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

The dialogues end with comforting prophecies in the feeling words of Isaiah. This edifying description served doubtless to sustain the Marranos in their newly-recovered creed, and to endure sufferings of every kind for it, even death itself.

Samuel Usque was of opinion that the sufferings of the Jewish people were soon to decrease, and that the long looked-for morning would soon follow the darkness of night. But the church showed him that this anticipation was ill-founded. He lived to see fresh tribulations arise in his immediate neighborhood, and a whole system of fresh persecutions put into practice, which the Jewish historian, Joseph Cohen, was able to record in his annals of Jewish martyrdom. These fresh troubles had their origin in the reaction which the Roman Catholic Church was ardently desirous to institute against the ever-growing Reformation. Two men strove at almost the same time, quite independently of each other, to re-establish declining Catholicism, and thereby laid snares in the way of the progress of the human race. A Neapolitan, Pietro Caraffa, and a Spaniard, Ignatius Loyola, both men of zeal, and ready to take the initiative, began with self-castigation, and ended by reducing the minds and bodies of others to bondage. The worm-eaten papacy, supposed to be crumbling away beneath the laughter and derision of its opponents, for which its very friends had nothing but a shrug of the shoulders, was raised by these two men to a height greater almost than in the time of Innocent III and his immediate successors, because it rested, not on the tottering foundations of dreamy belief, but on the firm ground of powerful conviction and reckless determination. Caraffa, afterwards Pope Paul IV, and Loyola, the founder of the order of Jesuits, so powerful to this day, were very much in earnest in impressing the minds of the faithful with the belief in the supremacy of the papacy and the pope's power to bind and to loose, both in heaven and on earth, they themselves being firmly convinced thereof. Caraffa re-established the discipline of the church which had grown lax, increased its severity, and placed a rod of iron in her hand. He introduced into the Catholic world at large the means which Torquemada, Deza, and Ximenes de Cisneros had employed in Spain to force Jews and Moors to become members of the church, namely, the stake. All who held a belief differing by so much as a hair's breadth from the papacy were to abjure it, or be burnt. Merciless force, which does not think, and destroys all independent thought, was to restore credit to the defamed church.

To regain possession of the minds which had striven to emancipate themselves, and to keep them in bondage, the Inquisition thought it in the highest degree necessary to watch the press. The press had brought mischief and schism into the church (so thought Caraffa and his associates); the press, then, must be gagged. Only what was approved by the pope and his followers was to be printed. Censorship of the press had been introduced by previous popes, but as anything had hitherto been obtainable by bribery, publishers had been able to print and disseminate seditious works against the existing church system, either with or without the knowledge of the clergy appointed to control such publications. The seditious controversial pamphlets in the Reuchlin quarrel, the famous "Letters," Von Hutten's shafts at the papacy, Luther's first pamphlets against the Romish Babylonian harlot, inflammable materials which, appearing in rapid succession, on all sides kindled the tow of which the church tent was woven, were the result of negligent censorship. This was now to be changed. The censorship was henceforth intrusted only to priests faithful to the papacy, and, either from conviction or from instincts of self-preservation, they exercised their office without leniency.

The Jews soon felt the effect of this fierce Catholic reaction, for they had no sort of protection, and owed their miserable existence only to neglect in the enforcement of the canonical laws against them. As soon as the church began seriously to put these hostile decrees into execution, the existence, or at least the peace, of the Jews was endangered. First of all the question of the Talmud was again raised, but not with the lukewarmness of forty years before. At that time Pfefferkorn and the Dominicans of Cologne could not hope to obtain a hearing before the papal chair for their proposal to burn the Talmud, but were obliged to have recourse to all sorts of ruses in order to gain over the emperor to their policy. Now a totally different spirit prevailed. The universal harm caused by the Talmud needed only to be hinted at by malicious converts for a decree to be at once issued against it. By such the fresh outcry against it was raised.

Elias Levita, the Hebrew grammarian, who had lived for a long time in the house of Cardinal Egidio de Viterbo, and had instructed many Christians in the Hebrew language, both personally and by his writings, and had also imparted to some a superficial knowledge of the Kabbala, left two grandsons, the children of his daughter, who were received in Christian circles. One of them, Eliano, had learnt Hebrew thoroughly, and was a proof reader and copyist in several towns of Italy; his brother, Solomon Romano, had traveled much in Germany, Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt, and understood many languages: Hebrew, Latin, Spanish, Arabic, and Turkish. Eliano, the elder, had become a Christian under the name of Victor Eliano, and was a priest, later even a canon. Solomon Romano was so indignant at this that he hastened to Venice to persuade his brother to return to the bosom of Judaism. But instead of converting, he himself became converted. A Venetian patrician, much attached to the church, set about bringing him over to Christianity, and what he began, a Jesuit finished. Solomon Romano was baptized (1551), and assumed the name of John Baptista, to the great grief of his mother, who was still living. He became a Jesuit and afterwards an ecclesiastical writer, wrote upon the mysteries of the Christian faith, a Hebrew and Arabic catechism, and other similar works. This grandson of the grammarian Elias Levita, with two other converts, Joseph Moro and Ananel di Foligno, not content with having forsworn their religion, appeared before the pope, like Nicholas Donin, to denounce the Talmud, and repeated the same slanders, namely, that the books of the Talmud contained abuse of Jesus, the church, the whole of Christendom, and that they hindered the conversion of the Jews in a body. Julius III was by no means bigoted, least of all was he inimical to Jews. But it no longer lay with the pope to decide upon the Talmud; this task devolved on the court of the Inquisition, that is to say, on the fanatical Caraffa, and Julius III was obliged to approve and sign the decree laid before him by the inquisitor general (August 12th, 1553) – another proof of the emptiness of the boasted infallibility of the papacy. Leo X had encouraged the printing of the Talmud, and the third pope after him decreed its destruction. The officers of the Inquisition invaded the houses of the Roman Jews, confiscated the copies of the Talmud and compilations made from it, and burnt them with special malice on the Jewish New Year's Day (September 9th), so that the Jews might feel the grief at the destruction of their sacred books the more keenly. The inquisitors did not wage war against the Talmud in Rome only. Copies were burnt by hundreds of thousands throughout the whole Romagna, in Ferrara, Mantua, Venice, Padua, and in the island of Candia, which belonged to Venice. The officers of the Inquisition in their fury no longer distinguished between the Talmud and other Hebrew writings. Everything that fell into their hands became a prey to the flames; they even seized copies of the Holy Scriptures. The Jews of all Catholic countries were in despair; they were robbed by this confiscation of the rabbinical books which contain the precepts of a religious life, and in which there is no word referring to Christianity. They, therefore, appealed to the pope to revoke the decree, or at least to permit them the use of these harmless rabbinical writings. Julius III agreed to this latter request, and issued a bull (May 29th, 1554) that the Jews be compelled, under pain of corporal punishment, to give up all copies of the Talmud, but that the bailiffs be not allowed to seize other Hebrew works, or vex the Jews. Transgressors of this decree were to be visited with severe ecclesiastical punishment. Henceforward all Hebrew books were subjected to inspection before they were published, lest they contain a shadow of reproach against Christianity or Rome. The censors were mostly baptized Jews, who thus had the opportunity of tormenting their former brethren in faith.

Matters became worse for the Jews after the death of Julius III, as the college of cardinals insisted that all henceforth elected to the papacy should belong to the strictest church party, if possible, be monks. Cultivated dignitaries, interested in humanistic studies, who loved the arts and sciences, if such there still were, had fallen into disfavor.

Marcellus II, the first of the reactionary popes, was succeeded in the papal chair by the bigoted and fanatical Caraffa, under the name of Paul IV (May, 1555-August, 1559). He retained in old age all the violence and passion of his youth, and framed his policy accordingly. He hated not only Protestants and Jews, but also the Spaniards, the most useful tools of ecclesiastical fanaticism; he termed them and the bigoted king, Philip II, "worthless seed of the Jews and Moors." Soon after his accession to the papal chair he issued a bull, by which every synagogue throughout the Papal States was ordered to contribute ten ducats for the maintenance of the house of catechumens in which Jews were educated in the Christian faith. Still more severe was his second bull against the Jews (July 12th, 1555), which enforced the canonical laws against them with great harshness. They were to remain shut up in Ghettos, and were to possess only one synagogue; the rest were to be destroyed. They were not allowed to employ Christian servants, not even wet-nurses, and were forbidden to have intercourse with Christians in general. Every Jew was commanded to wear a green cap, and every Jewess a green veil, even outside the precincts of the city. They were not to be addressed as "Sir" by the Christian population. They were forbidden to own real estate, and those who had any were ordered to sell it within six months; thus they were compelled to part with their lands, worth more than 500,000 gold crowns, for a fifth of their value. But the severest blow was that Jewish physicians were prohibited from attendance on Christians, though so many popes owed their health to them. Heavy penalties were attached to the infringement of this edict. These cruel measures were carried out with extreme severity, and confiscation of copies of the Talmud was not interrupted. Thereupon, many Jews forsook Rome, which had become so malicious towards them, and betook themselves to more tolerant states, but they were maltreated on the way by fanatical mobs. Those who remained in Rome were treated in a most undignified manner by the pope. First it was said that they had only made a feint of selling their lands, and had executed sham deeds of sale, and for this they were imprisoned; next the pope announced that those Jews who were not working for the common good should leave Rome within a given time. When the terrified Jews asked for an explanation of what was meant by "working for the general good," they received the Pharaoh-like reply, "You shall know at the proper time."

Paul IV compelled them to do forced labor in repairing the walls of Rome, which he desired to fortify against the Spaniards, of whom he had wilfully made enemies. Once he, whom the Jews not unjustly called Haman, impelled by his fierce enmity against them, commanded his nephew to set fire to all their dwellings under the veil of the darkness of night. The latter was about to carry out the order, though unwillingly, when he met the sensible cardinal, Alexander Farnese, who advised him to delay the execution of the inhuman deed that the pope might have time to consider. The order was revoked on the following day.

The fanatical Pope Paul IV thus ill-treated the Jews, but he raged with even greater fury against the Marranos in his dominions. Many, compelled to become Christians in Portugal, had found an asylum in Ancona, and received an indemnity from Pope Clement VII guaranteeing that they should not be molested by the Inquisition, but might confess Judaism. The next two moderate popes, Paul III and Julius III, had confirmed this privilege to the Marranos, convinced as they were that baptism, enforced by violence, could have no sacramental significance. The more violently the Inquisition now introduced into Portugal proceeded against the Marranos, like that in Spain, the more fugitives took refuge in Italy. They settled, with the property rescued, in Ferrara and Ancona, trusting in the privileges assured to them by the head of Catholic Christendom. But what did the vindictive Pope Paul IV care for an assurance of safety granted by his predecessors, and for a time tacitly recognized by himself, if it was in opposition to his notion of orthodoxy? His perverse spirit could not suffer those to live as Jews who had been sprinkled with baptismal water. Paul, therefore, issued a secret order that all the Marranos in Ancona, already numbering several hundreds, should be thrown into the dungeons of the Inquisition, a trial of their orthodoxy instituted, and their property sequestered (Elul – August, 1555). This was a severe blow to the Marranos, some of whom had been there for half a century, and had lulled themselves into a dream of security. Even those Marranos who were Turkish subjects, and were dwelling only for a short time in the flourishing seaport because of their trade with the Levant, were included in the accusation of Judaizing, and imprisoned, and their goods confiscated, as a matter of course. The furious pope thus cut off a considerable source of his revenue at the moment when he was about to plunge into a costly war with Spain.

But very few Marranos succeeded in escaping from the bailiffs of the Inquisition. They were all received by Duke Guido Ubaldo, of Urbino, and quartered in Pesaro, because he was then at enmity with the pope, and thought to transfer the trade of the Levant from Ancona to Pesaro by means of the connection of the Marranos with Turkey. Duke Hercules II, of Ferrara, also offered the Portuguese and Spanish Jews, from whatever country they might have fled, an asylum in his dominions, and formally invited them thither (December, 1555). Among those who escaped to Pesaro was a man then held in high repute, the celebrated physician Amatus (Chabib) Lusitanus (born 1511, died 1568), a sensible and intelligent man, a skillful physician, a noted scholar, and a man of equal conscientiousness and amiability. As a pretended Christian he had borne the name of João Rodrigo de Castel-Branco. He appears to have been driven from his home by the introduction of the Inquisition into Portugal. He had been for some time in Antwerp, then the most important city of Flanders, afterwards visited both Ferrara and Rome, but had permanently established himself at Ancona (about 1549), where he had openly assumed his family name of Chabib, and Latinized it under the form of Amatus Lusitanus. Although he openly professed himself a Jew, he was frequently summoned to the court of Pope Julius III to attend him in sickness. Sufferers came to him from far and near. The art of healing was to him a sacred office, which he fulfilled with his whole soul in the endeavor to prolong human life. Amatus was able to take a solemn oath – by God and His holy commandments – that he had always labored purely for the welfare of mankind, had never concerned himself about compensation, had never accepted valuable presents, had treated the poor without fee, and made no difference between Jews, and Christians, and Turks. Nothing ever hindered him in his devoted calling, neither family considerations, nor long distances. Amatus had many disciples of his art who were attached to him, and whom he regarded as his children. In his young days he had written medical works so highly esteemed that they were often printed during his lifetime. The greatest interest was excited by his seven "Centuries" (each dealing with a hundred cases of illness), in which he minutely described his remedies and their effect, and gave the characteristics of his patients. These "Cures" procured for him very extensive fame during his lifetime; they were frequently printed in Italy, France, Germany, and even in Spain, and were used by other physicians as text-books. Amatus received an invitation from the king of Poland to come to his court in the capacity of his private physician, an invitation which he did not accept.

This benefactor of mankind, the ornament of his time, was obliged to flee like a criminal from Ancona to Pesaro, and afterwards to journey even further, because he refused to make a ridiculous confession of faith before the bloodthirsty Inquisition of Paul IV, and did not wish to expose himself to the risk of death at the stake. More than a hundred Portuguese Marranos, unable to flee, had to pine in the dungeons of the Inquisition until their sentence was announced to them. This was to the effect that those who penitently made confession of the Catholic faith should be set at liberty, but be carried to the island of Malta, and forfeit all honors and dignities. Sixty Marranos agreed to this hypocrisy, but twenty-four of them, among them an aged woman, Donna Maiora, remained firm in the faith of their fathers, "The Lord our God is one God," and were burnt at the stake (May, 1556). Most of those to be transported to Malta escaped, and took refuge in Turkey. A cry of horror was heard from all Jews when the news of this shocking catastrophe was spread abroad. The sentence was as illegal as cruel, because, as has already been said, the religious freedom of the Marranos in Ancona had been solemnly confirmed by three popes in succession. The Portuguese Marranos in Turkey were completely stunned by this blow administered to their fellow-sufferers. They bethought themselves of means by which to be revenged on the insanely cruel pope. The peculiar position of the Jews in this century made it possible for them to entertain the idea of a struggle with their malicious enemy in the chair of St. Peter. A union of all the Jews of the East might furnish the means.

There lived at this time a noble Jewish lady, an ornament to her sex and her people by her grace, her intelligence, her character, and greatness of mind, one of those beings whom Providence seems to place in the world from time to time that the likeness of man to the Divine Image may not be quite forgotten. Donna Gracia Mendesia was a name which her Jewish contemporaries pronounced only with admiration and love. Blessed with ample means, which she expended wisely, and only for the benefit of others and for the elevation of mankind, she commanded an influence equal to that of a princess, and reigned over the willing hearts of hundreds of thousands. She was called the Esther of her time. But what anguish of mind she was obliged to endure before she dared openly to call herself Gracia (Hannah)! The waves of meanness and wickedness surged around her, but could not sully the purity of her soul. Born in Portugal (about 1510, died about 1568), of a Marrano family named Benveniste, she was married under the Christian name of Beatrice to a rich participator in the same unhappy fate, one of the house of Nassi, who had taken the baptismal name of Francisco Mendes. He had founded an extensive banking business, branches of which extended through Flanders and France. The German emperor and ruler of two continents, Charles V, the king of France, and many princes besides, were debtors to the house of Mendes. A younger brother, Diogo Mendes, was head of the branch bank at Antwerp. When the husband of Beatrice died (before 1535), leaving her with one daughter named Reyna, and the terrible Inquisition, introduced into Portugal, threatened danger to her property and the lives of herself and her child, she betook herself to her brother-in-law at Antwerp, accompanied by a younger sister and several young nephews. She furnished poor Marranos with the means to flee from the fires of the Inquisition. The sums which pseudo-Christians paid to the emissaries and creatures of the pope to frustrate the Inquisition, went through her hands and her brother-in-law's. The Mendes family acquired a high position in Antwerp, where there were many Marranos. Mendesia's young, handsome and clever nephew, João Miques, associated with the first people in the city, and was much beloved by Maria, ruler of the Netherlands, formerly queen of Hungary, sister to Charles V.

Beatrice was by no means at ease in Antwerp. Affection for the religion in which she had been born, and which she was compelled to deny, and horror of the Catholic faith forced upon her, made Flanders just as hateful to her as Portugal. She longed for a country where she could freely follow the impulses of her heart, glowing with love to Judaism. She, therefore, importuned her brother-in-law, the head of the banking business, who had married her sister, either to go to Germany, or elsewhere, with her, or pay over her share of the property. Diogo Mendes fixed a time for this removal, but died before it arrived (1540–1546); he also left a widow and a daughter, Gracia the younger. This was the beginning of sorrowful days for Mendesia. She was recognized by her brother-in-law's will as the head of the widely-extended business, but could not settle the affairs of the house quickly enough to enable her to follow the wish of her heart, and betake herself to some tolerant land, where she could openly confess herself a Jewess. Besides, Charles V, in his covetousness, cast an eye upon the large property of the house of Mendes. An accusation was made by the imperial attorney-general that the deceased Diogo Mendes had secretly practiced Judaism. It may also have become known that he had supported the antagonists of the Inquisition by word and deed. It was, therefore, decreed that the whole of his property, being that of a heretic, should be forfeited to the exchequer. The order was issued that the goods and account-books of the house of Mendesia be seized and sealed. But the widow Mendesia succeeded in satisfying the avarice of the officials for the moment by bribes and the advance of a large loan. But it was impossible for her to leave Antwerp without exciting suspicion against herself and endangering her property still more. Thus she was obliged to remain there in great distress of mind for more than two years, until the loan was repaid by the emperor.

At length the hour of deliverance seemed to be at hand, when she might leave Antwerp, and proceed to Venice. A story circulated that her nephew, João Miques, had fled to Venice with her daughter Reyna, for whose hand several Christian noblemen had sued. Perhaps this was a story sedulously spread by the Mendes family so as to afford a pretext for their journey to Venice, and that no hindrance might be interposed. But this precaution was not successful. After her departure, Charles V again gave orders that her property, so far as it lay within his dominions, should be seized, because the sisters were secret Jewesses, and Mendesia the elder (as she was called) was compelled to pay large sums to avert this fresh calamity.

But misfortune, greater than any that she had yet experienced, was in store for her at Venice, from a quarter whence she least expected it, namely, from her younger sister. The latter, as reckless and scatter-brained as the elder was prudent and sedate, demanded her share of the property and her daughter's, to do with as she pleased.

But Donna Mendesia neither could nor would agree to this, she having been made sole manager of the property, and also guardian of her niece, still under age. Chafing at this guardianship, and probably guided by evil counselors, the younger sister took a step which turned out to her own disadvantage. She informed the Venetian government that her sister was about to emigrate to Turkey, and take with her all her wealth, there to resume her adherence to Judaism, while she herself and her daughter desired to remain Christians; and she asked the Venetian authorities to assist her in obtaining possession of her property, in order that she might use it as a good Christian in Venice. The rulers of Venice, seeing the prospect of a rich prize, did not hesitate to take up the accusation, cited the accused to appear before the legal authorities, and arrested her to prevent her flight. Her ill-advised or worthless sister also sent an avaricious, Jew-hating messenger to France, to take possession of the property there belonging to the Mendes family. This envoy, thinking himself insufficiently paid for his errand, denounced the younger sister also as a secret Jewess, and the French court confiscated the Mendes property in France. King Henry II also held himself exempt from repaying his debt to the family. The unfortunate Mendesia was meantime endeavoring to divert these blows aimed at herself and her property. Her nephew, João Miques, gave liberal assistance to prevent losses and to set his noble relative free. Either he or his aunt found a way to induce Sultan Solyman to embrace their cause. Such immense riches were about to be brought into his dominions, and the Venetian Republic, which existed only by his forbearance, dared deprive him of them? That roused his fury. His private physician, Moses Hamon, a Jew who hoped to win the hand of the rich heiress Reyna for his son, had disposed the sultan in favor of the Mendes family. A special messenger of state (Tshaus) was sent by the Porte to Venice, with instructions that the imprisoned Marrano was at once to be set free and allowed to depart unhindered for Turkey with all her property. In consequence of this a difference arose between the court of Turkey and the Republic of Venice, which afterwards led to animosities. An important part was thus thrust upon this poor lady against her will.