The history of the Jews: From the war with Rome to the present time

The period which ensued after the Conquest of Persia and Syria in the East, and of Spain in the West, is called by Milman the ‘Golden Age of Judaism’; but the title does not suit very well with the circumstances of the case. It was not, as the Golden Age of legend is represented to have been, a peaceful and happy beginning, which the crimes of men gradually embittered and corrupted. It rather resembled a succession of cool showers on a burning summer day, when the fierce heat of the morning is tempered during the midday hours, but only to break out with more intolerable oppression as the afternoon comes on. The contrast which this lull in the storm of injustice and cruelty presented to the savage fury of preceding, as well as after times, is indeed most striking. Everywhere the flames of persecution sank down; and what had been a consuming fire smouldered on, with only a feeble flicker here and there, to show that it was not quite extinct.

In the Byzantine empire we are told singularly little of the condition and actions of the Jews during this period. The emperors who filled the throne were, for the most part, men of very ordinary ability. Nor were there among their subjects men of greater mark. ‘On the throne, in the camp, and in the schools,’ says the historian Gibbon, ‘we search, perhaps with fruitless diligence, for names and characters that deserve to be rescued from oblivion.’ This may in itself explain why so little is heard of the Jews. Occupy high positions in Church or State we know they could not, or openly interfere with the direction of public affairs; and what private influence they might exercise in these would be carefully kept secret. As for attacks upon them, we have already seen that their numbers, their rare intelligence, and their ever increasing wealth, rendered them a dangerous body for any but a powerful ruler to assail; and assuredly the weak and incompetent occupants of the imperial throne at that era would be but little inclined to make the experiment. What little has been recorded goes to prove that the emperors were anxious to conciliate them. Nicephorus, who received the purple A.D. 793, is said to have shown them particular favour, probably because of their acquiescence in his iconoclastic views; and Michael the Stammerer, whose reign dates from 821, was reviled by his enemies as being half a Jew.[84] When we remember how Constantinople was at this period distracted at once by civil and religious factions, and that the Jews—however little they might seem to be personally interested in the question at issue—were always ready to throw their weight into the one scale or the other, we shall cease to wonder that they remained wholly unmolested.

In the dominions of the newly established Caliphs they were not only left in peace, but treated with especial honour.[85] The victorious Arabs were but a rude and uncivilized people, and the aid of the Jews in teaching them the arts and pleasures of a refined state of society was found alike useful and welcome. Their learning, their intelligence, their widespread knowledge of foreign lands, rendered them especially qualified for this office. Omar, the second Caliph, is related to have entrusted the coinage to a Jew, immediately after his accession to the throne. It was a subject with which, as might be expected, he had no acquaintance, nor was there any one among his principal officers who knew more of the matter. Similarly, if an embassy was to be despatched to a foreign sovereign, or a subsidy negotiated, the person selected for the office would in all likelihood be a Jew. When Abu Giafar imposed a heavy fine on the Christians, it was to Hebrew officials that the collection of the impost was committed; and even between sovereigns so potent as Charlemagne and the Caliph Haroun Alraschid, the envoy who was entrusted with the letters and presents was a Jew.

In war they were no less necessary than in peace. The sums required for the equipment of a fleet or the victualling of an army were furnished from Hebrew coffers. Nor were their avocations limited to this. The Jews would accompany the march of the Mussulman armies, and—as their fathers had done in the instance of the Gothic and Hunnite invasions—purchase from the ignorant soldiery the plunder they had amassed, at a price which brought them an enormous profit,[86] or it might be a captive whose family or friends afterwards redeemed him at a price tenfold exceeding what they had given. We learn that at this time they almost entirely abandoned agriculture; partly because of the heavy tax laid on unbelievers, and partly because trade had become so much more profitable to them. They cultivated also astrology and medicine, and became everywhere the most successful professors of both sciences. In many, if not in most of the royal courts, the chief physicians and astrologers were Jews. Nor were they less successful in literature. In the East and West alike, their schools were crowded with students, and the names of their learned men of this era are held in reverence even to the present day.

It is at this date that we first hear of a sect called the Karaites.[87] They claim, indeed, a far greater antiquity, insisting on their descent from the ten tribes led captive by Shalmaneser, and putting forward a catalogue of their doctors, in regular succession from the time of Ezra. But it is believed that their first founder was one Ananus, a Babylonian Jew of the race of David, who, together with his son Saul, A.D. 750, entered a public protest against the extent to which tradition had corrupted the written word, and insisted on this latter as the sole rule of faith. We have evidence in the Gospels, of the length to which tradition had run even in our Lord’s day, and how He had, declared that the Pharisees ‘had made the Word of God of none effect’ through it. But after that time the Cabbalist and Masoric Rabbins, who were the successors of the Pharisees, laid greater stress than ever on the importance of tradition; and the completion of the Babylonian Talmud in the sixth century, was, as it were, the keystone of their work. We cannot wonder that men of sense and reverent feeling should be shocked at the wild fables and ridiculous fancies of the Talmudists. It would appear that a strong feeling was widely entertained in secret on the subject; but its first expression was due to the failure of Ananus to obtain the dignity of Prince of the Captivity, for which office he was a candidate. Disgusted at the election of a younger man to the post, Ananus gathered together the remains of the old Sadducean party, or what was so called, and induced them to nominate him as a rival to his successful opponent. Ananus was thrown into prison, but gained the ear of the Caliph sufficiently to obtain his release. He then retired, with his followers, to the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, where they established themselves as a separate sect. They still exist, chiefly in Eastern countries, and in parts of Europe, especially the Crimea.[88]

Notwithstanding the general prosperity enjoyed by the Jews at this period, there were some reverses. Giaffir, called the Great, is said to have issued an edict requiring Christians and Jews alike to embrace Islamism. Al Wathek also, the successor of Mamun, one of the Abasside Caliphs, residing at Cufa, inflicted heavy fines upon them, partly because they had committed frauds in the management of the finances entrusted to them, and partly because they refused the religion of Mahomet. But the amount of suffering inflicted could not, in either instance, have been great. Motakavel, however, his brother and successor, was still harsher in his dealings with them. He compelled them to wear a leathern girdle, to distinguish them from the Faithful. He prohibited them from using stirrups when they rode on horseback, and afterwards from riding horses at all. A summary of the various badges and marks of degradation imposed on the Jews by European and Asiatic sovereigns would form a curious study.

To this period also belongs the strange story of the kingdom of Khozar, which has been regarded by some historians as being full of misstatement and exaggeration, and by some as simple fiction. Khozar belonged to the Turcomans, a heathen people; and it is reported that, somewhere about the middle of the eighth century, Bular, its king, a pious and thoughtful prince, received a revelation through a dream,—or, according to another version, through the instruction of an angel,—which showed the hollowness of the religion he professed. Thereupon he began to make inquiry after a purer faith: and having conversed with learned men professing Christianity, Islamism, and Judaism, he made his election in favour of the last-named creed. According to one version of the story, he came to this resolution in a somewhat singular manner. Conversing apart with a Christian, he asked of him whether he did not consider Judaism preferable to Mahometanism, and was answered that he did. Then holding a similar discussion with a Mahometan, he inquired whether he did not regard Judaism as superior to Christianity. Receiving an affirmative answer here also, he decided in favour of the first-named faith, as it appeared that it held the first place in the estimation of the Jew, and the second in that of each of the other two. Having himself received circumcision, he sent for learned Jews from neighbouring countries, by whom in time the whole of his people were brought over to the faith of Israel. A tabernacle was erected, similar to that set up by Moses in the wilderness, and the Jewish worship regularly carried on.

The authenticity of the story having been disputed some two centuries and a half afterwards, Rabbi Hosdai, a learned man, much patronized by Abderraman, the Caliph of Cordova, resolved to ascertain the truth respecting it, and obtained, with considerable difficulty, a letter from Joseph, the reigning sovereign of Khozar. In this the king repeated the history of his ancestor’s conversion, very much as popular rumour had stated it. The letter of Hosdai is still extant, as well as the reply, and there seems no reason to doubt the authenticity of the former, at all events.

Basnage and others reject the whole story as fable. It is argued that this kingdom of Khozar, when searched for, could no more be found than the Eldorado of the Spaniards, or the dominions of Prester John; even the famous traveller of Hosdai’s time, Benjamin of Tudela, though anxious, for the credit of his patron, to discover it, entirely failed to do so. But modern research has proved that such a kingdom did at all events exist; and the most judicious historians, Jost among them, incline to believe that the story may have at all events a groundwork of truth.

In Spain, during this period, all seems to have gone prosperously with the Jews, except that an impostor named Serenus, who professed, as so many before and after his time have done, to be the Messiah, taking advantage of the unsettled state of things between France and Spain, persuaded large numbers of his countrymen to follow him into Palestine, where he proposed to set up his kingdom. He does not seem to have reached the Holy Land, and the greater part of his followers perished in the attempt. Those who survived returned to their homes, but only to find that their possessions had been confiscated to the State.

In the year 750 a revolution took place at Damascus, during which nearly the whole of the Ommiad dynasty (as the descendants of Caliph Omar were called) was cut off, and Abul Abbas succeeded to the Caliphate. Yusef, the Mussulman Emir in Spain, sided with the usurping family; but the Moorish chiefs generally were desirous of establishing their own independence, and finding in Abderachman ben Moasiah a still surviving representative of the Ommiad family, placed him on the throne, under the title of the Caliph of Cordova. His government was wise and powerful, and under him the Jews attained the zenith of their prosperity.

We are now about to transfer our attention to the countries of Western Europe, where occurred almost every event of importance in which the Jews are concerned for several ensuing centuries. But before doing so, it will be proper to record what is known of the Hebrew communities who dwelt in those countries of the distant East which acknowledged neither the sceptre of Rome nor of Persia. The records of these are very scanty, and rest upon very doubtful authority, but that affords no sufficient reason for not preserving all that can be gleaned from various sources respecting them.