History of the Jews, Vol. 3 (of 6)
When Nachmani had been debating for three days, with candor combined with dignity, about the doctrines of Christianity, the Jews of Barcelona entreated him to break off the disputation, as they feared the persecution of the Dominicans. Many knights and clergymen also warned him against being carried too far by his frankness. The Christian inhabitants of Barcelona interested themselves in behalf of the Jews, and desired to avoid all provocation. Nachmani told the king of the feeling that prevailed, but he wished the disputation to continue. The intellectual tournament was therefore resumed. Nachmani finally proved victorious, as Pablo could not cope with his well-directed arguments. At the end of the discussion, the king said to Nachmani in a private audience, that he had never heard so unjust a matter defended so skilfully. The Dominicans, however, sought to spread the report that Pablo Christiani had contrived to outwit his opponent so cleverly that the latter, overwhelmed with shame, had secretly fled. So far from running away, Nachmani remained in Barcelona for another week, as a rumor had got abroad that his majesty and the Dominicans intended to visit the synagogue on the following Saturday. They did really appear in the synagogue, and Penyaforte resumed the disputation there. He illustrated the doctrine of the Trinity by wine, which possesses the qualities of color, taste and smell, and is yet a unity. It was an easy task for Nachmani to offer a complete reply to these and similar analogies, and he at last drove the confessor of the king to make the dangerous acknowledgment that the idea of the Trinity was so profound a mystery that even the angels were unable to comprehend it. Thereupon Nachmani remarked, "If this is really the case, then no reproach ought to be made to men, if they cannot surpass the angels in wisdom." Before his departure, Nachmani was again admitted to an audience with the king, and dismissed with a friendly farewell. The king gave him three hundred maravedis as a mark of respect.
The consequences of this disputation at Barcelona were by no means harmless. De Penyaforte was resolved upon compassing the conversion of the Jews, and permitted nothing to turn him from his fixed determination. He obtained from King Jayme a letter of protection which would enable his protégé Pablo Christiani to go on long missionary journeys, and thus the Jews were exposed to the caprice of the Jewish Dominican friar. What had failed of success in Barcelona, with an antagonist like Nachmani, might perhaps be successful in other places with less skilful opponents. Strict commands were issued to the congregations in Aragon, and in the adjoining districts of southern France, to enter into discussion with Pablo Christiani at his invitation. The Jews were to listen to him quietly, either in their synagogues or wherever they chanced to be, to answer his questions meekly, and to hand over to him all such books as he required for his demonstrations. They were also to defray the expenses of his mission. The despair of the Jews at such demands may well be imagined. Whether victorious or defeated, they were subjected to torments and extortion.
As in spite of the protection granted to him by the king, Pablo Christiani did not meet with a hearty welcome among his former co-religionists, he followed in the footsteps of Nicholas-Donin, and denounced the Talmud, asserting that it contained passages of hostile import directed against Jesus and Mary. He went to Pope Clement IV, and repeated to him the charges against the Talmud. The pope, at his request, issued a bull (1264) to the Bishop of Tarragona, commanding him to confiscate copies of the Talmud, and to submit them to the examination of the Dominicans and Franciscans; if found to be blasphemous, they were to be burnt. Pablo Christiani, the apostate, in person brought this bull to Spain. Thereupon King Jayme ordered (1264) that the Talmud be examined, and the passages containing abuse and slander be struck out. The duty of acting as censors was entrusted to the Bishop of Barcelona, De Penyaforte, and to three other Dominicans, together with Pablo Christiani. This commission marked the passages in the Talmud which were to be obliterated, and thus for the first time censorship was exercised by the Dominicans against the Talmud in Spain. The censorship was on the whole less destructive in Aragon than in France, where the whole Talmud was condemned to the flames. The reason of this comparative mildness was explained by the fact that Raymond Martin, a member of the Dominican order and of the board of censors, and the writer of two anti-Jewish works, was convinced that several passages in the Talmud bore witness to the truth of Christianity, and were certainly traditions derived from Moses, and that therefore the Talmud should not be utterly destroyed.
The hurtful effects of the disputation of Nachmani have not yet been enumerated. They even affected the man himself, who was the accredited representative of Spanish Judaism in the post-Maimunic age. Nachmani found himself obliged to publish, for his co-religionists, a true and accurate report of the proceedings at Barcelona, in order to oppose the missionary machinations of Pablo Christiani, and to rebuke the unjustifiable vainglory of the Dominicans over the victory, which they declared that they had gained at the disputation held at the court.
He made no secret of the matter, but gave a copy of his pamphlet to the Bishop of Gerona, and as the latter raised no objection, copies of the account of this disputation were dispatched to various countries where Jews dwelt (about 1264). As might have been expected, Nachmani by this proceeding drew down upon himself the still fiercer hatred of the Dominicans. Pablo Christiani, who obtained a report of the disputation, and who understood Hebrew, selected from it passages that contained gross blasphemies against the Christian religion, and notified De Penyaforte, his superior, the fanatical general of the Dominicans, of them. The latter then, in conjunction with a brother friar, instituted a capital charge, and lodged a formal complaint with the king against the author and his work. Don Jayme was obliged to assent to the charge; but he did not entrust the trial to a court composed of Dominicans, but called together an extraordinary commission, and invited Nachmani (or as he was called by the Christians, Bonastruc de Porta) to defend himself, and ordered that the proceedings be conducted in his presence. Nachmani was in a very unpleasant position, but his staunch truthfulness did not fail him. He admitted that he had stated many things against Christianity in his pamphlet, but he had written nothing which he had not used in his disputation in the presence of the king; and he had asked from the king and the general of the Dominicans for liberty of speech to utter these things, and had obtained permission. He ought not to be made answerable and condemned for expressions in his written account which had remained unrebuked in his oral defense.
The king and the commission acknowledged the justice of his vindication; nevertheless, in order to avoid provoking the order of the Dominicans or De Penyaforte, Nachmani was sentenced to exile from his native land for two years, and his pamphlet was condemned to be burnt. The Inquisition had not yet attained an all-powerful position. The Dominicans were, however, by no means satisfied with this comparatively mild sentence, as they had expected a much more severe punishment. It appears that they intended to summon Nachmani before their own tribunal, where they would undoubtedly have condemned him to death. King Jayme offered energetic opposition to this project. He gave to Nachmani a sort of charter, which stated that he could be accused in this matter only in the presence of the king (April, 1265). The Dominicans were naturally very much enraged at the mildness of the king, and at the apparent encroachment on their judicial prerogative to decide upon questions of life and death. They appealed to Pope Clement IV, complaining that the king had permitted the author of a pamphlet which grossly insulted Christianity to go unpunished. The pope, who at that time was harboring other grudges against the king of Aragon, addressed a very severe epistle to him. He upbraided him for a number of sins, ordering him to deprive Jews of public offices, and to inflict heavy punishment on that arch-villain who, after taking part in a religious discussion, had published a pamphlet as a trophy of his heresy (1266). It cannot be fully ascertained whether the king obeyed the pope regarding Nachmani or not, or what his sentence was. At any rate, it appears that one punishment was meted out to him, namely, that he was to be banished from the country. At the age of seventy, Nachmani left his fatherland, his two sons, his school and his friends, and went into exile. He made his way to the Holy Land, being filled with the same intense longing as his spiritual kinsman, Jehuda Halevi. He went a step further than the latter, maintaining that it is the religious duty of every Jew to dwell in Judæa. Thus fate had done him a kindness, assisting him in the performance of a command, and helping him to fulfil his ardent desire. He set out on his journey by ship, and landed at Jean d'Acre (1267), which at that time was still in the hands of the Christians. Thence he made haste to start for Jerusalem (9th Ellul – 12th August).
Nachmani's feelings were deeply stirred on beholding the condition of the Holy Land and the Sacred City. He suffered even keener disappointment than Jehuda Halevi. The Mongols or Tartars, under the Sultan Hulagu, had committed fearful ravages in the land a few years previously (1260). This savage monarch, after conquering the eastern Caliphate, had turned his attention to the Sultanate of Egypt, captured the fortresses on the Euphrates, Damascus, Aleppo, and Baalbek, and forced his way into Palestine. Jerusalem was transformed into a heap of ruins; all its inhabitants had forsaken it (1260). The Jews had connected these extraordinary events with their hopes for the Messiah. The "hateful, deformed men of the East," who had subdued both the oppressors of Israel, the followers of Jesus and of Mahomet, might perhaps bring near unto Israel the hour of redemption. An enthusiast circulated a new revelation said to have been given through Simon bar Yochaï, the medium so frequently appealed to by mysticism, and it declared that the devastations of the Mongols were the sufferings which must precede the coming of the Messiah.
Nachmani entered Palestine a few years after the Mongols had been expelled from the country by the Sultan of Egypt. He beheld many ruins, and apostrophized them in eloquent words, saying, "The more holy the place, the greater its desolation; Jerusalem is more desolate than the rest of Judæa, and Judæa in turn more desolate than Galilee." The Jews of the Holy City had either been slain or scattered; the scrolls of the Law had been rescued by some who fled to Shechem. Two thousand Mahometans and three hundred Christians had again settled in Jerusalem, but only one or two Jewish families were discovered there by Nachmani, and, as before, they enjoyed the privilege of farming the dye-works. The Jewish pilgrims, who had come to Jerusalem from Syria, erected a synagogue at Nachmani's suggestion. Upon Mount Olivet, opposite the ruins of the Temple, Nachmani breathed forth his deep distress over the desolation of the Holy City; but it was not the song of Zion that arose from his excited mind. Nachmani did not possess that divine gift of grace, the poetical genius of Jehuda Halevi, the fancy that is able to re-people deserts, re-establish destroyed kingdoms, chasten sorrow, and ease the heart from pain. He uttered his lament in the verses of other poets.
This exile from Spain did not rest content with erecting synagogues and organizing congregations in the land which for a long time had been his spiritual home, but he also founded in it a home for the study of Jewish science, which had died out there since the conquest of Jerusalem by the crusaders. He gathered a circle of pupils around him, and people came in crowds even from the district of the Euphrates to hear him. Even Karaites are said to have sat at his feet, as for instance Aaron ben Joseph the Elder, who became famous in later times. Although he was no friend of free scientific thought, and thoroughly adhered to Talmudic Judaism, yet Nachmani, as a son of Spain, had obtained sufficient general culture to fertilize the desert of the Oriental Jews. Even his theory of the Kabbala, which he first transplanted into Palestine, where it afterwards spread far and wide, had at least the merit of presenting new points of view, of which his co-religionists, either on account of their ignorance or their partiality for the Talmud, had no idea. He strove at least to explain the irrational in a rational manner, and thus combated stupidity and indifference. He was particularly successful in arousing an interest in the exposition of Holy Writ, of which the Oriental Jews were entirely ignorant. With this end in view, Nachmani composed his Commentary to the Bible, and especially his chief work, the Exposition of the Pentateuch. In this work he brought into play his peculiar genius, his warm and tender disposition, his power of clear thinking, and his mystical dreams. Like numberless men before and after him, he discovered his own philosophy in this Book of books, and interpreted it from his point of view. He did not make much of the Kabbala in his Commentaries; merely touched upon it lightly. But precisely by his careless allusions, he magnified its importance. Narrow, enthusiastic minds searched eagerly for the hidden meaning of these suggestions, and took more notice of Nachmani's Kabbalistic hints, than of the clear ideas to be found in his work.
Nachmani's method of exegesis did not altogether escape the reproach of his contemporaries, chiefly because in his Commentary he made attacks upon Maimuni, and spoke still more violently against Ibn-Ezra. A devotee of philosophy and two enthusiastic students of it wrote a refutation of his works, prefacing it by a satire, in which the mysticism of Nachmani was especially made ridiculous. Pious men, on the other hand, held him in high honor as a particularly orthodox rabbi, and just as his Talmudical works were diligently read and used, so his Commentary became a favorite study of the mystics.
During his three years' stay in Palestine, Nachmani kept up a correspondence with his native land, whereby Judæa and Spain were brought into closer connection. He sent copies of his works to his sons and friends, and gave them descriptions of the condition of their ever unhappy ancestral country. He thus once again awoke an ardent longing for the Holy Land, and induced several persons of an enthusiastic turn of mind to emigrate thither. Nachmani died after having passed the age of seventy (about 1270), and his remains were interred in Chaifa, next to the grave of Yechiel of Paris, his companion in misfortune, who had gone into exile before him.
Nachmani exercised more effect upon his contemporaries and the succeeding age by his personality than by his writings. His numerous pupils, among whom the most renowned was Solomon ben Adret, made the teaching of Nachmani predominant among the Spanish Jews. Inspirited and unwavering attachment to Judaism, a deep regard for the Talmud and complete resignation to its decrees, a dilettante knowledge of the science of the time and of philosophy, the recognition of the Kabbala as extremely ancient tradition, to which was given respect, but not research, these are the distinctly characteristic traits of the Spanish rabbis, and of the representatives of Judaism in the succeeding age. Henceforth Spanish rabbis seldom occupied themselves with philosophy or with any other branch of learning, or even with the exposition of the Bible. Their minds were devoted only to the Talmud, whilst the sciences were cultivated only by non-rabbinical scholars. The simple method of Biblical interpretation taught by Ibn-Ezra and Kimchi was completely neglected.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE AGE OF SOLOMON BEN ADRET AND ASHERI
Martyrs in Germany – The Jews of Hungary and Poland – The Council at Buda – The Jews of Spain and Portugal – Solomon ben Adret, his character and writings – Raymund Martin's anti-Jewish Works – New antagonism to the Maimunist Philosophy – David Maimuni – Moses Taku – Meïr of Rothenburg – The Jews of Italy – Solomon Petit – Rudolph of Habsburg – Emigration of Jews from the Rhine Provinces – Sufferings of the English Jews – Expulsion of the Jews from England and Gascony – Saad-Addaula – Isaac of Accho.
1270–1306 C. EIf Jewish history were to follow chronicles, memorial books and martyrologies, its pages would be filled with descriptions of bloodshed, it would consist of horrible exhibitions of corpses, and it would stand forth to make accusation against a doctrine which taught princes and nations to become common executioners and hangmen. For, from the thirteenth till the sixteenth century, the persecutions and massacres of the Jews increased with frightful rapidity and in intensity, and only alternated with inhuman decrees issued both by the Church and the state, the aim and purport of all of which were to humiliate the Jews, to brand them with calumny and to drive them to suicide. The prophet's description of the martyrdom of the servant of God, of the Messianic people, was fulfilled, or repeated with terrible literalness: "He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment … for the transgression of my people was he stricken." The nations of Europe emulated one another in exercising their cruelty upon the Jews; and it was always the clergy who, in the name of a religion of love, stirred up this undying hatred. It mattered little to the Jews whether they lived under a strict government or under anarchy, for they suffered under the one no less than under the other.
In Germany they were slain by thousands during the troubles which, after the death of the emperor Frederick II, and till the crowning of Rudolph of Habsburg as emperor, arose from the strife between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Every year martyrs fell, now in Weissenburg, Magdeburg, Arnstadt, now in Coblenz, Sinzig, Erfurt, and other places. In Sinzig all the members of the congregation were burnt alive on a Sabbath in their synagogue. There were German Christian families who boasted that they had burnt Jews, and in their pride assumed the name of "Jew-roaster" (Judenbreter). The Church took good care that her flock should not, by intimate intercourse with Jews, discover that they were like other human beings, and so be made to feel sympathy for them. In Vienna, during the contest for the imperial throne of Germany, a large assembly of churchmen met (12th May, 1267) under the leadership of the papal legate Gudeo. Most of the German prelates took part in it, and gave much attention to the question of the Jews. They solemnly confirmed every canonical law that Innocent III and his successors had passed for the branding of the Jews. Jews were not allowed to have any Christian servants, were not admissible to any office of trust, were not to associate with Christians in ale-houses and baths, and Christians were not permitted to accept any invitation of the Jews, nor to enter into discussion with them. As if the German people desired to show that it could surpass all nations in scorn of the Jews, the members of the council at Vienna did not rest content with the command that the German Jews should wear a mark on their dress, but they compelled them to assume a disfiguring head-dress, a pointed, horned hat or cap (pileum cornutum), which provoked the mockery of the gamins. Bloody persecutions were the natural outcome of such distinguishing marks.
In France the clergy did not find it necessary to urge upon their princes, by threats, the degradation of the Jews. The saintly Louis, on his own account, busied himself with this matter. A year before his adventurous journey to Tunis, where he met his death, he emphasized, at the instigation of his much-beloved Pablo Christiani, the Jewish Dominican, the canonical edict which ordained the wearing of the badges. He ordered that this badge should be made of red felt or saffron-yellow cloth in the form of a wheel, and should be worn on the upper garment both on the breast and the back, "so that those who were thus marked might be recognized from all sides." Every Jew found without this badge was to be punished, for the first offense, with the loss of his garment, and for the second, with a fine of ten livres of silver to be paid into the treasury (March, 1269). The Jews of northern France, accustomed to ill-usage, and, as it were, dulled by it, easily yielded; but not so the Jews of Provence, who, being educated and in friendly intercourse with cultured Christians, would not submit to this ignominy. Hitherto they had contrived to escape from wearing the badge, and thought that they would be able to do so on this occasion also. The congregations of the south of France thereupon sent deputies to take counsel for the general welfare; and they in turn selected two distinguished men, Mordecai ben Joseph, of Avignon, and Solomon, of Tarascon, who were to go to court, and try to effect the abrogation of this law. The Jewish delegates met with success, and they returned home with the joyful news that the edict which commanded the wearing of the badge had been rescinded. But Philip III, the successor of Louis, and equally bigoted and narrow-minded, re-introduced the law a year after his accession to the throne (1271). The Dominicans took great care to see that it was not transgressed. Several distinguished Jews, such as Mordecai, of Avignon, and others, who would not submit to this disgrace, were imprisoned. This wearing of a badge by the Jews remained in force in France till the time of their expulsion from the country.
The Church pursued the sons of Jacob with its implacable hate to the very border-line between Europe and Asia. The people of Hungary and Poland, who had not yet laid aside their primitive state of barbarity and their warlike ferocity, were in greater need of the services of the Jews than the nations and states of Central and Western Europe. The Jews, with their commercial habits and their practical skill, had perceived the abundance of produce in the districts lying on the Lower Danube, the Vistula, and on both sides of the Carpathian mountains, had utilized, and thus first conferred value on, this source of wealth. Despite the zeal with which the papacy strove to deprive Jews of public offices, despite its efforts to restrain them from obtaining leases for working the salt mines and from farming the coinage and the taxes in Hungary, it could not expel them from positions in which they were indispensable in preventing the wealth of the country from running to waste. The Hungarian king, Bela IV, the successor of Andrew II, driven by stern necessity, the ravages of the Mongols having impoverished the country, invited Jewish agents. For the benefit of the Jews under his dominion, Bela introduced the law of Frederick the Valiant, of Austria, which protected them from the violence of the mob and the clergy, conceded to them their own jurisdiction, and allowed them the control over their domestic affairs. The papacy, however, turned its attention to the Carpathian districts, partly for the purpose of kindling a new crusade against the Mongols, and partly in order to bring back to the Roman see, by means of trickery and force, the schismatic adherents of the Greek Church. Its spiritual armies, the Dominicans and Franciscans, were despatched thither, and they instilled into the hitherto tolerant Magyars their own spirit of fanatical intolerance. A large church assembly, consisting of prelates from Hungary and the south of Poland, met at Buda (September, 1279). This convocation was under the presidency of Philip, who was the papal legate for Hungary, Poland, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Lodomeria, and Galicia, and decreed a proscription of the Jews of these countries, which the Church executed with logical severity. Jews and other inhabitants of the country not belonging to the Roman Catholic Church were to be debarred from the right of farming the taxes, or from holding any public post. Bishops and other ecclesiastics of higher or lower degree who had entrusted the farming of the revenues of their sees to the hands of Jews were to be suspended from their holy offices. Laymen, of whatsoever rank, were to be placed under a ban of excommunication till they dismissed the Jewish contractors and employés, and had given security that henceforward they would not accept or retain such men, "because it is very dangerous to permit Jews to dwell together with Christian families, and to have intimacy with them at courts and in private houses." The synod at Buda also enacted that the Jews of both sexes dwelling in Hungarian territory (which included Hungary and the provinces of southern Poland) should wear the figure of a wheel made of red cloth on the upper garment on the left side of the breast, and that they should never be seen without this badge. For the time, the exclusion of the Jews of Hungary and Poland from Christian society had little practical effect, for the Mahometans and the schismatic Greek Catholics shared their proscription. These latter were also withheld from public offices. The Mahometans, too, were ordered to wear a badge of a yellow color. The Magyars and Poles had not yet been made so intolerant by church influence as to adopt the refined, cruel practices of both the secular and the regular clergy, who would have denied fire and water to men not wearing a red or yellow sign. The first crop of this poisonous fruit was gathered about half a century later. The last king of the family of Arpad, Ladislaus IV, ratified and confirmed the statutes of the synod in Hungary.
