History of Zionism, 1600-1918, Vol. 2 (of 2)

VIII.

“Vindiciæ Judæorum,” by Manasseh Ben-Israel

Vindiciæ | Judæorum, | Or A | Letter | In Answer to certain Questions propounded by | a Noble and Learned Gentleman, touching | the reproaches cast on the Nation of the | Jevves; wherein all objections are | candidly, and yet fully cleared. |

By Rabbi Menasseh Ben Israel a Divine | and a Physician. |

Printed by R. D. in the year 1656. |

(4to. 1 l. + 41 pp.)⁠¹ [I. S.]

IX.

Enseña A Pecadores

Libro | Yntitulado | Enseña | A | Pecadores |

Que contiene diferentes | obras, mediante las qua-|lespide el hombre | piedad à su | Criador. |

En casa y acosta | de David de castro Tartaz. |

En Amsterdam | Anno 5426. |

(12mo. 88 + ח (= 8) (8) pp.) [B. M.]

Page 2. “Prologo.... Aviendo pues el Señor hecho merced al mundo en traer a luz las obras divinas del H. Ribi Esayah, su memoria sea para benedicion, las quales son llenas de doctrinas y modos de encaminar al hombre a la salvacion....”

pp. 61–79. “Conficion Muy Copiosa Maravillosa y llena de divinos conceptos y misterios, hecha por el divino Theologo y excellentissimo Sabio, Ribi Yshac Askenazi de Loria, Traduzida de Hebrico, en lengua castellana, por el doctissimo Haham Menasseh ben Ysrael; el Anno 5383. la qual se puede dezir estando el hombre enfermo o de ajuno o en qual quiera tiempo.”

pp. 80–88. Vidvy Penitencial ... Auctor Selomoh De Oliuera.

וידוי כפרה ... שלמה די אוליוירה יצ״ו התחלתו ערב ר״ח אדר ראשון. בשנת מגיני אל אלהים מושיע ישרי לב׃ א–ה .pp

תושלבע׃

X.

“De Termino Vitæ—of the Term of Life,” by Manasseh Ben-Israel

צרור החיים | Menasseh | Ben Israel, | De | Termino | Vitæ: | Libri Tres. |

Quibus veterum Rabbi-|norum, ac recentium do-|ctorum, de hac con-|troversia sententia | explicatur. |

Amstelodami. Typis & sumpti-|bus authoris An. 1639. |

(12mo. 8 ll. + 237 pp. + 25 ll.)⁠¹ [I. S.]

XI.

“נשמת חיים—De Immortalitate Animæ,” by Manasseh Ben-Israel

ספר נשמת חיים על ענין הנשמה ... מנשה בן ישראל ... פה ק״ק אמשטרדם נדפס בדפוס בן המחבר שמואל אברבנאל סואירו בשנת [תיב] לפ״ק׃

(4to. 8 + קעד (174) + 2 ll.) [I. S.]

Some editions, which are excessively rare, have this Latin addition:⁠—

נשמת חיים | Menasseh Ben Israel | Libri Quatuor | De | Immortalitate Animæ. |

In quibus multæ insignes & ju-|cundæ quæstiones ventilantur, | uti videre est, ex argu-|mento operis. |

Amstelodami, | Apud Autoris filium | Samuel Ben Israel Abrabanel Sueiro. |

Anno ϲlͻ. ͻlϲ. LI. |

(8 ll.) [I. S.]

sig. A2. (Epistola Dedicatoria) Ferdinando III. Augustissº. Romanorum Imperatori....

Sig. A4². Augustissimi Imperatoris Servus humillimus Menasseh Ben Israel.

Amstelodami Calendis Decembris Anno ϲlͻ. lͻϲ. LI.

XII.

“Rights of the Kingdom,” by John Sadler

Rights of the Kingdom; | Or, | Customs of our Ancestours:... With an Ocasionall Discourse of Great Changes yet | expected in the World. |

London, | Printed by Richard Bishop. 1649.|⁠¹

(4to. 4 ll. + Aa–Mm + f–z + a–c in fours.) [I. S.]

sig. G4. “How they are Now, I need not say, although I might also beare them witnesse, that They are yet Zealous in Their Way. nor doe they wholly want, ingenuous able men. of whom I cannot but with Honour, mention Him, that hath so much obliged the world, by his learned Writings; Rab Menasseh Ben Israel: a very learned, Civill Man, and a Lover of our Nation.

“The more I think upon the Great Change, now comming on Them, and All the World; the more I would be Just and Mercifull to Them, to All.”

XIII.

“Nova Solyma,” edited by Rev. Walter Begley

Nova Solyma The Ideal City; Or Jerusalem Regained

An Anonymous Romance Written In The Time Of Charles I.

Now first Drawn From Obscurity, And Attributed To The Illustrious John Milton.⁠¹

With Introduction, Translation, Literary Essays And A Bibliography

By The Rev. Walter Begley

vol. i., ii.

London John Murray, Albemarle Street. 1902.

(p. 4). “The book was first presented to the public in small octavo form with this title page:

Novæ | Solymæ | Libri Sex. | Londini Typis Joannis Legati.| MDCXLVIII. |

“The book contained three hundred and ninety-two pages, of which the last contained the errata and the printer’s short notice to the reader. There was no preface or introduction of any kind, and no notes. The only printed extra was this Latin motto in the middle of the blank page facing the title:

which I turn thus:

(p. 5). “‘Whose is the book?’ do you ask. ‘Why start such a bootless enquiry?

If you but read and enjoy, you will have made it your own.’” (pp. 5–6). “... The next year the same book was published again—an evident attempt to utilise the unsold remainder, as there was no difference whatever, except a new title page with the old fly-leaf motto included in it and a page at the end containing the autocriticon. In the only copy I have seen, [St. John’s College, Cambridge], the title page runs as follows:

Novæ Solymæ Libri Sex; sive Institutio Christiani.

Londini: Typis Johannis Legati, et venundantur per Thomam Underhill sub signo Biblii in vico Anglice dicto Woodstreet. MDCXLIX.”

Here we have the very useful addition that it was published by Thomas Underhill, of Wood Street.

(preface pp. vii–viii). “... That such a wide-reaching, learned, and varied work should have been allowed to remain unappreciated and utterly ignored for more than two hundred and fifty years is certainly a very surprising literary fact....

“The critics seem to have been both blind and deaf. They gave no encouraging praise, and no disheartening condemnation. They simply took no notice. And so this great work of seventeenth-century art vanished from the sight of men. A few copies were put away in college libraries, where they rested for years undisturbed and dust-covered in their original positions, and have so continued to rest for two centuries and a half, lost to the world.”

(p. 18). “There is a spirit of pure, lofty, and unselfish morality evident throughout all the various scenes of this interesting and unaffected book. It shows us the brightest, strongest elements of God-fearing Puritanism;...” “Here are the lyric songs from ‘the law and prophets,’ Abraham’s meditation on the Mount Moriah, Cain’s lamentations for Abel, David’s lament for Saul and Jonathan, and many a noble ode from the Psalms and short epics from Job....” “Here Truth and Justice and the Fear of God are all placed on the high pedestals they so well deserve; and there is withal a kindly insistence everywhere on those great teachings which tend to make life more abounding in hope, more perfect in self-restraint and more lifted-up in spirit.”

All these ideas are Hebrew, and characteristically Biblical. But the most curious fact, from our point of view, is that this work contains a description of the Ideal State on Mount Zion. Of course, the tendency is thoroughly Christian, but it is that kind of Christianity which is inspired by the Old Testament and by a sentiment of love for the old Jewish nation and the Holy Land. This book is the poetical expression of the Restoration ideas of the seventeenth century. It begins with a description of the springtime in New Jerusalem, “the city with twelve gates” (Ezekiel xlviii. 31), and “a virgin who held in her right hand a golden rod, and in her left the two tables of the Law.” The tourist-visitors, “two Englishmen and the third a Sicilian,” are told that “it is the anniversary of the founding of the city and the virgin you saw represented Zion, or, as they say, the Daughter of Zion.” “They” evidently refers to the Jews.

Strangers are received with remarkable hospitality (as in Herzl’s Altneuland).

(p. 86). “But Jacob, for that was the old man’s name, urged him all the more, ‘Come, come,’ said he, ‘it is a national duty with us to treat strangers with kindness, not unmindful that we too, long ago, were strangers in Egypt, and since then for a long time strangers and wanderers among all the nations of the earth. But now we call none aliens from Israel....’”

(p. 88). “We are now very close on the fiftieth year since our long and widely-scattered nation was restored to its present wonderful prosperity.” The old Jew then explains the system of education adopted in the new country, a system of physical development and moral integrity.

Joseph, who is one of the tourists and the hero of the romance, indulges in songs of Zion.

(pp. 175–6) “O sacred top of Solyma,

How lovely is thy place

Where stands the city of our King

Where faithful saints rejoice and sing

O mercy, love and grace!

“For there our greater Temple stands

With greater glory blest

And there redeemed from alien lands,

Brought back at last by God’s own hands,

His Israel finds her rest.”

Here the translator remarks:

(p. 177) note i.: “How many sighs and prayers have gone up from the dispersed children of Zion in Russian Poland, in Galicia, in Roumania and by the old broken wall of Jerusalem in these latter days! What longing for this ‘antepast of Heaven’ that Joseph here speaks of! What passionate desire for that time, when the children of Zion should no longer have to sing ‘the Lord’s song in a strange land’! Is this century to see the Zionists in possession again of their Holy City—their longed-for Salem, the ‘Vision,’ the ‘Foundation,’ the ‘Inheritance’ of Peace, as expositors have variously entitled it? Who can say? From a practical point of view the prospect somehow fails to charm; but when I view it in theory, it seems as if the justice of the world as well as the justice of the Eternal One would be nobly consummated by such a termination to an earthly pilgrimage of nigh two thousand years.”

The anonymous author proceeds to describe the old-new home, and the people, new-born in benevolence, piety and purity, with their national distinctiveness, and the two tables of the Law. Thus, with all his honest and deep Christian convictions and belief in the final triumph of his religious ideas, he recognizes the right of the Jewish nation to have their country and to remain faithful to their traditions. This strange romance, after all sorts of philosophical reflections and sketches of various adventures in Sicily and elsewhere, comes back to Zion to sing the songs of the Old Testament in Latin verse in a way which shows that the author had the rhythm and atmosphere of Biblical poetry to perfection, and also that his views were much more in harmony with the notions of that time than with modern conceptions. The whole work is inspired by great enthusiasm for Israel’s glory, and abounds with sympathy and admiration for the Jewish nation.

Begley, who was a man of profound knowledge and an authority on matters of composition and style, ascribes this work to Milton. If this view be accepted, then to this poet’s glory must be added a further claim to immortality, because he was the first poet who expounded—from a Christian point of view—the idea of Israel’s Restoration in the form of a poetical romance. But from our point of view it does not matter whether Milton was the author, or another poet; the fact remains that this remarkable work is English and appeared in England in 1648.

XIV.

“Prædamitæ—Men Before Adam,” by Isaac de La Peyrère⁠¹

Another of his famous works, also published anonymously, was:⁠—

Præadamitæ. | Sive | Exercitatio | super Versibus duodecimo, decimotertio, & | decimoquarto, capitis quinti Epistolæ | D. Pauli ad Romanos. | Qvibvs Indvcvntvr | Primi Homines ante Adamum | conditi. |

Anno Salvtis, | M.DC.LV. |

(4to. 22 ll. + 297 + 8 pp. [Synagogis Ivdæorvm Vniversis.]) [I. S.]

In the following year it was translated into English:⁠—

Men before Adam. | Or | A Discourse upon the twelfth, | thirteenth, and fourteenth Verses | of the Fifth Chapter of the Epistle | of the Apostle Paul to the | Romans. |

By which are prov’d, | That the first Men were crea-|ted before Adam. |

London, | Printed in the Year, 1656. |

(8º. 8 ll. + 61 pp. + 9 pp. + 35 ll.) [I. S.]

The End of the first Part (No more published)

sig. A.4. “To all the Synagogues to the Jews, dispersed over the face of the Earth.”

sig. M.8. “Terræ Sanctæ Delineatio” (A map of the Holy Land).⁠¹

XV.

Isaac Vossius

Isaac Vossius was born at Leyden in Holland, one of the sons of the renowned scholar Gerard John Vossius by his second wife Elizabeth, daughter of Francis du Jon (Junius) (1545–1602), French theologian and philologist. All the sons were precocious scholars, but Isaac was undoubtedly the most eminent.... He was invited by Queen Christina of Sweden, one of the most erudite women of her time, to come and shed the lustre of his learning upon Stockholm. He arrived towards the end of 1649, was appointed a Court Chamberlain, and taught the Queen Greek. In 1650 he sold her his father’s library for twenty thousand florins, with the stipulation that he received five thousand florins yearly with board and residence for its superintendence. In 1652 owing to certain differences he left Sweden. In 1655 Manasseh Ben Israel dedicated to him:⁠—

In a list of Manasseh’s works at the end of the volume, it is catalogued “Piedra preciosa; o de la Estatua de Nebuchadnesar, donde se sexpone lo mas essencial del libro de Daniel.” It was for this small volume that Rembrandt designed and etched four illustrations.⁠¹

Vossius was created D.C.L. at Oxford in 1670, and installed to a prebend in the royal chapel at Windsor in 1673, which was presented to him by Charles II. (1630–1685), and died at Windsor 21 Feb., 1688. He had accumulated the finest private library in the world, including 762 manuscripts. It was sold at Leyden in 1710 for thirty-six thousand florins. A large number of original letters of Vossius are preserved at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

XVI.

“Doomes-Day”

Doomes-Day: | Or, | The great Day of the Lord’s Iudgement, | proved by Scripture; and two other Prophecies, | the one pointing at the yeare 1640. the other at this | present yeare 1647. to be even now neer at hand. 

With | The gathering together of the Jews in great Bodies | under Josias Catzius (in Illyria, Bithinia, and Cappadocia) | for the conquering of the Holy Land. | ...

London, | Printed for W. Ley. 1647

(4to. 1 l. + 6 pp.) [I. S.]

(p. 2) “... even those people the Jewes, according to certaine and credible information, are at this time [* Under Josias Catzius, and according to Letters from beyond the Seas, they are numerous, and shew themselves in great bodies in Illyria, Bethinia and Cappadocia.] assembling themselves together into one body from out of all countreys, whereinto they have been driven with a resolution to regaine the holy land once more out of the hand of the Ottaman:”⁠¹

XVII.

“Restauration of all Israel and Judah”

A Paper, shewing that the great Conversion and Restauration of all Israel and Judah will be fulfilled at Christs second comming; and that the New Jerusalem, called Jehovah Shamma, described by Ezekiel, chap. 40. to the end of the Book, is most probably then to be set up, and is referred to the same time, &c., May 1. 1674.

(4to. 8 ll.) [I. S.]

XVIII.

“Apology for the Honorable Nation of the Jews—Apologia por la noble nacion de los Ivdios—Verantwoordinge voor de edele Volcken der Jooden,” by Edward Nicholas

An | Apology | For The | Honorable Nation | Of The | Jews, | And all the Sons of | Israel.

Written by Edward Nicholas, Gent. | ...

London, Printed by John Field, 1648. |

(4to. 15 pp.)⁠¹ [I. S.]

A Spanish translation was also published here:⁠—

Apologia | Por | La noble nacion de los | Ivdios | y hijos de | Israel. |

Escrita en Ingles | Por | Eduardo Nicholas. |

E impresa en casa de Juan Field, en | Londres, |

Año ϲlͻ ϲlϲ XLIX. |

(sm. 8º. 8 ll.) [I. S.]

Some years later a Dutch version was issued (Published together with “De Hoop Van Israël” of Manasseh Ben Israel).

Verantwoordinge, | Voor | De Edele Volcken der | Jooden, |

En Kinderen van | Israel. |

In het Engels beschreven | Door | Eduardo Nicolas. |

In’t Nederduyts overgeschreven | en gedruckt. |

t’Amsterdam, | Voor Jozua Rex, Bœck-binder, | op de Cingel, recht over de Appelen-marreckt | in’t Jaer 1666. |

(12mo. 1 l. + 26 pp. + 1 l.) [I. S.]

XIX.

“A Word for the Armie,” by Hugh Peters

“A word for the | Armie. | And two words to the | Kingdome. | To | Cleare the One, | And cure the Other. |

Forced in much plainesse and bre-|vity from their faithfull Servant, | Hugh Peters. | ....

London, | Printed by M. Simmons for Giles Calvert at the black | Spread-Eagle at the West end of Pauls, 1647. |

(4to. 14 pp.) [I. S.]

sig. B2. “IO^LY. That Merchants may have all the manner of encouragement, the law of Merchants set up, and strangers, even Jewes admitted to trade, and live with us, that it may not be said we pray for their conversion, with whom we will not converse, wee being all but strangers on the Earth.”

XX.

Isaac da Fonseca Aboab

He was the son of David Aboab and Isabel da Fonseca. To distinguish him from his contemporary Isaac de Matatiah Aboab, he is generally alluded to as “Fonseca Aboab.” He was born at Castrodagre, Portugal, and brought to Amsterdam as a child, where he became a pupil of Haham Isaac (ob. 1622) de Abraham Uziel. In 1623 he was the Haham of the Nevé Shalom, the second synagogue established in Amsterdam. In 1642 he emigrated to Pernambuco (Recife) in Brazil, where he was Haham until he returned to Amsterdam in 1654. (In 1640 Manasseh himself had intended going out to Brazil to join his brother Ephraim Soeiro⁠¹ in business.) During Aboab’s Rabbinate there was war between the Dutch and Portuguese for possession of the colony, which he describes in Hebrew verse, still in manuscript. He was the first Rabbi and the first Hebrew Author in the New World. It has been alleged, that in his declining years he was a secret votary of Sabbatai Zebi. He was a great-grandson of the last Gaon of Castile, the Isaac Aboab (1433–1493) who wrote a super-commentary to Nachmanides’ commentary on the Pentateuch, printed in Constantinople in 1525. Rabbi Abraham de Samuel Zacuto, the author of the Juchasin, was one of his pupils, and on his death delivered the funeral oration.

XXI.

Dr. Abraham Zacutus Lusitanus

He was one of the most eminent physicians of his time and the author of many valuable works in connection with his profession. He was a native of Lisbon and of marrano origin. In the year 1625, when Philip (1605–1665) IV. of Spain (1621–1665) and Portugal (1621–1640) banished the Jews from the latter kingdom, Zacutus escaped to Amsterdam from the clutches of the Holy Office. Here he was initiated into the Abrahamic covenant and lived as an exemplary Jew. He was one of the “Aprovaciones” of the first volume of the Conciliador “Sapientissimo Viro, Domino Menasseh Ben Israel, sacrorum librorum eruditissimo interpreti, Salvtem.... Amstelodami dié ultim. Mensis August. Anno. 1632.

Te summé colit, & observat,

Doctor Zacutus Lusitanus.”

Among his clientele he numbered the Elector Palatine Frederick V. (1596–1632), King of Bohemia (1619–1620), and his consort Elizabeth Stuart (1596–1662), eldest daughter of James (1566–1625) I., King of England (1603–1625). They were the parents of Sophia (1630–1714), Electress of Hanover, the mother of George (1660–1727) I. (1714–1727).

His great-grandfather was Abraham [Diogo Rodriguez] (1450?–post 1510) de Samuel de Abraham Zacut, the astronomer, mathematician and historian.

In 1473, while a professor in the University of his native town, Salamanca, he wrote his world-famous: ביאור לוחות׃ [B. M.] (Astronomical Tables), and here he became acquainted with Christopher Columbus (1446?–1506).

His pupil Joseph Vecinho (Vizino) [Diego Mendes], physician to João II., the Great (1455–1495), King of Portugal (1481–1495), translated the work into Latin. It was printed by a Jew, Samuel D’Ortas, at Leiria in 1496, and entitled “Almanach Perpetuum.” Dr. Vecinho presented a copy to Columbus, which he always carried with him and consulted on his voyages, deriving invaluable help from it.

It was this very book that he used to predict the eclipse of the moon, which so terrified the Indians in Jamaica that they became obedient to him, and furnished his party food. After his death it was found in his library. On the margins are calculations in his penmanship, which were doubtless made to verify those of Zacuth.⁠¹

On the exile from Spain, 2 August, 1492, the author went to Lisbon, where he was appointed astronomer and historiographer to João II. He was of material assistance to the great navigator Vasco da Gama (1460?–1524), in preparation of his voyage to India. The ships were provided with Zacuto’s newly perfected iron astrolabes, which hitherto had been of wood. He was highly esteemed by da Gama, who took leave of him on the 8 July, 1497, in the presence of his entire crew.

Portugal also expelled the Jews, so he fled with his son Samuel to Tunis, and here in 1504 he wrote his famous ספר יוחסין which is a chronological history of the Jews from the Creation up to 1500.

It was first printed in Constantinople in 1566 [B. M.], and an issue edited by Herschell Filipowski (1817–1872) was published in London in 1857, some copies of which were printed on vellum [B. M.]. Tunis being invaded by Spain he emigrated to Turkey, where he died some time after 1510.