History of the Jews, Vol. 3 (of 6)

It is remarkable that the hostile measures of the Pope against the Jews at that time had least effect in Germany, and that under Emperor Frederick II they enjoyed a comparatively favorable position. It is true that they were "servi cameræ" of the empire and the emperor, and were even so called; but nevertheless princes, especially the archdukes of Austria, now and again entrusted into their hands important offices. Those Jews who had access to the courts of the princes always labored to free themselves from the Jew-tax, and to obtain privileges from their patrons. As, however, it was the custom in the German congregations to distribute the tax among all the members of the congregation in proportion to their means, it happened that if the richer and more influential men obtained exemption from it, the poorer members found themselves greatly encumbered, and accordingly complaints were made about it to the rabbinical authorities of that time. A synod of rabbis, which met at Mayence (Tammuz – July, 1223), discussed this question, for the purpose of adjusting it. There were at this synod, which numbered more than twenty members, the most influential rabbis in Germany: David ben Kalonymos, of Münzenburg (in Hesse-Darmstadt), a famous Tossafist; Baruch ben Samuel, of Mayence, composer of a Talmudical work; Chiskiya ben Reuben, of Boppard, the courageous champion of his persecuted co-religionists; Simcha ben Samuel, of Speyer, likewise a Talmudical author; Eleazar ben Joel Halevi, called Abi-Ezri, from his Talmudical works; lastly, the German Kabbalist, Eleazar ben Jehuda of Worms, called Rokeach, a prolific author, who, through his mysticism, helped to obscure the light of thought in Judaism.

This rabbinical synod of Mayence renewed many ordinances of the times of Rabbenu Tam, and established others besides. Its decisions mark the condition of the German Jews in the beginning of the thirteenth century. The synod enacted that Jews should on no account incur blame by dishonorable dealings with Christians, or by the counterfeiting of coin. An informer was to be compelled to make good the loss which he had caused by his information. Those who had freedom of access to the king (emperor), were none the less under the obligation to bear the communal burden in raising the tax. He who received a religious office through Christian authorities incurred the penalty of excommunication. In the synagogues, devotion and decorum were to prevail. The brother-in-law was to complete the release of his widowed sister-in-law from her levirate marriage without extortion of money and without trickery, and he was not to keep her in suspense. He who would not submit to the regulations of the synod, or did not respect a sentence of excommunication, was to be delivered over to the secular power. The determination of disputed cases was left to the rabbinate and the congregations of Mayence, Worms, and Speyer, as the oldest German Jewish communities.

In spite of the many exertions of the cultured Jews to avert the disgrace of wearing the badge, papal intolerance gradually gained the ascendancy, and the edict of the Lateran Council of 1215 henceforth had sway. Even Emperor Frederick II, the most intelligent and enlightened prince that Germany ever had, whose orthodoxy was more than doubtful, had at length to bow to the will of the papacy, and introduce the Jew-badge by law in his hereditary provinces of Naples and Sicily.

In southern France, where, in consequence of the war against the Albigenses, the spirit of persecution had been intensified among the clergy more perhaps than in other Christian countries, the edicts of Innocent III for the degradation and humiliation of the Jews found only too zealous supporters. At a council at Narbonne (1227), not only were the canonical ordinances against them confirmed, the prohibition of taking interest, the wearing of the Jew-badge, the payment of a tax to the Church, but even the long-forgotten decrees of the ancient time of the Merovingian kings were renewed against them. The Jews were not allowed to be seen in the streets at Easter, and they were prohibited from leaving their houses during the festival.

In the next year the Albigensian war came to an end, and the horrors of a blind, revengeful, bloodthirsty reaction began. The preacher-monks, the disciples of Domingo, glorified Christianity through the agonies of the rack and the stake. Whoever was in possession of a Bible in the Romance (Provençal) language incurred the charge of heresy at the court of the Dominicans, who had the exclusive right to bloodthirsty persecutions. Their allies, the Franciscans or Minorites, energetically seconded them. It was not long before these destroying angels in monks' cowls placed their clutches upon the sons of Jacob.

Four men appeared simultaneously on the stage of history, who were thoroughly pervaded with the spirit of Christianity, and especially with its oppressive, unlovely, inhuman form, and they rendered the life of the Jews in many countries an inconceivable torture. The first was Pope Gregory IX, a passionate old man, the deadly enemy of Emperor Frederick II, whose sole ambition was the extension of the power of the Church and the destruction of his opponents, who cast the torch of discord into the German Empire, and annihilated its unity and greatness. The second was King Louis IX of France, who had acquired the name of "the Saint," from the simplicity of his heart and the narrowness of his head; he was a most pliant tool for crafty monks, a worshiper of relics, who was strongly inclined to adopt a monk's cowl, and most readily assisted in the persecution of heretics, and who hated the Jews so thoroughly that he would not look at them. Similar to him was his contemporary Ferdinand III of Castile, who inherited also the crown of Leon, and was likewise recognized by the Church as a saint, because he burnt heretics with his own hand. Lastly, the Dominican-General Raymond de Penyaforte (Peñaforte), the most frantic oppressor of the heretics, who applied all his efforts to convert Jews and Mahometans to Christianity. In this spirit he exercised his influence upon the kings of Aragon and Castile, and caused seminaries to be established, where instruction in Hebrew and Arabic was given, in order that these languages might be employed for the conversion of Jews and Saracens. These tyrannical, pitiless enemies, furnished with every resource, were let loose upon the Jews. Gregory IX exhorted the bishop of Valencia (1229) to crush the arrogance of the Jews towards the Christians, as if the Church were hovering in the greatest peril. Consequently, under Jayme I, of Aragon, the position of the Jews of Aragon and of the provinces belonging to it took an evil turn. Spurred on by clerical fanaticism and by greed for gold, this king declared the Jews to be his clients, i. e. in a manner, his "servi cameræ."

Everywhere the hostile spirit which first proceeded from Innocent, and was spread by the Dominicans, assumed the form of severe laws against the Jews. At two Church assemblies, in Rouen and Tours (1231), the hostile decrees of the Lateran Council against the Jews were re-enacted, and at the latter meeting another restriction was added, the Jews were not to be admitted as witnesses against Christians, because much evil might arise from the testimony of Jews.

The narrow-minded disposition of the Church towards the Jews was felt, through the increased power of the papacy after Innocent, even by the Jews dwelling on the banks of the Lower Danube and the Theiss. In Hungary they had settled at a very early date, having immigrated thither from the Byzantine and Chazar empires. Since there were many heathen and Mahometans among the dominant Magyars, the kings had to be very tolerant towards them; besides this, the Christianity of the Magyars was only superficial, and had not yet affected their feeling and mode of thought. Consequently, the Jews of Hungary from time immemorial had had the right of coinage, and were in friendly relations with their German brethren. Till the thirteenth century, Jews as well as Mahometans were farmers of salt mines, and of the taxes, and filled various royal offices. Mixed marriages between Jews and Christians also occurred frequently, as the Church had not yet established itself in the country. This enjoyment of dignities by the Jews in a country only half Christian, could not be tolerated by the Church: it was a thorn in its side. Accordingly when King Andreas, who had quarreled with the magnates of the country, and had been compelled to issue a charter of liberty, applied to Pope Gregory IX for help, the latter, in a letter to Robert, Archbishop of Gran, ordered him to compel the king to deprive both Jews and Mahometans of their public offices. Andreas at first submitted to the papal will, but did not carry out the orders of the Pope zealously, because he could not well dispense with his Jewish officials and farmers. On this account and for other grounds of complaint, the archbishop of Gran passed sentence of excommunication on the king and his followers by order of the Pope (beginning of 1232). By various strong measures, Andreas was at last compelled to obey, and, like Raymund, of Toulouse, solemnly to promise (1232) that he would not admit Jews or Saracens to offices, nor suffer any Christian slaves to continue in their possession, nor allow mixed marriages, and lastly that he would compel them to wear a badge. The same oath had to be taken, by order of the papal legate, by the crown prince, the king of Slavonia, and all the magnates and dignitaries of the kingdom.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE MAIMUNIST CONTROVERSY AND THE RISE OF THE KABBALA

The Opposition against Maimuni – Maimunists and anti-Maimunists – Meïr Abulafia – Samson of Sens – Solomon of Montpellier – Excommunication of the Maimunists – David Kimchi's energetic Advocacy of Maimuni – Nachmani – His Character and Work – His Relations to Maimuni, Ibn-Ezra, and the Kabbala – Solomon of Montpellier calls in the aid of the Dominicans – Moses of Coucy – Modern date of the Kabbala – Azriel and Ezra – Doctrines of the Kabbala – Jacob ben Sheshet Gerundi – The Bahir – Three Parties in Judaism – Last flicker of the Neo-Hebraic Poetry – The Satirical Romance: Al-Charisi and Joseph ben Sabara.

1232–1236 C. E

As misfortunes never come singly, but draw others after them, so besides the insults and humiliations which the Jews suffered from without, there now arose alarming disunion within their ranks. Remarkably enough, this intestine war was associated with Maimuni, whose aim, during his whole life, had been to effect union and complete finality in Judaism. But in undertaking to explain philosophically the intellectual side of Judaism, he established principles which did not by any means bear a Jewish stamp on them, nor were they in consonance with the Bible, and still less with the Talmud. Those scholars whose learning was entirely confined to the Talmud ignored the philosophical discussion of Judaism, considered it sinful to be occupied with other branches of knowledge, even when applied to the service of Judaism, and took their stand, right or wrong, on the Talmudical saying, "Withhold your children from excessive reflection." Even intelligent men, and such as were philosophically trained, recognized that Maimuni, in his endeavor to reconcile religion with the philosophy of the age, had made the former subservient to the latter, and had made the mistress over the mind a slave. Articles of belief and Scriptural verses, which do not admit of philosophical justification, have no value according to Maimuni's system. Miracles were not inevitable in Maimuni's philosophy; but attempts were made to reduce them as far as possible to natural causes, and to interpret in a rationalistic manner the Biblical verses which contain them. Prophecy and direct communication with the Deity, as it is taught in the Bible, Maimuni refused to accept, but explained them as subjective occurrences, as effects of an over-heated imagination, or as dream-phenomena. His doctrine of immortality was not less in contradiction with the belief of Talmudical Judaism. It denies the existence of a paradise and a hell, and represents the purified soul as becoming fused with the original spirit. His method of explaining many ceremonial laws especially provoked contradiction, because, if accepted, these laws would lose their permanent value, and have only temporary importance. And the manner in which Maimuni expressed himself on the Agada, a constituent part of the Talmud – which he either explained away or rejected – was in the eyes, not only of the strict Talmudists, but also of more educated men, an heretical attack upon Judaism, which they believed it was their duty to energetically repel. Thus, besides enthusiastic worshipers of Maimuni, who religiously adopted his doctrine as a new revelation, there was formed a party, which assailed his writings, and combated particularly the "Guide of the Perplexed" (Moré), and the first part of his Code (Madda). The rabbis and the representatives of the Jewish congregations in Europe and Asia, consequently became divided into Maimunists and opponents to Maimuni (Anti-Maimunists). Such of the latter as were his contemporaries, still full of the powerful impression which Maimuni's individuality and activity had produced, fully acknowledged his genius and piety, and blamed or criticised his views only, and the writings which contained them.

The opposition to his philosophical doctrines had begun during Maimuni's life, but it remained quiet and timid, unable to assert itself against the enthusiasm of his admirers. A young, intellectual, and learned man, Meïr ben Todros Halevi Abulafia, of Toledo (born about 1180, died 1244), had, at an early period, expressed his religious objections to Maimuni's theory in a letter to the "wise men of Lünel," which was intended for publication. Maimuni's doctrine of immortality forms the central point of Abulafia's attack. He made, however, but little impression by this letter, for although Meïr Abulafia was descended from a highly respectable family, and enjoyed considerable authority, still his hostile attitude towards science, and his tendency towards an ossified Judaism, isolated him even in his own circle. Apart from this, he was possessed of overweening arrogance, a quality not calculated to win adherents and organize a party. Instead of finding supporters, Meïr met with a sharp rebuff from the learned Aaron ben Meshullam, of Lünel, who was master of the sciences and the Talmud, and a warm adherent of Maimuni. He charged him with presumption in venturing, though unripe in years and wisdom, to pass an opinion on the greatest man of his time. The Talmudists of northern France, led by Samson of Sens, to whom every letter of the Talmud was an embodiment of the highest truths, and who would not countenance any new interpretations, thoroughly concurred with the inquisitor Meïr Abulafia. Meïr was looked upon in his time as chief of the Obscurantists. The aged Sheshet Benveniste, of Barcelona, ever a warm friend of free research, composed a sarcastic epigram upon him:

"You ask me, friends, why this man's name,Seeing he walks in darkness, should be Meïr.4I answer, the sages have called the night 'light,'This, too, is an example of the rule of contraries."

Another poet directed the arrows of his wit against Abulafia, but its points are untranslatable. The Maimunists were generally vastly superior to their adversaries in knowledge and speech, and they could expose the enemies of light to ridicule.

The hostility against Maimuni appeared also in the East, but not so strongly. A learned Talmudist, Daniel ben Saadiah, a disciple of the Samuel ben Ali who had conducted himself so maliciously against the sage of Fostat, had settled in Damascus, and animated by the spirit of his master against the Maimunist tendency, he conceived it his duty to continue to make it the target of his hostility. Daniel, in the first place, impugned Maimuni's Talmudical decisions in order to weaken the position on which his commanding influence rested, for it was through Maimuni's acknowledged rabbinical authority that his philosophical, or according to his opponents, his heretical, doctrines found such dangerous and general acceptance. Daniel, however, thought it advisable to maintain a respectful tone towards him; he even sent his polemic to Abraham Maimuni for examination. Afterwards Daniel, in an exegetical work, allowed himself to make veiled attacks upon Maimuni's orthodoxy, and curiously enough reproached him with not believing in the existence of evil spirits. His main argument, however, was not strictly concerned with the existence or non-existence of demons, but sought to demonstrate that Maimuni was a heretic, because he had refused to acknowledge unconditionally, as correct and true, utterances which occur in the Talmud. Maimuni's admirers, however, were greatly exasperated at these attacks of Daniel, and Joseph Ibn-Aknin, Maimuni's favorite pupil, urged Abraham Maimuni to pass sentence of excommunication on Daniel ben Saadiah. Abraham, however, who had inherited his father's disinterestedness and love of justice, would not hear of it. He expressed himself on the subject with meritorious impartiality, saying that he did not think it right to excommunicate Daniel, whom he considered a religious man of pure belief, who had only made a mistake in one point; moreover, that as he was a party in this controversy, he did not feel himself empowered to excommunicate an antagonist in a matter that was to some extent personal. Maimuni's admirers, and especially Joseph Ibn-Aknin, were not, however, disposed to take the same view. They labored to induce the Exilarch David of Mosul to exclude from the community the blameless and esteemed scholar of Damascus, until he should humbly recant his strictures upon Maimuni. Daniel was excommunicated, and died of grief, and all opposition to Maimuni in the East was silenced for a long time. The Asiatic Jews were still so overpowered by the glamour of his name, that they could not think of him as a heretic. Nor were they learned enough to grasp the range of Maimuni's ideas, and to perceive their incompatibility with the spirit of the Talmud. It may also be that his admirer, Jonathan Cohen, who had emigrated to Palestine, had won the pious to his side, and had defeated the party of Samson of Sens, which was inimical to him.

Very different was the state of affairs in Europe, especially in the south of France and in Spain. Here Maimuni's theories had taken root, and dominated the minds of the learned and of most of the influential leaders of congregations; henceforth they regarded the Bible and the Talmud only in the Maimunist light. The pious Jews of Spain and Provence endeavored to reconcile the contradictions between Talmudical Judaism and Maimuni's system, by a method of interpretation. The less religious used his system as a support for their lukewarmness in the performance of their religious duties; they expressed themselves more freely about the Bible and the Talmud, practically neglected many precepts, and were bent on re-organizing Judaism on a rationalistic basis. Among the Jews of southern Spain, this lukewarmness towards the Law went so far that not a few contracted marriages with Christian and Mahometan women. The excessively pious, whose whole life was absorbed by the Talmud, mistaking cause for effect, considered these distressing occurrences as a poisonous fruit of the philosophical seed, and prophesied the decay of Judaism, if Maimuni's theories should gain the ascendancy. Nevertheless considerable time elapsed before any one ventured to make a decisive stand against them. The rabbis of northern France, who were of the same way of thinking as Samson of Sens, knew little of Maimuni's philosophical writings and their effects, while the rabbis of southern France and of Spain, who were guided absolutely by the Talmud, may have thought it dangerous and useless to try to stem the overwhelming flood of free thought.

It was, therefore, looked upon as a most audacious step, when a rabbi of the school which followed the Talmud with unquestioning faith, openly and recklessly declared war against the Maimunists. This was Solomon ben Abraham, of Montpellier, a pious, honorable man, learned in the Talmud, but of perverted notions, whose whole world was the Talmud, beyond which nothing was worthy of credence. Not only the legal decisions of the Talmud were accepted by him as irrefutable truths, but also the Agadic portions in their naked literalness. He and his friends conceived the Deity as furnished with eyes, ears, and other human organs, sitting in heaven upon a throne, surrounded by darkness and clouds. Paradise and Hell they painted in Agadic colors; the righteous were to enjoy, in the heavenly garden of Eden, the flesh of the Leviathan and old wine, stored up from the beginning of the world in celestial flasks, and the godless, the heretics, and the transgressors of the Law were to be scourged, tortured, and burnt in the hell-fire of Gehenna. The rabbis of this school believed in the existence of evil spirits; it was in a manner an article of faith with them, for the Talmudical Agada recognizes them as existing.

Adopting a theory so gross and anthropomorphic, Solomon of Montpellier could not help finding nearly every word in Maimuni's compositions un-Jewish and heretical. He felt it incumbent on him to make reply; he saw in the toleration of the Maimunist views the dissolution of Judaism, and he entered the lists against their exponents and champions. But with what weapons? The Middle Ages knew of no more effective instrument than excommunication to destroy ideas apparently pernicious. He attempted to compel men, who towered head and shoulders above their contemporaries, and held different opinions on religion from the thoughtless crowd, to seal up their ideas in themselves, or to recant them as vicious errors, by shutting them off from all intercourse with their co-religionists. At about the same time Pope Gregory directed the University of Paris, the upholder of the free philosophical spirit till the rise of the Dominicans and Franciscans, to adhere strictly in its curriculum to the canon of the Lateran Council, and on peril of excommunication, to avoid using those philosophical writings which had been interdicted by it. This precedent, together with his bigoted, passionate nature, may have induced Solomon of Montpellier to introduce a censorship of thought into the Jewish world, and to crush the Maimunist heresy by excommunication. But to appear single-handed against the Maimunists, whose number was large, and who ruled public opinion, could but ruin his cause. Solomon sought for allies, but could not find a single rabbi in southern France who was ready to take part in the denunciation of the Maimunist school. Only two of his pupils came to his aid – Jonah ben Abraham Gerundi (the elder) of Gerona, a blind zealot like his master, and David ben Saul. These three pronounced the ban (beginning of 1232) against all those who read Maimuni's compositions, especially the philosophical parts (Moré and Madda), against those who studied anything except the Bible and the Talmud, against those who distorted the plain literal sense of Holy Writ, or, in general, expounded the Agada differently from Rashi. Solomon and his allies explained the reasons for their sentence of excommunication in a letter to the public, and laid special stress on the point that Maimuni's line of argument undermined Talmudical Judaism. They did not hesitate even to vilify the venerated sage: it might be true, they said, that he had once lived strictly in accordance with the Talmud, yet instances were known in which still greater men had become renegades from the Law in their old age. Solomon at first thought of invoking the secular power of the Christian authorities to aid him in oppressing free thought. For the present, however, he looked for supporters among the rabbis of northern France. These, belonging to the acute but one-sided Tossafist school, and having grown hoary in the Talmud, did not for a moment appreciate the necessity of establishing Judaism on a rational and scientific basis, and nearly all of them adopted Solomon's opinion, and took sides against the Maimunists.

The sentence of excommunication, the proscription of science, and the defamation of Maimuni, excited the violent indignation of his admirers. It seemed to them unheard-of audacity, unparalleled impudence. The three chief congregations of Provence, Lünel, Béziers, and Narbonne, in which the Maimunists were in power, rose against this presumption of the Obscurantists, and on their side excommunicated Solomon and his two disciples, and hastened to urge the other congregations of Provence to unite in rescuing the honor of the great Moses. In Montpellier the congregation was divided into two parties; whilst the ignorant multitude remained by their rabbi, the learned renounced their allegiance, and violent frays between them were not infrequent. The flame of discord blazed up, and spread over the congregations of Provence, Catalonia, Aragon, and Castile. The contest was carried on by both sides with intense passion, and not entirely with honorable weapons. Simple faith and a philosophical apprehension of religion, which had till then maintained friendly relations, now met in a conflict, which threatened to lead to a complete rupture and to schism. The worst of it was, that the parties were both justified, each from its own point of view; both could appeal to old and respected authorities, some of whom maintained that the Bible and the Talmud must be believed in without investigation and strained interpretation, while others held that reason also had a voice in religious matters.