These proceedings were not regarded quite so calmly by certain bigots, dwelling in the city which had produced the obscurantist Solomon of Montpellier, the proscriber of Maimuni and his compositions, and author of so much dissension and evil. Although pseudo-philosophical extravaganzas were not more dangerous than the follies of the Kabbalists, the watchers of Zion nevertheless overlooked the latter, and waged energetic warfare with the former, so that the philosophers obtained more weight than they would otherwise have had. The bigots of Montpellier well-nigh kindled the fire of discord in Jacob. The first instigator of this ill-timed zeal belonged to that class of men who mark off the province of faith according to an exact rule, denounce every movement and opinion which transgress their limit as heresy, and desire to have them rooted out with anathemas and scourges, where possible with fire and sword—a class of men in whom fanatical zeal cannot be separated from a kind of egoism. To this category belonged Abba-Mari ben Moses, of Montpellier, or, as his aristocratic title ran, Don Astruc En-Duran de Lünel. Of a respectable family, and of great influence in the capital of Languedoc, Abba-Mari was certainly not without culture, and he had great veneration for Maimuni and his compositions; but he had irrevocably attached himself to the Jewish creed as laid down by Nachmani, and was indignant if any one ventured to consider it from the point of view of another system. He did not object to miraculous tales; on the contrary, the more the better. The conclusions of philosophy and science, which denied the possibility of these miracles, in no way disturbed him. In the choice between Moses and Aristotle, or between the authorities of the Talmud and the upholders of philosophy, he was not for a moment doubtful to whom to give the preference. To be sure, this narrow-minded point of view is justifiable; but Abba-Mari wanted to thrust his opinion upon every one else, and to persecute all who thought otherwise. Not only did he hold in abomination the allegorical exegesis publicly preached, but he reprobated the study of all profane literature as the cause of this aberration. He regretted that the scourge could no more be brought into requisition to silence those who filled their minds with such learning as endangered religion.
Abba-Mari, however, did not possess sufficient authority to proceed against Levi of Villefranche and his school. He addressed himself to the most influential rabbi of the time, Ben Adret of Barcelona, and charged that their perversities would accomplish the dissolution of Judaism, if a restraint were not put upon them. He importuned Ben Adret to exercise his great influence. The rabbi naturally found the circumstance deplorable that "strangers had forced their way through the gates of Zion." He exhorted Abba-Mari to organize a party to oppose this extravagant movement, but positively refused his support, as he did not like to interfere in the affairs of congregations abroad. Other bigots, however, took up the cause, and hurried it to a crisis, among them Don Bonafoux Vidal, of Barcelona, and his brother, Don Crescas Vidal, who had moved to Perpignan, both highly respected and learned, but as intolerant as Abba-Mari. Don Crescas made a proposition, which met with much applause. The study of science, and the reading of profane literature in general, was to be prohibited to Jewish youths till their thirtieth year. Only men of mature age, "who had filled their minds with the Bible and the Talmud, were to be allowed to warm themselves by the strange fires of philosophy and the natural sciences." Although Ben Adret did not feel disposed to take measures against the study of science, he nevertheless considered it his duty to persecute the provoker of so much animosity. He took umbrage at the pious Samuel Sulami for granting a heretic shelter in his house, thus giving him an opportunity to spread his pernicious views. He harassed Samuel Sulami so unmercifully, and subjected his conscience to such torment, that the man, not very remarkable for strength of character, became shaken in his previous convictions. When a daughter of his died he believed that it was a punishment for his sinfulness, and renounced his hospitality to Levi. Many members of the congregation of Perpignan bitterly resented the suspicion of heresy cast upon Levi, and as they knew Ben Adret to be a man of stainless character, they vented their dissatisfaction on the instigator, Abba-Mari, to whom they imputed sordid ulterior designs and personal motives.
Abba-Mari and his allies, who felt themselves helpless without powerful support, labored without intermission to inflame the zeal of the Barcelona rabbinate, that it might forbid free inquiry and the study of science. At the same time they promised the co-operation of the whole congregation of Montpellier, which, being the chief one in southern France, would draw other communities after it. Ben Adret and his college, imagining from Abba-Mari's exaggerated description that Judaism was in the greatest danger, were at last determined to take up the matter, but desired first to sound the congregation of Montpellier as to its feeling on the subject, and for this purpose sent a letter to be read before the members in case they felt disposed to join them in interdicting the study of the natural sciences. But as soon as the proposed ban against the sciences became known, decided opposition arose among the most important men of the congregation.
There was at that time in Montpellier a man, who by reason of his family, position, wealth and knowledge, was held in high estimation by his people, and who had imbibed a love for the sciences with his mother's milk. Jacob ben Machir Tibbon, known in Christian circles as Don Profiat, or Profatius (born about 1236, died after 1312), was descended on one side from the celebrated Meshullam of Lünel, the first to promote a revival of learning in southern France, and on the other side he was related to the Tibbonides. From his birth he was taught to look upon Judaism and science as twin sisters, dwelling together in the utmost harmony. Like all educated Jews of his time, he was well grounded in Jewish literature, the Bible, and the Talmud, practiced medicine as his profession, but devoted himself with particular zeal to mathematics and astronomy. His accurate observation of the inclination of the earth's axis to the orbit was taken by later master astronomers as the basis of their investigations. As he had acquired a knowledge of Arabic, he was able to translate useful scientific works from that language into Hebrew. His wealth of knowledge was not employed as a means of gratifying his vanity or ambition, but he properly regarded it as the distinction of man, enabling him to arrive at self-knowledge. Jacob Tibbon maintained that in the happy time of the Jewish people science had its home in their midst, but exile and suffering had banished it, and its former exponents now had to become students in order to learn the results arrived at by foreign nations. In his scientific labors Jacob ben Machir had a very noble end in view. He aimed at elevating his co-religionists in the eyes of the Christian world, and silencing the sneers of their enemies, who tauntingly said that they were destitute of all knowledge.
This man was now asked to assist in banishing science from the Jewish world. If Abba-Mari wished to carry out in Montpellier his scheme of holding the Jewish youth aloof from the study of the sciences, he was bound to take Jacob ben Machir into consideration. For he was held in high esteem by his congregation on account of his many excellent traits and his meritorious achievements, and had the greatest influence with the members entitled to a vote. Indeed, he was the first to whom Abba-Mari disclosed the project, supported by the Barcelona rabbinate, against the study of the profane sciences, and he reckoned upon Jacob's co-operation. With impressive decisiveness, Profiat not only refused participation, but pointed out the sad consequences of so serious a step, and importuned him to omit the public reading of Ben Adret's letter. Abba-Mari and his ally, Todros of Beaucaire, nevertheless persisted in their determination, and summoned the members of the congregation to an important conference in the synagogue on a Sabbath (Elul-August, 1304). It was immediately apparent that the zealots had deceived themselves, or had been too confident in their assertion that the Jews of Montpellier would give unanimous consent to the interdict to be laid on science. A portion of the congregation even abstained from taking part in the deliberations, and Jacob ben Machir raised an emphatic protest against the proposed enslaving of the intellect. A violent discussion ensued, and the meeting dispersed without coming to a resolution. Soon a party, consisting of advocates of science, and of friends, adherents and parasites of the highly esteemed leader, rallied round Jacob Machir, the most distinguished representative of science. The obscurantists and the simple-minded attached themselves to Abba-Mari, so that the congregation became a prey to division and conflict. Each party endeavored to gain supporters, both within and without the community.
It became a point of honor with Abba-Mari to bring the affair to a conclusion conformable to his own views, for his defeat had exposed his true position to Ben Adret and the Barcelona congregation. After the unfavorable issue of the first deliberation in the synagogue, he hardly ventured to answer the man whom he had assured of a unanimous adoption of his proposal. He, therefore, worked very energetically in collecting at least twenty-five signatures of members of the congregation, to give Ben Adret proof that he did not stand alone in his extreme views.
It was no less a point of honor with Jacob Tibbon not to allow the interdiction of science to come into force. For he and the Tibbonides believed that the attacks were directed chiefly against their highly-venerated ancestors, Samuel Ibn-Tibbon and Jacob Anatoli, because the latter's book of sermons (Malmed) had been the first to explain away Biblical tales and religious laws, and at that time was used in certain quarters for Sabbath devotions. Ben Adret, at Abba-Mari's instigation, did, indeed, treat Anatoli, the favorite of the Tibbonides, with scorn. Of Samuel Ibn-Tibbon, the translator of Maimuni's works, and propagator of his theories, the austere bigots had not a good word to say. Judah ben Moses, his great-grandson, consequently became the soul of what may be called the Tibbonide party, which agitated against Abba-Mari's plan. To attract outsiders, the Tibbonides gave out that the adversaries of science once more had in view the denunciation of Maimuni and his compositions as heretical, and that Abba-Mari wanted to take up the position of Solomon of Montpellier. This was a very happy party manœuvre; it won over even those who had shown indifference to the burning topic of the day, for they thought themselves in duty bound to take up arms on behalf of Maimuni's honor. The Tibbonide party, thus strengthened, sent a trenchant and pointed letter to Ben Adret and the Barcelonians, to ask them to reconsider their decision. It is true, they were not able to offer any convincing reasons for the admission of science into the Jewish curriculum; but the arguments which they set forth in its favor were considered satisfactory in a superficial age. They appealed to King Solomon's wisdom, "from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall," which, they said, referred to nothing but natural science. From the Talmud, too, reasons were adduced for the study of science. They would not admit the validity of the reply that it was not intended to interdict research generally, only to prohibit immature young men from its pursuit. That, they said, was an evasion of the main point at issue. For a man not familiar with science before his thirtieth year was permanently incapable of engaging in its study, and in advanced age could never retrieve the loss. The Tibbonides, moreover, protested that they were branded as heretics, because along with the Torah they paid homage to the profane sciences. They did not recognize the superiority of any one in piety and orthodoxy. Lastly, the Tibbonides exhorted Ben Adret and his college to bury the hatchet of denunciation and discord. The spirited and defiant tone assumed by Jacob ben Machir and his adherents greatly provoked the Barcelonians. The tension increased. Bitter and caustic letters flew hither and thither. Both sides labored to gain new adherents in other congregations, and to draw over the waverers. The communities of Argentière, Aix, Avignon and Lünel, through their representatives, declared in favor of Abba-Mari and his followers. In Perpignan, the chief seat of the much-assailed enlightenment, a relative of Abba-Mari agitated in his favor. The latter was particularly desirous of securing the assistance of a man who, by reason of his noble birth and highly honorable position, had powerful influence in Perpignan and elsewhere. This was Kalonymos ben Todros of Narbonne, thought to be a descendant of the house of King David. Kalonymos did not at first appear inclined to take part in the proscription of science; but Abba-Mari from the one side and Ben Adret from the other assailed him with such pertinacity that at length he promised his consent and co-operation. As the Tibbonide party had also gained new adherents, Ben Adret himself shrank from pushing the controversy to extremes, and decided not to issue the decree of excommunication till at least twenty congregations had declared themselves unequivocally in favor of it.
Whilst in southern France and Spain the balance was inclining now to one side, now to the other, in the dispute about the admission of scientific studies into Jewish circles, the German communities were passing through a series of the most deplorable events, which drove to Spain a man who spoke the deciding word in favor of the excommunication and proscription of free inquiry. He was of high morality, rare disinterestedness, of pure aspiration and sincere piety, and possessed profound Talmudical learning, but was filled with the fanatical hate of his countrymen against profane knowledge. The emigration of Asheri or Asher from Germany to Spain inaugurates an unhappy period for the Spanish and Provençal Jews in their efforts for the progress of culture.
Asher ben Yechiel (born about 1250, died 1327) of the Rhine district, sprang from ancestors who centered their whole world in the Talmud. A disciple of the celebrated Meïr of Rothenburg, Asher acquired the acute Tossafist method, composed Tossafist works, but had a finer sense of system and order than this school. After the death of his master, whose corpse the unprincipled emperor, Adolph of Nassau, refused to give up for burial without remuneration, Asheri was reckoned among the most influential rabbinical authorities of Germany. A paroxysm of persecutions of the Jews broke out in his time, far worse than those during the crusades; it robbed thousands of innocent men of their lives, or sentenced them to a lot worse than death. A civil war raged at that time in Germany between Adolph of Nassau and Albrecht of Austria, who were contending for the empty glitter of the German crown. This strife promised impunity for audacious attacks on the Jews, who were proscribed by the church and society, and an opportunity was easily found. A report was spread that the Jews of the little town of Röttingen (in Franconia) had desecrated a sacramental wafer and pounded it in a mortar, and blood was said to have flowed from it. A nobleman of the place, named Rindfleisch, took up the cause of the host alleged to have been desecrated, declared that he had received a mission from heaven to root out the accursed race of Jews, and gathered a credulous, besotted mob around him to assist in his bloody intentions. He and his troops first of all consigned the Jews of Röttingen to the flames (7th Iyar–20th April, 1298). From this place the rabble of slaughterers, under Rindfleisch's leadership, traveled from town to town, always swelling their numbers with others of their description, and destroyed all the Jews who fell into their hands, even those converted to Christianity. Rindfleisch, impelled by audacity and spurious enthusiasm, fairly forced the inhabitants of various towns to ill-treat their Jewish fellow-citizens brutally. The great community of Würzburg was completely blotted out (12th Ab–24th July). In Nuremberg the Jews had at first fled for refuge into the fortress, but being attacked there, too, they took to arms, and though assisted by humane Christians, were overpowered at last, and all butchered (22d Ab–1st August). Asheri's relative and fellow-student, Mordecai ben Hillel, who had compiled a very important rabbinical work, fell at about the same time, together with his wife and five children. Many parents, lest their children from fear of death should renounce their faith, threw them with their own hands into the flames, and plunged in after them. In Bavaria the congregations of Ratisbon and Augsburg were the only ones to escape the slaughter. In the first city, where they had the right of citizenship from time immemorial, the mayor protected them with great zeal. In Augsburg, too, the mayor and council defended them against the destroyers, Rindfleisch and his horde.
This bloody persecution spread from Franconia and Bavaria to Austria, swept away more than a hundred and forty congregations and more than 100,000 Jews, and lasted nearly half a year. The Jews of Germany all trembled, and were prepared to meet destruction. This would certainly have come if the civil war in Germany had not been brought to an end by the death of Emperor Adolph, and the election of Albrecht. The second Habsburger energetically restored the country to a state of peace, brought to book the perpetrators of the outrages on the Jews, and imposed fines on the towns which had participated in them, on the ground that he had suffered losses in his purse through the immolation of his "servi cameræ" and their goods. The majority of the Jews baptized through fear returned to Judaism, apparently with the connivance of the emperor and the representatives of the church. The after-throes of this massacre were likewise bitter enough. The wives of those who had perished could not authenticate the death of their husbands through Jewish witnesses, as no men remained alive competent to give testimony. They could appeal only to the statement of baptized Jews, whose evidence was considered by many rabbis to be invalid according to the Talmudical marriage laws. Asheri, however, was sensible enough to unbend from this strictness, and allowed the widows to marry again on the evidence of baptized Jews returned to Judaism.
Asheri did not feel very secure in Germany after this bloody massacre, or perhaps he was threatened with danger on the part of Emperor Albrecht. It was said that the emperor demanded of him the sum of money which the Jews were to pay as ransom for the imprisoned Meïr of Rothenburg, for which Asheri had become security. He accordingly left Germany (summer of 1303), and traveled from one country to another with his wife, his eight sons and grandsons, and on account of his reputation, he was everywhere treated with the utmost respect, especially in Montpellier, even before the breaking out of the controversy. He finally settled in Toledo, the largest city of Spain (January, 1305). With joy the illustrious German rabbi was installed by the Toledo congregation in the vacant rabbinate. With Asheri the dismal spirit of over-piety, so hostile to knowledge, entered into the Spanish capital.
Asheri did not conceal his antipathy to profane culture. He could not conceive how pious Jews, in southern France and in Spain, could occupy themselves with subjects outside of the Talmud. With the utmost scorn he discountenanced the very aspiration of the Spanish and Provençal Jews on which they prided themselves. He thanked his Creator that He had protected him from the baneful influence of science. He did not give the southern Frenchmen and the Spanish Jews credit for thoroughness even in knowledge of the Talmud, and maintained that the German and northern French Jews alone had inherited wisdom from the time of the destruction of the Temple. A man like this, incapable of appreciating the sciences, and harboring enmity to everything not in the Talmud, was bound to exercise an influence prejudicial to knowledge. Next to him Solomon ben Adret himself appeared more or less of a freethinker. Abba-Mari forthwith availed himself of the man, from whom he expected effectual support for his party. He requested him to express his views on the pending question. Asheri, of course, gave Abba-Mari his unqualified approval, but was of opinion that he did not go far enough, for the evil would not be eradicated, if the pursuit of the sciences were allowed at a ripe age. The poison of heresy had spread too far, every one was infected by it, and the pious were open to the reproach that they shut their eyes to it. His proposal was that a synod should be convoked, and a resolution be taken that study was to be devoted solely to the Talmud, while the sciences were to be pursued only when it was neither day nor night—that is, not at all. This exclusive fidelity to the Talmud, which rejected all compromise, advocated by an energetic man of pure character, made an overpowering impression on the unsettled minds of Spanish Jews. Ben Adret himself, who had hitherto always hesitated to lead the movement, all at once declared that he was prepared to pronounce the ban, if Abba-Mari and the prince, Kalonymos, would prepare it. An officious zealot, Samson ben Meïr, disciple of Ben Adret, took upon himself to collect assenting signatures from twenty congregations. Toledo was especially reckoned upon, having been swayed by Asheri's mind, and next, Castile generally, which as a rule followed the guidance of the head community.
How artificial and opposed to the sentiment of the majority this zeal was, became apparent especially in the congregation of Montpellier, styled the tower of Zion by Abba-Mari's party. In this congregation the zealots did not venture to collect signatures for the sentence of excommunication. As if in defiance, one of the Tibbonides announced that he would give a reading from Anatoli's book of sermons on a certain Sabbath, and immediately drew a numerous audience. Abba-Mari, who had repeatedly boasted to Ben Adret of his mighty influence, and had persuaded him that the whole congregation, except a few deluded people, were on his side, now had to admit that Montpellier was not to be reckoned upon in this affair. In the consciousness that their party was in a minority in southern France, the two leaders, Abba-Mari and Kalonymos, of Narbonne, made the ecclesiastical ban unexpectedly mild, both as to wording and contents. First, the reading of works on natural science and of metaphysical books only was to be prohibited, all other branches of learning being expressly allowed. Secondly, the writings of Jewish authors, even those dealing with natural science or metaphysics, were to be excluded from the inhibition. Abba-Mari, with a view to meeting his adversaries half-way, had made the proposal to fix the period when the study of every department of learning was to be allowed, not at the thirtieth, but at the twenty-fifth year of the student's age. Ben Adret, however, who could not tolerate half-measures nor brook retreat, had now become more severe. He who formerly had to be driven and urged on, now became the propeller. Asheri's influence is not to be mistaken. On the Sabbath of Lamentation in commemoration of the destruction of Jerusalem, he and his colleagues ordered the anathema against the study of the sciences to be read amid solemn ceremonies, the scroll of the Law in the arms of the reader (4th Ab–26th July, 1305). Whoever read any scientific book before the twenty-fifth year of his age was liable to the penalty of excommunication. The ban was to remain in force for half a century. The philosophical expounders of Holy Writ were doomed in the hereafter, and in this world subjected to excommunication, and their writings condemned to be burnt. As no exception was made of scientific works composed in Hebrew, according to the formulation of the ban, not only Anatoli's book of sermons was exposed to proscription, but also Maimuni's philosophical writings. Ben Adret and his college allowed only the study of medicine, on the ground that its practice is permitted in the Talmud. This was the first heresy-tribunal in Jewish history, and Ben Adret was at its head. The Dominicans had found docile emulators among the Jews.
According to the communal system in the Middle Ages, every congregation was independent, and the resolutions of one congregation had no force with another. The ban accordingly had validity only in Barcelona, unless some other congregation confirmed it. Ben Adret, however, labored to have it adopted by other congregations. The sentence, signed by Ben Adret, his two sons, and more than thirty of the most influential members of the Barcelona congregation, was dispatched to the congregations of Spain, Languedoc, northern France, and Germany. But the ban was not so readily adopted as the authorities of Barcelona had flattered themselves it would be. Jacob ben Machir and his party had already received notice that a blow was being meditated against them, and accordingly made preparations for a countermove. They resolved from the first to frustrate the effect of the ecclesiastical interdict of the study of science. They drew up a resolution in Montpellier which contained three important points. A sentence of excommunication was to fall upon those who, out of religious scruples, ventured to debar or withdraw their sons, whatever their youth, from the study of any science whatsoever, regardless of the language in which it was treated; secondly, upon those who presumed to utter an irreverent or abusive word against the great Maimuni, and, lastly, also upon those who presumed to denounce a religious author on account of his philosophical system. The last point was introduced for the sake of Anatoli's memory, which his opponents had vilified. Thus there was ban against ban. Jacob Tibbon and his friends caused their resolution in favor of science and its advocates to be announced in the synagogue, and the great majority of the congregation of Montpellier took his side. Party zeal, however, impelled the Tibbonides to take an ill-advised step, which threatened to produce the same evil consequences as had ensued at the time of the first conflict in Montpellier with the obscurantists. As Jacob ben Machir Profatius and others of his party had influence with the governor of the city, they wished to secure his assistance in the event of their opponents' endeavoring violently to carry the Barcelona interdict into effect. The governor, however, explained to them that he was interested only in one point: that the Jewish youth should not be prevented from reading other than Talmudical works. He should strongly deprecate any attempt to discourage the study of extra-Talmudical literature, because, as he frankly expressed himself, he would not consent to their being deprived through fear of excommunication of the means to potential conversion to Christianity. To the other points he was indifferent.
Abba-Mari and his party were now in despair on account of the activity of their opponents. As the resolution in favor of the unrestricted study of science had been adopted by the majority of the community, according to rabbinical law it was binding on the minority as well, and therefore on their leader, and they could not legally stand by the interdict of Barcelona. Thus the zealots, the provokers of the conflict, had their hands tied, and were caught in their own net. They did what they could; they protested against the resolution of the Tibbonides, and advertised their protest far and wide. But they could not conceal that they had suffered a defeat, and were obliged to consult certain authorities as to whether the resolutions of the Tibbonides were binding on them. Ben Adret was thus placed in an embarrassing position. The party of Jacob ben Machir believed, or wished to have it believed, that the prohibition of the rabbis of Barcelona in reference to the study of scientific books, was meant to apply to Maimuni's works, too. They obtained the credit of having taken up the cudgels in behalf of Maimuni's honor, and of contending for the glory of Judaism; whilst their opponents, Ben Adret included, through their narrow-mindedness and obstinacy, were exposing their religion to the scorn of educated Christians. The vindicators of science seemed to be continually gaining in public opinion. There now appeared on their side a young poet, whose eloquent defense, written in a highly imaginative style, made a great impression. It gives a faithful picture of the feeling and excitement which agitated the souls of the champions of science, and, therefore, awakens interest even in the present day. In a modest manner, but with manly spirit, the poet tells Ben Adret truths which he never had the opportunity of hearing in his own circle. This young poet, more famous through his letter than through his verses, was Yedaya En-Bonet ben Abraham, better known under the name of Bedaresi (of Béziers) and under the poetical pseudonym of Penini (born about 1280, died about 1340). Yedaya Penini, son of the bombastic poet, Abraham Bedaresi, had more talent as a poet than his father. He possessed a lively imagination and overflowing wealth of language, and lacked only restraining tact, and a dignified, universally acceptable, uplifting aim for poetry. This deficiency gave his poems the appearance of empty grandiloquence and artificiality. He had inherited the defect of his father, inability to control the superabundance of words by the law of beauty. He was too ornate, and he moralized, instead of elevating and impressing. In his seventeenth year Yedaya Bedaresi wrote a book of morals (Pardes), and in his earliest years, whilst his father was still alive, he composed a prayer of about one hundred verses, in which all the words begin with the same letter (Bekashoth ha-Memin), and which his father, and perhaps his contemporaries, admired, but which is nevertheless very insipid. An admirer of Maimuni and Ibn Ezra, Bedaresi considered science and philosophy of equal importance with Judaism, or, like most thoughtful men of that time, he believed that the one contained the other.
Bedaresi conceived that his deepest convictions had been assailed by Ben Adret's anathema, and that it had in reality been directed against Maimuni's name, and, therefore, he could not restrain himself from addressing a sharp rebuke to the excommunicators. As he lived in Montpellier and was certainly attached to Jacob ben Machir's party, it is quite probable that he wrote the defense of Maimuni and of science, sent to Ben Adret, at their instigation (December, 1305, or January, 1306). This missive, like most of those written in this controversy, was intended not only for the individual addressed, but for the Jewish reading public in general. After Bedaresi had expressed his respect for the upright, learned rabbi of Barcelona, he remarked that he and his friends were not indignant about the ban, for science was invulnerable, and could not be injured by the fulmination of excommunicators. They were only hurt that Ben Adret should brand the Jewish congregations of southern France as heretics and renegades, and expose them to contempt in his message to many congregations and countries. Ben Adret, he continued, had allowed himself to be taken in tow by Abba-Mari, and had made a mountain of a mole-hill. From time immemorial, from Saadiah's age, science was not only tolerated in Judaism, but cherished and fostered, because its importance in religious knowledge was indisputable. Moreover, the denouncers of heresy were not consistent; they excluded the science of medicine from the ban, although this science, like every other, had a side which was in conflict with religion. How could they dare impugn the writings of Maimuni, whose dazzling personality outshone all his great predecessors? At the end, Yedaya Bedaresi observed that violent faction fights had broken out in Montpellier. Did they wish to continue to foment party strife, that the absence of unity among the Jews might occasion the Christians unholy satisfaction? "We cannot give up science; it is as the breath to our nostrils. Even if Joshua would appear and forbid it, we could not obey him, for we have a warranty, who outweighs you all, Maimuni, who has recommended it, and impressed it upon us. We are ready to set our goods, our children, and our very lives at stake for it." In conclusion, he invited Ben Adret to advise his friends in Montpellier to relinquish heresy hunting, and desist from stirring the fire of discord.
At the same time, furious disputes broke out in the church, between King Philip IV of France and Pope Boniface VIII, but here the subject of the dispute was not ideal good, not science and free research, but purely dominion, power and mammon. There was war to the knife between the chiefs of the two parties. The king accused the pope of heresy, simony, covetousness, perjury, and impurity. And the pope released the subjects from their oath to their hereditary king, and gave away his empire. The Jewish hostilities had neither the same wide range, nor yet the same bottomless wickedness.
Ben Adret and several who had signed the decree of excommunication, Moses Iskafat Meles and Solomon Gracian, were so unpleasantly affected by Bedaresi's letter, and feared its effect so much, that they hastened to offer the explanation that they had in no wise animadverted upon Maimuni's writings, whom they revered in the highest degree. They even exhorted Abba-Mari's party to make peace with their opponents, to vindicate their dignity before their common enemy. But the controversy was now at a stage when it could no longer be settled peaceably. The mutual bitterness was too violent, and had become too personal. Each party claimed to be in the right from its own standpoint; neither could consent to a compromise nor make concessions. Each adhered to its own principles; the one sought to enforce the freedom of science, the other protested that Jewish youth, before maturity, must be guarded from the deleterious poison of knowledge. Whilst the adherents of Abba-Mari were seeking legal decisions to prove the ban of their opponents unauthorized, a sad event happened, which, like a whirlwind, tore friends asunder, and dashed enemies against each other.
Philip le Bel—The Jews of France plundered and banished—Estori Parchi; Aaron Cohen; Laments of Bedaresi—Eleazar of Chinon, the Martyr—Return of the Jews to France; their Precarious Position—Progress of the Controversy regarding the Study of Philosophy—Abba-Mari and Asheri—Death of Ben Adret—Rabbinical Revival in Spain—Isaac Israeli II—Samuel and the Queen Maria Molina—Don Juan Emanuel and Judah Ibn-Wakar—The Jews of Rome—Robert of Naples and the Jews—Peril of the Jews in Rome—Kalonymos ben Kalonymos, his Satires—Immanuel and Dante—The Poet Judah Siciliano—Leone Romano and King Robert—Shemarya Ikriti—Position of Karaism—Aaron the Elder and the Prayer-Book of the Karaites.
1306–1328 C.E.
Philip IV, le Bel, at that time the king of France, one of those monarchs who made arrogant and unprincipled despotism familiar to Europe, suddenly issued a secret order (21st January, 1306), imposing the strictest silence, to the higher and lower officials throughout his kingdom, to put all the Jews of France under arrest on one and the same day, without warning of any kind. Before the Jews had fully recovered from fasting on the Day of Lamentation in remembrance of the destruction of Jerusalem, and as they were about to begin their daily business, the constables and jailors appeared, laid hands upon them, and dragged young and old, women and children, to prison (10th Ab–22d July). There they were told that they had to quit the country within the space of a month, leaving behind both their goods and the debts owing to them. Whoever was found in France after that time was liable to the penalty of death. What could have induced this prudent rather than clerical prince so suddenly to change his sentiments towards the Jews? It was certainly not clerical intolerance, nor was it yielding to the will of the people. For the French, even in the Middle Ages, were not bigoted, and it was not their wish to remove the Jews to free themselves from usurers. Avarice was the first motive of this cruel order. For Philip's feud with the pope, and his war with the rebellious Flemish, had so exhausted his treasury, and had rendered necessary so unsparing an extortion of money that, as the ballads of the time scoffingly said, "The fowl in the pot was not secure from the king's grasp." The king wanted to replenish his coffers from the property of the Jews. Another circumstance is said to have moved him to this hard-hearted resolution. The German emperor Albrecht, who at that time was not on good terms with Philip, had demanded the surrender of the kingdom of Arles; further, that he should deliver up Jesus' supposed crown of thorns, and lastly, that he should acknowledge the authority of the successor of Vespasian, Titus, and Charlemagne over the French Jews, i.e., yield to him a portion of the hard-earned property of the Jews. Philip is said to have consulted his lawyers, to decide to whom the authority over the Jews appertained, and as they adjudged it to the German emperor, the idea occurred to him to fleece the Jews of their property, and to send his "servi cameræ" naked and bare to Albrecht. Before the world the king covered his act of violence, inhuman as it was unstatesmanlike, with the excuse that incredible outrages of the Jews had rendered their expulsion imperative. That he had aimed at the possessions of the Jews was shown by his relentless plundering. The officials left the unhappy Jews nothing beyond the clothes they wore, and to everyone not more than seemed necessary for a day's living (12 gros Tournois). Wagonfuls of the property of the Jews, gold, silver and precious stones were transported to the king; and less valuable objects were sold at a ridiculously low price. At the appointed time (September, 1306), they were banished, about 100,000 souls, from the country which their ancestors had inhabited, in part at the time of the Roman republic, long before Christianity had spread into France. Some who could not separate themselves from their property and the country which they loved went over to Christianity. The whole congregation of Toulouse is said to have been guilty of this cowardice, which scarcely seems credible. The celebrated seats, at which so much intellect had been displayed, the colleges of Rashi, Tam, and the Tossafists: Troyes, Paris, Sens, Chinon, Orleans; the places in which a higher culture had had its temple: Béziers, Lünel, Montpellier, whence the combatants for and against science were plunged into common misery,—all these schools and synagogues were sold to the highest bidder or given away. A German or an English king might have destroyed the holy places of the Jews—King Philip le Bel made a present of a synagogue to his—coachman. An approximate idea can be formed of the sums which the expulsion and robbery of the Jews brought in to the king, if it is kept in mind that the sale of the Jewish goods in the house of the prefect of Orleans alone brought in 337,000 francs.
How many of the refugees, reduced to beggary, fell victims to the hardships of their journey cannot be known. The bitter plaints of those oppressed by the heavy affliction sound mournful and touching even at this distance of time. Estori Parchi, then a youth of many accomplishments and noble heart, a relative of Jacob ben Machir, whose parents had emigrated from Spain to southern France, thus describes his sorrow: "From the house of study have they torn me; naked was I forced as a young man to leave my ancestral home, and wander from land to land, from people to people, whose tongues were strange to me." Parchi at length found a resting-place in Palestine. Another fugitive, the learned Aaron Cohen of Narbonne, poured forth this elegy: "Unhappy me, I saw the misery of the banishment of the sons of Jacob, like a herd of cattle driven asunder. From a position of honor I was thrown into a land of darkness." The sudden turn of fortune which changed rich men into beggars, and exposed the delicate and those used to the comforts of life to bitter privation, filled the bombastic poet Yedaya Bedaresi with gloomy reflections. In vivid colors he painted the trouble and pain of life, and man's helplessness and nothingness. His "Trial of the World" (Bechinath Olam), suggested by personal observation and bitter experience, consequently makes a depressing and mournful impression, and reflects faithfully the melancholy feelings of the ill-starred race.
The expulsion of the Jews from France by the stony-hearted Philip le Bel did not come off without martyred victims. Those who transgressed the time of grace, yet rejected solicitations to abjure their faith, were punished by death. A martyr of this time, Eleazar ben Joseph of Chinon, is specially famous. He was a learned, noble-minded man, a correspondent of Ben Adret, master of many distinguished disciples, among them the youthful Parchi, one of the last of the Tossafist school. He was condemned to the stake, although no crime could be laid at his door except that he was a Jew. With him died two brothers. The expatriated Jews dispersed in all parts of the world; many traveled to Palestine. But the majority remained as near as possible to the French borders, in Provence proper, at that time partly under German suzerainty, in the province of Roussillon, which belonged to the Aragonian king of Majorca, and in that island. Their intention was to wait for a favorable change of fortune, which would permit them to return to the land of their birth. They had not speculated falsely. King Philip himself was induced by avarice to unbend from his severity.
The vehement struggle in Montpellier about permitting Jewish youth to engage in the study of the sciences, remarkable to relate, continued after the banishment from France (September, 1306), and the mutual hatred of the two parties was in no way abated by suffering. A portion of the Tibbonide party had settled in Perpignan, which belonged to the king of Majorca, who was no favorer of the Jews. At his command copies of the Talmud were once more delivered up to the auto-da-fé; but as he hoped to gain some advantage by the settlement of intelligent, industrious Jews, he suffered them. Abba-Mari and another portion of the congregation of Montpellier at first took up their abode in the town of Arles, but as he could not stay there, he, too, emigrated to Perpignan (January, 1307). But the opposing party, which had influence with the king or governor, endeavored to hinder his settlement in that place. Abba-Mari's partisans, by making representations to the king, succeeded in obtaining permission for him to live in Perpignan. Here the controversy raged anew. Solomon ben Adret and Asheri, particularly the latter, whose decision of character had acquired for him the chief authority, again interfered. Asheri declared that he had given his signature in a half-hearted manner to the decree prohibiting young men from occupying themselves with profane studies; for, according to his opinion, it was too great a concession to permit it at the age of twenty-five. Science ought to be prohibited altogether, for it inevitably lures on to unbelief. The defenders of science were to be condemned without mercy, since the afflictions of exile had made no impression on them, suffering had not broken their spirit of defiance, and had not chastened their hardness of heart.
This view, that qualities prejudicial to Judaism were inherent in science, gained supremacy after Ben Adret's death (1310), when Asheri was acknowledged in Spain and in the neighboring countries as the only authority in religious matters. Asheri, his sons and companions who had migrated with him from Germany, transplanted from the Rhine to vivacious Toledo that spirit of honest, but tormenting, narrow-minded and intolerant piety; that gloomy disposition which regards even harmless joy as a sin; that feeling of abjectness, which characterized the German Jews of the Middle Ages, and they inoculated the Spanish Jews with it. The free activity of the mind was checked. Asheri concentrated all his mental power on the Talmud and its exposition. His chief work was a compilation of the Talmud for practical use (1307–1314). On all occasions he endeavored to enforce a difficult, painful, and severe discipline. If any one desired to express his thoughts on any department of knowledge whatsoever, he had to array his subject in the garments of contrite orthodoxy. When the erudite Isaac ben Joseph Israeli II, of Toledo, published an astronomical work (1310), he had to adjust it to Talmudical standards, and introduce it by a confession of faith, for only in this manner could he find grace in Asheri's eyes.
At about this time, during Asheri's rabbinate in Toledo, prominent Jews once more obtained influence at court. King Ferdinand IV (1295–1312) had a Jewish treasurer named Samuel, whose counsels he followed in political matters too. The dowager queen, Maria de Molina, who had held the reins of government during her son's minority, with feminine passionateness hated the favorite Samuel, who is said to have nourished the enmity between mother and son. One day, when Samuel was in Badajos, and was preparing to accompany the king to Seville, he was attacked by an assassin, and so severely wounded that he was left for dead. It is not known who instigated the deed. The king had such care and attention devoted to Samuel, that he recovered from his wounds.
Don Ferdinand's death brought in its train a time of unquiet, of civil war, and social anarchy for Spain. As the Infante Alfonso was still a child in the cradle, several persons, the clever Maria de Molina, the young queen-mother Constantia, and the uncles of the young king contended for the guardianship and the regency, and provoked faction feuds in the country (1312–1326). Donna Maria de Molina, who conducted the government, did not extend her hate against her son's Jewish counselor to the community to which he belonged. As in the lifetime of her husband she had had a Jewish favorite, Todros Abulafia, so during her regency she had a Jewish treasurer, Don Moses. When the council of Zamora (1313) renewed canonical laws hostile to the Jews, the cortes of Burgos demanded the exclusion of Jews from all honors and offices, and the pope issued a bull that Christians were to be absolved from their debts to Jews on account of usury, the wise regent submitted only in part. She ordered that Jews should not bear high-sounding Christian names, nor enter into close intercourse with Christians; but she most emphatically declared herself against the unjust abolition of debts, and published a law that no debtor could make himself free of his obligation to professors of the Jewish faith by appealing to a papal bull.
The regency of Don Juan Emanuel inaugurated an improvement in the condition of the Castilian Jews (1319–1325). The regent was a friend of learning, himself an author and poet, and was consequently held in esteem by educated Jews. A Jew of Cordova, Jehuda ben Isaac Ibn-Wakar, found high favor in his eyes, and probably acted as his treasurer. At his solicitation Juan Emanuel once more invested the rabbinate with penal jurisdiction, which the Jews had partly lost during the regency of Maria de Molina, and had practiced only privately.
Jehuda Ibn-Wakar, however, was an admirer of Asheri, and, like the latter, of excessive piety, desiring to have every religious transgression punished with the utmost severity. When a Cordovan uttered a blasphemy in Arabic, Ibn-Wakar asked Asheri what was to be done with him, and the latter replied that his tongue should be cut out. A beautiful Jewess having had intercourse with a Christian, Don Juan Manuel resigned her to the punishment of the Jewish court, and Jehuda Ibn-Wakar condemned her to have her face disfigured by the removal of her nose, and Asheri confirmed the sentence.
The southern Spanish and Castilian congregations still lived in peace, and in the undisturbed possession of their goods; on the other hand, the northern Spanish, and still more the southern French congregations were exposed to bloody attacks by fanatical hordes, which the church had unfettered, and then could not restrain. Jews once more lived in France. Louis X had recalled them nine years after their banishment (1315). This king, himself seized by a desire to abrogate the ordinances of his father and indict his counselors, had been solicited by the people and the nobility, who could not do without the Jews, to re-admit them into France. He accordingly entered into negotiations with them in reference to their return. But the Jews did not accept his proposal without deliberation, for they well knew the inconstancy of the French kings, and the fanatical hatred of the clergy against them. They hesitated at first, and then submitted their conditions. These were, that they be allowed to reside in the same places as before; that they should not be indictable for former transgressions; that their synagogues, churchyards, and books be restored to them, or sites be granted for new places of worship. They were to have the right of collecting the money owing to them, of which two-thirds should belong to the king. Their former privileges, as far as they were still in force, were to be again extended to them, or new ones conceded. King Louis accepted all these conditions, and granted them also the right of emigration under certain restrictions. In order to conciliate the clergy, he, on his side, imposed the conditions that they wear a badge of a certain size and color, and hold neither public nor private disputations on religion. Two high officials (prud'hommes, auditeurs des Juifs) were appointed to superintend the re-settlement of the Jews. Their residence in France was fixed for twelve years; if the king should resolve to expel them again after the expiration of that period, he put himself under the obligation to give them a year's warning that they might have time to make their preparations. The king published this decree, declaring that his father had been ill-advised to banish the Jews. As the voice of the people solicited their return, as the church desired a tolerant policy, and as the sainted Louis had set him the precedent of first banishing and then readmitting them, he had, after due consultation with the prelates, the barons, and his high council, permitted the return of the Jews. The French Jews streamed back in masses to their former dwelling-places, regarding this event as a miraculous redemption. When Louis X died a year after, and his brother Philip V, the Long, ascended the throne, he extended their privileges, and protected them especially from the enmity of the clergy; so that they and their books could be seized only by royal officers. But they were not free from vexation by the degenerate clergy, who insisted that the Jews of Montpellier, who thought they could venture on certain liberties, should re-affix the Jew-badge on their dress. At one time they accused the Jews of Lünel with having publicly outraged the image of Christ on the Purim festival; at another time they ordered that two wagonfuls of copies of the Talmud be publicly burned in Toulouse. Such occurrences, however, were mere child's play compared with what they had to endure from the bigoted multitude.
Philip V had the idea, repugnant to the spirit of the time, of undertaking a crusade to wrest the Holy Land, after so many vain attempts, from the hands of the infidels. This enterprise appeared so foolish to the discerning, that even Pope John XXII, the second of the popes that resided in Avignon instead of at Rome, dissuaded him from it. Nevertheless, the fancy, as soon as it was known, inflamed the minds of the rude populace. A young man of excited imagination gave out that a dove had settled at one time on his head, at another, on his shoulder, and when he had sought to seize it, it had transformed itself into a beautiful woman, who urged him to gather a troop of crusaders, assuring him of victory. His utterances found credulous hearers, and the lower people, children, and swine-herds attached themselves to him. A wicked priest and an unfrocked Benedictine monk used the opportunity to force their way to the front, and thus arose in northern France (1320) a numerous horde of forty thousand shepherds (Pastoureaux, Pastorelli, Roïm), who moved in procession from town to town carrying banners, and announced their intention of journeying across the sea to deliver the so-called holy sepulcher. Their attention was immediately turned to the Jews, possibly because they wanted to raise money for the purchase of weapons by robbing the Jews of their possessions, or a Jew, as is related, had made sport of their childish heroism. The massacre of the Jews by the shepherds (Gesereth-ha-Roïm) is another bloody page in Jewish history.
Nearly all the crusading enterprises had commenced with the murder of Jews; so this time. The shepherd-gangs which had collected near the town of Agen (on the Garonne) cut down all the Jews they met on their march from this place to Toulouse, if they refused to be baptized. About five hundred Jews had found refuge in the fortress of Verdun (on the Garonne), the commandant having placed a strong tower at their disposal. The shepherds took it by storm, and a desperate battle took place. As the Jews had no hopes of rescue, they had recourse in their despair to self-destruction. The unhappy people selected the oldest and most respected man of their number to slay them one after the other. The old man picked out a muscular young assistant in this ghastly business, and both went to work to rid their fellow-sufferers of their miserable lives. When at last the young man, after slaying his aged partner, was left alone, the desire of life came strong upon him; he declared to the besieging shepherds that he was ready to go over to them, and asked to be baptized. The latter were just or cruel enough to refuse the request, and tore the renegade to pieces. The Jewish children found in the tower were baptized by force. The governor of Toulouse zealously espoused the cause of the Jews, and summoned the knights to take the approaching shepherds prisoners. Thus many of them were brought in chains to the capital, and thrown into prison. But the mob, which sympathized with them, banded together, and set them at liberty, the result being that the greater part of the congregation of Toulouse was destroyed. A few seceded to Christianity. On the capture of the shepherds near Toulouse, the Jews in the neighborhood, who had been granted shelter in Castel-Narbonnais, thought that they were now free of all danger, and left their place of refuge. They were surprised by the rabble, and annihilated. Thus perished almost all the Jews in the neighborhood of Bordeaux, Gascogne, Toulouse, Albi, and other towns of southern France. Altogether, more than 120 Jewish congregations in France and northern Spain were blotted out through the rising of the Shepherds, and the survivors were so impoverished by spoliation that they were dependent upon the succor of their brethren in other parts, which flowed to them in abundance even from Germany.
The following year, too, was very unfortunate for the Jews, the trouble again beginning in France. This persecution was occasioned by lepers, from whom it has its name (Gesereth Mezoraim). The unhappy people afflicted by leprosy in the Middle Ages were banished from society, declared dead as citizens, shut up in unhealthy quarters, and there tended after a fashion. Once, when certain lepers in the province of Guienne had been badly provided with food, they conceived and carried into effect the plan of poisoning the wells and rivers, through which many people perished (1321). When the matter was traced back to the lepers, and they were examined under torture, one of them invented, or somebody suggested to him, the lying accusation that the Jews had inspired them with the plan of poisoning the waters. The charge was generally believed; even King Philip V had no doubt about it. Sometimes it was asserted that the Jews wanted to take revenge for the sufferings experienced at the hands of the Shepherds the year before; again, that they had been persuaded by the Mahometan king of Granada to cause the Christians to be poisoned; or it was suggested that they had done it in league with the Mahometan ruler of Palestine, to frustrate the intended crusade of King Philip. In several places Jews were arrested on this accusation, unmercifully tortured, and some of them burnt (Tammuz—July, 1321). In Chinon a deep pit was dug, fire kindled in it, and eight Jewish men and women thrown in, who sang whilst dying. The mothers had previously cast in their children, to save them from forcible baptism. Altogether five thousand are said to have suffered death by fire in that year. Many were banished from France, and robbed by the heartless populace. Philip was convinced later on of the untruth of the accusation; but as the Jews had been accused, he seemed to think that the opportunity might be used to swell the treasury. Accordingly, the congregations were condemned by Parliament to a penalty of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds (Parisian); they were to apportion the contributions among themselves. Deputies (procureurs) from northern France (de la langue française) and from Languedoc, met and enacted that the southern French Jews, decimated and impoverished by the previous year's massacre, were to contribute forty-seven thousand pounds, and the remainder was to be borne by the northern French Jews. The wealthiest Jews were put under arrest as security for the payment of the fine, and their goods and debts distrained.
In the same year a great danger threatened the oldest of the European communities. Misfortune came upon it the more unexpectedly as till then it had tasted but little of the cup of misery which the Jews of England, France and Spain so often had to drink to the dregs. It was because Rome did not belong to the pope, but to the families of Orsini and Colonna, to the Ghibellines and Guelphs—the great and minor lords, who fought out their party feuds in that city—that the Jews were left untouched by papal tyranny. It was well for them that they were little considered.
At about this time the Roman Jews had made an advance in material welfare and intellectual culture. There were some who possessed houses like palaces, furnished with all the comforts of life. Since the time when, through the concurrence of favorable circumstances, they had tasted of the tree of knowledge, learning and poetry were cherished by the Italian Jews. The seeds which Hillel of Verona, Serachya ben Shaltiel and others had scattered, commenced to bear fruit. When the flower of intellectual glory in southern France began to decay through the severity of Talmudical rigorists and the bloody persecutions, it unfolded itself in Italy, especially in Rome. At that time the first rays of a new cultural development, breaking through the gloom of priestcraft and the rude violence of the Middle Ages, appeared in Italy. A fresh current of air swept the heavens in Italy in the beginning of the fourteenth century, the epoch of Dante, thawing the icy coat of the church and of knightdom, the two pillars of the Middle Ages. A sense of citizenship, the impulse towards liberty, enthusiastic love for science, were the striking symptoms of a new spirit, of a striving for rejuvenescence, which only the emperor, the embodiment of rude, ungainly knighthood, and the pope, the incarnation of the stern, unbending church, failed to perceive. Every greater or lesser Italian lord made it a point of honor to encourage art and science, and patronize poets, artists and learned men at his court. Nor were the Jews overlooked at this juncture. One of the most powerful Italian princes, Robert of Anjou, king of Naples, count of Provence (Arelat), vicar-general of the Papal States and for some time titular lieutenant of the Holy Roman empire, was a friend of science, a warm admirer also of Jewish literature, and consequently a protector of the Jews. Several Jewish littérateurs were his teachers, or at his instance undertook scientific and theological works.
Either in imitation of the current practice or from sincere interest in Jewish literature, rich Jews, who played the part of small princes, invited Jewish authors into their circle, lightened their material cares by liberal support, and stimulated their activity by encouragement. Thus it came to pass that three Jewish Italian men of letters had the courage to compete with the Spaniards and Provençals. These were Leo Romano, Judah Siciliano, and above all the poet Immanuel Romi, who once more ennobled neo-Hebrew poetry, and raised it to a higher level. The Roman congregation at that time displayed exceptional interest in Jewish writings. Of Maimuni, the embodiment of science for them as for the rest of the Jewish world, they possessed the copious Religious Codex, and the translation of his "Guide;" but of his luminous Mishna commentary, composed originally in Arabic, only those parts which Charisi and Samuel Ibn-Tibbon had done into Hebrew. The representatives of the Roman congregations, to whom probably the poet Immanuel also belonged, wished to have a complete edition of the work, and sent a messenger to Barcelona to Ben Adret expressly for the purpose of procuring the remaining parts. The affair was not so simple as the Roman Jews had imagined. The greater portion of the anxiously desired commentary of Maimuni on the Mishna, on account of peculiar difficulties, was not yet rendered into Hebrew. The greatest obstacle was the circumstance that the Spanish Jews, except those in Toledo and in the neighborhood of the kingdom of Granada, had forgotten Arabic. Ben Adret, who wished to oblige the Roman congregation, endeavored to get the required portions translated into Hebrew. He encouraged scholars, learned both in Arabic and the Talmud, to undertake this difficult task, and Joseph Ibn-Alfual and Jacob Abbassi of Huesca, Solomon ben Jacob and Nathaniel Ibn-Almali, the last two physicians of Saragossa, and others divided the labor among themselves. Jewish literature is indebted for the possession of this most valuable work of Maimuni to the zeal of the Roman congregation, of Ben Adret, and these translators.
The Roman community was roused from its peaceful occupations and undisturbed quiet by a rough hand, and awakened to the consciousness that it existed under the scourge of priestcraft and the caprice of its rulers.
It is related that a sister of the pope (John XXII), named Sangisa, had repeatedly exhorted her brother to expel the Jews from the holy city of Christendom. Her solicitations had always been fruitless; she therefore instigated several priests to give testimony that the Jews had ridiculed by words and actions a crucifix which was carried through the streets in a procession. The pope thereupon issued the command to banish all the Jews from Roman territory. All that is certain is that the Jews of Rome were in great danger during that year, for they instituted an extraordinary fast, and directed fervent prayers to heaven (21 Sivan–18 June, 1321), nor did they fail to employ worldly means. They sent an astute messenger to Avignon to the papal court and to King Robert of Naples, the patron of the Jews, who happened to be in that city on state affairs. The messenger succeeded, through the mediation of King Robert, in proving the innocence of the Roman Jews in regard to the alleged insulting of the cross and the other transgressions laid to their charge. The twenty thousand ducats, which the Roman community is said to have presented to the sister of the pope, silenced the last objections. The Jews of Rome entered their school of trouble later than the Jews of other countries. For that reason it lasted the longer.
Whilst King Robert was residing in southern France, he seems to have made the acquaintance of a learned, genial Jewish satirist, Kalonymos ben Kalonymos, and to have taken him into his service. This talented man (born 1287, died before 1337) possessed solid knowledge, was familiar with the Arabic language and literature (which was very remarkable in a Provençal), and in his youth (1307–1317) translated medical, astronomical, and philosophical writings from that language into Hebrew. Kalonymos ben Kalonymos was not merely a hewer of wood and drawer of water, an interpreter in the realm of science; he had intellect enough to make independent observations. Disregarding the province of metaphysical speculation, he was more interested in pure ethics, which he especially wished to inculcate in his co-religionists, "because neglect and ignorance of it leads men to all kinds of perversities and mutual harm." He did not treat the subject in a dry, uninteresting style, but sought to clothe it in attractive garments. With this end in view, Kalonymos adapted a part of the Arabic encyclopedia of science (which was in circulation under the name of "Treatises of the Righteous Brethren") for a dialogue between man and beasts, giving the theme a Jewish coloring.
In another work, "Touchstone" (composed at the end of 1322), Kalonymos ben Kalonymos held up a mirror for his Jewish contemporaries, in which they could recognize their perversities, follies, and sins. To avoid giving himself the appearance of an irreproachable censor of morals, he enumerated his own sins, more in satire than as a confession. Kalonymos whimsically satirized even Judaism. He wished he had been born a woman, for then he would not have had to bear the burden of six hundred and thirteen religious laws, besides so many Talmudical restrictions and rigorous ordinances, which could not possibly be fulfilled, even when a man tried with the most exacting conscientiousness. As a woman, he would not have to trouble himself with so much reading, to study the Bible, the Talmud, and the subjects belonging to it, nor torment himself with logic, mathematics, physics, astronomy, and philosophy. By and by Kalonymos' satire grew deeply serious. The degradation of his Jewish co-religionists, and the bloody persecutions occasioned by the Shepherds and the lepers, dispelled his mocking humor, and satire was changed into lamentation. In Rome, which King Robert assigned to him as a place of residence, Kalonymos, having been furnished with letters of recommendation, obtained entry into a joyous, vivacious, imaginative circle of men, by whom he was stimulated to write a peculiar parody. He composed a treatise for the Jewish carnival (Purim), in which he imitated the tenor and spirit of the Talmud, its method, controversies, and digressions, with considerable wit. It is a fine parody, exciting laughter at every step, and one can not tell whether it was intended as a harmless carnival joke or as a satire on the Talmud. Kalonymos occupied a position of importance in the Roman congregation. Handsome in form, of abundant accomplishments, solid character, all his excellencies enhanced by the good opinion of King Robert of Naples, he was everyone's favorite. The Italian Jews were proud of him. But Kalonymos was not a true poet, still less an artist.
Much more gifted, profound, and imaginative was his older friend and admirer, Immanuel ben Solomon Romi (born about 1265, died about 1330). He was an anomaly in the Jewish society of the Middle Ages. He belonged to that species of authors whose writings are all the more attractive because not very decent. Of overflowing wit, extravagant humor, and caustic satire, he is always able to enchain his readers, and continually to provoke their merriment. Immanuel may be called the Heine of the Jewish Middle Ages. Immanuel had an inexhaustible, ready supply of brilliant ideas. And all this in the holy language of the Prophets and Psalmists. Granted that the neo-Hebrew poets and thinkers, the grammarians and Talmudists, had lent flexibility to the language, but none of Immanuel's predecessors had his power of striking from it showers of sparkling wit. But if, on the one side, he developed the Hebrew language almost into a vehicle for brilliant repartee, on the other side, he robbed it of its sacred character. Immanuel transformed the chaste, closely-veiled maiden muse of Hebrew poetry into a lightly-clad dancer, who attracts the attention of passers-by. He allows his muse to deal with the most frivolous and indelicate topics without the slightest concealment or shame. His collection of songs and novels tends to exert a very pernicious and poisonous effect upon hot-blooded youth. But Immanuel was not the hardened sinner, as he describes himself, who thought of nothing but to carry on amours, seduce the fair, and deride the ugly. He sinned only with the tongue and the pen, scarcely with the heart and the senses.
Though he often indulges in unmeasured self-laudation, this simple description of his moral conduct must still be credited: "I never bear my enemies malice, I remain steadfast and true to my friends, cherish gratitude towards my benefactors, have a sympathetic heart, am not ostentatious with my knowledge, and absorb myself in science and poetry, whilst my companions riot in sensual enjoyments." Immanuel belonged to those who are dominated by their wit, and cannot refrain from telling some pointed witticism, even if their dearest friends are its victims, and the holiest things are dragged in the mire by it. He allowed himself to be influenced by the vivacity of the Italians and the Europeanized Jews, and put no curb upon his tongue. What is remarkable in this satirist is that his life, his position, and occupation seem to have been in contradiction with his poetical craft. In the Roman community he filled an honorable position, was something like a president, at all events a man of distinction. He appears to have belonged to the medical profession, although he made sport of the quackery of physicians. In short, he led the domestic life of his time, a life permeated by morality and religion, giving no opportunity for excess. But his honorable life did not prevent him from singing riotous songs, and from writing as though he were unconscious of the seriousness of religion, of responsibility and learning. Immanuel was acquainted, if not on intimate terms, with the greatest poet of the Middle Ages, the first to open the gates of a new epoch, and to prognosticate the unity of Italy in poetic phrase. Probably they came to know each other on one of Dante's frequent visits to Rome, either as ambassador or exile. Although their poetic styles are as opposite as the poles—Dante's ethereal, grave, and elevated; Immanuel's forcible, gay, and light—they, nevertheless, have some points of contact. Each had absorbed the culture of the past; Dante the catholic, scholastic, and romantic elements; Immanuel the biblical, Talmudical, Maimunist, philosophical, and neo-Hebraic products. Both elaborated this many-hued material, and molded it into a new kind of poetry. The Italians at that time were full of the impulse of life, and Immanuel's muse is inspired by the witchery of spring. He wrote ably in Italian, too, of which a beautiful poem, still extant, gives evidence. Immanuel was the first to adapt Italian numbers to the neo-Hebraic lyre. He introduced the rhyme in alternate lines (Terza rima in sonnet form), by which he produced a musical cadence. His poems are not equally successful. They are wanting not in imagination, but in tenderness and grace. His power lies in poetical prose (Meliza), where he can indulge in free and witty allusions. In this style he composed a host of short novels, riddles, letters, panegyrics, and epithalamia, which, by clever turns and comic situations, extort laughter from the most serious-minded readers.
In one of his novels he introduces a quarrelsome grammarian of the Hebrew language, a verbal critic who takes the field in grammatical campaigns, and is accompanied by a marvelously beautiful woman. Immanuel enters into a hair-splitting disputation that he may have the opportunity of coquetting with the lovely lady. He suffers defeat in grammar, but makes a conquest in love. Immanuel's description of hell and paradise, in which he imitated his friend Dante, is full of fine satire. Whilst the Christian romantic poet shows gravity and elevation in his poetical creation, represents sinners and criminals, political opponents and enemies of Italy, cardinals and popes, as being tortured in hell, metes out, as it were, the severe sentences of judgment day; his Jewish friend, Immanuel, invents scenes in heaven and hell for the purpose of giving play to his humorous fancy. Dante wrote a divine, Immanuel a human, comedy. He introduces his pilgrimage to heaven and hell by relating that he once felt greatly oppressed by the burden of his sins, and experienced compunction; at this juncture his young friend Daniel, by whose untimely death he had lately been deeply affected, appeared to him, and offered to guide him through the dismal portals of hell and the elysian fields of the blessed. In the chambers of hell Immanuel observes all the wicked and godless of the Bible. Aristotle, too, is there, "because he taught the eternity of the world," and Plato, "because he asserted the reality of species" (Realism). Most of all he scourges his contemporaries in this poem. He inflicts the torment of the damned upon the deriders of science; upon a Talmudist who secretly led a most immoral life; upon men who committed intellectual thefts, and upon those who sought to usurp all the honors of the synagogue, the one to have his seat by the Ark of the Covenant, the other to read the prayers on the Day of Atonement. Quack doctors are also precipitated into hell, because they take advantage of the stupidity and credulity of the multitude, and bring trusting patients to a premature grave. His young, beatified guide goes with him through the gates of Paradise. How the departed spirits rejoice at the poet's approach! They call out, "Now is the time to laugh, for Immanuel has arrived." In the description of paradise and its inhabitants, Immanuel affects to treat his theme very seriously; but he titters softly within the very gates of heaven. Of course, he notices the holy men, the patriarchs, the pious kings and heroes of the Jewish past, the prophets and the great teachers, the poets, Jehuda Halevi and Charisi, the Jewish philosopher Maimuni. But next to King David, who fingers the harp and sings psalms, he observes the harlot Rahab who concealed the spies in Jericho, and Tamar who sat at the cross-roads waiting. Dante excludes the heathen world from paradise, because it did not acknowledge Christ, and had no share in the grace of salvation. Immanuel sees a troop of the blessed, whom he does not recognize, and asks their leader who they are. "These are," answers the latter, "righteous and moral heathens, who attained the height of wisdom, and recognized the only God as the creator of the world and the bestower of grace." The pious authors, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Ezekiel, on seeing Immanuel, darted forward to meet him; each one thanks him for having expounded his writings so well, and here older and contemporary exegetists come in for their share of Immanuel's sly satire.