speech of Mr. Pelham (ii. 290). Book XXIX. JEWS IN THE TWO SICILIES. 407 to prosper. An attempt by the king himself to secure their re establishment in the kingdom of Naples is re¬ markable for the politic boldness on the part of the king, and its failure through the unmitigated hostility of the clergy and the populace. On the separation of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies from the Spanish monarchy, the king, Charles, seemed determined to repudiate the Spanish policy. With a view probably to the restoration of the commerce of the realm, a royal edict was issued, inviting the Jews to settle for sixty years in the Two Sicilies. The edict, by the rights and privileges which it conferred, might seem studiously to reverse all the policy of the Middle Ages. They might trade in all parts by sea and land, exempt from tolls, and on the same footing as other corporations. They might practise every handicraft, hold lands, ex¬ cept such as had feudal jurisdiction. They might import the necessaries of life without custom-dues ; they might practise medicine even upon Christians, under Christian superintendence ; they had their special judi¬ cature, and were exempt from all other civil magistracy; they might print books in all languages ; they might have Turkish slaves and Christian domestics, men of twenty-five years old, women of thirty-five ; they might bear arms ; they might have their special meat-mar¬ kets and granaries. The excommunicating power of the Rabbins was acknowledged; they might choose the heads of their communities in Naples, Messina, Palermo. Christians were strictly forbidden to insult or injure them, or to make proselytes of their children. The Jews crowded at the royal summons to Naples, — per¬ haps not without ostentation of their newly-acquired privileges, and of their wealth. But they ought to have known better the public mind at Naples. The 408 MOSES MENDELSSOHN. Book XXIX. hatred, which was here universal, broke out into fury. The clergy thundered against them from the pulpits ; the Pope, and the king's confessor, held almost a saint, denounced them in the sternest sermons. A Capucin Friar threatened the king himself: " for this impious deed he would die childless." There were brooding murmurs of a massacre. The Jews dared not open shops ; they withdrew, except a few of the lowest. The premature scheme of toleration utterly failed.1 In Germany the public mind was surprised at the unusual phenomenon of a Jew suddenly starting for¬ ward in the career of letters, and assuming a high and 7 o © acknowledged rank in the rapidly awakening literature of that country, as a metaphysical and philosophical w*riter. This was the celebrated Moses Mendelssohn, who, by genius and unwearied application, broke through the most formidable obstacles, poverty, dependence, and the spirit of his sect. The Jews were proud of his distinction, but trembled at his desertion of their ancient opinions ; the Christians confidently looked for¬ ward to the accession of so enlightened a mind to the © Church ; the philosophers expected him to join in their fierce crusade against religion. Mendelssohn main¬ tained his own calm and independent course. He re¬ mained outwardly a member of the synagogue, while he threw aside disdainfully the trammels of Rabbinism ; to a letter of Lavater, urging him to embrace Chris- 7 © o tianity, he returned a firm and temperate vindication of his adherence to his former faith ; his mild and amiable spirit had little in common with the unprincipled apostles of unbelief. It would be difficult to define the religious opinions of Mendelssohn, whose mind, in some 1 Muratori, Ann. d'ltalia (sub ann. 1740); Memoire Historique et Poli¬ tique. A. C. 1740. HIS INFLUENCE IN GERMANY. 409 respects singularly lucid, in others partook of the vague and dreamy mysticism of his German countrymen ; but if he had any fixed view, it probably was to infuse into a kind of philosophic, or, as it would now be called, rationalizing, Judaism the spirit of pure Christian love. But whatever the opinions of Mendelssohn, whether Jew or Christian, or with an undefined and blended creed, his translations of the Pentateuch and of the Psalms into German forbid all doubt as to the sincerity of his belief; his success in letters exercised an impor¬ tant influence both on the minds of his own brethren, and on the estimation in which the Jews were held, at least in Germany. Many of the Jewish youth, emancipated by his example from the control of Rab- binism,1 probably rushed headlong down the precipice of unbelief; while, on the other hand, a kindlier feel¬ ing gradually arose towards the brethren of a man whose writings delighted and instructed much of the O O rising youth of Germany. It is impossible to over-estimate the influence of Mendelssohn in Europeanizing, if I may so say, and civilizing his German brethren, in throwing down the barriers behind which the Jews were self-exiled, or exiled by the scorn and hatred of mankind, and intro¬ ducing them imperceptibly within the pale of society. No one, except perhaps a hard orthodox Rabbi, could refuse to admire, to love Mendelssohn, and that admira¬ tion and that love spread unconsciously over his race. In the year 1780, the imperial avant-courier of the 1 For the double effect of the progress of more liberal opinions, and the overthrow of the Rabbinical rule without any counterbalancing method of instruction, or books of authority, read a remarkable passage in Jost, ix. 107,110. Jost's account of his own youth, and the lamentable state of the Jewish schools, in his Autobiography (Sippurim, iii. p. 141), is instructive. 410 JEWS ALLOWED TO RESipE IN VIENNA. Book XXIX. Revolution, Joseph the Second, ascended the throne. Among the first measures of this restless and universal reformer, was a measure for the amelioration of the condition of the Jews. In Vienna, they had been barely tolerated since their expulsion by Leopold the First. This monarch had a Jewish mistress, named Esther, who was shot crossing the bridge from Leopold- stadt to the capital. The crime was, most improbably, charged on the Jews, and the afflicted monarch revenged her death by the expulsion of her brethren from the city. But this exile was not lasting. Under Maria The resa, the Jews were permitted to reside in Vienna, and enjoyed some sort of protection. They might ex¬ ercise certain trades,1 as money-changers, jewellers, manufacturers ; they had full freedom of worship in their synagogues, but might not leave their houses dur¬ ing the hours of Divine service on Sundays and holi¬ days. In the other provinces of the Empire they had lived unmolested, unless perhaps by some vexatious local regulations, or by popular commotions in the dif¬ ferent cities. Joseph published his edict of toleration a. c. 1782, by which he opened to the Jews the schools and the universities of the Empire, and gave them the privilege of taking degrees as doctors in philosophy, medicine, and civil law. It enforced upon them the wise preliminary measure of establishing primary schools for their youth. It threw open the Avhole circle of trade to their speculations, permitted them to establish manufactories of all softs, excepting gunpowder, and to attend fairs in towns where they were not domiciliated. In all the cities of the Empire it made them liable to a toleration-tax, and certain other contributions; but it gave them equal rights, and subjected them to the same 1 Jost, ix. 6G. A. C. 1782. POLICY OF FREDERICK WILLIAM II. 411 laws, with the Christians. Some years after, they were made liable to military conscription ; but, according to the established Austrian code, not being nobles, they could not rise above the rank of non-commissioned officers. The publication of Dohm, 1781, upon the rights of the Jews as citizens, with many valuable suggestions on the elevation of their position and character, and espe¬ cially their education, excited public attention. It reserved certain powers to the Rabbinical priesthood, particularly that of excommunication. Mendelssohn raised his voice loudly and fiercely against this last ves¬ tige of spiritual domination. Frederick William the Second repealed to a great extent the barbarous edicts of Frederick the Great. The Jews were permitted to redeem for a certain sum the compulsory purchase of porcelain at the royal manufactory. The French Revolution was advancing, that terrible epoch in which all that was wise and sound, as well as all that was antiquated and iniquitous in the old insti¬ tutions of Europe, was shattered to the earth, — but from which All-merciful Providence has educed much, and will no doubt, as from the tornado, the earthquake, and the volcanic eruption, educe much further eventual good. The Revolution found Jews in France: after their final expulsion, a few Portuguese fugitives had been permitted to take up their abode in Bordeaux and Bayonne. These passed at first under the name of New Christians. Letters-patent of Louis XIII. recog¬ nize their civil existence. By degrees they were em¬ boldened to marry without the intervention of the clergy, and to elude baptism. The clergy were too busily employed in the persecution of the dangerous Protestants to waste their intolerance on a few con- 412 FRENCH JEWS — THE REVOLUTION. Book XXIX. temptible Jews. But the Jews were gradually accu¬ mulating wealth; and wealth, taxable wealth, was profitable, not dangerous, to the State. New letters- patent (in 1623) recognized them as Jews. They had already built a synagogue ; the Parliament of Bordeaux did not hesitate to reject the royal edict. The Jews paid 110,000 francs for their privilege. It was under¬ stood that the registration was to he renewed at the commencement of each reign. The Jews of Bayonne, which included those of St. Jean de Luz, Biarritz, and other towns, at first wore the same disguise, and by degrees obtained the same privilege, as did also the Jews of Marseilles ; letters-patent in their favor were registered in the Parliament of Aix (1688). There were a certain number in the old Papal dominions in Avignon. The conquest of the city of Metz, and after¬ wards of Alsace, included some considerable communi¬ ties under the dominion of France. There, especially in the Com tat de Venaisin, they had been exposed to the zeal of the clergy, who decoyed, or even stole, their children in order to baptize them. Many of them, however, attained to wealth, and indulged in great luxury. Within houses modest, humble, even nide in their outward appearance, linked Oriental splendor ; costly furniture, silken hangings, sumptuous plate, and all the show and reality of wealth. The Jews of this latter province presented a remarkable petition, in 1780, to the king in council. It displayed the almost intolerable grievances 1 under which their communities had especially suffered from the time of their remote establishment. The Parliament of Metz had burned many Jews on the old charge of murdering 1 See, on these grievances, and the acts of Louis XIV., Biidarride, pp. 377 e< seq., as also on the condition of the Jews of Lorraine. BOOK XXIX. LOUIS XIY. — THE HEAD-TAX. 413 an infant at Glatigny on Easter-day, a. c. 1670. On the annexation of Alsace, Louis XIY. extended, for his own advantage, the privileges of free commerce, enjoyed by those of Bordeaux, Bayonne, Marseilles, to the Jews of Metz. They paid a head-tax of forty francs a family, afterwards compounded for by 2000 francs annually. This revenue had been granted, as in days of old, as a gift to the Duke of Brancas. The Jews complained of the burden of the seigniorial rights. Besides the royal patent of protection, for which they paid, the lords of the soil exacted a capitation-tax for the right of residence within their domains, from which not even the aged or infirm, nor children, nor the Rabbins and officers of the synagogue, were exempt. These privileges were not hereditary; they expired with the person of the bearer, and for each child a special patent was to be purchased. They complained likewise of the restrictions on their commerce, and of the activity of the clergy, who seduced their children at a very tender age to submit to baptism. They proposed, with great justice, that no abjuration of Judaism should be per¬ mitted under twelve years of age. In later days an appeal to the equity of Louis the Sixteenth was not in vain, — the capitation-tax was abolished in 1784 ; and in 1788, a commission was appointed, with the wise and good Malesherbes 1 at its head, to devise means for re¬ modelling on principles of justice all laws relating to the Jews. The celebrated Abbd Gr^goire gained the 1 Malesherbes first abolished the toll which the Jews paid, like animals, at the gates of the cities, especially in Alsace and the neighboring provinces. Denisart has given the tariff" paid at Chateau-neuf-sur-Loire:— For a Jew . . 12 deniers For a Jewess with child 9 " For an ordinary Jewess 6 " For a dead Jew 5 sous For a dead Jewess SO deniers (Quoted by B&Iarride, p. 555.) 414 CROMWELL AND BONAPARTE COMPARED. Book XXIX. prize for a dissertation, which was received with great applause, on the means of working the regeneration of the Jews. But the revolutionary tribunals were more rapid in their movements than the slow justice of the sovereign. In 1790, the Jews, who had watched their opportunity, sent .in petitions from various quarters, claiming equal rights as citizens. The measure was not passed without considerable discussion; but Mira- beau and Rabaut St. Etienne declared themselves their advocates, and the Jews were recognized as free citizens of the great republic.1 A parallel has often been instituted between Crom¬ well and Bonaparte ; it is a curious coincidence that both should have been engaged in designs for the advantage of the Jews. In the year 1806, while Bonaparte was distributing to his followers the king¬ doms of Europe, and consolidating the superiority of France over the whole Continent, the world heard with amazement, almost bordering on ridicule, that he had summoned a grand Sanhedrin of the Jews to assemble at Paris. We are more inclined to look for motives of policy in the acts of Napoleon, than of vanity or philanthropy ; nor does it seem unlikely that in this singular transaction he contemplated remotely, if not immediately, both commercial and military objects. He might hope to turn to his own advantage, by a cheap sacrifice to the national vanity, the wide extended and rapid correspondence of the Jews throughout the world, which notoriously outstripped his own couriers ; and the secret ramifications of their trade, which not only commanded the supply of the precious metals, but much of the internal traffic of Europe, and probably made great inroads on his Continental system. At all 1 27 Sept. 1791, and 30 Nov. Hist. Parlementaire, ii. 457. Book XXIX. JEWISH DEPUTATION TO NAPOLEON. 415 events, in every quarter of Europe, the Jews would be invaluable auxiliaries of a commissariat ; and as the reconstruction of the kingdom of Poland might at any time enter into his political system, their aid might not be unworthy of consideration. It must, however, be acknowledged, that the twelve questions submitted first to the deputation of the Jews, and confirmed by the Sanhedrin, seem to refer to the Jews strictly as sub¬ jects and citizens of the empire. They were, briefly, as follows : — I. Is polygamy allowed among the Jews ? II. Is divorce recognized by the Jewish law ? III. Can Jews intermarry with Christians ? IV. Will the French people be esteemed by the Jews as strangers or as brethren ? V. In what relation, according to the Jewish law, would the Jewrs stand towards the French ? VI. Do Jews born in France consider it their native country ? Are they bound to obey the laws and customs of the land ? VII. Who elect the Rabbins ? VIII. What are the legal powers of the Rabbins ? IX. Are the election and authority of the Rabbins grounded on law or custom ? X. Is there any kind of business in which the Jews may not be engaged ? XI. Is usury to their brethren forbidden by the law? XII. Is it permitted or forbidden to practise usury with strangers ? The answers of the deputies were clear and precise.1 They were introduced by some general maxims, skil¬ fully adapted to the character of the ruling power, and to that of the French nation. They declared that their religion commanded them to acknowledge the supremacy of the law enacted by sovereigns in all civil and political affairs. If their religious code, or its interpretation, 1 The President of the Sanhedrin's first deputation was Abraham Furtado, of Bordeaux; the imperial commissioners, MM. Mold, Portalis the younger, and Pasquier. The deputation met July 20, 1800. The Sanhedrin met Feb. 8, 1807. 416 RECEPTION OF THE DEPUTATION. Book XXIX. contained any civil or political regulations inconsistent with the Code of France, they would be overruled, as it was the primary duty to acknowledge and to obey the law of the sovereign. They further declared that France was their country, all Frenchmen their brothers. " This glorious title, so exalting to us in our own estimation, is the true guaranty for our steadfast en¬ deavors to deserve it. Our relations to Christians are the same as to Jews ; the only distinction is, that each should be permitted to worship the Supreme Being in his own way." As the special answers tend to eluci¬ date the opinions of the more enlightened Jews, they are subjoined, with as much conciseness as possible, though I suspect that they are not universally recognized as the authoritative sentence of the nation.1 I. Polyg¬ amy is forbidden, according to a decree of the Synod of Worms, in 1030. II. Divorce is allowed; but in this respect the Jews recognize the authority of the civil law of the land in which they live. III. Inter¬ marriages with Christians are not forbidden, though difficulties arise from the different forms of marriage. IV. The Jews of France recognize in the fullest sense the French people as their brethren. V. The relation of the Jew to the Frenchman is the same as of Jew to Jew. The only distinction is in their religion. VI. The Jews acknowledged France as their country when 1 See the curious scene described by the elder Disraeli (Genius of Judaism) p. 74 — the dispute between the free-thinker and the orthodox Jew whether the Law should be called the Law of God or the Law of Moses. Mr. Dis¬ raeli's conclusion is somewhat magniloquent: "It is not surprising that the Parisian Sanhedrin was not only a mockery but a failure of the mocker. Even despotism shrinks into the weakness of infancy when Heaven itself seems to place an impassable barrier to its design; and it encounters minds inscrutable as the laws which govern them." With due respect, I do not see the failure. Napoleon wished to conciliate the Jews (for their religious opinions he cared not a jot); the Jews obtained what they wanted, the right of citizenship. A. C. 1806. THEY REPLY TO OBJECTIONS. 417 oppressed, — how much more must they when admitted to civil rights ! VII. The election of the Rabbips is neither defined nor uniform. It usually rests with the heads of each family in the community. VIII. The Rabbins have no judicial power ; the Sanhedrin is the only legal tribunal. The Jews of France and Italy being subject to the equal laws of the land, whatever power they might otherwise exercise is annulled. IX. The election and powers of the Rabbins rest solely on usage. X. All business is permitted to the Jews. The Talmud enjoins that every Jew be taught some trade. XI., XII. The Mosaic institute forbids unlawful inter¬ est ; but this was the law of an agricultural people. The Talmud allows legal interest to be taken from brethren and strangers ; it forbids usury. There was a preparatory assemblage of Jewish Depu¬ ties selected from the different provinces in proportion to the Jewish population in each : A. Furtado of Bor¬ deaux was President of that assembly. In 1807 the Sanhedrin was formally assembled, according to a plan then proposed for the regular organization of the Jews throughout the empire. Every 2000 Jews were to form a synagogue and a consistory, of one head and two inferjor Rabbins, with three householders of the town where the consistory was held. The consistory chose twenty-five Notables, above thirty years old, for their council. Bankrupts and usurers were excluded; the consistory was to watch over the conduct of the Rabbins; the central consistory of Paris was to be a Supreme Tribunal, with the power of appointing or deposing the Rabbins; the Rabbins were to publish the decrees of the Sanhedrin, to preach obedience to the laws, to urge their people to enter into the military service ; to pray in the synagogues for the Imperial vol. in. 27 418 IMPERIAL "EDICT CONCERNING THE JEWS. Book XXIX. House ! The Sanhedrin, assembled in this manner, generally ratified the scheme of the Deputies. The Imperial edict confirmed the whole system of organiza¬ tion, though the triumph of the Jews was in some degree damped by an ordinance, aimed chiefly at those of the Rhenish provinces. It interdicted the Jews from lending money to minors without consent of their guardians, to wives without consent of their husbands, to soldiers without consent of their officers. It annulled all bills for wdiich " value received" could not be proved. All Jews engaged in commerce were obliged to take out a patent, all strangers to invest some prop¬ erty in land and agriculture. The general effect of these measures was shown in a return made in 1808. It reported that there were 80,000 Jews in the dominion of France, 1282 landed proprietors, not reckoning the owners of houses, 797 military, 2860 artisans, 250 manufacturers. The extension of the French kingdoms and the © erection of tributary kingdoms were highly beneficial to the Jews; in Italy, in Holland, in the kingdom of Westphalia, the old barbarous restrictions fell away, and the Jew became a citizen with all the rights and duties of the order. The laws of France relating to the Jews have re¬ mained unaltered, excepting that the Law of the Restoration, which enacted that the teachers of Chris¬ tianity alone should be salaried by the State, was modi¬ fied at the accession of Louis Philippe. Since that period the Rabbins have received a stipend from the State. In Italy, excepting in the Tuscan dominions, they have become again subject to the ancient regula¬ tions. In Germany, some hostility is yet lurking in the popular feeling, not so much from religious ani- Book XXIX. IMPROVEMENT IN CONDITION OF JEWS. 419 mosity, as from commercial jealousy, in the great trading towns, Hamburg, Bremen, Liibeck, and particularly Frankfort, where they are still liable to an oppressive tax for the right of residence. Nor did the ancient nobility behold, without sentiments of natural indigna¬ tion, their proud patrimonial estates falling, during the great political changes, into the hands of the more prosperous Israelites. Nevertheless, the condition of the Jews, both political and intellectual, has been rapidly improving. Before the fall of Napoleon, besides many of the smaller states, the Grand-Duke of Baden in 1809, the King of Prussia in 1812, the Duke of Mecklenburg- Schwerin in 1812, the King of Bavaria in 1813, issued ordinances, admitting the Jews to civil rights, exempting them from particular imposts, and opening to them all trades and professions. The act for the federative constitution of Germany, passed at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, pledges the Diet to turn its attention to the amelioration of the civil state of the Jews through¬ out the Empire. The King of Prussia had, before this, given security that he would nobly redeem his pledge ; he had long paid great attention to the en¬ couragement of education among the Jews, and in his & o 7 rapidly improving dominions the Israelites are said to be by no means the last in the career of advancement. Nor has his benevolence been wasted on an ungrateful race ; they are reported to be attached, with patriotic zeal, to their native land; many Jews are stated to have fallen in the Prussian ranks at Waterloo. During the year 1828, while the States of Wiirtemberg were discussing a Bill for the extension of civil rights to the Jews, the populace of Stuttgard surrounded the Hall of Assembly with fierce outcries, " Down with the Jews ! Down with the friends of the Jews ! " The 420 JEWS OF RUSSIA. Book XXIX. States maintained their dignity, and, unmoved, pro¬ ceeded to the ratification of the obnoxious edict. Russia, it has been said, if we take the low estimate, which I am altogether disinclined to do, of four millions for the whole Jewish population in the world, contains half the descendants of Abraham. In the earlier period of her empire, dating that empire from Peter the Great, before her wider southern conquests and the Polish annexations, she still maintained her stern inliospitality. In Muscovy Proper, by law, no Jew could reside within the frontiers. Under Peter the Great a few stole in unobserved and unmolested. They were expelled by an Ukase of the Empress Elizabeth, a. c. 1795, for a crime unpardonable by a Russian autocrat. They had, by letters of change, secured the property of certain exiles to Siberia and foreign countries; and invested, out of Russia, the savings of foreigners employed in the Russian service. In later years, the policy of the Russian Government seems to have been to endeavor to overthrow the Rabbinical authority, and to relieve the crowded Polish provinces by transferring the Jews to less densely peopled parts of their dominions, where, it was hoped, they might be induced or compelled to become an agricultural race. An Ukase of the Emperor Alexander, in 1803—'4, prohibited the practice of small trades to the Jews of Poland, and proposed to transport numbers of them to agricultural settlements. He trans¬ ferred, likewise, the management of the revenue of the communities, from the Rabbins, who were accused of malversation, to the Elders. A decree of the Emperor Nicholas appears to be aimed partly at the Rabbins, who are to be immediately excluded by the police from any town they may enter, and at the petty traffickers, who are entirely prohibited in the Russian dominions; Book XXIX. NUMBER OF JEWS. 421 though the higher order of merchants, such as bill- brokers and contractors, are admitted, on receiving an express permission from the government: artisans and handicraftsmen are encouraged, though they are subject to rigorous police regulations, and must be attached to some guild or fraternity. They cannot move without a passport. The important Ukase of 1835 is the charter, we must not say of their liberties, but limits the oppres¬ sion to which the Jews were formerly liable, and gives them a defined state and position in the Russian empire. It only remains to give the best estimate I can obtain of the number of the Jews now dispersed throughout the four quarters of the world. Such statements must of necessity be extremely loose and imperfect. Even in Europe it would be difficult to approximate closely to the truth; how much more so in Africa and Asia, where our conclusions depend on no statistic returns, and where the habits of the people are probably less stationary ! It is usually calculated that there exist between four and five millions1 of this people, descended in a direct line from, and maintaining the same laws with, their forefathers, who, above 3000 years ago, retreated from Egypt under the guidance of their inspired lawgiver.2 In Africa we know little more of their numbers than that they are found along the whole coast, from Mo¬ rocco to Egypt; they travel with the caravans into the 1 Monsieur R^nan (Langues S^mitiques, p. 43) sets down the Jews scattered over the whole world at four millions. Bddarride (himself a Jew) gives six or seven millions (Preface, p. v). I am assured, on good authority, that there cannot be less than three millions in Europe. I should think this a low statement. 2 I have made inquiries in many quarters, among some of our best in¬ formed Jews, yet have been able to obtain very few satisfactory results. It does not appear that they themselves keep any regular statistics: the only certain statements are from the official population returns in some of the kingdoms of Europe. 422 ESTIMATE OF Book XXIX. interior; nor is there probably a region undiscovered by Christian enterprise which has not been visited by the Jewish trafficker. In Morocco they are said to be held in low estimation, and to be treated with great indignity by the Moors. That empire has about 540,000.! In Egypt, 150 families alone inhabit that great city, Alexandria, which has so often flowed with torrents of Jewish blood, and where, in the splendid days of the Macedonian city, their still-recruited wealth excited the rapacious jealousy of the hostile populace or op¬ pressive government.2 In Cairo, the number of Jews is stated at 2000, in¬ cluding, it appears, sixty Karaite families. The Felashas, or Jewish tribe named by Bruce, in¬ habit the borders of Abyssinia; and it is probable that in that singular kingdom many Jews either dwell or make their periodical visits.3 1 Ersch und Griiber, p. 234. Compare also this page on their occupation and condition. 2 In the Weimar Statement, quoted in my first edition, the Jews of Africa stand as follows:—Morocco and Fez, 300,000; Tunis, 130,000; Algiers, 30,000; Gabes or Habesh, 20,000; Tripoli, 12,000; Egypt, 12,000. Total, 504,000. 8 The Felashas have been recently visited by a pious missionary, M. Stern. See his account, his simpler account, reprinted from the Jewish In¬ telligencer by the London Missionary Society (for in his later volume, " Wanderings among the Felashas in Abj'ssinia," he has been unfortunately seized with the ambition of fine writing). His earlier account contains some curious particulars, but is silent on many points on which we should most desire knowledge. According to M. Stern, the Felashas are miserably priest-ridden; and among the priests were a number of Jewish monks, less like to the Essenes and Therapeutae of old, than to the Faquirs of India, and to the most fanatic Christian ascetics of the East. The fulfilment of the Levitical Law, of which they were proud, seemed to be their highest notion of religion. They boasted that they had Moses and David; but, if I understand right, their Scriptures were in the Ethiopic language and character. They had no Hebrew writings. Of their numbers M. Stern appears to have formed no estimate. On that subject, as on many others Book XXIX. JEWISH POPULATION OF THE GLOBE. 423 In Asia the Jews are still found in considerable num¬ bers on the verge of the continent; in China they are now found in one city alone, and possess only one synagogue.1 On the coast of Malabar, in Cochin, two distinct races, called black and white Jews, were vis¬ ited by Dr. Buchanan.2 The traditions of the latter averred that they had found their way to that region after the fall of Jerusalem ; but the date they assigned for their migration singularly coincided with that of a persecution in Persia, about a. c. 508, from whence, most likely, they found their way to India. The ori¬ gin of the black Jews is more obscure : it is not im¬ possible that they may have been converts made by the more civilized whites, or, more probably, are de¬ scendants of black slaves. The Malabar Jews were about one thousand; they possessed a copy of the Old Testament. Many are found in other parts of the East Indies. In Bokhara reside two thousand families of Jews ; in Balkh, 150. In Persia they have deeply partaken of the desola¬ tion which has fallen on the fair provinces of that land; their numbers were variously stated to Mr. Wolff at 2974 and 3590 families. Their chief communities are at Shiraz and Ispahan, Kashaan and Yazd. They are subject to the heaviest exactions, and to the capricious despotism of the governors. " I have travelled far," of interest, his expressions are vague and unsatisfactory. See Account of a Missionary Visit to the Felashas, London, 1861; Wanderings among the Felashas of Abyssinia, by the Rev. H. A. Stern, London, 1862. 1 "Kai-fung, the capital of the latter province [Hoo-nan], and famous to Europeans by being the city in which the small and only tribe of Jews in China have their synagogue and cany out their religious observances." Brine, The Taeping Rebellion in China (London, 1862), p. 184. 2 Buchanan's Researches. I was promised further information on this subject, but it never reached me. 424 JEWS OF THE EAST. Book XXIX. said a Jew to Mr. Wolff; "the Jews are every¬ where princes, in comparison with those in the land of Persia. Heavy is our captivity, heavy is our burden, heavy is our slavery; anxiously we wait for redemption." In Mesopotamia and Assyria, the ancient seats of the Babylonian Jews are still occupied by 5270 fam¬ ilies, exclusive of those in Bagdad and Bassora. The ' o latter are described as a fine race, both in form and in¬ tellect ; in the provinces they are broken in mind and body by the heavy exactions of the pashas, and by long ages of sluggish ignorance. At Bagdad the ancient o oo o o title of Prince of the Captivity, so long, according to the accounts of the Jews, entirely suppressed, was borne by an ancient Jew named Isaac. He paid dear for his honor; he was suddenly summoned to Con¬ stantinople and imprisoned. At Damascus there are seven synagogues and four colleges. In Arabia, whether not entirely expelled by Moham¬ med, or having returned to their ancient dwellings in later periods, the Beni-Khaibar still retain their Jewish descent and faith. In Yemen reside 2658 families, — 18,000 souls. In Palestine, of late years, the Israelites have greatly increased; it is said, but I am inclined to doubt the numbers, that 10,000 inhabit Safet and Jerusalem. They are partly Karaites; some very pathetic hymns of this interesting Israelitish race have been published in the Journals of Mr. Wolff, which must have a sin¬ gularly affecting sound when heard from children of Israel, bewailing, upon the very ruins of Jerusalem, the fallen city, and the suffering people.1 1 The accuracy of the following statement of the Jewish population of Book XXIX. OF TURKEY. 425 In the Turkish dominions, not including the Bar- bary States, the Israelites are calculated at 800,000.1 In Asia Minor they are numerous, in general unen¬ lightened, rapacious, warred on, and at war with man¬ kind. In Constantinople they are described as the most fierce and fanatical race which inhabit the city; hated by and hating the Greeks with the unmitigated ani¬ mosity of ages, they lend themselves to every atrocity for which the government may demand unrelenting executioners. They were employed in the barbarous murder and maltreatment of the body of the Patriarch ; on the other hand, the old rumors of their crucifving 7 %> Christian children are still revived: the body of a youth was found pierced with many wounds ; the mur¬ der was, with one voice, charged upon the Jews. Their numbers are stated at 40,000. Palestine and Syria may be relied on:—Jerusalem, 5700; Safed, 2100; Tiberias, 1514; Hebron, 400; Jaffa, 400; Saida, 150; St. Jean d'Acre, 120; Kharfa, 100; Schafamer, GO; Peykin, 50; Nablous, 40; Ramah, 5. Total, 10,689. Damascus, 5000; Beyrout, 180; Deir el Kamar, 100; Charbera, 1Q0; Tripolis, 40. Total, 5420. Syria and Palestine, 16,059. From " The Jews in the East," by Dr. Frankl (translated by J. R. Beaton), vol. ii. p. 20. Dr. Frankl, himself a Jew, and a very liberal one, was employed by a devout lady of Vienna to found an educational institution for the Jews of Jerusalem. He gives a most deplorable account of their state. They are divided into sects, and sects of sects, hating each other with unmitigated cordiality. The chief divisions are the Sephardim (the Spanish), the Ash- konasim, the Khasin (Germans and Poles). All the munificent charities founded by Mr. Cohen, Sir M. Montefiore, the Rothschilds, except one hos¬ pital, have sunk into decay, and utter uselessness. The poor and indolent Jews, the dregs of the people, are drained from Europe, Asia, and indeed from all parts, to live in Judaea upon the alms of the most wealthy and most bountiful people in the world. This is a kind of Poor-law fund paid by the rich and flourishing houses of the race, with all the evil effects of a Poor-law, and none of its benefits. For these lavish donations are inter¬ cepted and swallowed up by the Rabbins and Priests, who live in idleness and luxury, while the poor starve in idleness and misery. l This number I should think overrated. 426 KARAITES OF THE CRIMEA. Book XXIX. At Adrianople reside eight hundred families, with thirteen synagogues. In Salonichi, 30,000 possess thirty synagogues;1 and in this city, the ancient Thessalonica, the most learned of the Eastern Rabbins are reported to teach in their schools, with great diligence, the old Talmudic learn¬ ing. In the Crimea the Karaites still possess their wild and picturesque mountain-fortress, so beautifully de¬ scribed by Dr. Clarke, with its cemetery reposing un¬ der its ancient and peaceful grove, and retain the sim¬ ple manners of an industrious and blameless people, who are proverbial elsewhere, as in this settlement, for their honesty. Their numbers amount to about 1200.2 In the Russian Asiatic dominions, about Caucasus and in Georgia, their numbers are considerable. In Georgia some of them are serfs attached to the soil; some, among the wild tribes about Caucasus, are bold and marauding horsemen, like their Tartar compa¬ triots. But the ancient kingdom of Poland, with the adja¬ cent provinces of Moravia, Moldavia, and Wallachia, is still the great seat of the modern Jewish population.3 Three millions have been stated to exist in these re¬ gions : but n ) doubt this is a great exaggeration. In o 7 c? oo Poland they still to a great extent form the interme¬ diate class between the haughty nobles and the miser- 1 Luzzate, according to Cassel, reckons 80,000 in Adrianople and Salo¬ nichi. Ersch und Griiber, p. 200. The other towns which they inhabit are recorded in the same page. 2 Among the most interesting passages in Dr. Wolffs Journal is the account of his intercourse with the Karaites in the Crimea. Read their two simple and striking hymns (iii. p. 148), inferior, however, to those of the Karaites in Jerusalem, i. 263. 8 See the account of the Polish Jews, Jost, ix. 167. . ,v Book XXIX. ESTIMATE OF POLISH JEWS, ETC. 427 able agricultural villains of that kingdom. The rapid increase of their population, beyond all possible main¬ tenance by trade, embarrasses the government. They cannot ascend or descend; they may not become pos¬ sessors, they are averse to becoming cultivators of the soil; they swarm in all the towns. In some districts, as in Volhynia, they were described by Bishop James as a fine race, with the lively, expressive eye of the Jew, and forms, though not robust, active and well-propor¬ tioned. Of late years much attention, under the sanc¬ tion of the government, has been paid to their educa¬ tion, and a great institution established for this purpose at Warsaw. The last accounts in Ersch und Griiber for the year 1838 gave for Poland 453,646 (36,390 in Warsaw) ; for the whole Russian dominions alto¬ gether, 1,507,995 souls.1 A later statement, which I owe to the kindness of Mr. Alderman Salomons, gives for Russia 1,250,000 ; for Austria 1,049,871; Poland, 600,000.2 The number of Jews in the Austrian dominions is estimated, not including Poland, at 650,000; in Prus¬ sia 242,000; in the rest of Germany, by conjecture, 108,000. The Emperor of Austria afforded to Europe, some years ago, the novel sight of a Jew created a Baron, and invested with a patent of nobility. In Denmark and Sweden the Jews are in consider¬ able numbers; those resident in Copenhagen were stated, in 1819, at 1491. They enjoy freedom of trade and the protection of the government. In Sweden, King Charles John gave a free constitution to the Jews in g> the four cities which they chiefly inhabited, — Stock- 1 Ersch und Griiber, p. 139. 2 It would seem, as far as I can conjecture, that the Polish Jews are not comprehended in the Russian, but are in the Austrian, calculations. 428 CONTINENTAL SUMMARY. Book XXIX. holm, Gothenburg, Norkoping, and Carlscrona, — hut the States would not accept it. The king, however, obliged to yield in some points, maintained his au¬ thority.1 They are not permitted to enter into Nor¬ way. A law of Christian VIII. in Denmark was in like manner rejected by the States; but the Jews are protected by the government. The kingdom of Belgium contains by the last census only 1843. In Holland the best authenticated returns state the numbers at no less than about 65,000. In France the Israelites were reckoned in 1829 at about 40,000 or 50,000. By the last accounts, they are thought to be underrated at 100,000. Many Jews have attained to the highest political dignities: M. Cremieux was a member of the Provisional Govern¬ ment ; M. Fould is now the finance minister, as in the older days of France and of Spain, to the Emperor Louis Napoleon. In Spain, the iron edict of Ferdinand and Isabella still excludes the Israelite. At the extremity of the land, in Gibraltar, 3000 or 4000 are found voider the equitable protection of Great Britain. Yet there are Jews, or reputed Jews, in the highest ranks and offices. In Portugal they have been tolerated since the time of King John VI., who remunerated their ser¬ vices,'in introducing large cargoes of corn during a famine, by the recognition of their right to inhabit Lisbon.2 1 Ersch und Griiber, p. 140. 2 Europe:—In Russia and Poland, 658,809; Austria, 453,524; European Turkey, 321,000; States of the German Confederation, 138,000; Prussia, 134,000; Netherlands, 80,000; France, 60,000; Italy, 36,000; Great Britain, 12,000; Cracow, 7300; Ionian Isles, 7000; Denmark, 6000; Switzerland, 1970; Sweden, 450. Total number of Jews in Europe, 1,916,053; or a proportion of an 113th part of the population, calculated at 227 millions. — Weimar Statement. (I retain this note from the older edition.) Book XXIX. JEWS OF GREAT BRITAIN". 429 In Italy their numbers are considerable.1 It is said that many took refuge in Tuscany from what was the sterner government of Sardinia; where, under the French dominion, among a Jewish population of 5543, there were 182 landed proprietors, 402 children at¬ tended the public schools: 7000 is given as their num¬ ber in the Austrian territories in Italy. In Great Britain the number of Jews was variously stated at from 12,000 to 25,000.2 They may now fairly be reckoned at 30,000 in England; but this is uncer¬ tain, as no accurate register is kept. In 1829 I wrote thus : " They are entitled to every privilege of British subjects, except certain corporate offices and seats in Parliament, from which they are excluded by the Act which requires an oath to be taken on the faith of a Christian. They cannot vote for Members of Parlia¬ ment, at least might be disqualified from so doing by the form of the Oath of Abjuration; and they are excluded from the higher branches of the learned pro¬ fessions by the same cause, and probably by restric¬ tions on education ; from the lower chiefly by popular opinion and their own habits. In the city of London they are prevented by municipal regulations from taking out their freedom, — a restriction which sub¬ jects them to great occasional embarrassment and vex¬ ation, as no one can legally follow a retail trade, with¬ out having previously gone through this ceremony." 1 I was informed, in 1829, on the authority of a very intelligent Italian, that the number of Jews in Italy is greatly underrated. Some suppose that they amount to near 100,000. In the Austrian dominions they are extremely numerous. In the district of Mantua alone, under the former kingdom of Italy, they were reckoned at 5000. In Parma and Modena, 7000. In Venice, Tuscany, and the Papal States, they abound. 2 Since the first edition of this work, their number has been stated in Parliament at near 30,000. 430 AMERICAN JEWS. Book XXIX. Since that time (1829) all the high offices of the city of London have been filled by Jews. A Jew, Mr. Salomons, has been Lord Mayor: it may he said that few have maintained the office with greater dignity, liberality, or popularity. The act of the city of Lon¬ don in electing a Jew, Baron Rothschild, as one of its Members of Parliament, eventually broke down the one remaining barrier which insulated the Jews from the other subjects of the realm. Notwithstanding the opposition of several years, during which the House of Lords steadfastly adhered to the principle of exclusion, the Bill in their favor at length passed ; and the oath, the great obstacle, was modified so as to admit con¬ scientious Jews to the Legislature. There are now four Jewish Members of Parliament. Perhaps the most remarkable fact in the history of modern Judaism is the extension of the Jews in the United States of America. Writing in 1829, I stated, on the best authority then attainable, their numbers at 6000. They are now reckoned at 75,000. In New York alone there are thirteen large synagogues. The few in the former dominions of Spain and Portugal are descendants of those who, under the assumed name of Christians, fled from the Inquisition. In Surinam, a prosperous community is settled under the protection of the Dutch ; they were originally established at Cay¬ enne ; there are some in Jamaica. There are now considerable numbers in our Australian colonies. A late account mentions Jews in the new colony of Van¬ couver's Island. Such, according to the best authorities to which we have access, is the number and distribution of the Book XXIX. THE OFFICE OF HISTOEY. 431 children of Israel; they are still found in every quarter^ of the world, under every climate, in every region, under every form of government, wearing the indel¬ ible national stamp on their features, united by the close moral affinity of habits and feelings, and, at least the mass of the community, treasuring in their hearts the same reliance on their national privileges, the same trust in the promises of their God, the same con¬ scientious attachment to the institutions of their fathers. History, which is the record of the Past, has now discharged its office ; it presumes not to raise the mys- terious veil which the Almighty has spread over the Future. The destinies of this wonderful people, as of all mankind, are in the hands of the All-wise Ruler of the Universe: His decrees will be accomplished ; his truth, his goodness, and his wisdom vindicated. This, however, we may venture to assert, that true religion will advance with the dissemination of knowledge. I cannot but think that the doom of the Talmud, with that of much of our mediseval legend, is pronounced. The more enlightened the Jew becomes, the less cred¬ ible will it appear that the Universal Father intended an exclusive religion, confined to one family among the race of man, to be permanent, — the more evident that the faith which embraces the whole human race within the sphere of its benevolence, is alone adapted to a more advanced and civilized age. On the other hand, Christianity, to work any change on the heredi¬ tary religious pride of the Jew, on his inflexible con¬ fidence in his inalienable privileges, must put off the , hostile and repulsive aspect which it has too long worn ; it must show itself as the faith of reason, of universal peace and good-will to man, and thus, unanswerably, ; 432 JEWISH NOTION OF CHRISTIANITY. Book XXIX. prove its descent from the All-wise and All-merciful Father.1 1 I find from Dr. Frankl's book that there is an opinion widely spread among the more enlightened Jews, that Christianity was the publication of true religion among the Gentiles, and therefore but an expanded Judaism, This notion probably confines true religion to the belief in the Divine Unity, and in the universal principles of morality. But of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity it takes no note. It may perhaps be admitted as groundwork for a treaty of amity and mutual respect, but not as a complete and lasting harmony of the two religions. BOOK XXX. Survey of Influence of the Jews on Philosophy, Poetry, History, &c. The History of the Jews will be fitly closed by a brief and rapid view of the services (the intellectual services, exclusive of those connected with the industry and commerce of the world) rendered to mankind by this remarkable race during the ages which they have passed through, alone, unmingled with the other fami¬ lies of mankind, — services either direct and manifest, or through remoter influences more difficult to trace in their effects on the knowledge, civilization, and hu¬ manity of the world. The religious obligations of mankind to the Jews it o o is impossible to appreciate in all their fulness. Up to a certain time they are the sole designated conservators of the great primary truths of religion, the Unity of the Godhead, and that Godhead an ever-present, over¬ ruling Providence, present not only as the One Power which originated and the One Force which sustains with conscious goodness and wisdom the whole uni¬ verse, but also, in some mysterious way, as the Supreme Will, exercising its dominion over the (inexplicably but unquestionably) free will of man. The Jews are the religious parents, in a certain sense, both of Christianity and Mohammedanism. Mohammedanism, it has been justly said, is but a republication of Judaism, with all its stern Monotheism hardened into a rigid Predestinarian- ism, and with the Lawgiver and the Prophets centred, vol. iii. 28 434 INFLUENCE OF THE JEWS. Book XXX. and as it were condensed, in Mohammed and his suc¬ cessors. To the Christian the Jews are the appointed conservators, not only of their sublime Monotheism, hut guardians of the oracles of that One God, — oracles predictive of a nobler, purer, more comprehensive faith, significant of the Christ to come,—oracles which they have, fatally for themselves, interpreted in a more nar¬ row and unspiritual sense. Their sacred Scriptures, therefore, in what we believe to be their true scope, became the common property of mankind, at least of Christianized mankind, subordinate to, or rather pre¬ paratory for, the Christian New Testament. But the Hebrew sacred books, as interpreted by the Jews, withdrew with the Jews into their total isolation from the rest of mankind. The language itself kept them in almost complete seclusion. Before Jerome, very few of the Christian writers — still fewer after Jerome — had any knowledge of Hebrew. The Greek Version of the LXX. was in general the Old Testament of the early Christian Church. But around the Hebrew Books, as has appeared, had grown up a mass of tradition, according to the common view and according to the teaching of the Jewish schools coeval o o with, and of equal authority with the Law itsSlf. The study of this tradition, and its adaptation to the sacred books, furnished full scope for the restless ingenuity, and occupation for the indefatigable activity, of the Jewish mind. An authorized interpretation fenced round the original Law. Even the Masora, the inser¬ tion of the vowel points and of the other grammatical signs, as well as the Targums or commentaries on the sacred writings, was part of this system of interpreta¬ tion. By degrees arose the Mischna ; upon the Mischna was accumulated the Gemara ; the Jerusalem Book XXX. JUDAIZING CHRISTIANS. 435 and the Babylonian Talmud comprehended the vast stores of Jewish erudition. And the Mischna and the Talmud were to the Jew what the Roman law was to the lawyers, the canons of Councils, the decrees of Popes, the whole authorized theology of the Church, to the clergy of Christendom.1 But to the world at large, to the Pagan and Chris- o 7 o tian world, or to the half-Pagan and half-Christian world of Alexandria, all this Rabbinical theology was utterly unknown and unapproachable. Neither Gentile nor Christian student found his way into the schools of Tiberias, Nahardea, Sura, or Pumbeditha. Even the Syrian Christians, speaking a cognate dialect, seem to have stood altogether aloof from the Jews and their seats of learning. The estrangement, of course, had been gradual. The Judaizing Christians of the earlier ages had kept up some communication between the synagogue and the rapidly Christianizing world, at least in usages and tone of thought. The ceremonial law © o was among them but slowly abrogated; and those who had been bred in obedience to the ceremonial law would not renounce at once all allegiance, and break off all intercourse with the authorized interpreters of the Law. The Judaizing Christians split up, it appears, into countless sects, of which it is difficult, and has taxed the ingenuity of the most profound Christian scholars of our day, to trace the shadowy differences. Some of the Gnostic sects blended Judaism with Chris- 1 I omit all notice of the countless Jewish commentators on the Old Testa¬ ment, valuable as many of them are. Nothing can be more uninteresting— if I may judge by myself, so unin- structive — as a long barren list of authors, and of their works. The bib¬ liography, therefore, of Jewish literature 1 would leave to Wolff, Bartolocci, De Rossi; to the Spanish writers, De Castro and other expounders of Rab¬ binical learning. (For the writers on geography, see the elaborate Essay of Dr. Zunz in the Supplement to Asher's Benjamin of Tudela.) 436 INTOLERANCE OF THE JEWISH SCHOOLS. Book XXX. tianity, and their Judaism betrays their lingering inti¬ macy with the teaching of the Jewish schools. In some regions, in parts of Arabia and of Africa, the divorce between Judaism and Christianity was less complete. Jewish apocryphal books,1 entirely lost in Asia, have been recovered in the dialect of Abyssinia. At a later period, Hebrew tradition (no doubt through the Ara¬ bian Jews) found its way, to a remarkable extent, into the Koran.2 In general, however, Rabbinical literature, except¬ ing in the few indistinct glimpses obtained by Jerome, was for a long period a sealed volume to the Christian mind. And all this vast literature to the Jew himself was fatal to freedom and originality of thought, to science properly so called, to all invention, to all bold inquiry. It was theological, if with some of the deep devotion and some of the sublimity of theology, with its fetters riveted even more closely than any system belonging to a less insulated people, a people more in contact with the rest of mankind, more inevitably swept forward by the stream of progress, could ever be. Within its circle man might-move with some free¬ dom ; without that circle he dared not venture a single step. He was the galley-slave of the most rigid ortho¬ doxy. No Church authority, no Articles of the nar¬ rowest sect have been more jealous, more imperious, more vigilant, than the perpetual dictatorship of the Rabbins. The sacerdotalism of the Middle Ages was not more tyrannous and intolerant than were the schools of Jewish learning. They had their anathemas, their excommunications, of course, more awful, more terrible, to the member of a small community than the 1 The Book of Enoch, the Ascensio Isaise. 2 Geiger, Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthum genommen? Book ^XX. SUBTLETY OF RABBINICAL LORE. 487 ban of Pope or Council; at times the}'' claimed, and even exercised, the right of capital punishment over the obstinate heretic. Within its sphere the Rab¬ binical lore is infinitely copious and various ; its Scho¬ lasticism is as acute and subtle, as much delighting in its peculiar subtlety as that of Bradwardine or Duns Scotus; its casuistry is as ingenious, as wiredrawn, as perplexing, and as perilously tampering with morals, as that of Suarez or Del Soto. Not that there were any determinate creeds or articles of belief.1 These were of a later period, such as the articles drawn up by Maimonides. But it was the awful and unlimited and admitted authority of the Rabbins which, notwithstand¬ ing certain differences which at times arrayed master against master, school against school, held the Jews of all countries in passive, and, if it may be said, eager, unstruggling submission. Of the purity of each man's faith, the Rabbins, the authoritative expounders of the Law, the guardians of the hallowed traditions, were the supreme, irrefragable judges. Yet even under the most revered and time-hallowed tyranny, under the severest and most watchful sacer¬ dotal despotism, the uncontrollable human mind will strive to make a way to its emancipation. In Judaism it was not by impugning (excepting in the case of the Karaites) or lowering this uncontested authority, that it strove for freedom. The philosophic Cabala aspired to be a more sublime and transcendental Rabbinism. 1 Delitzsch may be right in his statement: — " Die Juden haben seit lhrer Zerstreuung nie Synagogale von der Nation bestiitigte und angenommene Bekenntnisschriften gehabt. . . . Die Talmude haben deshalb gar keine dogmatische Einheit; selbst die gesetzwissenschaftlichen Resultate sind in- dividuell und provisorisch giiltig, die Synagoge hat ihnen nie durch eine Sanction das Ansehn anerkannter, allgemeingiiltiger Decretalen gegeben." Yet the Rabbinical system was sternly and severely orthodox, impatient of heretical teaching. — Zur Geschichte der Jiidischen Poesie, Vorrede, p. 9. 438 DISSERTATION OF M. AD. FRANCK. Book XXX. It was a mystery not exclusive of, but above their more common mysteries ; a secret more profound than their profoundest secrets. It claimed the same guar¬ anty of antiquity, of revelation, of tradition ; it was the true, occult, to few intelligible, sense of the sacred writings and of the sayings of the most renowned Wise Men ; the inward interpretation of the genuine inter¬ pretation of the Law and the Prophets. Men went on ; they advanced, they rose from the most full and perfect study of the Talmuds to the higher doctrines, to the more divine contemplations of the Cabala. And the Zohar was the Book of the Cabala which soared almost above the comprehension of the wisest. The mysterious Cabala appears at length to have disclosed its secrets to the general reader. The Disser¬ tation of M. Ad. Franek of Paris,1 comprehensive, yet not too minute, profound, yet perfectly clear, has deter¬ mined, on grounds to which (if I may do so without presumption) I subscribe in almost every respect, its age, its origin, its doctrines, and its influence. In its traditional, no doubt unwritten form, the Cabala, at least a Cabala, ascends to a very early date, the Cap¬ tivity ; in its proper and more mature form, it belongs to the first century, and reaches down to the end of the seventh century of our era. The "Sepher Yetzira," the Book of Creation,2 which boasts itself to be derived from Moses, from Abraham, if not from Adam, or even aspires higher, belongs to the earlier period ; the Zohar, the Light, to the later. The remote origin of the Cabala belongs to that period when the Jewish mind, during the Captivity, became so deeply impregnated 1 La Kabbale, on la Philosophie religieuse des Hebreux, par Ad. Franck, Professeur a la Faculty des Lettres, &c., Paris, 1843. 2 Pp. 362, 369. Book XXX. CABALA AND ZENDAVESTA COMPARED. 439 with Oriental notions, those of the Persian or Zoroas- trian religion. Some of the first principles of the Cabala, as well as many of the tenets, still more of the superstitions of the Talmud,1 coincide so exactly with the Zendavesta (the Zendavesta not only as expounded by Anquetil du Perron and Klenker, but by the higher authority of Bournouf, in his Commentary on the Yatjna) as to leave no doubt of their kindred and affili¬ ation. They found their first Western home in Pales¬ tine after the return from the Captivity. Some of their doctrines, or doctrines closely analogous, found their way to Alexandria, and may be traced in the Translation of the LXX. (as well as in the Book of Ecclesiasticus and the Targums of Onkelos) and in Philo. With Philo they were crossed, blended, and modified by the Greek philosophy, especially Platonism, which in a later period expanded into the mystic school of Porphyry, Proclus, and Plotinus. This Alexandrian system could not have been their source. The Cabala is essentially Jewish in thought, in language, in its utter aversion to, or rather ignorance of, Greek philosophers and Greek philosophy. But while it is undoubtedly Zoroastrian in many of its primary conceptions, and still more in its wild imag¬ inations, in what may be called its mythology, yet in its unalterable Monotheism it is strictly and rigidly Mosaic. It repudiates altogether the Dualism, into 1 Franck shows that this secret doctrine, the history of the Creation, and the Mercaba (the Chariot), are mentioned in the Mischna and Gemara, and, therefore, are older. R. Akiba and Simon ben Jochai were their first com¬ pilers: " Les partisans enthousiastes de la Kabbale la font descendre du ciel, apportde par les anges, pour enseigner au premier homme, apr6s sa di!so- b^issance, les moyens de reconqudrir sa noblesse et sa felicitd premieres." According to others, Moses received it from God on Mount Sxnai, and in¬ trusted it to the seventy elders. Franck, p. 51. 440 ANALYSIS OF CABALISM. Book XXX. which the Persian Monotheism seems, even with Zo¬ roaster himself, to have degenerated. There is an ' o absolute Unity in its Pantheism, for Pantheism it un¬ doubtedly is, open and undisguised, as all mysticism either is by nature or has an irresistible tendency to become, — as the Pantheism of India, Brahminical and Buddhist, as the Pantheism of Spinoza, even of Hegel. The base of the Cabalistic system is absolute Unity : a God who is at once the cause, the substance, and the form of all that is or all that can be. The Ensoph,1 the One Infinite, the Mystery of Mysteries, Light of Lights,2 remains above in its solitary, unapproachable majesty. Below this, but far below, is the common Emanation System of the East. First comes the Word, the Creator, and the Demiurgos, as it were the Godhead in action or development. The impersonated attributes of God, at once metaphysical and abstract conceptions, become real beings, the Sepliiroth, the iEons of Gnosticism, of which Cabalism was to a great degree the parent. (Some of the most famous Gnos¬ tics were Jews ; Simon Magus was Jew or Samaritan.) The ten Sepliiroth are the manifestation of God, the triple Trinity, in concentric circles around the central Godhead. Then follows the primal and archetypical Man, the Man Above to be carefully distinguished from the Man Below; the conflict of Good and Evil, of Spirit and Matter, of Light and Darkness; the pre- existence of human souls, their imprisonment in mat¬ ter, their reunion with God by faith and love. There 1 The Ensoph, p. 18-3. 2 " Ainsi Dieu est a la fois, dans le sens le plus &ev£, et la mature et la forme de l'univers. II n'est pas seulement cette matiere et cette forme; mais rien n'existe, ni ne peut exister, en dehors de lui; sa substance est au fond de tous les etres, et tous portent l'emprunte, tous sont les symboles de son intelligence." p. 160. Book XXX. THE CABALA — SANCTION" OF MARRIAGE. 441 are beautiful images illustrative of this, and of the tender remonstrances of the souls of men against being o © submitted to this gross trial; the death, the release, of the just, is the kiss of love.1 Among the Cabalists there is the universal sacred horror of anthropomor¬ phism, from which sometimes, in their coarser moods, they take refuge in monstrous allegories. Infinity is represented by immensity, the Incomprehensible by heaping upon each other inconceivable masses of num¬ bers, of times, and of distances (as in the Indian poets) by which at last the Immaterial is materialized. The Ancient of Ancients has a face of the length of 370 times 10,000 worlds. The light of the head illumi¬ nates 400,000 worlds. Every day issue from his brain 400,000 worlds, the inheritance of the just in the life to come.2 Nothing indeed is absolutely bad, nothing eternally accursed ; the great fallen archangel himself will resume his former nature, the venomous beast lose his venom.3 Yet it is remarkable, and especially Jew¬ ish, that there does not seem to have been that deep sense of the malignity of matter which prevailed in kindred systems. Marriage, the lawful union of the sexes, was not in itself an evil, a necessary but still fatal contamination, as it was held even by Philo, and by some of the early Christian Fathers, and by Mon- achism Oriental as well as Christian. Marriage was acquiesced in by the Cabala as in the natural order of things, with no aversion or proscription. The Caba¬ lists, as has been said, anticipated or coincided with 1 Pp. 178 (a remarkable passage) and 182. 2 Franck, p. 171; see the whole strange passage. 8 P. 217. The whole of this passage is verj- curious. There has been a succession of worlds. Before they were created, all things appeared in the sight of God. See, too, about the Daemons as inferior to men: — " The souls of the just are above the angels." p. 223. 442 THE CABALA. Book XXX. Origen in the final restoration of Satan, or rather Sam- ael (the great Evil Spirit) himself.1 On the whole, the notion of man in the Cabala is of singular eleva¬ tion : not only the primal and celestial man, the Adam Caedmon, who as the image of God comprehends within himself the Sephiroth, the Divine attributes, but the man of the lower sphere. Man was the con¬ summation and perfection of Creation, and therefore not formed till the sixth day. He is inferior to the angels; the Daemons seem to be but other names for his passions, pride, avarice, cruelty. Thus, through¬ out, the Cabala differs from its parent the Zendavesta. The impersonated beings of the Zendavesta are meta¬ physical entities in the Cabala. Zoroastrianism is a mythology; the Cabala approaches to a philosophy. In the Cabala, too, are some singular premature gleams of scientific knowledge. The Cabala, as well as the Talmud, dares to assert the earth to be spherical and rotatory,2 and the existence of antipodes; there is even an approach to the Coperniean system. This, too, about the time when, according to tlfe Christian Fathers Lactantius and Augustine, such opinions bor¬ dered close on damnable heresy. Of the human brain, its triple division, and peculiar integuments, and thirty- two nerves which ramify through the whole body, the Cabala had a clear and distinct apprehension.3 And 1 P. 217. 2 " Dans le livre de Chamnouna le Vieux, on apprend, par des explications Vendues, que la terre tourne sur ellememe en forme de cercle; que les uns sont enhaut, les autres en bas; que toutes les creatures changent d'aspect suivant Pair de chaque lieu, en gardant pourtant la mSme position; qu'il y a telle contr^e de la terre qui est eclair*5,e tandis que les autres sont dans les t^niibres; ceux-ci ont le jour, quand pour ceux-la, il fait nuit; et il y a des pays oil il fait constamment jour, ou au moins la nuit ne dure que quelques instants." p. 102; compare 187. 8 " Dans l'int^rieur du crane, le cerveau se partage en trois parties, dont Book XXX. CABALISM — THE ADEPTS. 443 this exalted view of man, even when immersed in the material world, supports the theory of Franck, that the Cabala belongs to the end of the seventh century, when the Jews were yet in some independence and prosperity; not to the thirteenth (as Tholuck and others have argued, confuted, as I think, by Franck), when they were in their lowest state of depression, trampled on by the rest of mankind. Such was the high speculative Cabala ; but, like the neo-Platonic philosophy, the Cabala degenerated into a theurgic system of magic and wonder-working. Not only was the Bible one vast allegory, in which the lit¬ eral sense was cast scornfully aside, and a wild, arbi¬ trary meaning attached to every history and every doctrine, but at the same time there was a superstitious reverence of the letter ; the numbers of the letters, 10, 7, 12, 32, every single letter, the collocation of every letter, the transposition, the substitution, had a special, even a supernatural power. The traditional Fathers of the Cabala, R. Akiba and Simon ben Jochai, had wrought miracles with the letters of the Scripture ;1 and later there was no kind of vulgar conjuring trick that was not performed by the Adepts,2 till Cabalism sank into contempt and suspicion. Though studied with fond perseverance and patient industry, as some¬ thing above and beyond genuine Talmudical learning, chacune occupe une place distincte. II est en outre recouvert d'un voile trfes mince, puis d'un autre voile plus dur. Au mojren de trente-deux canaux, ces trois parties du cerveau se r^pandent dans tout le corps en se dirigennt par deux cot^s: c'est ainsi qu'elles enibrassent le corps sur tous les points et se r^pandent dans toutes ses parties." It is suggested that the legal practice of dissecting animals to separate the clean from the un¬ clean, must have led to some study of anatomy, p. 138. 1 See, on the worship of the letters, Franck, p. 69. The Cabalists had an alphabet of their own. p. 76. a On the powers of letters, pp. 79,145,154. 444 THE CABALA PURELY JEWISH. Book XXX. yet the ordinary Talmudists looked on the Cabalists with not ungrounded jealousy, as tampering with for¬ bidden things, as aspiring to knowledge of unrevealed mysteries, and practising unlawful arts. The Cabalis¬ tic pretensions to enchantments, amulets, charms, justi¬ fied to the more sober, if not the proscription, the dis¬ couragement of these, in their essence lofty, in their practice vulgar and degrading studies. But the influence of the Cabala was not confined to the Jewish mind ; some of the strange, powerful intel¬ lects of the Middle Ages, when the borders of science and wonder-working were utterly confounded, were tempted at once by the abstruseness, the magnificent pretensions, and the mysticism of the Cabala, to pene¬ trate into its secrets and appropriate its powers and virtues. From Raymond Lully to Van Helmont, the Adepts boasted, perhaps too boldly, their familiarity with the Jewish Cabala. How far they were really indebted to it, it is perhaps impossible to determine. The Cabala is purely Jewish ; it may be said to rep¬ resent the Oriental or Asiatic part of the Jewish mind. But the European philosophy of the Jews assumed a more European cast. It is impossible, I apprehend, to separate and distinguish between the Jewish and Ara¬ bian influences which created what is usually called the Arabian philosophy of Spain. The earliest, by some thought the greatest, of this school, who passed under the name of Avicebron, turns out to be, under this disguised appellation, Salomon ben Ghebirol of Malaga, the famous Jewish hymnologist.1 Of this philosophy, the Judaeo-Arabic of Spain, the value and the originality are now called in question. Its immense mass rivals that of Christian scholasticism. Is it more 1 This discovery is due to M. Munk. (See Ernest Renan, Averroes, p. 100.) Book XXX. DOCTRINES OF AYERROES. 445 than the opinions of the Greeks, passing through the Jewish and Arabian minds ? — more than in a great part Aristotelism in other forms and in other language ? — the Eternity of matter, on which the Eternity of thought or intelligence is eternally operating, — the Eternal Thought, which swallows up and absorbs, and so is one with, all active intelligence, and of which, whether individual or that of collective humanity, hu¬ man intelligence is a part or an efflux ? This philoso¬ phy also would issue in a kind of Pantheism ; or, if the Divine be coordinate with the same all-absorbing one Matter, in a Dualism. But if the Jews were the primary authors, they were likewise the conservators, of the Arabian philosophy ; through them these tenets were no doubt propagated into the Christian schools. Considerable parts of the works of the Arabian writers are to be read only in Hebrew translations. The doctrines of Averroes and his followers, con¬ tained in their Commentaries on Aristotle, were trans¬ lated by the Spanish Jews who took refuge, after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, in Languedoc ; the family of the Tibbon at Lunel, Solomon ben Job at Beziers, Calonymus ben Meir at Aries, Judali ben Meschullam at Marseilles. Besides these were Judah ben Solomon Cohen of Toledo, who flourished under the protection of the Emperor Frederick II. ; and another Provencal Jew, settled at Naples, Jacob ben Abba Mari, who enjoyed the patronage of the same enlightened monarch. " None," writes a distinguished Orientalist of our day, M. Ernest ROian, " were in earnest about the Arabian philosophy but the Jews."1 He acknowledges 1 Ernest Renan, Averroes, pp. 176,186, et seq. 446 - "i > THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. Book XXX. at the sanie time that the first impulse to that pliiloso- pliy came from the Oriental Jewish school of Sura, that of Saadi. The time is perhaps approaching in which at least some award may be made of the share of the Jews in that philosophy to study which the Adelards,1 the Ger- berts, visited the schools of Toledo and Cordova, and from which, in the days of Frederick II., Jews cer¬ tainly assisted in restoring the genuine Aristotle to the knowledge of the West. It may be impossible to dis¬ criminate between the converging and harmonizing o o o thought of Jew and Arabian, or their common debt to the Greek philosophy, which they joined in disguising and passing off on themselves as their own. Hebrew writings are not necessarily the produce of Hebrew thought, nor Arabic of Arabian. No one will ever perhaps thread completely the bewildering labyrinth ; perhaps it may not at last be worth the labor.2 But no one is more likely to succeed than M. Munk ; and, as a descendant of the race of Israel, M. Munk, we may be assured, will render full justice to his ances¬ tors. The old Hebrew poetry, that of the Bible, by its transcendent excellence, dooms to obscurity all later Hebrew verse. With a religious people, and through their religion alone the Jews persevere in being a 1 For Adelard see Sprenger's Preface to his Life of Mohammed. 2 " Les Juifs remplissaient dans ces relations un role essentiel, et dont on n'a pas tenu assez de eompte dans l'histoire de la civilisation. Leur activitd commerciale, leur facility a apprendre les langues en faisaient les intermd- diaires naturels entre les Chretiens et les Mussulmans. . . . Le peuple seul les avait en antipathie. Quant aux hommes ddsireux de s'instruire, ils n'd- prouvaient aucun scrupule a s'en faire en philosophie les disciples de mal- tres appartenant a d'autres religions. La science ^tait quelque chose de neutre et commun a tous." Rdnan, p. 202. See also the following para¬ graph. and soul of the Jew is preoccupied by hymns, by odes, by Gnomic verse, which have cloven to the universal heart and soul of man to a depth, and with a tenacity, never surpassed or equalled. Every emotion, every thought, almost every occurrence in the somewhat nar¬ row sphere of Jewish life, has already found its expres¬ sion in words so inimitable, in music so harmonious, that all other words must seem pale and feeble. What can be the choral hymns of the Synagogue compared with those which resounded in the courts of the first, or even of the second, Temple ? What lyric language can refuse to borrow its tone from, and therefore but faintly echo, the devotional Psalms of David, and of those who followed him ? What Odes on all the awful events of human or national life can approach those of the Prophets ? The sorrows of centuries can hardly wring from Jewish hearts any lamentations approach¬ ing to those of Jeremiah. According to the historian of later Jewish poetry, the three treasure-houses of Jewish song are, their History, their Law, and their Legends.1 But their older History is in itself such poetry that it can only be expanded into a compara¬ tively flat and lifeless paraphrase. If by the Law be meant their Gnomic poetry, the Proverbs, and the first- fruits of their poetic wisdom, subsequent to the Sacred Books, the Book of Ecclesiasticus, will hardly be rivalled by the wisdom and ingenuity of the later Rab¬ binical school. Even the Legend, from which the Arabic writers, the Koran itself, have drawn so abun¬ dantly, in its most creative and imaginative form is 1 Delitzsch. Zur Geschichte s without poetic form or language; that the age of the Gaonim, nearly five hundred years, from a. c. 540 10 997, was barren, uncreative, without inven¬ tion or fancy.4 But then began, it is said, in Spain the golden ao->, from 940 to 1040.5 It was succeeded by a silver age, 1090 to 1190. At a later period winter fell on the poetic Jewish mind.6 Yet there is 110 form which the poetry of modern European nations has taken which Hebrew poetry has not attempted to domiciliate. It had its Troubadours, with their amorous conceits. 1 " Die ganze Sagenwelt der spiiteren Moslemen, der Araber, Perser, und Tiirken, soweit sie nur die alttestamentliche Geschichte beriihrt, findet sich ein Jahrtausend friiher schon in den Jiidischen Targumen weit einfacher, reiner und wiirdiger abgeschildert; die Geschichte wird in ihnen zur reitzend- sten, lehrreichendsten Poesie; diese I'oesie ist aber nicht Einkleidung, Dich- tung, Phantasma des Sehreibers, sondern die alte und volksthiimliche, ven¬ erable Sage, deren Redactoren die Targumisten sind: die Targumen sind Exegese, Geschichte, altsynagogales Bekenntniss, und bei dem alien poetisch in ihrem Inhalt, poetisch in ihrer Form." Delitzsch, p. 27. 2 Read Hilgenfeld, Die Jiidische Apocalyptik, and many passages in Ewald's History, especially his account of the apocryphal Esdras. 8 Delitzsch, p. 120. He says, indeed, " In den Talmuden ist uns eine grosse Vergangenheit des Jiidischen Yolkslebens nicht in der Copie einer blossen Relation, sondern wie in einer Muinie erhalten, ihr eignes Fleisch und Bein: der Dichter lose die kiinstlichen Specereien ab, deren Hiille sie so lange vor der Zerstbrung sicherte, und stelle uns das Leben wieder lebendig dar." p. 121. * Delitzsch, p. 29. 6 Ibid. p. 35. 6 Ibid. p. 42. Book XXX. JEWISH POETRY. 449 It had its epic poems, its Mosaides, its Zionides,1 even its drama,2 the form of poetry, notwithstanding the early attempt of the Judaeo-Alexandrian Ezekiel to mould the wonders of their early history into a Greek tragedy, the most irreconcilable with their older models. A late poet in Italy has even ventured on a harlequinade for the joyous festival of the Purim.3 The Jewish poets either borrowed rhyme from the Arabian poets, as is most probable, or, as some with national partisanship aver, imparted it to them.4 They have their Dantes,5 but it is not writing in triple rhymes, nor attempting to unfold the mysteries of the unseen world, which can make a Dante ; they have their sonnets, but sonnets make not a Petrarch; they have even, they confess it with shame, their Aretin.6 Their poetry is that of all countries in which they dwell, Spain, Italy,7 Germany, Holland, Poland, even Russia.8 But, after all, these are still foreign lands. There is something deeply pathetic in a sentence of the historian of Hebrew poetry, — " The pure poetry of Nature cannot be the national poetry of the Jews, for down to this time the 1 The Zionide. Delitzsch, p. 162. 2 The earliest Jewish dramas were written in Holland in the seventeenth centuiy. p. 77. 3 The Harlequinade, by Rappoport, p. 119. 4 "Selbst in der Mischna und Gemara findet sich nichts von Metrum und Reim, sondern diese sind erst den Arabe.rn entlehnt und dann von den Dichterh in der Provence, Catalonien, Arragon und Castilien ausgebildet worden." Delitzsch, p. 5. Compare p. 132, and, on rhyme, p. 137. 6 The Hebrew Dante was Mose de Rieti (p. 54). Compare pp. 72, 73. 6 Delitzsch, p. 523. This Hebrew Aretin was Imanuel Romi ben Salomo, of the March of Ancona, author of The Divan. 7 On the different character of the older Italian and the Spanish Hebrew poetry, see Delitzsch, p. 43: " Die Spanische Poesie mahlt mit dem Pinsel Rafaels; die Italienische bildet mit dem Meissel Michel Angelos " !! The world ought not to be deprived even of a faint copy of the works of such masters. 3 Jewish Poets in Russian Poland, p. 83. vol. hi. 29 450 HEBREW A DEAD LANGUAGE. Book XXX. Jewish people has been a nationality without a native country, and neither the luxuriant nature of the Bar¬ baresque lands, nor the vine-clad shores of the Rhine, can make up to them for Judaea. \ A naturalized Jew cannot be a national poet." 1 I presume not to judge of these hidden treasures, secluded in their own libraries, and veiled in their own peculiar language. But it is remarkable that even in translations, however it might be that translation could hardly transfuse poems, retain¬ ing much of an indelible Oriental cast, with full justice into European tongues, so far as I know, hardly any of these boasted treasures have been communicated to the general ear of Europe ; and those which have been communicated have fallen dead on the ear. I have never read any piece of modern Hebrew poetry in any translation in which I have not felt that I had heard it before: its images, its thoughts, its passion, its very cadence, is that on which I have dwelt in the Bible. I cannot but apprehend, too, that all this poetry labors under another fatal cause of inferiority. It is an im¬ mutable law that no great poet has ever been inspired but in his native tongue. Now, Hebrew, though no doubt fully comprehended, and fluently spoken, it may be, by the instructed or educated Jew, is after all -a foreign or a dead language. It is not his vernacular; o c> © ' not the language of ordinary every-day life ; not the language in which the man, if we may so say, speaks, thinks ; not the language of his emotions, his passions. It is what the Latin was to the clergy, and to the few educated men of the Middle Ages ; and as European poetry was only born with the young European lan¬ guages, as Dante would never have been Dante had 1 Delitzsch, p. 12-3. Book XXX. THE SYNAGOGAL POETRY. 451 he fulfilled his original fatal scheme of writing the Divine Comedy in Latin; as Petrarch, after laboring for years on the unread, unreadable Africa, fortunately condescended to the vulgar tongue in his Sonnets, so, however the Hebrew poets may learn to move with some ease in the fetters of their ancient language, they are still fetters. No one perhaps can derive more pleasure than myself (through education, familiarity with Greek and Latin through Eton and academic studies and practice) from writers of modern Latin verse, the Italians, some of the French Jesuits, the Poles, our own Milton, Cowley, Gray, R. Smith, still I feel, every one feels, that the whole is admirably ingen¬ ious, but no more ; the play of fancy, the feeling, the passion, all is artificial. They neither rouse, nor melt, nor transport us out of ourselves. So I suspect it is, I believe that it must be, with most of the later Hebrew poetry. It is the Synagogal poetry in which I conceive rests all its true strength and beauty. The legitimate son of such a parent could not so altogether forget its rich inheritance as to fall into absolute poverty. The heirlooms could not but retain some of their original splendor, though but reflected splendor. The historian indeed admits that the Synagogal hymns (in which, as the devotional outpourings of souls in whom devotion must have been their one consolation, the very life-blood of their miserable being, and there¬ fore all the emotional part at least of their poetry must have found vent) are but an echo of those in the Bible ;1 still that echo may be of deep solemnity — its 1 This Delitzsch asserts broadly of the older Sj'nagogal poetry, the Li- turgic, which was "Reminiscenz und gleichten das Eclio der Bibel." The new school aspired to be neither the echo of the Bible nor of the Talmud; yet " Sie will aus der Bibel als der reinsten, idealsten Darstellung des Heb- raismus, sich bios den Sprachschatz aneignen, ihn aber dann selbstandig 452 THE SYNAGOGAL POETRY. Book XXX. dying wail of exquisite tenderness. A late writer, un¬ rivalled, I believe, among his compatriots for the vast range of his knowledge, — knowledge which he pours forth with such overflowing copiousness and minute particularity as to overload and weary the most patient reader, — has taken upon him the office of doing justice to the Synagogal poetry of the Middle Ages.1 Its con¬ tinuous history, its various forms, its use in the public services, its measures, its rhythm, the construction of its verse, are followed out into the utmost detail; but what is more valuable, and more likely to obtain it a fair hearing, is that he has rendered some of its best passages into that flexible German, which Goethe and Ruckert have shown can accommodate itself with such ease and harmony with Oriental thought, imagery, and melody. I will not attribute to Dr. Zunz the unrivalled skill and facility of these great poets ; — Zunz indeed com¬ plains that of one passage no European language can render the thunderstrokes of the continuous rhymes, that the lightning of its beauty is quenched in the dull auxiliaries and pronouns. I venture, however, on a few lines : — 44 Him sings the voice of every living creature, Echoes from above, from underneath his glory; 4 One God,' shouts forth the Earth, and ' Holy One,' the Heavens; From the waters songs are sounding to the Mighty in the Highest: Majesty from the abyss, hymns come chanting from the stars; Speech is from the day, and mu^ic from the night; His name the fire proclaims, And melodies are.floating o'er the forest, — The beasts proclaim God's overpowering greatness." The work of Zunz will try, but we think will reward, handhaben." But if all the power of the language is Biblical, it would be very difficult to rise much above imitation. 1 Die Synagogalen Poesie des Mittelalters, von Dr. Zunz, Berlin, 1855. Book XXX. HEBREW-SPANISH POETS. 458 the patience of the curious reader. Still, in the long line of Jewish Hymnology, transferred into German verse or rhythm, there is a wearisome sameness, and a constant reminiscence of the Biblical language, spun out into enfeebling length, and prolonged with perpetual iteration. There are, however, fine thoughts, bold ex¬ pressions; and the constant allusions to the sufferings of the people, and their lofty and undying trust in the faithfulness and promises of their God, are not without tenderness and sublimity. They may be but variations on the unapproachable music of Job and the Psalms, but these variations are full of sweetness and grandeur, almost of genius and originality. The true poetry of the Jews was secluded in the isolation of their own language. But on their expulsion from Spain, the Sephardim bore with them to different countries, to Italy,1 to France, to Holland, to Greece, and Constantinople, the noble language which was hereafter to be made illustrious by Cervantes and Cal- deron. So entirely were they Spaniards, that parts of their religious services were in Spanish.2 Among the earliest typographical works was a Spanish translation of the Old Testament, issued by Abraham Usque at Ferrara,3 and frequently reprinted, in a more correct form, in the Low Countries. They had Spanish poets, too, in many countries. In Spain, before the Expulsion, the Hebrew-Spanish poets had been almost exclusively converts.4 They had had their Troubadour poets in 1 Qualir the Sardinian is the first great name in the Mediaeval Synagogal poetry. Delitzsch, p. 51. 2 Amador de los Rios, ii. c. 5. 3 On the Bible of Ferrara, Amador de los Rios, p. 432. Ten years before the publication of the Bible at Ferrara, Francesco Frelloti published at Lyons a poem in Spanish, Retratos o tablasdelas Historias del Testamento Viejo. See for extracts from this poem, ibid. pp. 437, 442. * For the Judseo-Arabic Chronicle of the Cid, see Delitzsch, p. 65. 454 PINTO DELGADO — ABENATAR MELO. Book XXX. Catalonia. The Rabbi Abner, Santo de Carrcon, the famous Paul, Bishop of Burgos, Hieronymo di Santa F<3, find their place in the history of Spanish poetry.1 The Sephardim with singular fidelity adhered in foreign lands to that which had become the native tongue. This can hardly indeed be said of Moses Pinto Delgado. He had embraced the Gospel in Spain, but fell back to his old religion. He fled from the searching eye of the Inquisition and found refuge in France. There he published his Poem of Esther,52 the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and the Poem of Ruth the Moabitess.3 The Jews likewise printed books in Spanish at Constanti¬ nople and Salonichi, as well as at Venice and Amsterdam, of a much higher order than the poems of Delgado, such as the translation of the Psalms by David Abenatar Melo. This remarkable man had been baptized. Either from some suspicion of his sincerity, or, to crush out of him the betrayal of some of his kindred, he was com¬ mitted to the prison of the Inquisition. There he lived for some years, and was released (no crime being proved against him) in 1611. He found refuge in Germany ; at least the rare volume of his Psalms was printed at Frankfort in 1626. This translation, if I may judge from extracts, is one of the finest in any European language, and shows that the lingering Orientalism in © © 7 © © the Spanish language is singularly adapted for the bold and lofty imagery of the Hebrew poetry. It is of strange interest, too, to find a Jew, a prisoner escaped from the Inquisition, uttering his own sorrows and thanksgiving in the words of the Psalmist. These © © verses are inserted into the Thirtieth Psalm: — 1 Amador de los Rios, ch. v. 2 See, for the extracts from Esther, which have much sweetness and ten¬ derness, Amador de los Rios, ch. iii. 8 Extracts are given at length in Amador de los Rios, p. 469, &c. Book XXX. MICHAEL SILVEYRA — ANTONIO GOMEZ. 455 "Eel Infierno metido De la Inquisicion dura, Entre fieros leones de alvedrio, De alii me has redimido Dando a mis males cura, Solo porque me viste arrepentido." (Doomed in the depths to dwell Of the Inquisition's Hell, At those fierce lions' hard arbitrement, Thou hast redeemed me, Healed all my misery, For thou didst see how deeply I repent.) Michael Silveyra was the author of one of those long and wearisome epic poems which encumber the litera¬ ture of Spain, " The Conquest of Jerusalem by the Maccabees," a poem written in rivalry of Tasso, but in the inflated style of Gongora, which, nevertheless, found admirers in Spain. Michael Silveyra was a converted Jew, who adhered faithfully to his new religion, and escaped the jealousy of the Holy Office. Not so a man of more versatile genius, Enriquez de Paz, better known under the name of Antonio Enriquez Gomez.1 Son of a Portuguese Jew, captain, and enrolled in the Order of St. Michael, accused, not-without justice, of Judaism by the inexorable Inquisition, he fled from his country, a. c. 1636, wandered over many parts of Europe, and settled in the centre of Judaism, Amster¬ dam ; he was burned in effigy at Seville in 1660. Dur¬ ing all this time he was pouring forth Spanish verse without ceasing; an epic poem on Samson, lyrics in profusion, a satirical poem called the " Age of Pythag¬ oras," and many dramas. These dramas were acted 1 See, on Gomez, Amador de los Rios, c. vii. and viii., and Ticknor, iii. 67. According to the Spanish writer, his lyrics are not without grace and beauty, and there is something of the fine old chivalrous extravagance of the Spanish drama in some of the plays of the Jewish exile. 456 ENRIQUEZ DE PAZ—HEINRICH HEINE. Book XXX. at Madrid. By a strange anomaly, the people of Ma¬ drid were listening, not without applause, to the verses of a man under the proscription of the Holy Office, known no doubt to be an avowed Jew. Nor was En- riquez de Paz the last of the exiled race who in foreign countries perpetuated the language of their native land, and gave to Spanish poetry an European fame in regions into which, without their aid, it would hardly have penetrated. I may sum up in one word: — to he poets, in Europe and in our days, the Jews must cease to be Jews ; whether retaining their creed or not, they must abandon their language. One, who I fear abandoned much more of his Judaism than his language, Heinrich Heine, may prove how deep a vein of true poetry can spring from such sources. The one German whose short lyrics can be read after Goethe's, may show what Jew¬ ish poets can become, if they will, I would that I could in his case say, Christianize (though I believe that Heine's last hours were far different from his earlier ones), at all events fully and entirely Europeanize them¬ selves. Jews may be English, German, Spanish, Italian, French poets, — they will hardly be Hebrew poets. History, of all departments of letters, might appear, at first sight, that for which, as the Jews possessed special advantages, so they might seem specially desig¬ nated. Dwelling in the seclusion of their own com¬ munities, yet those communities spread over the face of the earth, and maintaining more or less intimate and frequent intercourse with all nations; many of them merchants, travellers, with every opportunity of obser¬ vation ; excepting when they were immediate objects of persecution, unimpassioned and above the ordinary interests of men; for centuries they surveyed the world, Book XXX. JEWISH LITERATURE BARREN OF HISTORY. 457 and yet were not of the world. They saw the migh¬ tiest revolutions among the Gentiles, which they could look on with impartial indifference ; empires rising and falling, kingdoms established and passing away ; migra¬ tions from east to west, from north to south ; powers temporal and spiritual, in the ascendant, in their suprem¬ acy, and in their decline ; revolutions as complete in human thought, in human laws, in human manners, as in their rule and in their polities. Like the Wander¬ ing Jew of the legend, the nation might he the calm witness of the revolutions of ages — the chronicler of all the untold vicissitudes. But of History, in its highest sense, Jewish literature is absolutely barren. The historical faculty seems to have been altogether wanting. As if, either in their pride or their misery, they had obstinately or desperately closed their eyes to all but the narrow concerns of their own race, they have left us no trustworthy record even of their own interworking into the frame of society, their influence, their commerce, their relations to the rest of mankind. Still more, of their degradation and their sufferings they have preserved but broken and fragmentary notices, hardly to be dignified with the name of His¬ tory.1 There are traditions of their Babylonian Prin¬ cipality, of the rise and fall of their schools in Palestine, and in the East; but of their influence in the great struggle between Mohammedanism and Christianity, when they stood between the decaying civilization of the East and the dawning civilization of the Arabian l " A thousand years had been suffered to elapse without the appearance of a single historian; but when the Rabbins saw that the antiquity, that is the authenticity, of their traditions became doubtful, and was disputed by the anti-traditionists, they attempted to demonstrate their antiquity by a meagre catalogue of generations, always opening with the year of the Creation, by which they pretended they had preserved an unbroken line of tradition." Disraeli, Genius of Judaism, p. 9. 458 JOSEPHUS — JOSEPH BEN GORION. Book XXX. dynasties at Damascus and Bagdad, there is nothing which can even compare with a Monkish Chronicler, far less with the works of a Froissart, a Comines, a Villani. Even in their early narratives, of their fall in the war of Titus, of the insurrection under Bar-eochab, history is so overgrown with legend, truth is so moulded up with fiction or with allegory, that we wonder less at their want, in later times, of grave and sober annals. Of their own historian Josephus they either knew little, or chose to know little.1 His vernacular History, which he wrote, by his own account, in the language of his people, doubtless the Aramaic Hebrew of the day, seems soon to have perished. The Greek they could not, or would not, read. Of Justus, the rival and ad¬ versary of Josephus, they seem equally ignorant.2 But the place of Josephus was usurped by one of the most audacious of romancers, who wrote under the name of Joseph ben Gorion, and is known in later times as Josippon. It is inconceivable that this strange rhapsody should be accepted as genuine history, as it was even by some of the most learned of the Jews. No Mediaival Chronicle ever indulged in such bold latitude of anachronism. The author asserts himself to have been born during the Empire of Julius Csesar, whom he had seen ; by his own account he must have lived about two hundred years. From King Tsepho the Arabian, son of Eliphaz, the contemporary of Joseph in Egypt, general and son-in-law of Agnias 1 See Gagnier's Preface, pp. xxviii, xxix: — " Nam quod ad Josephum Grrecum adtint, ilium uon in magno habere sclent pretio, imo ei nullam habent fidem, et tanquam in Historicum meu- dacem et adulatorem adversus ilium acriter invehuntur: Suum vero Jose¬ phum quasi hominem veracem et pene divinum summis laudibus ad sidera evehunt, extollunt, et predicant." 2 Gagnier, p. xxii. Book XXX. SOLOMON BEN YIRGA. 459 King of Carthage, he leaps to Daniel, from Daniel to Alexander the Great; whose history is related after the mediasval poem or romance. Romulus and David are contemporaries and allies. Hannibal, on his way to Italy, subdues the Goths in Spain and all Germany. To complete all, he describes the election and corona¬ tion of a Roman Emperor (Vespasian ?), which he him¬ self witnesses. The Emperor was chosen by the seven electors; he scatters golden florins among the mob. He is received in Rome by the Patron, the Father of all the Prefects, evidentlv the Pope, who gives him the sceptre, the ring ^uuiae ot the bone of a dead man), and the chalice on which is the golden apple, sets the crown on his head, and cries " Long live our Lord the Caesar! " And all the people, Pope, electors, princes, shout " Amen ! " The history of the calamities of the Jewish nation by Solomon ben Virga,1 a Spanish Jew, a physician, is trustworthy as to the events concerning which he may have received immediate traditions, and those which occurred in his own time. All above and beyond is clouded with fable. The whole is desultory and un¬ equal ; some passages, as the histories of many perse¬ cutions in different parts of Europe, are disappointingly brief and without particulars, while the disputation with Thomas di Santa Fe runs out into disproportioned pro¬ lixity, though not without its interest. The close of this History is perhaps the most remarkable. It is a bold attempt by an apologue, which assumes the form of history, to place the Jews under the protection of 1 This work was translated into Latin by Gentius (Amsterdam, 1690). In the dedication to the Consuls, Senate, and people of Hamburg, is related the Apologue of Abraham and the Fire-worshipper quoted by Franklin, who probably took it from Jeremy Taylor. 460 VIRGA'S SO-CALLED "HISTORY." Book XXX. the Pope. After their expulsion from Spain, ambassa¬ dors from the King of Spain appear before the Supreme Pontiff, urging him to exterminate them from his dominions. The wise and gentle Pope betrays great reluctance to comply with this request, and bears a kind of unwilling testimony to the piety and virtue of the Jews. He himself moves the somewhat perilous question of the image-worship of the Christians, as re¬ sembling that of the Egyptians, which the Jews were taught to abominate. The Pope's scruples relieved on that head, the enemies of the Jews revert to the old calumnies. A Jew is accused of having stolen a silver image, and melted it in scorn of the Christians. He is hanged for the offence. The Pope issues Bulls com¬ manding that all the Jewish infants should be imme- diately baptized; that those of the adults alone who embraced Christianity should escape ; the rest must perish by the sword. That very night the bishop, or cardinal, their most bitter persecutor, falls dead from his chair. The Pope, deeming this a sign from heaven in favor of the Jews, suspends the execution of his orders. On the following night the other bishop, or cardinal, gives a splendid banquet to all the magnates, the bishops, and ambassadors, who had come to Pome to demand the banishment of the Jews. That night Rome is shaken with an earthquake more terrible than was ever before known. But it does no harm to any of the private or sacred edifices of the city; only the palace where this banquet was held falls on the cruel guests, and crushes them all to death. The Pope acknowledges that Heaven has thus declared the Jews ", Toledo, councils of, iii- ll3'n1 crees respecting the Jews, 1 sacres at, 212. ... QAA Tortosa, public disputation at, ill. 399. Tradition, ii. 420. Authority of, 4-1. Trajan, reign of, ii. 425. Turkey, Jews in, iii. 344. U. Ur, description of, i. 51. Urim and Thummim, the, i. 192. Usury, Jewish law of. i. 277. Effect of upon modern Jews, iii. 179. Varus, prefect of Syria, ii. 104. In Je¬ rusalem, 109. Ventiriius Cumanus, governor of Judaea, ii. 174. Is bribed by the Samaritans, 175. Summoned to Rome and banished, 170. Vespasian, appointed to the command in Syria, ii. 224. Opens the campaign against the Jews, 248. Advances with his army, 250. Besieges Jotapata, 253. Is wounded, 202. Takes Jotapata, 271. Marches to Ciesarea. 279. Takes Ti¬ berias, 283. And Tariehea, 284. Treach¬ erous massacre of captives by, 287. Takes Gamala, 294. Marches against Gadara, 310. His successes, 317. As¬ sumes the purple. 322. His triumph, 389. Reign of, 423. Vienna, council of, its laws, iii. 209. Vincent Ferrer, his mission to convert the Jews, iii. 297. Its success, 298. Visigotkic kings, fall of the, iii. 122. Vitetlius, at Jerusalem, ii. 132. Voltaire, his antipathy against tho Jews, iii. 402. W. War, Jewish, laws of, i. 229. Warburton, Dr., his opinion on the sanc¬ tion of the Hebrew law, i. 231, note. Weights, Hebrew, imperfect knowledge of, i. 366. Wilkinson, Sir Gardner, on Egyptian antiquities, i. 143. 147, note. On date of the Exodus, 106. INDEX. 479 x. Xerxes, i. 472. Y. Yemen, Jewish kingdom in, iii. 96. Mas¬ sacre of Christians in, 97. Young, Dr., key to hieroglyphics dis¬ covered by, i. 145. Z. Zacharias, the son of Baruch, ii. 312. Murdered by the zealots, ibid. Z.UNZ. Zacharias of Novogorod, heresy of, iii. 398. Zadikim, sect of the, ii. 10 Zamora, council of, iii. 303. Zealots, the, ii. 200. Faction of robber zealots in Jerusalem, 301. Bloody massacre by, 311. ZedeJciah, king of Judah, i. 444. Zenclavesta, the, compared with the Cab¬ ala, iii. 439. Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, iii. 16. Zerubbabel, his royal descent, i. 463. Zoharites, sect of the, iii. 378. Zunz, Dr., his history of synagogal poetry referred to, iii. 452. THE END. CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.