Maimuni's reputation was so great that the English king, Richard Cœur-de-Lion, the soul of the third crusade, wanted to appoint him his physician in ordinary, but Maimuni refused the offer.
His patron, the chief judge and vizir Alfadhel, acquitted him at about this time of a grave charge, for which, under a less mild Mahometan, or even a Christian judge, he would have incurred the penalty of death. The same Abulalarab Ibn-Moïsha who had befriended Maimuni in Fez, had come from Maghreb to Egypt, and when he saw Maimuni, whom he had known as a Mahometan, at the head of the Jewish community as spiritual chief, he appeared against him as an accuser, and averred that Maimuni had for a long time professed the religion of Islam, and consequently ought to be punished as a renegade. Alfadhel, before whose tribunal the accusation was preferred, decided rightly that the compulsory adoption of a creed could have no value, and, therefore, could involve no penalties (about 1187). In consequence of his favor with the vizir, Maimuni was appointed supreme head of all the Egyptian congregations, and this dignity descended in his family from father to son and grandson. It is certain that Maimuni drew no salary for this office, for nothing appeared to him more discreditable and sinful than to receive payment for the discharge of spiritual duties, or to degrade knowledge into a money-making business. He sought this prominent position not for himself, but for the sake of his co-religionists, in order to save them from injustice. It was through him that the heavy yoke of persecution was removed from the congregation of Yemen. When Saladin had once more wrested Jerusalem from the hands of the Christians, who had held it for nearly a century, he allowed the Jews to settle in the city of their fathers (October, 1187). And from all sides there came devoted sons to visit their mourning and forsaken mother. Possibly Maimuni was not unconnected with this act of noble-minded tolerance. Lastly, he endeavored to obtain for his brethren in faith precedence in the state over the Karaites, and gradually to oust the latter from their favorable position at court, so that many of them reverted to Rabbanism. This was accounted to Maimuni as a most meritorious deed in his time.
The higher Maimuni advanced in the esteem of his contemporaries, the more his extraordinary ability was acknowledged, and the louder his fame resounded, the more did the arrogant Samuel ben Ali, of Bagdad, feel himself belittled, and the more did he become filled with envy. Samuel accordingly took every opportunity to depreciate Maimuni's merit, and rob him of his fame. Samuel and his friends whispered to one another that Maimuni was by no means a strictly religious Jew, nor a true follower of the Talmud, and they spread many calumnies about him. Some mistakes which he had made in his youthful work, the Mishna Commentary, were used by these malevolent people with a view to brand him as ignorant of the Talmud, and without claim to authority in this province. Their idea of religion, as Maimuni said of them, consisted in guarding against the violation of precepts; but according to their view, good morals, humility, merely human virtues, in short, do not belong to religion. As the seed which Maimuni had scattered began to bear fruit, Samuel ben Ali and his allies took advantage thereof to lower the author in the eyes of his contemporaries.
In Damascus and Yemen there appeared religious teachers, who drew from Maimuni's writings logical conclusions which he himself did not care to deduce. As he strongly affirmed, and repeatedly insisted, that by the immortality of the soul a purely spiritual existence in another world was to be understood, whereas he passed over the resurrection of the dead as of only secondary importance, his disciples concluded that he was not thoroughly convinced of the resurrection, and forthwith began to teach that after death the body sinks into dissolution and decay, and that only the soul becomes elevated to a purely spiritual life. This liberal view clashed with explicit declarations in the Talmud, and consequently aroused general opposition. Samuel ben Ali was requested by some one in Yemen to give his opinion on this question of the belief in the resurrection. Samuel wrote a whole treatise upon it, with philosophical flourishes, in order to appear a worthy rival of Maimuni, and seized the opportunity of criticising the latter's writings, hoping to heighten the effect of the criticism by according partial praise to Maimuni. On another occasion, Samuel ben Ali directed a letter to Maimuni, in which, amid much flattery and fawning, he reproached him with having committed an error in interpreting the Talmud, which could scarcely have been made by a beginner, kindly adding that Maimuni must not fret himself about it. At the same time, he did not forget to promise graciously to take him under his protection against the congregation in Yemen. Maimuni replied with a heated letter, in which he showed his malicious opponent that it was he who had erred in the deeper conception of the Talmud. He also touched upon the secret attacks made against his great work from this quarter, some asserting that the book contained mistakes, others that it was superfluous, others, again, that it was dangerous. "You seem," Maimuni observed to him, "to reckon me among those who are sensitive to every word of blame. You make a mistake. God has protected me against this weakness, and I protest to you, in His name, that if the most insignificant scholar, whether friend or foe, would point out to me an error, I would be grateful for the correction and instruction." Although Samuel ben Ali was readily refuted by Maimuni, he still continued to spread the report that the latter was no Talmudist, and that his codex did not deserve the respect which it enjoyed. From another side, from Haleb, Mar Sacharya, a man of limited range of vision, and with a superficial knowledge of the Talmud, thinking himself eclipsed by Maimuni's pupil, Joseph Ibn-Aknin, worked with equal hostility against master and disciple. But, as the sage of Fostat had warm and disinterested adherents everywhere, Samuel ben Ali and his ally of Haleb were constrained to act cautiously. They organized an intrigue against him, into which they drew one of the two Exilarchs. Towards this cabal, Maimuni assumed an attitude of contemptuous indifference and unconcern, which altogether disarmed his opponents.
In spite of his collisions with the party of Samuel ben Ali, and his prodigious activity as a physician, which scarcely gave him time for study, he completed his religious philosophical work, "Guide of the Perplexed" (Moreh Nebuchim, Dalalat al Haïrin) in about 1190. This treatise became of extraordinary importance, not only for Judaism, but for the history of philosophy in the Middle Ages generally. Maimuni appears at the summit of his intellectual power in this work, and it contains the vindication of his profoundest convictions. The questions which the human mind starts ever anew, about the existence of a higher world, the destiny of our being, and the imperfection and evil of the earthly world, Maimuni sought to answer in a manner which was at that time considered convincing. The doubts which the thinking Jew may conceive of the truth of his hereditary religion, he endeavored to remove in a persuasive manner. He, whose thoughts were ever directed to the loftiest subjects, could with justice assume the character of guide to the perplexed and wavering. The external form of this epoch-making work would make it appear that the author had elaborated, for his favorite disciple, Joseph Ibn-Aknin, of Fez, separate treatises on important points which had disquieted and tortured the latter. But it was actually dictated by the desire to express clearly his philosophical conception of the world, and his views of the place which Judaism finds in it, and thoroughly to analyze their mutual relation.
Maimuni was, on the one hand, firmly convinced of the truth of the Aristotelian philosophy, as the Mahometan philosopher Ibn-Sina and others had formulated it. On the other hand, Judaism was to him a body of truths not less irrefragable. Both seemed to him to have the same conclusion and a common aim. Philosophy recognizes as the principal of all essences one indivisible God, the governor of the world. Judaism likewise teaches with emphatic asseveration the unity of God, and abhors nothing more thoroughly than polytheism. Metaphysics knows no higher aim for man than that he should perfect himself intellectually, and work his way up to the highest knowledge. Judaism also, even Talmudical Judaism, places understanding and knowledge, the understanding of God, at the head of its precepts. If the truth which the human mind in the fulness of its power evolves from itself, and the revelation which the Deity vouchsafed to the Israelitish nation on Sinai, resemble each other in beginning and end, then their separate parts must correspond with each other, and be as one and the same truth, arrived at in different ways. Judaism cannot be in contradiction with philosophy, as both are emanations from the divine spirit. The truth which God has revealed must also agree with that which lies in the human reason, since the latter is a power originating from God, and similarly all truths which metaphysical thinking can bring to light must exist in the revelation—that is, in Judaism. Hence, Maimuni believed that originally, besides the written revelation in the Pentateuch, there were also communicated to the greatest of prophets oral doctrines of a philosophical character, which were transmitted by tradition to posterity, and which were lost only in consequence of the troubles and afflictions which the Israelites experienced in the course of ages. Traces of this old Israelitish wisdom are found, according to Maimuni, in the scattered utterances of the prophets, and in the reflections of the Agada. When, therefore, the thinking Jew borrows the truths of Greek philosophy, and adopts the theories of Plato and Aristotle, they are not altogether strange elements to him, but only a reminder of his own forgotten treasure.
The whole universe, which must be considered as a single organic whole, consisting of spheres suspended over one another working in harmony, is nothing more than the realized thoughts of God, or rather than the ideas of God ever tending to realization. He continually imparts to it new forms and shapes, and implants order and regularity in the world. Everything is arranged therein in accordance with a final purpose. The Greek philosophy, it is true, assumes that the universe shares in the eternity of God; but it can neither irrefutably prove the eternity of the world, nor remove any of the difficulties which oppose the acceptation of the original existence of the universe. The doctrine of Judaism is much more reasonable, that the world had a positive beginning, and that time itself, which, indeed, is a form of the world and its motion, is not without beginning, but was called into being by the determining will of God.
The organically formed universe, created and made to cohere by God, consists of a series of entities of different degrees. Next to the Deity are the pure spirits, which are simple, and not composed of matter and form, and consequently partake most of the divine nature. Their necessary existence is proved philosophically, because many phenomena in the universe best admit of explanation through them. These pure spirits, these "forms free of matter," Judaism and Holy Writ call "angels." Among them must be assumed a spirit or angel who is the originator of thoughts or ideas, the active world-spirit or creative reason (Sechel ha-Poel).
In the degree next to the pure spirits are entities which must certainly be considered as composed of matter and form, whose matter, however, is not heavy and coarse, but of an ethereal nature. These ethereal entities are the heavens and the brilliant world of stars, which possess an ever uniform motion, and are therefore not subject to the change of genesis and dissolution, but revolve in the firmament in constant brightness and with unbroken regularity. These form and influence the lower circle of entities. The stars are divided into four spheres—into the sphere of the fixed stars, of the moving stars (planets), of the sun and the moon. These spheres must be considered as endowed with life and intellectual power. Below the sphere of the moon there exists a grade of entities which are generated from coarser matter, but are susceptible of form, shape, and motion. This is the world of the four elements, which are in their turn fashioned into four spheres, one above the other. Within these spheres are formed, through manifold evolutions, influenced by the world of stars, lifeless minerals, plants, self-moving animals, and men capable of intelligence.
But how is the influence of God upon this multiform universe to be understood? The changes cannot proceed immediately through Him. The animated orbs of stars, which are the cause of all transformations on earth, are not set in motion by God, but are impelled towards Him in longing and love, in order to partake of His perfection, His light, and His goodness. Through this ardent striving of the heavenly bodies to God comes their regular revolution, and in this manner they cause all changes in the world below the moon, in the circle of genesis and dissolution, through the reception and loss of peculiar forms and shapes. This theory of God, of the universe, and the various motions of the different beings, Maimuni found indicated in Holy Writ and in many utterances of the Agada, but only in obscure allusions, as these writings, being designed for every one, not solely for the philosopher, could not and durst not, at the risk of occasioning gross misunderstanding, unveil the complete image of truth.
More important than the analysis of this conception of the world is Maimuni's presentation of his ideas on matters more nearly concerning mankind. Since God, the creator of the world, is perfect and all-good, the world cannot have been made otherwise than good, and in accordance with a purpose. "God saw that all was good," "From on high there comes no evil." The evils which exist in the world are not to be looked upon as the work of God, but merely as the absence of the good and the perfect, since gross matter is incapable of partaking of the good and the divine. God did not create sin, but sin arises from the nature of the coarse matter, which is defective in its constitution, and which can only receive and retain defectively that which is good. But this evil must be overcome. God has implanted in the soul of man, who is superior to all entities composed of gross matter, the capacity and instinct for knowledge. If the soul follows this instinct, it is assisted by the active reason which has been specially created for the purpose of opening up to the soul the source of the divine spirit, in order that it may understand the structure of the world and God's influence upon it, and that it may be enabled to lead a worthy life. Man can thereby raise himself to the higher degree of the angels, and can conquer the frailties which arise out of his material body. Through this elevation to the higher abode of thought and to moral purity, and through mastery of his animal nature, man by his own will acquires a soul; he makes himself a super-earthly being, he wins for himself the immortality of the soul, and becomes united with the all-governing world-soul. The possibility of gaining this highest degree is vouchsafed to man with his freedom of will.
And man can acquire and in a manner win God's special providence in the same way as he can acquire and win immortality through the action of his soul. For God's care extends only to what remains and endures. Even in the lower world of the four elements, this is felt in the preservation of the species, which by reason of their form and purpose are of a spiritual nature. If man raises himself to the degree of a spirit, if he becomes master over matter, the providential eye of God will not pass him over. And as man can gain for himself, through moral and intellectual discipline, an immortal soul, so he incurs the highest penalty if his spiritual light is quenched through a sinful life, and is crushed by his material nature.
Man has the power of acquiring still more; he can, through an ideal life, come to possess the prophetic faculty, if he opens his mind by constant communion with God to the influences of the active reason. But it requires on the part of man cultivation and concentration of the imagination, and on the part of God the emanation of His spirit. Since a lively, continually active imagination is the chief qualification for prophecy, it can develop only in a state similar to a dream, when the disturbing activity of the senses is relaxed, and the mind may freely resign itself to the influences from above. The prophesying of the prophets always occurred in a kind of dream. The Scriptural accounts of the actions and experiences of the prophets during their ecstatic condition, are not to be understood as being accounts of actual occurrences, but only of processes of the soul, as visions of the imagination. There are also different degrees of prophecy, according to the greater or less capacity requisite for them. Thus many miraculous tales in the Bible cease to appear supernatural and surprising, just as the hyperbolical style of the prophets is explicable on this theory. All this arises from the rule of the imagination and dream visions. Miracles are certainly not impossible. The same Creator who has established the laws of nature can also suspend them, but He does so only temporarily, that the old order may soon return, as when the waters of the Nile were changed into blood only for a short time, and the sea divided itself for the Israelites but for a few hours. The number of miracles in the Bible is, however, limited. Wonders are not, generally speaking, the means of verifying and confirming the declarations of the prophets; they must be proved by the prophecies themselves, and the fulfilment of what they predict. Miracles do not prove them true.
The most perfect of all prophets was that man of God with shining countenance, who brought to the world a religion which has exercised the profoundest sway over men's minds. The prophecy of Moses differed from that of later prophets in four essential points. He received the revelation without the mediation of another spiritual being, that is, without the influence of the active reason or of an angel, but communed with the Deity "face to face and mouth to mouth." Secondly, Moses communed with God, not in a dream, when all activity of the senses ceases, but the higher teaching was granted to him whilst he was in an ordinary frame of mind. Moreover, his being was not disturbed or dissolved by it, as in the case of other prophets when the spirit of God came upon them, but he could maintain himself under it. Finally, Moses was continually in the prophetic mood, whereas this power came upon other men of God only after longer or shorter intervals, and then only after careful preparation. Moses possessed this prophetic perfection only because, through the elevation of his mind, he had liberated himself from the tyranny of his senses, from desire, and even from his imagination, and had won for himself the degree of an angel, or of a pure spirit. All coverings which blindfold the eye of the human mind, and disturb its view, he tore off, and penetrated to the fountain-head of truth. He attained to a degree such as no other mortal has reached, and therefore he was able also to recognize the Deity and His will with the undisturbed gaze of a pure spirit. The truth of the highest Being irradiated him without intermediation, and in transparent clearness, without word or speech. That which he perceived at such a height he brought to his people as a religion, as a revelation, and this truth, radiating immediately from the divinity, is the Torah.
This revealed religion, originating from God, is unique, just as the mediator, through whom the truth was conveyed to man, is the only one of his kind. Being a divine doctrine it is perfect, and consequently there can be none which can abrogate its authority, and supersede it, just as there was none previous to it.
The divinity of the Torah is proved by its contents as by its origin. It contains not only laws and precepts, but also dogmas upon questions most important for man, and this two-fold character is likewise a mark to distinguish it at once from other codes and from other religions. Besides, the laws of the Torah all aim at a higher purpose, so that there is nothing in it superfluous, nothing unnecessary, nothing gratuitous. The design of the revelation brought down by Moses can be thus summarized: it was to promote the spiritual and physical welfare of those who received it, the one by inculcating correct ideas of God and His government of the world, the other by enjoining principles of virtue and morality. Maimuni made an attempt to show that the six hundred and thirteen laws of the Torah, or of Judaism, tend to establish a true theory as to the Deity and His relation to the world, to oppose false and pernicious opinions, to uproot false ideas, to remove wrong and violence, to accustom men to virtue, and finally to eliminate immorality and vice. Maimuni arranged all the obligations of Judaism under fourteen groups according to his scheme.
Maimuni's ideal labor, to raise Judaism to the height of a philosophical system, was of the most wide-spread effect. For the thinkers of his time, Maimuni's religious philosophy was, indeed, a "Guide of the Perplexed." For to these men, who were dominated by the same principles, whose thinking, on the one hand, was Aristotelian, and whose feeling, on the other hand, was Jewish, but who, nevertheless, were conscious of a deep gulf between their thinking and their feeling, nothing could have been more welcome than the discovery of a bridge which led from the one to the other. Many things which had appeared to them offensive, or at least trivial, in the Bible, received through Maimuni's ingenious manner of interpretation a higher importance, a deeper sense, and became clear to their understanding. To posterity his philosophical work was both stimulating and suggestive. Judaism, viewed in the light of Maimuni's philosophy, no longer appeared to Jewish students as something strange, belonging to the past, an extinct and mere mechanical system, but as something which belonged to themselves, a part of their consciousness, existing in the present, living in their thoughts and animating them. Jewish thinkers of all times after Maimuni have consequently had recourse to Maimuni's "Guide," have derived fruitful ideas from this source, and have even learnt from him to advance beyond his standpoint, and to combat him. And since in the end thinkers will always remain the guides and leaders of men, and the designers of their future, it can be said with justice, that Judaism is indebted to Maimuni for its rejuvenescence. So exclusively did he hold sway over men of intellect, that for a long time his work completely supplanted the systems of his predecessors from Saadiah to Ibn-Daud.
Maimuni's philosophical work, being written in Arabic, also exercised considerable influence beyond the Jewish world. He had, it is true, composed it entirely for Jews, and it is said, moreover, that he strictly enjoined that it be copied entirely in Hebrew characters, so that it might not fall into the hands of the Mahometans, and provoke animosity against his own people. He even cautioned his favorite disciple to use the utmost care in handling the chapters sent to him, so that they might not be misused by Mahometans and wicked Jews; but nevertheless this work became known to the Arabs, even in Maimuni's lifetime. A Mahometan wrote a profound exposition of the premises established by Maimuni to prove the existence of God. The chief founders of the Christian scholastic philosophy not only used Maimuni's work, which was translated into Latin at an early period, but for the first time learnt from it how to reconcile the diverging tendencies of belief and philosophy.
It ought scarcely to be urged against Maimuni, as a reproach, that, led by the philosophy of his time, he introduced strange and even incompatible elements into his system; that he raised, instead of the God of Revelation, who is in complete sympathy with the human race, with the Israelites, and with every individual, a metaphysical entity, who exists in cold seclusion and elevation, and who dare not concern Himself about His creatures, if His existence is not to evaporate as that of a mere phantasm. To this metaphysical God, he could attribute free-will only in a limited sense, whilst he practically denied Him altogether the possession of a complete personality. Judaism, however much Maimuni had its interests at heart, must be a loser by his system. As he could not accept the revelation of the Torah in the fullest sense as a communication of the Deity to His people, he had to consider the greatest prophet in the light of a demi-god above mankind. The ideal of a perfectly pious man, according to Maimuni's conception, is attainable by very few, and only by disciplined thinkers, who have the power of raising themselves to that rank through the long succession of degrees of knowledge, which are not within the grasp of every one. A merely moral and religious course of life is not sufficient, since God can be adored only by a soul endowed with philosophical intuition, and consequently only the few can arrive at immortality and future bliss, and have divine care vouchsafed them. Thus, according to Maimuni's theory, there are but very few elect. Lastly, Maimuni had to put a forced interpretation on verses of Scripture, in order to make them harmonize with the results of philosophical thought.
Maimuni's intelligent contemporaries, and even his favorite pupil, Joseph Ibn-Aknin, felt that his theory was not quite consistent with Judaism. This feeling made itself especially noticeable in regard to the belief in the resurrection. Maimuni had certainly reckoned it among the articles of belief, but he had laid no stress upon it; there was no place for it in his philosophical system. From many sides, it was charged against him that, while he had made an exhaustive examination of the question of immortality, he had dismissed the doctrine of resurrection with a few words. Maimuni now felt that he owed it to himself to compose a vindication in the form of a treatise on the resurrection of the dead, which he wrote in Arabic in 1191. Therein he affirms that he firmly believes in the resurrection, and that it is a miracle whose possibility is assumed with the belief in a creation in time. He complains in the book of being misunderstood. This composition is written in an irritable mood, which contrasts greatly with the calmness of his former works. He was annoyed that he had to justify himself to "fools and women."
Among the learned Mahometans, Maimuni's "Guide" made much stir, but was severely condemned by them, partly on account of his covert attacks upon Islam and the barren but orthodox philosophy which reigned at that time, and partly on account of his broad views. Abdel-latif, the representative of orthodoxy in the Islam world of the East, who had been patronized by Saladin, and had come to Egypt in order to make the acquaintance of Maimuni (probably early in 1192), speaks of him, it is true, with respect, but animadverts strongly upon his work. He expressed himself about him in the following manner: "Moses, the son of Maimun, visited me, and I found him to be a man of very high merit, but governed by an ambition to take the first place, and to make himself acceptable to men in power. Besides medical works, he has written a philosophical book for the Jews, which I have read; I consider it a bad book, which is calculated to undermine the principles of religion through the very means which are apparently designed to strengthen them."
Nowhere did Maimuni's ideas find more fruitful ground, and nowhere were they adopted with more readiness than in the Jewish congregations of southern France, where prosperity, the free form of government, and the agitation of the Albigenses against austere clericalism, had awakened a taste for scientific investigation, and where Ibn-Ezra, the Tibbon and the Kimchi families, had scattered seeds of Jewish culture. The less the men of southern France were able of themselves to reconcile Judaism with the results of science, the more did they occupy themselves with the writings of the sage who in so convincing a manner showed that pure and earnest devotion to religion was compatible with a taste for free research, and whose works revealed circumspection, clearness, deliberation and depth. Not only laymen, but even profound Talmudists, like Jonathan Cohen, of Lünel, idolized him, eagerly absorbed his every word, and paid him profound homage. "Since the death of the last rabbis of the Talmud, there has not been such a man in Israel."
Among the rules of health which Maimuni drew up for Alafdhal, who had become ruler of Egypt, he threw in the observation that the strengthening of the soul through moral living and philosophical reflection was requisite for the preservation of a strong body; that immoderate enjoyment of wine and love destroyed vitality. He had the boldness to say to a wayward prince something that no courtier of the age had the courage to tell him. He was determined not to be unfaithful to his calling as a physician of the soul. Maimuni himself fell sick, and was much worn out by his medical practice, and much affected by political changes. As soon as he had recovered, and calm was restored, he answered certain questions which had some time before been directed to him from Lünel. In his missive he excuses himself on the ground that his senses were disturbed, his mental power weakened, and his capacities blunted, yet his arguments testify against him, for they display perfect clearness and freshness of mind.
The great veneration which the congregations of southern France felt for Maimuni's writings, and especially for his code, aroused against him a violent antagonist in the person of Abraham ben David, of Posquières, whose inconsiderate manner of dealing with those who represented an opposite line of thought to himself had been experienced by Serachya Halevi Gerundi. This profound Talmudist subjected Maimuni's Mishne-Torah to scathing criticism, and treated him in a contemptuous manner. He maintained that the author had not thoroughly grasped many Talmudical passages, had misconstrued their sense, and had thus drawn many false conclusions. He reproached him for desiring to bring Talmudical authorities into oblivion by reducing the Talmud to a code, and lastly for smuggling philosophical notions into Judaism. But he by no means treated Maimuni as an innovator and a heretic; on the contrary, he did justice to his opinions and his noble aim. Abraham ben David's strictures (Hassagoth) upon Maimuni's work gave occasion to the Talmudists of a later time to indulge their casuistical tendencies, and gave a great impulse to the taste for disputation. The rich, learned, and impulsive rabbi of Posquières also had his admirers. When he died (Friday, 26th Kislev—27th Nov., 1198), descendants of Aaron, who are not allowed to enter a cemetery, made his grave, since before such greatness as his the priesthood may sink its sacred character.
The polemic of Abraham ben David against Maimuni in no way prejudiced the latter's consideration among the congregations of Provence; he remained for them an infallible authority. The chief representative of Jewish-Provençal culture, Samuel Ibn-Tibbon, wrote to Maimuni that he was busying himself with the rendering of the "Guide" from Arabic into Hebrew, and that he longed to see the greatest man in the Jewish world face to face. Ibn-Tibbon thereby anticipated a wish of Maimuni's, for the latter contemplated translating his work into Hebrew. Full of joy he replied to Ibn-Tibbon, and gave him some advice how to handle so difficult a theme (8th Tishri—10th September, 1199). He dissuaded him, however, from making the perilous voyage from France to Egypt on his account, as he would scarcely be able to devote to him an hour of his time. He took the occasion to inform him of his manifold occupations, which allowed him scarcely a moment's rest: "The Sultan (Alafdhal) lives in Cairo, and I in Fostat; the two towns lie at a distance of two Sabbath journeys (about a mile and a third) from each other. With the Sultan I have a hard time; I must visit him daily in the morning, and when he, or any of his children, or one of the women of his harem is suffering, I may not leave Cairo. Even when nothing particular happens, I cannot come home till after mid-day. When I enter my house, dying of hunger, I find the hall thronged with people—Jews, Mahometans, illustrious and otherwise, friends and foes, a motley crowd—who await my advice as a physician. There scarcely remains time for me to alight from my horse, wash myself, and take some refreshment. Thus it continues till night, and then, worn out with weakness, I must retire to bed. Only on Sabbath have I time to occupy myself with the congregation and with the Law. I am accustomed on this day to dispose of the affairs of the community for the following week, and to hold a discourse. Thus my days glide away."
It may be that the congregation of Lünel was not aware that Samuel Ibn-Tibbon was engaged with the translation of the "Guide," or did not give him credit for ability in that direction; however it was, some of its members applied to Maimuni to translate this work for them into Hebrew. Maimuni pleaded want of time in excuse, and referred them to Ibn-Tibbon (about 1200). He seized the opportunity also to exhort the Provençal Jews to grapple with the scientific treatment of the Talmud. "You, members of the congregation of Lünel and of the neighboring towns, are the only ones who raise aloft the banner of Moses. You apply yourselves to the study of the Talmud, and also cherish wisdom. But in the East the Jews are dead to spiritual labors. In the whole of Syria only a few in Haleb occupy themselves with the study of the Torah, but even they have it not much at heart. In Irak there are only two or three grapes (men of insight); in Yemen and the rest of Arabia they know little of the Talmud, and are acquainted only with the Agadic exposition. Only just lately have they purchased copies of my Code, and distributed them in a few circles. The Jews of India know little of the Bible, much less of the Talmud. Those who live among the Turks and Tartars have the Bible only, and live according to it alone. In Maghreb you know what is the position of the Jews (that they must affect the profession of Islam). Thus it remains with you alone to be a strong support to our religion. Therefore, be firm, and of good courage, and be united in your work." Maimuni felt that enlightened Judaism would have its chief advocacy in Provence. The congregation of Marseilles requested the poet Charisi to translate Maimuni's Commentary to the Mishna into Hebrew. The Provençals took this great man and his writings as a guide in all their actions.
When Maimuni despatched his last missive to the congregation of Lünel, he felt the decadence of his powers: "I feel old, not in years, but on account of feebleness." He died from weakness at the age of seventy years (20th Tebet—13th Dec., 1204), mourned by many congregations in all lands. In Fostat, both Jews and Mahometans publicly mourned for him for three days. In Jerusalem the congregation held a special funeral service for him. A general fast was appointed, and the chapter containing the penalties for breaking God's commandments was read from the Torah, and from the Prophets the story of the capture of the Ark of the Covenant by the Philistines. His earthly remains were conveyed to Tiberias. Maimuni left only one son, Abulmeni Abraham, who inherited his father's character, his mildness, his sincere piety, his medical knowledge, his place as physician in ordinary, his dignity as chief (Nagid) of the Egyptian community, but not his intellect. His descendants, who can be traced till the fifteenth century, were distinguished for their piety and their knowledge of the Talmud. On the lips of all his reverers there hovered the brief but suggestive praise: "From Moses, the prophet, till Moses (Maimuni) there has not appeared his equal." An unknown person placed on his grave a short, almost idolatrous inscription:
These lines were afterwards effaced, and the following substituted:
These two inscriptions shadow forth the bitter differences which broke out after Maimuni's death, and divided Judaism into two camps.
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.
1205–1232 C. E.
Maimuni, the most intellectual rabbi and the deep religious philosopher, constitutes the zenith in mediæval Jewish history, and soon after his death the shadows begin to incline. Gradually the sunshine lessens, and gives way to dismal gloom. His intellectual bequest produced a far-reaching cleavage, which divided Judaism, or its leaders, into two hostile camps, and aroused a weakening, factional spirit which presented points of attack to deadly foes. The Church, whose arrogance was constantly gaining ground, interfered in the disputes of Judaism, and brought into play against the refractory Synagogue seductive allurements, terrifying punishments, secret poison, or blazing fire. Maimuni's death and the ascendancy of the papacy were two misfortunes for Judaism which removed it from its lofty position to the deepest degradation.
Maimuni's death not only produced a gap and a standstill in the spiritual aspirations of the Jews, but deprived them of a dignified and mighty leader, who had been able to bring together under one standard a people scattered all over the world. To him the congregations in the East and West had freely submitted, he had had prudent counsel for every contingency; but after his departure the Jews stood without a leader, and Judaism without a guide. His son, Abulmeni Abraham Maimuni (born 1185, died 1254), certainly inherited his deep sense of religion, his amiable, peace-loving character, his high dignity as supreme head (Nagid) of the Egyptian Jews, and his position as court physician to Saladin's successors; but his intellect and energy were not transmitted to him. Abraham Maimuni was skilled in medicine, was physician in ordinary of the Sultan Alkamel—a brother of Saladin—and presided over the hospital at Cairo, together with the physician and Arabic historian Ibn-Abi Obsaibiya. He was likewise a Talmudical scholar, defended the learning of his father with Talmudical weapons, and delivered rabbinical judgments. He was also well versed in philosophy, and composed a work to reconcile the Agada with the philosophical ideas of the time. But Abraham Maimuni was a man of learning, not of original, intellectual power. He followed with slavish fidelity in the footsteps of his great father, and appropriated his method of thought, surrendering his own intellectual independence. Abraham made the Maimunist system of teaching his own. Hence it happens, that what is striking originality in the father, appears in the son as a copy and an insignificant commonplace. Abraham Maimuni, it is true, enjoyed wide-spread esteem, but he was by no means an authority compelling attention and claiming submission.
In Europe, too, there were no men of commanding influence after the death of Maimuni. There appeared local, but not generally recognized authorities. There existed no man who could step into the breach to pronounce the right word at the proper moment, and point out the right way to wavering minds. If Maimuni had had a successor of his own spirit and character, the dissensions between the faithful and those who interpreted the Bible literally would not have effected such great disasters, nor would mysticism have been able to lure men's minds into its web.
Whilst Judaism was thus left without a leader, there sprang up against it, in the early part of the thirteenth century, a power, exercising ruthless, inexorable oppression, such as had not been practised against it since the time of Hadrian. The pope Innocent III, who was the father of all the evils experienced by the European nations up to the time of the Lutheran reformation: the tyrannical domination of the Roman Church over princes and peoples, the enslaving and abasing of the human mind, the persecution of free thought, the institution of the Inquisition, the auto-da-fé against heretics, i. e., against those who dared doubt the infallibility of the Roman Bishop;—he was also the pope Innocent III who was an embittered enemy of Jews and Judaism, and dealt severer blows against them than any of his predecessors.
The little band of Jews was like a thorn in the side of the mighty potentate of the Church, who enthroned and dethroned kings, distributed crowns and countries, and who, through his army of papal legates, spies, Dominican and Franciscan monks, with their bloodthirsty piety, had subjugated the whole of Europe, from the Atlantic ocean to Constantinople, and from the Mediterranean to the Arctic regions. This handful of human beings, with their clear intellect, their purified faith, their moral force and their superior culture, was a silent protest against Roman arrogance. At the beginning of his reign, Innocent, although not exactly well-disposed to the Jews, was at least ready, like his predecessors, to protect them from unjust treatment. New crusades were now being preached against the Sultanate of Egypt, which had declined in power since the death of Saladin, in order to wrest from its control the Holy City. The crusaders, now that they had obtained a remission of sins, might say, "We may commit offenses, since the taking up of the Cross has absolved us from all sins, ay, and even enables us to redeem the souls of sinners from purgatory." Jew-baiting, compulsory baptism, plundering and assassination, were once more the order of the day. The Jews, seeing that they needed special protection, appealed to Innocent to curb the violence of the crusaders. Most graciously did he vouchsafe them that which the leader of any respectably organized band of brigands would not have refused. The Jews were not to be dragged by force to be converted, neither were they to be robbed, injured, or killed without judicial sanction. They were not to be molested during their festivals by being whipped, and having stones thrown at them; and, lastly, their cemeteries were to be respected, and their dead were neither to be disinterred nor dishonored. So much had Christianity degenerated, that decrees like these, and a constitution (Constitutio Judæorum) like this, had to be promulgated for the sake of the Jews. So deluded were its leaders, that the head of the Church passed these resolutions, not from the simple motive of humanity, but from a perverse notion that the Jews must be preserved, so that the miracle of their general conversion to Jesus might have an opportunity of being accomplished.
The Jews, who by the experience of a thousand years had learnt the art of recognizing foes and friends behind their masks, were by no means mistaken as to the real sentiments of Innocent towards them. When Don Pedro II, King of Aragon, returned home from his journey to Rome (Dec., 1204), where he had caused himself to be anointed and crowned by the Pope, receiving at the same time his territory as tributary to Peter's chair, the Aragonian congregations were in great anxiety as to what might befall them. Don Pedro had taken an oath, that he would persecute all heretics then in his country, defend the liberties and rights of the Church, and faithfully obey the Pope. What if the liberty of the Church should be interpreted thus: That the Jews were either to be driven out of the land, or degraded to the position of bondmen! The Aragonian Jews, apprehending something of the sort, appealed to their God in fervent prayer, appointed a general fast, and, with a scroll of the Torah, assembled to meet the king on his return. Their fear on this occasion, however, was groundless. Don Pedro, who was not very warm in his allegiance to the Pope, and was intent only on strengthening his own power, had no thought of persecuting the Jews. Besides, owing to his periodic money difficulties, he could not do without them; he had become their debtor. Innocent, however, watched the princes with a jealous eye, lest they should concede to the Jews anything beyond the bare right to live. The French king, Philip Augustus—the arch-enemy of the Jews, who, having tortured and plundered them, had driven them out of his country, and recalled them only because of his pecuniary embarrassments—was reprimanded by the Pope for favoring the Jews. The Pope wrote that it offended his sight that some princes should prefer the descendants of the crucifiers to the heirs of the crucified Christ, as if the son of the bond-woman could ever be the heir of the son of the free-woman; that it had reached his ears that in France the Jews had obtained possession, through usury, of the property of the Church and of the Christians, and that, in spite of the resolution of the Lateran Council, under Alexander III, they kept Christian servants and nurses in their houses; and further, that Christians were not admitted as witnesses against the Jews, which was also contrary to the resolution of that assembly; and again, that the community of Sens had built a new synagogue which was situated higher than the church of that neighborhood, and in which prayers were read, not quietly, as before the expulsion, but so loudly as to interrupt the divine service in the church. Lastly, Innocent censured the king of France for allowing the Jews too much liberty. They had the audacity during the Easter week to appear in the streets and villages, scoffing at the faithful for worshiping a crucified God, and thus turning them away from their faith. He vehemently repeated the diabolical calumny that the Jews secretly assassinated Christians. As to the public and daily murders of Jews, the chief of the Church had little to say. He exhorted Philip Augustus to maintain true Christian zeal in oppressing the Jews, and did not fail to mention at the same time that the heretics in his country ought to be exterminated. The spiritual ruler of Europe could find no rest while Jews and heretics remained. In the same year (May, 1205), Innocent wrote a sharp pastoral letter to the king of Castile, Alfonso the Noble, a protector of the Jews, because he would not suffer the priests to deprive the Jews of their Mahometan slaves by causing them to be baptized, or to collect tithes from the farms of Jews and Mahometans. The Pope threatened the proud Spanish king with the displeasure of the Church, if he should continue to allow the Synagogue to thrive, and the Church to be reduced. Innocent insisted upon the Jews' paying tithes to the clergy on all lands which they had acquired from the Christians, so that the Church, whose power depended so much on money, should suffer no loss. His plan of coercion, to give force to his directions, was indirect excommunication. As he could not punish Jews with excommunication, he threatened to inflict that penalty on Christians who carried on any intercourse with such Jews as would not humor his apostolic caprice.
The deep prejudice of Innocent against the Jewish race was made still more evident by a denunciatory letter which he wrote to Count Nevers, who was favorably disposed to the Jews. Because this count did not embitter the lives of the latter, and abstained from molesting them, the Pope wrote to him thus (1208): "The Jews, like the fratricide Cain, are doomed to wander about the earth as fugitives and vagabonds, and their faces must be covered with shame. They are under no circumstances to be protected by Christian princes, but, on the contrary, to be condemned to serfdom. It is, therefore, discreditable for Christian princes to receive Jews into their towns and villages, and to employ them as usurers in order to extort money from Christians. They (the princes) arrest Christians who are indebted to Jews, and allow the Jews to take Christian castles and villages in pledge; and the worst of the matter is that the Church in this manner loses its tithes. It is scandalous that Christians should have their cattle slaughtered, and their grapes pressed by Jews, who are thus enabled to take their portion, prepared according to their religious precepts, and hand over the leavings to the Christians. A still greater sin is it that this wine prepared by Jews should be used in the church for the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Whilst the Christians are excommunicated for favoring the Jews, and their land is laid under the ban, the Jews are all the time laughing in their sleeves at the fact that, on their account, the harps of the Church are hung on willows, and that the priests are deprived of their revenues." Innocent in his pastoral letter threatened Count de Nevers, as well as his supporters, with the severest punishment which the Church was capable of inflicting in the event of their continuing to favor the Jews. He was the first pope who directed against the Jews the burning fury and inhuman severity of the Church. Everything provoked his wrath against them; he begrudged them the very air and light, and only a delusive hope restrained him from openly preaching a crusade and a war of annihilation against them. Innocent was well aware why he so thoroughly abhorred Jews and Judaism. He hated those among them who indirectly agitated against the rotten form of Christianity, upon which the papacy had built its power. The aversion of the truly God-fearing and moral Christians to the arrogance, unchastity, and insatiable covetousness of the hierarchy had in some measure been prompted by the Jews. The Albigenses in southern France, who were branded as heretics, and who were the most resolute opponents of the papacy, had imbibed their hostility from intercourse with educated Jews. Amongst the Albigenses there was a sect which unhesitatingly declared the Jewish Law preferable to that of the Christians. The eye of Innocent was, therefore, directed to the Jews of the south of France, as well as to the Albigenses, in order to check their influence on the minds of the Christians. Count Raymund VI of Toulouse and St. Gilles, styled by the troubadours and singers of that time "Raymund the Good," who was looked upon as a friend of the Albigenses, and consequently cruelly harassed, was also credited by the Pope with favoring the Jews. In the list of transgressions which he drew up against the count, Innocent charged him with the crime of employing Jewish officials in his state, and of generally favoring the Jews. In the bloody crusade which the Pope opened against him and the Albigenses, the Jewish communities of southern France necessarily came in for their share of suffering. Raymund was humbled, and had to submit to being dragged into the church naked, and scourged by the papal legate, Milo. He was also forced to confess that, amongst other sins, he had committed the gross crime of entrusting public offices to Jews. Thereupon the legate ordered him, under penalty of losing his dignity, to humbly take an oath that he would discharge all Jewish officials in his country, that he would never again appoint them, and never admit any Jews to either public or private offices. The unfortunate prince was compelled, the sword being pointed at his breast, to make and to repeat this declaration (June, 1209). Thirteen barons who were connected with Raymund, and were regarded as protectors of the Albigenses, were similarly forced by Milo to give an assurance on oath that they would depose their Jewish officers, and that they would never again place any public trust in their hands. In the meantime, a fanatical crusading army was organized against the Albigenses at the instigation of the Pope and the bloodthirsty monk, Arnold of Citeaux. It was led by the ambitious and rapacious Count Simon de Montfort, and it marched against the Viscount Raymund Roger and his capital Béziers. Roger was doubly hated by the Pope and his legate as the secret friend of the Albigensian heretics, and as the protector of the Jews. On the 22d July (1209) the beautiful city of Béziers was stormed, and its inhabitants were massacred in the name of God. "We spared neither dignity, nor sex, nor age," wrote Arnold, the man of blood, to the Pope, "nearly 20,000 human beings have perished by the sword. After the massacre the town was plundered and burnt, and the revenge of God seemed to rage upon it in a wonderful manner." Even orthodox Catholics were not spared, and to the question of the crusaders as to how the orthodox were to be distinguished from the heretics, Arnold answered, "Strike down; God will recognize His own." Under these circumstances, the flourishing and cultured Jewish communities of Béziers had still less reason to hope for any indulgence. The result was that two hundred Jews were cut down, and a large number thrown into captivity. The Jews, on their side, marked this year of the Albigensian crusade as a "year of mourning."
In consequence of the diplomatic victory over Raymund of Toulouse, and the military victory over Raymund Roger of Béziers, the intolerant Church had acquired supremacy not only in the south of France, but everywhere else. The audacity of free-thinkers, who claimed the right to form their own opinion upon religion, the Holy Scripture, or upon the position of the clergy, was punished by bloodshed. In the Church language of that epoch, the Pope had to wield the spiritual and the secular sword. Those who thought rationally were killed, and independent thinking was branded as a crime. The disciples of the philosopher, Amalarich of Bena, who maintained that Rome was licentious Babylon, and the Pope, the Antichrist; that he dwelt on the Mount of Olives, i. e., in the luxury of power, and that intelligent men, who considered that to build altars for saints, and to worship the bones of martyrs was idolatry, were burnt as blasphemers in Paris. Philosophical writings which were brought over to France from Spain, and which might have enriched or fertilized Christian theology, amongst others the works of the great Jewish philosopher, Solomon Gebirol, which had been translated by order of an archbishop, were interdicted, and forbidden to be read by the Parisian synod. The light which was just dawning on the nations of Europe was extinguished by the representatives of the Church.
The Jews of southern France and of Spain were the only apostles of higher learning. But the Church begrudged them even this glory, and worked with all its might to degrade them. The Council of Avignon (Sept. 1209), presided over by the papal legate, Milo, at which Count Raymund was again laid under the ban, and at which the severest measures were passed against heretics, resolved that all barons of free cities should take an oath that they would entrust no office whatever to Jews, nor allow Christian servants to be employed in Jewish houses. One of the ordinances of this council prohibited the Jews from working on Sunday and all Christian holidays, and also forbade them to eat meat on Christian fast-days. Everywhere the Jews felt the heavy hand of the Romish Church, which stretched forth unhindered to degrade them to the dust.
In England, the Jews had at that time three enemies: the licentious, unprincipled John Lackland, who shrank from no expedient to extort money from them; the hostile barons, who saw in them the source of the king's wealth, by depriving them of which they thought to gain the means of damaging the power of the king; and, lastly, Stephen Langton, whom the Pope had appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, and who had introduced the tyrannical spirit of the Church into England. At the beginning of his reign, King John assumed the appearance of friendship towards them, for as he had usurped the crown of his nephew, and in consequence had France and a part of the English nobility against him, he naturally sought to win over to his side the moneyed classes of the people. He appointed a Talmudical scholar, Jacob of London, as chief rabbi over all the English communities (presbyteratus omnium Judæorum totius Angliæ), and all his subjects were warned against attacking either his property or his dignity. The king called this chief rabbi his "dear friend." Every outrage that was offered to the latter was looked upon by the king as a personal insult to himself. He further renewed and confirmed the privileges and liberties of the Jews which they had received from Henry I, including the remarkable provision that a Christian was bound to prefer his complaint against a Jew before a Jewish tribunal. The Jews, it is true, had to pay much money—4000 silver marks—for these generous concessions. But it was a great boon that they received protection and freedom of movement in return for their money. When the Jews were in peril from a London mob, John wrote a threatening letter to the authorities of the capital, reproaching them with the fact that, whilst the Jews in other parts of England were unmolested, those of London were exposed to injury, and stating that he would hold them responsible for all bodily and material damage suffered by the Jews. As, however, John proceeded to quarrel more and more with his barons, and became involved in oppressive money difficulties, he gradually abandoned his mild demeanor, which had never been genuine, and adopted a totally different attitude towards the Jews. On one occasion he imprisoned all the English Jews in order to extort money from them (1210), and he demanded from one Jew of Bristol alone the sum of 10,000 marks of silver. As the latter could not, or would not pay, John had his teeth extracted one by one.
The crushing antipathy against them from all sides, and their yearning for the Holy Land, which the poet Jehuda Halevi had aroused, induced more than 300 rabbis of France and England to emigrate to Jerusalem (1211). The most renowned of them were Jonathan Cohen of Lünel, who had been in correspondence with Maimuni, and was one of his admirers, and Samson ben Abraham, an opponent of the school of Maimonides. Many of the emigrants stopped on their way at Cairo in order to make the acquaintance of Maimuni's son, who received them with great respect and joy. Only Samson ben Abraham, the exponent of a one-sided Judaism, avoided meeting the son of the man whom he considered almost a heretic.
The French and English emigrants, who were honorably received, and provided with privileges by the Sultan Aladil, Saladin's able brother, lost no time in building houses of prayer and learning in Jerusalem, and transplanted the Tossafists' method of exposition to the East. Intellectual activity, even in the field of the Talmud, did not, however, thrive in the Holy City. It seemed as if the curse of heaven had fallen upon this once glorious, and now distressed city, for since the Roman legions, under Titus and Hadrian, had struck down her noblest sons, she had become altogether barren. Not a single man of importance had sprung up in the city since the destruction of the Synhedrion. Jerusalem, like the whole of Palestine, was notable only on account of its illustrious dead. Pious men, who yearned for the home of their ancestors, searched only for their graves, for living fountains were no longer there. Jonathan Cohen and his associates conscientiously visited the spot upon which the Temple had once stood, the graves of the patriarchs, kings, prophets and doctors of the Mishna, and wept, and prayed upon the ruins of departed glory. They met the Exilarch David, of Mosul, who bore a letter of recommendation from the Caliph Alnasir Ledin Allah, which secured him free access to every place of interest. In the East the Jews were still allowed to maintain a certain show of dignity; caliphs and sultans, the wielders of the spiritual and the worldly might, granted them so much—for money. In Europe, however, the very lives of the Jews were continually in peril from a fanaticism which was ever being goaded into activity.
The Almohade Prince of the Faithful, Mahomet Alnasir, of northern Africa, had called to arms the entire male population at his disposal for a holy war against the increasing power of the Christians in Mahometan Spain, and led at least half a million warriors across the sea into Andalusia. The strong city of Salvatierra, in spite of the gallant defense of the knightly order of Calatrava, fell into the hands of the Mahometans (September, 1211). In this long siege, the Jewish community of Salvatierra was destroyed, and a remnant fled to Toledo. The Christian kings of Spain, terrified by this danger, laid aside their mutual hostilities in order to oppose the powerful enemy with united forces. But as the Christian population of Spain did not feel itself strong enough to undertake a war against the Mahometans, Alfonso the Noble, King of Castile, appealed to Innocent to decree a general crusade against the Crescent, and the Pope very readily consented. Thus it was that many European warriors crossed the Pyrenees, amongst them the bloodthirsty Cistercian monk, Arnold, with his troops, who had assured themselves of future bliss by all sorts of barbarities practised on the Albigenses and the Jews of the south of France. The wrath of the Ultramontanes, as they were called, in contradistinction to the Spanish warriors, against everything that was not Roman Catholic had risen to the point of frenzy; they took umbrage at the comparatively happy state of the Jews in the Spanish capital, at their wealth, their freedom, and their importance at court. These foreign crusaders, animated by Arnold's violent fanaticism, suddenly attacked the Jews of Toledo, and killed many of them (June, 1212), and all the Jews would have fared very badly, had not the noble Alfonso interfered in their behalf, and had not the Christian knights and citizens of Toledo, animated by a sense of honor, repelled the attacks of the fanatics. This was the first persecution of the Jews in Castile, the attack, however, being made by foreigners, and disapproved by the natives.
The Church, however, soon educated the Spanish kings and the people to become the enemies of the Jews. The extraordinary change of sentiment towards the Jews which had set in since Innocent's pontificate was shown by a resolution of the Synod of Paris of the same year. King Louis VII, and even his son Philip, had stoutly resisted the canonical institute which provided that the Jews were not to employ Christian servants. But now the French councils, under the presidency of the papal legates, and with the consent of the king, sought to extend this narrow-minded provision, so that not only was a Christian woman prohibited from nursing a Jewish child, but a Christian midwife was not even allowed to attend upon a Jewish woman in confinement, because Christians, who stayed with Jews, took a liking to Judaism. It was with reason, therefore, that the Jews, on hearing of the formation of a new council, were greatly alarmed lest they should be subjected to a new species of tyranny. When, therefore, the papal legate, Peter, of Benevento, convened a synod in Montpellier (beginning of 1214), to which he invited priests and laymen, in order completely to divest the Count of Toulouse of his dominions, and hand them over to Simon de Montfort, and to adopt the severest measures against the remnant of the Albigenses, the Jews of the south of France felt that a great danger was menacing them, and at once took steps to avert it. At the instance of the illustrious Don Isaac (Zag) Benveniste, physician in ordinary to the king of Aragon, many Jewish congregations sent each two deputies to use their influence with clergymen and laymen, that no new restrictions might be imposed upon the Jews. And it seems that they succeeded in warding off the danger; for the council of Montpellier omitted all mention of the Jews in its deliberations.
Hardly had this local danger been averted, when another and more general one appeared to be advancing. This threw all those Jews who received tidings of it into the greatest consternation. Innocent III had, through an encyclical, pastoral letter, convoked to Rome the representatives of entire Christendom for a general Œcumenical Council, at which the energetic prosecution of the crusades against the Mahometans in the Holy Land, in the Pyrenean peninsula, and against the heretics of the south of France, was to be decided upon; the deposition of the Count of Toulouse, and the transference of his estates to Simon de Montfort were to be ratified, and the reformation of the Church, i. e., the extension of her power in the states, was to be promoted. The congregations of the south of France, who had been informed that a severe blow was about to be dealt the Jews at the meeting of this council, were completely staggered. Isaac Benveniste accordingly invited Jewish deputies to the town Bourg de St. Gilles, in order to select certain influential and able men as deputies to Rome, who should endeavor to prevent the enactment of resolutions against the Jews. The names of the delegates chosen for this purpose are unknown, because their labors proved fruitless. The great Fourth Lateran Council was presided over by Pope Innocent III, and comprised over 1200 deputies from many Christian states, both churchmen and laymen. At this council, the papacy was permitted to make the greatest demands ever preferred by it. To its action is due the founding of the two orders of the Dominicans and Franciscans, distinguished by their hatred of freedom and their bloodthirstiness. This council, which wrapped round Christian Europe the ignominious coil of spiritual servitude, and threw it back into the ignorance of barbarism, inflicted deep wounds on Judaism. On the feast of the Maccabees, during which the children of Jacob celebrated their deliverance from Syrian tyranny, this council, which placed the yoke of the deepest degradation on the posterity of the Maccabean heroes, brought its deliberations to a conclusion (30th November, 1215). Though in the midst of gigantic undertakings, the Pope and the Elders of the Council nevertheless did not forget the Jews. Four of the seventy canonical decrees then passed dealt with the Jews. One canon set forth that Christian princes should keep strict watch over the Jews, lest they exact too high an interest from their Christian debtors. This restriction is not altogether unjustifiable—although, indeed, the Christian clergy and laity promoted Jewish usury, and profited by it; and Christian companies, like the Lombards and the Caorsini (called also Ultramontanes), practised usury on an enormous scale. The Church did not take any notice of the financial needs of the time, and kept to the strict letter of the Bible. The council, from its point of view, was also in a measure justified in forbidding baptized Jews to retain Jewish customs, because it would have been suicidal to the Church to allow freedom of conscience. If the accusation was true that some Jews at that time mocked at the Christian processions at Easter, then the authorities of the Church were partly right in forbidding them to show themselves openly on that day; although equitable legislation would not place restrictions on a whole community on account of the transgressions of a few indecorous members. Still more unjust was the canon which not only decreed that the Jews should give tithes of their houses and property, but also that the head of every Jewish family should pay a yearly tax at the Easter festival. The Catholic clergy considered themselves lords, to whom the Jews, their subjects, were to bring tribute. But it was characteristic of the spirit of Innocent, the persecutor of the Albigenses, that the law was renewed, that "no Christian prince shall bestow any office on a Jew." The transgressor of this rule was to be punished with excommunication, and every Jewish official was to be excluded from the society of Christians until he resigned his office in disgrace. The council, however, was unable to bring forward even a show of reason for this canonical decree; neither the New Testament, nor the Fathers of the Church, however much they hated the Jews, had offered a precedent for it. The Lateran Synod was compelled to go back to the Provincial Council of Toledo, under Recared, king of the Catholic Visigoths, in order to find a precedent for this scandalous law. The depth of the degradation of the Jews, however, was reached by the decision of the council that Jews in all Christian countries and at all times should wear a dress differing from that of the Christians. The reason urged was that in many countries where Jews (and Mahometans) wore the ordinary costume, intermarriages took place between the Jews and the Christians. By a sophistical argument it was shown that this law was contained in the Bible, and that Moses had commanded the Jews to wear a peculiar dress. Therefore it was decreed that, from the twelfth year of their age, Jews were to wear a peculiar color as a badge of their race, the men, on their hats, and the women, on their veils. This stigma on the Jews was an invention of Pope Innocent and of the Fourth Council assembled at Rome. It cannot, however, be strictly called an invention, because the pope borrowed the idea of forcing the Jews to wear a peculiar badge from the fanatical Mahometans. The Almohade Prince of the Faithful of Africa and southern Spain, Abu-Yussuff Almansur, had forced those Jews who had adopted the Mahometan faith through compulsion to wear a hideous dress, heavy clothes with long sleeves, which almost reached the feet, and instead of turbans, large bonnets of the ugliest shape. Said this fanatic: "If I knew that the converted Jews had adopted the Mahometan belief with an upright heart, then I would allow them to intermarry with the Mussulmans. If, on the other hand, I were convinced that they are still sceptics, I would put the men to the sword, enslave their children, and confiscate their goods. But I am doubtful about this point; therefore they shall appear distinguished by a hateful uniform." His successor, Abu-Abdullah Mahomet Alnasir, allowed them to change this mean apparel for yellow garments and turbans. By this color the class of people who were outwardly Moslems, yet in their heart of hearts still Jews, was characterized in the first decade of the thirteenth century in the kingdom of Morocco. This barbarous treatment of the Jews, Pope Innocent III now imitated, and their greatest humiliation during six centuries of European life dates from November 30th, 1215.
Provincial councils, assemblies of estates and royal cabinets thenceforward, in addition to their deliberations on the exclusion of the Jews from all honors and offices, determined on the color, form, length and breadth of the Jew-badge, with pedantic thoroughness. The Jew-badge, square or round in form, of saffron yellow or some other color, on the hat or on the mantle, was an invitation to the gamin to insult the wearers, and to bespatter them with mud; it was a suggestion to stupid mobs to fall on them, to maltreat, and even kill them; and it afforded the higher class an opportunity to ostracize the Jews, to plunder them, or to exile them.
Worse than this outward dishonor was the influence of the badge on the Jews themselves. They became more and more accustomed to their ignominious position, and lost all feeling of self-respect. They neglected their outward appearance, because they were nothing but a despised, dishonored race, which could not have even the least claim to honor. They became more and more careless of their speech, because they were not admitted to cultured circles, and in their own midst they could make themselves understood by means of a jargon. They lost all taste and sense of beauty, and to some extent became as despicable as their enemies desired them to be. They lost their manliness and courage, and a child could place them in terror. The punishment which Isaiah had prophesied for the house of Jacob was fulfilled to the letter: "Thou shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust." The great misery of the Jews during the Middle Ages began with Pope Innocent III. In comparison with their subsequent sufferings, all foregoing persecutions from the beginning of the Christian domination seemed like innocent bantering. But the Jews did not readily comply with the decree which forced them to wear the mark of shame. This was especially the case with the communities in Spain and southern France, which, having held an honorable position, would not suffer themselves to be humiliated without a struggle. Besides, there were influential Jews at the courts of Toledo and Saragossa, either as ambassadors to foreign courts or as treasurers of the royal coffers, who exerted their utmost efforts to prevent the enforcement of the decree. When Pope Innocent III died (1216), and Pope Honorius III, who was of a mild temperament compared with Innocent, ascended the papal throne, the Jews hoped for a repeal of this canonical law. Isaac Benveniste seems to have been particularly active in this direction, as he had been in trying to ward off the disgrace when first contemplated. They were successful in delaying the enforcement of the canonical decree. At least, King Alfonso IX of Leon did not compel the Jews of his land to wear the badge, and Pope Honorius was compelled to exhort the bishop of Valencia and two brother bishops to see that the decree was duly enforced, and that all Jews were excluded from offices of honor. The communities of southern France viewed with joy the victorious progress of the army of the repeatedly excommunicated Raymund VII of Toulouse against the crusading army and Simon de Montfort, because their security depended on the victory of the Albigenses. The Duke of Toulouse and his barons, in spite of their oaths, continued to promote Jews to offices, for they saw that their administrative policy would lead to their advantage. It may be that it was on account of the secret and open devotion of the Jews for Raymund that Simon de Montfort's wife Alice of Montmorency, ordered all the Jews of Toulouse—of which town she had charge—to be arrested, offering them the choice between death and conversion, although her husband, as well as his brother, had sworn to the Jews that their lives would be safe, and that freedom should be allowed them for the due exercise of their religion. At the same time, Alice ordered that Jewish children under the age of six should be torn from their parents, and given over to the priests in order to be baptized and brought up as Christians. The heartless woman had no feeling for the pangs that the Jewish mothers suffered. In spite of this, the majority of the members of the Toulouse community refused to become Christians.