The preponderance of Semitic influence is one of the most remarkable phenomena in the annals of human civilization. The progress of those nations, which in ancient times attained the highest rank of intellectual culture, is directly traceable to that influence. The success of the Semitic element in modifying the character of every people with which it had been brought in intimate contact, either by conquest or through commercial intercourse, is one of the most striking and instructive incidents of history. From the days when the Phœnicians controlled the trade of antiquity, profiting by their thorough knowledge of humanity, whose avarice they stimulated by the introduction of unknown luxuries, and whose fears they excited by the invention of portentous fables; through the Middle Ages, whose tyrants and inquisitors plundered and oppressed the Hebrew bankers and merchants of Europe, down to our time, when the Jew is not only the possessor of a large proportion of the wealth of the globe, but also a dominating force in the business community of every city and village of the Old and New Worlds, the enterprising genius of the Semitic race has been paramount in its control over the minds and the fortunes of men. And not merely in a mercantile but in a religious point of view is this influence manifest. The Scriptures and the Koran monopolize the pious reverence of the civilized world. The successors of Mohammed in Hindustan alone changed the faith of forty-one million souls. The most important dogmas of the Church, the leading maxims of kingly government, are of Semitic origin; the majority of the popular legends and tales which compose the folk-lore of France, Germany, Scandinavia, and Britain are indigenous to the Valley of the Nile or the plains of Arabia. Asiatic ideas, which dominated the comparatively insignificant geographical area of the continent of Europe whose appreciation of the advantages of literary and scientific investigation made it so conspicuous amidst mediæval ignorance, have maintained their power unshaken through many centuries. To the impulse thus imparted to letters, modern society owes a debt which it long repudiated, and which it is even now loath to acknowledge. Among those races which have exercised the greatest influence on human destiny that of the Hebrews is pre-eminently distinguished. From the earliest times of which history makes mention, the Jews have occupied an exalted place among civilized nations. They were among the first of traders, merchants, navigators. Neighbors of the Phœnicians, they imbibed the commercial spirit of that adventurous people, accompanied their expeditions, participated in their enterprises, shared their profits, and with them overcame the obstacles which invested the navigation of unknown and mysterious seas. They were not slow to recognize the immense commercial advantages to be obtained from the development of the boundless resources of the Spanish Peninsula, whence the Tyrian and Sidonian mariners brought such quantities of silver that their vessels could scarcely transport it, notwithstanding that the anchors, the most common utensils, and even the ballast, were composed of that precious metal.

The accounts of the reign of Solomon afford abundant evidence of the wealth and prosperity of the Hebrews. Their abilities and services were highly appreciated by the most enlightened governments of antiquity. They were invited by the Ptolemies to establish colonies on the banks of the Nile. They were often intrusted by the Roman emperors with the collection and disbursement of the imperial revenues. The Emperor Hadrian declared that during his travels in Egypt he had never met a Jew of that country who was not an expert mathematician. In the far Orient, where their ancestors had once been detained in ignominious captivity, they rose to be the confidential friends of powerful monarchs. They were known and welcomed in every seaport of the Mediterranean, and their thirst for gain even induced them to boldly encounter the perils of the barbarous countries of Europe. In all their social and political relations, they maintained their reputation for that mental superiority which is still one of the marked characteristics of the Hebrew race. All of the knowledge extant among contemporaneous nations—the secret lore of the Egyptians, imparted in mysterious temples under the shadow of the Pyramids; the hoary traditions of the Magi; the rich inheritance of classic antiquity; the argumentative skill acquired in the Museum of Alexandria and the philosophical schools of Athens—was the patrimony of the Jew. His curiosity was awakened by travel and by contact with a hundred different peoples included within the sphere of his commercial activity; his genius was developed and matured by studious industry; and the affluence resulting from his shrewdness enabled him to profit to the utmost by his unrivalled opportunities. No fact is better established than that the intellectual improvement of a nation, its progress in the arts, its scientific acquirements, its literary culture, have a direct and absolute dependence upon its material prosperity and the independent pecuniary circumstances of its scholars and learned men. While poverty is often an incentive to that perseverance which insures success, it is a condition which only affects individual and not national development. Without leisure, there can be no studies; without studies, no advance. Another factor of paramount importance in the evolution and maintenance of civilization, and one to which the Hebrew was deeply indebted, was the wide and varied experience derived from cosmopolitan habits and associations. This intercourse was facilitated by the easy and rapid means of international communication at the disposal of the Jewish trader. The Mediterranean, which washed the shores of three great continents, presented no obstacles to the enterprise of the Phœnicians, whose intimate connections with the Jews gave the latter advantages enjoyed by no other people; and the fabled monsters invented by those astute navigators to damp the ardor of other maritime adventurers, and which survive in the traditions of classic mythology, possessed no terrors for the allies and friends of the Tyrian merchants and sailors. No area of equal extent in the world offered so diversified and instructive a spectacle of human life and manners as the winding coast of that great inland sea. With its cities and its kingdoms, founded under different political conditions, living under different systems, governed by different laws, frequent and prolonged visits had early made the Jew familiar. To the audacious navigator who had sailed over the mysterious Ocean, far beyond the Pillars of Hercules, the coasting of the Mediterranean was a trifle. In subsequent times the military highways of the Roman Empire—whose construction, the first work after the invasion of a country destined to subjection, indicated the fate of its people, and insured their obedience with far more certainty than the fortified camps of the legions—afforded the Hebrew merchant easy access to the utmost limits of the vast region subject to imperial authority. But it was not only in lands generally accessible to commercial enterprise that the mercantile and intellectual activity of the Jew was displayed. With the periodical caravans he traversed the Arabian Peninsula, and braving the perils of the Desert—the stifling heat, the sand-storms, the robbers who thrived amidst its desolation—collected and distributed the precious commodities of Yemen. He penetrated to the centre of Ethiopia; his costume and his wares were known to the inhabitants of every city on the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The coast of Britain was visited by Jews long before the invasion of Cæsar. The restless, adventurous spirit, so universal that it became a national characteristic fostered through untold generations, and the extensive and profound acquaintance with the motives and the affairs of humanity which resulted from its exercise, is the principal secret of the prodigious and phenomenal development of the Hebrew mind. Other considerations of no less importance contributed largely to this result. In the estimation of those who strictly observed the precepts of the law, and to whom were committed the instruction of youth and the guidance of the community, idleness was considered one of the most despicable of vices. “Whoever,” say the learned rabbis, “does not teach his son some trade, rears him for a life of brigandage;” and the sedulous inculcation of this principle led to its universal adoption and practice, until its effects are to-day discernible in the habits of every individual of Hebrew extraction. In ancient times there was no industrial occupation whose requirements were unfamiliar to the Jewish artisan, no profession in which the scholars of that nation did not excel. The talents of the latter were often unprofitably employed in commentaries on the Talmud and whimsical interpretations of the Scriptures, whose texts were at times distorted to support some absurd and extravagant conception which the fruitless ingenuity of the doctors of the law, devoted to metaphysical subtleties, had invented. The Talmud was regarded with even greater reverence than the Pentateuch. Its diligent perusal was required as a duty; children were familiar with its maxims long before their minds were sufficiently developed to thoroughly comprehend them; and the mastery of this voluminous and incongruous compilation was regarded as the rarest and most desirable of mental accomplishments. From the study of this work was derived the partiality for mysticism, magic, and oneiromancy, topics which formed so large a proportion of ancient Hebrew literature, and which frequently dissipated the efforts of genius which might have been exercised in more practical and advantageous employments. In the Talmud, however, are also to be found the germs of medical science in which, from the remotest antiquity, the Jews were distinguished, and whose pursuit, thus sanctioned by an authority regarded as divine, became the favorite pursuit of that extraordinary people. Some of its ideas and principles had been learned from the Magi of Persia; others were borrowed from the Egyptian priesthood. The more numerous, and by far the most valuable, precepts of that science, however, were a portion of the inheritance transmitted by the noble school of the Ptolemies. With all were mingled not a few puerile superstitions which exalted the virtues of charms and amulets. The Bible gives many instances of diseases and their treatment, which in that age was the peculiar province of the Levites. The talents of the Hebrew thus early directed to medicine and botany arrived eventually at an extraordinary degree of development; and his adaptive ingenuity was revealed in the discovery and application of many indispensable drugs of the Materia Medica, and in the intelligent use of the instruments and caustics of the surgeon. In ancient Chaldea and Babylonia there were no physicians. The priesthood, as in the Middle Ages, enjoyed a monopoly of learning, which, so far as the practice of medicine was concerned, rested upon no more substantial foundation than the imposture of the charlatan. The cure of disease was effected by the exorcism of evil spirits; and such is the tenacity of venerable ideas and the lamentable credulity of the human mind that, through the influence of a certain class whose pecuniary interests are directly involved, this superstitious belief, with others equally absurd, still prevails among the members of educated communities even in our enlightened age. The difference between the fetichism of the African savage, the mediæval relic-cure, and the so-called Christian Science of modern days is one of degree and not of kind. In the infancy of civilization every malady was attributed to demoniacal possession. The Jews were the first to detect the true nature of disease and to realize the necessity for the employment of physical remedies, where heretofore, through the medium of spells and incantations, the aid of the supernatural alone had been invoked. By the adoption and application of rational principles, they revolutionized the theory and practice of medicine. Their attempts to thus partially emancipate the human mind from the degrading thraldom of superstition brought upon them the anathemas of the priesthood wherever these innovations were attempted. The wonder-workers of Pagan temples and the monkish custodians of Christian shrines saw with dismay their incomes decreasing as a consequence of the successful ministrations of the Hebrew practitioner. It was not without reason that the latter became an object of clerical animadversion, for the offerings annually bestowed by grateful credulity upon the custodians of some apocryphal relic of imaginary virtues not infrequently exceeded in value the revenues of a city. Much of the prejudice everywhere existing against the Jewish name is thus attributable to sacerdotal malevolence, originally excited by interference with material interests. But even in an age of ignorance homage was paid, however reluctantly, to the ascendency of intellectual power; and the Jews flourished in countries where the laws did not tolerate their presence and sovereigns were pledged by their coronation oaths to their destruction. Political necessity proved stronger than popular odium; and the strange anomaly of a proscribed race, whose existence was condemned by the civil and ecclesiastical codes alike, flourishing in the midst of implacable enemies was exhibited in every country of mediæval Europe. This peculiar condition was due to the dominating force of intellect alone. It is true that toleration was frequently purchased with gold; but the Jews were the sole depositaries of real knowledge, and without their wise and practical counsels the wheels of government could not be kept in motion. This indispensable necessity of maintaining in positions of honor and power a class whose nominal disabilities degraded them below the legal status of cattle was a result of the illiterate and priest-ridden state of the Dark Ages.

The cause of the universal prejudice existing against the Jews from time immemorial has been the subject of much speculation, but has never been definitely ascertained. That prejudice long antedates the Christian era. They were banished by the Egyptians, enslaved by the Persians, despised by the Greeks, persecuted by the Romans. So little were they esteemed by the latter, that during the wars with Hadrian four Jews were bartered for a modius of barley. A well-founded tradition, repeated time and again by classic historians, declared that they were expelled from Egypt for fear that the plague might be communicated by the loathsome diseases with which they were afflicted. In that country, as elsewhere subsequently, they were isolated from all other members of the community. Moses is designated by ancient writers as the “Chief of the Lepers.” It is well known that leprosy was first introduced into Italy by the soldiers of Pompey, who contracted it in Palestine. This awful malady was not only indigenous to the latter country, but was generally considered a morbid physiological condition peculiar to the Hebrew people, with whom, in fact, it was chronic and hereditary, and among whom it assumed its most malignant and appalling form.

The national customs of the Jews were regarded with peculiar abhorrence by the polished nations of antiquity. They practised human sacrifices. Tacitus says that they rendered distinguished homage to the ass, an animal sacred to the Phœnician goddess Astarte. A golden head of that animal was worshipped in their temples. The Bible repeatedly mentions the fact that they were debased and incorrigible idolaters. In Pagan Arabia they conformed to the religious customs of the country, shaved their heads, venerated the images of the Kaaba, and made the circuit of that shrine upon their knees. The idea of the Resurrection, which, with that of the Trinity, formed no part of the primitive belief of any Semitic race, but is a purely Aryan conception, they learned during the latter part of the Babylonian captivity. Its adoption was far from unanimous, however, for it was always repudiated by the Sadducees, reputed the most orthodox and precisian sect of the Hebrew nation. They sold their children into slavery. Their personal habits were indescribably filthy. It was believed by the African Christians that a peculiarly offensive odor, an evidence of Divine wrath provoked by the tragedy of the crucifixion, and which could only be removed by baptism, emanated from them. Hatred of everything non-Jewish was a ruling principle of their nature and conduct, and every country in which they were domiciled they betrayed, in turn, to the invader.

The moral and physical condition—that of a race of pariahs infected with foul distempers—which characterized them in ancient times presents a singular contrast to that under which they actually existed subsequently, and under which they exist to-day. They were not affected by the great epidemics which swept with devastating force over Europe during the Middle Ages, although they were as fully exposed to contagion as any of the nations which were decimated by them. Their immunity to many of the most serious ailments which afflict mankind is demonstrated by every table of medical statistics. Their longevity, unquestionably due to a strong constitution, is proverbial. Their average annual death-rate, in both Europe and America, is less than one-half that of persons of other nationalities subjected to the influence of similar conditions of climate, food, and occupation. Their freedom from criminality and pauperism is one of their most remarkable characteristics. Every lawyer knows how rarely a Jew is seen in courts of justice, either as a litigant, a malefactor, or a witness.

The propagation and improvement of a people under circumstances which indicated their speedy and inevitable extinction is one of the most curious problems in the annals of ethnology. Not only is it anomalous, but it is absolutely inexplicable under any scientific and logical hypothesis which can now be advanced. It would ordinarily be conceded that a race affected with congenital leprosy, whose habits were uncleanly, and whose members constantly intermarried, must certainly perish in a few generations. It would also not be denied that such a race would be especially liable to visitations by epidemics, and that its reduced capacity for resistance would induce an extraordinary fatality. Not so, however, with the Jews. They grew stronger by intermarriage. They threw off the disease which had once made them odious in the sight of men. The plague and the typhus which desolated the homes of their neighbors passed them by. They not only survived, but throve under persecution which would have exterminated any other branch of the human family. Their tenacity of life, the persistence of their institutions, the boundless power they wield in the commercial world, their versatility of character, their success in the most difficult undertakings, their national and religious organization maintained in the face of appalling obstacles, tend to confirm the ancient tradition that they are the Chosen People of God.

The Hebrew, whatever his capacity or experience, was in the eye of the law immeasurably inferior to the most humble and ignorant of those who ruled him. He paid higher taxes than any one else. His testimony was not competent in a court of justice. He was excluded from the enjoyment of office. If, having become an apostate through force or policy, he addressed a word to one who was loyal to the faith and traditions of his people, even though of his own blood, he was condemned to slavery. He was not permitted to abstain from food which his ordinances declared unclean. The practice of the rite of circumcision, a rite pronounced by the rabbi more meritorious than all others, and enjoined by the Talmud, brought with it confiscation and death. The ancient national records—the books of the Law, the chronicles of bygone dynasties, the treatises of Hebrew physicians already prominent in the world of science—were diligently sought for and destroyed. Every effort was made to separate wives from their husbands and slaves from their masters, by the edict that the ceremony of baptism, when solicited by consort or bondsman, produced, according to circumstances, ipso facto, divorce or emancipation. All Jews were enrolled upon the public registers, and at stated times were mustered by the bishop. They were also required to report to the magistrate at every town they visited, to be examined as to their business and destination. The Seventeenth Council of Toledo, by a sweeping decree, seized the property of all the Jews in the kingdom and sentenced its owners, without exception, to absolute servitude. They were accused of practices alike revolting to humanity and subversive of morals,—of poisoning the sacramental elements, of the torture of children, of crimes against nature, of cannibalism. The ecclesiastical denunciations of offences concerning religion, such as the blasphemy of images and relics, the ridicule of orthodox tenets, the promulgation of the doctrines of the Talmud, and the soliciting of proselytes, were not less violent than those which reprobated the greatest enormities of which human frailty is susceptible. Every rank of society vied with the others in manifestations of hostility towards the despised race. The monarch, upon frivolous pretexts, confiscated their property and abandoned them to the violence of the populace. In the eyes of the ferocious noble, who scarcely acknowledged the superior dignity of his king, they were sources of wealth to be utilized as occasion or inclination demanded; and the levy of an excessive contribution was regarded as an act of especial leniency, when the last ducat might have been exacted with impunity. The Church never failed to pour out upon these victims of prejudice the full measure of ecclesiastical oppression and hatred, and no deed was more meritorious than the persecution of a Jew. But it was with the lower orders that the unfortunate Children of Israel fared the worst. Their wealth aroused the basest passions of the ignorant and fanatical rabble. To the malice incited by poverty and envy was added the animosity engendered by religious prejudice, which found expression in every kind of maltreatment and outrage. Although necessary to the state and indispensable to its political and financial prosperity, the Jew was precluded from claiming the protection of the very laws he assisted to administer. Deprived of this unquestionable right, he was unfitted by his constitution, his habits, and his traditions for armed resistance. Centuries of oppression had taught him to rely on pacific rather than on violent measures for the discomfiture of his enemies. None understood more thoroughly than he the secret springs of action which control the movements of mankind; and with its worst and most degrading characteristics, his experience, reaching through many troubled generations, had rendered him especially familiar. His practical and thorough acquaintance with every foible of human nature thus made him equal to the exigencies of every occasion. He dispensed his gold with unstinted liberality. Powerful nobles, everywhere, were in his pay. Ecclesiastics of eminent talents and reputed sanctity were not ashamed to accept his gifts, and, in return, to secretly and effectually protect his person and his interests. No efforts were spared to impress the sovereign with the extent of his attainments and the value of his services. The people, despite their prejudices, looked with awe and respect upon the members of a race who had visited lands whose very names were unknown to them, who conversed fluently in strange and guttural tongues, and who spread before their wondering and delighted eyes precious articles of merchandise of whose existence they had hitherto remained in ignorance.

Under such circumstances, however disadvantageous, the Jews, scattered throughout the countries of Europe, maintained from century to century the integrity of their social and religious organization. Their isolation was in many respects productive of personal safety and financial benefit. Exempted by their civil disabilities from exposure to the dangers of revolution, they escaped the penalties of unsuccessful treason and profited by the necessities of every faction. They alone of all classes flourished amidst the perils of internal disorder. By the liberal and judicious employment of money, they secured the favor of the party for the moment in power. Meanwhile the commerce of every country was almost exclusively under their control. No competition, of any importance, interposed to diminish their enormous profits. There was not a city, scarcely a hamlet, where the Hebrew was not sure of sympathy and assistance from his countrymen. With them his goods were secure. They afforded him valuable information. Their experience enabled him to obtain the highest prices for his wares, and the secret intelligence at their disposal gave him timely warning of the presence of danger and facilitated his escape. His cosmopolitan habits prevented national affiliations, and permitted him to immediately change his residence whenever it was required by personal considerations or commercial interests. He bought amber on the Baltic. He sold slaves in Constantinople. He exchanged the commodities of Spain for the furs of Russia and the pearls and incense of Yemen. In France he found a profitable market for jewels, spices, and cochineal. His intimate and extensive relations with the great emporiums of the Orient were one of the most important factors of his success. In that quarter of the world, enjoying the protection and confidence of the rulers of Persia, Babylonia, Syria, and Egypt, were to be found the most powerful and wealthy communities of the Hebrew nation. The omnipresent Jew had established a chain of trading stations across every continent, and even far beyond the most distant limits of civilization. This immense advantage was his alone; no competitor possessed, or could ever hope to obtain, such extraordinary mercantile facilities. From the depths of the mysterious East came the rare products which commanded fabulous prices in the European capitals,—costly tissues, gems, dyes, aromatics, porcelain,—articles which often brought far more than their weight in gold. The monopoly enjoyed by the shrewd importers enabled them to receive for their commodities sums which far exceeded their intrinsic value, and placed them beyond the reach of any excepting the most opulent.

But the enterprise of the Jew was not confined to the importation and distribution of luxuries. He furnished society with every species of merchandise, from the crown of the monarch to the sandals of the beggar. The law forbade him to be seated by an ecclesiastic without the latter’s invitation, but the bishop was compelled to purchase of him the sacerdotal vestments in which his race was anathematized; and the sacred furniture of the altar, including even the crucifix, the significant emblem of the Passion, was sold to the cathedral chapter by the descendants of those who had enacted the tragedy of Golgotha, and had trafficked in the body and blood of our Saviour. The Jews of Provence paid their tribute to the Church in wax, and provided the tapers used in the ceremonies of great religious festivals. The vessels destined for the celebration of the mass were frequently disposed of to Jewish merchants by dishonest custodians; and this sacrilegious trade became at one time so notorious and shameless in France as to call forth the indignant denunciation of the Holy See. The pawning of objects consecrated to Christian worship for loans ostensibly contracted for the benefit of the Church was one of the most flagrant abuses of ecclesiastical authority in mediæval times. These pledges, often forfeited, became the property of the lender, and the clergy were constantly subjected to the scandal arising from their exposure for sale in the shops and public markets. It was no unusual circumstance in those days for the greater part of the sacred plate of an entire diocese to be temporarily in the hands of Jewish usurers. It was, moreover, a matter of common notoriety that the families of wealthy Jewish brokers daily drank from golden chalices in which once had been offered the holy sacramental wine of the mass.

The confidence reposed by all classes in the Hebrews, despite the universal and ineradicable prejudice entertained against their nationality, affords undeniable proof of their integrity. Their financial capacity and experience procured for them the office of receiver of royal taxes in countries where public sentiment was absolutely opposed to their toleration. Their fitness for this important and responsible post was emphasized not only by their abilities, but by the fact that their prosperous circumstances were, in a measure, a guaranty of their honesty, their wealth removing the principal incentive to peculation. The most bigoted Christians eagerly sought their services in the management of property and the settlement of estates; and to their sagacity and wisdom was frequently committed the solution of the difficult problems relating to the methods of taxation and enforced contribution adopted by both the Crown and the Church. During the Middle Ages, every court in Europe patronized the Hebrew physician. His practice, while by no means free from the prevailing charlatanism of the time, embodied many principles of the healing art still recognized as sound, and represented all that was then known of medical science.

In literary culture, as in commercial ability and scientific acquirements, the mediæval Jew of Christian Europe had no rivals. It was an extraordinary circumstance when a sovereign could even read, in an age when one of the greatest princes in Europe was invested with the title of Beauclerc because he could write his own name legibly, a remarkable distinction in an era of almost universal ignorance. Such accomplishments, when they did exist in any community, were almost entirely confined to the clerical profession, and, even among its members, were far from being generally diffused. The officiating priest had, ordinarily, sufficient education to enable him to stumble through the pages of his missal. In the monastic establishments, where the opportunity afforded by solitude and leisure permitted, and even encouraged, the cultivation of letters, the talents of able men were too often wasted in frivolous and unprofitable pursuits. While such unpromising conditions prevailed among the higher classes, the state of the populace was incredibly degraded. The latter naturally looked to its spiritual advisers for instruction and guidance, and the evil influence of the Church was everywhere significantly disclosed by the crowds of stupid and fanatical devotees who listened with awe and rapture to the incoherent harangues of monkish zealots, or, bowed upon their faces, grovelled in the mire before the idolatrous shrine of some spurious saint.

In the midst of the darkness which obscured the face of the mediæval world, Hebrew learning emitted a small but brilliant ray of light. Priestly tyranny and popular odium prevented the regeneration of the masses, which, under different auspices, might readily have been accomplished. The erudition of the early rabbis, remarkable even at the present time, was, in the age in which they flourished, absolutely phenomenal. Their superior intelligence and extensive acquirements caused them to be universally branded as wizards and enchanters. Men shunned all intercourse with them, and even feared to encounter them upon the highways. No greater tribute could be paid to their knowledge and ability than the ecclesiastical decrees launched against the Jews at the very time when their talents were employed in directing the financial affairs of the Church. In spite of his indispensable usefulness to government and society, the proscribed Hebrew was always under the ban of the law and lived in a state of constant apprehension. Princes claimed and exercised the privilege of absolute ownership of all the Jews and their property in their dominions. Even such an enlightened sovereign as the Emperor Frederick II. published a sweeping edict reducing the Jews of his realms to servitude, and declaring their wealth forfeited to the state. In England, near the end of the thirteenth century, every Jew in the kingdom was arrested and held in durance until a ransom of twelve thousand pounds had been extorted. Three years afterwards all their property was taken, and they were expelled from the country. The bishop often received, as a token of royal esteem, the present of the Jews of his diocese. This singular prerogative, which was neither based upon prescriptive custom, former enslavement, nor any claim excepting that of force, was first exerted in France; and the enormous profits resulting from its application led to its general adoption by all the Christian sovereigns of Europe. The Jew, by the stringent restrictions of savage laws, was degraded below the level of humanity. The owner of a beast was entitled to fixed legal compensation for its death, but no penalty was enacted and no damages could be claimed for the murder of a Jew. If maltreated, no evidence could be received against his assailant. The Jews of Toulouse, who, tradition declared, had surrendered the city to the Moors, were condemned each year on that anniversary to furnish one of their number to receive a box on the ear at the cathedral door. One of the oldest and most respectable of the community was always selected; the blow was usually given with a mailed hand, and the victim not infrequently died from the effects of it. During Passion Week, the active persecution of the accursed sect was considered so meritorious as to be almost equivalent to the performance of a religious duty. At that time no Hebrew could appear in the street without endangering his life. On Good Friday, in the year 1016, an earthquake destroyed many of the houses in Rome. Pope Benedict VIII., having learned that at the time of its occurrence the Jews were worshipping in their synagogue, and attributing the catastrophe to their influence, caused a great number to be massacred. At all times they were exposed to the contumely of adults and the petty persecutions of children. The isolated quarter in every community, to which their residence was restricted, and separated from the dwellings of orthodox Christians to prevent contamination, is to-day, in nearly all the cities of Europe, still known by its once distinctive name; although, in most instances, its Jewish population has disappeared. It was also a common pastime of the mob to stone the houses of the Jews, and, as the latter were not permitted to defend themselves, all large towns resounded with tumult and disorder during the celebration of the most sacred festival of Christendom. Upon every occasion, these unfortunates were pursued and baited like wild animals; always with the tacit connivance, often with the open encouragement, of the authorities. Their intimate relations with the countries of the East offered substantial grounds for the belief that they introduced leprosy into France, Spain, and England,—a disease whose general dissemination has ordinarily been credited to the Crusades, but whose existence in France as early as the sixth century must be attributed to some anterior agency. The undoubted Oriental origin of this malady pointed strongly to the itinerant Jewish merchants as responsible for its appearance in Western Europe; while its loathsome and incurable character tended to increase the popular odium with which those suspected of infecting a portion of the human race hitherto exempt from this affliction were universally regarded.

Every precaution which could have a tendency to maintain the social and domestic ostracism that popular intolerance had placed upon the Jew was enforced by civil and ecclesiastical authority. He could not legally marry a Christian, inherit real property, hold slaves. In royal donations, where, without warrant of right or pretence of ancient custom, he was deprived of his liberty and his possessions, his person was thereafter attached to the glebe. He was forbidden the exercise of many of the most profitable mechanical arts in which he excelled. Christians could not eat or drink with him, visit his house, listen to his conversation, or learn his language. The priesthood considered the integrity of the doctrines which were at once the foundation and the instruments of their power as of far greater importance than the material comfort and intellectual improvement of their parishioners. They were quick to recognize the peril with which ecclesiastical institutions would be threatened if exposed to the logic and sarcasm of Hebrew criticism. The necessities of society could not, as yet, permit the extermination of the Jews, but their practical isolation was imperatively demanded by considerations of prudence, and by the just apprehension that the toleration of social intimacy would eventually result in the emancipation of the masses from ignorance, and the consequent disintegration of the Church. The Dominican and Franciscan Orders were the sworn enemies of the Jew from the very day of their organization. The Inquisition was introduced into Spain for the express purpose of plundering the rich Jews of Aragon. The efforts of the Papacy were assisted by the policy of the more bigoted of the rabbis, who saw, with no less apprehension than their Christian oppressors, the diffusion of liberal ideas which threatened their own authority and importance. Under such discouraging conditions had the Jews maintained their national existence, the purity of their religion, the perpetuation of their customs, the permanence of their laws amidst the anarchy, corruption, and intolerance of mediæval Europe.

The origin of this strange people is absolutely unknown. Their roving propensity probably dates from the very foundation of the race, as the words Hebrew and pilgrim are derived from the same root. No question, however, can exist concerning their Semitic affiliations. Their geographical distribution was extensive in very early times. The most ancient collection of myths extant describes their migrations. They were numerous in China during the third century before Christ. Profoundly superstitious, implicit believers in omens, idolaters while professing monotheism, the facile dupes of wizards and magicians, the simplest phenomena of nature were always, in their eyes, invested with a mysterious or an astrological significance. Even their division into tribes has been traced by Dozy to a cabalistic association with the twelve signs of the zodiac.

The Israelites are first noticed in history as a horde of vagabond herdsmen in Mesopotamia. Oppressed by powerful neighbors, repeatedly enslaved, and reduced to those depths of moral degradation incident only to long-continued servitude, they still succeeded in preserving inviolate the principles of their religious and social organization. They were almost universally considered as outcasts, with whom it was contamination to associate. But in all their adversity their peculiar theocratic belief confirmed their resolution and sustained their hopes. They were the Chosen People of God. His Spirit was ever with them, speaking through the voices of their teachers, directing the councils of their rulers, illuminating the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle, hovering about the Ark with its golden cherubim. They had the Divine assurance that one day their troubles would end, that the scattered members of their race would be again united, that they would inherit the kingdoms and possess the riches of the earth. Their arrogant exclusiveness was unconsciously, but none the less diligently, fostered by the prejudices and regulations of the countries within whose borders they fixed their residence. In each city they were confined to a certain quarter, within whose precincts Christian men were little disposed, and Christian women absolutely forbidden, to enter. The use of a distinctive costume, popularly regarded as a badge of ignominy, was imposed upon them. They were not allowed to marry outside their sect. The minute and innumerable restrictions of Hindu caste were not more rigid or vexatious than those ordinances which regulated the intercourse of Jew and Christian during the Middle Ages. The enforcement of these social distinctions, as well as the inexorable requirements of the laws, increased the isolation of the Jews in every community. In this manner their unity was preserved, and the extraordinary vitality which characterized their existence in all its phases was promoted.

In no part of Europe had their influence exhibited such constant, marked, and permanent effects as in the Spanish Peninsula. On its coast, with which their ancestors had long been familiar, and where archæological research has placed the Tarshish of Holy Writ, the establishment of the Hebrew is of such high antiquity that history has failed to record it; and it may not unreasonably be assumed that it antedated the Christian era by at least a thousand years. The turbulent and perfidious character of the Hebrew sectaries caused them to be regarded with apprehension by the Romans. In the time of Hadrian, their old and powerful families were distributed, as a measure of public safety, among the most widely separated provinces of the empire. The fact is well ascertained that the Spanish Jews were rich and numerous in the fifth century, and then practically controlled the commerce and the financial resources of the country. Even at that early period they were renowned for their intellectual accomplishments, their extensive literature, their dexterity in the mechanical employments, the assiduity with which they pursued the most abstruse branches of science, and their proficiency in those practical arts which tend to the amelioration of the condition of the human race and the prolongation of the term of human life. As has been mentioned in a previous chapter, although occasionally pursued by royal avarice and clerical animosity, the Jews did not experience in Spain the full effects of that hatred which seemed to be their unhappy birthright until the accession of Reccared, the first orthodox sovereign of the Visigothic dynasty. From the latter part of the sixth century, the malice accumulated in the church and the cloister through ages of alternate restraint and forbearance was unmercifully wreaked upon them. The Visigothic Code is largely taken up with the statement of their disabilities, the denunciation of their customs, the enumeration of their offences, and the description of the penalties to be inflicted by the avenging magistrate. The paternal character of the ecclesiastical legislation, then and long afterwards in the ascendant in the Councils, scrutinized with jealous vigilance not only the public actions of the offensive sectaries, but invaded with brutal violence the sacred privacy of domestic life. The celebration of all national religious festivals was prohibited. A Jew could not be a witness against a Christian; intermarriage of the two races was declared null and void, and all issue of such unions were subject to seizure by the clergy, to be reared and educated in monastic institutions; circumcision was declared illegal; and the grotesque cruelty of the law which enforced the use of pork as food violated without cause or excuse a rational prejudice of the Jew, established by Divine command and confirmed by the unbroken practice of countless generations of his kinsmen. The observance of these savage and unreasonable regulations was enforced by penalties of corresponding severity. The culprit was usually burned alive; in cases where it seemed that leniency might be properly exercised, he was stoned to death. The constant and systematic evasion of these laws, which even priestly malevolence hesitated to enforce, was the consequence of their extreme rigor. Many circumstances then, as subsequently, intervened to mitigate the condition of the Jews; the necessities of the state, the jealousy of the nobles, the venal and corrupt disposition of the clergy, who were often the first to violate the ordinances which they themselves had been instrumental in having enacted, were all enlisted, from time to time, in securing for the objects of popular hatred a temporary and precarious indulgence.

Under the Visigothic domination, as a rule, the policy of the government was decidedly hostile. The opulent were, as is usual in such cases, considered the most guilty; and thousands were seized, despoiled, and murdered on no other provocation than the evidences of prosperity and the imprudent and ostentatious exhibition of their wealth. In the Council, which chose the sovereign, ecclesiasticism always preponderated; and through its influence a clause was early inserted in the coronation oath which bound the king to suffer no other religion but the Roman Catholic in his dominions. Powerful protectors, whose services were purchased by the lavish distribution of bribes, averted the storm for the time; but about the beginning of the seventh century public opinion declined to be longer conciliated, and a frightful persecution was begun. An immense number, amounting, it is said, to ninety thousand, apostatized and publicly received the rite of baptism. Multitudes, who preferred banishment to renunciation of their faith, fled to France, Italy, and other countries. Such extreme measures drove the suffering Israelites to resistance, but their hereditary cowardice and their total want of organization rendered their exertions hopeless, and produced no result but an aggravation of their misfortunes.

While these events were transpiring in the Visigothic kingdom, Mohammedan conquest had spread from Central Arabia to the western extremity of the African continent. Before its irresistible force, the activity of the Berber savage and the discipline of the Roman veteran had alike been humbled in the dust. The dangerous proximity of the Moslem outposts at the south had more than once aroused the apprehensions of the proud and luxurious sovereigns of Spain. But their efforts had been directed rather to the indulgence of their passions and the extirpation of heresy than to the fortification of the frontiers of the kingdom against the ambition of an unknown and underrated foe. The Jews, however, fully realized the gravity of the situation, and were only too willing to promote the designs of an enemy whose success, they were convinced, would enure to their own advantage and security. Numerous considerations of profound significance impelled them to this course. They themselves and the Arabs were derived from a common origin. Both sprang from the same branch of the great human family. Many of their customs were identical; their traditions denote a similar source; their languages vary but little in construction and pronunciation, and have been so slightly modified by the vicissitudes of centuries that the Hebrew rabbi and the Bedouin sheik of to-day can readily communicate with each other by means of their respective idioms. Both nations had for centuries been accustomed to a pastoral life on the vast plains of Asia, where the illimitable monotony of the landscape, the unbroken stillness of immense solitudes, the magnificent spectacle of the unclouded heavens glowing with the most gorgeous constellations of the firmament, have always impressed upon the nations subject to these potent and omnipresent influences the conviction of the unity of God. The caravans that issued from the Desert exchanged the precious commodities of that region for the wares manufactured and imported by the Hebrews of Alexandria, Damascus, and Antioch. Although in the early ages of Islam the Jews were often harshly treated, the Arabs were quick to perceive the advantages to be obtained from their commercial experience and literary knowledge. As Hebrew enterprise was instrumental in opening to the world the lucrative and important trade of the Arabian Peninsula, so Hebrew genius disclosed to the descendants of Ishmael the capacity of their own tongue, which until then had found no permanent mode of expression. The first book which appeared in the Arabic language was written by Javaich, a Syrian Jew. It was the translation of a medical work by a famous practitioner of Alexandria, and the practical character of the subject not only indicates the serious nature of early Hebrew research, but also becomes a matter of curious significance when the subsequent interest and proficiency of Arab scholars in everything concerning the scientific acquirements of that profession are considered.

The impulse thus early exerted by Jewish culture upon the Arab intellect was eventually productive of the most extraordinary results. The scholars soon surpassed their instructors in the extent and profundity of their knowledge. The Arab mind assimilated, with wonderful ease and insatiable avidity, the useful and valuable information afforded it, while its critical faculty enabled it to reject what it intuitively perceived to be spurious. In all the countries subject to the Khalifates of Mecca and Damascus, the Hebrew opened to the Moslem conqueror the avenues of literature and science. He was treated by the Mohammedan princes with far more consideration and justice than he had ever experienced under Pagan or Christian domination. His synagogues were erected in the shadow of Moslem minarets. His academies became famous as centres of learning. The works of Grecian philosophers, the fragmentary treasures of Alexandrian erudition, were, through his efforts, made familiar to the studious of the great Mohammedan capitals. In the distribution of literary patronage the Jews were the most distinguished recipients of royal munificence. In proportion to the eminence they attained in the province of letters, their political power and financial prosperity increased. They enjoyed the familiar confidence of the monarch, when his favorite councillors dared not venture without a summons into his presence. They amassed great fortunes in the various branches of trade and industry. Their mercantile occupations brought them frequently in contact with their fellow-sectaries, who, in other parts of the world, maintained under the weighty sceptre of cruel and bigoted sovereigns an existence fraught with danger and hardship.

These facts were well known to the Spanish Jews who had, amidst the multiplied catastrophes afflicting their race, survived the effects of Visigothic tyranny. Notwithstanding the successive persecutions of which they had been the object, they were still numerous in the Peninsula. The phenomenal vitality of a people which, from time immemorial, has preserved its integrity under the most adverse conditions, enabled it to defy the malice of courts and the edicts of councils whose office and pastime was the pitiless extirpation of heresy. The Jews flourished in defiance of bloodthirsty laws. In many ways they evaded the effects of proscription. Thousands apostatized. Multitudes secretly purchased immunity by means of the arts of corruption. Of those who had gone into exile, the majority quickly returned and took up their residence in other provinces, where, unknown to the populace, and often with the venal connivance of civil officials and prelates, they were permitted to pursue their avocations in comparative security. The Israelitish element was so preponderant in Toledo, Lucena, and Granada, at the time of the Moorish invasion, that they were known as Jewish cities. This large population formed a separate state, an imperium in imperio, whose members, exasperated by the memory of intolerable suffering and sustained by the hope of retribution, were ready to embrace the first opportunity to avenge the oppression of centuries. Thus the fatal policy of the Visigoths—weak, violent, and corrupt—had introduced an organized, powerful, unscrupulous, and vindictive enemy into every province and city of their tottering empire. With their African brethren the Jews of Spain maintained an intimate and frequent correspondence. Numbers of the latter had sought a refuge beyond the sea, as their descendants did, under similar circumstances, seven centuries afterwards. The settlements of the Mauritanian coast swarmed with indigenous or exiled Hebrews, attracted thither by the superior facilities they offered to commercial pursuits. All of these shrewd and intelligent traders were perfectly familiar with the condition of the Visigothic monarchy; with its apparent splendor and actual decay; with the political and social disorganization pervading every department of the state and every rank of society; with the tyranny of the King; with the universal disaffection of the nobles; with the grasping avarice of the clergy, whose exactions spared neither the plenty of the rich nor the starving wretchedness of the poor; with the weakness of the army, whose soldiers, subsisting by pillage, had neither weapons to arm nor officers to command them; with the abject misery of the people, who, protected by none and plundered by all, insecure in the pursuit of every employment, a constant prey to licensed brigandage, with no recollection of the past but the bitter reminiscence of unprovoked and repeated injury, with no hope of the future save in the intervention of a more powerful, perhaps a more ruthless, oppressor, were certain of tranquillity only in the silence and oblivion of the grave.

The advent of Moslem supremacy, which promised a new and splendid career to the down-trodden race, was welcomed by the Jews of Africa with all the enthusiasm of an impulsive and excitable people. Al-Maghreb had scarcely been conquered before the Moslem generals were more conversant with the details of Visigothic weakness and demoralization than the councillors of Roderick himself. The minute and secret ramifications of Jewish society united in a common cause the widely distributed communities of Africa and Spain; the intelligence and resolution of the conspirators, whose hostility was increased by the bitterness of sectarian hatred, rendered their enterprise and activity the more dangerous; and a propitious opportunity alone was awaited to pour upon the fertile and defenceless plains of the Peninsula the resistless torrent of Moslem invasion. That opportunity soon arrived. The fortress of Ceuta, lost by treason, fell into the hands of the Arabs; the Visigothic power, crushed in one great battle, succumbed to the superior valor of an enterprising enemy; and within the short period of fourteen months the sceptre of empire passed from the feeble hands of a barbarian dynasty to the control of a foreign race, whose mental capacity and intellectual ambition, as yet untried, were subsequently found to be equal to the most exacting demands of a refined and highly developed civilization. In these events, whose consequences produced such radical modifications in the religious, political, and domestic conditions of European society, Hebrew energy and craft were eminently conspicuous. One of the principal divisions of Tarik’s army was commanded by a Jew. During the invasion, Jewish guides conducted the Moslem squadrons along the highways of an unknown country, furnished information of the enemy’s movements, disclosed the whereabouts of military supplies and hidden wealth. When the slender numbers of the Arab forces would not admit of their diminution for garrison duty, the Jews volunteered their services to defend the conquered cities and faithfully discharged the important trust. The obligations thus incurred by the Moorish invaders to their allies were of the most important character. The latter not only facilitated an enterprise whose difficulty, without their co-operation, would have been enormously increased, if not actually rendered impracticable, but, the country once subdued, they directed the attention of the Arabs to elegant pursuits, of whose nature and value they had hitherto remained in ignorance. Moslem civilization in Europe owed an incalculable debt of gratitude to the Jews. They were its real founders. They inculcated a taste for letters. They promoted the investigations of science, the development of industry and the arts. Their refined tastes and intellectual employments aroused a noble emulation in the minds of their pupils and imitators, which, in turn, reacted upon their own talents and aspirations. Hebrew genius and ambition were no longer hampered by the malicious interference of royal councils and ecclesiastical synods. The Jewish merchant and the Jewish banker pursued their way to opulence and distinction, unmolested by the extortionate demands of corrupt officials and tyrannical farmers of the revenue. Their scholars were not insensible to the advantages to be derived from the study of ancient learning, and the Greek and Latin classics were thoroughly familiar to the Spanish Jew, whose commentaries upon them were of considerable extent and of unquestionable authority.

Under a government favorable to their existence and prosperity, their numbers rapidly increased. The depopulation resulting from the conquest of an already impoverished and exhausted territory required an extraordinary and immediate remedy. Publication was everywhere made throughout the Orient inviting the settlement of immigrants in Spain. Lands and houses were promised to all who were willing to change their domiciles for new homes in the distant and recently founded Mohammedan empire. In the multitude that responded were, it is said, fifty thousand Hebrew families, amounting to not less than a quarter of a million individuals. These, with their fellow-sectaries already established in the Peninsula, composed a most important element of its population. Highly favorable social and domestic conditions, among which must be considered the prevalent institution of polygamy, caused in after years a prodigious multiplication of the race. The colonists brought with them the devotion to learning which they had imbibed in the presence of the great memorials of ancient civilization on the banks of the Nile and the Euphrates, and many volumes of native and foreign lore which were destined to form the nucleus of the magnificent libraries of Moorish Spain. History has repeatedly mentioned the tireless assiduity with which the Jews, secure and tranquil under the tolerant administration of the khalifs, devoted themselves to the cultivation of letters. Their diligence was only exceeded by the marvellous proficiency they attained in every branch of useful knowledge. They mastered with ease the most abstruse and perplexing mathematical problems. The rabbis were great linguists; there were few of them not thoroughly conversant with the numerous idioms of Europe and Asia. Medicine and astronomy, their favorite pursuits, under their direction soon acquired an unprecedented, almost a magical, development.

The tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries represent the epoch of the greatest fame and influence of the Spanish Jews. This period, coincident with the highest power and civilization of the Hispano-Arab empire, had, however, been preceded by two centuries of uninterrupted progress. The enlightened policy of the Western khalifs, from the accession of the Ommeyade dynasty, attracted to their capital the learned of every country and of every profession. Of these strangers, the Hebrews constituted the largest proportion of any one race, excepting the Arabs. The schools and academies they founded vied in educational opportunities and literary culture with the Moslem institutions of similar character whose reputation was unrivalled in the world. The interpretations of the Scriptures and the Talmud, as promulgated by the synagogues of Toledo and Cordova, were acknowledged everywhere as of the highest and most binding authority. A constant and profitable intercourse was maintained with their kinsmen of the Orient, which promoted an interchange of ideas, and was consequently of incalculable advantage to the mental development of both divisions of the race. The intellectual supremacy of the Spanish Jew was, however, rarely disputed. The opportunities he enjoyed in the society of the most splendid of mediæval capitals; the vast stores of information at his disposal; the great libraries collected by the khalifs to which he had access; the permanent distinction which awaited successful competition in the public contests for literary precedence; the favor of the sovereign, often himself a scholar of great erudition and varied accomplishments, always a liberal patron of science and the arts; the applause of the multitude; the substantial pecuniary benefits which promised a life of ease and opulence to all whose abilities were sufficiently eminent to merit public recognition and recompense; with these manifold privileges and incentives it is not singular that Hebrew genius obtained and preserved an exalted rank in the literary society of the age. Encouraged by the influence which they wielded, and presuming upon the favor of a liberal and indulgent sovereign, the Jews of the Moorish empire formed an organization modelled after the institutions of their ancestors which could scarcely have been tolerated under a severe and jealous despotism. They elected as their king a prince of the house of Judah, who, while not openly invested with the insignia of royalty, received the homage and the tribute of his subjects. Under this potentate judges and priests were chosen, who exercised the functions performed centuries before in the days of the independence and renown of the Hebrew nation. The Moors countenanced, and even approved of, the establishment of this anomalous system. Its officials, despite their grandiloquent titles, were strictly subordinated to the authority of the khalifate. They were suffered, however, to administer the affairs of those who acknowledged their jurisdiction; their decisions in theological matters limited to their faith were unquestioned; and they were intrusted with the collection of taxes, whose amount and apportionment had been previously determined by the regular officers of the imperial treasury.

The eminently practical character of the Jewish mind did not confine itself to speculations upon the traditions of the Talmud or disquisitions concerning abstruse points of philosophy. The Hebrew sages embraced with the greatest ardor the fascinating pursuits of mechanical invention and scientific discovery. In medicine and surgery they particularly excelled. They wrote treatises on the application of hydraulics and the comparative merits of various systems of irrigation. They thoroughly understood the principles of horticulture. The excellence of the manufactures for which the Khalifate of Cordova was famous was, to a considerable extent, indebted to Jewish talents and industry. In many instances the nationality of Hebrew scholars was obscured through the similarity of their names and occupations to those of their distinguished associates in the great Moslem centres of learning. Many Jewish doctors received Arab appellations and wrote almost exclusively in the Arabic language. Among these was Ibn-Zohr, who, for these reasons, has been generally considered a Mohammedan, but whose parentage, religion, associations, and education were entirely Hebrew.

The tenth century witnessed the culmination of Jewish greatness in Europe. In its rapid advancement, it had kept pace with the ever-progressive march of Moslem power and culture. Wherever the Saracens established themselves, the Jewish population increased. The harmonious co-operation of the two races—one of which, while nominally tributary to and dependent upon the other, was in reality upon a footing of friendly intimacy with its acknowledged superior—proved of immense advantage to both, in the promotion of every measure which could enure to the substantial benefit of humanity. In the consideration which they enjoyed, and in the prosperity and distinction which were the reward of intelligent and useful effort, the Jews lost the memory of the calamities which had been their lot for so many centuries. In common with all peoples who have attained the highest civilization, they abandoned themselves to luxury. The men were clothed in the richest of silken fabrics. The jewels of the women equalled in brilliancy and value the choicest treasures of the imperial harems. The great Hebrew functionaries of state, who possessed the confidence of the sovereign, appeared in public, guarded by retinues of armed and magnificently attired eunuchs. Their mansions exhibited all the luxurious appointments of the fastidious sybarite. The Rabbi Hasdai-ben-Schaprut was one of the principal ministers of Abd-al-Rahman III. Al-Hakem II. enlisted the services of Jewish ambassadors in important embassies. Hischem II. ordered a translation of the Talmud to be made into Arabic, and caused its literature to be introduced as a branch of study in the Moslem colleges. The educated Moors treated with the greatest honor and respect the princes and officials of the hierarchy chosen by the assemblies of the Synagogue. The beginning of the tenth century witnessed the destruction of the renowned academies of Persia, whose members, by the promulgation of liberal doctrines, had rendered themselves obnoxious to Oriental despotism. Their societies dissolved, these learned men were forced to seek security in exile. Some of the most famous, including the Rabbi Moses, of the Academy of Pumbedita, were taken by African corsairs and exposed for sale in the slave-market of Cordova. Such was the eminent reputation of this doctor, that, as soon as his identity was disclosed, he was unanimously elected prince of the Hispano-Hebrew nation.

These Oriental scholars were not the only exiles who enriched the universities of Spain with their accumulated stores of wisdom. From every country where the hand of persecution was raised against the Jew refugees flocked by thousands into the Peninsula, until the Ommeyade khalif included among his subjects a larger proportion of the people of this race than any other sovereign of the age. The list of rabbis who illuminated with their genius and learning the reign of the Cordovan princes is both instructive and interesting, especially when we consider the benighted condition of contemporaneous Europe. In France, during the ninth century, a Christian bishop declared the rabbis preached better than the priests.

The active minds of these gifted scholars enabled them to master at the same time the most complicated problems of widely different branches of scientific knowledge. The difficulty and novelty of the subject were always the strongest incentives to their industry. The study of jurisprudence enjoined by their law, as a religious duty, was always entered upon in the beginning of their literary career, no matter to what professions they were subsequently to be devoted. Rabbi Hasdai-ben-Schaprut wrote a commentary on the botanical treatise of Dioscorides, of which he had made an Arabic version; Rabbi Judah, who lived under Abd-al-Rahman III., was renowned for his acquaintance with both Hebrew and Arabic literature; Joseph translated the Talmud for Hischem II.; Manasseh-ben-Baruch compiled a critical lexicon, a colossal monument of patience and erudition. To Isaac-ben-Chanan is ascribed the rendering into classic Hebrew of the complete works of Aristotle. Isaac Alphes codified the laws of the Talmud; Samuel-ben-Alarif, the minister of Habus, King of Granada, renowned alike as statesman, astronomer, and poet, composed a panegyric of his sovereign in seven languages. Moses-ben-Ezra wrote poems which disclose instructive scenes of mediæval life and manners; the grammatical works of Judas-ben-David were recognized as authoritative wherever the Hebrew tongue was spoken; Isaac-ben-Baruch was one of the most learned and accomplished mathematicians of his time. In addition to these names, famous in the history of letters, the Hebrew community of Spain included poets like Judas Levi, whose works, translated into Arabic and Latin, obtained a wide and deserved popularity; astronomers like Ben-Chia; geographers like Isaac Latef; physicians like Charizi; travellers like Benjamin of Tudela, whose writings may still be perused with pleasure and advantage; natural philosophers like Solomon-ben-Gabirol, who had the rare faculty of clothing scientific conceptions in poetical language; universal geniuses like Moses-ben-Maimon and Ben-Ezra, whose talents illustrated and embellished every subject within the realm of human knowledge. Not less noted were the Jewish physicians, who did not, however, exist as a distinctive profession, their commanding abilities being also displayed in other departments of literature and science.

Most prominent among the names which immortalize the golden age of Hebrew erudition is that of Moses-ben-Maimon, popularly known as Maimonides. A native of Cordova, and sprung from a family which had furnished many learned and distinguished members of the Jewish hierarchy, he enjoyed from his earliest youth the unrivalled educational advantages of the great Moslem capital. His mind was formed and his tastes developed under the most able instructors of the University of Cordova, and it has even been stated, upon disputed authority, however, that he was the pupil and friend of the famous philosopher Averroes. The profession of medicine which he adopted, and in which he afterwards so greatly excelled, he regarded rather as an instrument with which to observe the secret characteristics and incentives of human nature than as a means of livelihood. At the age of thirty, his reputation for prodigious erudition had spread far beyond the limits of the Moslem empire of the West. The fanatical policy of Abd-al-Mumen, founder of the Almohade dynasty, demanded the conversion of the Jews; thousands, under the fear of death, renounced their religion, and among them was Maimonides, whose resolution was not proof against the prospective sufferings of martyrdom. Escaping soon after to Egypt, where his renown had preceded his arrival, he became the friend and adviser of the Sultan. It is said that whenever he left his house he was compelled to pass through lines of people, some of whom desired his opinion on metaphysical questions, and others, who were afflicted with various ailments, that sought the aid of his medical knowledge. Such was his devotion to his profession, that in the care of his patients he deprived himself of sleep, and many times fainted from sheer exhaustion. In the midst of his arduous duties he found time for the composition of many voluminous treatises,—on biblical and rabbinical literature; on the action of remedies; on the duties and responsibilities of man as inculcated by the higher philosophy. His principal work, More-Hanebushim, “The Guide of Lost Spirits,” is one of the masterpieces of Hebrew literature. The learning it displays, the profound knowledge of mankind it reveals, the originality of its conceptions, the ingenuity and logical force of the argument, the sublime moral maxims it inculcates, and the elegance and beauty of the style, owing little to the native harshness of the idiom in which it is written, stamp it as one of the most remarkable productions of the human mind. The genius of this great writer regarded as diversions undertakings which would have appeared formidable tasks to men of inferior capacity. His medical works, fourteen in number, and especially his learned commentary on Hippocrates, were long the guide of the profession, and to this day many of his precepts for the treatment of disease are employed by the intelligent practitioner. He was one of the first to recognize that mental derangement is often the result of physical indisposition. Maimonides was more familiar with the doctrines of Christian theology than the majority of the prelates whose duty it was to inculcate them. His understanding rejected with contempt the alluring and prevalent delusions of the age, which too frequently contaminated the wisdom of the scholar with the mummeries of the impostor. His condemnation of judicial astrology, in which he exposed by irrefutable arguments the absurdities and dangers of that puerile but fascinating science, was adopted and promulgated as authoritative by both Popes Sixtus V. and Urban VIII. While he criticised with uncompromising severity the faults of his sect and the weakness and inconsistency of many of its traditions, Maimonides never intentionally swerved from the path of orthodox Judaism. His surroundings and associations were, however, on the whole not favorable to the maintenance of archaic theological systems. The intellectual society of Cordova was deeply infected with infidelity. The instructors of youth, the professors of the University, were disciples of Averroes. Religious commentary had long been supplanted by philosophical skepticism. Even the populace, always the last to abandon the obsolete opinions of theological infancy, were imbued with the same iconoclastic ideas. The sublime conceptions of India, the doctrine of Emanation and Absorption, had been largely adopted by the educated communities of Moorish Spain. The exposure of the Hebrew dogmas to the mocking and sarcastic raillery of his learned companions produced no effect upon the faith of Maimonides. His principles were too firmly grounded to be shaken by the jeers of polished atheism. While his progressive ideas caused him to be for a time regarded with suspicion by the stricter of the Hebrews, they eventually contended with each other in paying tribute to his lofty genius, and in their extravagant admiration styled him “The Eagle of Jewish Literature,” “The Guide of the Rabbis,” “The Light of the Occident.” The liberal character of his doctrines may be inferred from the following passage taken from the preface to his works: “The end of religion is to conduct us to perfection, and to teach us to act and think in conformity with reason. In this consists the distinctive attribute of human nature.”

Maimonides was one of the most eminent personages of his time. No writer of his nationality ever attained to such an exalted rank, even among those who dissented from his opinions. The kindness of his disposition was not less remarkable than the extent of his intellectual acquirements. Although a born polemic and controversialist, he never voluntarily wounded the feelings of an adversary. The object of his investigations was invariably the discovery of truth. His learning, his critical acumen, his quickness of perception, his accuracy of judgment, his talent for argument, were unrivalled. His system aimed at the reconciliation of revealed maxims and scientific deductions; at the co-ordination of Biblical and Talmudical ideas with the principles of ancient wisdom and contemporaneous philosophy. Such a task was beyond even his great abilities. The studies of the infidel schools of Spain had, unconsciously to himself, affected his religious belief. The instructions of Averroes were not conducive to the existence of rigid Judaism. Maimonides was, in fact, a pantheist. Throughout his writings, despite their mysticism, the doctrine of Emanation is everywhere prominent. He refers to successive spheres born of Divine thought. He considers the absorption of the souls of the good into the Divine Essence. While admitting the indestructibility of force, he rejects the idea of the eternity of matter. With him, as with the majority of scholars who had been educated under Arabic auspices, the authority of Aristotle was paramount. His works, while professedly written to elucidate and confirm the Talmud, really undermined it. His Mischne Thora and Commentary on the Mischna are prodigies of dialectical skill and varied erudition. In the first of these, a religious code, ten years of constant labor were expended.