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

In the midst of all these troubles, petty inflictions and persecutions, there was only one spot in which the Jew might feel himself quite happy, and was able to forget his sufferings. The house of learning, where young and old gathered together in order to study the Talmud, was their only haven of peace. Absorbed in their study, the Talmud enthusiasts became entirely oblivious of the outer world, with its bitter hate, its malicious laws and its cruel tortures. Here they were princes, the majesty of thought cast a halo about their brows, and their delight in spiritual activity transfigured their features. Their whole happiness consisted in solving some difficult problem in the Talmud, or in throwing light upon some obscure point, or in discovering something new which had escaped the notice of their predecessors. They looked neither for office nor honor in reward for their profound studies, and received no tangible recompense for their nocturnal vigils. They desired only to gratify their intense longing for knowledge, to satisfy their sense of religious duty, at best, assure themselves of reward in the hereafter. The all-important occupation for all was study, and the flower of all scholarship was the Talmud. As soon as a child was able to lisp, he was led on the morning of Pentecost from his house to the synagogue or "school," with his eyes veiled, in order that they might not encounter anything profane. There the Hebrew alphabet, in its usual and also in a reversed order, and some appropriate verses were read to him. He was rewarded with a honey cake and an egg, with Scriptural verses inscribed on them. The day on which the child was first introduced to the Law was celebrated by his parents and the whole congregation as a festive occasion. If he proved at all intelligent, he was allowed to begin the Talmud, after having spent some time over the Bible. To be a student of the Talmud was esteemed the highest honor. Disgrace was the portion of the ignoramus (Am ha-Arez). A studious youth passed many years in the house of learning even till the time of his marriage; and to the end of his life the earning of his livelihood was held to be of secondary importance, and the study of the Talmud the aim of his existence. This absorbing study of the Talmud was certainly one-sided, but there was something ideal about it. The hand of the enemy had up to this time not violated this inner sanctuary. The temporal authorities did not concern themselves about the matter, the clergy had no power over the domestic affairs of the Jews; here excommunication itself proved ineffectual.

This domestic peace of the Jews was, however, soon to be destroyed; even from their intellectual asylum they were to be driven forth. The leader in the movement was a baptized Jew, who incited the temporal and the spiritual powers against his former co-religionists. A man, named Donin (or Dunin), a Talmudist from La Rochelle, in the north of France, conceived doubts of the validity of the Talmud and the oral law. For this he was excommunicated by the French rabbis. Having no position either among Jews or among Christians, Donin determined to accept baptism, and assumed the name of Nicholas. Filled with hatred against the rabbis and the Talmud, the apostate determined to revenge himself on both. Probably urged on by the clergy, he became the instigator of the great autos-da-fé of the Jews and their writings, and it was he that occasioned the bloody persecution in Poitou. His appetite for revenge was, however, not yet satiated. Donin or Nicholas betook himself to Pope Gregory IX, and brought charges against the Talmud, saying that it distorted the words of Holy Writ, and that in the Agadic portions there were to be found disgraceful representations of God; that in spite of this, it was held in higher estimation by the rabbis than the Bible, and finally that it was filled with abuse against the founder of the Christian religion and the Virgin. Donin demonstrated to the pope that it was the Talmud which prevented the Jews from accepting Christianity, and that without it they would certainly give up their unbelief. The excess of veneration paid by the compilers of the Talmud to earlier lawgivers caused cruel suffering. Without considering the sage remark of Abtalion, "Ye wise men, be cautious with your words," they, in their desire to immortalize every utterance, every familiar conversation, every trivial controversy, and even every joke made by one of the Tanaïm or Amoraïm, had incorporated these in the Talmud, thinking that the outer world would be none the wiser. But the sins of the fathers were visited upon the children. On account of various unguarded statements, the Talmud was dragged before the judgment-bench to answer these charges, and the whole of the Jewish world, which had accepted the Talmud as its guide in life, was made responsible for its contents. This was the first time that it was thus accused, but in the course of the century the charge was repeated frequently and in a more bitter spirit. The apostate had made extracts from the Talmud, and formulated thirty-five articles, upon which he based his charges. Some of these alleged that the Talmud contained many gross errors and absurdities, and also rank blasphemies against God; in others, it was stated that it upheld dishonesty and duplicity in intercourse with Christians; others again asserted that the Talmud insulted and blasphemed Jesus, the Virgin, and the Church. Compared with the spiteful attacks which the Evangelists, the Church Fathers down to Hieronymus and Augustine, and various ecclesiastical scholars have made, with the intention of humiliating and injuring the Jews, the few passages in the Talmud concerning Jesus seem harmless jests; but the Church was waging successful war against the Synagogue, and was very sensitive to any disrespectful utterance. In his charges against the Talmud, Nicholas-Donin had, however, distorted the truth. He had stated that the Talmudical writings taught that it was a meritorious action to kill even the best among the Christians; that a Christian who rested on the Sabbath day or studied the Law was to be punished with death; that it was lawful to deceive a Christian; that Jews were permitted to break a promise made on oath; and he had made many other lying assertions.

The guilt of the Talmud, which implied that of the Jews, seemed unmistakable to Pope Gregory, for whom the apostate had drawn up these grounds of accusation, and to whom he had communicated them both by word of mouth and in writing. He immediately dispatched to the heads of the Church in France, England, Castile, Aragon, and Portugal, transcripts of the list of charges tabulated by Nicholas, and commanded them to confiscate all copies of the Talmud – on the morning of the first Saturday in Lent, when the Jews assembled in their synagogues – and to hand them over to the Dominicans and Franciscans. He also wrote to the monarchs of those countries, and called upon them to support the Church with their temporal power. The pope further admonished the provincials of the two orders of monks, who had inquisitorial power over books and doctrines, to submit the contents of the Talmudical writings to an examination; and if their judgment corroborated the charges of Nicholas-Donin, they were to burn the volumes of the Talmud (9 June, 1239).

Thus a new weapon for the destruction of Judaism was brought into play, and had this papal decree been rigidly executed, the spiritual life of the Jews, which was intimately bound up with the Talmud, would have been endangered in its most vital part. The pope gave Nicholas a special letter to be delivered to William, Bishop of Paris, which charged him with the vigorous persecution of the Talmud in France, the chief seat of Talmudical erudition, and the original home of the Tossafists.

However, when the pope's edict was to be executed, it appeared that the pretended Vicar of God upon earth did not really possess, even in the zenith of his power, the great influence he was supposed to have. Only in such places where personal interests and passions were concerned did the princes thoroughly carry into effect the violent policy of the pope; otherwise, unless the rulers were particularly bigoted, but little heed was paid to papal decrees even in the Middle Ages. The command of Gregory to confiscate the Talmud was entirely disregarded in Spain and in England, at least there is no record of any hostile measures in these countries. Only in France, where the priest-ridden and weak-minded Louis IX, having attained his majority, had nominally assumed the reins of government, was the Talmud really confiscated. The Jews were compelled under penalty of death to surrender their copies (March, 1240). The Talmud was then put on trial. Four distinguished rabbis of northern France were commanded by the king to hold a public disputation with Nicholas, either to refute the imputations leveled against the Talmud, or to make confession that it contained abuse against Christianity and blasphemies against God. Each of these rabbis was to be examined separately, and to give replies to the accuser.

The four rabbis who were summoned to act as advocates on behalf of the Talmud were Yechiel (Vivo) of Paris, Moses of Coucy, who had returned from his embassy to Spain, Jehuda ben David of Melun, and Samuel ben Solomon of Chateau-Thierry. Yechiel, who was more eloquent than his associates, and, besides, had more frequently entered into theological discussions with antagonists who belonged to the Church, was first called, unaccompanied by his friends. He was not asked to controvert the accusations made against them, but to confess that these were founded on truth. The disputation was held in Latin at the royal court (on the 5th of Tamuz – 25th June, 1240), in the presence of the bishops of Paris and Senlis, of many Dominicans, and of the wise queen-mother Blanche, who for all practical purposes was at the head of affairs. At first Yechiel refused to answer. He based his objection upon the constitution of the popes, which had assured independence to the Jews in their domestic concerns. He remarked that the Talmud was the very essence of their life, in behalf of which numbers of Jews were prepared to die. The queen, however, allayed his fears by assuring him that their lives were in no danger; she would protect them, and he was only required to answer the questions asked of him. When Nicholas demanded that Rabbi Yechiel should take an oath to answer to the best of his knowledge and ability, as otherwise he might attempt to pervert the truth by subtleties and evasions, the rabbi refused to do so. He said that never, in the course of his life, had he taken an oath, and that he would not invoke the name of God in vain. Thereupon the queen released him from the necessity of taking an oath. The discussion which now took place turned upon the two points, whether there were in the Talmud immoral sentiments and offensive passages against the Deity, and whether it contained insulting remarks concerning Jesus. Yechiel disproved the charge of blasphemy and immorality. With regard to the second of the accusations, he asserted that there could be no doubt that many odious facts were related in the Talmud concerning a Jesus, the son of Pantheras; these, however, had no reference to Jesus of Nazareth, but to one of a similar name who had lived long before him. He himself believed that this declaration was true, and affirmed it with the solemnity of an oath. Tradition and Talmudical chronology had misled him into believing that the Jesus whose name occurred in the Talmud was not identical with the founder of Christianity. Yechiel also contended, among other things, that the Father of the Church, Hieronymus, and other Church Fathers, who were acquainted with the Talmud, had never asserted that it contained sentiments hostile to the Christian faith, and that Nicholas was the first one to raise these false imputations, inspired as he was with feelings of malice and revenge against his former co-religionists, who had expelled him from their community on account of his heresy.

The examination of Yechiel of Paris lasted two days, during which the Jewish congregations fasted, and offered up prayers to God to avert misfortune from their heads. On the third day, the second rabbi, Judah of Melun, was examined, without having been previously allowed to confer with Yechiel, who was kept in custody. In the main, he agreed with the statements of Yechiel, that the defamatory passages in the Talmud concerning Jesus did not refer to the man who was held in such great honor by the Christians, and that the Talmud was indispensable to the religious life of the Jews. The two remaining rabbis were not required to undergo an examination. As the result of this three days' discussion (25th-27th June, 1240), the commission, which had been appointed to make an inquiry into the Talmud, condemned it to be burnt, on the ground that Yechiel and Judah of Melun had been compelled to admit the truth of several of the charges. The sentence of condemnation, however, remained unexecuted. It appears that Archbishop Walter (Guatier) Cornutus, of Sens, a prelate influential with the king, had interceded on behalf of the Jews, and had succeeded in having many of the confiscated volumes restored to their owners. From a Christian source of information, which was intended to calumniate the Jews, but which only points conclusively to the corruptibility of the Church dignitaries of the time, it is gleaned that this prelate was won over to the side of the Jews by a bribe. The French Jews were filled with great joy at the unexpected issue of this event which was of such vital importance to them, and celebrated the day on which the copies of the Talmud were restored to them as a day of rejoicing. But they had begun to exult too early.

The prelate who had raised his voice in favor of the Jews died suddenly; the fanatical monks saw in this a heaven-sent punishment for his befriending the Jews, or persuaded the weak-minded and docile monarch that it was so. Thereupon he commanded that the volumes of the Talmud and similar writings should be sought for, and taken away from their possessors by force. Four-and-twenty cartloads of them were brought together in one spot in Paris, and committed to the flames (Friday, Tamuz – June, 1242). Two young men, one a Provençal and the other a German, named respectively Abraham Bedaresi and Meïr, of Rothenburg, wrote each an elegy upon this event. The French Jews or the French students of the Talmud, who imagined that they could as little exist without the Talmud as without their souls, did not remain passive in quiet endurance of their grief. They turned to Pope Innocent IV, the successor of Gregory IX, and begged that they might be permitted to retain their Talmudical writings, without which they could not fulfil their religious obligations. Their petition was acceded to. The new pope promulgated a decree that they were not to be deprived of those writings which contained nothing antagonistic to Christianity (1243), and under this description the Talmud could be included, as the Christian clergy were unable to discriminate between one work and another. The fanatics, however, among whom was the papal legate, Odo, of Chateauroux, continued to agitate against this edict, till they induced the pope to give his sanction to the sentence of condemnation that had been passed upon the Talmud.

The grief of the French Jews on account of these events was heartrending. They felt as if their very hearts had been torn from them. The pious men among them kept the anniversary of the burning of the Talmud as a fast. One good effect, however, sprang from these wholesale methods of destruction. The opponents of the Maimunists were, to a certain extent, disarmed, and the fierce passions of the parties engaged in internal conflict were stilled for the moment. Jonah Gerundi was the sole survivor of the chief antagonists of the Maimunist teaching. But a short time before he had given the writings of Maimuni to the Dominicans and the Franciscans in Paris to be thrown into the flames. As soon as Jonah became aware of the bitter hostility of the monkish orders of the Inquisition to the Talmud, which was so highly revered by him, he very deeply regretted that he had employed them as the instruments of his hate against Maimuni, and beheld in the burning of the Talmud a divine punishment for his having allowed the writings of Maimuni to be consumed by fire. He was so overwhelmed by the sense of his injustice that he publicly, in the synagogue, confessed his sincere repentance, and announced his intention of making a pilgrimage to the grave of Maimuni, there, veiled in mourning, to prostrate himself and, in the presence of ten persons, to implore the pardon of this great and pious man. For this purpose he set out on a journey, left Paris, and stopped at Montpellier, where he also made public confession of his remorse for his procedure against Maimuni. This act reconciled the two parties. The opponents cast aside all feelings of rancor, and treated each other as brethren. In his discourses, he repeatedly mentioned the name of Maimuni with the respect due to that of a holy man. This conversion possessed so much the greater importance, as Jonah was a rabbinical authority, and the author of several Talmudical works, which were held in high estimation.

From this time forward the whole history of the Jews alternated between restrictive laws and bloody persecutions, which were repeated from year to year, now at one place, now at another, but principally in Germany, where the intolerant Church had transformed the naturally mild-tempered people into tigers. When the Mongols and Tartars, the savage warriors of Jenghis-Khan, made their inroads into Europe, ravaged Russia and Poland, and penetrated to the borders of Germany, the Jews were accused of having secretly aided this enemy of Christianity. Instead of directing their charges against Emperor Frederick II and the pope, who, engaged in an obstinate feud, looked on quietly whilst the savage conquerors were advancing, the rage of the deluded populace, based upon groundless imputations of guilt, was directed against the Jews of Germany. There were, indeed, Jewish soldiers among the Mongols, from the independent tribes of Khorasan, or, as the legends call them, the remnant of the Ten Tribes who were shut in by the Caspian mountains. Had the German Jews any knowledge of their kinsmen among the Mongol hordes? Had they any secret understanding with them? The story was circulated in Germany that the Jews had offered to supply the Mongols with poisoned provisions. Under this pretext they had attempted to provide them with weapons of all kinds enclosed in casks. A vigilant guard at the borders, having his suspicions aroused, insisted on having the casks opened, whereupon the plot was revealed. This tale was received with general credulity, and was the cause of much suffering to the German Jews.

As if the representatives of the Church had not yet done sufficient harm to the Jews, they determined to deprive them of their only remaining position of influence in Christian society. The practice of medicine was in the hands of Jews principally; indeed, nearly every prince and noble had his private Jewish physician, who possessed more or less influence over the mind of the one whose body was entrusted to his skill. The clergy, who were seldom gentle as doves, but often full of cunning, could not suffer this influence of the Jews over the powerful rulers of the land. The Church council at Béziers was the first to pay special attention to the question of Jews' practising the medicinal art. Under the presidency of the Archbishop of Narbonne, this council, which also inflicted all kinds of hardships upon the Albigensian heretics, renewed many ancient restrictions. They enacted that Jews should not be allowed to possess Christian servants or nurses, and that they should not be eligible to offices of trust. They were not to leave their homes during Passion Week; they were to pay to the Church an annual sum of six dinars for each family. Upon their breasts they were bidden to wear a distinctive badge, that of a wheel, and they were forbidden to sell meat in public. To these laws there was added a canonical decree that Christians should not seek the services of Jewish physicians, under penalty of excommunication (May, 1246). These restrictive enactments were repeated by a council held in the south of France, in which district the Jews had conferred distinction upon the healing art. Three generations of the Tibbon family had acted as instructors to Christian physicians, and now the third member of the family, Moses (who flourished 1250–1285 in Montpellier), the translator of philosophical and medical writings, was commanded to discontinue practising among Christian patients. Another writer on medicine, and a practical physician, Shem-Tob ben Isaac of Tortosa (born 1206, composed his works about 1261–1264), delivered public discourses on the healing art to Christian audiences in Marseilles, and made them acquainted with the results of the Arabic schools. This physician presents an instructive instance of the Jewish zeal for knowledge. In his youth he was taught exclusively in the Talmud; later he forsook this study, and became a merchant, making journeys across the sea, and going as far as the last remaining seat of the former Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, Jean d'Acre (Accho). Here one of his co-religionists, who was engaged in the study of mathematics, upbraided him for having considered science subordinate to the earning of a livelihood. Owing to this rebuke, although over thirty years of age, Shem-Tob Tortosi changed his plan of life, hastened from Accho to Barcelona, and made study his primary pursuit, and the earning of his livelihood a subsidiary one. He studied medicine, and became so proficient that he was able to translate the writings of the best Arabic physicians, and to deliver lectures upon the healing art. These and many other Jewish physicians were now, in pursuance of the edict of the council at Béziers, to be driven forth from the temple to which they alone, it may almost be said, in all Christendom possessed the key.

However, although the Church held the souls of the faithful captive and in a state of mystification, yet their bodies remained rebelliously opposed to her and her decisions. This canonical law could not, therefore, long retain its force. In sickness even the most bigoted Christian called in the aid of the clever Jewish physician. When Alfonso, Duke of Poitou and Toulouse, the brother of the fanatical king, Louis IX, under whose patronage the anti-Jewish councils at Béziers and Alby had taken place, was afflicted with some disease of the eye, he was perforce obliged to invoke the assistance of Abraham of Aragon, a skilful Jewish oculist. The lord of Lünel was driven to use great efforts, and to seek the good offices of his Jewish agent, in order to induce the wealthy and independent Jewish physician to attend to the French prince. In Montpellier, the seat of a famous college of medicine, Jewish physicians continued for a long time to be permitted to take the examinations, to practise, and even to give instruction.

The frequent massacres of the Jews, which for ten years had been taking place in Germany and France, especially on the charge of the murder of Christian children, induced the German and French congregations to apply for protection to Pope Innocent IV, and to explain to him that the charge that they employed the blood and hearts of human beings was a lying invention, concocted solely for the purpose of seeking an occasion for murder and robbery. At this time, Innocent lived in partial exile at Lyons, whither he had been forced to retire owing to his dispute with Emperor Frederick II. He yielded to the entreaty of the Jews, either because he deemed it necessary, in view of his strained relations with nearly all the temporal powers, to appear just, or because the Jews had liberally supplied him with the means of which he was so covetous, to enable him to overcome his bitter opponents. His greed for money was the subject of a biting satire, describing how the goddess Pecunia rules the world, the Church never closing its doors against her, and the pope willingly receiving her in his arms. Innocent IV dispatched a bull from Lyons (July 5, 1247) to the Church dignitaries of France and Germany, in which, for the first time, the repeated baseless and fiendish imputations against the Jews were officially contradicted. "Certain of the clergy, and princes, nobles and great lords of your dioceses have falsely devised certain godless plans against the Jews, unjustly depriving them by force of their property, and appropriating it themselves; they falsely charge them with dividing up among themselves on the Passover the heart of a murdered boy. Christians believe that the Law of the Jews prescribes this to them, whilst in their Law the very reverse is ordained. In fact, in their malice, they ascribe every murder, wherever it chance to occur, to Jews. And on the ground of these and other fabrications, they are filled with rage against them, rob them of their possessions without any formal accusation, without confession, and without legal trial and conviction. Contrary to the privileges graciously granted to them from the Apostolic chair, and opposed to God and His justice, they oppress the Jews by starvation, imprisonment, and by other tortures and sufferings; they afflict them with all kinds of punishments, and sometimes even condemn them to death, so that the Jews, although living under Christian princes, are in a worse plight than were their ancestors in Egypt under the Pharaohs. They are driven to leave in despair the land in which their fathers have dwelt since the memory of man. Since it is our pleasure that they shall not be distressed, we ordain that ye behave towards them in a friendly and kind manner. Whenever any unjust attacks upon them come under your notice, redress their injuries, and do not suffer them to be visited in the future by similar tribulations." One would imagine that so decisive a condemnation of the blood-accusation would once for all have disposed of these false charges. But the papacy had so impregnated men's hearts with the feeling of hatred against the Jews, that a mild expression of opinion from one or the other of the popes passed idly away as a breath of wind.