History of the Jews, Vol. 5 (of 6)

This treaty also was concluded and ratified only to be broken. Chmielnicki had accepted it to strengthen himself and restore his reputation with the Cossacks. As soon as he had gained his first object, he began hostilities against the Poles, from which Jews always suffered most severely. In two years after the first insurrection of the Zaporogians, more than 300 communities were completely destroyed by death or flight, and the end of their suffering had not yet arrived. The Polish troops could not withstand the violent attacks or skillful policy of Chmielnicki. When he could no longer hope for help from the Tartars, he combined with the Russians, and incited them to a war against unhappy Poland, divided against itself. In consequence of the Russian war in the early part of 1654 and 1655, those communities suffered which had been spared by the Cossack swarms, i. e., the western districts and Lithuania. The community of Wilna, one of the largest, was completely depopulated (July, 1655) by slaughter on the part of the Russians and by migration. As if fate were then determining upon the partition of Poland, a new enemy was added to the Cossacks and Russians in Charles X of Sweden, who used Poland as the first available pretext to slake his thirst for war. Through the Swedish war, the communities of Great and Little Poland, from Posen to Cracow, were reduced to want and despair. The Jews of Poland had to drink the cup of poison to the dregs. The Polish general, Czarnicki, who hated the Jews, ill-used those spared by Cossacks, Russians, and the wild Swedes of the Thirty Years' War, under the pretense that they had a traitorous understanding with the Swedes. The Poles also behaved barbarously to the Jews, destroyed the synagogues, and tore up the holy scriptures. All Poland was like a bloody field of battle, on which Cossacks, Russians, Prussians, Swedes, and the troops of Prince Ragoczi of Transylvania wrestled; the Jews were ill-used or slain by all. Only the Great Elector of Brandenburg behaved leniently towards them. The number of Jewish families said to have perished in ten years of this war (600,000) is certainly exaggerated, but the slaughtered Jews of Poland may well be rated at a quarter of a million. With the decline of Poland as a power of the first rank, the importance of Polish Judaism diminished. The remnant were impoverished, depressed, and could not recover their former position. Their need was so great, that those who drifted to the neighborhood of Prussia hired themselves to Christians as day laborers for field work.

As at the time of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal every place was filled with fugitive Sephardic Jews, so during the Cossack-Polish war fugitive Polish Jews, wretched in appearance, with hollow eyes, who had escaped the sword, the flames, hunger, and pestilence; or who, dragged by the Tartars into captivity, had been ransomed by their brethren, were seeking shelter everywhere. Westwards, by way of Dantzic and through the Vistula district, Jewish-Polish fugitives wandered to Amsterdam, and were forwarded thence to Frankfort-on-the-Main and other Rhenish cities. Three thousand Lithuanian Jews came to Texel in the Netherlands, and were hospitably received. Southwards many fled to Moravia, Bohemia, Austria, and Hungary, and wandered from those places to Italy. The prisoners in the armies of the Tartars came to the Turkish provinces, and some of them drifted to Barbary. Everywhere they were received by their brethren with great cordiality and love, cared for, clothed, and supported. The Italian Jews ransomed and supported them at great sacrifice. Thus, the community of Leghorn at this time formed a resolution to collect and spend a quarter of their income for the liberation and maintenance of the unfortunate Polish Jews. The German and Austrian communities, also, although they had suffered under the calamities of the Thirty Years' War, exercised that brotherly feeling which they rarely professed with their lips, but cherished the more deeply in their hearts.

The number and misery of those escaped from Poland were so great, that the German communities and probably others were obliged to devote the money intended for Jerusalem to the maintenance of Polish Jews. The Jews of Jerusalem dependent on alms, who were drained by the pasha and his subordinates, felt the want of their regular support from Europe. They soon fell into such distress, that of the 700 widows and a smaller number of men living there nearly 400 are said to have died of hunger.

The Cossack persecution of the Jews, in a sense, remodeled Judaism. It became Polonized, so to speak. The Polish-Rabbinical method of study had long dominated the Talmudical schools of Germany and Italy through the abundant literature by Polish authors. Now, through the fugitives, most of whom were Talmudical scholars, it became authoritative. Rabbinical appointments were mostly conferred on Polish Talmudists, as in Moravia, Amsterdam, Fürth, Frankfort, and Metz. On account of their superiority in their department, these Polish Talmudists were as proud as the Spanish and Portuguese fugitives had been, and looked down with contempt on the rabbis who spoke German, Portuguese, and Italian. Far from giving up their own method in a foreign country, they demanded that all the world should be regulated by them, and they gained their point. People joked about the "Polacks," but nevertheless became subordinate to them. Whoever wished to acquire thorough Talmudic and Rabbinical knowledge was obliged to sit at the feet of Polish rabbis; every father of a family who wished to educate his children in the Talmud sought a Polish rabbi for them. These Polish rabbis gradually forced their sophistical piety upon the German, and partly on the Portuguese, and Italian, communities. Through their influence, scientific knowledge and the study of the Bible declined still more than previously. In the century of Descartes and Spinoza, when the three Christian nations, the French, English, and Dutch, gave the death-blow to the Middle Ages, Jewish-Polish emigrants, baited by Chmielnicki's bands, brought a new middle age over European Judaism, which maintained itself in full vigor for more than a century, to some extent lasting to our time.

CHAPTER II.

SETTLEMENT OF THE JEWS IN ENGLAND AND MANASSEH BEN ISRAEL

Obstacles to the Resettlement of Jews in England – Manasseh ben Israel – His Character and Attainments – Christian Students of Jewish Literature: Scaliger, the Buxtorfs, Selden, and Vossius – Women devote themselves to Hebrew – The Fifth-Monarchy Men: Expectation of the Millennium – Enthusiastic Friends of the Jews – The Puritans – Cromwell and Holmes – Nicholas' Protection of the Jews – "The Hope of Israel" – Fresh Victims of the Inquisition – Manasseh ben Israel's Negotiations with the English Parliament – He journeys to London, and is graciously received by Cromwell – A Council sits at Whitehall to decide the Question of the Re-admission of the Jews – Prynne's anti-Jewish Work – Controversial Pamphlets – Manasseh's "Vindication" – The Re-admission of the Jews connived at.

1655–1657 C. E

At the very time when the Jews of Poland were trodden down, slaughtered, or driven through Europe like terrified wild beasts, a land of freedom was opened, from which the Jews had been banished for more than three centuries and a half. England, which the wise queen Elizabeth and the brave Cromwell had raised to be the first power in Europe, a position very different from that of crumbling Poland, again admitted Jews, not indeed through the great portal, yet through the back door. But this admission was so bruited abroad, that it was like a triumph for Judaism. The Jews of Amsterdam and Hamburg looked with longing to this island, to which they were so near, with whose merchants, shipowners, and scholars they were in connection, and which promised wide scope for the exercise of their varied abilities. But settlement there seemed beset with insuperable obstacles. The English episcopal church, which exercised sway over the English conscience, was even more intolerant than the popery which it persecuted. Not granting freedom to Catholics and Dissenters, would it tolerate the descendants of those aspersed in the New Testament? The English people, who for centuries had seen no Jew, shared to the full the antipathy of the clergy. To them every Jew was a Shylock, who, with hearty goodwill, would cut a Christian to pieces – a monster in human form, bearing the mark of Cain. Who would undertake to banish this strong prejudice in order to render people and rulers favorable to the descendants of Israel?

The man who undertook and executed this difficult task did not belong to the first rank of intellectual men, but possessed the right measure of insight and narrowness, strength of will and flexibility, knowledge and imagination, self-denial and vanity, required for so arduous an undertaking. Manasseh ben Israel, second or third rabbi at Amsterdam, who at home played only a subordinate part, the poor preacher who, to support his family, was obliged to resort to printing, but obtained so little profit from it, that he wished to exchange pulpit oratory for mercantile speculation, and was near settling in Brazil; he it was who won England for Judaism, and, if he did not banish, diminished the prejudice against his race. To him belongs the credit for a service not to be lightly estimated, for there were but few to help him. The release of the Jews from their thousand years' contempt and depreciation in European society, or rather the struggle for civil equality, begins with Manasseh ben Israel. He was the Riesser of the seventeenth century. As has been stated, he was not in the true sense great, and can only be reckoned a man of mediocrity. He belonged to the happily constituted class of persons, who do not perceive the harsh contrasts and shrill discords in the world around, hence are confiding and enterprising. His heart was deeper than his mind. His power rested in his easy eloquence, his facility in explaining and working out ideas which lay within his narrow field of vision, and which he had acquired rather than produced. Manasseh ben Israel had complete grasp of Jewish literature, and knew the Christian theology of his time, and what was to be said on each point, i. e., what had been said by his predecessors. On the other hand, he had only a superficial knowledge of those branches of learning which require keenness of intellect, such as philosophy and the Talmud. His strength was in one respect his weakness. His facility in speaking and writing encouraged a verbose style and excessive productiveness. He left more than 400 sermons in Portuguese, and a mass of writings that fill a catalogue, but discuss their subjects only superficially. Manasseh's contemporaries looked upon his writings with different eyes. The learning amassed therein from all literatures and languages, and the smoothness of form riveted their attention, and excited their admiration. Among Jews he was extraordinarily celebrated; whoever could produce Latin, Portuguese, or Spanish verse, made known his praise. But even Christian scholars of his time over-estimated him.

In Holland, which, by the concurrence of many circumstances, and especially through the powerful impulse of Joseph Scaliger, the prince of philologists, had become in a sense the school of Europe, the foundation was laid in the seventeenth century for the wonderful learning contained in voluminous folios. At no time had there been so many philologists with early-matured learning, iron memory, and wonderful devotion to the science of language, as in the first half of the seventeenth century, which seems to have been specially appointed to revive what had so long been neglected. All the literary treasures of antiquity were collected and utilized; statesmen vied with professional scholars. In this gigantic collection there was little critical search for truth; the chief consideration was the number of scientific facts gathered. The ambition of many was spurred on to understand the three favored languages of antiquity – Greek, Latin, and Hebrew – and their literatures. Hebrew, the language of religion, enjoyed special preference, and whoever understood it as well as the other two tongues was sure of distinction. Joseph Scaliger, the oracle of Dutch and Protestant theology, had given to Rabbinical literature, so-called, a place in the republic of letters beside the Hebrew language, and even the Talmud he treated with a certain amount of respect. His Dutch, French, and English disciples followed his example, and devoted themselves with zeal to this branch of knowledge, formerly regarded with contempt or even aversion.

John Buxtorf, senior (born 1564, died 1639), of Basle, may be said to have been master of Hebrew and Rabbinical literature, and he rendered them accessible to Christian circles. He carried on a lively correspondence in Hebrew with Jewish scholars in Amsterdam, Germany, and Constantinople. Even ladies devoted themselves to Hebrew language and literature. That prodigy, Anna Maria Schurmann, of Utrecht, who knew almost all European languages and their literature, corresponded in Hebrew with scholars, and also with an English lady, Dorothea Moore, and quoted Rashi and Ibn-Ezra with a scholar's accuracy. The eccentric queen Christina of Sweden, the learned daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, understood Hebrew. Statesmen, such as Hugo Grotius, and the Englishman John Selden, seriously and deeply engaged in its pursuit for their theological or historical studies.

But Christian scholars, with all their zeal, had not yet acquired independence in Rabbinical literature; without a Jewish guide, they could not move, or felt unsafe. To Christian inquirers, therefore, Manasseh ben Israel's treatises, which presented many Rabbinical passages and new points of view, were highly welcome. Much of the Talmudic literature became accessible through his clear exposition. Hence, Dutch scholars sought out Manasseh, courted his friendship, fairly hung upon his lips, and gradually discarded prejudice against Jews, which even the most liberal-minded men in the most tolerant country of Europe had not laid aside. Manasseh was joined particularly by those eager inquirers who were persecuted or declared heretics by the ruling church. The learned Vossius family, even John Gerard Vossius, senior, although filled with strong hatred against Jews, was affable to Manasseh. His son, Dionysius Vossius, a prodigy of learning, snatched away by death in his eighteenth year, on his death-bed translated into Latin Manasseh's "Reconciler" (Conciliador) shortly after its appearance. Isaac Vossius, the youngest son, who filled an honorable office under the queen of Sweden, recommended Manasseh ben Israel to her. By this family he was made acquainted with the learned statesman Hugo Grotius, who also received instruction from him. The chief of the Arminians, Simon Episcopius, sought intercourse with Manasseh, as did Caspar Barlæus, who as a Socinian, i. e., a denier of the Trinity, was avoided by orthodox Christians. He attached himself to Manasseh, and sang his praise in Latin verses, on which account he was attacked yet more violently, because he had put the Jewish faith on an equality with the Christian. The learned Jesuit Peter Daniel Huet also cultivated his friendship. Gradually the Chacham and preacher of Amsterdam acquired such a reputation among Christians, that every scholar traveling through that city sought him out as an extraordinary personage. Foreigners exchanged letters with him, and obtained from him explanations on difficult points. Manasseh had an interview with Queen Christina of Sweden, which stimulated her kindness for the Jews, and her liking for Jewish literature. So highly did many Christians rate Manasseh ben Israel, that they could not suppress the wish to see so learned and excellent a rabbi won over to Christianity.

Most of all Christian visionaries, who dreamt of the coming of the Fifth Monarchy, the reign of the saints (in the language of Daniel), crowded round Manasseh ben Israel. The Thirty Years' War which had delivered property and life over to wild soldiers, the tyrannical oppression of believers struggling for inward freedom and morality – in England by the bishops and the secular government, in France by the despotic Richelieu – awakened in visionaries the idea that the Messianic millennium, announced in the book of Daniel and the Apocalypse, was near, and that their sufferings were only the forerunners of the time of grace. These fantastic visionaries showed themselves favorable to the Jews; they wished this great change to be effected with the participation of those to whom the announcement had first been made. They conceded that the Jews must first take possession of the Holy Land, which could not easily be accomplished, even by a miracle. For, the lost Ten Tribes must first be found, and gathered together, if the prophetic words were not to fall to the ground. The tribes assembled to take possession of the Holy Land must have their Messiah, a shoot out of the stem of Jesse. But what would become of Jesus, the Christ, i. e., Messiah, in whom Jews could not be made to believe? Some of the Fifth Monarchy visionaries conceded to Jews a Messiah of their own, in the expectation that the struggle for precedence between the Jewish and the Christian saviour would decide itself.

Such apocalyptic dreams struck a responsive chord in Manasseh ben Israel's heart. He also expected, not the reign of the saints, but, according to Kabbalistic reckoning, the speedy advent of the Messianic time. The Zohar, the book revered by him as divine, announced in unambiguous terms, that Israel's time of grace would begin with the year 5408 of the world (1648). Manasseh in his innermost being was a mystic, his classical and literary education being only external varnish, not diminishing his belief in miracles. Hence he was pleased with the letter of a Christian visionary of Dantzic, expressing belief in the restoration of the glory of the Jews. John Mochinger, of the old Tyrolese nobility, who had fallen into the whirlpool of mysticism, wrote to Manasseh ben Israel in the midst of an eulogium on his learning: "Know and be convinced that I duly honor your doctrines, and together with some of my brethren in the faith, earnestly desire that Israel may be enlightened with the true light, and enjoy its ancient renown and happiness." At a later period another German mystic of Dantzic established relations with the Kabbalistic Chacham of Amsterdam – viz., Abraham von Frankenberg, a nobleman, and a disciple of Jacob Böhme. He openly said: "The true light will come from the Jews; their time is not far off. From day to day news will be heard from different places of wonderful things come to pass in their favor, and all the islands shall rejoice with them." In daily intercourse with Manasseh were two Christian friends, Henry Jesse and Peter Serrarius, who were enthusiasts in the cause of Israel's restoration. In France, in the service of the great Condé, there was a peculiar visionary, Isaac La Peyrère of Bordeaux, a Huguenot, perhaps of Jewish-Marrano blood. He had the strange notion that there were men before Adam (pre-Adamites), from whom all men except the Jews were descended. In a book on the subject, which brought him to the dungeon of the Inquisition, he attached great importance to the Jews. In another work on "The Return of the Jews," he maintained that the Jews ought to be recalled from their dispersion in all parts of the world, to effect a speedy return to the Holy Land. The king of France, the eldest son of the Church, has the duty to bring about this return of the eldest son of God. He, too, entered into communication with Manasseh.

The greatest number of ardent admirers "God's people" found in England, precisely among those who had powerful influence in the council and the camp. At the time when the Germans were fighting each other on account of difference of creed, invoking the interference of foreigners, and impairing their own freedom and power, England was gaining what could never be taken away, religious and, at the same time, political freedom, and this made it a most powerful and prosperous country. In Germany the religious parties, Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists, in selfish blindness demanded religious freedom each for itself alone, reserving oppression and persecution for the others. These internecine quarrels of the Germans were utilized by the princes to confirm their own despotic power. In England, the same selfishness prevailed among the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Catholics, but a fourth party arose whose motto was religious freedom for all. The senseless despotism of Charles I and the narrow-mindedness of the Long Parliament had played into the hands of this intelligent and powerful party. England, like Germany, resembled a great blood-stained battle-field, but it had produced men who knew what they wanted, who staked their lives for it, and effected the rejuvenescence of the nation. Oliver Cromwell was at once the head which devised, and the arm which executed sound ideas. By the sword he and his army obtained religious freedom, not only for themselves, but also for others. He and his officers were not revengeful freebooters or blood-thirsty soldiers, but high-minded, inspired warriors of God, who waged war against wickedness and falseness, and hoped for, and undertook to establish a moral system of government, the kingdom of God. Like the Maccabees of old, the Puritan warriors fought "sword in hand, and praise of God in their mouth." Cromwell and his soldiers read the Bible as often as they fought. But not out of the New Testament could the Roundheads derive inspiration and warlike courage. The Christian Bible, with its monkish figures, its exorcists, its praying brethren, and pietistic saints, supplied no models for warriors contending with a faithless king, a false aristocracy, and unholy priests. Only the great heroes of the Old Testament, with fear of God in their hearts and the sword in their hands, at once religious and national champions, could serve as models for the Puritans: the Judges, freeing the oppressed people from the yoke of foreign domination; Saul, David, and Joab, routing the foes of their country; and Jehu, making an end of an idolatrous and blasphemous royal house – these were favorite characters with Puritan warriors. In every verse of the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, they saw their own condition reflected; every psalm seemed composed for them, to teach them that, though surrounded on every side by ungodly foes, they need not fear while they trusted in God. Oliver Cromwell compared himself to the judge Gideon, who first obeyed the voice of God hesitatingly, but afterwards courageously scattered the attacking heathens; or to Judas Maccabæus, who out of a handful of martyrs formed a host of victorious warriors.

To bury oneself in the history, prophecy, and poetry of the Old Testament, to revere them as divine inspiration, to live in them with every emotion, yet not to consider the people who had originated all this glory and greatness as preferred and chosen, was impossible. Among the Puritans, therefore, were many earnest admirers of "God's people," and Cromwell was one of them. It seemed a marvel that the people, or a remnant of the people, whom God had distinguished by great favor and stern discipline, should still exist. A desire was excited in the hearts of the Puritans to see this living wonder, the Jewish people, with their own eyes, to bring Jews to England, and, by making them part of the theocratic community about to be established, stamp it with the seal of completion. The sentiments of the Puritans towards the Jews were expressed in Oliver Cromwell's observation, "Great is my sympathy with this poor people, whom God chose, and to whom He gave His law; it rejects Jesus, because it does not recognize him as the Messiah." Cromwell dreamt of a reconciliation of the Old and the New Testament, of an intimate connection between the Jewish people of God and the English Puritan theocracy. But other Puritans were so absorbed in the Old Testament that the New Testament was of no importance. Especially the visionaries in Cromwell's army and among the members of Parliament, who were hoping for the Fifth Monarchy, or the reign of the saints, assigned to the Jewish people a glorious position in the expected millennium. A Puritan preacher, Nathaniel Holmes (Holmesius), wished, according to the letter of many prophetic verses, to become the servant of Israel, and serve him on bended knees. The more the tension in England increased through the imprisonment of the king, the dissensions between the Presbyterian Long Parliament and the Puritan army, the civil war, the execution of King Charles, and the establishment of a republic in England, the more public life and religious thought assumed Jewish coloring. The only thing wanting to make one think himself in Judæa was for the orators in Parliament to speak Hebrew. One author proposed the seventh day as the day of rest, and in a work showed the holiness of this day, and the duty of the English people to honor it. This was in the beginning of 1649. Parliament, it is true, condemned this work to be burnt as heretical, scandalous, and profane, and sentenced the printer and author to punishment. But the Israelite spirit among the Puritans, especially among the Levelers, or ultra-republicans, was not suppressed by these means. Many wished the government to declare the Torah to be the code for England.