History of the Jews, Vol. 4 (of 6)

Elias del Medigo, or Elias Cretensis (1463–1498), the scion of a German family that had emigrated to Crete, is a striking figure in later Jewish history. He was the first great man produced by Italian Judaism. His was a mind that shone clearly and brilliantly out of the clouds which obscured his age; the mind of a man of varied and profound knowledge, and of both classical and philosophical culture. So completely had he assimilated the Latin literary style that he was able, not only to issue works in that language, but also to present Hebrew syntax under Latin analogies.

Medigo kept aloof from the vacuity of Italian sciolists, who were under the spell of the newly-discovered neo-Platonic philosophy introduced by Ficinus. He gave allegiance to those sound thinkers, Aristotle, Maimuni, and Averroes, whose systems he made known to Christian inquirers in Italy, by tongue and pen, through the medium of translations and in independent works. That youthful prodigy of his time, Count Giovanni Pico di Mirandola, made the acquaintance of Medigo, and became his disciple, friend and protector. Mirandola, who was a marvel by reason of his wonderful memory, wide erudition, and dialectic skill, and was, moreover, on friendly terms with the ruling house of the Medicis in Tuscany, learnt from his Jewish friend the Hebrew language, and the Arabic development of the Aristotelian philosophy, but he might also have learnt clearness of thought from him.

On one occasion a quarrel on a learned subject broke out in the University of Padua. The professors and students were divided into two parties, and, according to Christian custom, were on the point of settling the question with rapier and poniard. The University, acting with the Venetian senate, which was desirous of ending the dispute, called upon Elias del Medigo to act as umpire. Everyone confidently expected a final settlement from his erudition and impartiality. Del Medigo argued out the theme, and by the weight of his decision brought the matter to a satisfactory conclusion. The result was that he became a public lecturer on philosophy, and discoursed to large audiences in Padua and Florence. The spectacle was, indeed, notable. Under the very eyes of the papacy, ever striving for the humiliation and enslavement of the Jews, Christian youths were imbibing wisdom from the lips of a Jewish teacher. Against the protectors of Jews in Spain it hurled the thunders of excommunication, while in Italy it was forced passively to behold favors constantly showered upon the Jews by Christians.

Pico di Mirandola, a scholar rather than a thinker, took a fancy to plunge into the abysses of the Kabbala. He was initiated into the Kabbalistic labyrinth by a Jew, Jochanan Aleman, who had emigrated from Constantinople to Italy. Aleman, himself a confused thinker, made him believe that the secret doctrine was of ancient origin, and contained the wisdom of the ages. Mirandola, who had a marvelous faculty of assimilation, soon familiarized himself with the Kabbalistic formulæ, and discovered confirmations of Christian dogma in them; in fact, he found far more of Christianity than of Judaism. The extravagances of the Kabbala demonstrated in his eyes the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, Original Sin, the Fall of the Angels, Purgatory, and Eternal Punishment. He lost no time in translating several Kabbalistic writings from Hebrew into Latin in order to bring this occult lore to the knowledge of Christian readers. Among the nine hundred points which Pico, at the age of twenty-four, pledged himself to defend – to which end he invited all the learned of the world to Rome, and undertook to pay the cost of their journeys – was this: No science affords more certainty as to the Godhead of Christ than Kabbala and magic! Even Pope Sixtus IV (1471–1484) was by this means so strongly attracted to the Kabbala that he was eager to procure Latin translations of Kabbalistic writings for the benefit of the Catholic faith.

It is a striking proof of his sober mind and healthy judgment that Elias del Medigo kept himself aloof from all this mental effeminacy and childish enthusiasm for the pseudo-doctrine of the Kabbala. He had profound contempt for the Kabbalistic phantom, and did not hesitate to expose its worthlessness. He had the courage openly to express his opinion that the Kabbala is rooted in an intellectual swamp, that no trace of this doctrine is to be found in the Talmud, that the recognized authorities of ancient Judaism knew nothing of it, and that its supposed sacred and ancient groundwork, the Zohar, was by no means the work of the celebrated Simon bar Yochaï, but the production of a forger. In short, he considered the Kabbala to be made up of the rags and tatters of the neo-Platonic school.

Del Medigo had, in fact, very sound and healthy views on religion. Although a warm adherent of Judaism, entertaining respect also for its Talmudic element, he was yet far from indorsing and accepting as truth all that appears in the Talmud. When requested by one of his Jewish disciples, Saul Cohen Ashkenasi, of Candia, to give his confession of Jewish faith, especially his views on the signs which distinguish a true religion, Elias Cretensis issued a small but pregnant work, "The Investigation of Religion" (Bechinath ha-Dath), which gives a deep insight into his methods of thought.

It cannot be maintained that Del Medigo suggested novel trains of thought in his work. In general, the Italians were not destined to endow Judaism with new ideas. Moreover, he occupied the standpoint of belief rather than of inquiry, and his aim was to defend, not to cut new paths. Standing alone in the mental barrenness of his age, Del Medigo's sound views are like an oasis in the desert. He must be credited, too, with having recognized as deformities, and with desiring to remove, the additions to Judaism by Kabbalists and pseudo-philosophers.

Unfortunately, the rabbis who emigrated from Germany to Italy assumed an attitude distinctly hostile to philosophical investigation and its promoters, Elias del Medigo and Messer Leon. With their honest, but one-sided, exaggerated piety, they cast a gloomy shadow wherever their hard fate had scattered them. Fresh storms breaking over the German communities had driven many German Jews, the most unhappy of their race, into transalpine lands. Under Emperor Frederick III, who for half a century had with astounding equanimity beheld most shameless insults to his authority on the part of an ambitious nobility, a plundering squire-archy, a demoralized clergy, and the self-seeking patricians of the smaller towns, the Jewish communities but too often saw their cup of bitterness overflow. Frederick himself was by no means hostile to them. On the contrary, he frequently issued decrees in their favor. Unhappily, his commands remained for the most part a dead letter, and his laxity of rule encouraged the evil-minded to the commission of the most shameful misdeeds. It was dangerous for the German Jews to go beyond the walls of their cities. Every man was their foe, and waylaid them to satisfy either his fanaticism or his cupidity. Every feud that broke out in the decaying German empire brought misery to them.

Among exiles from Mayence were two profound Talmudic scholars. They were cousins, by name Judah and Moses Menz. The former emigrated to Padua, and there received the office of rabbi, while the latter at first remained in Germany, and then passed over to Posen. As the result of expulsion or oppression, many rabbis were emigrating from all parts of Germany, and on account of their superior Talmudic knowledge these German emigrants were elected to the most distinguished rabbinical positions in Italy. They re-indoctrinated with their prejudice and narrowness of vision the Italian Jews, who were making determined efforts to free themselves from the bonds of the Middle Ages.

The most distinguished rabbis of Italy were at that time Judah Menz and Joseph Kolon, and precisely these two were most inimical to any liberal manifestation within Judaism, and most strenuously opposed the advocates of freedom. Joseph ben Solomon Kolon (flourished 1460–1490) was of French extraction, his ancestors having been expelled from France; but he passed his youth in Germany, and belonged to the German school. He subsequently lived with his relatives in Chambéry until the Jews were hunted out of Savoy. With many companions in misfortune he went to Lombardy, where he gained his living by teaching; finally he became rabbi of Mantua. Endowed with extraordinary penetration, and fully the equal of the German rabbis in the depth of his Talmudic learning, Joseph Kolon was celebrated in his day as a Rabbinical authority of the first magnitude, and his academy rivaled the German school itself. He was consulted by both German and Italian communities. On scientific subjects and all matters outside the Talmud he was as ignorant as his German fellow-dignitaries. A resolute, decided nature, Joseph Kolon was a man of rigid views on all religious matters. His ruggedness involved him in unpleasant relations with Moses Kapsali in Constantinople, and in a heated controversy with the cultured Messer Leon in his own community. However well they might agree for a time, Joseph Kolon, the strict Talmudist, and Messer Leon, the cultured man of letters, could not long tolerate each other. When the conflict between them broke out, the whole community of Mantua took sides in their feud, and split into two parties as supporters of the one or the other. The strife at length became so keen that in 1476–1477 Duke Joseph of Mantua banished them both from the city; after which Kolon became rabbi of Pavia.

Still more strained were the relations between the rabbi Judah Menz and the philosopher Elias del Medigo. The former (born 1408, died 1509), a man of the old school, of comprehensive knowledge of Talmudic subjects, and of remarkable sagacity, was most resolutely opposed to scientific progress and freedom in religious matters, and after his expulsion from Mayence transplanted the narrow spirit of the German rabbis to Padua and Italy in general.

The relatively secure and honorable position of the Jews in Italy did not fail to rouse the displeasure of fanatical monks, who sought to cover with the cloak of religious zeal either their dissolute conduct or their ambitious share in worldly affairs. The colder the Christian world grew towards the end of the fifteenth century with regard to clerical institutions, the more bitterly did the monastic orders rage against the Jews. Preaching friars made the chancels ring with tirades against them, and openly advocated their utter extermination. Their most desperate enemy at this time was the Franciscan Bernardinus of Feltre, a worthy disciple of the bloodthirsty Capistrano. The standing text of his sermons was: Let Christian parents keep a watchful eye on their children lest the Jews steal, ill-treat, or crucify them.

He held up Capistrano, the Jew-slayer, as the type and model of a true Christian. In his eyes friendly and neighborly intercourse with Jews was an abomination, a most grievous sin against canonical law. Christian charity, he admitted, directs that Jews, being human, be treated with justice and humanity; but at the same time the canonical law forbids Christians to have any dealings with them, to sit at their tables, or to allow themselves to be treated by Jewish physicians. As the aristocracy everywhere, in obedience to their own interests, took the part of the Jews, Bernardinus inflamed the lower classes against the Jews and their patrons. Because certain Jewish capitalists had been successful, he depicted all Jews as vampires and extortioners, and roused the ill will of the populace against them. "I, who live on alms and eat the bread of the poor, shall I be a dumb dog and not howl when I see the Jews wringing their wealth from Christian poverty? Yea! shall I not cry aloud for Christ's sake?" Such is a fair specimen of his preaching.

Had the Italian people not been actuated by strong good sense, Bernardinus would have become for the Jews of Italy what, in the beginning of the same century, the Dominican, Vincent Ferrer, had been to the Jews of Spain, and Capistrano, to the communities of Germany and the Slav countries. The authorities sorely hindered Bernardinus in his business of Jew-baiting, and his bloodthirsty sermons mostly failed of effect. When he was conducting his crusade in Bergamo and Ticini, Duke Galeazzo, of Milan, forbade him to proceed. In Florence, in fact everywhere in Tuscany, the enlightened prince and the senate took the part of the Jews with vigor. The venomous monk spread the report that they had allowed themselves to be bribed with large sums by Yechiel of Pisa and other wealthy Jews. As Bernardinus was inciting the youth of the city against the Jews, and a popular rising was imminent, the authorities ordered him to quit Florence and the country forthwith, and he was compelled to submit (1487). Little by little, however, by dint of untiring repetition of the same charges, he managed so far to inflame public opinion against the Jews that even the Venetian senate was not always able to protect them. Finally, he succeeded in bringing about a bloody persecution of the Jews, not, indeed, in Italy, but in the Tyrol, whence it spread to Germany.

While Bernardinus was preaching in the city of Trent, he remarked with no little chagrin the friendly relation between Jews and Christians. Tobias, a skillful Jewish physician, and an intelligent Jewess, named Brunetta, were on most friendly terms with the upper classes, enjoying their complete confidence. This roused his ire not a little, and he made the chancels of Trent ring with savage tirades against the Jews. Some Christians called him to account for his hatred of Jews, remarking that though they were without the true faith, those of Trent were worthy folk. The monk replied: "Ye know not what misfortune these good people will bring upon you. Before Easter Sunday is past they will give you a proof of their extraordinary goodness." It was easy for him to prophesy, for he and a few other priests had arranged a cunning plan, which not only brought about the ruin of the community of Trent, but also caused the greatest injury to the Jews of various countries. Chance aided him by creating a favorable opportunity.

In Holy Week of 1475 a three-year-old child, named Simon, the son of poor Christian parents, was drowned in the Adige, and the corpse was caught in a grating close to the house of a Jew. In order to anticipate misrepresentation of the event, he hurried to Bishop Hinderbach to give him notice of the occurrence. The bishop took two men of high position with him, went to the place, and had the body carried into the church. As soon as the news spread, Bernardinus and other hostile priests raised a fierce outcry against the Jews, saying that they had tortured and slain the child, and then flung it into the water. The body of the supposititiously ill-treated child was exhibited, in order to inflame the fury of the populace against them. The bishop had all the Jews of Trent, high and low, cast into prison, commenced proceedings against them, and called a physician, Matthias Tiberinus, to testify to the violent death of the child. A baptized Jew, one Wolfkan, from Ratisbon, an engrosser, came forward with the most fearful accusations against his former co-religionists. His charges the more readily found credence as the imprisoned Jews confessed under torture that they had slain Simon, and drunk his blood on the night of the Passover. Brunetta was said to have supplied the weapons for the purpose. A letter also was said to have been found in the possession of a rabbi, Moses, which had been sent from Saxony, asking for Christian blood for the next Passover. Only one of the tortured victims, a man named Moses, endured every torment without confirming the lying accusations of his enemies. The result was that all the Jews of Trent were burnt, and it was resolved that no Jew should thenceforth settle in the city. Four persons only became converts to Christianity, and were pardoned.

The bishop of Trent, Bernardinus, and the monks of all orders made every effort to utilize this occurrence for the general ruin of the Jews. The corpse of the child was embalmed, and commended to the populace as a holy relic. Thousands made pilgrimages to its remains, and ere long it was believed by the faith-drunken pilgrims that they had seen a halo about the remains of the child Simon. So much was said about it that even its inventors came to believe in the martyrdom. From every chancel the Dominicans proclaimed the new miracle, and thundered against the infamy of the Jews. Two lawyers from Padua who visited Trent in order to convince themselves of the truth of the occurrence were almost torn to pieces by the fanatical mob. It was imperative that the marvel be believed in, and so the Jews of all Christian countries were jeopardized anew. Even in Italy they dared not go outside the towns lest they be slain as child-murderers.

The doge, Pietro Mocenigo, and the Venetian senate, on the complaint of the Jews about the insecurity of their lives and property, issued orders to the podesta of Padua energetically to defend them against fanatical outbreaks, and to forbid the preaching friars to inflame the mob against them. The doge accompanied the orders with the remark that the rumor that Jews had slain a Christian child in Trent was a fabrication, a device invented by their enemies to serve some purpose. When Pope Sixtus IV was urged to canonize little Simon he steadfastly refused, and sent a letter to all the towns of Italy, on October 10th, 1475, forbidding Simon of Trent to be honored as a saint until he could investigate the matter, and thus he allayed the popular excitement against the Jews. The clergy, nevertheless, permitted the bones of Simon to be held sacred, and instituted pilgrimages to the church built for his remains.

Through this circumstance Jew hatred in Germany gained fresh vigor. The citizens of Frankfort-on-the-Main exhibited, on the bridge leading to Sachsenhausen, a picture representing in hideous detail a tortured child, and the Jews leagued with the devil in their bloody work. The news of the child-murder in Trent spread like wildfire through the Christian countries, and became the source of new sufferings to Jews. Nowhere were these sufferings so severe as in the free city of Ratisbon, containing one of the oldest Jewish communities in South Germany. It was held to be not only very pious but of distinguished morality, and it was considered a high honor to intermarry with the Jews of Ratisbon. Within the memory of man no native Jew had been brought before the tribunal for any moral lapse. The community was regarded as the most learned in the land, and the parent of all German communities. It possessed chartered liberties, which the emperors, in consideration of a crown-tax, were accustomed to renew on their accession. The Jews of Ratisbon were half recognized as burghers, and mounted guard with the Christians as militia. One might almost say that the Bavarian princes and corporations vied with each other in favoring them – of course, merely to share their purses. In the latter half of this century they had become a veritable bone of contention between the Duke of Bavaria-Landsberg and Frederick III, who, hard pressed on all sides, not only in the empire, but even in his own possessions, hoped to fill his empty coffers with the wealth of the Jews.

In addition to these the Kamerau family made claims upon the Jews of Ratisbon, as well as the town council, and, of course, the bishop. These contradictory and mutually hostile demands made the position of the Jews anything but a bed of roses. First from one side and then from another came orders to the council to imprison the Jews, their chiefs, or their rabbi, at that time the sorely-tried Israel Bruna, until, worn out by confinement, they decided to pay what was claimed. The council did indeed seek to shield them, but only so long as no danger threatened the citizens, or the Jews did not compete with the Christian guildmembers.

To escape these cruel and arbitrary extortions, prudence directed that they place themselves under the protection of one of the Hussite nobles or captains. They would thus enjoy more security than was possible under the so-called protection of the emperor, since the fiery Hussites were not a little feared by the more sluggish Germans. Although they had to some extent abandoned their heretical fanaticism, and had taken service under the Catholic sovereigns, their desperate valor was still a source of terror to the orthodox clergy. The event proved that the Jews had acted wisely in appealing to their protection.

A bishop named Henry was elected in Ratisbon, a man of gloomy nature, to whom the sentiment of mercy was unknown, and he naturally insisted on the enforcement of the canonical restrictions against the Jews. As examples to others, for instance, he mercilessly punished a Christian girl who had entered the service of a Jew, and a Christian barber who had let blood for a Jewish customer. His animosity was contagious. On one occasion, when the Jewish midwife was sick, and a Christian was about to attend some Jewish women, the council actually dared not give her the required permission without the episcopal sanction.

Bishop Henry and Duke Louis, one in their hatred of Jews, now pursued what seemed to be a preconcerted plan for the ruin or conversion of the Jews of Ratisbon. On the one hand, they obtained the acquiescence of the pope, and on the other, the assistance of influential persons on the city council. Their campaign began with attempts at conversions and false accusations, for which they availed themselves of the assistance of a couple of worthless converted Jews. One of these, Peter Schwarz by name, wrote slanderous and abusive pamphlets against his former co-religionists. The other, one Hans Vayol, heaped the vilest calumnies upon the aged rabbi, Israel Bruna, amongst other things charging him with purchasing from him a seven-year-old Christian child and slaughtering it, and the rabbi of Ratisbon, already bowed down by sorrow and suffering, was charged with the death of the child.

Israel Bruna (of Brünn, born 1400, died 1480) was one of those sons of sorrow who seem to fall from one misfortune into another. He appears to have been exiled from Brünn, where he was recognized as a Rabbinical authority, and after many wanderings, to have traveled by way of Prague to Ratisbon. He settled there, and wished to perform the functions of rabbi for those who might place confidence in him. But a Talmudic scholar who resided in the city, one Amshel, a layman, not an elected rabbi, raised objections to his competitor, and forbade Israel Bruna to hold discourses before disciples, to deal with matters of divorce, to exercise any Rabbinical functions, or to divide the honors of the office with himself. As each had his followers, a schism arose in the community of Ratisbon. His two teachers, Jacob Weil and Isserlein, upholders of the freedom of the Rabbinical office and pronounced opponents of spiritual officialism, took the part of the persecuted Israel Bruna, with whom David Sprinz, a rabbi of Nuremberg, also took sides. These men proved in the clearest manner that any Jew is competent to assume Rabbinical functions, provided he possesses the requisite knowledge, is authorized by a recognized teacher, and leads a pious and moral life. They further adduced in favor of Israel Bruna the fact that he contributed his quota to the communal treasury, and was therefore a worthy member of the community. The breach nevertheless remained open, and Israel Bruna was often exposed to insults from the opposite party. Once when he was about to hold a discourse, several of the ringleaders left the lecture-room, and were followed by many others. Disciples of his opponent secretly painted crosses on his seat in the synagogue, wrote the hateful word "heretic" (Epicuros) beside them, and offered other insults to him. As time went on, after the death of the great rabbis, Jacob Weil and Israel Isserlein, Bruna was recognized as a Rabbinical authority, and from far and near questions were sent to him. His misfortunes, however, did not cease. When Emperor Frederick demanded the crown-tax from the community of Ratisbon, Duke Louis opposed the payment, and the council was unable to decide which side to assist. The emperor thereupon threw Israel Bruna into prison to force him to threaten his people with the ban if they did not pay over the third part of their possessions. He was released only on bail of his entire property; and, in addition, the fearful charges of child-murder and other capital crimes were raised against the decrepit old man by the converted Jew, Hans Vayol. Bishop Henry and the clergy were only too ready to gratify their hatred of Jews by means of this accusation, and the besotted populace gave all the more credence to the falsehood, as rumors of the death of Christian children at the hands of Jews daily increased. No one in Ratisbon doubted that gray old Israel Bruna had foully murdered a Christian child, and he was on the point of being put to death on the demand of the clergy. To withdraw him from the fury of the mob, the council, which feared to be made answerable, imprisoned him.