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

Pride of ancestry, which was a characteristic of the Jews of this country as of the other Spaniards, was not content with the fact that the Jewish colony in Spain had possessed the right of citizenship long before the Visigoths and other Germanic tribes had set their tyrannous iron foot in the land, but desired to lay claim to even higher antiquity for it. The Spanish Jews maintained that they had been transported hither after the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonian conqueror, Nebuchadnezzar. Certain Jewish families, the Ibn-Dauds and the Abrabanels, boasted descent from the royal house of David, and maintained that their ancestors had been settled since time immemorial partly in the district of Lucena, and partly in the environs of Toledo and Seville. The numerous Spanish-Jewish family of Nasi also traced back its pedigree to King David, and proved it by means of a genealogical table and seals. The family of the Ibn-Albalias was more modest, and dated its immigration only from the destruction of the Second Temple. A family tradition runs to the effect that the Roman governor of Spain begged the conqueror of Jerusalem to send him some noble families from the capital of Judæa, and that Titus complied with his request. Among those thus transported was a man named Baruch, who excelled in the art of weaving curtains for the Temple. This Baruch, who settled in Merida, was the ancestor of the Ibn-Albalias.

Christianity had early taken root in Spain. In fact a council of bishops, priests, and the subordinate clergy met at Illiberis (Elvira, near Granada) some time before Constantine's conversion. The Jews were nevertheless held in high esteem by the Christian population as well as by the heathens. The Iberians and Romans who had been converted to Christianity had not yet discovered in the Jews a race repudiated by God, a people whose presence was to be shunned. They associated with their Jewish neighbors in perfect freedom. The newly-converted inhabitants of the country, who often heard their apostle preach about Jews and Judaism, had no conception of the wide gulf dividing Judaism from Christianity, and as often had the produce of their fields blessed by pious Jews as by their own clergy. Intermarriages between Jews and Christians occurred quite as frequently in Spain as in Gaul.

The higher Catholic clergy, however, could not suffer this friendly intercourse between Jews and Christians to continue; they perceived it to be dangerous to the newly-established Church. To the representatives of the Church in Spain is due the honor – if honor it be – of first having raised a barrier between Jew and Christian. The Council of Illiberis (about 320), at whose head was Osius, Bishop of Cordova, forbade the Christians, under pain of excommunication, to hold friendly intercourse with the Jews, to contract marriages with them, or to allow them to bless the produce of their fields. The seed of malignant hatred of the Jews, which was thus first sown by the Synod of Illiberis, did not, however, produce its poisonous fruit until much later. When the migrating Germanic hordes of the Suevi, Vandals, and Visigoths first laid waste this beautiful country, and then chose it for their home, the Catholics of the land were obliged to bear the yoke of political and religious dependence, for the Visigoths, who had taken lasting possession of the peninsula, happened to have been converted to the Arian faith. On the whole, the Visigothic Arians were tolerably indifferent to the controversy of the creeds, as to whether the Son of God was the same as, or similar to, the Father, and whether Bishop Arius ought to be regarded as orthodox or heretical. But they thoroughly hated the Catholic inhabitants of the country, because in every Catholic they saw a Roman, and consequently an enemy. The Jews, on the other hand, were unmolested under the Arian kings, and besides enjoying civil and political equality, were admitted to the public offices. Their skill and knowledge, which gave them the advantage over the uncivilized Visigoths, specially fitted them for these posts. The favorable condition of the Jews in Spain continued for more than a century, beginning with the time when this country first became a province of the Toletanic-Visigothic empire, and extending over the later period, when, under Theudes (531), it became the center of the same. The Jews who dwelt in the province of Narbonne, and in that district of Africa which formed part of the Visigothic empire, also enjoyed civil and political equality; some of them rendered material service to the Visigothic kings. The Jews that lived at the foot of the Pyrenees defended the passes leading from Gaul into Spain against the invasions of the Franks and Burgundians, who longed to possess the country. They were regarded as the most trusty guardians of the frontier, and their martial courage gained for them special distinction. The Visigothic Jews must have remained in communication, either through Italy or through Africa, with Judæa or Babylonia, from which countries they probably received their religious teachers. They adhered strictly to the precepts of the Talmud, abstained from wine made by non-Jews, and admitted their heathen and Christian slaves into the covenant of Abraham, as ordained by the Talmud. While their brethren on the other side of the Pyrenees were greatly oppressed, and forcibly converted to Christianity, or compelled to emigrate, they enjoyed complete liberty of religion, and were further granted the privilege, which was denied the Jews in all the other countries of Europe, of initiating their slaves into their religion.

But as soon as the Catholic Church obtained the supremacy in Spain, and Arianism began to be persecuted, the affairs of the Jews of this country assumed an unfavorable aspect. King Reccared, who had abjured the Arian creed at the Council of Toledo, was the first to unite with the Synod in imposing restrictions on the Jews. They were prohibited from contracting marriages with the Christians, from acquiring Christian slaves, and from holding public offices; such of their children as were born of intermarriages were to be forcibly baptized (589). They were thus made to assume an isolated position, which pained them all the more as they were animated by a sense of honor, and until now had lived upon equal terms with their fellow-citizens, having, in fact, been privileged more than the Catholics. Most oppressive of all was the restraint touching the possession of slaves. Henceforward the Jews were neither to purchase Christian slaves nor to accept them as presents, and if they transgressed the order and initiated the slaves into Judaism, they were to lose all rights in them. The whole fortune of him that circumcised a slave was forfeited to the state. All well-to-do people in the country possessed slaves and serfs, who cultivated their land and provided for the wants of the house; the Jews alone were to be deprived of this advantage. It is conceivable that the wealthy Jews who owned slaves exerted themselves to obtain the repeal of Reccared's law, and to this end they proffered a considerable sum of money to the king. Reccared, however, refused their offer, and for this deed was commended beyond measure by Pope Gregory, whose heart's desire was fulfilled by this law (599). Gregory compared the Visigothic monarch to David, king of Israel, "who refused to accept the water which his warriors had brought him at the risk of their lives, and poured it out before the Lord." In the same manner, he contended, Reccared had sacrificed to God the gold which had been offered to him. At the same time Reccared confirmed a decision of the Council of Narbonne, forbidding the Jews to sing Psalms at their funeral services, – a custom which they had probably adopted from the Church.

Although Reccared desired to enforce these restrictive laws against the Jews, it was nevertheless not very difficult for the latter to evade them. The peculiar constitution of Visigothic Spain afforded them the means of escaping their pressure. According to this constitution the king was not an all-powerful ruler, for the Visigothic nobles, who possessed the right of electing him, were absolutely independent in their own provinces. Neither they nor the people at large shared the fanaticism of the Church against the Jews. They accorded them, as in the past, the right of purchasing slaves, and probably also bestowed offices upon them. In twenty years Reccared's laws against the Jews had fallen into complete disuse. His successors paid but little attention to the matter, and were on the whole not unfavorably disposed towards the Jews.

At this period, however, a king of the Visigoths was elected, who, liberal in other respects, and not uncultured, was a scourge for the Jews of his dominions, and, in consequence, prepared a grievous destiny for his empire. Sisebut, a contemporary of the Emperor Heraclius, was, like the latter, a fanatical persecutor of the Jews. But while some excuse may be found for Heraclius's conduct in the revolt of the Jews of Palestine, and in the fact that he was compelled to adopt this course by the blind fury of the monks, Sisebut acted thus without any provocation, of his own free will, and almost contrary to the wish of the Catholic clergy. At the very commencement of his reign (612), the Jews engaged his attention. His conscience was troubled by the fact, that in spite of Reccared's laws, Christian slaves still served Jewish masters, and were initiated into Judaism, to which faith they willingly adhered. He therefore renewed these laws, and commanded the ecclesiastics and the judges, as well as the entire population of the country, to see that in future no Christians stood in servile relations to the Jews, but he went further in this direction than Reccared; the Jews were not only prohibited from acquiring any slaves, but were forbidden to retain those whom they possessed. Only those Jews who embraced Christianity were permitted to own slaves, and they alone were allowed to advance a claim to the slaves left by their Jewish relatives. Sisebut solemnly exhorted his successors to maintain this law. "May the king who dares abolish this law" – thus ran the formula of Sisebut's curse – "incur the deepest disgrace in this world, and eternal torments in the flames of hell." In spite of this severity and of Sisebut's earnest exhortations, this law appears to have been as little enforced at that period as under Reccared. The independent nobles of the country extended their protection to the Jews, either for their own interest or out of defiance to the king. Even many of the priests and bishops seem to have supported the Jews, and to have concerned themselves but little about the king's command. Sisebut therefore enacted a still severer decree. Within a certain period all the Jews of the land were either to receive baptism or to quit the territory of the Visigothic empire. This order was strictly executed. The weak, who clung to their property or loved the land which their fathers had inhabited time out of mind, allowed themselves to be baptized. The stronger-minded, on the other hand, whose conscience could approve of no compromise, emigrated to France or to the neighboring continent of Africa (612–613). The clergy, however, were by no means satisfied with this forced conversion, and one of their principal representatives reproached the king with having indeed "exhibited zeal for the faith, but not conscientious zeal." With this fanatical persecution Sisebut paved the way for the dissolution of the Visigothic empire.

Sisebut's rigorous laws against the Jews lasted no longer than his reign. They were repealed by his successor, Swintila, a just and liberal monarch, whom the oppressed named the "father of his country." The exiled Jews returned to their native land, and the proselytes reverted to Judaism (621–631). In spite of their baptism the Jewish converts had not abandoned their religion. The act of baptism was deemed sufficient at this period, and no one inquired whether the converts still retained their former customs and usages. The noble king Swintila was, however, dethroned by a conspiracy of nobles and the clergy, and a docile tool, Sisenand by name, raised to his place. Under this monarch the clergy again acquired the ascendancy. Once again, at the Council of Toledo (633), the Jews became the object of synodal attention. At the head of this council stood Isidore, archbishop of Hispalis (Seville), a well-informed and equitable prelate, but infected with the prejudices of his time. The synod proclaimed the principle that the Jews ought not to be made to embrace Christianity by violence and threats of punishment; nevertheless Reccared's laws against them were re-enacted. The full severity of the ecclesiastical legislation was, however, directed against the Jews who had been forcibly converted under Sisebut, and had reverted to their religion. Although the clergy themselves had criticized the method of their conversion, they nevertheless considered it a duty to keep within the pale of Christianity the Jews that had once received the holy sacrament, "in order that the faith may not be dishonored." Religion was regarded at this period merely as a lip-confession. The synod which sat under Sisenand decided, therefore, that the Jews who had been baptized should be forcibly restrained from the observance of their religion, and withdrawn from the society of their co-religionists, and that the children of both sexes should be torn from their parents and thrust into monasteries. Those discovered observing the Sabbath and the Jewish festivals, contracting marriages according to the Jewish rites, practising circumcision, or abstaining from certain foods, in obedience to the precepts of Judaism, were to expiate their offenses by forfeiting their freedom. They were to be reduced to slavery, and presented to orthodox Christians chosen by the king. According to this canonical legislation, the forcibly converted Jews and their descendants were not to be admitted as witnesses, because "those that have been untrue to God cannot be sincere to man"; this was the conclusion reached by ignorance in session. In comparison with this severity, the treatment of the Jews that had remained steadfast to their faith appears quite merciful.

Even these, however, the clergy exerted themselves to alienate from Judaism. Isidore of Seville wrote two books against the Jews, wherein he attempted to prove the doctrines of Christianity by means of passages from the Old Testament, naturally in that tasteless, senseless manner which had been employed since the commencement of the polemic warfare against Judaism by the Fathers. The Spanish Jews, in order to confirm themselves in their ancestral faith, were induced to take up the controversy, and to refute this specious proof. The learned men among them replied with counter treatises, written probably in Latin. Their superior knowledge of the Biblical records made their victory easy. In answer to the principal rejoinder, that the scepter had departed from Judah, and that the Christians, who possessed kings, thus formed the true people of Israel, the Jews pointed to a Jewish kingdom in the extreme East, which they asserted was ruled over by a descendant of David. They alluded to the Jewish-Himyarite empire in southern Arabia, but this was governed by a dynasty which had been converted to Judaism.

These resolutions of the fourth Council of Toledo and Sisenand's persecution of the Jewish converts do not appear to have been carried out with all the proposed severity. The Visigothic-Spanish nobles took the Jews more and more under their patronage, and against them the royal authority was powerless. At this period, however, a king resembling Sisebut ascended the Visigothic throne. Chintila assembled a general council, and not only did he obtain from them a confirmation of all anti-Jewish clauses contained in the existing laws, but enacted that no one should be allowed to remain in the Visigothic empire who did not embrace the Catholic religion. The ecclesiastical assembly adopted these propositions with joy, and exulted over the fact that "by the piety of the king, the unyielding infidelity of the Jews would at last be destroyed." They appended the canonical law, that in future every king, before his accession, should be compelled to take a solemn oath not to allow the converted Jews to violate the Catholic faith, nor to favor their unbelief, but strictly to enforce the ecclesiastical decisions against them (638).

A second time the Jews were obliged to emigrate, and the converts, who still clung to Judaism in their secret hearts, were compelled to sign a confession to the effect that they would observe and obey the Catholic religion without reserve. But the confession thus signed by men whose sacred convictions were outraged, was not and could not be sincere. They hoped steadfastly for better times, when they might be able to throw off the mask, and the elective constitution of the Visigothic empire soon made this possible. The present situation lasted only during the four years of Chintila's reign (638–642).

CHAPTER III.

THE JEWS OF THE ARABIAN PENINSULA

Happy condition of the Jews in Arabia – Traditions as to their original settlements – Yathrib and Chaibar – The Jewish-Arabic tribes – The Benu-Nadhir, the Benu-Kuraiza, and Benu-Bachdal – The Benu-Kainukaa – The Jews of Yemen – Their power and influence – Conversion of Arabian tribes to Judaism – Abu-Kariba the first Jewish-Himyarite king – Zorah Dhu-Nowas – Samuel Ibn-Adija – Mahomet – His indebtedness to Judaism – Mahomet's early friendliness to the Jews and subsequent breach with them – His attacks on the Jewish tribes – The War of the Fosse – The position of the Jews under the Caliphs.

500–662 C. E

Wearied with contemplating the miserable plight of the Jews in their ancient home and in the countries of Europe, and fatigued by the constant sight of fanatical oppression, the eyes of the observer rest with gladness upon their situation in the Arabian peninsula. Here the sons of Judah were free to raise their heads, and did not need to look about them with fear and humiliation, lest the ecclesiastical wrath be discharged upon them, or the secular power overwhelm them. Here they were not shut out from the paths of honor, nor excluded from the privileges of the state, but, untrammeled, were allowed to develop their powers in the midst of a free, simple, and talented people, to show their manly courage, to compete for the gifts of fame, and with practised hand to measure swords with their antagonists. Instead of bearing the yoke, the Jews were not infrequently the leaders of the Arabian tribes. Their intellectual superiority constituted them a power, and they concluded offensive and defensive alliances, and carried on feuds. Besides the sword and the lance, however, they handled the ploughshare and the lyre, and in the end became the teachers of the Arabian nation. The history of the Jews of Arabia in the century which precedes Mahomet's appearance, and during the period of his activity, forms a glorious page in the annals of the Jews.

The first immigration of Jewish families into the free peninsula is buried in misty tradition. According to one account, the Israelites sent by Joshua to fight the Amalekites settled in the city of Yathrib (afterwards Medina), and in the province of Chaibar; according to another, the Israelite warriors, under Saul, who had spared the beautiful young son of the Amalekite king, and had been repudiated by the nation for their disobedience, returned to the Hejas (northern Arabia), and settled there. An Israelite colony is also supposed to have been formed in northern Arabia during the reign of David. It is possible that under the powerful kings of Judah, seafaring Israelites, who navigated the Red Sea on their way to Ophir – the land of gold – established trading stations, for the trade with India, in Mariba and Sanaa (Usal), the most important commercial towns of southern Arabia (Yemen, Himyara, Sabea), and planted Jewish colonies there. The later Arabian Jews said, however, that they had heard from their forefathers that many Jewish fugitives had escaped to northern Arabia on the destruction of the First Temple by Nebuchadnezzar. But there can be no doubt that the persecution of the Jews by the Romans was the means of establishing a Jewish population in the Arabian peninsula. The death-defying zealots who, after the destruction of the Second Temple, fled in part to Egypt and to Cyrene, in order to continue there the desperate struggle against the thraldom of Rome, also passed in straggling bands into Arabia, where they were not compelled to hide their love of freedom or to abandon their warlike bearing.

From these fugitives sprang three Jewish-Arabic tribes – the Benu-Nadhir, the Benu-Kuraiza, and the Benu-Bachdal, the first two of which were descended from Aaron, and therefore called themselves Cohanim (Al-kahinani). Another Jewish family – the Benu-Kainukaa – were established in northern Arabia, and their mode of living was different from that of the Nadhir and Kuraiza. These tribes had their center in the city of Yathrib, which was situated in a fruitful district, planted with palms and rice, and watered by small streams. As the Jews were often molested by Bedouins, they built castles on the elevated places in the city and the surrounding country, whereby they guarded their independence. Although originally the sole rulers of this district, they were afterwards obliged to share their power and the possession of the soil with the Arabs, for, about the year 300, two related families, the Benu-Aus and the Chazraj (together forming the tribe of Kaila), settled in the same neighborhood, and sometimes stood in friendly, sometimes in hostile relations to the Jews.

To the north of Yathrib was situated the district of Chaibar, which was entirely inhabited by Jews, who constituted a separate commonwealth. The Jews of Chaibar are supposed to have been descendants of the Rechabites, who, in accordance with the command of their progenitor, Jonadab, the son of Rechab, led a nomadic and Nazarite life; after the destruction of the First Temple, they are said to have wandered as far as the district of Chaibar, attracted by its abundance of palms and grain. The Jews of Chaibar constructed a line of castles or fortresses, like the castles of the Christian knights; the strongest of them was Kamus, built upon a hill difficult of access. These castles protected them from the predatory incursions of the warlike Bedouins, and enabled them to offer an asylum to many a persecuted fugitive. Wadil-Kora (the valley of the villages), a fertile plain a day's journey from Chaibar, was also inhabited exclusively by Jews. In Mecca, where stood the sanctuary of the Arabs, there probably lived but few Jews.

They were numerously represented, however, in southern Arabia (Yemen), "the land," its inhabitants boasted, "the very dust of which was gold, which produced the healthiest men, and whose women brought forth without pain." But unlike their brethren in Hejas, the Jews of Arabia Felix lived without racial or political cohesion, scattered among the Arabs. They nevertheless in time obtained so great an influence over the Arab tribes and the kings of Yemen (Himyara), that they were able to prevent the propagation of Christianity in this region. The Byzantine Christian emperors had their desires fixed upon these markets for Indian produce. Without actually meditating the subjection of the brave Himyarites (Homerites), they desired to gain their friendship by converting them to Christianity; the cross was to be the means of effecting a commercial connection. It was not until the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century that the Christian envoys succeeded in converting to Christianity an Arab prince and his tribe, whose capital was the commercial town of Najara. – Arabia owned only half the island of Yotabe (now Jijbân), in the Red Sea (60 miles to the south of the capital, Aila); a small Jewish free state had existed there since time immemorial.

In consequence of their Semitic descent, the Jews of Arabia possessed many points of similarity with the primitive inhabitants of the country. Their language was closely related to Arabic, and their customs, except those that had been produced by their religion, were not different from those of the sons of Arabia. The Jews became, therefore, so thoroughly Arabic that they were distinguished from the natives of the country only by their religious belief. Intermarriage between the two nations tended to heighten the similarity of their characters. Like the Himyarites, the Jews of southern Arabia applied themselves more particularly to the trade between India, the Byzantine empire, and Persia. The Jews of northern Arabia, on the contrary, led the life of Bedouins; they occupied themselves with agriculture, cattle breeding, transport by caravan, traffic in weapons, and probably also the calling of robbers. The Arabian Jews likewise possessed a patriarchal, tribal constitution. Several families were united under one name, and led by a chieftain (shaïch), who in times of peace settled controversies and pronounced judgment, and in war commanded all the men able to bear arms, and concluded alliances with neighboring tribes. Like the Arabs, the Jews of the peninsula extended their hospitality to every one who entered their tents, and held inviolable faith with their allies; but they shared also the faults of the original inhabitants of the peninsula, avenging the death of one of their number with rigorous inflexibility, and hiding in ambush in order to surprise and annihilate their enemy. It would sometimes happen that a Jewish tribe, having entered into an alliance with an Arabian clan, would find itself opposed to a kindred tribe which had espoused another cause. But even though Jews were at feud with each other, their innate qualities moderated in them Bedouin ferocity, which never extended mercy to a foe. They ransomed the prisoners of a kindred tribe with which they happened to be at war, from the hands of their own allies, being unwilling to abandon them as slaves to heathens, "because," said they, "the redemption of such of our co-religionists as are prisoners is a religious duty." Besides being equal to the Arabs in bravery, the Jews also contended with them for the palm in poetry. For in addition to manliness and courage, poetry was cultivated among the Arab nobles; it was fostered by the chieftains, and richly rewarded by the Arab kings. Next to the warrior, the poet was the man most honored in Arabia; for him all hearts and tents opened wide. The Jews of Arabia were likewise able to speak with elegance the Arabic language, and to adorn their poetry with rhymes.