How, indeed, could a sober, critical method of inquiry have found favor in an age when the mystic, dazing Kabbala was the first authority, bidding men esteem blind credulity as the highest virtue, and exciting visionary enthusiasm to the highest pitch of fanatical intoxication? The visions of Solomon Molcho and Joseph Karo and their fond enthusiasm about the Messiah were sober compared with the excitement which reigned after their death, and celebrated a veritable witches' Sabbath. During the last three decades of the sixteenth century the Kabbala gained sole mastery in Palestine, conjured up apparitions, and encouraged orgies of mysticism. It spread thence over the whole of Turkey, Poland, Germany, and Italy, darkening and confusing men's minds, having an evil influence even upon their hearts, allowing no healthy thought to appear, or branding such thought as heretical and sinful. Once again, as in the early days of Christianity, Galilee, especially the district of Safet, became the scene of a host of evil spirits, of people possessed with devils, which challenged mystic exorcism, and revealed profound mysteries; and it is impossible to say whether the possessed appeared in consequence of the exorcisers, or the latter of the former. It was a period of Kabbalistic mania, coincident with profligacy and moral degradation, and its victims despised not only the sciences, but even the Talmud with its exhortations to sobriety. Then for the first time the Jewish world entered on a "dark age" of its own, with all the appropriate credulity, while only the last traces of such darkness were visible in Europe generally. This tendency was exaggerated by two men, who by their fanaticism and visionary extravagance infected a continually widening circle. These were Isaac Lurya and his disciple Chayim Vital Calabrese.
Isaac Lurya Levi (born in Jerusalem in 1534, and died 1572) was descended from a German family. Left an orphan at an early age by the death of his father, young Isaac came to Egypt, to the house of a rich uncle, Mardochaï Francis, a tax-farmer, and began to study the Talmud. The dry study of the Talmud, which filled the mind with voluminous learning, unfruitful hairsplitting, and mere formulas, yet failed to satisfy the wants of the heart, seems to have become repugnant to Lurya, and to have driven him to fantastic mysticism. He preferred the awful loneliness of the Nile country to the noise of the school; abstraction in worlds of mysticism and devout praying to working out intellectual problems. He was greatly attracted by the Zohar, which had then been printed for the first time, and, widely spread abroad, had become accessible to everybody. The more familiar he became with the Kabbala through his absorption in the sounding emptiness of the Zohar, the more did he seek solitude, and the less intercourse had he with men. He even neglected his young wife, only visited his house from Sabbath to Sabbath, and spoke little, that little being only in Hebrew. Lurya is said to have spent several years in solitude in this manner, and the result was that like all whose reason is weaker than their imagination, he became a confirmed visionary. The mystic book, the Zohar, his constant companion in this seclusion, aided in exciting his imagination. Firmly convinced of its authenticity as the work of Simon bar Yochaï, and also of the divine character of all the fantasies and follies therein revealed, Lurya persisted in seeing in it high allusions and profound wisdom. In his heated imagination he even saw Elijah, the teacher of mysteries, face to face.
But what did the prophet Elijah, or the Zohar, or rather his own heated imagination, reveal to him? First he took the trouble to put system, unity, and logical order into the confusion and intricacies of the Zohar, as if connected thought could be expected in the idle chatter of a half imbecile. The hermit of Cairo sought to deduce from it how God had created and ordered the world by means of the mystic numbers (Sefiroth), or how the Godhead revealed itself in the forms of substances, or how it concentrated itself within itself in order to project the finite nature of created things from its own infinitude. Thus he evolved an extraordinarily complicated system of powers and opposing powers, forces and counterforces, forms and degrees (Parsophin), in the four spheres of Separation, Creation, Formation, and Transformation; and he clothed these empty abstractions with such wondrous names, that he afterwards complained, with reason, that no one could understand his mystic system. Yet Lurya looked upon this intricate and complex theory of the creation as only a kind of introduction to what seemed to him a much more important and practical part of the Kabbala, whereby the divine order of the world (Olam ha-Tikkun) could be brought about. This practical Kabbala of Lurya rests upon a not less marvelous doctrine of souls, also based upon the visions of the Zohar.
Our souls, he says, reflect the close connection between the finite and the infinite, and, therefore, have a manifold character. The whole of the soul material to appear in temporal life was created with Adam, but each soul, according to its higher or lower degree, was fashioned in, from, or with the first man, out of high or low organs and forms. Accordingly, there are souls of the brain, the eyes, the hands, and the feet. Each of these must be regarded as an effluence, or spark (Nizuz), from Adam. By the first sin of the first man—for the Kabbala finds original sin necessary for its fanciful creations—the higher and the lower, the superior and the inferior souls, good and evil, became confused and mingled together. Even the purest beings thereby received an admixture of evil and the devilish element of the "husk" (Kelifa). But the moral order of the world, or the purification of the first man, cannot be brought about till the consequences of original sin, the confusion of good and evil, are obliterated and removed. From the most evil part of the soul material emanates the heathen world; the people of Israel, on the other hand, come from the good part. But the former are not quite without an admixture of the original good, while the latter are not free from an admixture of the corrupt and demoniac. This imperfection gives the continual impulse towards sin, and hinders the chosen fragment of the human race from following the law of God, the Torah. The Messianic period will put an end to the disturbance of divine order arising from the first sin, or abolish the disorder which has since crept in, and will introduce, or see introduced, the divinity of the world. Therefore, a complete separation of good from evil must take place, and this can only happen through Israel, if it or each of its members will lose or cast away the admixture of evil. For this purpose, men's souls (especially those of the Israelites) have to wander through the bodies of men and animals, even through rivers, wood, and stones. The doctrine of the transmigration of souls forms the center and basis of Lurya's Kabbala, but he has a peculiar development of the idea. According to this theory even the souls of the pious must suffer transmigration, since not even they are free from the taint of evil; there is none righteous upon earth, who does only good, and sins not. In this way, Lurya solved the difficulty, which former Kabbalist writers could not overcome.
But this separation of the good and evil elements in the world's soul material, the expiation and obliteration of original sin, or the restoration of the divine order in Adam, would require a long series of ages, owing to the impulse towards sin continually present. There are, however, means of hastening this process, and this was the really original doctrine that Lurya enunciated. Besides the transmigration of our souls, sinful and subject to demoniac forces as they are, there is another mode of expiation, the elevation or impregnation of the soul (Ibbur, superfœtatio). If a purified soul has neglected various religious duties here on earth, or has had no opportunity of fulfilling them, it must return to the earthly life, attach itself to the soul of a living human being, and unite and coalesce with it in order to retrieve this neglect. Or again, the departed spirits of men freed from sin appear again on earth to support the weak and wavering souls which cannot attain to good by their own efforts, strengthen them and lead them to the final goal. These pure spirits combine with weaker souls still struggling, and form a union with them, provided that they have some affinity with one another, i. e., if they originate from the same spark or organ of Adam, since as a rule only similar (homogeneous) souls attract each other, while on the other hand dissimilar (heterogeneous) souls repel each other. According to this theory the banishment and dispersion of Israel have for their purpose the salvation of the world or of men's souls. The purified spirits of pious Israelites unite with the souls of men of other nationalities in order to free them from the demoniacal impurities that possess them.
Isaac Lurya imagined a complete system of the transmigration and combination of souls. It also seemed to him important to know the sex of a soul, for feminine souls are found in masculine bodies, and vice versâ, according to the transmigration and attraction in each case. It is especially important in contracting a marriage to know whether the souls of man and wife harmonize with each other in respect of origin and degree. By means of this secret the visionary of Cairo expected to solve the other mystery, namely, how good spirits may be conjured down from heaven, and in a measure compelled to enter the bodies of living men, and thus made to divulge revelations of the world beyond. Hereby he believed that he held the key to the kingdom of the Messiah and the regeneration of the world. Lurya also believed that he possessed the soul of the Messiah of the branch of Joseph, and that he had a Messianic mission. He saw spirits everywhere, and heard their whispers in the rushing of the waters, the movements of the trees and grass, in the song or twittering of birds, even in the flickering of flames. He saw how at death the souls were set free from the body, how they hovered in the air, or rose out of their graves. He held intimate intercourse with the saints of the Bible, the Talmud, and with the rabbis, in particular with Simon bar Yochaï. In short, Lurya was a ghost-seer and raiser of the dead, a second Abraham Abulafia, or Solomon Molcho, arousing hopes of the coming of the Messiah by Kabbalistic jugglery, but with all this fanaticism he was sober and sophistical. He introduced the casuistry of the Talmud into the Kabbala.
In Egypt, Isaac Lurya found little or no favor with his labyrinth of higher worlds and his theories of creation and redemption. To realize his scheme of redemption he migrated with his wife and child to Safet, the Jerusalem of mysticism, where the mystic doctrine flourished, and the Zohar, the spurious work of Moses de Leon, was exalted to the same level as the Law of Moses ben Amram. Almost the whole college of rabbis and the chief leaders of Safet were Kabbalists. This place was at the time a flourishing city inhabited only by Jews. The members of the community knew little of oppression or the cares of life, and so the Kabbalists could spin mystical theories to their hearts' content. They felt as safe under the favor that the Jewish Duke of Naxos found with the sultan, as if in a state of their own, politically independent. The Kabbalists had gone so far in their imitation of Catholicism that they had adopted auricular confession and the adoration of martyrs. And this was the stage on which Lurya, the creator of the new Kabbala, was to originate new aberrations.
At first (about 1569), he appears to have received little attention in the city of Kabbalists. Only through his acquaintance and connection with a still greater visionary, perhaps not quite so honest as himself, did he become a person of consequence, and infect everyone with his waking dreams. This man was the Italian Chayim Vital Calabrese (born 1543, died 1620), whose father, a copyist of the scrolls of the Law, had traveled to Palestine from Italy. Vital had learned nothing thoroughly in his younger days; he had only gained a smattering of the Talmud and mystic lore. He possessed a wild, extravagant imagination, and a decided inclination for adventure and sensation. For two years and a half Vital had occupied his time with alchemy and the art of making gold. From this mystic art he turned to Lurya's Kabbala. It is not known which of these two men first sought the other, but it is certain that each, without wishing it, deceived the other. Together they visited desolate places and graves, particularly the grave of Simon bar Yochaï, the feigned author of the Zohar, in Meïron. This was Lurya's favorite spot, because there he fancied he could draw down upon himself the spirit of this supposed chief of the mystics. Now and again Lurya sent forth his disciple to conjure up spirits, and for this purpose delivered to him certain formulas made up of the transposed letters of the name of the Deity. Of course, evil spirits fled before Vital's gaze, whilst good spirits attached themselves to him, and communicated their secrets.
It was Vital who spread sensational reports concerning the extraordinary, almost divine gifts of his master, and of his power over departed and living souls; doing so, it appears, with an artful calculation of effect and publicity. Lurya, once so isolated, now found himself surrounded by crowds of visitors; Kabbalists, young and old, came to listen to the new revelation. Several disciples attached themselves to him, and he communicated to them his confused thoughts, assigned to each the original Adamite soul that dwelt in him, the transmigrations which it had undergone before its present corporeal existence, and its functions on earth. It never occurred to these people, already enmeshed in the Kabbalistic net, to doubt the truth of these communications. The disciples that gathered round him Lurya formed into two classes: the "initiated" and the "novices."
Mystical conversations and notes, the interviewing and summoning of spirits, formed the occupation of Lurya and his followers. In short, Lurya was on the eve of founding a new Jewish sect. On the Sabbath he dressed in white, and wore a fourfold garment to symbolize the four letters of the name of God. The underlying fact of all his revelations and exertions was that he was the Messiah of the race of Joseph, the forerunner of the Messiah of David's line. This, however, he only furtively hinted to his disciples. His delusion was that the Messianic period would commence at the beginning of the second half of the second period of a thousand years since the destruction of the Temple, i. e., in 1568.
The sudden death of the mystic, at the age of thirty-eight, conduced still more to his glorification. Death is wont to transfigure natures like his, and veneration for them increases as years roll on. With Eastern exaggeration, his disciples regarded him as even more than a worker of wonders; they called him the "Holy and Divine," and sought, for their own glory, to win adherents for him and his visionary extravagances. They declared that, if Lurya could only have lived five years longer, he would have improved the world so effectually, that the Messianic period would certainly have begun. Abraham Abulafia, who had evolved a Kabbalistic medley from his own consciousness, was declared a heretic, and persecuted. Isaac Lurya, who had done the same thing with the Zohar as a foundation, was almost deified.
After Lurya's death, Vital Calabrese came to the fore. He immediately usurped a kind of authority over his fellow-disciples, pretended that Lurya on his deathbed had appointed him his successor, and, in feigned obedience to a dying request of his master, took away from them the written notes given them by Lurya. Vital let it be understood that he was the Messiah of the race of Joseph. However, some disciples did not pay any attention to this, and forthwith taught in various countries what they had received from Lurya himself. This was especially done by Israel Saruk in Italy, whither he had traveled.
The harm that the Kabbalistic doctrines of Lurya caused in Jewish circles is inexpressible. Judaism became surrounded with so thick a husk of mysticism, that it has not even yet succeeded in entirely freeing itself, and showing its true kernel. Through Lurya's influence there was formed, side by side with the Judaism of the Talmud and the rabbis, a Judaism of the Zohar and the Kabbala. For it was due to him that the spurious Zohar was placed upon a level with, indeed higher than, the Holy Scriptures and the Talmud.
The mysticism of Lurya laid stress upon an idea which has been strangely neglected in Jewish circles, viz., devotion in prayer, but even this devotion degenerated into Kabbalistic trifling. Every word and every syllable of the ordained prayers was to be meditated on devoutly, so that one might reflect upon the worlds of the Sefiroth, the number of the names of God hidden therein, and many other things. Lurya's Kabbala certainly inculcated the preservation of an unruffled disposition, and interdicted dejection, or outbreaks of anger and ill-humor. But this serenity, from its mystical setting, received a touch of constraint and unpleasantness, like the laughter of a madman. The Sabbath, with its prayers and meals, forms the central point of Lurya's mystic teaching. He looked upon it as the visible representation of the world of the Sefiroth, as the embodiment of the Divinity (Shechinah) in temporal life, and all actions done or left undone on that day had an influence upon the higher world. Lurya's followers welcomed the Sabbath, "the mystic bride," with chanting, and for this purpose Lurya composed Chaldaic songs full of obscure and meaningless formulas. His Kabbala also introduced a second Day of Atonement. The "Day of Hosannas," the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles, was formerly observed as a day of festivity. Even Joseph Karo did not venture in his code to attribute a higher, mystical, religious function to this day. Lurya's school first raised it, on the authority of the Zohar, to the rank of a minor day of expiation, introduced the practice of holding a mystic vigil the previous night, and perceived in every leaf of the willow branches, and in the seven-fold processions round the scrolls of the Law, a higher, mystical meaning. In relation to morality, too, the mysticism of Lurya had a corrupting influence. It demanded a "harmony of souls" as a condition of marriage, and, therefore, whenever disagreement showed itself in married life, it was said that the marriage was not a union foreordained by the harmony of the Sefiroth. Kabbalists, therefore, separated from their wives in consequence of the smallest dissension in married life, to seek out the harmonious soul predestined for them. Thus divorce became frequent in Kabbalistic circles. Kabbalists often left their wives and children in the West, and, migrating to the East, contracted a new marriage, or several new marriages, and the children of the different marriages knew nothing of one another.
These corrupting mystic doctrines did not remain a dead letter, but were forthwith put into practice by their adherents. Thus, the brilliance shed by the Jewish Duke of Naxos and other influential Jews at the Turkish court over their fellow-believers in the East, came to resemble the light of the will-o'-the-wisps that make the waters of a stagnant marsh gleam with a flickering light. The religious stagnation at the time was glaring indeed; there was a complete relapse into heathenism; and what was worse, there sounded no warning voice which recognized the mischief, or stigmatized, though ever so feebly, the corruption as it really was. Perhaps the feeling of complete security in which the Jews in Turkey reposed under mighty protectors of their own race had encouraged this religious disorder. In any case, it did not decrease as this protection gradually disappeared, when the influence of Joseph of Naxos ceased on the death of Sultan Selim in 1574. His successor, Sultan Murad III (1574–1595), left the Jewish duke in possession of his rank and offices according to his father's dying request. But he no longer had direct influence over the divan; he was supplanted by his adversary, the grand vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, and his rival, Solomon Ashkenazi, and could accomplish nothing without intrigues through the agency of the harem. Joseph Nassi did not long survive his partial disgrace; he died of calculus, on August 2d, 1579, sincerely lamented by the Jews. His accumulated treasures melted away even as his ambitious designs. The avaricious sultan, Murad, who slept upon heaps of gold in order that they might not be stolen from him, by the advice of Mahomet Sokolli confiscated all his property, ostensibly to cover his debts. The widowed duchess, Reyna Nassi, with difficulty retained her dowry of 90,000 ducats out of her husband's estate. This noble woman, although she certainly did not possess the spirit either of her mother, Donna Gracia, or of her husband, determined like these to spend her wealth in the interests of Jewish knowledge. She set up a Hebrew printing press in her palace of Belvedere, and afterwards in a village called Kuru-Gismu, on the European side near Constantinople. But she was misled by Joseph Askaloni, a business manager devoid of all taste, to whom she had intrusted the direction of her press, so that only writings of no importance, which had far better have remained in obscurity, were published in her establishment (1579–1598). And so this noble family of two men and two women, renowned in their own time, left no worthy or lasting memorial; and their deeds, prompted by the noblest intentions, have perished in the stream of the ages.
Duke Joseph having disappeared from the scene, the prestige of the Hebrew statesman, Solomon Ashkenazi, the peacemaker between Turkey and Venice, increased. But, much as he was able to accomplish by means of his diplomatic arts, he did not, like Joseph of Naxos, stand in the forefront of events as a Turkish dignitary, but rather remained in the background as a wise and silent mediator. Solomon Ashkenazi had no access to the sultan himself, but only held secret intercourse with the successive grand vizirs, whose right hand man he was. The negotiations between Turkey and Spain to procure a peace, or at least a modus vivendi, desired as it was by both sides, owing to pride on both sides, were delayed, broken off, and renewed. These diplomatic discussions were conducted by Solomon, who possessed greater qualifications for that purpose than anyone else, and the matters in dispute were partially brought to a conclusion by him. He was particularly careful to maintain a good understanding between the Porte and Venice, and was on this account rewarded by the doge, his sons being allowed to live in Venice at the expense of the state.
Also Jewish women of wisdom and good sense, having skill in medicine, gained great influence by means of the harem under the sultans Murad III, Mahomet IV, and Achmed I. Among these women, Esther Kiera, widow of one Elias Chendali, specially distinguished herself. She was a great favorite with the sultana Baffa, herself the favorite wife of Murad, who influenced politics under her husband and afterwards during the reign of her son. If a Christian state wished to gain any object at the Porte, it had first to win over the Jewish go-between, Kiera. The Venetians particularly knew how to turn this fact to account. All ambitious persons who aimed at attaining high office paid respect to Kiera, and addressed her with flattery. Naturally, she enriched herself by her secret power, as did everyone in Turkey who, however strong or weak he might be, formed one of the spokes in the wheel of the state. She showed great interest in her race, supported the poor and suffering, fed the hungry, and comforted the sorrowful. Jewish science was helped by her generous hand. Zacuto's history, as mentioned before, was published at her expense. Naturally her position excited envy. Esther Kiera imprudently allowed herself to be implicated in the appointment of cavalry officers, first promising one man a high post and then bestowing it on another. The Turkish Spahis, the proudest class of soldiers, took this treatment very ill, plotted together, and demanded her head. The deputy grand vizir Chalil wished to save her and her sons, and allowed them to take refuge in his palace. But on the very steps Esther Kiera and her three sons were seized by the Spahis, torn to pieces, and their limbs hung upon the doors of the favored magnates who had received their posts through her influence.
Under Sultan Achmed I, another Hebrew woman, the widow of the statesman Solomon Ashkenazi, gained great consideration. She was so fortunate as to cure the young sultan of the smallpox, which shortly after his accession threatened his life, and for which the Turkish physicians knew no remedy. She was richly rewarded for nursing him back to health. But such signs of favor towards Jews became continually rarer in Turkey, and at last ceased altogether, as the empire sank into enervation, and each sultan became a Sardanapalus; while the harem, on the one hand, and the Spahis and Janissaries, on the other, held the reins of power. The glory of the Turkish Jews was extinguished like a meteor, and plunged into utter darkness, from time to time illuminated by fanciful visions. Extortion, robbery, and open deeds of violence, on the part of the pashas towards Jews, began to occur daily, since they were now deprived of a powerful protector at the Sultan's side. The center of Judaism was shifted to another stage.
Condition of Poland—Favorable Situation of the Jews in that Country—Anti-Jewish Party in Poland—The Jewish Communities—Judaizing Poles—Studies of the Jews—The Talmud in Poland—Solomon Lurya—Moses Isserles—The Historian, David Gans—"Zemach David"—Supremacy of the Polish Authorities in Rabbinical Matters—The Jewish Seminaries in Poland—The Disputations at the Fairs—Chiddushim and Chillukim—Stephen Bathori—His Kindness towards his Jewish Subjects—Sigismund III—Restriction on the Erection of Synagogues—Jewish Synods—Vaad Arba Arazoth—Mordecai Jafa—Christian Sects in Poland—The Socinians or Unitarians—Simon Budny—The Reformers and the Jews—Isaac Troki—"The Strengthening of Faith."
1566–1600 C.E.
Poland, which in this century had become a great power by reason of its union with Lithuania under the sons of Casimir IV, like Turkey, was the refuge of the outlawed or persecuted. Canonical Christianity, with its love of persecution, had not yet struck firm roots there; and monarchical despotism, encouraged by priests in its obstinate determination to realize all its ends regardless of consequences, could not prevail against the independent spirit of the Polish nobility. The Starosts ruled unchecked in their provinces, like the English and Scottish lords and clans, and could ward off the encroachments of royalty. The reformed faith, that is to say Calvin's teaching, was readily received by the nobility and the middle classes. Poland, therefore, in this century, too, was a second Babylonia for the Jews, in which on the whole they were protected from bloody persecutions, where some of them could attain to respectable positions, and where they were allowed to develop their individuality without restraint. When the Jews were expelled from Bohemia, and turned their steps to Poland, they were kindly received. Indeed, so highly appreciated were they, that it was thought that the people could not do without them. When, attracted by the favored position of their brethren in Turkey, many prepared to migrate thither, the king made every exertion to retain them in his land either by persuasion or compulsion. It mattered very little what were the king's relations to them; for whether he was kindly or evilly disposed, the nobles protected those who dwelt on their estates from all attacks, in as far as their own interests were not injured thereby. Under some kings, the Jews received favors, under others, suffered restrictions, according as hostile or friendly influences preponderated.
But there was a party in Poland hostile to the Jews. It regarded with dissatisfied eyes their more favored position in that country as compared with the rest of Christendom, and endeavored to abrogate the statute of Casimir IV, still in force, giving protection against unduly severe persecution. It consisted, on the one hand, of the Catholic clergy which regretted the absence in the Polish legislation of canonical restrictions regarding Jews; on the other, of the German merchant and artisan class which feared Jewish competition.
There exists no estimate of the number of Jews in Poland at this time. It is said that there were 200,000 adults. The community at Posen numbered 3,000 members, and there were about as many in Cracow, or rather in the suburb Kazimierz, to which they had on a former occasion been banished. The third community in point of size was at Lublin. The Jews had many taxes to pay under different heads. For this purpose, indeed, they were received, and on this account tolerated in the country, and protected by the kings and the nobility, being almost the only ones in that impecunious land who possessed money. For this reason, also, the kings encouraged their commercial enterprises. When Sigismund Augustus, soon after his accession, negotiated for a prolongation of the peace with the Russian Czar, Ivan IV, called "the Terrible," he inserted the condition that the Jews of Lithuania be allowed, as formerly, to freely carry on trade with Russia. But Ivan absolutely refused this condition; he did not wish to see any Jews in his realm. "We do not want these men," he said, "who have brought us poison for our bodies and souls; they have sold deadly herbs among us, and blasphemed our Lord and Saviour." A Judaizing sect had been founded some seventy years before by a Jew called Zacharias, to which sect even some of the priests, and a metropolitan named Zosina belonged. This proselytizing sect continued to exist till the beginning of the sixteenth century, but its adherents were severely persecuted when discovered. On this account Jews were not allowed in Russia.
In consequence of the Reformation, which had made its way into Poland, a purer taste and a love of science and literature had developed there. Polish nobles fond of traveling brought back from Germany an interest in these matters, and sent their sons to study at the reformed universities of Wittenberg and Geneva. Schools arose in Poland where Jewish boys and youths were instructed together with Christians. The Polish Jews, it is true, did not devote themselves to science to a marked degree, but they were by no means so devoid of it as their German brethren.
Aristotle, that philosophical authority so familiar to the Hebrew world and so closely akin to the Hebrew spirit, found admirers also among Polish Jews. Even Maimuni's philosophic and religious writings found a few readers. Astronomy and medicine, two favorite sciences of the Jews from time immemorial, were studied also by Polish Jews. Generally speaking, they did not share the intellectual degradation of the Jewish inhabitants of Germany. Among them the study of the Talmud received an impetus greater almost than in France in the times of the Tossafist schools. Of all the Jews in Europe and Asia those in Poland were the last to become familiar with the Talmud; as though desirous of making up for lost time, they cherished it with extravagant affection. It appeared as if the deep secrets of the Talmud were to be rightly understood and completely unraveled and appreciated only in Poland. Comprehensive erudition and marvelous insight were united in a surprising manner in the Polish students of this book, and everyone whom nature had not deprived of all talent devoted himself to its study. The dead letter received new life from the eager inspiration of the Jewish sons of Poland; in this land it exerted an influence of great force, striking sparks of intellectual fire, and creating a ceaseless flow of thought. The Talmudical schools in Poland henceforward became the most celebrated throughout the whole of European Judaism. All who sought sound learning betook themselves thither. To have been educated in a college of the Polish Jews was of itself a sufficient recommendation; and all who did not possess this advantage were considered inferiors.
The fame of the rabbinical schools of Poland was due to three men: Shalom Shachna, Solomon Lurya, and Moses Isserles. Solomon Lurya (born in Posen about 1510, died about 1573) came from a family of German immigrants. Had he been born in a better, a more intellectual epoch, he would have been one of the makers of Judaism, perhaps another Maimuni. But being the son of an age of decadence, he became only a profound and thorough Talmud scholar, in the higher sense of the word, not remaining satisfied with traditional data, but examining every single point and weighing it in the golden balance of critical exactitude. To the thorough and critical investigation of the great field of the Talmud his whole mental activity was devoted, and he possessed the greatest natural qualifications for such critical work. With his bold spirit of inquiry, ruthlessly subjecting everything to the severest examination, Lurya in any other age would have gone beyond the Talmud, if its contradictions had made themselves glaringly apparent to him. But by this son of an age of faith the whole book was regarded as an actual continuation of the revelation made at Sinai, an unassailable authority, which only needed to be properly understood, or which wanted perhaps a little rectification here and there, but as a whole contained the truth. Lurya was a strongly marked character, having all the acerbity and angularity commonly associated therewith. Injustice, venality, and hypocrisy, were so hateful to him, that he broke out into what was sometimes imprudent excess of zealous indignation. By reason of his distinct individuality and firmness, which he wished to assert everywhere, Solomon Lurya offended and hurt the vanity of not a few. He lashed in bitter terms those Talmudical scholars whose actions did not correspond to their teaching, and devoted themselves to the study of rabbinical literature only for the sake of discussion, or to gain a reputation. Hence he made many enemies, and in his own time was more feared than loved. In polemical discussion he was reckless and unsparing, and very naturally brought upon himself retaliation which only embittered him the more. Then he complained of persecution, and even of the ingratitude of his disciples, who, he said, had turned against him, and looked at everything in a gloomy light. He attacked the students of the Talmud, because, he said, the ignorant were so many and the possessors of knowledge so few, while their arrogance continually increased, and no one was content to take the position that properly belonged to him. No sooner was one of them ordained than he assumed the airs of a master, collected a troop of disciples around him for money, as people of rank hire a body-guard. "There are," he complained, "gray-headed rabbis with very little knowledge of the Talmud, who behave imperiously to congregations and to people of real knowledge, excommunicate and re-admit members, ordain disciples—all for their own selfish purposes." Solomon Lurya extended the sarcastic bitterness of his scorn to German experts in the Talmud, "who, in the case of people of wealth and authority, show indulgence towards the transgression of rabbinical precepts, while they spread evil reports about men of moderate means and strangers who are guilty of slight irregularities, such as going about with uncovered head."
However, things were not so bad in Jewish society as depicted by Lurya's bitter humor; and this is proved in the most conclusive manner by the recognition that this morose faultfinder himself received. Talmudical students, both young and old, even in his lifetime, were full of admiration for his achievements. While still betwixt youth and middle age, he undertook his principal work of elucidating and sifting Talmudic discussions with a view to establishing religious practice, and he continued this work up to the end of his life without completing it. Solomon Lurya performed this task with more thoroughness, clearness, and depth than his contemporaries and predecessors. But if he hoped, as it appears he did, to put an end to all variety and confusion of opinion, he made the same mistake as Maimuni and others. He only contributed to further entanglement of the knot. His numerous other writings bear the same impress of thoroughness and critical insight, but he could not reach the seat of the trouble any more than others who had made the attempt; it lay too deep.
By reason of his critical faculty, Lurya laid stress upon what his Polish and German fellow-students neglected as too trifling—namely, on grammatical correctness and precision in the distinction of the forms of speech. On the other hand, he was a declared enemy of scholastic philosophy. It appeared to him to be dangerous and fatal to faith.
Another leading rabbi in Poland was Moses ben Israel Isserles, of Cracow (born in 1520, died Iyar, 1572). The son of a greatly respected father, who had held the office of president of the community, he distinguished himself more by his precocity and comprehensive learning than by striking mental individuality. Inheriting so much property from his family that he dedicated one of his houses as a synagogue, Isserles was able to follow the bent of his genius with ease and comfort, devote himself to the Talmud, and make himself familiar with its mazes. He soon gained such a reputation that, while still almost a youth, he was nominated rabbi-judge in Cracow. At thirty years of age he had embraced the whole field of Talmudic and rabbinical literature as thoroughly as Joseph Karo, a man double his age.
Isserles also felt the need of collecting and giving finality to the widely scattered materials of rabbinical Judaism. But since Joseph Karo had forestalled him by the compilation of his Code, it only remained for him to rectify it, and comment upon it. For he regretted the omission of several elements in that work, especially the neglect of German rabbinical authorities and customs. This continuation of Karo's Code, or "Table," he called the "Mappa" or "Table-cloth." As the Jews in Germany had always been more scrupulous in their observances than those elsewhere, the additions and supplementations made by Isserles turned out to be burdensome. His decisions immediately received recognition, and to the present day form the religious standard, the official Judaism, of the German and Polish communities and those allied to them. It cannot quite be said that he contributed to its ossification, for he did not invent and introduce these burdens, but only noted and codified them; he followed the universal tendency. If Isserles had not arranged them into a religious code, some one else would have done so.
Isserles had taste also for other subjects besides the Talmud, especially for astronomy. He produced a commentary to Frohbach's astronomical work, "Theorica." He likewise had an inclination for philosophy, and pursued the subject rather deeply, though only through the medium of Hebrew works. Maimuni's "Guide" was his guide, too. On this account he had to submit to a sharp reproof from the proud Solomon Lurya. Isserles also had some taste for history, which led him to induce one of his disciples to occupy himself seriously with it. David Gans (born in Westphalia in 1541, died in Prague in 1613) had come to Cracow when a youth in order to study in the rabbinical academy there; but his natural taste for scientific subjects, history, geography, mathematics, and astronomy, was involuntarily aroused by Isserles, who brought him up, and guided his studies. Gans devoted himself to these subjects, and made the acquaintance of two great leaders in mathematics and astronomy, Kepler and Tycho de Brahe. He wrote several works on these subjects, of course in Hebrew. His chronicle (Zemach David), consisting of annals of Jewish and general history, has become celebrated. It was a very great thing for a German Jew to have devoted himself to studies outside of the ordinary track. But one cannot call David's historical work great. He introduced among Jews the dry, bare form of historical narrative formerly employed by monks, which at that time had already given place to a more artistic method. However, unimportant as David's chronicle is, it possesses some merit, because it reminded those wrapped up in the study of the Talmud that they were the last links of a long historical chain. The want of appreciation of history displayed by German Jews is indicated by the brief inscription placed on Gans' tomb, while there were no limits to the eulogies glorifying the memory of some obscure rabbinical dignitary. The study of the Talmud, prosecuted merely as an effort of memory, won greater fame for its votaries than devotion to any branch of science, however profoundly grasped.
The three great rabbinical lights, first both in rank and in priority of time, Shachna, Solomon Lurya, and Isserles, laid the foundation of the extraordinary erudition of the Polish Jews. Any complicated or generally interesting question, arising in Germany, Moravia, Bohemia, even in Italy and Turkey, was submitted to them, especially to Isserles, for final decision. The revoltingly vulgar actions of the community at Prague, against which the local college of rabbis was powerless, were brought before the rabbis of Poland, and attacked vigorously by them. Passionate disputes in Frankfort-on-the-Main, which threatened to produce persecution or expulsion, were settled, and a reconciliation effected from Poland. Thus this rabbinical triumvirate founded a kind of supremacy of Poland over the Jews of Europe, acknowledged on all sides, and the Polish rabbis maintained their position as leaders up to the end of the eighteenth century.
The triumvirate, whose numerous disciples rivaled each other in the study of the Talmud, gradually caused nearly all Polish Jews to become familiar with that book, and eligible for the rabbinical office. Even in small communities of only fifty members there were at least twenty Talmudical scholars, who in turn instructed at least thirty pupils. Everywhere there arose schools with rabbis at their head as teachers, whose chief duty was to deliver lectures, everything else being of secondary importance. Young men crowded to these establishments, where they could live free from care, their maintenance being defrayed out of the treasury of the community, or by wealthy private individuals. Children were put to the study of the Talmud at a tender age, certainly to the detriment of the natural development of their minds. It was the highest honor to conduct a rabbinical school, and their ambition was encouraged to strive for this object. Supervisors were nominated to watch over the industry of the students (Bachurim) and the children. Gradually a kind of syllabus with alternating themes, in use up to recent times, was introduced for the lectures on the Talmud in the summer and the winter term.
At the end of the term, the teachers and their numerous pupils went to the great Polish fairs, in summer to Zaslaw and Jaroslaw, in winter to Lemberg and Lublin. Thus several thousand students of the Talmud met, and there ensued a lively interchange of remarks and subtle disputations upon the subject-matter of rabbinical and Talmudic study. Public disputations were held, in which anyone might take part. The keener intellects received wealthy brides as a reward for their mental exertions. Rich parents took pride in having sons-in-law educated in Talmudic schools, and sought for them at the fairs. The Polish Jews, by reason of this fervent zeal, acquired a Talmudic deportment, so to speak, which showed itself in every movement and every utterance, by ungraceful shrugging of the shoulders and a peculiar movement of the thumbs. Every conversation, whether of a perfectly indifferent nature or even upon matters of business, resembled a disputation upon the Talmud. Talmudical words, designations, phrases, and allusions, passed into popular speech, and were understood even by women and children.
But this excessive study of the Talmud in Poland was of no real advantage to Judaism. It was not carried on in order to gain a proper understanding of the book, but merely to find something unique, rare, witty, striking, something to tickle the intellectual palate. In these meetings of thousands of students of the Talmud, masters and disciples, teachers and pupils, at the great fairs, every individual exerted himself to discover something new, startling, and casuistical, bringing it forward only to surpass all others, without caring whether it stood the test of proof, or was only relatively true, but merely to gain a reputation for sharp-wittedness. The chief endeavor of the Talmudical students of Poland was directed to bringing to light something new in Talmudic criticism, or in inventing something (Chiddush). The lectures of the heads of schools, and of all rabbis, had only this object in view—to set up something hitherto unsurpassed, to weave a net of sophistical Talmudical propositions, and to go still further in the process of incomprehensible hair-splitting (Chillukim). Hence the whole trend of Jewish thought in Poland was in a wrong direction. The language of the Jews in particular suffered from this cause, degenerating into a ridiculous jargon, a mixture of German, Polish, and Talmudical elements, an unpleasant stammering, rendered still more repulsive by forced attempts at wit. This corrupt speech, despising all forms, could be understood only by Jews, natives of the country. Together with their language the Polish Jews lost that which really constitutes a man, and were thus exposed to the scorn and contempt of non-Jewish society. The Bible had fallen gradually into the background in the course of development since the time of Maimuni; now in Poland knowledge of it was utterly lost. If anyone occupied himself with it, it was merely to derive the materials for wit, or false wit, from its pages.
The circumstances of the time were such that the Jews of Poland were able, to a certain extent, to form an independent state within the Polish state. Several kings in succession were favorable to them, according them extensive protective privileges, and seeing, as far as their power went, that these rights were respected. After the death of the last king of the Jagellon dynasty, Sigismund Augustus (1572), the Jews of Poland profited by the elective monarchy. Each newly-elected king above all needed money, which could be supplied only by Jews; or, he needed a party among the nobles, and this order, in general devoted to the Jews, obtained a preponderating influence as compared with the narrow-minded German middle class, hostile to Jews.
After a thirteen months' interregnum, occupied by election negotiations and intrigues, the sagacious prince of Transylvania, Stephen Bathori, gained the Polish throne, not without the co-operation of the Jewish agent, Solomon Ashkenazi, for Turkey had supported his election. Not long after his accession, he sent kind messages to the Jews, protected those in Lithuania against false and calumnious accusation of the murder of Christian children, and uttered his conviction that the Jews conscientiously obeyed the Hebrew law of not shedding human blood. His reign of nearly twelve years (1575–1586) forms a happy episode in the history of the Jews in Poland. Stephen Bathori, moreover, did not allow the privileges to remain a dead letter, but preserved them in full force. He allowed Jews (in 1576) to carry on all kinds of trade without restriction, even to buy and sell on Christian holidays, desired that the murder of a Jew, like the murder of a Christian, be punished by death, and made the city magistracies responsible for riots and injuries caused by Christian mobs in synagogues, cemeteries, and at Jewish funerals. The promoters of tumultuous attacks upon Jews, which occurred chiefly in the half-German city of Posen, were to be fined ten thousand Polish marks, and the magistrate who had not done his duty in protecting Jews was to be fined a similar sum. Bathori's reign was not, however, free from libelous attacks on the Jews. Where was there at that time in Christian Europe a single country in which the enemies of the Jews did not assail them? A Polish poet, Klonowicz, poured forth his scorn of their trade, usury, and arrogance, in Latin verses; the rulers, he said, robbed the Jews, only to be robbed by them in turn.
In the long reign of Sigismund III (1587–1632), the Swedish prince whose election gave a pretext for internal dissensions and civil wars, the Polish Jews fared better than might have been expected from a pupil of the Jesuits and a zealous Catholic. Although he caused dissenting Poles to be severely persecuted, the Jews under his government were by no means unhappy. At the diet in Warsaw (1592) he confirmed the ancient privileges of Casimir, considered to be in their favor. However, Sigismund III introduced one law, very disadvantageous to Jews, and disclosing the ecclesiastical bent of his mind. He ordained that the permission of the clergy had to be gained to build new synagogues, a regulation which, of course, rendered the practice of the Jewish religion dependent on a church eager for persecution.
Under this king the Jews in Poland introduced (1586–1592) an institution which had not existed in that particular form in Jewish history. It gave the Polish communities extraordinary unity, firmness, and strength, and hence secured respect both from their members and outsiders. Hitherto it had naturally come about that, at the meeting of rabbis and heads of schools with their followers at the great fairs, important questions were discussed, law cases were settled, and general consultations took place. The utility of such meetings may have become clearly apparent, and given rise to the idea of arranging regular conferences of the heads of communities, to draw up final, binding decisions. Both leaders and communities must have been actuated by a healthy spirit in agreeing to common action. The communities of the chief provinces, Little Poland, Greater Poland, and Russia, were the first to unite in instituting conferences (Vaad) at regular intervals, to take place at the great fairs of Lublin and Jaroslaw. The communities sent delegates, learned men of proved excellence, who had a seat and a vote in the synod. They chose a president, who directed the discussion of questions, and drew up a report of the session. Disputes in the communities, questions of taxation, religious and social regulations, the averting of threatened dangers, and help to brethren in distress, were the main points treated by the synods, and settled finally. The synods also exercised a literary censorship by granting permission for certain books to be printed and sold, and refusing it in the case of others which seemed to them harmful. Probably the Lithuanian Jews were represented at a later period, and the synods were called the Synods of the Four Countries (Vaad Arba Arazoth). These conferences had a very beneficial effect: they prevented long-standing dissensions, averted or punished acts of injustice, kept alive a feeling of union amongst the communities, directing them towards common action, thereby counteracting the narrowness and selfishness of merely local interests, which so greatly encouraged the dismemberment and isolation of communities, as, for example, in Germany. On this account the synod of Polish Jews was respected even abroad; and distant German communities or private individuals who had any complaint to make, applied to these supreme assemblies, certain to obtain relief. It is to the glory of the men who, for nearly two hundred years, presided over the synods, that their names, worthy of the remembrance of posterity, remained in obscurity, as though they had consciously suppressed their individuality in favor of the community at large. Still less is known of the originators of this institution, who succeeded in the difficult task of overcoming the anarchic tendency of the people, as Jews and as Poles, and of inducing them to subordinate themselves to one great end. It is conjectured that Mordecai Jafa, a rabbi from Bohemia (born about 1532, died 1612), who made many journeys, and suffered much sorrow, was the organizer of these regular conferences. He had been compelled, in his youth, to assume the wanderer's staff. In this way he came to Venice; here he occupied himself in drawing up a religious code more convenient than that of Joseph Karo. Apparently the search made by the Inquisition for copies of the Talmud rendered his stay in Venice unpleasant, and he again betook himself to Poland. There finally he officiated as a rabbi, first in Grodno, afterwards in Lublin, from about 1575 till the spring of 1592. In Lublin, one of the great fair towns, many thousands of Jews used to meet, and there were always undecided law-suits and disputes to be settled. Mordecai Jafa may very possibly have gained from this the idea of transforming these chance synods into regular conferences and of drawing up rules for them. His authority was sufficient to gain acceptance for his proposals, which satisfied an urgent need. When he left Lublin in his old age to take up the office of rabbi at Prague, the presidency of the synod seems to have been occupied by Joshua Falk Cohen, the head of a school at Lemberg (1592–1616), whose great academy was maintained by his rich and respected father-in-law. The frequent meetings of the Reformers in Poland, the Lutherans and Unitarians, with their respective sects, seem to have served as a model for the Jewish assemblies. Only the latter did not discuss hair-splitting dogmas, like the others, but decided practical questions of daily life.
Poland and Lithuania, superficially considered, presented the spectacle of a land honeycombed with religious divisions, from which a new form of Christianity was to arise. While in Germany the reforming movement and the opposition to it was subsiding, while the Titans who stormed the gates of heaven were settling down into ordinary parsons; while the new church in its turn was entering upon a process of ossification, and, after a short season of youthful ardor, was falling into the feebleness of old age; the waves of religious and sectarian separation were only now rising in Polish countries, and threatening a general inundation. The German colonies in Poland had transplanted the Reformation with them, and the Polish nobility thought it an imperative fashion to pay homage to this anti-papal innovation. Christianity in Poland and Lithuania, be it the new or the old church, was too young to be firmly rooted; and so the Reformation, finding little opposition, gained rapid admittance among the nobles and the bourgeoisie almost to its own discomfiture. Sigismund Augustus had allowed the movement free play; indeed, under the influence of the Radziwills of Lithuania, who stood close to his throne, he almost renounced the papacy altogether. Thus Poland became a free state in the widest sense, and an arena for the new teaching of the Augustine monk of Wittenberg. Even those thinkers or enthusiasts in Italy, Switzerland, or Germany, who wished to push the religious movement, but were persecuted either by the Catholics or the Reformers, found kindly welcome and protection under the Polish nobility, who were quite independent in their own districts.
Thus arose a sect in Poland which, logically developed, might have given a fatal blow to Christianity in general. The ashes of Servetus of Aragon, burned at the stake in Geneva, the author of a treatise, "On the Errors of the Trinity," seem to have been the seed for fresh dissensions in the church. A number of his disciples, Socinus, Blandrata, and Paruta, Italians of bold intellect, who undermined the foundations of Christianity, and were outlawed by Catholics and Reformers alike, passed over the Polish frontier, and were allowed not only to live there free, but also to speak freely. The attacks of the Socinians or Pinczovinians (as this sect, which flourished in Poland, was called) were directed mainly against the Trinity as a form of polytheism. Hence they received the name of Unitarians or anti-Trinitarians. There arose a swarm of sects who met at synodic conventions to find grounds of union, but separated with still further divisions and dissensions.
Among the Unitarians, or disbelievers in the Trinity, were some who partially approached Judaism, rejecting the veneration of Jesus as a divine person. They were scoffed at by their various opponents as "Half-Jews" (semi-judaizantes). To the strictest sect of Unitarians in Poland belonged Simon Budny, of Masovia, a Calvinist priest, who founded a sect of his own, the Budnians. He died after 1584. He possessed more learning than the other founders of sects, and also had a slight knowledge of Hebrew, which he had probably learned from Jews. Simon Budny made himself famous by his simple translation of the Old and the New Testament into Polish (published at Zaslaw, 1572). His intercourse with Jews is shown by his respect for the universally despised Talmud.
Although the movement of religious reform in Poland, in spite of the frequent synods, disputations, and protests, did not penetrate very deep, it was not without effect upon the Jews. They were fond of entering into discussions with the leaders or adherents of the various sects, if not to convert them to Judaism, yet to show their own superiority in biblical knowledge. Conversations upon religion between Jews and "Dissenters" (as all Poles who had seceded from Roman Catholicism were called) were of frequent occurrence. A Unitarian, Martin Czechowic (born about 1530, died 1613), from Greater Poland, a man of confused intellect, who had passed through all the phases of the religious movements of the day, and who finally became a schismatic, rejected the baptism of infants, and maintained that a Christian could not undertake any office of state. This Martin Czechowic had written a work to refute the objections of the Jews to the Messianic claims of Jesus, and had fought against the continued obligatoriness of Judaism with old and rusty weapons. A Rabbanite Jew, Jacob of Belzyce, in Lublin (1581), wrote a refutation, so effective that Czechowic found himself compelled to justify his thesis in a rejoinder.
Isaac ben Abraham Troki, of Troki, near Wilna (born 1533, died 1594), a Karaite, engaged still more actively than Jacob of Belzyce in disputations with the adherents of Polish and Lithuanian sects. He had access to nobles, princes of the church, and other Christian circles, was deeply acquainted with the Bible, well read in the New Testament, and in the different polemical, religious writings of his day, and thus able to produce thoroughly accurate statements. Shortly before his death (1593) Isaac Troki collected the results of his religious conversations in a work that was subsequently to serve as the arsenal for destructive weapons against Christianity. He entitled his work "The Strengthening of Faith." He not merely answered the numerous attacks made upon Judaism by Christians, but carried the war into the camp of Christianity. With great skill and thorough knowledge of his subject, he brought into prominence the contradictions and untenable assertions in the Gospels and other original Christian documents. It is the only book by a Karaite author worth reading. It certainly does not contain anything specially new; all brought forward in defense of Judaism and against Christianity had been far better said by Spanish authors of a previous period, especially by the talented Profiat Duran. Yet Troki's work had more success, for books have a fate of their own. This book was translated into Spanish, Latin, German, and French, and gained still greater fame from the attacks upon it by Christians. One of the dukes of Orleans undertook to refute the onslaught of this Polish Jew upon Christianity. And when Reason, awakened and strengthened, applied the lever to shake the foundations of Christianity and demolish the whole superstructure, it was to this store-chamber that she turned for her implements.
Revival of Catholicism—Decay in European Culture—Ill-treatment of Jews in Berlin—Emperor Rudolph II of Austria—Diminution in the Numbers of Italian Jews—Pope Gregory XIII—Confiscation of Copies of the Talmud—Vigorous Attempts at the Conversion of Jews—Pope Sixtus V—The Jewish Physician, David de Pomis—Renewal of Persecution by Clement VIII—Expulsion from Various Italian States—The Censors and the Talmud—The Jews of Ferrara—Settlement of Jews in Holland—Samuel Pallache—Jacob Tirado and the Marranos in Amsterdam—Tolerant Treatment—The Poet, David Jesurun—Moses Uri—Hebrew Printing in Amsterdam.
1593–1618 C.E.
The free spirit of the nations of Europe, which at the beginning of the century had taken so bold a flight, had broken the ancient bonds in which the church had long held minds captive, and cast the blight of doubt on the hitherto sacred authority of the wearer of the Roman purple—this spirit, which promised to bring the regeneration of civilized humanity and political freedom, seemed in the second half of the century to be utterly cast down. The papacy, or Catholicism, had recovered from its first feeling of terror, and collected itself. Extraordinarily strengthened by the council of Trent, it forged new chains to which the nations that had remained faithful, willingly submitted. The order of the Jesuits, restless and indefatigable champions, who not only disarmed their opponents, but even drew them over to their own ranks, had already reconquered much lost ground by their widespread plots, and had conceived new measures in order to win back with double interest what they had lost. Italy, a great part of southern Germany and the Austrian provinces, France—after long civil wars and convulsions, after the blood-stained eve of St. Bartholomew, and the murder of two kings—as also to a great extent Poland and Lithuania, had once more become Catholic, as fanatically Catholic, too, as Spain and Portugal, the blazing hells of the Inquisition. In Lutheran and reformed Germany another papacy had gained the mastery, a papacy of dry formulas of belief, and slavery to the letter of the law. The Byzantine quarrel about shadowy dogmas and meaningless words divided the evangelical communities into as many sects and subsidiary sects as there were points of discussion, and had a harmful influence upon political development. Classical philology, at first liberalizing and suggestive, was neglected, owing to excessive belief in the Bible by the one party and the sway of authority over the other, and had degenerated into fanciful dilettanteism or learned lumber. The study of the Hebrew language, which for a time had kindled great enthusiasm, was similarly debased, or only carried on superficially for the purposes of ecclesiastical wrangling. The knowledge of Hebrew had always been considered, at any rate was now thought, in orthodox Catholic society, to be actual heresy. And the same was still truer of rabbinical literature. The learned Spanish theologian, Arias Montano, published the first complete polyglot Bible in Antwerp, at the expense of Philip II. He also compiled grammars and dictionaries of the Hebrew and cognate languages, in which regard was had to the older Jewish expositors. He, the favorite of Philip II, who had himself drawn up a list of heretical books, was accused by the Jesuits and the Inquisition of favoring heresy, suspected of secret conversion to Judaism, and stigmatized as a rabbi. Thus, Europe seemed to be actually making a retrograde movement, only with this distinction—what had formerly been cheery, naïve credulity now became sinister, aggressive fanaticism.
Refined ecclesiasticism, resulting in the tension which subsequently relieved itself in the general destructiveness of the Thirty Years' War, made the sojourn of Jews, both in Catholic and Protestant countries, a continual torture. Luther's followers in Germany forgot what Luther had so earnestly uttered in their favor, only remembering the hateful things of which, in his bitterness, he had accused them. The Jews of Berlin and the province of Brandenburg, for instance, had the sad alternative put before them of being baptized or expelled. A Jewish financier, the physician Lippold, favorite of Elector Joachim II, and his right hand in his corrupt, financial schemes, examined and tortured on the rack by Joachim's successor, John George, admitted, though afterwards recanting, that he had poisoned his benefactor. The Jews were driven also out of Brunswick by Duke Henry Julius. Catholic nations and princes had no cause to reproach their Protestant opponents with toleration or humanity in regard to Jews.
It was, in some respects, fortunate for the Jews of Germany and Austria, that the reigning emperor, Rudolph II, although a pupil of the Jesuits, educated in a country where the fires of the stake were always smoking, and a deadly enemy of the Protestants, was not greatly prejudiced against Jews. Weak and vacillating, he was not able to check the persecutions directed against them, but at least he did not encourage them. He issued an edict to one bishop (of Würzburg) that the Jews should not be deprived of their privileges, and to another (of Passau) that they should not be tortured on the rack. But, in order not to be decried by his contemporaries or by posterity as a benefactor of Jews, he not only maintained the heavy taxation of Jews in his crown land, Bohemia, but from time to time increased it. He also ordered the Jews to be expelled from the archduchy of Austria within six months.
In this position, robbed by Catholics and Lutherans alike, trampled down or driven into misery, barely protected by the emperor, but taxed under the pretense of enjoying this protection, the ruin and degradation of German Jews reached ever lower depths. They were so sorely troubled by the cares of the moment, that they neglected the study of the Talmud, once their spiritual food.
The Jews of Italy fared even worse at this time, and they, too, sank into misery and decay. Italy was the principal seat of the malicious and inexorable, ecclesiastical reaction, animated with the thought to annihilate the opponents of Catholicism from the face of the earth. The torch of civil war was hurled from the Vatican into Germany, France, and the Netherlands. And as the Jews, from the time of Paul IV and Pius V, had been upon the list of heretics, or foes of the church, their lot was not to be envied. With the loss of their independence, their numbers also decreased. There were no Jews living in southern Italy. In northern Italy, the largest communities, those of Venice and Rome, numbered only between 1,000 and 2,000 souls; the community in Mantua had only 1,844; and in the whole of the district of Cremona, Lodi, Pavia, Alessandria, and Casalmaggiore, there dwelt only 889 Jews. Pius V, by nature a sinister ecclesiastic delighting in persecution, who treated Jews as the cursed children of Ham, was succeeded by Gregory XIII (1572–1585), who had been skillfully trained to fanaticism by the Jesuits and the Theatine monks. As regards Jews, Gregory was a most consistent follower of the cruelty of his predecessor. In spite of repeated warnings, there were still many Christians in Italy, who, in their blindness, preferred Jewish physicians of proved excellence, such as David de Pomis, or Elias Montalto, to Christian charlatans. Gregory was desirous of prohibiting their employment. He renewed the old canonical law that Christian patients were not to be treated by Jewish physicians; not only visiting Christians who transgressed this command with severe penalties, but also punishing the Jewish physicians if they ventured to prolong the life of a Christian patient, or even alleviate his sufferings. His severity succeeded. Another of Gregory's edicts referred not to one profession, but to the Jewish race in general. He placed them under the Argus eye of the Inquisition. If any of them maintained or taught what was heretical, i.e., obnoxious to the church; if he held intercourse with a heretic or an apostate, helped him or showed him sympathy, he was to be summoned by the Inquisition, and according to its verdict was to be condemned to confiscation of his property, the punishment of the galleys, or even sentenced to death. If, then, a refugee Marrano from Spain or Portugal was caught in Italy, and it was proved that a brother Jew had given him food or shelter, both might expect to be seized by the inexorable arm of the Inquisition of Italy. The anger of Pope Gregory XIII was poured forth also against the Talmud. The Jews were once more admonished to deliver up the Talmud and other works suspected of being hostile to the church. The Inquisitors and other spiritual authorities were appointed to institute search for these books everywhere. Anyone subsequently found in possession of them, even after declaring that the offending passages had been expunged, was rendered liable to severe punishment. Pope Gregory XIII's most zealous effort was directed to the conversion of Jews. This pope, who most heartily encouraged the Jesuits and their proselytizing school of thought, endowed a propagandist seminary of all nations—the curriculum included twenty-five languages—called the "Collegium Germanicum," issued a decree that on Sabbaths and holy days Christian preachers should deliver discourses upon Christian doctrine in the synagogues, if possible in Hebrew, and that Jews of both sexes, over twelve years of age, at least a third of the community, must attend these sermons. The Catholic princes were exhorted to support this vigorous attempt at conversion. Thus an ordinance of a half-mad, schismatic pope, Benedict XIII, issued in a moment of passionate excitement, was sanctioned, and even exaggerated in cold blood by the head of the united Catholic church, thereby exercising religious compulsion not very different from the act of Antiochus Epiphanes in dedicating the Temple of the one true God to Jupiter. It is characteristic of the views then prevailing, that the Jews were to provide salaries for the preachers, in return for the violence done their consciences! Like his predecessor, Pius V, Gregory spared no means to win over the Jews. Many allowed themselves to be converted either from fear or for their advantage; for Gregory's edicts did not remain a dead letter, but were carried out with all strictness and severity. The consequence was that many Jews left Rome.
The condition of the Jews in Rome was apparently altered under Gregory's successor, Sixtus V (1585–1590), who rose from the position of a swine-herd to the office of the shepherd of Catholic Christendom, and whose dauntless energy in the government of the Papal States stamped him as an original type of character. He allowed Jews to be around him, and harbored Lopez, a Jewish refugee from Portugal, who made various suggestions as to the improvement of the finances. He went still further; he issued a bull (October 22d, 1586), which did away with almost all the restrictions made by his predecessors. Sixtus not merely granted Jews permission to dwell in all the cities of the Papal States, but also allowed them to have intercourse with Christians and employ them as assistants in business. He protected their religious freedom by special provisions, and extended to them an amnesty for past offenses, i.e., for condemnations on account of the possession of religious books. Moreover, he forbade the Knights of Malta to make slaves of Jews traveling by sea from Europe to the Levant, or vice versâ, a practice to which these consecrated champions of God had hitherto been addicted. Pope Sixtus knew how to secure obedience to his command when it became law, and the Jews previously expelled now returned to the papal dominions. Under him the Jewish community at Rome numbered two hundred members. Finally he removed the prohibition which prevented Jewish physicians from attending Christian patients. The compulsory services instituted by his predecessor were the only ordinances that Sixtus V allowed to remain.
The permission, so important at that time, for Jewish physicians to have access to Christian patients, was probably gained for himself and his colleagues, by the then celebrated physician, David de Pomis (born 1525, died 1588). With medical knowledge he combined linguistic acquirements, and familiarity with Hebrew and classical literature, writing both Hebrew and Latin with elegance. In the course of his life he felt keenly the changes in the papal policy. He lost all his property through the hostile decrees of Paul IV, was kindly treated by Pius IV, and allowed by way of exception to practice among Christians in consequence of a splendid Latin discourse delivered before the pope and the college of cardinals. But he was again subjected to irritating restrictions by Pius V, and had to employ his skill in the service of petty, capricious nobles. To dispel the unconquerable prejudices against Jews, particularly against Jewish physicians, De Pomis wrote a Latin work, entitled "The Hebrew Physician," which affords favorable testimony to his noble mind and extensive culture. With considerable eloquence De Pomis maintained that the Jew was bound by his religion to love the Christian as his brother, and that a Jewish physician, far from wishing to do harm to his Christian patient, was wont to treat him with the utmost care and solicitude. He enumerated various Hebrew physicians who had attended princes of the church, cardinals and popes, had restored them to health, and had received distinctions from them and from cities. In conclusion, De Pomis adduced some proverbs from the Talmud in a Latin translation, to show that this much-calumniated book was not so harmful and corrupt as enemies of the Jews asserted. This apology for Judaism and Jewish physicians, dedicated to Prince Francesco Maria of Urbino, the elegant Latin style of which was highly praised by an experienced critic of the time, appears to have made an impression upon Pope Sixtus. De Pomis must certainly have been intimate with him, as he was allowed to dedicate to him his second important literary work, a dictionary of the Talmud in three languages.