History of the Jews, Vol. 3 (of 6)
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Title: History of the Jews, Vol. 3 (of 6)
Author: Heinrich Graetz
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE JEWS, VOL. 3 (OF 6) ***
HISTORY OF THE JEWS
HISTORY OF THE
JEWS
BY
PROFESSOR H. GRAETZ
VOL. III
FROM THE REVOLT AGAINST THE ZENDIK (511 C. E.) TO
THE CAPTURE OF ST. JEAN D'ACRE BY THE
MAHOMETANS (1291 C. E.)
[Illustration]
PHILADELPHIA
THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA
COPYRIGHT, 1894,
BY THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE DECAY OF JUDÆA, AND THE JEWS IN DISPERSION.
The Zendik Religion--King Kobad and Mazdak the Reformer--Revolt
of the Jews--Mar-Zutra--Revival of the Schools--The Saburaïm--
The Talmud committed to writing--Tolerance of Chosru II--The
Christianization of Judæa--The Jews under Byzantine Rule--
Justinian--Persecution of the Samaritans--Benjamin of Tiberias
--Attack on Tyre--The Emperor Heraclius _page_ 1
500-628 C. E.
CHAPTER II.
THE JEWS IN EUROPE.
Growth of the Jews in Europe--The Communities in Constantinople
and Italy--Theodoric--Isidore of Seville--Pope Gregory I--The
Jews of France--Chilperic and Dagobert--Avitus--The Jews in
Spain--Controversies between Jews and Christians _page_ 24
510-640 C. E.
CHAPTER III.
THE JEWS OF THE ARABIAN PENINSULA.
Happy condition of the Jews in Arabia--Traditions as to their
original settlements--Yathrib and Chaibar--The Jewish-Arabic
tribes--The Benu-Nadhir, the Benu-Kuraiza, and Benu-Bachdal--
The Benu-Kainukaa--The Jews of Yemen--Their power and
influence--Conversion of Arabian tribes to Judaism--
Abu-Kariba, the first Jewish-Himyarite king--Zorah Dhu-Nowas--
Samuel Ibn-Adija--Mahomet--His indebtedness to Judaism--
Mahomet's early friendliness to the Jews and subsequent breach
with them--His attacks on the Jewish tribes--The War of the
Fosse--The position of the Jews under the Caliphs _page_ 53
500-662 C. E.
CHAPTER IV.
THE AGE OF THE GEONIM.
The Conquests of Islam--Omar's Intolerance--Condition of the
Jews in Babylonia--Bostanaï--The Princes of the Captivity
and the Geonim--Dignity and Revenues of the Prince--Communal
Organization--Excommunication--Julian of Toledo and the Jews--
The Moslems in Spain--The Jews and Arabic Literature--The
Assyrian Vowel-system--The Neo-Hebraic Poetry: José ben José--
Simon ben Caipha--Employment of Rhyme--Jannaï--Eleazar Kaliri
--Opposition to the Study of the Talmud--The False Messiah
Serenus, the Syrian--The Jews in the Crimea and the Land of
the Chazars--The False Messiah Obadia Abu-Isa _page_ 86
640-760 C. E.
CHAPTER V.
RISE OF KARAISM AND ITS RESULTS.
Anan ben David, the founder of Karaism--His life, writings,
and influence--Hostility to the Talmud--Anan's innovations--
Karaite reverence of Anan--The Exilarchate becomes elective--
Adoption of Judaism by the Chazars--King Bulan and Isaac
Sinjari--Bulan's Jewish successors--Charlemagne and the Empire
of the Franks--The Jews and Commerce--Jewish Envoy sent to the
Caliph Haroun Alrashid--Spread of the Jews in Europe--The
Caliphs and the Jews--The study of philosophy--Sahal--The
Kalam--Mutazilists and Anthropomorphists--Judah Judghan--The
_Shiur Komah_--The Akbarites--Moses the Persian _page_ 127
761-840 C. E.
CHAPTER VI.
FAVORABLE CONDITION OF THE JEWS IN THE FRANKISH DOMINIONS,
AND THE DECAY OF THE EXILARCHATE IN THE EAST.
The Jews under Louis le Débonnaire--The Empress Judith
and her Veneration for Judaism--Agobard, Bishop of Lyons--
Conversion of Bishop Bodo--Amolo's effort against the Jews--
Charles the Bald--Troubles in Béziers and Toulouse--Decree
against the Jews in Italy--Boso of Burgundy--Basilius--Leo the
Philosopher--Decline of the Exilarchate--The Geonim acquire
Additional Influence--The Prayer Book of Amram--Mar-Zemach--
Literary and Scientific Activity of the Jews--Decay of Karaism
--Dissensions at Pumbeditha _page_ 160
814-920 C. E.
CHAPTER VII.
THE GOLDEN AGE OF JEWISH SCIENCE: SAADIAH AND CHASDAÏ.
Judaism in the Tenth Century--Saadiah, the Founder of Religious
Philosophy--Translation of the Bible into Arabic--Saadiah
opposes Karaism--The Karaite Solomon ben Yerucham--Saadiah and
the School at Sora--Saadiah retires from Sora--His Literary
Activity--Extinction of the Exilarchate--Sahal and other
Karaite writers--Jews in Spain--The School at Cordova--Dunash
ben Tamim--Chasdaï--His services to Judaism--Menachem ben
Saruk--Chasdaï and the King of the Chazars _page_ 187
928-970 C. E.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE RISE OF JEWISH-SPANISH CULTURE, AND THE DECAY OF
THE GAONATE.
The Gaon Sherira and his son Haï--Sherira's Historical Letter
--The Jewish Congregations in Spain--Jewish Culture in
Andalusia--The Disciples of Menachem and Dunash--Jehuda Chayuj
--Contest between Chanoch and Ibn-Abitur--Jacob Ibn-Jau--The
Jews of France--Nathan the Babylonian and Leontin--The Jews of
Germany--Gershom and his Ordinances--The Emperor Henry II--The
Caliph Hakem--The Jewish Communities of Northern Africa--
Chananel, the Son of Chushiel, and Nissim bar Jacob Ibn Shahin
--The Jerusalem Talmud--Haï Gaon--His Character and Importance
--Samuel bar Chofni--Chiskiya, the Last Gaon--Samuel
Ibn-Nagrela--Jonah Ibn-Janach _page_ 231
970-1050 C. E.
CHAPTER IX.
IBN-GEBIROL AND HIS EPOCH.
Solomon Ibn-Gebirol--His early life--His poems--The statesman
Yekutiel Ibn-Hassan befriends him--Murder of Yekutiel--Bachya
Ibn-Pakuda and his moral philosophy--The Biblical critic
Yizchaki ben Yasus--Joseph ben Chasdaï, the Poet--Death of
Samuel Ibn Nagrela--Character of his son Joseph and his tragic
fate--Death of Ibn-Gebirol--The French and German communities
--Alfassi--Life and works of Rashi--Jewish scholars in Spain
--King Alfonso _page_ 265
1027-1070 C. E.
CHAPTER X.
THE FIRST CRUSADE.
The position of the Jews in Germany previous to the Crusades--
The community of Speyer and Henry IV--The Martyrs of Treves
and Speyer--Emmerich of Leiningen and the Martyrs of Mayence--
Cruel persecutions at Cologne--Suffering of the Jews in
Bohemia--Pitiful death of the Jews of Jerusalem--Emperor
Henry's justice towards the Jews--Return of Converts to
Judaism--Death of Alfassi and Rashi _Page_ 297
1096-1105 C. E.
CHAPTER XI.
ZENITH OF THE SPANISH-JEWISH CULTURE: JEHUDA HALEVI.
The Jews under the Almoravides--Joseph Ibn-Sahal, Joseph
Ibn-Zadik--Joseph Ibn-Migash--The Poets Ibn-Giat, Ibn-Abbas,
Ibn-Sakbel and Ibn-Ezra--Abulhassan Jehuda Halevi--His Poems
and Philosophy--The Chozari--Incidents of his Life--Prince
Samuel Almansur--Jehuda Halevi's Pilgrimage to Jerusalem--
His Death _page_ 311
1105-1148 C. E.
CHAPTER XII.
PERSECUTIONS DURING THE SECOND CRUSADE AND UNDER
THE ALMOHADES.
Condition of the Jews in France--The Second Crusade--Peter the
Venerable and the Monk Rudolph--Bernard of Clairvaux and the
Emperor Conrad--Protectors of the Jews--Persecutions under the
Almohades--Abdulmumen and his Edict--The Prince Jehuda
Ibn-Ezra--The Karaites in Spain--Jehuda Hadassi--The historian
Abraham Ibn-Daud and his Philosophy--Abraham Ibn-Ezra--Rabbenu
Tam _page_ 347
1143-1170 C. E.
CHAPTER XIII.
SURVEY OF THE EPOCH OF MAIMUNI (MAIMONIDES).
The Jews of Toledo--Ibn-Shoshan, Ibn-Alfachar--The Poet
Charisi--Sheshet Benveniste--Benjamin of Tudela--The Jews of
Provence--The Kimchis--The Communities of Béziers,
Montpellier, Lünel, and Toulouse--Persecutions of Jews in
Northern France--The Jews of England--Richard I--The Jews of
York--The Jews of Germany--Ephraim ben Jacob--Süsskind--
Petachya the Traveler--The Jews of Italy and of the Byzantine
Empire--Communities in Syria and Palestine--The Jews of Bagdad
--Mosul--The Pseudo-Messiah, David Alroy--The Jews of India--
Conversion to Judaism of Tartars--The Jews of Egypt _page_ 382
1171-1205 C. E.
CHAPTER XIV.
MAIMUNI (MAIMONIDES).
Early years of Maimuni (Maimonides)--His journey to Fez--Letter
of Consolation of Maimun (father of Maimonides)--Maimuni and
the Jewish Converts to Islam--The Maimun Family in Palestine
and Egypt--Maimuni's Commentary on the Mishna--Saladin and the
Jews--Letter of Maimonides to Yemen--The _Mishne-Torah_ of
Maimuni--Controversies with reference to this Work--Joseph
Ibn-Aknin--Maimuni as a Physician--Maimuni attacked by Samuel
ben Ali--Maimuni and the Jews of Provence--The _More Nebuchim_
and its importance--Death of Maimonides _page_ 446
1171-1205 C. E.
CHAPTER XV.
NEW POSITION OF THE JEWS IN CHRISTIAN LANDS AT THE
BEGINNING OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
Effects of the Death of Maimuni--Abraham Maimuni, the son of
Maimuni--Hostility of the Papacy against the Jews--Pope
Innocent III--The Albigenses--Emigration of Rabbis to
Palestine--The Lateran Council and the Jewish Badges--Synod of
Rabbis at Mayence--The Dominicans and the Rise of the
Inquisition--King Jayme of Aragon and his Physician Benveniste
--Stephen Langton and the Jews of England--Gregory IX and
Louis IX of France--The Jews of Hungary _page_ 494
1205-1232 C. E.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE MAIMUNIST CONTROVERSY AND THE RISE OF THE
KABBALA.
The Opposition against Maimuni--Maimunists and anti-Maimunists
--Meïr Abulafia--Samson of Sens--Solomon of Montpellier--
Excommunication of the Maimunists--David Kimchi's energetic
Advocacy of Maimuni--Nachmani--His Character and Work--His
Relations to Maimuni, Ibn-Ezra, and the Kabbala--Solomon of
Montpellier calls in the aid of the Dominicans--Moses of Coucy
--Modern date of the Kabbala--Azriel and Ezra--Doctrines of
the Kabbala--Jacob ben Sheshet Gerundi--The Bahir--Three
Parties in Judaism--Last flicker of the Neo-Hebraic Poetry--
The Satirical Romance: Al-Charisi and Joseph ben Sabara
_page_ 522
1232-1236 C. E.
CHAPTER XVII.
PUBLIC DISCUSSIONS, AND THE BURNING OF THE TALMUD.
Pope Gregory IX--Emperor Frederick II and the Jewish Scholars,
Jehuda Ibn-Matka and Jacob Anatoli--The Jewish Legislation of
Frederick of Austria--The Martyrs of Aquitaine and Gregory IX
--Louis IX of France and his Enmity to the Jews--Attacks on
the Talmud--The Apostate Nicholas-Donin--Disputation at the
French Court between Yechiel of Paris and Nicholas-Donin--Judah
of Melun--The Talmud burnt at Paris--The Church and Jewish
Physicians--Moses Ibn-Tibbon and Shem-Tob Tortosi--Papal Bull
acquitting Jews of the Blood-accusation--The Last French
Tossafists--The Jews of England--The Jewish Parliament--Alfonso
the Wise and the Jews of Spain--Meïr de Malea and his Sons--The
Jewish Astronomers Don Judah Cohen and Don Zag Ibn-Said--The
Jews of Aragon--De Penyaforte and the Apostate Pablo Christiani
--The First Censorship of the Talmud--Nachmani's Disputation
with Pablo--Influence of Nachmani--The Karaites _page_ 563
1236-1270 C. E.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE AGE OF SOLOMON BEN ADRET AND ASHERI.
Martyrs in Germany--The Jews of Hungary and Poland--The Council
at Buda--The Jews of Spain and Portugal--Solomon ben Adret, his
character and writings--Raymund Martin's anti-Jewish Works--New
antagonism to the Maimunist Philosophy--David Maimuni--Moses
Taku--Meïr of Rothenburg--The Jews of Italy--Solomon Petit--
Rudolph of Habsburg--Emigration of Jews from the Rhine
Provinces--Sufferings of the English Jews--Expulsion of the
Jews from England and Gascony--Saad Addaula--Isaac of Accho
_page_ 610
1270-1306 C. E.
HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
CHAPTER I.
THE DECAY OF JUDÆA AND THE JEWS IN DISPERSION.
The Zendik Religion--King Kobad and Mazdak the Reformer--
Revolt of the Jews--Mar-Zutra--Revival of the Schools--
The Saburaïm--The Talmud committed to writing--Tolerance of
Chosru II--The Christianization of Judæa--The Jews under
Byzantine Rule--Justinian--Persecution of the Samaritans--
Benjamin of Tiberias--Attack on Tyre--The Emperor Heraclius.
500-628 C. E.
Hardly had the Jews recovered from the long and horrible persecution to
which they had been subjected by King Firuz, when they were overtaken
by fresh storms, which subverted the work of three centuries. Firuz
had been followed by his brother, who reigned a short time, and was
succeeded by Kobad (Kovad, Cabades). The latter was a weak king, not
without good qualities, but he allowed himself to become the tool of a
fanatic, and was prevailed upon to institute religious persecutions.
There arose under this monarch a man who desired to reform the religion
of the Magi and make it the ruling faith. Mazdak--for that was the
name of this reformer of Magianism--believed that he had discovered
a means of promoting the promised victory of Light over Darkness, of
Ahura-Mazda over Angromainyus. He considered greed of property and
lust after women the causes of all evil among men, and he desired to
remove these causes by introducing community of property and of women,
even allowing promiscuous intercourse among those related by ties
of consanguinity. In Mazdak's opinion it was on the foundation of
communistic equality that the edifice of Zoroaster's doctrine could
most safely be raised. As he led a virtuous and ascetic life, and was
very earnest in his endeavors to reform, he soon succeeded in gaining
numerous adherents (about the year 501), who availed themselves of
these advantageous liberties, and called themselves Zendik, or true
believers of the Zend. King Kobad himself became Mazdak's faithful
disciple and supporter. He issued a decree commanding all the
inhabitants of the Persian Empire to accept the doctrines of Mazdak,
and to live in accordance therewith. The lower classes became the
most zealous of Zendiks; they promptly appropriated the possessions
of the rich and such of the women as pleased them. Thus there arose a
confusion of the ideas of right and wrong, of virtue and vice, such as
had never been known in the history of nations. Finally, the Persian
nobles dethroned this communistic king, and threw him into prison;
but when Kobad escaped from confinement and, by the aid of the Huns,
was again placed in possession of his dominions, they were unable to
prevent Mazdak's adherents from renewing their licentious conduct. Many
children born during Kobad's reign were of doubtful paternity, and no
one could be certain of the peaceful enjoyment of his property.
The Jews and Christians naturally did not escape the communistic
plague, and although only the rich suffered from the legalized robbery
of the Zendiks, the community of women struck a terrible blow at all
classes. Chastity and holding sacred the marriage vows had, from the
first, been characteristic virtues of the Jews, and by Talmudic law,
they had become even more deeply rooted in their natures. They could
not endure the thought of their wives and maidens exposed to violation,
and the purity of their families, which they treasured as the apple of
their eye, threatened with defilement. They appear therefore to have
opposed an armed resistance to the licentious attacks of the Zendiks.
An insurrection of the Jews, which broke out at this juncture, was in
all probability organized for the purpose of resisting this intolerable
communism. At the head of this insurrection stood Mar-Zutra II, the
youthful Prince of the Captivity, who, to judge from the fact alone
that legend has embellished his birth and deeds with wonderful details,
must have been a remarkable personage.
Mar-Zutra, born in about 496, was the son of Huna, a learned Prince of
the Captivity, who, after the death of the tyrant Firuz, was invested
with the dignity of the Exilarchate (488-508). At the time of his
father's death, Mar-Zutra was still a young boy. During the period of
his minority, the office of Prince of the Captivity was held by Pachda,
his sister's husband, who does not seem to have been inclined to yield
this dignity to the lawful heir. Mar-Zutra's grandfather, Mar-Chanina,
in company with his grandson, sought the court of the Persian king,
and in 511, presumably by means of valuable presents, succeeded in
effecting Pachda's deposition and Mar-Zutra's investiture. It was this
young prince who now arose, sword in hand, to protect his brethren. The
immediate cause of the insurrection is said to have been the murder
of Mar-Isaac, the president of one of the academies. Mar-Zutra's
forces consisted of four hundred Jewish warriors, with whose help
he probably succeeded in expelling Mazdak's rapacious and lustful
adherents from the territory of Jewish Babylonia, and in resisting
this shameless violation of most sacred rights. He is further said to
have accomplished such brilliant feats of arms that the troops which
had been sent by the king to quell the insurrection were unable to
withstand him. Mar-Zutra is even said to have won independence for his
people, and to have laid the non-Jewish inhabitants of Babylonia under
tribute. Machuza, near Ctesiphon, became the capital of a small Jewish
state, with the Prince of the Captivity for its king.
The independence thus conquered by Mar-Zutra lasted nearly seven years;
the Jewish army was finally overcome by the superior numbers of the
Persian host, and the Prince of the Captivity was taken prisoner.
He and his aged grandfather, Mar-Chanina, were executed, and their
bodies nailed to the cross on the bridge of Machuza (about 520). The
inhabitants of this town were stripped of their possessions, and led
into captivity, and it is probable that this was not the full extent
of the persecution. The members of the family of the Prince of the
Captivity were compelled to flee. They escaped to Judæa, taking with
them Mar-Zutra's posthumous heir, who also bore the name Mar-Zutra. He
was educated in Judæa, and there became a distinguished scholar. On
account of Kobad's persecution, the office of Prince of the Captivity
in Babylonia remained in abeyance for some time. The Talmudical
academies were closed, for the teachers of the Law were persecuted and
compelled to hide. Two of the leading men, Ahunai and Giza, fled, and
the latter settled on the river Zab. Other fugitives probably directed
their steps towards Palestine or Arabia. Kobad's revenge for an
insurrection provoked by fanaticism dealt a severe blow at the public
life of the Babylonian Jews, which centered in the two academies, at
Sora and Pumbeditha. However, the persecution does not seem to have
extended over the whole of Persia, for Jewish soldiers served in the
Persian army which fought against the Greek general Belisarius, and
the Persian captain had so great a regard for them that he requested
a truce in order that they might peacefully observe the feast of
Passover.
After Kobad's death, the persecution of the Babylonian Jews ceased.
His successor, Chosroes Nushirvan, was not, indeed, well-disposed
towards them, and imposed upon them and the Christians a poll-tax from
which only children and old men were exempt; yet this tax was not an
indication of intolerance or hate, but simply a means of filling the
imperial treasury.
As soon as peace was restored the representatives of the Babylonian
Jews hastened to re-establish their institutions, to re-open the
academies, and, as it were, to re-unite the severed links in the chain
of tradition. The fugitive Giza, who had remained in hiding by the
river Zab, was called to preside over the academy at Sora; the sister
academy at Pumbeditha chose Semuna as its head. A third name of this
period has been transmitted to posterity, that of Rabaï of Rob (near
Nahardea), whose position and office are, however, not clearly known.
These men, with their associates and disciples, devoted their whole
activity to the Talmud. It was the sole object of the attention of all
thoughtful and pious men of that period; it satisfied religious zeal,
promoted tranquillity of mind, and was also the means of acquiring
fame, and thus furthering both spiritual and temporal aims. The
persecution of the Law endeared and sanctified it, and the Talmud was
the sacred banner around which the entire nation rallied.
But the disciples of the last Amoraïm had lost all creative power,
and were unable to continue the development of the Talmud. The
subject-matter and the method of teaching were both so fully defined
that they were incapable of extension or of amplification. The
stagnation in Talmudical development was more marked than ever before.
The presidents of the academies were content to adhere to the ancient
custom of assembling their disciples during the months of Adar (March)
and Ellul (September), giving them lectures on the traditional lore
and the methodology of the Talmud, and assigning to them themes for
private study. At the utmost they settled, according to certain
principles, many points of practice in the ritual, the civil law and
the marriage code, which had until then remained undetermined, or
concerning which there was a difference of opinion in the academies.
Their purpose was to render the exhaustless material of the Talmud,
which discussion and controversy had deprived of all definiteness,
available for practical use. In order to prevent the decay of
religious living, it was necessary that all doubt and uncertainty
should cease; the judges stood in need of fixed principles by which
to decide the cases brought before them, and all were ignorant of
authoritative precepts by which to regulate their religious conduct.
The establishing of the final rules for religious and legal practice
after careful consideration of the arguments _pro_ and _con_ conferred
upon the post-Amoraïc teachers the name of Sabureans (Saburaï). After
the various opinions (Sebora) were reviewed, they were the ones that
established the final, valid law. The activity of the Sabureans really
began immediately after the completion of the Talmud, and Giza,
Semuna and their associates merely worked along the same lines; their
intention was to develop a practical code rather than the theory of the
Law. They did not arrogate to themselves the authority to originate.
First of all, Giza and Semuna, the presidents of the academies,
engaged in the work of committing the Talmud to writing. They availed
themselves partly of oral tradition, partly of written notes made by
various persons as an aid to memory.
As everything which proceeded from the Amoraïc authorities appeared
of importance to their successors, they gathered up every utterance,
every anecdote which was current in learned circles, so that posterity
might not be deprived of what they deemed to be the fulness of wisdom.
They made additions for the purpose of explaining obscure passages. In
this form, as edited by the Sabureans, the contemporary communities and
posterity received the Talmud.
The era of the Sabureans witnessed the beginnings of an art without
which the sacred writings had remained a sealed book,--the introduction
of a system of vowel-points, by means of which the text of Holy Writ
became intelligible to the unlearned. This art owes its origin to
a faint breath of "scientific research" wafted from dying Greece.
Justinian had closed the schools of philosophy in Greece, and the last
of her wise men sought refuge in Persia. From them the science of
grammar was communicated to the Syrian Christians, these in turn roused
in their Jewish neighbors the spirit of emulation in the investigation
of the Scriptures, and this led to the adoption of vowel-points and
accents.
The names of the immediate successors of Giza and Semuna have been
preserved neither by the chronicles nor by tradition; they were
forgotten in the persecution with which the academies were again
visited. In this century Magianism contended with Christianity for
the palm of intolerance. Judaism was an abomination to both, and the
priests of these two religions, of which the one preached the victory
of light, and the other the rule of brotherly love, used weak kings as
the instruments of horrible persecutions.
Chosroes Nushirvan's son, Hormisdas (Ormuz) IV, was unlike his great
father in every respect. His tutor and counselor, Abuzurj-Mihir, the
Persian Seneca, is said to have invented the game of chess for this
weakly monarch, in order to teach him the dependence of the king on
the army and the people. During this philosopher's lifetime the true
character of Hormisdas was hidden, but immediately upon his retirement
the Nero-like nature of the king broke out, and overstepped the bounds
of prudence and moderation.
Led by the Magi, who attempted to arrest the approaching dissolution
of their religion by persecuting the adherents of other beliefs, he
vented his wrath upon the Jews and the Christians of his empire. The
Talmudical academies in Sora and Pumbeditha were closed, and as under
Firuz and Kobad, many of the teachers of the Law again emigrated (about
581). They settled in Firuz-Shabur (near Nahardea), which was governed
by an Arabian chieftain, and was, therefore, less exposed to espionage.
They continued their labors in Firuz-Shabur, and new academies arose in
that town, the most distinguished being that of Mari.
Hormisdas' cruel reign, however, was of short duration; the Persians
became dissatisfied and refractory, and the political enemies of Persia
entered its territory, and possessed themselves of the country. The
empire of the Sassanians would have become the prize of some successful
invader, had it not been saved by the efforts of the brave general
Bahram Tshubin. But when the foolish monarch went so far as to reward
the deliverer of his country with ingratitude and to dismiss him,
Bahram rose against the unworthy king, dethroned him, and threw him
into prison, in which he was afterwards murdered (589). At first, for
the sake of appearances, Bahram governed in the name of Prince Chosru,
but soon he threw off all disguise and ascended the Persian throne. The
Jews of Persia and Babylonia hailed Bahram as their deliverer. He was
for them what the Emperor Julian had been for the Jews of the Roman
empire two hundred years before; he put an end to their oppression and
favored their endeavors. For this reason they espoused his cause with
great devotion, assisted him with money and troops, and supported his
tottering throne. Without the aid of the Jews, it is probable that he
would have experienced great difficulty in retaining it for any length
of time, for after some hesitation the Persian nation turned towards
Chosru, the lawful heir to the throne. Only the army for the most part
remained faithful to Bahram, and the Jews, doubtless, provided for the
maintenance and the pay of the troops. The re-opening of the academies
in Sora and Pumbeditha is undoubtedly to be attributed to the favor of
Bahram in return for the devotion of the Persian Jews. Chanan of Iskia
returned from Firuz-Shabur to Pumbeditha, and restored the ancient
academic organization; it is also probable that the academy of Sora,
which enjoyed by far the greater repute, elected a president at this
time, although his name is not mentioned in the chronicles.
Bahram's rule was brought to a sudden end. The Byzantine emperor
Mauritius, to whom the fugitive Prince Chosru had fled, sent an army to
his aid, with which the loyal Persians united to make war upon Bahram.
The Jews paid with their lives for their adherence to the usurper. At
the capture of Machuza, a town containing a large Jewish population,
the Persian general Mebodes put the greater part of the Jews to death.
They probably fared no better in the other cities into which Chosru's
victorious army penetrated. Bahram's army was vanquished, and he
himself compelled to take refuge with the Huns. Chosru II, surnamed
Firuz, ascended the throne of his ancestors. This prince, who was
both just and humane, resembled his grandfather Nushirvan rather than
Hormisdas, his father; he did not hold the Jews to account for their
participation in the revolt. Throughout his long reign (590-628), the
two academies enjoyed uninterrupted prosperity. Chanan was succeeded
by Mari bar Mar, who had founded an academy in Firuz-Shabur, and the
president of Sora during the same period was a teacher of similar
name, Mar bar Huna (609 to about 620), during whose administration the
fortunes of the Jews of Palestine alternated from victory to defeat.
The successors of these teachers were Chaninaï in Pumbeditha and
Chananya in Sora; they lived to see the victorious advance of the Arabs
and the end of the Persian rule. The last of the Sassanian kings, of
whom there were ten in the short period of twelve years, had no leisure
to devote to the affairs of the Jewish population of their shattered
empire; the Jewish community in Babylonia continued, therefore, to
exist in its ancient order, with the Prince of the Captivity at its
head. During the half-century that elapsed between the re-opening of
the academies under Bahram and the Arab conquest of Persia (589-640),
three Resh-Galutas are mentioned by name: Kafnaï, Chaninaï, and
Bostanaï. The last of these belongs to the ensuing epoch, in which,
aided by favorable circumstances, he succeeded in again investing the
dignity of Prince of the Captivity with substantial power.
The position of the Jews in Judæa during the sixth century was so
terrible that a complete cessation of intellectual pursuits ensued.
Like their co-religionists of the Byzantine empire, they were without
political standing; the laws of the younger Theodosius were still in
force, and were applied with increased severity by Justin I. The Jews
were excluded from all posts of honor, and were forbidden to build new
synagogues. The successors of this emperor, as narrow-minded as he and
even harder of heart, enforced the anti-Jewish laws rigorously. The
spirit which animated the rulers of the Eastern Empire against the Jews
is shown by an utterance of the Emperor Zeno, the Isaurian upstart. In
Antioch, where, as in all the great cities of the Byzantine empire,
there existed the race-course (stadium) and the factions of the two
colors, blue and green, one of those disturbances which seldom ended
without bloodshed had been fomented by the latter party. Upon this
occasion the partisans of the green murdered many Jews, threw their
bodies into the flames, and burned their synagogues. When the Emperor
Zeno was informed of this occurrence, he exclaimed that the sole fault
of the partisans of the green was that they had burned only the dead
Jews, and not the living ones as well! The bigoted populace, whom the
disputes of the clergy and the color-factions had demoralized, saw in
their ruler's hatred of the Jews a tacit invitation to vent their rage
upon them. The inhabitants of Antioch had always been inimical towards
the Jews. When, therefore, a notorious charioteer of Constantinople,
Calliopas by name, came to Antioch, and joining the party of the green,
occasioned a riot, the Jews again felt the brutal barbarity of this
faction. Its partisans had repaired to Daphne, near Antioch, in order
to celebrate some festival, and there, without any sufficient motive,
they destroyed the synagogue and its sanctuaries, and brutally murdered
the worshipers (507).
Meanwhile how much of the land of their fathers still remained in the
hands of the Jews? Christianity had made itself master of Judæa, and
had become the heir of Judaism. Churches and monasteries arose in
the Holy Land, but its former masters were subjected to all sorts of
persecution whenever they attempted to repair a dilapidated synagogue.
Bishops, abbots and monks lorded it over Palestine, and turned it
into a theater of dogmatic wranglings over the simple or dual nature
of Christ. Jerusalem had ceased to be a center for the Jews; it had
become a thoroughly Christian city, the seat of an archbishop, and
inaccessible to its own sons. The law forbidding Jews to enter the Holy
City, which had been revived by Constantine, was, after the death of
Julian, most rigorously enforced by the authorities. Tiberias, the
stately city on the lake, alone maintained its academical rank, and
under the presidency of Mar-Zutra III and his descendants, it became
a seat of authority for the Jews of other countries. Even the Jewish
king of Arabia voluntarily submitted to the exhortations addressed
to him from Tiberias. But Christianity had acquired a hold even
there, and Tiberias was also the seat of a bishopric. The mountain
cities of Galilee were inhabited by Jews, who probably followed the
same occupations as their forefathers, namely, agriculture and the
cultivation of the olive.
Nazareth, the cradle of Christianity, where the most beautiful women in
all Palestine were to be found, seems to have been mostly populated by
Jews, as it had not been raised to the rank of a bishopric. Scythopolis
(Bethsan), which became the capital of Palæstina Secunda during this
century, and Neapolis (Shechem), the capital of the Samaritans since
Samaria had become Christian, had Jewish inhabitants. But in all these
cities, with the exception of Nazareth, the Jews seem to have been
in the minority, insignificant in comparison with the number of the
Christians.
There probably existed an educational system among the Jews of
Palestine, but it must have been inadequate and unimportant, since,
with the exception of Mar-Zutra, not even the names of the teachers
are known. Until the time of Justinian the Jews of Palestine and the
Byzantine empire, whatever may have been their civil disabilities,
enjoyed complete religious liberty; the emperors did not interfere
in the affairs of the heart. Justinian was the emperor who, besides
imposing greater civil restrictions, first interfered in matters of
conscience. It was he who promulgated the disgraceful law that Jewish
witnesses were not to be allowed to testify against Christians, and
that they were to be considered competent witnesses only in their own
cases (532). Compared with the Samaritans, the Jews were a favored
class, for the evidence of the former had no validity whatever, and
they were not even allowed to dispose of their property by will. This
was an act of revenge against the Samaritans, who had several times
risen in revolt against the imperial power, and on one occasion had set
up a king in the person of Julian ben Sabar (about 530). As the Jews
had not taken part in this insurrection, they were favored to a certain
extent. Meanwhile, however, Justinian also published an anti-Jewish
law. Although the Jews and Samaritans were excluded, like all heretics,
from offices of honor, they were obliged by law to assume the onerous
and expensive decurionate (magisterial office), without being
permitted, however, to enjoy the privileges attached to it, namely,
exemption from exile and flogging. "They shall bear the yoke, although
they sigh under it; but they shall be deemed unworthy of every honor"
(537).
Justinian was one of those rulers who, in spite of narrowness of mind
and wickedness, have their own opinions on religious matters, and
desire to assert them without regard for their subjects' peace of
mind. Justinian wished to carry out his views concerning the Christian
celebration of Easter, and he therefore forbade the Jews to celebrate
the Passover before the Easter of the Christians. The governors of the
provinces had strict orders to enforce this prohibition. Thus, whenever
the Jewish feast of the Passover preceded the Christian Easter, in the
year before leap-year, the Jews incurred heavy fines for holding divine
service and eating unleavened bread (about 540).
Other invasions were made by Justinian on the territory of religious
affairs. A Jewish congregation, probably in Constantinople or Cæsarea,
had been for some time divided against itself. One party wanted the
reading of the portions of the Pentateuch and the Prophets to be
followed by a translation into Greek, for the benefit of the illiterate
and the women. The pious members, on the other hand, especially the
teachers of the Law, entertained an aversion to the use of the language
of their tormentors and of the Church in divine service, probably also
on the ground that no time would be left for the Agadic exposition.
The dispute became so violent that the Grecian party laid the matter
before the emperor, and appealed to him, as judge, in the last
instance. Justinian of course pronounced judgment in favor of the Greek
translation, and recommended to the Jews the use of the Septuagint or
of Aquila's translation in their divine service. He also commanded that
in all the provinces of his empire the lessons from the Holy Scriptures
be translated into the vernacular. Thus far Justinian was in the right.
It is true that he also forbade, under threat of corporal punishment,
the excommunication of the Greek party or party of innovation by those
that clung to the old liturgical system; but even this may be regarded
as an act of justice, as the emperor desired to guarantee liberty in
matters connected with the liturgy. But another clause of the same
rescript proves unmistakably that in this matter he was consulting the
interests of the Church alone, laboring, as he did, under the delusion
that the use of a Greek translation in the synagogical services,
especially of the Septuagint, Christian in coloring, would win over
the Jews to the Christian faith. He decreed that all the Jewish
congregations of the Byzantine empire, naturally including those which
entertained no desire in this direction, should use a Greek or Latin
translation of the lessons for each Sabbath, and he forbade the use of
the Agadic exposition, which had been customary until then. Justinian
desired to suppress the national conceptions of the Holy Scripture in
favor of a translation which had been altered in many places to suit
the purposes of Christianity.
It was probably Justinian who forbade the recital of the confession of
faith, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is one," in the synagogues, because it
seemed a protest against the doctrine of the Trinity. He also forbade
the prayer, "Holy, holy, holy," because the Jews added an Aramaic
sentence, by way of explanation, in order that this prayer might not,
as the Christians held, be taken as a confirmation of the Trinity.
Finally, he forbade the reading of the prophet Isaiah on the Sabbath,
so that the Jews might be deprived of this source of comfort for their
present sorrows and of hope for future happiness.
The service in the synagogue was to be a means of converting the Jews,
and the spirit of Judaism, manifesting itself in Agadic expositions
and homilies, was to be made to yield to Christian doctrines, the
path to which was to be leveled by a method of interpretation showing
Christ to be prefigured in the Old Testament. It appears, therefore,
that the despotic Justinian by no means proposed to grant liberties
to the synagogue, but that he desired, on the contrary, to impose a
species of restraint. He was very zealous in exacting obedience to this
decree, and he commanded his minister, Areobindus, to communicate the
edict concerning the translation of the lessons read in the synagogue
to all the officers of the provinces, and to enjoin upon them to watch
strictly over its rigorous execution (February 13th, 553).
This malignant decree was, however, followed by no serious
consequences; the need of a translation of the Bible was not
sufficiently pressing among the Jews to oblige them to make use of one.
The party which desired to introduce a translation stood isolated,
and it was not difficult to conduct divine service in the customary
manner and to escape the notice of the authorities in those instances
in which the congregation was at peace. The preachers continued to
make use of the Agada, even introducing covert attacks upon anti-Jewish
Byzantium into their sermons. "'There are creeping things innumerable'
(Psalm civ) signifies the countless edicts which the Roman empire
(Byzantium) publishes against us; the 'small and great beasts' are
the dukes, governors, and captains; whosoever of the Jews associates
himself with them shall become an object of scorn." "As an arrow is not
perceived until it has pierced the heart, so it is with the decrees of
Esau (Byzantium). His shafts come suddenly, and are not felt until the
word is spoken for death or imprisonment. Their writings are 'the arrow
that flieth by day.'" In this strain the teachers of the Law preached
in Judæa.
The Jews of Palestine had but little cause to be satisfied with
Justinian's rule, which oppressed them doubly with its extortionate
taxation and its religious hypocrisy. Stephanus, the governor of
Palæstina Prima, doubtless no better than the majority of officials
in Justinian's time, helped to irritate the Jews, by whom he was
thoroughly hated. The time was past, however, when the Jews could
angrily shake the galling yoke from their necks, and take up arms
against their oppressors. The Samaritans, who had been hard pressed
since the days of the Emperor Zeno, were more passionate and
venturesome, but their numerous insurrections resulted in forging new
chains for them, especially since the days of their short-lived king,
Julian, when they had so ruthlessly massacred their hated enemies,
the Christians. They were compelled, with even greater rigor than the
Jews, to embrace Christianity, and all who refused to submit forfeited
the right of disposing of their property. Although Sergius, bishop of
Cæsarea, declared that the obstinacy of the Samaritans had decreased,
and that they embraced Christianity with ever-increasing sincerity,
and although he succeeded in inducing Justinian to mitigate the
severity of the harsh laws which had been promulgated against them,
they nevertheless concealed in their hearts the deepest hatred toward
their tormentors.
On the occasion of a chariot-race in Cæsarea, the capital, where the
jealousy of the color-factions against one another never allowed an
event of that kind to pass off without a riot, the Samaritans threw
off all restraint, and fell upon the Christians. The Jewish youth made
common cause with them, and together they massacred their Christian
opponents in Cæsarea and destroyed their churches. Stephanus, the
governor, hastened to the aid of the Christians, but the Samaritans
pressed him and his military escort so hard that he was obliged to take
refuge in his official residence. Eventually they killed him in his
own house, and spread terror throughout the city and the surrounding
country (July, 556). The Samaritans probably counted upon the support
of one of their countrymen, Arsenios by name, the all-powerful favorite
of Empress Theodora, with whose secret commissions he was entrusted.
Stephanus' widow hurried to Constantinople to acquaint the emperor with
this disturbance and the death of her husband, whereupon Justinian
ordered Amantius, the governor of the East resident in Antioch, to
intervene with an armed force.
Amantius found it easy to execute this command, as the movement was
not serious, but few of the Samaritans and Jews of Palestine being
concerned in it. Punishment was meted out only to the guilty, but was
in keeping with the spirit of the times, and consisted of beheading,
hanging, loss of the right hand, and confiscation of property.
Justinian's successor, Justin the Younger, appears to have made no
change in the anti-Jewish laws. Although he renewed the oppressive
enactments of his predecessor against the Samaritans, whom he deprived
of the right to dispose of their property by testament or by deed,
there is no edict of his which was prejudicial to the Jews. Under the
two excellent emperors, Tiberius and Mauritius, no mention is made of
the Jews. It is not until the accession of the usurper Phocas, who
renewed the times of Caligula and Commodus, that a disturbance occurs,
in the course of which the Jews were carried away to a deed of brutal
violence, which proves that the arbitrariness of the officials and the
arrogance of the clergy must have caused intolerable suffering among
them.
In Antioch, hatred had existed between Jews and Christians for
centuries, and had been intensified by constant friction. Suddenly the
Jews fell upon their Christian neighbors, perhaps at the races in the
circus, and retaliated for the injuries which they had suffered; they
killed all that fell into their hands, and threw their bodies into
the fire, as the Christians had done to them a century before. The
Patriarch Anastasius, surnamed the Sinaite, an object of special hate,
was shamefully abused by them, and his body dragged through the streets
before he was put to death. When the news of this rebellion reached
Phocas, he appointed Bonosus governor of the East, and Cotys, commander
of the troops, and charged them to bring the rebels to account. But
the Jews of Antioch fought so bravely that the Roman army could obtain
no advantage over them. It was only when the campaign was renewed
with numerous troops collected from the neighboring country that they
succumbed to the Roman generals, who killed part of them, mutilated
others, and sent the rest into exile (September and October, 608).
The misdeeds of the Emperor Phocas afforded the Jews an unexpected
opportunity to give vent to their deep resentment. He had dispossessed
his predecessor Mauritius, and this provoked the Persian king, Chosru
II, the son-in-law of the latter, to attack the Roman possessions in
the East. A Persian host inundated Asia Minor and Syria, in spite of
the fact that Heraclius, the newly elected emperor, sent news to the
Persian king of Phocas' well-merited chastisement, and begged for peace.
A division of the Persian army under the general Sharbarza descended
from the heights of Lebanon in order to wrest Palestine from the
Byzantine scepter. On hearing of the weakness of the Christian arms
and of the advance of the Persian troops, the Jews of Palestine felt
a fierce desire for battle. It seemed to them that the hour had come
for revenge upon their twofold enemy, Roman and Christian, for the
humiliations which they had borne for centuries. Tiberias was the
hotbed of this warlike movement, and it was started by a man named
Benjamin, who possessed a prodigious fortune, which he employed in
enlisting and arming Jewish troops. A call was issued to all the Jews
of Palestine to assemble and join the Persian army, and it met with a
ready response. The sturdy Jewish inhabitants of Tiberias, of Nazareth,
and of the mountain cities of Galilee, flocked to the Persian standard.
Filled with rage, they spared neither the Christians nor their churches
in Tiberias, and probably put an end to the bishopric. With Sharbarza's
army they marched on Jerusalem, in order to wrest the Holy City from
the Christians. The Jews of southern Palestine joined their countrymen,
and with the help of the Jews and a band of Saracens, the Persian
general took Jerusalem by storm (July, 614). Ninety thousand Christians
are said to have perished in Jerusalem; but the story that the Jews
bought the Christian prisoners from the Persians, and killed them in
cold blood is a pure fiction.
In their rage, however, the Jews relentlessly destroyed the Christian
sanctuaries. All the churches and monasteries were burned, and the Jews
undoubtedly had a greater share in this deed than the Persians. Had
not Jerusalem--the original possession of the Jews--been torn from them
by violence and treachery? Did they not feel that the Holy City was as
foully desecrated by the adoration of the cross and of the bones of the
martyrs as by the idolatries of Antiochus Epiphanes and Hadrian? The
Jews seem to have deluded themselves with the hope that the Persians
would grant them Jerusalem and the surrounding territory whereon to
establish a commonwealth.
With the Persians, the Jews swept through Palestine, destroyed the
monasteries which abounded in the country, and expelled or killed
the monks. A detachment of Jews from Jerusalem, Tiberias, Galilee,
Damascus, and even Cyprus, undertook an incursion against Tyre, having
been invited by the four thousand Jewish inhabitants of that city to
fall upon the Christians on Easter-night and to massacre them. The
Jewish host is said to have consisted of 20,000 men. The expedition,
however, miscarried, as the Christians of Tyre had been informed of
the impending danger. They anticipated their enemies, seizing their
Jewish fellow-citizens and throwing them into prison; then they awaited
the arrival of the Jewish troops, who found the gates closed and
fortified. The invading Jews revenged themselves by destroying the
churches around Tyre. As often, however, as the Christians of Tyre
heard of the destruction of a church, they killed a hundred of their
Jewish prisoners, and threw their heads over the walls. In this manner
2000 of the latter are said to have met their death. The besiegers,
disheartened by the death of their brethren, withdrew, and were pursued
by the Tyrians.
The Palestinian Jews were relieved of the sight of their enemies for
about fourteen years, and the immediate result of these wars filled
them with joy. No doubt many a Christian became converted through
fear, or because he despaired of the continuance of Christianity.
The conversion of a monk who of his own free will embraced Judaism
was a great triumph for the Jews. This monk had spent many years in
the monastery on Mount Sinaï in doing penance and reciting litanies.
Suddenly he was assailed by doubts as to the truth of Christianity.
He alleged that he had been led to this change by vivid dreams,
which showed him on one side Christ, the apostles, and the martyrs
enveloped in gloomy darkness, while on the other side were Moses, the
prophets, and the holy men of Judaism, bathed in light. Weary of this
internal struggle, he descended from Mount Sinaï, crossed the desert to
Palestine, and finally went to Tiberias, where he declared his settled
determination to embrace Judaism. He offered himself for circumcision,
adopted the name of Abraham, married a Jewess, and henceforward became
a zealous advocate of Judaism and a vehement opponent of his former
religion.
Meanwhile the hope which the Jews had placed in the Persian conquerors
had not been fulfilled. The Persians did not deliver up to them the
city of Jerusalem, and did nothing to promote the rise of a free Jewish
commonwealth, besides which they probably oppressed the Jews with
taxes. There thus arose great discord between the allies, which ended
in the Persian general's seizing many of the Jews of Palestine and
banishing them to Persia. This only served to increase the discontent
of the Jews, and induced them to change their opinions and to lean
more towards the Emperor Heraclius. This prince, who underwent the
rare transformation, by which a dull coward is in a night changed into
an enthusiastic hero, was anxious to conciliate his Jewish enemies in
order to use them against his chief opponent. He therefore entered
into a formal alliance with the Jews, the negotiations for which were
probably conducted by Benjamin of Tiberias. This treaty secured for
them immunity from punishment for the injuries which they had inflicted
on the Christians, and held out to them other advantages which have not
come down to us (about 627).
Heraclius' victories, coupled with Chosru's incapacity, and the revolt
which Syroes, the son of the latter, had raised against his father,
won back for the Greek emperor all those provinces which were on the
point of being permanently constituted Persian satrapies. After the
conclusion of peace between Heraclius and Syroes, who dethroned and
killed his aged father, the Persians quitted Judæa, and again the
country fell under Byzantine rule (628). In the autumn of the same
year the emperor proceeded in triumph to Jerusalem. On his journey he
touched at Tiberias, where he was hospitably entertained by Benjamin,
who also furnished the Byzantine army with the means of subsistence. In
the course of conversation the emperor asked him why he had shown such
hatred towards the Christians, to which Benjamin ingenuously replied,
"Because they are the enemies of my religion."
When Heraclius entered the Holy City he was met by the vehement demand
of the monks and the Patriarch Modestus for the extirpation of all
the Jews of Palestine, at once a measure of revenge for their past
treatment of the Christians, and a safeguard against the recurrence of
the outrage if similar incursions should happen. The emperor protested,
however, that he had solemnly and in writing promised immunity from
punishment to the Jews, and to violate this pledge would make him a
sinner before God and a traitor before men. The fanatical monks replied
that the assassination of the Jews, far from being a crime, was, on
the contrary, an offering acceptable to God. They offered to take the
entire responsibility for the sin upon their own shoulders, and to
appoint a special week of fasting by way of atonement. This argument
convinced the bigoted emperor and sufficed to quiet his conscience;
he instituted a persecution of the Jews throughout Palestine, and
massacred all that failed to conceal themselves in the mountains or
escape to Egypt.
There still existed Jewish congregations in Egypt, even in Alexandria
itself, whence the Jews had been expelled by the fanatic Cyril in the
beginning of the fifth century. A certain Jew of Alexandria, Urbib by
name, celebrated for his wealth and generosity, during a pestilential
famine charitably fed the needy without distinction of religion.
The Jews of Alexandria, moved by warm sympathy for their suffering
co-religionists, fraternally welcomed the unhappy fugitives from Judæa,
the victims of monkish fanaticism. Heraclius seized upon this occasion
to renew the edicts of Hadrian and Constantine, by which the Jews were
forbidden to enter Jerusalem or its precincts (628).
CHAPTER II.
THE JEWS IN EUROPE.
Growth of the Jews in Europe--The Communities in
Constantinople and Italy--Theodoric--Isidore of Seville--
Pope Gregory I.--The Jews of France--Chilperic and Dagobert
--Avitus--The Jews in Spain--Controversies between Jews
and Christians.
510-640 C. E.
The Jews of Europe had no history, in the proper sense of the word,
until a conjunction of fortunate circumstances enabled them to develop
their powers, and to produce certain works whereby they wrested the
pre-eminence from their brethren in the East. Until then there are
only chronicles of martyrdom at the hands of the victorious Church,
monotonously repeated with but little variation in all countries.
"Dispersed and scattered throughout the world," says a celebrated
author of this period, "the Jews, though subject to the Roman yoke,
nevertheless live in accordance with their own laws." The only
point of interest is the manner in which the Jews settled in the
European states, and lived unmolested, in friendly intercourse with
their neighbors, until Christianity gradually encompassed them, and
deprived them of the very breath of life. In the Byzantine empire,
in Ostrogothic Italy, in Frankish and Burgundian Gaul, in Visigothic
Spain, everywhere we are confronted with the same phenomena. The
people, even the barons and the princes, were entirely free from
intolerance, felt no antipathy against the Jews, and associated with
them without prejudice; to the higher clergy, however, the prosperity
and comfort of the Jews appeared as a humiliation of Christianity. They
desired the fulfillment of the curse which the founder of Christianity
is said to have pronounced on the Jewish nation, and every anti-Jewish,
narrow-minded thought which the fathers of the Church had uttered
against them was to be literally fulfilled by embittering their life.
At the councils and synods, the Jewish question occupied the clerical
delegates quite as fully as dogmatic controversies and the prevailing
immorality, which was continually gaining ground among the clergy and
the laity, in spite, or perhaps in consequence of, ecclesiastical
severity and increased austerity in observances.
It is remarkable, however, that the Roman bishops, the recognized
champions of Christianity, treated the Jews with the utmost toleration
and liberality. The occupants of the Papal throne shielded the Jews,
and exhorted the clergy and the princes against the use of force in
converting them to Christianity. This liberality was in truth an
inconsistency, for the Church, following the lines of development
prescribed by the Council of Nice, had to be exclusive, and therefore
hard-hearted and given to persecution. It could only say to Jew,
Samaritan, and heretic: "Believe as I believe, or die," the sword
supplying the lack of argument. But who would not prefer the benevolent
inconsistency of Gregory the Holy to the terrible consistency of
the bloodthirsty kings Sisebut and Dagobert, who, ecclesiastically
speaking, were more Catholic than the Pope? But the toleration of even
the most liberal of the bishops was not of much consequence. They
merely refrained from proselytizing by means of threats of banishment
or death, because they were convinced that in this manner the Church
would be peopled with false Christians, who would curse it in their
inmost hearts. But they did not hesitate to fetter and harass the
Jews, and to place them next to the serfs in the scale of society.
This course appeared absolutely just and pious to almost all the
representatives of Christianity during the centuries of barbarism.
Those nations, however, which were baptized in the Arian creed showed
less intolerance of the Jews. The more Arianism was driven out of
Europe, and the more it gave way before the Catholic religion, the more
the Jews were harassed by proselytizing zeal. Their valiant resistance
continually incited fresh attacks. Their heroic constancy in the face
of permanent degradation is, therefore, a noble trait which history
ought not to conceal. Nor were the Jews devoid of all knowledge in
those illiterate times. They were certainly better acquainted with the
records of their religion than the inferior clergy, for the latter were
not capable of reading their missal.
Our survey of the settlement of the Jews in Europe begins, on our way
from Asia, with the Byzantine empire. They lived in its cities before
Christianity had begun its world-conquest. In Constantinople the Jewish
community inhabited a separate quarter, called the brass-market, where
there was also a large synagogue, from which they were, however,
expelled by one of the emperors, Theodosius II or Justinus II, and the
synagogue was converted into the "Church of the Mother of God."
The holy vessels of the ruined Temple, after having been transported
from place to place, had at last been deposited at Carthage, where
they remained for nearly a century. It was with pain that the Jews of
the Byzantine capital witnessed their removal to Constantinople by
Belisarius, the conqueror of the empire of the Vandals. The Jewish
trophies were displayed in triumph along with Gelimer, the Prince
of the Vandals and grandson of Genseric, and the treasures of that
unfortunate monarch. A certain Jew, filled with profound grief on
seeing the living memorials of Judæa's former greatness in the hands
of her enemies, remarked to a courtier that it was not advisable to
deposit them in the imperial palace, for they might bring misfortune
in their train. They had brought misfortune to Rome, which had been
pillaged by Genseric, and they had brought down adversity upon his
successor, Gelimer, and his capital. It would therefore be better to
remove these holy relics to Jerusalem, where they had been wrought by
King Solomon. No sooner had the Emperor Justinian been informed of this
observation than his superstitious mind began to be fearful of the
consequences, and he accordingly removed the Temple vessels in haste to
Jerusalem, where they were deposited in a church.
In Greece, Macedonia, and Illyria the Jews had been settled a long
time, and although the Christian emperors persecuted them, and laid
them under considerable restraint, they nevertheless allowed them
autonomy in communal affairs, and the application of their own
system of jurisprudence in civil suits. Every community had a Jewish
overseer (ephoros), who had the control of the market prices, weights
and measures. In Italy the Jews are known to have been domiciled as
early as the time of the Republic, and to have been in enjoyment of
full political rights until these were curtailed by the Christian
emperors. They probably looked with excusable pleasure on the fall of
Rome, and exulted to see the ruling city of the world become the prey
of the barbarians and the mockery of the whole world, and felt that
the lamentation over Jerusalem could be literally applied to Rome as
well: "She that was great among the nations, and princess among the
provinces, how is she become tributary?" After the Gepidæ and the
Heruli, by whom Rome had been temporarily enslaved, came the Goths, who
threw the name of Rome into oblivion by founding the Ostrogothic empire
under Theodoric (Dioterich) of the house of the Amali.
The Jews also had to bear a share of the calamities which the savage
swarms of barbarian tribes brought upon the Roman world. With the
adoption of Christianity the Germanic and Sclavonic hordes learnt also
intolerance from the Romans, their teachers, and in their rude minds
it assumed even more hateful forms. The Jewish preachers of this time
had to complain of new foes. "See, O Lord, how many are mine enemies!
If Esau (Rome) hateth Jacob," thus the Agadists expressed themselves,
"he hath at least some specious ground, for he was robbed of his
birthright; but what hath Israel done to the barbarians and the Goths?"
But of what could the barbarians rob the Jews? They had long since
forfeited their political independence, and their spiritual fortune was
secure against destruction. Rome, however, was robbed by the barbarians
of its crown, and clothed with the dress of the slave.
Rome did not remain the political center of Italy, Ravenna, in
alternation with Verona, being the residence of the Ostrogothic
emperors. In these cities, as also in Rome, Milan, and Genoa, Jewish
communities existed at this period. The Jews were also well represented
in Lower Italy, especially in the beautiful town of Naples, in Palermo,
Messina, and Agrigentum, on the island of Sicily, and in Sardinia. In
Palermo there lived Jewish families of ancient nobility, who bore the
name of Nasas (Nassi). The laws governing the Italian Jews were the
decrees of Theodosius, which gave them autonomy in the management of
the internal affairs of their communities, but forbade the building of
new synagogues, the assumption of judicial offices and military rank,
and the possession of Christian slaves. The last point frequently led
to friction between the clergy and the Jews. The repeated invasions of
the barbarian tribes and the numerous wars had increased the number of
prisoners, and the Jews carried on a brisk trade in slaves, although
they were not the only slave merchants. The depopulated cities and
the desolate fields rendered the slave-market a necessity. Laborers
were thus obtained for agriculture and the business of daily life.
The Jewish slave-owners made a practice of converting their slaves to
Judaism, partly because there was a Talmudical ordinance which directed
that they should either be circumcised, or, if they resisted, be sold
again, and partly in order not to be hindered in the exercise of
religious duties by the presence of foreign elements in the house. The
slaves themselves preferred to remain with their Jewish masters, who,
with few exceptions, treated them humanely, regarded them as members of
the family, and shared their joys and sorrows.
Although the restrictions of the Theodosian code had the force of law,
it may be questioned whether they were really carried into effect.
The bishops of the apostolic see, who had learnt political shrewdness
from the Roman statesmen, were too prudent to be fanatic. The Pope
Gelasius had a friend, a Jew of Telesina, who bore the title of "the
most illustrious" (clarissimus), and at his intercession his relative
Antoninus was warmly recommended by the Pope to the bishop Secundinus.
A charge having been brought against a Jew named Basilius, of selling
Christian slaves from Gaul, he pleaded that he only sold heathen
slaves, and that it was impossible to prevent a few Christians from
being included among a number of other slaves; this excuse was accepted
by Pope Gelasius.
When Italy became Ostrogothic under Theodoric, the Jews of that
country were placed in a peculiar position. Hostile outbreaks were not
infrequent during this reign, but at bottom they were not directed
against the Jews, but against this hated Arian monarch. Theodoric,
although an Arian, was by no means favorably disposed towards the
Jews, whose conversion he desired. On a certain occasion, he had his
counselor and minister Cassiodorus write the following to the community
of Milan: "Why dost thou seek temporal peace, O Judah, when because
of thine obduracy thou art unable to find eternal peace?" The Jews of
Genoa having requested permission to put their synagogue into better
repair, Theodoric sent them the following reply: "Why do you desire
that which you should avoid? We accord you, indeed, the permission you
request, but we blame the wish, which is tainted with error. We cannot
command religion, however, nor compel any one to believe contrary to
his conscience." He permitted the Jews neither to erect new synagogues,
nor to decorate old ones, but simply allowed them to repair such as
were falling into decay.
The Ostrogothic ruler was zealous in preserving internal peace and
in upholding the laws, and accordingly he was just to the Jews
whenever any undeserved injury was inflicted upon them. The Catholics
entertained a secret hate of the Arians, and with the deepest
resentment saw Arianism on the throne, while the Catholic Church was
merely magnanimously tolerated: they seized upon every opportunity
of thwarting Theodoric, when it could be done with impunity. On one
occasion, when a few slaves rose against their Jewish masters in
Rome, the mob gathered, burnt the synagogue, ill-treated the Jews,
and plundered their property, in order to laugh Theodoric's edicts to
scorn. Theodoric, having been informed of this, bitterly reproached
the Roman Senate, which was now but the shadow of its former self, for
permitting such misconduct, and imperiously charged it to discover
the culprits and oblige them to make compensation for the damage they
had done. As the leaders of the riot were not discovered, Theodoric
condemned the Roman commune to make compensation. This severity roused
the entire Catholic Church against him.
It is creditable to the Italian Jews of this period that, in spite
of the general deterioration and demoralization, the political and
ecclesiastical literature of the times imputes no other crimes to
them than obduracy and unbelief. Their religion shielded them from
the prevailing wickedness. Cassiodorus, who became a monk after
resigning all his dignities, composed among other works a homiletic
exposition of the Psalms, in which he makes frequent reference to the
Jews, apostrophizing them, and endeavoring to convert them. It is
characteristic of this period that Cassiodorus,--who, besides Boëthius,
was the only notability of the sixth century possessing a certain
philosophic culture--designated the Jews by the most opprobrious names.
It would be easy to compile a dictionary of abusive words from his
writings; he called them "scorpions and lions," "wild asses," "dogs and
unicorns."
In spite of the antipathy of the leaders of opinion, the Jews of
Italy were happy in comparison with their brethren of the Byzantine
empire. Theodoric's successors, his beautiful and accomplished daughter
Amalasuntha, and her husband and murderer Theodatus, a weakling with
philosophical pretensions, followed his principles. The Jews supported
King Theodatus with tenacious fidelity, even when he himself had given
up all hope. The Jews of Naples risked their lives rather than come
under Justinian's scourge. Belisarius, the conqueror of the Vandal
empire, the laurel-crowned hero, trembled at Justinian's wrath, and
allowed himself to be used as the blind tool of the latter's tyranny;
he had already subjugated the whole of Sicily and the southern
extremity of the Italian peninsula, and now was swiftly approaching
Naples, the largest and most beautiful city of Lower Italy. On his
summons to the inhabitants to surrender, the Neapolitans divided into
two factions. But even the war party was not disposed to sacrifice
itself for the Ostrogoths, who were hated in Italy. The Jews alone,
and two lawyers, Pastor and Asclepiadotus, who had been raised to fame
through the influence of the Ostrogothic kings, opposed the surrender
of the city to the Byzantine general. The Jews, who were wealthy and
patriotic, offered their lives and their fortunes for the defense of
the city. In order to allay the fear of scarcity of provisions, they
promised to supply Naples with all necessaries during the siege. The
Jews, unaided, defended that part of the city which was nearest the
sea, and fought with such bravery, that the enemy did not venture to
direct their attacks against that quarter. A contemporary historian
(Procopius) has raised a glorious monument to the heroic bravery of the
Jews of Naples.
Having one night, by means of treachery, penetrated into the city,
the enemy almost made themselves masters of it (536), but the Jews,
with the courage of lions, still continued the struggle. It was only
at break of day, when the enemy had overwhelmed them with numbers,
and many of their own side had been killed, that the Jews quitted
their posts. It is not related how the surviving Jewish combatants
fared--certainly no better than their confederates Asclepiadotus and
Pastor, who fell victims to the fury of the people. Now occurred that
which the Italian Jews had anticipated with horror; they came under the
rule of the Emperor Justinian, whose anti-Jewish ideas place him in a
class with Hadrian, Constantine, and Firuz. Italy, ruler of the world,
sank to the rank of a province (Exarchate) of the Byzantine empire, and
the Jews of Italy trembled before the exarch of Ravenna.
This situation, however, did not continue long. Justinian's successors
were obliged to abandon a great part of Italy forever to the powerful
and uncouth Lombards (589), who, half heathen, half Arian, troubled
themselves but little about the Jews. At all events there are no
exceptional laws for the Jews to be met with in the Longobard code.
Even when the Lombards embraced the Catholic faith, the position of
the Jews in Italy remained bearable. The heads of the Catholic Church,
the Popes, were free from extreme intolerance. Gregory I (590-604),
called the Great and the Holy, who laid the foundation of the power of
Catholicism, gave utterance to the principle that the Jews should be
converted only by means of gentle persuasion and not by violence. He
conscientiously maintained their rights of Roman citizenship, which
had been recognized by various emperors. In the territory which was
subject to the papal sway in Rome, Lower Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia,
he steadfastly persisted in this course, in the face of the fanatical
bishops, who regarded the oppression of the Jews as a pious work.
His pastoral letters are full of earnest exhortations, such as the
following: "We forbid you to molest the Jews or to lay upon them
restrictions not imposed by the established laws; we further permit
them to live as Romans and to dispose of their property as they will;
we only prohibit them from owning Christian slaves."
But greatly as Gregory abhorred the forcible conversion of the Jews,
he exerted himself to win them for the Church by other means. He did
not hesitate to make an appeal to cupidity, and remitted a portion of
the land-tax to such of the Jewish farmers and peasants as embraced
Christianity. He did not, indeed, deceive himself with the belief that
the converts who were obtained in this manner were loyal Christians;
he counted, however, upon their descendants. "If we do not gain them
over," he wrote, "we at least gain their children." Having heard that a
Jew named Nasas had erected an altar to Elijah (probably a synagogue
known by this name) in the island of Sicily, and that Christians met
there to celebrate divine service, Gregory commanded the prefect
Libertinus to raze the building, and to inflict corporal punishment
on Nasas for his offense. Gregory vigorously persecuted such of the
Jews as purchased or possessed Christian slaves. In the Frankish
empire, where fanaticism had not yet made its way, the Jews were not
forbidden to carry on the slave trade. Gregory was indignant at this,
and wrote to King Theodoric (Dieterich) of Burgundy, Theodebert, king
of Austrasia, and also to Queen Brunhilde, expressing his astonishment
that they allowed the Jews to possess Christian slaves. He exhorted
them with great warmth to remove this evil, and to free the true
believers from the power of their enemy. Reccared, the king of the
Visigoths, who submitted to the papal see, was flattered beyond measure
by Gregory for promulgating an edict of intolerance.
In the Byzantine empire and in Italy, Christianity had from the very
first shown more or less hostility to Judaism, but in the west of
Europe, in France and Spain, where the Church established itself
with difficulty, the situation of the Jews assumed a different and
much more favorable aspect. The invasions of the barbarians had
completely changed the social order existing in these countries.
Roman institutions, both political and ecclesiastical, were nearly
effaced, and the polity of the empires established by heathen or half
Christianized nations was not built up on the basis of Church law. It
was a long while before Catholicism gained a firm footing in the west
of Europe, and the Jews who had settled there enjoyed undisturbed peace
until the victorious Church gained the upper hand.
The immigration of the Jews into these important and wealthy provinces
took place probably as early as the time of the Republic or of
Cæsar. The Jewish merchants whose business pursuits brought them
from Alexandria or Asia Minor to Rome and Italy, the Jewish warriors
whom the emperors Vespasian and Titus, the conquerors of Judæa, had
dispersed as prisoners throughout the Roman provinces, found their way
voluntarily or involuntarily into Gaul and Iberia. The presence of the
Jews in the west of Europe is a certain fact only since the second
century.
The Gallic Jews, whose first settlement was in the district of Arles,
enjoyed the full rights of Roman citizenship, whether they arrived in
Gaul as merchants or as fugitives, with the peddler's pack or in the
garb of slaves; they were treated as Romans also by the Frankish and
Burgundian conquerors. The most ancient legislation of the Franks and
Burgundians did not consider the Jews as a distinct race, subject to
peculiar laws. In the Frankish kingdom founded by Clovis, the Jews
dwelt in Auvergne (Arverna), in Carcassonne, Arles, Orleans, and as far
north as Paris and Belgium. Numbers of them resided in the old Greek
port of Marseilles, and in Béziers (Biterræ), and so many dwelt in the
province of Narbonne that a mountain near the city of that name was
called _Mons Judaicus_. The territory of Narbonne belonged for a long
time to Visigothic Spain, and for this reason the Jewish history of
this district reflects all the vicissitudes of the Jews on the further
side of the Pyrenees.
The Jews of the Frankish and Burgundian kingdoms carried on
agriculture, trade, and commerce without restraint; they navigated the
seas and rivers in their own ships. They also practised medicine, and
the advice of the Jewish physicians was sought even by the clergy, who
probably did not care to rely entirely on the miraculous healing powers
of the saints and of relics. They were also skilled in the use of the
weapons of war, and took an active part in the battles between Clovis
and Theodoric's generals before Arles (508).
Besides their Biblical names, the Jews of Gaul bore the appellations
which were common in the country, such as Armentarius, Gozolas,
Priscus, or Siderius. They lived on the best of terms with the people
of the country, and intermarriages even occurred between Jews and
Christians. The Christian clergy did not scruple to eat at Jewish
tables, and in turn often entertained the Jews.
The higher ecclesiastics, however, took umbrage, because the Jews
refused, at Christian banquets, to eat of certain dishes, which the
precepts of their religion forbade them to enjoy. For this reason
the council of Vannes (465) prohibited the clergy from taking part
in Jewish banquets, "because they considered it undignified that
Christians should eat the viands of the Jews, while the latter refused
to eat of Christian dishes, thus making it appear as though the clergy
were inferior to the Jews." But this decision of the council was of
no avail; canonical severity was powerless to check this friendly
intercourse. It became necessary to re-enact this ecclesiastical
prohibition several times. Thus, in spite of their separation from
Judæa and Babylonia, the centers of Judaism, the Jews of Gaul lived in
strict accordance with the precepts of their religion. Wherever they
settled they built their synagogues, and constituted their communities
in exact agreement with the directions of the Talmud.
The friendly relations existing between the Jews and the inhabitants of
Gaul underwent no change even when the country, by reason of Clovis'
conversion, came under the rule of the Catholic Church. Clovis was,
indeed, a bloodthirsty butcher, but not a fanatic. The clergy were
under obligations to him, because he had abandoned heathenism for
Christianity, and he did not need to yield to them in any way. As he
left an hereditary kingdom to his successors, they were not placed in
painful situations and dilemmas, as were the elective kings of the
Visigoths, and were not obliged to make concessions or sacrifices to
the Church. Among the Franks, therefore, heathen customs remained
long in vogue, and the Jews were permitted to live according to their
religion without molestation. It is true that many ecclesiastical
fanatics exerted themselves to convert the Jews by every means in their
power, even using ill-treatment, and many severe resolutions were
passed at their councils. But these persecutions remained isolated,
even when they were countenanced by one or another of the zealous
kings. Burgundy, however, ever since King Sigismund had embraced the
Catholic faith (516), and felt bound to elevate oppression of the
Arians and the Jews into the policy of the state, was more hostile to
the Jews than the rest of France. It was this king who first raised the
barrier between Jews and Christians. He confirmed the decision of the
council of Epaone, held under the presidency of the bloodthirsty bishop
Avitus, forbidding even laymen to take part in Jewish banquets (517).
A spirit of hostility to the Jews gradually spread from Burgundy over
the Frankish countries. As early as the third and fourth councils
at Orleans (538 and 545), severe enactments were passed against
them. Not only were the Christians commanded not to take part in
Jewish banquets, and the Jews forbidden to make proselytes, but the
latter were even prohibited from appearing in the streets and public
squares during Easter, because "their appearance was an insult to
Christianity." Childebert I of Paris embodied this last point in his
constitution (554), and thus exalted the intolerance of the clergy
into a law of the state. This feeling of hostility, however, was not
prevalent among Childebert's contemporaries. The Frankish empire was
divided among several monarchs, who, although related, mortally hated
one another; this division had the effect of confining intolerant
practices to single provinces. Even ecclesiastical dignitaries of
high rank continued to maintain friendly intercourse with the Jews,
without fearing any danger to the Church. But fanaticism is naturally
contagious; when it has once gained a firm footing in a country, it
soon obtains ascendancy over all minds, and overcomes all scruples. In
the Frankish empire the persecution of the Jews proceeded from a man
who may be regarded as the very incarnation of Jew-hatred. This was
Avitus, Bishop of Arverna, whose see was at Clermont; what Cyril had
been to the Jews of Alexandria, Avitus was to the Jews of Gaul.
The Jewish population of his bishopric was a thorn in his side, and he
accordingly roused the members of his flock against it. Again and again
he exhorted the Jews of Clermont to become converts, but his sermons
meeting with no response, he incited the mob to attack the synagogues,
and raze them to the ground. But even this did not content the fanatic;
he offered the Jews the choice between presenting themselves for
baptism and quitting the city. Only one Jew received baptism, thus
making himself an object of abhorrence to the whole community. As he
was going through the streets at Pentecost in his white baptismal robe,
he was sprinkled with rancid oil by a Jew. This seemed a challenge to
the fanatic mob, and they fell upon the Jews. The latter retreated to
their houses, where they were attacked, and many of them killed. The
sight of blood caused the faint hearts to waver, and five hundred of
the Jews besought Bishop Avitus to accord them the favor of baptism,
and implored him to put an end to the massacre at once. Such of them
as remained true to their religion fled to Marseilles (576). The
Christian population celebrated the day of the baptism of the five
hundred with wild rejoicing, as though the cross might pride itself on
a victory which had been won by the sword. The news of the occurrence
in Clermont caused great joy among the fanatics. Bishop Gregory of
Tours invited the pious poet Venantius Fortunatus to celebrate in
song the achievement of Avitus. But the Latin verses of this poet,
who had emigrated to France from Italy, instead of glorifying Avitus,
raised a monument of shame to his memory. They indicate quite clearly
that the Jews of Clermont suffered innocently, and became converts
to Christianity out of sheer desperation. Thus the effects of the
ever-growing fanaticism made themselves felt in many parts of France.
The Council of Mâcon (581) adopted several resolutions which aimed
at assigning an inferior position in society to the Jews. They were
neither to officiate as judges nor to be allowed to become tax-farmers,
"lest the Christian population appear to be subjected to them." The
Jews were further obliged to show profound reverence to the Christian
priests, and were to seat themselves in their presence only by express
permission. All who transgressed this law were to be severely punished.
The edict forbidding the Jews to appear in public during Easter was
re-enacted by this council. Even King Chilperic, although he bore no
particular good-will to the Catholic clergy, emulated the example set
by Avitus. He also compelled the Jews of his empire to receive baptism,
and himself stood sponsor to the Jewish neophytes at the baptismal
font. But he was content with the mere appearance of conversion, and
offered no opposition to the Jews, although they continued to celebrate
the Sabbath and to observe the laws of Judaism.
The later Merovingian kings became more and more bigoted, and their
hatred of the Jews consequently increased. Clotaire II, on whom
had devolved the rule of the entire Frankish empire (613), was a
matricide, but was nevertheless considered a model of religious piety.
He sanctioned the decisions of the Council of Paris, which forbade the
Jews to hold magisterial power or to take military service (615). His
son Dagobert must be counted among the most anti-Jewish monarchs in the
whole history of the world. Many thousands of Jewish fugitives who had
fled to the Frankish empire to escape from the fanaticism of Sisebut,
king of the Visigoths, roused the jealousy of this sensual monarch, who
was ashamed of being considered inferior to his Visigothic contemporary
and of manifesting less religious zeal. He therefore issued a decree,
wherein he declared that the entire Jewish population of the Frankish
empire must either embrace Christianity before a certain day, or be
treated as enemies and be put to death (about 629).
The more the authority of the Merovingian _fainéants_, as they have
been called, declined, and the more the power of the politic and
cautious stewards, Pepin's descendants, rose, the greater was the
exemption from persecution and torture enjoyed by the Jews. The
predecessors of Charlemagne seem to have felt that the Jews were a
useful class of men, whose activity and intellectual capabilities could
not but be advantageous to the state. The slave trade alone remained a
standing subject of legislation in the Councils; but in spite of their
zeal they were unable to abolish the traffic in human beings, because
their condemnation applied to only one phase of the trade.
The Jews of Germany are to be regarded merely as colonies of the
Frankish Jews, and such of them as lived in Austrasia, a province
subject to the Merovingian kings, shared the same fate as their
brethren in France. According to a chronicle, the most ancient Jews
in the Rhine district are said to have been the descendants of the
legionaries who took part in the destruction of the Temple. From the
vast horde of Jewish prisoners, the Vangioni had chosen the most
beautiful women, had brought them back to their stations on the shores
of the Rhine and the Main, and had compelled them to minister to the
satisfaction of their desires. The children thus begotten of Jewish and
Germanic parents were brought up by their mothers in the Jewish faith,
their fathers not troubling themselves about them. It is these children
who are said to have been the founders of the first Jewish communities
between Worms and Mayence. It is certain that a Jewish congregation
existed in the Roman colony, the city of Cologne, long before
Christianity had been raised to power by Constantine. The heads of the
community and its most respected members had obtained from the heathen
emperors the privilege of exemption from the onerous municipal offices.
The first Christian emperor, however, narrowed the limits of this
immunity, exempting only two or three families. The Jews of Cologne
enjoyed also the privilege of exercising their own jurisdiction,
which they were allowed to retain until the Middle Ages. A non-Jewish
plaintiff, even though he were a priest, was obliged to bring his suit
against a Jew before the Jewish judge (bishop of the Jews).
While the history of the Jews in Byzantium, Italy, and France
possesses interest for special students, that of their brethren in
the Pyrenean peninsula rises to the height of universal importance.
The Jewish inhabitants of this happy peninsula contributed by their
hearty interest to the greatness of the country, which they loved as
only a fatherland can be loved, and in so doing achieved world-wide
reputation. Jewish Spain contributed almost as much to the development
of Judaism as Judæa and Babylonia, and as in these countries, so
every spot in this new home has become classic for the Jewish race.
Cordova, Granada, and Toledo are as familiar to the Jews as Jerusalem
and Tiberias, and almost more so than Nahardea and Sora. When Judaism
had come to a standstill in the East, and had grown weak with age, it
acquired new vigor in Spain, and extended its fruitful influence over a
wide sphere. Spain seemed to be destined by Providence to become a new
center for the members of the dispersed race, where their spirit could
revive, and to which they could point with pride.
The first settlement of the Jews in beautiful Hesperia is buried in
dim obscurity. It is certain that they went thither as early as the
time of the Roman Republic, as free men, to take advantage of the rich
resources of this country.
The victims of the unhappy insurrections under Vespasian, Titus, and
Hadrian were also dispersed to the extreme west, and an exaggerated
account relates that 80,000 of them were carried off to Spain as
prisoners. They probably did not remain long in slavery; the sympathy
of their free brethren undoubtedly hastened to ransom them, and thus
fulfil the most important of the duties prescribed by Talmudical
Judaism to its adherents. How numerously the Jews had settled in some
parts of Spain is shown by the names which they conferred upon these
localities. The city of Granada was called the city of the Jews in
former times, on account of its being entirely inhabited by them: the
same name was also borne by the ancient town of Tarragona (Tarracona),
before its conquest by the Arabs. In Cordova there existed a Jewish
gateway of ancient date, and near Saragossa there was a fortress which
at the time of the Arabs was called Ruta al Jahud. In the neighborhood
of Tortosa a gravestone was found with both a Hebrew and a national
name. This memorial was inscribed in three languages--Hebrew, Greek,
and Latin; the Jews must, therefore, have emigrated at an early period
from a Greek district to the north of Spain, and acquired the Latin
language, without forgetting that of the Holy Writings.
Pride of ancestry, which was a characteristic of the Jews of this
country as of the other Spaniards, was not content with the fact that
the Jewish colony in Spain had possessed the right of citizenship
long before the Visigoths and other Germanic tribes had set their
tyrannous iron foot in the land, but desired to lay claim to even
higher antiquity for it. The Spanish Jews maintained that they had
been transported hither after the destruction of the Temple by the
Babylonian conqueror, Nebuchadnezzar. Certain Jewish families, the
Ibn-Dauds and the Abrabanels, boasted descent from the royal house of
David, and maintained that their ancestors had been settled since time
immemorial partly in the district of Lucena, and partly in the environs
of Toledo and Seville. The numerous Spanish-Jewish family of Nasi also
traced back its pedigree to King David, and proved it by means of a
genealogical table and seals. The family of the Ibn-Albalias was more
modest, and dated its immigration only from the destruction of the
Second Temple. A family tradition runs to the effect that the Roman
governor of Spain begged the conqueror of Jerusalem to send him some
noble families from the capital of Judæa, and that Titus complied with
his request. Among those thus transported was a man named Baruch, who
excelled in the art of weaving curtains for the Temple. This Baruch,
who settled in Merida, was the ancestor of the Ibn-Albalias.
Christianity had early taken root in Spain. In fact a council of
bishops, priests, and the subordinate clergy met at Illiberis (Elvira,
near Granada) some time before Constantine's conversion. The Jews were
nevertheless held in high esteem by the Christian population as well
as by the heathens. The Iberians and Romans who had been converted
to Christianity had not yet discovered in the Jews a race repudiated
by God, a people whose presence was to be shunned. They associated
with their Jewish neighbors in perfect freedom. The newly-converted
inhabitants of the country, who often heard their apostle preach about
Jews and Judaism, had no conception of the wide gulf dividing Judaism
from Christianity, and as often had the produce of their fields blessed
by pious Jews as by their own clergy. Intermarriages between Jews and
Christians occurred quite as frequently in Spain as in Gaul.
The higher Catholic clergy, however, could not suffer this friendly
intercourse between Jews and Christians to continue; they perceived it
to be dangerous to the newly-established Church. To the representatives
of the Church in Spain is due the honor--if honor it be--of first
having raised a barrier between Jew and Christian. The Council of
Illiberis (about 320), at whose head was Osius, Bishop of Cordova,
forbade the Christians, under pain of excommunication, to hold
friendly intercourse with the Jews, to contract marriages with them,
or to allow them to bless the produce of their fields. The seed of
malignant hatred of the Jews, which was thus first sown by the Synod
of Illiberis, did not, however, produce its poisonous fruit until much
later. When the migrating Germanic hordes of the Suevi, Vandals, and
Visigoths first laid waste this beautiful country, and then chose it
for their home, the Catholics of the land were obliged to bear the
yoke of political and religious dependence, for the Visigoths, who
had taken lasting possession of the peninsula, happened to have been
converted to the Arian faith. On the whole, the Visigothic Arians
were tolerably indifferent to the controversy of the creeds, as to
whether the Son of God was the same as, or similar to, the Father, and
whether Bishop Arius ought to be regarded as orthodox or heretical.
But they thoroughly hated the Catholic inhabitants of the country,
because in every Catholic they saw a Roman, and consequently an enemy.
The Jews, on the other hand, were unmolested under the Arian kings,
and besides enjoying civil and political equality, were admitted to
the public offices. Their skill and knowledge, which gave them the
advantage over the uncivilized Visigoths, specially fitted them for
these posts. The favorable condition of the Jews in Spain continued for
more than a century, beginning with the time when this country first
became a province of the Toletanic-Visigothic empire, and extending
over the later period, when, under Theudes (531), it became the center
of the same. The Jews who dwelt in the province of Narbonne, and in
that district of Africa which formed part of the Visigothic empire,
also enjoyed civil and political equality; some of them rendered
material service to the Visigothic kings. The Jews that lived at the
foot of the Pyrenees defended the passes leading from Gaul into Spain
against the invasions of the Franks and Burgundians, who longed to
possess the country. They were regarded as the most trusty guardians
of the frontier, and their martial courage gained for them special
distinction. The Visigothic Jews must have remained in communication,
either through Italy or through Africa, with Judæa or Babylonia, from
which countries they probably received their religious teachers. They
adhered strictly to the precepts of the Talmud, abstained from wine
made by non-Jews, and admitted their heathen and Christian slaves
into the covenant of Abraham, as ordained by the Talmud. While their
brethren on the other side of the Pyrenees were greatly oppressed, and
forcibly converted to Christianity, or compelled to emigrate, they
enjoyed complete liberty of religion, and were further granted the
privilege, which was denied the Jews in all the other countries of
Europe, of initiating their slaves into their religion.
But as soon as the Catholic Church obtained the supremacy in Spain,
and Arianism began to be persecuted, the affairs of the Jews of this
country assumed an unfavorable aspect. King Reccared, who had abjured
the Arian creed at the Council of Toledo, was the first to unite with
the Synod in imposing restrictions on the Jews. They were prohibited
from contracting marriages with the Christians, from acquiring
Christian slaves, and from holding public offices; such of their
children as were born of intermarriages were to be forcibly baptized
(589). They were thus made to assume an isolated position, which pained
them all the more as they were animated by a sense of honor, and until
now had lived upon equal terms with their fellow-citizens, having,
in fact, been privileged more than the Catholics. Most oppressive of
all was the restraint touching the possession of slaves. Henceforward
the Jews were neither to purchase Christian slaves nor to accept them
as presents, and if they transgressed the order and initiated the
slaves into Judaism, they were to lose all rights in them. The whole
fortune of him that circumcised a slave was forfeited to the state.
All well-to-do people in the country possessed slaves and serfs, who
cultivated their land and provided for the wants of the house; the Jews
alone were to be deprived of this advantage. It is conceivable that the
wealthy Jews who owned slaves exerted themselves to obtain the repeal
of Reccared's law, and to this end they proffered a considerable sum
of money to the king. Reccared, however, refused their offer, and for
this deed was commended beyond measure by Pope Gregory, whose heart's
desire was fulfilled by this law (599). Gregory compared the Visigothic
monarch to David, king of Israel, "who refused to accept the water
which his warriors had brought him at the risk of their lives, and
poured it out before the Lord." In the same manner, he contended,
Reccared had sacrificed to God the gold which had been offered to
him. At the same time Reccared confirmed a decision of the Council
of Narbonne, forbidding the Jews to sing Psalms at their funeral
services,--a custom which they had probably adopted from the Church.
Although Reccared desired to enforce these restrictive laws against the
Jews, it was nevertheless not very difficult for the latter to evade
them. The peculiar constitution of Visigothic Spain afforded them the
means of escaping their pressure. According to this constitution the
king was not an all-powerful ruler, for the Visigothic nobles, who
possessed the right of electing him, were absolutely independent in
their own provinces. Neither they nor the people at large shared the
fanaticism of the Church against the Jews. They accorded them, as in
the past, the right of purchasing slaves, and probably also bestowed
offices upon them. In twenty years Reccared's laws against the Jews had
fallen into complete disuse. His successors paid but little attention
to the matter, and were on the whole not unfavorably disposed towards
the Jews.
At this period, however, a king of the Visigoths was elected, who,
liberal in other respects, and not uncultured, was a scourge for the
Jews of his dominions, and, in consequence, prepared a grievous destiny
for his empire. Sisebut, a contemporary of the Emperor Heraclius, was,
like the latter, a fanatical persecutor of the Jews. But while some
excuse may be found for Heraclius's conduct in the revolt of the Jews
of Palestine, and in the fact that he was compelled to adopt this
course by the blind fury of the monks, Sisebut acted thus without any
provocation, of his own free will, and almost contrary to the wish of
the Catholic clergy. At the very commencement of his reign (612),
the Jews engaged his attention. His conscience was troubled by the
fact, that in spite of Reccared's laws, Christian slaves still served
Jewish masters, and were initiated into Judaism, to which faith they
willingly adhered. He therefore renewed these laws, and commanded the
ecclesiastics and the judges, as well as the entire population of the
country, to see that in future no Christians stood in servile relations
to the Jews, but he went further in this direction than Reccared; the
Jews were not only prohibited from acquiring any slaves, but were
forbidden to retain those whom they possessed. Only those Jews who
embraced Christianity were permitted to own slaves, and they alone
were allowed to advance a claim to the slaves left by their Jewish
relatives. Sisebut solemnly exhorted his successors to maintain this
law. "May the king who dares abolish this law"--thus ran the formula of
Sisebut's curse--"incur the deepest disgrace in this world, and eternal
torments in the flames of hell." In spite of this severity and of
Sisebut's earnest exhortations, this law appears to have been as little
enforced at that period as under Reccared. The independent nobles of
the country extended their protection to the Jews, either for their
own interest or out of defiance to the king. Even many of the priests
and bishops seem to have supported the Jews, and to have concerned
themselves but little about the king's command. Sisebut therefore
enacted a still severer decree. Within a certain period all the Jews
of the land were either to receive baptism or to quit the territory
of the Visigothic empire. This order was strictly executed. The weak,
who clung to their property or loved the land which their fathers had
inhabited time out of mind, allowed themselves to be baptized. The
stronger-minded, on the other hand, whose conscience could approve of
no compromise, emigrated to France or to the neighboring continent
of Africa (612-613). The clergy, however, were by no means satisfied
with this forced conversion, and one of their principal representatives
reproached the king with having indeed "exhibited zeal for the faith,
but not conscientious zeal." With this fanatical persecution Sisebut
paved the way for the dissolution of the Visigothic empire.
Sisebut's rigorous laws against the Jews lasted no longer than his
reign. They were repealed by his successor, Swintila, a just and
liberal monarch, whom the oppressed named the "father of his country."
The exiled Jews returned to their native land, and the proselytes
reverted to Judaism (621-631). In spite of their baptism the Jewish
converts had not abandoned their religion. The act of baptism was
deemed sufficient at this period, and no one inquired whether the
converts still retained their former customs and usages. The noble king
Swintila was, however, dethroned by a conspiracy of nobles and the
clergy, and a docile tool, Sisenand by name, raised to his place. Under
this monarch the clergy again acquired the ascendancy. Once again, at
the Council of Toledo (633), the Jews became the object of synodal
attention. At the head of this council stood Isidore, archbishop
of Hispalis (Seville), a well-informed and equitable prelate, but
infected with the prejudices of his time. The synod proclaimed the
principle that the Jews ought not to be made to embrace Christianity
by violence and threats of punishment; nevertheless Reccared's laws
against them were re-enacted. The full severity of the ecclesiastical
legislation was, however, directed against the Jews who had been
forcibly converted under Sisebut, and had reverted to their religion.
Although the clergy themselves had criticized the method of their
conversion, they nevertheless considered it a duty to keep within
the pale of Christianity the Jews that had once received the holy
sacrament, "in order that the faith may not be dishonored." Religion
was regarded at this period merely as a lip-confession. The synod which
sat under Sisenand decided, therefore, that the Jews who had been
baptized should be forcibly restrained from the observance of their
religion, and withdrawn from the society of their co-religionists, and
that the children of both sexes should be torn from their parents and
thrust into monasteries. Those discovered observing the Sabbath and
the Jewish festivals, contracting marriages according to the Jewish
rites, practising circumcision, or abstaining from certain foods, in
obedience to the precepts of Judaism, were to expiate their offenses
by forfeiting their freedom. They were to be reduced to slavery, and
presented to orthodox Christians chosen by the king. According to
this canonical legislation, the forcibly converted Jews and their
descendants were not to be admitted as witnesses, because "those
that have been untrue to God cannot be sincere to man"; this was the
conclusion reached by ignorance in session. In comparison with this
severity, the treatment of the Jews that had remained steadfast to
their faith appears quite merciful.
Even these, however, the clergy exerted themselves to alienate from
Judaism. Isidore of Seville wrote two books against the Jews, wherein
he attempted to prove the doctrines of Christianity by means of
passages from the Old Testament, naturally in that tasteless, senseless
manner which had been employed since the commencement of the polemic
warfare against Judaism by the Fathers. The Spanish Jews, in order to
confirm themselves in their ancestral faith, were induced to take up
the controversy, and to refute this specious proof. The learned men
among them replied with counter treatises, written probably in Latin.
Their superior knowledge of the Biblical records made their victory
easy. In answer to the principal rejoinder, that the scepter had
departed from Judah, and that the Christians, who possessed kings, thus
formed the true people of Israel, the Jews pointed to a Jewish kingdom
in the extreme East, which they asserted was ruled over by a descendant
of David. They alluded to the Jewish-Himyarite empire in southern
Arabia, but this was governed by a dynasty which had been converted to
Judaism.
These resolutions of the fourth Council of Toledo and Sisenand's
persecution of the Jewish converts do not appear to have been carried
out with all the proposed severity. The Visigothic-Spanish nobles
took the Jews more and more under their patronage, and against them
the royal authority was powerless. At this period, however, a king
resembling Sisebut ascended the Visigothic throne. Chintila assembled
a general council, and not only did he obtain from them a confirmation
of all anti-Jewish clauses contained in the existing laws, but enacted
that no one should be allowed to remain in the Visigothic empire who
did not embrace the Catholic religion. The ecclesiastical assembly
adopted these propositions with joy, and exulted over the fact that
"by the piety of the king, the unyielding infidelity of the Jews would
at last be destroyed." They appended the canonical law, that in future
every king, before his accession, should be compelled to take a solemn
oath not to allow the converted Jews to violate the Catholic faith, nor
to favor their unbelief, but strictly to enforce the ecclesiastical
decisions against them (638).
A second time the Jews were obliged to emigrate, and the converts, who
still clung to Judaism in their secret hearts, were compelled to sign a
confession to the effect that they would observe and obey the Catholic
religion without reserve. But the confession thus signed by men whose
sacred convictions were outraged, was not and could not be sincere.
They hoped steadfastly for better times, when they might be able to
throw off the mask, and the elective constitution of the Visigothic
empire soon made this possible. The present situation lasted only
during the four years of Chintila's reign (638-642).
CHAPTER III.
THE JEWS OF THE ARABIAN PENINSULA.
Happy condition of the Jews in Arabia--Traditions as to
their original settlements--Yathrib and Chaibar--The
Jewish-Arabic tribes--The Benu-Nadhir, the Benu-Kuraiza,
and Benu-Bachdal--The Benu-Kainukaa--The Jews of Yemen--
Their power and influence--Conversion of Arabian tribes to
Judaism--Abu-Kariba the first Jewish-Himyarite king--Zorah
Dhu-Nowas--Samuel Ibn-Adija--Mahomet--His indebtedness
to Judaism--Mahomet's early friendliness to the Jews and
subsequent breach with them--His attacks on the Jewish tribes
--The War of the Fosse--The position of the Jews under the
Caliphs.
500-662 C. E.
Wearied with contemplating the miserable plight of the Jews in their
ancient home and in the countries of Europe, and fatigued by the
constant sight of fanatical oppression, the eyes of the observer rest
with gladness upon their situation in the Arabian peninsula. Here the
sons of Judah were free to raise their heads, and did not need to look
about them with fear and humiliation, lest the ecclesiastical wrath
be discharged upon them, or the secular power overwhelm them. Here
they were not shut out from the paths of honor, nor excluded from the
privileges of the state, but, untrammeled, were allowed to develop
their powers in the midst of a free, simple, and talented people,
to show their manly courage, to compete for the gifts of fame, and
with practised hand to measure swords with their antagonists. Instead
of bearing the yoke, the Jews were not infrequently the leaders of
the Arabian tribes. Their intellectual superiority constituted them
a power, and they concluded offensive and defensive alliances, and
carried on feuds. Besides the sword and the lance, however, they
handled the ploughshare and the lyre, and in the end became the
teachers of the Arabian nation. The history of the Jews of Arabia in
the century which precedes Mahomet's appearance, and during the period
of his activity, forms a glorious page in the annals of the Jews.
The first immigration of Jewish families into the free peninsula is
buried in misty tradition. According to one account, the Israelites
sent by Joshua to fight the Amalekites settled in the city of Yathrib
(afterwards Medina), and in the province of Chaibar; according to
another, the Israelite warriors, under Saul, who had spared the
beautiful young son of the Amalekite king, and had been repudiated by
the nation for their disobedience, returned to the Hejas (northern
Arabia), and settled there. An Israelite colony is also supposed to
have been formed in northern Arabia during the reign of David. It is
possible that under the powerful kings of Judah, seafaring Israelites,
who navigated the Red Sea on their way to Ophir--the land of
gold--established trading stations, for the trade with India, in Mariba
and Sanaa (Usal), the most important commercial towns of southern
Arabia (Yemen, Himyara, Sabea), and planted Jewish colonies there.
The later Arabian Jews said, however, that they had heard from their
forefathers that many Jewish fugitives had escaped to northern Arabia
on the destruction of the First Temple by Nebuchadnezzar. But there
can be no doubt that the persecution of the Jews by the Romans was the
means of establishing a Jewish population in the Arabian peninsula.
The death-defying zealots who, after the destruction of the Second
Temple, fled in part to Egypt and to Cyrene, in order to continue there
the desperate struggle against the thraldom of Rome, also passed in
straggling bands into Arabia, where they were not compelled to hide
their love of freedom or to abandon their warlike bearing.
From these fugitives sprang three Jewish-Arabic tribes--the
Benu-Nadhir, the Benu-Kuraiza, and the Benu-Bachdal, the first two
of which were descended from Aaron, and therefore called themselves
Cohanim (Al-kahinani). Another Jewish family--the Benu-Kainukaa--were
established in northern Arabia, and their mode of living was different
from that of the Nadhir and Kuraiza. These tribes had their center in
the city of Yathrib, which was situated in a fruitful district, planted
with palms and rice, and watered by small streams. As the Jews were
often molested by Bedouins, they built castles on the elevated places
in the city and the surrounding country, whereby they guarded their
independence. Although originally the sole rulers of this district,
they were afterwards obliged to share their power and the possession of
the soil with the Arabs, for, about the year 300, two related families,
the Benu-Aus and the Chazraj (together forming the tribe of Kaila),
settled in the same neighborhood, and sometimes stood in friendly,
sometimes in hostile relations to the Jews.
To the north of Yathrib was situated the district of Chaibar, which was
entirely inhabited by Jews, who constituted a separate commonwealth.
The Jews of Chaibar are supposed to have been descendants of the
Rechabites, who, in accordance with the command of their progenitor,
Jonadab, the son of Rechab, led a nomadic and Nazarite life; after the
destruction of the First Temple, they are said to have wandered as far
as the district of Chaibar, attracted by its abundance of palms and
grain. The Jews of Chaibar constructed a line of castles or fortresses,
like the castles of the Christian knights; the strongest of them was
Kamus, built upon a hill difficult of access. These castles protected
them from the predatory incursions of the warlike Bedouins, and enabled
them to offer an asylum to many a persecuted fugitive. Wadil-Kora (the
valley of the villages), a fertile plain a day's journey from Chaibar,
was also inhabited exclusively by Jews. In Mecca, where stood the
sanctuary of the Arabs, there probably lived but few Jews.
They were numerously represented, however, in southern Arabia (Yemen),
"the land," its inhabitants boasted, "the very dust of which was gold,
which produced the healthiest men, and whose women brought forth
without pain." But unlike their brethren in Hejas, the Jews of Arabia
Felix lived without racial or political cohesion, scattered among
the Arabs. They nevertheless in time obtained so great an influence
over the Arab tribes and the kings of Yemen (Himyara), that they were
able to prevent the propagation of Christianity in this region. The
Byzantine Christian emperors had their desires fixed upon these markets
for Indian produce. Without actually meditating the subjection of the
brave Himyarites (Homerites), they desired to gain their friendship
by converting them to Christianity; the cross was to be the means of
effecting a commercial connection. It was not until the end of the
fifth or the beginning of the sixth century that the Christian envoys
succeeded in converting to Christianity an Arab prince and his tribe,
whose capital was the commercial town of Najara.--Arabia owned only
half the island of Yotabe (now Jijbân), in the Red Sea (60 miles to
the south of the capital, Aila); a small Jewish free state had existed
there since time immemorial.
In consequence of their Semitic descent, the Jews of Arabia possessed
many points of similarity with the primitive inhabitants of the
country. Their language was closely related to Arabic, and their
customs, except those that had been produced by their religion, were
not different from those of the sons of Arabia. The Jews became,
therefore, so thoroughly Arabic that they were distinguished from the
natives of the country only by their religious belief. Intermarriage
between the two nations tended to heighten the similarity of their
characters. Like the Himyarites, the Jews of southern Arabia applied
themselves more particularly to the trade between India, the Byzantine
empire, and Persia. The Jews of northern Arabia, on the contrary,
led the life of Bedouins; they occupied themselves with agriculture,
cattle breeding, transport by caravan, traffic in weapons, and probably
also the calling of robbers. The Arabian Jews likewise possessed a
patriarchal, tribal constitution. Several families were united under
one name, and led by a chieftain (shaïch), who in times of peace
settled controversies and pronounced judgment, and in war commanded all
the men able to bear arms, and concluded alliances with neighboring
tribes. Like the Arabs, the Jews of the peninsula extended their
hospitality to every one who entered their tents, and held inviolable
faith with their allies; but they shared also the faults of the
original inhabitants of the peninsula, avenging the death of one of
their number with rigorous inflexibility, and hiding in ambush in order
to surprise and annihilate their enemy. It would sometimes happen that
a Jewish tribe, having entered into an alliance with an Arabian clan,
would find itself opposed to a kindred tribe which had espoused another
cause. But even though Jews were at feud with each other, their innate
qualities moderated in them Bedouin ferocity, which never extended
mercy to a foe. They ransomed the prisoners of a kindred tribe with
which they happened to be at war, from the hands of their own allies,
being unwilling to abandon them as slaves to heathens, "because," said
they, "the redemption of such of our co-religionists as are prisoners
is a religious duty." Besides being equal to the Arabs in bravery, the
Jews also contended with them for the palm in poetry. For in addition
to manliness and courage, poetry was cultivated among the Arab nobles;
it was fostered by the chieftains, and richly rewarded by the Arab
kings. Next to the warrior, the poet was the man most honored in
Arabia; for him all hearts and tents opened wide. The Jews of Arabia
were likewise able to speak with elegance the Arabic language, and to
adorn their poetry with rhymes.
The knowledge of their religion, which the Arabian Jews had brought
with them in their flight from Judæa, and that which afterwards came
to them from the academies, conferred upon them superiority over the
heathen tribes, and soon made them their masters. While but few Arabs,
before the latter part of the seventh century, were familiar with the
art of writing, it was universally understood by the Jews, who made
use, however, of the square, the so-called Assyrian characters. As the
few Arabs that succeeded in learning to write generally employed the
Hebrew characters, it would appear that they first acquired the art of
writing from the Jews. Every Jew in Arabia was probably able to read
the Holy Scriptures, for which reason the Arabs called the Jews the
"nation of writing" (Ahl' ul kitab).
In the form in which it was transmitted to them, that is to say, with
the character impressed upon it by the Tanaim and the Amoraim, Judaism
was most holy to the Arabian Jews. They strictly observed the dietary
laws, and solemnized the festivals, and the fast of Yom-Kippur, which
they called Ashura. They celebrated the Sabbath with such rigor that
in spite of their delight in war, and the opportunity for enjoying
it, their sword remained in its scabbard on that day. Although they
had nothing to complain of in this hospitable country, which they
were able to regard and love as their fatherland, they yearned
nevertheless to return to the holy land of their fathers, and daily
awaited the coming of the Messiah. Like all the Jews of the globe,
therefore, they turned their face in prayer towards Jerusalem. They
were in communication with the Jews of Palestine, and even after
the fall of the Patriarchate, willingly subordinated themselves to
the authorities in Tiberias, whence they received, as also from the
Babylonian academies probably, religious instruction and interpretation
of the Bible. Yathrib was the seat of Jewish learning, and possessed
teachers of the Law (Achbâr, Chabar) who expounded the Scriptures in
an academy (Midras). But the knowledge of the Bible which the Arabian
Jews possessed was not considerable. They were acquainted with it only
through the medium of the Agadic exegesis, which had become familiar to
them in their travels or had been brought to them by immigrants. For
them the glorious history of the past coalesced so completely with the
Agadic additions that they were no longer able to separate the gold
from the dross. Endowed with poetical fancy, the Arabian Jews on their
side embellished the Biblical history with interesting legends, which
were afterwards circulated as actual facts.
The Jews of Arabia, enjoying complete liberty, and being subjected to
no restraint, were able to defend their religious opinions without
fear, and to communicate them with impunity to their heathen neighbors.
The Arab mind, susceptible to intellectual promptings, was delighted
with the simple, sublime contents of the Bible, and by degrees certain
Jewish conceptions and religious ideas became familiar and current
in Arabia. The Arabian Jews made their neighbors acquainted with a
calendar-system, without which the latter were completely at sea in the
arrangement of their holy seasons; learned Jews from Yathrib taught the
Arabs to insert another month in their lunar year, which was far in
arrear of the solar year. The Arabs adopted the nineteen-years cycle of
the Jews (about 420), and called the intercalary month Nasi, doubtless
from the circumstance that the Jews were accustomed to receive their
calendar for the festivals from their Nasi (Patriarch).
The Jews even succeeded in instructing the Arabs in regard to their
historical origin, concerning which their memories were void, and in
their credulity the latter accepted this genealogy as the true one. It
was of great consequence to the Jews to be regarded and acknowledged by
the Arabs as their kinsmen, and too many points of social interest were
bound up with this relationship for them to allow it to escape their
attention. The holy city of Mecca (Alcharam), the chief city of the
country, was built round an ancient temple (Kaaba, the Square), or more
properly, round a black stone; for all Arabs it was an asylum, in which
the sword durst not quit the sheath. The five fairs, the most important
of which was at Okaz, could be frequented only in the four holy
months of the year, when the truce of God prevailed. Whoever desired
to take advantage of these periods and to enjoy security of life in
the midst of a warlike people, not over-scrupulous in the matter of
shedding blood, was obliged to establish his relationship to the Arabs,
otherwise he was excluded from these privileges.
Happily, the Arabian Jews bethought them of the genealogy of the Arabs
as set forth in the first book of the Pentateuch, and seized upon it as
the instrument by which to prove their kinship with them. The Jews were
convinced that they were related to the Arabs on two sides, through
Yoktan and through Ishmael. Under their instruction, therefore, the
two principal Arabian tribes traced back the line of their ancestors
to these two progenitors, the real Arabs (the Himyarites) supposing
themselves to be descended from Yoktan; the pseudo-Arabs in the north,
on the other hand, deriving their origin from Ishmael. These points
of contact granted, the Jews had ample opportunity to multiply the
proofs of their relationship. The Arabs loved genealogical tables,
and were delighted to be able to follow their descent and history
so far into hoary antiquity; accordingly, all this appeared to them
both evident and flattering. They consequently exerted themselves to
bring their genealogical records and traditions into unison with the
Biblical accounts. Although their traditions extended over less than
six centuries on the one side to their progenitor Yarob and his sons
or grandsons Himyar and Kachtan, and on the other, to Adnan, yet in
their utter disregard of historical accuracy, this fact constituted no
obstacle. Without a scruple, the southern Arabians called themselves
Kachtanites, and the northern Arabians Ishmaelites. They readily
accorded to the Jews the rights of relationship, that is to say,
equality and all the advantages attending it.
The Arabs were thus in intimate intercourse with the Jews, and the
sons of the desert, whose unpoetical mythology afforded them no matter
for inspiration, derived much instruction from Judaism. Under these
circumstances many Arabs could not fail to develop peculiar affection
for Judaism, and some embraced this religion, though their conversion
had not been thought of by the Jews. As they had practised circumcision
while heathen, their conversion to Judaism was particularly easy.
The members of a family among the Arabs were indissolubly bound to
one another, and, according to their phylarchic constitution, the
individuals identified themselves with the tribe. This brought about,
that when a chieftain became a Jew, his whole clan at once followed
him, the wisest, into the fold of Judaism. It is expressly recorded
about several Arabian tribes that they were converted to Judaism; such
were the Benu-Kinanah, a warlike, quarrelsome clan, related to the
most respected Koraishites of Mecca, and several other families of the
tribes Aus and Chazraj in Yathrib.
Especially memorable, however, in the history of the Arabs is the
conversion to Judaism of a powerful king of Yemen. The princes or kings
of Yemen bore the name of Tobba, and at times ruled over the whole
of Arabia; they traced their historical origin back to Himyar, their
legendary origin to Kachtan. One of these kings, who went by the name
of Abu-Kariba Assad-Tobban, was a man of judgment, knowledge, poetical
endowments, and of valor which incited him to conquest. Abu-Kariba
therefore undertook (about 500) an expedition against Persia and the
Arabian provinces of the Byzantine empire. On his march he passed
through Yathrib, the capital of northern Arabia, and not expecting
treachery from the inhabitants of the town, left his son there as
governor. Hardly, however, had he proceeded further, when he received
the sad intelligence that the people of Yathrib had killed his son.
Smitten with grief, he turned back in order to wreak bloody vengeance
on the perfidious city, and after cutting down the palm trees, from
which the inhabitants derived their principal sustenance, laid siege to
it with his numerous band of warriors. A Jewish poet composed an elegy
on the ruined palm trees, which the Arabs loved like living beings,
and the destruction of which they bewailed like the death of dear
relatives. The Jews rivaled the Chazraj Arabs in bravery in resisting
Abu-Kariba's attack, and finally succeeded in tiring out his troops.
During the siege, the Himyarite king was seized with a severe illness,
and no fresh water could be discovered in the neighborhood to quench
his burning thirst. Two Jewish teachers of the Law from Yathrib, Kaab
and Assad by name, took advantage of Abu-Kariba's exhaustion to betake
themselves to his tent, and persuade him to pardon the inhabitants of
Yathrib and raise the siege. The Arabs have woven a tissue of legend
about this interview, but it is certain that the Jewish sages found
opportunity to discourse to Abu-Kariba of Judaism, and succeeded in
inspiring him with a lively interest for it. The exhortations of Kaab
and Assad raised his sympathy to so high a pitch that he determined to
embrace the Jewish faith, and induced the Himyarite army to do likewise.
At his desire the two Jewish sages of Yathrib accompanied him to Yemen,
in order to convert his people to Judaism. This conversion, however,
was not easy, for a nation does not cast off its opinions, usages and
bad habits at will. There remained as many heathens as Jews in the
land; they retained their temples, and were allowed to profess their
religion unmolested. Altogether the Judaism which the king of Yemen
professed must have been very superficial, and cannot have influenced
to an appreciable extent the customs or the mode of living of the
people. A prince of the noble tribe of the Kendites, a nephew of the
king of Yemen, Harith Ibn-Amru by name, also embraced the Jewish faith.
Abu-Kariba appointed him as viceroy of the Maaddites on the Red Sea,
and also gave him the government of Mecca and Yathrib. With Harith
a number of the Kendites went over to Judaism. The news of a Jewish
king and a Jewish empire in the most beautiful and fertile part of
Arabia was spread abroad by the numerous foreigners who visited the
country for the purpose of trade, and reached the Jews of the most
distant lands. It was asserted that they had settled there before the
destruction of the First Temple and the fall of the Israelite kingdom.
Abu-Kariba's reign did not last long after his adoption of Judaism.
His warlike nature prevented him from maintaining peace, and prompted
him to engage in bold enterprises. It is said that in one of these
campaigns he was slain by his own soldiers, who were worn out with
fatigue and weary marches. He left three sons, Hassan, Amru, and
Zorah, all of whom were minors.
Zorah, the youngest (520-530), was nicknamed Dhu-Nowas (curly-locks) on
account of his fine head of hair. He was a zealous disciple of Judaism,
and for that reason gave himself the Hebrew name Yussuf. But his zeal
for the religion of which his father had also been an enthusiastic
advocate continually involved him in difficulties, and brought
misfortune to him, his kingdom, and the Jews of Himyara. King Zorah
Yussuf Dhu-Nowas had heard how his co-religionists in the Byzantine
kingdom suffered from daily persecution. He felt deeply for them, and
wished therefore by retaliation to force the Byzantine emperors to
render justice to the Jews. When some Roman (Byzantine) merchants were
traveling on business through Himyara, the king had them seized and
put to death. This spread terror among the Christian merchants who
traded with the country whence come the sweet perfumes and the wealth
of India. It also caused the Indian and Arabian trade to decline. In
consequence of this, Dhu-Nowas involved his people in an exhausting war.
A neighboring king, Aidug, who still adhered to heathenism, reproached
the Jewish king for his impolitic step in destroying the trade with
Europe. The excuse Dhu-Nowas made was that many notable Jews in
Byzantium were innocently put to death every year. This, however,
made no impression upon Aidug. He declared war against Dhu-Nowas and
defeated him in battle (521). As the outcome of his victory, Aidug is
said to have embraced Christianity. Dhu-Nowas was not killed in this
battle, as the Christian authorities relate, but made another effort,
and through his impetuosity entangled himself in new difficulties.
Najaran, in Yemen, was inhabited chiefly by Christians; it had, too, a
Christian chief, Harith (Aretas) Ibn-Kaleb, who was a feudatory of the
Jewish-Himyaritic kingdom. Harith probably did not perform his feudal
duties in the war against Aidug, or he may have committed other acts of
insubordination. One account relates that two young Jews were murdered
in Najaran, and that the chief Harith was cognizant thereof. The Jewish
king was therefore much displeased; at any rate, Dhu-Nowas had a
pretext for chastising the ruler of Najaran as a rebel. He besieged the
town, and reduced the inhabitants to such straits that they were forced
to capitulate. Three hundred and forty chosen men, with Harith at their
head, repaired to Dhu-Nowas's camp to sign the terms of peace (523).
There, it is said, the king of Himyara, although he had assured the men
of immunity from punishment, determined either to force them to accept
Judaism or to put them to death. As they refused to renounce their
faith, it is reported that they were executed, and their bodies thrown
into the river. The entire account is so completely legendary that it
is impossible to discover any historical fact. This much is certain:
Dhu-Nowas levied a heavy tribute on the Christians in the kingdom of
Himyara as a reprisal for the persecution of his co-religionists in
Christian countries.
The news of the events in Najaran spread like wildfire; the number
of the victims was exaggerated, and the punishment of the rebels
was stigmatized as a persecution of the Christians on the part of a
Jewish king. An elegy was composed on the martyrs. Simeon, a Syrian
bishop, who was traveling to northern Arabia, did his utmost to rouse
up enemies against Dhu-Nowas. Simeon believed the exaggerated account
which had been circulated. He sent an incisive letter to another bishop
who lived near Arabia, imploring him to set the Christians against the
Jewish king, and to incite the Nejus (king) of Ethiopia to war against
him. He also proposed to imprison the teachers of Judaism in Tiberias,
and to compel them to write to Dhu-Nowas to put a stop for their sake
to the persecution of the Christians. The Emperor Justin the First,
a weak and foolish old man, was also asked to make war on the Jewish
king. But his people were engaged in a war against the Persians, and
he therefore replied, "Himyara is too far from us, and I cannot allow
my army to march through a sandy desert for so great a distance. But I
will write to the king of Ethiopia to send troops to Himyara."
Thus, many enemies conspired to ruin one who had attempted to assist
his co-religionists in every way. Dhu-Nowas's most formidable enemy
was Elesbaa (Atzbaha), the Nejus of Ethiopia, a monarch full of
religious zeal. He beheld with jealousy the crown on the head of a
Jew, and required no persuasion to fight, for the Jewish kingdom had
long been a thorn in his side. Elesbaa equipped a powerful fleet,
which the Byzantine Emperor, or rather young Justinian, his co-regent,
re-inforced with ships from Egypt. A numerous army crossed the narrow
strait of the Red Sea to Yemen. The Christian soldiers were united with
this army. Dhu-Nowas, it is true, took measures to prevent the landing
of the Ethiopian army by barring the landing-places with chains, and
gathering an army on his side. The army of Himyara, however, was
inferior in numbers to that of Ethiopia, but the king relied on his
faithful and courageous cavalry. The first engagement terminated
disastrously for Dhu-Nowas. The town of Zafara (Thafar) fell into
the hands of the enemy, and with it the queen and the treasures. The
Himyaran soldiers lost all courage. Yussuf Dhu-Nowas, who saw that
there was no escape, and who was unwilling to fall into the hands of
his arrogant foe, plunged, with his steed, from a rock into the sea,
his body being carried far away (530). The victorious Ethiopians raged
in Himyara with fire and sword, plundering, massacring, and taking
the unarmed prisoners. They were so enraged at the Jews in Himyara
that they massacred thousands as an atoning sacrifice for the supposed
Christian martyrs of Najaran. Such was the end of the Jewish kingdom of
Himyara, which arose in a night and disappeared in a night.
About this time the Jews of Yathrib fell into strife with the
neighboring tribes of Arabia. The Jews in Yathrib, on account of their
intimate relation with the king of Himyara, whose authority extended
over the province, ruled over the heathen, and a Jewish chief was
governor. The Arabians of the Kailan race (Aus and Chazraj) hated the
rule of the Jews, and seized the opportunity of rebelling when the
Jews could not rely on assistance from Himyara. An Arabian chief of
the Ghassanid race, Harith Ibn Abu Shammir, who was closely related
to the Kailan race, was invited to lead his troops towards Yathrib.
This brave and adventurous prince of Arabia, who was attached to the
Byzantine court, accepted the invitation. In order not to arouse the
suspicions of the Jews, Ibn Abu Shammir gave out that he intended
going to Himyara. He encamped near Yathrib, and invited the Jewish
chiefs to visit him. Many of them came, expecting to be welcomed with
the prince's usual generosity, and to be loaded with presents. But as
they entered the tent of the Ghassanid prince, they were one by one
murdered. Thereupon Ibn Abu Shammir exclaimed to the Arabs of Yathrib:
"I have freed you from a great part of your enemies; now it will be
easy for you to master the rest, if you have strength and courage." He
then departed. The Arabs, however, did not venture to engage openly
with the Jews, but had recourse to a stratagem. During a banquet, all
the Jewish chiefs were killed, as well as Alghitjun or Sherif, the
Jewish prince. Deprived of their leaders, the Jews of Yathrib were
easily conquered by the Arabians, and they were obliged to give up
their strongholds to them (530-535). It was a long time before they
could get over the loss of their power and the sense of defeat. The
insecurity of their lives taught them dissimulation, and they gradually
placed themselves under the protection of one or another tribe, and
so became dependents (Mawâli) of Aus and Chazraj. They hoped for the
coming of the Messiah to crush their enemies.
Harith Ibn Abu Shammir, the Ghassanid prince, on his return from
Yathrib, commenced a feud with a Jewish poet, who thereby became
renowned throughout Arabia. Samuel Ibn-Adiya (born about 500 and
died about 560), whose martial spirit was shown in the attacks of
the Ghassanids, won immortality through his friendship with the most
celebrated poet of Arabia in the time before Mahomet. His biography
gives an insight into the life of the Jews of Arabia of that time.
According to some, Samuel was descended from the heathen race of
the Ghassanids; according to others, he was of Jewish origin, or
to be more correct, he had an Arabian mother and a Jewish father.
Adiya, his father, had lived in Yathrib until he built a castle in
the neighborhood of Taima, which, from its many colors, was called
Al-ablak, and has been immortalized in Arabic poetry. Samuel, the chief
of a small tribe, was so respected in Hejas that the weaker tribes
placed themselves under his protection. Ablak was a refuge for the
persecuted and exiled, and the owner of the castle defended those under
his roof at the risk of his life.
Imrulkais Ibn Hojr, the adventurous son of the Kendite prince, and
at the same time the most distinguished poet of Arabia, was hemmed
in on all sides by secret and open enemies, and could find shelter
nowhere except in Samuel's safe retreat. The Jewish poet, the lord of
the castle, was proud to afford a refuge to Arabia's most celebrated
writer, whose fame and adventures were known throughout the peninsula.
Imrulkais took his daughter and what remained of his retinue to Ablak,
and lived there for some time. As the Kendite prince had no prospect
of obtaining the assistance of the Arabs to avenge the murder of his
father, and to regain his paternal inheritance, he endeavored to
win over Justinian, the Byzantine Emperor. Before starting on his
journey, he charged Samuel with the care of his daughter, his cousin,
and of five valuable coats of mail and other arms. Samuel promised
to guard the persons and the goods entrusted to him as he would the
apple of his eye. But these arms brought misfortune on him. When the
Ghassanid prince was in Hejas he went to Ablak, Samuel's castle,
and demanded the surrender of Imrulkais' arms. Samuel refused to
surrender them according to his promise. Harith then laid siege to the
castle. Finding it impregnable, however, the tyrant had recourse to a
barbarous expedient to compel Samuel to submit. One of Samuel's sons
was taken outside the citadel by his nurse, and Harith captured him,
and threatened to kill him unless Samuel acceded to his request. The
unfortunate father hesitated for only a moment between duty to his
guest and affection for his son; his sense of duty prevailed, and he
said to the Ghassanid prince: "Do what you will; time always avenges
treachery, and my son has brothers." Unmoved by such magnanimity, the
despot slew the son before his father's eyes. Nevertheless, Harith
had to withdraw from Ablak without accomplishing his object. The
Arab proverb, "Faithful as Samuel," used to express undying faith,
originated from this circumstance.
Many blamed him for the sacrifice of his son; but he defended himself
in a poem, full of noble sentiments, courage and chivalrous ideas:--
Oh, ye censurers, cease to blame the man
Who so oft has defied your censure.
You should, when erring, have guided me aright,
Instead of leading me astray with empty words.
I have preserved the Kendite coats of mail;
Another may betray the trust confided him!
Thus did Adiya, my father, counsel me in by-gone days:
"O Samuel, destroy not what I have built up!"
For me he built a strong and safe place, where
I ne'er feared to give defiance to my oppressor.
Before his death (about 560) Samuel could look back with pride on his
chivalrous life and on the protection he had afforded the weak. His
swan-song runs:--
Oh, would that I knew, the day my loss is lamented,
What testimony my mourners would afford me;
Whether they will say "Stay with us! For
In many a trouble you have comforted us;
The rights you had you ne'er resigned,
Yet needed no reminder to give theirs to others."
Shoraich, his son, followed in his father's footsteps. He was a brave
and noble man. On one occasion Maimun Asha, the celebrated Arabic
poet, whose ungovernable temper raised many enemies against him, was
pursued by an adversary, and having been captured, he was, by chance
and without being recognized, taken with other prisoners to Taima, the
castle of Shoraich. Here, in order to obtain his release, he sang a
poem in praise of Samuel:--
Be like Samuel, when the fierce warrior
Pressed heavily around him with his array;
"Choose between the loss of a child and faithlessness!"
Oh, evil choice which thou hadst to make!
But quickly and calmly did he reply:
"Kill thy captive, I fulfil my pledges."
Towards the end of the sixth century, the Jews of Yathrib had nearly
recovered from the oppressive blows dealt them by their neighbors in
Arabia. Their rulers, the Aus and Chazraj, had exhausted themselves in
bloody feuds which lasted twenty years, whilst their allies suffered
less. In consequence of another war between the same tribes, the Jews
again rose to importance in Yathrib.
Judaism not only won over to its side many tribes in Arabia, and taught
the sons of the desert certain indispensable arts, but it also inspired
the founder of a religion, who played an important part in the great
drama of the world's history, and whose influence survives to this
day. Mahomet, the prophet of Mecca and Yathrib, was, it is true, not
a loyal son of Judaism, but he appreciated its highest aims, and was
induced by it to give to the world a new faith, known as Islam, founded
on a lofty basis. This religion has exercised a wonderful influence on
the course of Jewish history and on the evolution of Judaism. In the
peaceful meetings in Mecca, his birthplace, at the public markets, and
on his travels, Abdallah's son heard much spoken of the religion which
acknowledges the belief in one God, who rules the world. He heard much
of Abraham, who devoted himself to the service of God, and of religion
and morality, which gave the disciples of Judaism the advantage
over infidels. Mahomet's mind, at once original and receptive, was
powerfully impressed by all this. Waraka Ibn-Naufal, a celebrated
Meccan, and a descendant of the noble Khoraish race, was a cousin of
Chadija, Mahomet's wife, and he had embraced Judaism and knew Hebrew
well. He certainly imbued Mahomet with a love for the religion of
Abraham.
Mahomet's first doctrines were strongly tinged with Jewish coloring. He
first conceived them when suffering from epilepsy, and he communicated
them to his friends, pretending that they were revealed to him by
the angel Gabriel. First and foremost he proclaimed the simple but
fundamental principle of Judaism: "There is no God but Allah"; later
his pride led him to add as an integral part of the confession of
faith, "and Mahomet is his prophet." Judaism may justly consider
his teachings a victory of its own truths and a fulfilment of the
prophecy that "one day every knee will bend to the only God, and every
tongue will worship Him," for Mahomet taught the unity of God, that
there are no gods beside Him (anti-trinity), and that He may not be
represented by any image. He preached against the dissolute idolatry
which was practised with 300 idols in the Kaaba; he declaimed against
the immorality which was openly and shamelessly practised amongst the
Arabs; he condemned the revolting practice of parents who from fear
or in order to be rid of them drowned their new-born daughters, and
he declared that there was nothing new in all these changes, but that
they were commanded by the faith of the ancient religion of Abraham. A
similar thing had happened at the time when Paul of Tarsus first made
known to the Hellenes the history and principles of Judaism.
The best teachings in the Koran are borrowed from the Bible or the
Talmud. In consequence of the difficulties which Mahomet for several
years (612-633) had to encounter in Mecca on account of these purified
doctrines, there grew around the sound kernel a loathsome husk.
Mahomet's connection with the Jews of Arabia assisted not a little in
determining and modifying the teachings of Islam. Portions of the Koran
are devoted to them, at times in a friendly, at times in a hostile
spirit.
When Mahomet failed in obtaining a hearing in Mecca, the seat of
idolatrous worship in Arabia, and even ran the risk of losing his life
there, he addressed himself to some men from Yathrib, and urged them
to accept his doctrines. These men were more familiar with Jewish
doctrines than the Meccans; they found in Mahomet's revelations a close
analogy to what they had often heard from their Jewish neighbors.
They, therefore, showed themselves inclined to follow him, and caused
him to be invited to Yathrib, where his teachings were likely to be
favorably received on account of the numerous Jews residing there. As
soon as he came there (622, the year of expatriation--Hejira), Mahomet
took care to win over the Jews of Yathrib and to set forth his aims, as
though he desired to bring about the universal recognition of Judaism
in Arabia. When he saw the Jews fasting on the day of Atonement, he
said, "It becomes us more than Jews to fast on this day," and he
established a fast-day (Ashura). Mahomet entered into a formal alliance
for mutual defense with the Jewish tribes, and instituted the custom of
turning towards Jerusalem in prayer (Kiblah). In the disputes between
the Jews and his disciples (Moslems), which were submitted to his
judgment, he behaved leniently to the Jews. For this reason Mahomet's
disciples preferred to bring the matters in dispute before a Jewish
chief, because they expected more impartiality from him than from
Mahomet. Mahomet for a long time employed a Jewish scribe to do his
correspondence, he himself being unable to write. These advances on
the part of a man of so much promise were very flattering to the Jews
of Medina. They looked upon him to some extent as a Jewish proselyte,
and expected to see Judaism through him attain to power in Arabia. Some
of them followed him devotedly and were his faithful allies (Ansar);
amongst them was a learned youth, Abdallah Ibn-Salâm, of the race of
Kainukaa. Abdallah and other Jews assisted Mahomet in propagating the
Koran. The unbelieving Arabs frequently reproached him, saying that
he was an ear (accepted anything as truth), that it was not the angel
Gabriel who was teaching him, but a mortal man. Nevertheless, though
Abdallah Ibn-Salâm and other Jewish Ansars supported him, they were
far from abandoning Judaism on this account, and continued to observe
the Jewish commandments, and Mahomet was at first not offended by this
conduct.
But only a small number of the Jews of Medina joined the band of
believers, particularly when they perceived his selfish efforts, his
haughtiness, and his insatiable love of women. They bore in their
hearts too high an ideal of their ancient prophets to place this
enthusiast, who longed after every beautiful woman, on an equal footing
with them. "See him," said the Jews, "he is not satisfied with food,
and has no other desire than that of being surrounded by women. If he
is a prophet, he should confine himself to his duties as a prophet,
and not turn to women." Other Jews said: "If Mahomet is a prophet, he
should appear in Palestine, for only in that place God appears unto his
elect." The Jews also objected to him, saying, "You pride yourself on
being of Abraham's faith, but Abraham did not use the flesh and milk
of camels." Mahomet's chief opponents on the Jewish side were Pinehas
Ibn-Azura, a man of caustic wit, who seized every opportunity to make
Mahomet appear ridiculous; furthermore, the far-famed Kaab Ibn-Asharaf,
the offspring of an Arab father and a Jewish mother; a poet, Abu-Afak,
an old man more than a hundred years old, who endeavored to arouse hate
against Mahomet amongst the ignorant Arabs; and Abdallah, the son of
Saura, who was looked upon as the most learned Jew in Hejas. Pinehas
is the author of a witty answer to Mahomet's invitation to the Jewish
tribe of Benu-Kainukaa to accept Islam. Mahomet, in his epistle, had
used the words: "Lend yourselves unto God as a beautiful pledge."
Pinehas answered, "God is so poor that He borrows from us!" Thus the
Jewish opponents of Mahomet placed a ridiculous meaning on his sayings
and revelations, and treated him contemptuously, not anticipating
that the fugitive from Mecca, who had come to Medina for assistance,
would shortly humble and in part destroy their tribes, and that he
would control the destiny of many of their co-religionists in times
to come. They relied too much on their own courage and strength, and
forgot that the most dangerous enemy is he whom one disregards too
much. Mahomet, indeed, with sly dissimulation, at first accepted the
contempt bestowed on him by the Jews with apparent equanimity. He
advised his disciples, "Fight only in a becoming manner with the people
who believe in the Holy Writ (Jews), and say: We believe in that which
has been revealed to us and to you. Our God is the same as yours, and
we are faithful to Him." But the mutual discontent made it difficult to
maintain peace permanently. On the one side, the Jews did their best to
alienate Mahomet's followers. They succeeded in prejudicing the first
man in Medina, the Chazrajite Abdallah Ibn-Ubey, against Mahomet, so
that he remained antagonistic to Mahomet to the end of his days. This
man was about to be elected king of his town, but through the arrival
of Mahomet he had been cast into the shade. On the other side, his
followers urged him to declare to what extent he held to Judaism. They
saw that his disciples amongst the Jews still continued to observe the
Jewish laws, and to abstain from camel's flesh, and they said to him,
"If the Torah be a divine book, then let us follow its teachings."
Since Mahomet was thoroughly an Arab, he could not join Judaism, and
he perceived that the Arabs would not conform to religious customs
which were quite strange to them. So it only remained for him to break
with the Jews definitely. He thereupon published a long Sura (called
the Sura of the Cow), full of invectives against the Jews. He altered
the position assumed in prayer, and decreed that the believers should
no longer turn their faces towards Jerusalem, but towards Mecca and
the Kaaba. He discarded fasting on the day of Atonement (Ashura), and
instituted instead the holy month Ramadhan, as had been customary
among the Arabs from very ancient times. He was obliged to withdraw
much of what he had in the beginning given out as God's revelation.
Mahomet now asserted that the Torah had contained many allusions to his
appearance and calling as a prophet, but that the Jews had expunged
the passages. At first he declared that the Jews were possessed of the
true faith; later on he said that they honored Ezra (Ozaïr) as the
son of God, just as the Christians did Jesus, and that the Jews were
consequently to be regarded as infidels. His hatred against the Jews,
who refused to accept his prophecies, and saw through his designs,
continually widened the breach between them and him.
Although he hated the Jews in his innermost heart, yet he did not
venture to provoke them by acts of violence, because his authority
was not sufficiently great, and the Jews outnumbered his followers.
But after the battle at Bedr (in the winter of 624), when the small
body of Mahometans gained a victory over the numerous Koraishites, the
situation changed. Mahomet, whose power was greatly increased through
this victory, exchanged the attitude of a humble prophet for that of
a fanatical tyrant, to whom any measure, even assassination, was a
justifiable means of freeing himself from his enemies. However, he was
prudent enough to avoid becoming involved in disputes with the powerful
Jewish tribes; he began with the weak and defenseless. A poetess, Asma,
daughter of Merwan, who was of Jewish descent, and married to an Arab,
was murdered at night whilst asleep (because she had composed satires
against the false prophet), and he commended the murderer. Thereupon
the Jewish tribe Kainukaa experienced his religious wrath. It was the
weakest of the Jewish-Arabian tribes, and to it belonged that Pinehas
Ibn-Azura, whose sarcastic wit had made Mahomet appear in a ridiculous
light. The pretext was of the slightest kind. A Mahometan had killed a
Jew on account of a poor practical joke, and the Kainukaa avenged his
death. Mahomet thereupon challenged them to profess Islam, or to accept
war as the alternative. They replied: "We are, it is true, for peace,
and would gladly maintain our alliance with you; but since you desire
to make war upon us, we will show that we have no fear." They reckoned
upon the assistance of the tribes of Nadhir and Kuraiza, who were their
co-religionists, and withdrew to their fortresses at Medina. Mahomet
collected his troops, and besieged the Kainukaa. Had the numerous Jews
of northern Arabia, Nadhir, Kuraiza, and those of Chaibar, who, like
the Kainukaa, were threatened, come to their assistance, and had they,
before it was too late, made an offensive and defensive alliance, they
would have been able to crush Mahomet and his straggling followers, on
whose fidelity, moreover, he could not entirely rely. But the Jews,
like the Arabs, were divided, and each tribe had only its own interests
in view. The Kainukaa fought desperately for fifteen days, expecting
re-inforcements from their co-religionists. But as these did not come,
they surrendered to the enemy. Mahomet had all the Jews of Kainukaa put
in chains with the intention of killing them; but a word from Abdallah
Ibn-Ubey, their ally, made him draw back with alarm from his purpose.
Abdallah laid hold of his shirt of mail, and said: "I will not let you
go until you promise me to spare the captives; for they constitute my
strength; they have defended me against the black people and the red
people." To which Mahomet replied: "Let them be free; may God condemn
them, and Abdallah with them!" The Jews of Kainukaa, 700 in number,
were obliged to leave their possessions behind, and they set out for
Palestine in a most destitute condition (February, 624). They settled
in Batanea, whose chief town was Adraat, where they were probably
received in a fraternal manner by their co-religionists, who, at this
time, were free from the Byzantine yoke.
After the victory over the Kainukaa, Mahomet communicated to the
Moslems a revelation against the Jews, which deprived them of every
protection: "O ye believers, choose ye not Jews and Christians as
allies; they may protect themselves. He who befriends them is one
of them; God tolerates no sinful people." This exclusion was less
harmful to the Christians, as they were not numerously represented in
northern Arabia, and generally kept themselves neutral. The Jews, on
the contrary, who were accustomed to independence, and who were full of
warlike courage, became involved in numerous disputes by this act of
outlawry. Their former allies for the most part renounced them, and at
Mahomet's bidding, took spiteful vengeance on them.
With this mutual, deadly hatred existing between Mahomet and the Jews,
it is said that the Benu-Nadhir invited him one day to their castle
of Zuhara with the intention of hurling him from the terraces and
thus ending his life. At that time their chief was Hujej Ibn-Achtab.
Mahomet accepted the invitation, but watched the movements of the
Jews. Suspecting that they desired his death, he stole away and
hastened to Medina. The Jews of Nadhir paid dearly, it is said, for
this treacherous project. Mahomet gave them the choice of quitting
their homes within ten days, or of preparing for death. The Nadhir
were resolved at first to avoid war and to emigrate, but encouraged by
Abdallah, who promised them assistance, they accepted the challenge
which had been thrown down. They, however, waited in vain for the
assistance promised to them. Mahomet commenced operations against them,
and uprooted and burnt the date-trees which supplied them with food.
His own people rebelled at this proceeding, for to these unscrupulous
warriors a palm was holier than a man's life. After several days of
siege, the Nadhir were obliged to capitulate, and the terms were that
they should depart without arms, and that they should take only a
certain portion of their possessions--as much as a camel could carry.
They thereupon emigrated to the number of six hundred, some of them
going to their countrymen in Chaibar, and some settling in Jericho and
Adraat (June-July, 625). The war against the Nadhirites was, later on,
justified by Mahomet through a revelation of the Koran, which read:
"All in the heavens and earth praise God; He is the most honored, the
most wise. He it is who drove out the unbelievers amongst the people of
the Book from their dwelling places (Kainukaa), to send them to those
who had already emigrated. You thought not that they would go forth,
they themselves thought that their strong places would protect them
from God himself, but God attacked them unexpectedly, and threw terror
into their hearts, so that their houses were destroyed with their own
hands, as well as laid waste by believers." The exiled Benu-Nadhir, who
had remained in Arabia, did not accept their misfortune quietly, but
exerted themselves to form a coalition with the enemies of Mahomet in
order to attack him with combined forces. Three respected Nadhirites,
Hujej, Kinanah Ibn-ol-Rabia, and Sallam Ibn Mishkam, incited the
Koraishites in Mecca, in alliance with the mighty tribe of the Ghatafan
and others, to make war against the haughty tyrannical prophet, who was
daily becoming more powerful and more cruel. The enemies of Mahomet in
Mecca, though filled with rage against him, were first incited by the
Jews to join battle with him.
Through the activity of the Nadhirites the Arabian tribes were
induced to join in the war. They found it more difficult, however,
to induce their co-religionists, the Benu-Kuraiza, to take part.
Kaab-Ibn-Assad, the governor of Kuraiza, at first would not receive
the Nadhirite Hujej, who had desired his protection, because his
tribe had made an alliance with Mahomet and the Moslems, and he was
so guileless as to rely on Mahomet's word. Hujej managed to convince
him of the danger which threatened the Jews, and to persuade him that
the victory of so many allies over the less numerous Moslems was
certain. The Benu-Kuraiza yielded to his arguments. Ten thousand of
the allied troops took the field, and intended to surprise Medina.
Mahomet, forewarned by a deserter, would not allow his army, which was
inferior in numbers, to fight a pitched battle. He fortified Medina
by surrounding it with a deep ditch and other defenses. The Arabs,
accustomed to fight in single combat, vainly discharged their arrows
against the fortifications. Mahomet succeeded finally in sowing the
seeds of mutual distrust among the chief allies, viz., the Koraishites,
the Ghatafan and the Jews.
The "War of the Fosse" terminated favorably for Mahomet, and very
unhappily for the Jews, upon whom the whole of his wrath now fell. On
the day after the departure of the allies, Mahomet, with 3000 men,
took the field against Kuraiza, announcing that he was thus obeying
an express revelation. His next step was to arouse the enthusiasm
of his followers in the cause of the war. "Let him that is obedient
offer up his prayers in the neighborhood of Kuraiza," was the formula
with which he exhorted them. The Jews, unable to resist in a battle,
retired to their fortresses, which they put into a state of defense.
Here they were besieged by Mahomet and his troops for twenty-five days
(February-March, 627). Food then began to fail the besieged, and it
became necessary to think of capitulation. They besought Mahomet to
treat them as he had treated their brethren, the Nadhirites, viz.,
allow them to withdraw with their wives, their children, and a portion
of their property. The vindictive prophet, however, refused their
request, and demanded unconditional surrender.
Nearly 700 Jews, amongst them the chiefs Kaab and Hujej, were
ruthlessly slaughtered in the market-place, and their bodies thrown
into a common grave. The market-place was thenceforth called the
Kuraiza Place. And all this was done in the name of God! The Koran
makes reference to it in the following verse: "God drove out of their
fortresses those of the people of the Book [the Jews] who assisted
the allies, and he cast into their hearts terror and dismay. Some of
them you put to flight, some you took captive; he has caused you to
inherit their land, their houses, and their wealth, and a land which
you have not trodden; for God is almighty." The women were bartered for
weapons and horses. Mahomet wished to retain one of the captives, a
beautiful girl, Rihana by name, as his concubine; she, however, proudly
rejected his advances. Only one of the Kuraiza remained alive, a
certain Zabir Ibn-Bata, and he only by the intercession of Thabit, one
of his friends. Full of joy, the latter hastened to the aged Zabir, to
tell him of his fortune. "I thank thee," said the Jewish sage, who lay
in fetters; "but tell me what has become of our leader Kaab?" "He is
dead," answered Thabit. "And Hujej Ibn-Achtab, the prince of the Jews?"
"He is dead," he again replied. "And Azzel Ibn-Samuel, the fearless
warrior?" "He, too, is dead," was his answer again. "Then I do not care
to live," said Zabir. The old man begged that he might die by the hands
of his friend. His wish was granted.
A year later came the turn of the Jews in the district of Chaibar, a
confederacy of small Jewish states. This war, however, was protracted
into a long campaign, because the province had a number of fortresses
which were in a good state of repair, and were well defended. The
exiled Nadhirites in Chaibar roused their comrades to vigorous
resistance. The Arab races of Ghatafan and Fezara had promised
assistance. The leading spirit of the Chaibarites was the exiled
Nadhirite, Kinanah Ibn Rabia, a man who possessed indomitable firmness
and courage. He was called the King of the Jews, and was abetted by
Marhab, a giant of Himyarite extraction. Mahomet, before the beginning
of the war, turned in prayer to God, beseeching him to grant a victory
over the Jews of Chaibar. The war, in which Mahomet employed 14,000
warriors, lasted almost two months (Spring 628).
The war against Chaibar assumed the same character as that which was
waged against the other Jewish tribes. It was begun by the cutting
down of the palm trees, and the siege of the small fortresses, which
surrendered after a short resistance. Mahomet met the most vigorous
resistance at the fortress Kamus, which was built on a steep rock.
The Mahometans were several times beaten back by the Jews. Abu-Bekr
and Omar, Mahomet's two bravest generals, lost their distinction
as unconquered heroes before the walls of Kamus. Marhab performed
wonderful feats of valor, to avenge the death of his brother, who had
fallen earlier in the war.
When Mahomet sent his third general, Ali, against him, the Jewish hero
addressed him thus: "Chaibar knows my valor, I am Marhab the hero,
well armed and tried in the field." He then challenged Ali to single
combat. But his time had come. He fell at the hands of his peer. After
many attempts, the enemy succeeded in effecting an entrance into the
fortress. How the captives fared is not known. Kinanah was captured
and put on the rack in order to force him to discover his hidden
treasures. But he bore pain and even death without uttering a word.
After the fortress had fallen, the Jews lost courage, and the other
fortresses surrendered on condition that the garrisons should be
allowed to withdraw. They were subsequently allowed to take possession
of their lands, and only had to pay as an annual tribute one half
of their produce. The Mahometan conquerors took possession of all
the movable property, and returned home laden with the spoils of the
Jews. Fadak, Wadil-Kora and Taima also submitted. Their inhabitants,
according to agreement, were allowed to remain in their land. The year
628 everywhere was distinguished by fatalities for the Jews. It marks
the victory of Mahomet over the Jews of Chaibar, the decay of the last
independent Jewish tribes, and the persecution of the Jews of Palestine
by the Emperor Heraclius, who had, for a short time, again taken up
arms. The sword which the Hasmoneans had wielded in defense of their
religion, and which was in turn used by the Zealots and the Arabian
Jews, was wrung from the hands of the last Jewish heroes of Chaibar,
and henceforth the Jews had to make use of another weapon for the
protection of their sanctuary.
Mahomet had brought two pretty Jewish women with him from the war at
Chaibar: Safia, the daughter of his inveterate enemy, the Nadhirite
Hujej, and Zainab, the sister of Marhab. This courageous woman
bethought herself of an artifice, whereby she might avenge the murder
of her co-religionists and relatives. She pretended to be friendly
towards him, and prepared a repast for him. Mahomet unsuspectingly ate
of a poisoned dish which she had set before him and his companions.
One of them died from the effects. But Mahomet, who, not having found
the dish to his taste, had scarcely tasted it, was saved alive, but
suffered for a long time, and felt the effects of the poison to the
hour of his death. Questioned as to the reason of her action, Zainab
coolly replied, "You have persecuted my people with untold afflictions;
I therefore thought that if you were simply a warrior, I could procure
rest for them through poison, but if you were really a prophet, God
would warn you in time, and you would come to no harm."
Mahomet thereupon ordered her to be put to death, and commanded his
troops to use none of the cooking utensils of the Jews before they
had been scalded. The rest of the Jews did not even now give up the
hope of freeing themselves of their arch-enemy. They intrigued against
him, and made common cause with some ill-disposed Arabs. The house
of a Jew, Suwailim, in Medina was the appointed meeting-place for
the malcontents, whom Mahomet and his fanatic followers named "the
hypocrites" (Munafikun). A traitor betrayed them, and Suwailim's
house was burnt to the ground. The Jews in Arabia felt real joy at
Mahomet's death (632), because they, like others, believed that the
Arabs would be cured of their false belief that he was a higher being
endowed with immortality. But fanaticism, together with the love of war
and conquest, had already taken possession of the Arabians, and they
accepted the Koran as a whole, alike its revolting features and the
truths borrowed from Judaism, as the irrefragable Word of God. Judaism
had reared in Islam a second unnatural child. The Koran became the
book of faith of a great part of humanity in three parts of the world,
and, being full of hostile expressions against the Jews, it naturally
urged on the Mahometans to acts of hostility against the Jews. This
is paralleled by the effect which the Apostles and the Evangelists
produced upon the Christians. So great was the fanaticism of the second
Caliph, Omar, a man of a wild and energetic nature, that he broke the
treaty made by Mahomet with the Jews of Chaibar and Wadil-Kora. He
drove them from their lands, as he did also the Christians of Najaran,
in order that the holy ground of Arabia might not be desecrated by Jews
and Christians.
Omar assigned the landed property of the Jews to the Mahometan
warriors, and a strip of land near the town of Kufa, on the Euphrates,
was given them in return (about 640). But as no evil in history is
quite devoid of good consequences, the dominion of Islam furthered the
elevation of Judaism from its deepest degradation.
CHAPTER IV.
THE AGE OF THE GEONIM.
The Conquests of Islam--Omar's Intolerance--Condition
of the Jews in Babylonia--Bostanaï--The Princes of the
Captivity and the Geonim--Dignity and Revenues of the Prince
--Communal Organization--Excommunication--Julian of Toledo
and the Jews--The Moslems in Spain--The Jews and Arabic
Literature--The Assyrian Vowel-system--The Neo-Hebraic
Poetry: José ben José--Simon ben Caipha--Employment of
Rhyme--Jannaï--Eleazar Kaliri--Opposition to the Study of
the Talmud--The False Messiah Serenus, the Syrian--The Jews
in the Crimea and the Land of the Chazars--The False Messiah
Obadia Abu-Isa.
640-760 C. E.
Scarcely ten years after Mahomet's death the fairest lands in the north
of Arabia and the northwest of Africa acknowledged the supremacy of the
Arabs who, with the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other, swept
across the borders of Arabia with the cry: "There is no God but Allah,
and Mahomet is his prophet." Although there was no distinguished man at
the head of the Arab troops, they conquered the world with far greater
speed than the hosts of Alexander of Macedon. The kingdom of Persia,
weakened by old age and dissension, succumbed to the first blow, and
the Byzantine provinces, Palestine, Syria, and Egypt, whose inhabitants
had but little sympathy with the intriguing court of Constantinople,
did not offer the slightest resistance to the Arabs.
Medina, an oasis in the great desert, a spot unknown to the different
nations, became the lawgiver for millions, just as Rome had been in
olden times. The various peoples that had been conquered, had no choice
but to recognize Mahomet as a prophet and be converted to Islam, or
to pay tribute. The Emperor Heraclius had taken Palestine from the
Persians only ten years before it was again lost. Jews and Samaritans
both helped the Arabs to capture the land, in order that they might
be freed from the heavy yoke of the malignant Byzantine rule. A Jew
put into the hands of the Mussulmans the strongly-fortified town of
Cæsarea, the political capital of the kingdom, which is said to have
contained 700,000 fighting men, amongst whom were 20,000 Jews. He
showed them a subterranean passage, which led the besiegers into the
heart of the town. The Holy City, too, after a short siege, had to
yield to the Mahometan arms. The second successor of Mahomet, the
Caliph Omar, took personal possession of Jerusalem (about 638), and
laid the foundation-stone of a mosque on the site of the Temple. Bishop
Sophronius, who had handed over the keys of Jerusalem to Omar, untaught
by the change of fate which he had himself experienced, is said to have
made arrangements with the Caliph, in capitulating, that the Jews be
forbidden to settle in the Holy City. It is true that Jerusalem was
looked upon by the Mussulmans as a holy place, and pilgrimages were
made thither by them. It was also called the Holy City (Alkuds) by
them, but it was to remain inaccessible to its sons. Omar is said to
have driven out both Jews and Christians from Tiberias. Thus ceased the
literary activity of the school of that place. They, however, received
permission to settle there again under the succeeding Caliphs.
Rising Islam was as intolerant as Christianity. When Omar had driven
the Jews out of Chaibar and the Christians out of Najaran, he gave
instructions to his generals against the Jews and Christians. These
orders were called "the covenant of Omar," and contained many
restrictions against the "peoples of the Book" (Jews and Christians).
They were not allowed to build new houses of worship, nor to restore
those that were in ruins. They had to sing in subdued tones in the
synagogues and churches, and were compelled to pray silently for the
dead.
They dared not hinder their followers from accepting Islam, and were
compelled to show marks of respect to Mussulmans whenever they met
them. Further, they were not allowed to fill judicial or administrative
offices. They were forbidden to ride on horses, and had to wear marks
whereby they could easily be distinguished from the Moslems. Jews and
Christians were not allowed to make use of a signet-ring, which was
considered a mark of honor. Whilst the Mahometans were exempt from
taxes, and at most only had to pay a slight contribution for the poor,
Jews and Christians had to pay a poll-tax and ground-rent.
In spite of this fact, the Jews felt themselves freer under the new
rule of Islam than they did in the Christian lands. The restrictive
laws of Omar were not carried out even during Omar's lifetime, and
though the fanatic Mussulmans scorned the Jews for their religion, they
did not despise them as citizens, but showed great honor to worthy
Jews. The first Mahometans treated the Jews as their equals; they
respected them as friends and allies, and took an interest in them
even as enemies. The Asiatic and Egyptian Jews consequently treated
the Mahometans as their liberators from the yoke of the Christians. A
mystical apocalypse makes a distinct reference to the joy experienced
at the victory of Islam. Simeon bar Yochaï, who was looked upon as
a mystic, foretells the rise of Islam, and bewails the same in the
prayer which runs as follows: "Have we not suffered enough through the
dominion of the wicked Edom (the Roman-Christian dominion), that the
dominion of Ishmael should now rise over us?" Metatoron, one of the
chief angels, answers him: "Fear not, son of man! God sets up the
kingdom of Ishmael only in order that it may free you from the dominion
of the wicked Edom. He raises up a prophet for them, he will conquer
countries for them, and there will be great hatred between them and the
sons of Esau" (the Christians). Such were the sentiments of the Jews
with regard to the conquests of the Mahometans.
The Jews in the ancient Babylonian district (called Irak by the Arabs)
attained a great measure of freedom through the victories of the
Mahometans. During their campaigns against the last Persian kings, the
Jews and the Nestorian Christians, who had been persecuted under the
last Sassanian princes, had rendered them much assistance. The Jews
and the Chaldean Christians formed the bulk of the population near the
Euphrates and the Tigris. Their assistance must have been opportune, as
we find even the fanatical Caliph Omar bestowing rewards and privileges
upon them. It was, doubtless, in consequence of the services which
they had rendered that the Mahometan generals recognized Bostanaï, the
descendant of the Exilarch of the house of David, as the chief of the
Jews. Omar respected Bostanaï so highly that he gave him a daughter
of the Persian king Chosru in marriage. She had been taken prisoner,
together with her sisters (642)--a singular turn of fate! The grandson
of a race that boasted descent from the house of David married a
princess whose ancestors traced their descent from Darius, the founder
of the Persian dynasty. Bostanaï was the first Exilarch who was the
vassal of the Mahometans.
The Exilarch exercised both civil and judicial functions, and all the
Jews of Babylonia formed a separate community under him. Bostanaï also
obtained the exceptional permission to wear a signet-ring (Gushpanka).
By this means he was able to give his documents and decrees an official
character. The seal, in reference to some unknown historical allusion,
bore the impress of a fly. Bostanaï must have been an important
personage in other respects, since legends cluster about him, and would
make his birth itself appear a miraculous event. The Judæo-Babylonian
community, which had acquired some importance through Bostanaï,
obtained its real strength under Ali, the fourth Caliph, Mahomet's
comrade and son-in-law, the hero of Chaibar.
Omar had died at the hands of an assassin (644), and his successor,
Othman, had been killed in an insurrection (655). Ali was nominated
Caliph by the conspirators, but he had to struggle against many bitter
opponents. Islam was divided into two camps. The one declared for Ali,
who resided in the newly-built town of Kufa; the other for Moawiyah, a
relative of the murdered Caliph Othman.
The Babylonian Jews and Nestorian Christians sided with Ali, and
rendered him assistance. A Jew, Abdallah Ibn-Sabâ, was a spirited
partisan of Ali. He asserted that the succession to the Caliphate was
his by right, and that the divine spirit of Mahomet had passed to
him, as it had from Moses to Joshua. It is said that when Ali took
the town of Firuz-Shabur or Anbar, 90,000 Jews, under Mar-Isaac, the
head of a college, assembled to do homage to the Caliph, who was but
indifferently supported by his own followers (658). The unhappy Ali
valued this homage, and, doubtless, accorded privileges to the Jewish
principal. It is quite probable that from this time the head of the
school of Sora was invested with a certain dignity, and took the title
of Gaon. There were certain privileges connected with the Gaonate, upon
which even the Exilarch did not venture to encroach. Thus a peculiar
relation, leading to subsequent quarrels, grew up between the rival
offices--the Exilarchate and the Gaonate. With Bostanaï and Mar-Isaac,
the Jewish officials recognized by the Caliph, there begins a new
period in Jewish history--the Epoch of the Geonim. After Bostanaï's
death dissension arose among his sons. Bostanaï had left several sons
by various wives, one of them the daughter of the Persian king. Perhaps
her son was his father's favorite, because royal blood flowed in his
veins, and he was probably destined to be his successor. His brothers
by the Jewish wives were consequently jealous of him, and treated him
as a slave, _i. e._, as one that had been born of a captive non-Jewess,
who, according to Talmudic law, was looked upon as a slave, so long as
he could not furnish proof that either his mother or himself had been
formally emancipated. This, however, he could not do. The brothers
then determined to sell the favorite, their own brother, as a slave.
Revolting as this proceeding was, it was approved by several members of
the college of Pumbeditha, partly from religious scruples, partly from
the desire to render a friendly service to Bostanaï's legitimate sons.
Other authorities, however, maintained that Bostanaï, who was a pious
man, would not have married the king's daughter before he had legally
freed her, and made her a proselyte. In order to protect her son from
humiliation, one of the chief judges, Chaninaï, hastened to execute a
document attesting her emancipation, and thus the wicked design of the
brothers was frustrated; but the stain of illegitimacy still attached
to the son, and his descendants were never admitted to the rank of the
descendants of the Exilarch Bostanaï.
Bostanaï's descendants in the Exilarchate arbitrarily deposed the
presidents of the colleges, and appointed their own partisans to
the vacant places. The religious leaders of the people thus bore
Bostanaï's descendants a grudge. Even in later times, an authority
amongst the Jews had to defend himself with the words: "I am a member
of the house of the Exilarch, but not a descendant of the sons of
Bostanaï, who were proud and oppressive." The vehement quarrels
about the Caliphate, between the house of Ali and the Ommiyyades,
were repeated on a small scale in Jewish Babylonia. The half-century
from Bostonaï and the rise of the Gaonate till the Exilarchate of
Chasdaï (670 to 730) is in consequence involved in obscurity. Few also
of the Geonim who held office and of the presidents of the colleges
during this period are known, and their chronological order cannot be
ascertained. After Mar-Isaac, probably the first Gaon of Sora, Hunaï
held office, contemporaneously with Mar-Raba in Pumbeditha (670 to
680). These presidents issued an important decree with respect to the
law of divorce, whereby a Talmudical law was set aside. According to
the Talmud, the wife can seek a divorce only in very rare cases, _e.
g._, if the husband suffers from an incurable disease. Even if the
wife were seized with an unconquerable aversion to her husband, she
could be compelled by law to live with him, and to fulfil her duties,
on penalty of losing her marriage settlement, and even her dowry, in
case she insisted upon the separation. Through the domination of Islam
circumstances were now changed. The Koran had somewhat raised the
position of women, and empowered the wife to sue for a divorce. This
led many unhappy wives to appeal to the Mahometan courts, and they
compelled their husbands to give them a divorce without the aforesaid
penalties. It was in consequence of the events just related that Hunaï
and Mar-Raba introduced a complete reform of the divorce laws. They
entirely abrogated the Talmudical law, and empowered the wife to sue
for a divorce without suffering any loss of her property-rights. Thus
the law established equality between husband and wife. For the space of
forty years (680 to 720), only the names of the Geonim and Exilarchs
are known to us; historical details, however, are entirely wanting.
During this time, as a result of quarrels and concessions, there arose
peculiar relations of the officials of the Jewish-Persian kingdom
towards one another, which developed into a kind of constitution.
The Jewish community in Babylonia (Persia), which had the appearance of
a state, had a peculiar constitution. The Exilarch and the Gaon were
of equal rank. The Exilarch's office was political. He represented
Babylonian-Persian Judaism under the Caliphs. He collected the taxes
from the various communities, and paid them into the treasury. The
Exilarchs, both in bearing and mode of life, were princes. They drove
about in a state carriage; they had outriders and a kind of body-guard,
and received princely homage.
The religious unity of Judaism, on the other hand, was embodied in the
Gaonate of Sora and Pumbeditha. The Geonim expounded the Talmud, with a
view to a practical application of its provisions; they made new laws
and regulations; administered them, and meted out punishment to those
that transgressed them. The Exilarch shared the judicial power with the
Gaon of Sora and the head of the college of Pumbeditha.
The Exilarch had the right of nomination to offices, though not without
the acquiescence of the college. The head of the college of Sora,
however, was alone privileged to be styled "Gaon"; the head of the
college of Pumbeditha did not bear the title officially. The Gaon of
Sora together with his college, as a rule, was paid greater deference
than his colleague of Pumbeditha, partly out of respect to the memory
of its great founders, Rab and Ashi, partly on account of its proximity
to Kufa, the capital of Irak and of the kingdom of Islam in the East.
On festive occasions, the head of the college of Sora sat at the right
side of the Exilarch. He obtained two-thirds of certain revenues for
his school, and performed the duties of the Exilarch when the office
was vacant. For a long time, too, only a member of the school of Sora
was elected president of the school of Pumbeditha, this school not
being permitted to elect one from its own ranks.
Now that the Exilarch everywhere met with the respect due a prince,
he was installed with a degree of ceremony and pomp. Although the
office was hereditary in the house of Bostanaï, the acquiescence of
both colleges was required for the nomination of a new Exilarch, and
thus there came to be a fixed installation service. The officials of
both the colleges, together with their fellow-collegians, and the most
respected men in the land, betook themselves to the residence of the
designated Exilarch. In a large open place, which was lavishly adorned,
seats were erected for him and the presidents of the two schools. The
Gaon of Sora delivered an address to the future Exilarch, in which he
was reminded of the duties of his high office, and was warned against
haughty conduct toward his brethren. The installation always took
place in the synagogue, and on a Thursday. Both officials put their
hands upon the head of the nominee, and declared amidst the clang of
trumpets, "Long live our lord, the Prince of the Exile."
The people, who were always present in great numbers on the occasion,
vociferously repeated the wish. All present then accompanied the new
Exilarch home from the synagogue, and presents flowed in from all
sides. On the following Saturday evening there was a special festive
service for the new prince. There was a platform in the shape of a
tower erected for him in the synagogue. This was decked with costly
ornaments that he might appear like the kings of the house of David in
the Temple, on a raised seat, apart from the people. He was conducted
to divine service by a numerous and honorable suite. The reader chanted
the prayers with the assistance of a well-appointed choir.
When the Exilarch was seated on his high seat, the Gaon of Sora
approached the Exilarch, bent the knee before him, and sat at his right
hand. His colleague of Pumbeditha having made a similar obeisance, took
his seat on the left. When the Law was read, they brought the scroll
to the Exilarch, which was looked upon as a royal prerogative. He was
also the first one called to the reading of the Law, which on ordinary
occasions was the prerogative of the descendants of the house of Aaron.
In order to honor him, the president of the college of Sora acted as
interpreter (Meturgeman), expounding the passage that had been read.
After the Law was read, it was customary for the Prince of the
Exile to deliver an address. But if the Exilarch was not learned,
he delegated this duty to the Gaon of Sora. In the final prayer for
the glorification of God's name (Kadish, Gloria), the name of the
Exilarch was mentioned: "May this happen in the lifetime of the
Prince." Thereupon followed a special blessing for him, the heads of
the colleges and its members (Yekum Purkan), and the names of the
countries, places and persons, far and near, that had advanced the
welfare of the colleges by their contributions. A festive procession
from the synagogue to the house or palace of the Exilarch, and a
sumptuous repast for the officials and prominent personages, which
often included state officers, formed the conclusion of this peculiar
act of homage to the Exilarch.
Once a year, in the third week after the Feast of Tabernacles, a
kind of court was held at the house of the Exilarch. The heads of
the college, together with their colleagues, the presidents of the
community, and many people besides, came to see him at Sora, probably
with presents. On the following Sabbath the same ceremonial took place
as at the nomination. Lectures were delivered during this court week,
which was afterwards known as "the Great Assembly," or the "Feast of
the Exilarch."
The Exilarch derived his income partly from certain districts and
towns, and partly from irregular receipts. The districts Naharowan
(east of the Tigris), Farsistan, Holwan--as far as the jurisdiction of
the Exilarch extended--even during the period of decadence, brought
him an income of 700 golden denarii ($1700). We can easily imagine how
great his revenue must have been in palmy days. The Exilarch also had
the right of imposing a compulsory tax upon the communities under his
jurisdiction, and the officials of the Caliph supported him in this
because they themselves had an interest in it.
The president of the college of Sora was the second in rank in the
Judæo-Babylonian community. He was the only one who held the title
of Gaon officially, and he had the precedence over his colleague of
Pumbeditha on all occasions, even though the former were a young man
and the latter an aged one. Meanwhile, the school of Pumbeditha enjoyed
perfect equality and independence with respect to its internal affairs,
except when one or another Exilarch, according to Oriental custom, made
illegal encroachments upon it.
Next to the president came the chief judge, who discharged the judicial
duties, and was, as a rule, his successor in office. Below these
were seven presidents of the Assembly of Teachers, and three others
who bore the title of Associate or scholar, and who together seem to
have composed the Senate in a restricted sense. Then came a college
of a hundred members, which was divided into two unequal bodies, one
of seventy members representing the "great Synhedrion," the other of
thirty forming the "smaller Synhedrion." The seventy were ordained, and
consequently qualified for promotion; they bore the title of Teacher.
The thirty or "smaller Synhedrion" do not seem to have been entitled to
a seat and vote, they were simply candidates for the higher dignity.
The members of the college generally bequeathed their offices to their
sons, but the office of president was not hereditary.
This peculiarly organized council of the two colleges by degrees lost
its strictly collegiate character, and acquired that of a deliberative
and legislative Parliament. Twice a year, in March and September
(Adar and Elul), in accordance with ancient usage, the college held
a general meeting, and sat for a whole month. During this period
the members occupied themselves also with theoretical questions,
discussing and explaining some portion of the Talmud, which had been
given out beforehand as the theme. But the attention of the meeting was
principally directed to practical matters. New laws and regulations
were considered and decreed, and points which had formed the subject
of inquiry by foreign communities, during the preceding months, were
discussed and answered. Little by little the replies to the numerous
inquiries addressed to them by foreign communities on points of
religion, morals, and civil law, came to occupy the greater part of
the session. At the end of the session all opinions expressed by the
meeting on the points submitted for their consideration were read over,
signed by the president, in the name of the whole council, confirmed
with the seal of the college (Chumrata), and forwarded by messenger to
each community with a ceremonious form of greeting from the college.
It was customary for the various congregations to accompany their
inquiries with valuable presents in money. If these presents were
sent specially to one of the two colleges, the other received no
share; but if they were remitted without any precise directions, the
Soranian school, being the more important, received two-thirds, and the
remainder went to the sister-college. These presents were divided by
the president among the members of the college and the students of the
Talmud.
Over and above such irregular receipts, the two colleges derived a
regular income from the districts which were under their jurisdiction.
To Sora belonged the south of Irak, with the two important cities Wasit
and Bassora, and its jurisdiction extended as far as Ophir (India or
Yemen?). In later times the revenues of these countries still amounted
to 1500 gold denars (about $3700). The northern communities belonged to
Pumbeditha, whose jurisdiction extended as far as Khorasan.
The appointment of the judges of a district was, in all probability,
the duty of the principal of the college, in conjunction with the chief
judge and the seven members of the Senate-council. Each of these three
heads of the Babylonian-Jewish commonwealth accordingly possessed the
power of appointing the judges of his province, and the communities
were thus either under the Prince of the Captivity or the Soranian
Gaonate, or were dependent on the college of Pumbeditha. When a judge
was appointed over a certain community he received a commission from
the authorities over him. He bore the title of Dayan, and had to decide
not only in civil but also in religious cases, and was therefore at the
same time a rabbi. He chose from amongst the members of the community
two associates (Zekenim), together with whom he formed a judicial and
rabbinical tribunal. All valid deeds, marriage contracts, letters of
divorce, bills of exchange, bills of sale, and deeds of gift, were also
confirmed by this rabbi-judge. He was, at the same time, the notary
of the community. For these various functions he received--first, a
certain contribution from every independent member of the community;
secondly, fees for drawing up deeds; and, thirdly, a weekly salary from
the vendors of meat. The children's schools, which were in connection
with the synagogue, were probably also under the supervision of this
rabbi-judge.
The communal constitution in Jewish Babylonia has served as a
model for the whole Jewish people, partly until the present time.
At the head of the community stood a commission entrusted with the
public interests, and composed of seven members, who were called
Parnesé-ha-Keneset (Maintainers of the Community). A delegate of a
Prince of the Captivity, or of one of the principals of the colleges,
was charged with the supervision of public business, and also possessed
the power of punishing refractory members. The punishments inflicted
were flogging and excommunication. The latter, the invisible weapon
of the Middle Ages, which changed its victims to living corpses, was,
however, neither so often nor so arbitrarily exercised by the Jews as
by the Christians; but even among them it fell with terrible force.
Those who refused to comply with religious or official regulations,
were punished with the lesser excommunication. It was mild in form,
and did not entail the total isolation of the person excommunicated,
and affected the members of his own family still less. But whosoever
failed to repent within the given respite of thirty days, and to
make application to have the excommunication annulled, incurred the
punishment of the greater ban. This punishment scared away a man's most
intimate friends, isolated him in the midst of society, and caused
him to be treated as an outcast from Judaism. No one was allowed to
hold social intercourse with him, under penalty of incurring similar
punishments. His children were expelled from school, and his wife from
the synagogue. All were forbidden to bury his dead, or even to receive
his new-born son into the covenant of Abraham. Every distinctive mark
of Judaism was denied him, and he was left branded as one accursed of
God. The proclamation of the ban was posted up outside the court of
justice, and communicated to the congregation. Although this punishment
of excommunication and its consequences were extremely horrible, it was
nevertheless, at a time when the multitude was not open to rational
conviction, the only means of preserving religious unity intact, of
administering justice, and of maintaining social order.
The Jewish commonwealth of Babylonia, notwithstanding its dependence on
the humors of a Mahometan governor and the caprice of its own leaders,
seemed nevertheless to those at a distance surrounded with a halo of
power and greatness. The Prince of the Captivity appeared to the Jews
of distant lands, who heard only confused rumors, to have regained
the scepter of David; for them the Geonim of the two colleges were
the living upholders and the representatives of the ideal times of
the Talmud. The further the dominion of the Caliphate of the house of
Ommiyyah was extended, to the north beyond the Oxus, to the east to
India, in the west and the south to Africa and the Pyrenees, the more
adherents were gained for the Babylonian Jewish chiefs. Every conquest
of the Mahometan generals enlarged the boundaries of the dominion under
the rule of the Prince of the Captivity and the Geonim. Even Palestine,
deprived of its center, subordinated itself to Babylonia. The hearts
of all Jews turned towards the potentates on the Euphrates, and their
presents flowed in freely, to enable the house of David to make a
worthy appearance, and the Talmudical colleges to continue to exist in
splendor. The grief for their dispersion to all corners of the earth
was mitigated by the knowledge that by the rivers of Babylon, where the
flower of the Jewish nation in its full vigor had settled, and where
the great Amoraim had lived and worked, a Jewish commonwealth still
existed. It was universally believed by the Jews that in the original
seat of Jewish greatness the primitive spring of ancient Jewish wisdom
was still flowing. "God permitted the colleges of Sora and Pumbeditha
to come into existence twelve years before the destruction of the
Temple by Nebuchadnezzar, and vouchsafed them His special protection.
They never suffered persecution at the hands of the Romans or the
Byzantines, and have known neither coercion nor bondage. From thence
will proceed the deliverance of Israel, and the dwellers in this happy
corner of the earth will be spared the sufferings that are to usher in
the age of the Messiah." Such was the view held by all who had not seen
the Babylonian settlement with their own eyes.
It was accounted an honor for a dead person to be mentioned at a
memorial service at the colleges. For this purpose a special day was
set apart in each month of assembly, during which no business was
transacted by the colleges; the members mourned for the benefactors of
the colleges that had died during the past year, and prayed for the
peace of their souls (Ashkabá). Later on it became customary to forward
lists of the dead, even from France and Spain, in order that they might
also be thus honored.
The Jews of Spain, to whom so brilliant a part is allotted in Jewish
history, drained the cup of misery to the dregs, at the very time
when their brethren in Irak obtained almost perfect freedom and
independence. Some of them had been obliged to emigrate; others were
compelled to embrace Christianity, and were required by the king
Chintila, solemnly to declare in writing their sincere adherence
to the Catholic faith and their entire repudiation of Judaism. But
although they had been forcibly converted, the Jews of Visigothic
Spain nevertheless clung steadfastly to their prohibited religion. The
independent Visigothic nobles, to a certain extent, protected them
from the king's severity, and no sooner were the eyes of the fanatical
Chintila closed in death than the Jews openly reverted to Judaism under
Chindaswinth, his successor (642-652). This monarch was at open enmity
with the clergy, who desired to restrain the power of the throne in
favor of the Church, but was well affected towards the Jews.
His son, Receswinth, however, who was altogether unlike him, adopted
an entirely different policy. Either from fanaticism, or in order to
ingratiate himself with the clergy, at that time hostile to the throne,
he proposed in an ecclesiastical council
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