Shelf. a \X\$ cThcologiV#/ „ v\ v . & fin lk PRINCETON, N. J. Ls yj / ' i > / 4 C €& *u, A SEPHARDIM; OR, THE ^\HIST0RY OF THE JEWS V SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. BY JAMES FINN. Da propriam . domum ; da moenia fessis, Et genus, et mansuram urbem. j-Eneid, iii. 85. LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. G. F. & J. RIVINGTON, ST. PAUL’S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL. 1841. LONDON : GILBERT & RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, st. John’s square. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE GEORGE, EARL OF ABERDEEN, K.T. F.R.S. &c. &c. &c. THIS RECORD OF AN INTERESTING PEOPLE, IN CIRCUMSTANCES UNKNOWN TO OTHER NATIONS, IS (by permission) DEDICATED, IN TESTIMONY OF MUCH RESPECT AND PERSONAL GRATITUDE. PREFACE. Of the two large bodies of European Jews, the Ashkenazim from Germany and Poland, and the Sephardim of Spanish and Portuguese de¬ scent, it is well known that during our middle ages the latter were the more eminent in wealth, literature, and general importance. To this fact we find frequent allusions in historical works, though only in cursory or compressed remarks. And from the nature of their circumstances such an effect must have followed. The Mediter¬ ranean for merchandize, the abundant agricul- VI PREFACE. tural produce and the metallic riches of Spain offered advantages unknown to the Eastern side of the continent^ while the steady prevalence and uniformity of the Romish system among the nations of the West; allowed to the Jews a more familiar intercourse with a variety of settled property and of civil institutions; than the Ashkenazim could obtain amid the tumul¬ tuary fortunes and the barbarism of Teutonic and Slavonic tribes at the same epoch. More¬ over; their early and afterwards diversified culti¬ vation of literature and science; raised them to a positive standing in the intelligence of Europe so high; that it has been said; “We have never yet repaid our debt of grateful acknowledgment to the illustrious Hebrew schools of Cordova, Seville, and Granada/5 (Retrospective Review, iii. 208.) The general histories of modern Jews have treated of them as one people per se , without adequate consideration of how differently must have been modified the Judaism of Granada in the twelfth century, or of Castille in the four- PREFACE. VII teenth century, from that of the same period amid the ferocity and unlettered ignorance of Poland and Muscovy. In Spain, this people acquired a degree of nationality not found in other countries, and this again assumed peculiar diversities of circumstance under the three great ascendancies of the Goths, the Arabs, and the Inquisition. In framing a history of the Peninsular Jews, it is necessary to bear in mind, how strong a feature in the Spanish character is the principle of a rigid exclusive bigotry : a principle, not so much derived from the spirit of Roman dominion, as from the struggle through many centuries of three conflicting national religions: national in¬ asmuch as the Mohammedan creed pertained only to those Spaniards of Arab and African blood ; the rabbinical creed to those Spaniards descended from Abraham ; and the Christian creed to the re¬ mainder : the converts from either side being too insignificant in number to alter this view of the parties. The two former were eventually subdued 'Vlll PREFACE. by the sword or banishment, but the obstinacy of feeling engendered by the prolonged hostility, forms still a prominent characteristic in the genius of the victors. The events here related are gathered from a variety of chronicles. The notices of J ewish lite¬ rature and Rabbinical biography are mainly taken from the “ Bibliotheca Magna Rabbinica” of Fr. Rartoloccio, and the “ Dizionario Storico degli autori Ebrei” of De Rossi: the opinion upon Talmudic Judaism is considerably influenced by a recent work called “ The Old Paths,” by the Rev. A. MtfCaul, D.D. It is nearly superfluous to observe that previous to the date of a.d. 1136, Spain and Portugal are to be considered one country. The following narrations will supply matter of regret in two ways to the reflecting mind : the boasted Catholicity of Spain will not from its visible fruits demonstrate the national Chris- PREFACE. IX tianity to be the Christianity of the New Tes¬ tament ; and on the other hand, while its victims were indeed the relics of Judah, our compassion for them in their fiery trials cannot but be min¬ gled with grief at the consideration that they are nevertheless an ce alienated Judah.” A miraculous people, they still command the attention of the world even in their fallen state ; and the intellectual or moral advancement of mankind, with all the gigantic march of events, does not preclude the certainty of God’s express arrangements for Israel. While the infidel sneers at them as the ee Pariahs of the globe,” or the more friendly Christian, in reverting to their long past history, and looking for their promised spiritual regeneration, as well as the national return to their own land, designates them “ the Aristocracy of the world ; ” as yet the Hebrew walks on in his self-collected stubbornness : em¬ pires become extinct, tribes and languages be¬ come amalgamated; but these remain an inde- X PREFACE. structible race. They are dealt with by an un¬ paralleled discipline^ and an unparalleled result will hereafter redound to the glory of God. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Hebrews in Spain during the period of the first temple in Jerusalem *«••••••] CHAPTER II. Hebrew settlements in Spain during the second temple . . 14 CHAPTER III. Expulsion from the East by Titus and Adrian — Jews in Spain • 27 CHAPTER IV. Council of Elvira — History of Mishna and Gemara . 38 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. PAGE Gothic invasion — The third council of Toledo . . .53 CHAPTER VI. Baptismal persecution of the Jews by king Sisebut . . 66 CHAPTER VII. Fourth council of Toledo — St. Isidore of Seville on the Jews . 79 CHAPTER VIII. Sixth council of Toledo — On Catholicity in Spain — Jewish address to king Reccesuinth — Twelfth council of To¬ ledo — Chronology of LXX. — Romish influence in Spam. 95 CHAPTER IX. Sixteenth council of Toledo — Jewish correspondence with Africa — Total reduction of the Jews to slavery . .112 CHAPTER X. Witisa — Retrospect of Gothic dominion over the Jews — Iconolatry — On persecution of Jews . . . .122 CONTENTS. Xlll CHAPTER XI. PAGE Mohammedan invasion — Toleration of all religions — Serenus the false Messiah — General remarks .... 134 CHAPTER XII. The omeiad caliphate — Epistle of Bar Hliasdai — R. Moses in slavery — Jewish influence — Council of Leon — Spanish literature — Mozarabic Christians . . . .145 CHAPTER XIII. Orientalism in Spain — Council of Coyaca — Epistle of pope Alexander II. — Massacre at Granada — Epistle of pope Gregory — The Almoravides — Death of R. Isaac Al-Fes — Hebrew authors . 160 CHAPTER XIV, Crusades — Baptism of Peter Alonso — Massacre of Jews— Political events — Almohads — Incident to Jewish cour¬ tiers — Hebrew authors . 179 CHAPTER XV, Benjamin of Tudela . 210 XIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVI. PAGE Literature of the Spanish Jews . 223 CHAPTER XVII. On the Cabala and Talmud . 241 CHAPTER XVIII. Events of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries . . 268 CHAPTER XIX. Literature of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries . 293 CHAPTER XX. Laws and conciliar decrees respecting Jews made in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries . . . .315 CHAPTER XXI. Calumnies of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries . 332 CHAPTER XXII. Means for conversion of Jews, used in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries . 345 CONTENTS. XV CHAPTER XXIII. K\ ents in the fifteenth century — The Inquisition PAGE . 371 CHAPTER XXIV. General banishment of Jews from Spain— Sufferings of the exiles . 396 CHAPTER XXV. Transactions in Portugal, Holland, Barbary, and Brazil . . 422 CHAPTER XXVI. Sephardim Jews since the great exile— Conclusion . 441 Appendix • 477 4L SEPHARDIM. CHAPTER I. HEBREWS IN SPAIN DURING THE PERIOD OF THE FIRST TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM. The earliest uncontradicted testimony that we have of Jews residing in Spain, is given by the decrees of the council of Elvira, held a.d. 324 ; and we may gather that they were then numerous in the country, 1. From the nature of the canons enacted re¬ garding them ; 2. From that council being general for all Spain ; not a provincial synod, as we shall see hereafter. The date and circumstances of their first intro¬ duction to the Western Peninsula are unknown, and by many would be considered of little import¬ ance ; not greater than the entrance of Jews into any other of the many lands where they have been found for the last sixteen or seventeen centuries. But their pretensions on this point recede to a higher antiquity than the vagrancy enforced by the sword B 2 HISTORY OF THE JEWS of Titus Caesar, and Christian authors of con¬ siderable reading, if not discrimination, have set up for them claims exceeding their own. In that beauteous district called the garden of Valencia, there is a small town, Murviedro, built from the ruins of the famous Saguntum. Amid these ruins, about a.d. 1630, some Jesuits were searching for a particular stone Soros , or perhaps a tomb, the inscription upon which was expected to decide a point of history under the date of 2600 years previous. It wTas this : — Were there Jews in that region, residing and paying tribute to Jeru¬ salem in the days of king Solomon ? Their task was undertaken at the special entreaty of one of their order at Rome, Villalpando, who had read in a book, then recently published by Francis Gonzaga, bishop of Mantua and general of the Franciscans, upon the rise of his order, that a sepulchral monument existed at Murviedro, bear¬ ing a Hebrew epitaph in characters more ancient than the square alphabet now in use, to this effect 1 : “ This is the tomb of Adoniram The servant of king Solomon ; Who came to collect the tribute, And died the day The stone being broken and defaced, the writing was described as incomplete. Further, the bishop 1 Appendix A. IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 3 had produced a MS. volume in an antique Spanish dialect^ describing the ruins of Saguntum, which, aftei a detail of many Roman monuments, men¬ tioned the one in question, as being of a more re¬ mote age than those, and gave a version of its inscription x. Now this MS. was considered of no common value, for it was a present from the bishop’s relative the Duke of Savoy, formerly viceroy of Valencia, and had been dedicated to another relative, Alfonso Duke of Segorbe and Count of Ampurias. Without being overborne by the mere parade of great names, Villalpando had begged of these his brethren dwell¬ ing in Spain to investigate the fact on the site de¬ scribed ; and their labour obtained the following results. 1. The town’s people immediately pointed out a large stone near the gate of the citadel, which was commonly denominated “ the stone of Solomon’s collector upon this was a Hebrew inscription, but not answering to the purport they expected ; to this we shall presently recur. 2. In a certain MS. chronicle preserved in the town they found this entry — u At Saguntum, in the citadel, in the year of our Lord 1480, a little more or less, was discovered a sepulchre of surprising 1 Appendix B. B 4 HISTORY OF THE JEWS antiquity. It contained an embalmed corpse, not of the usual stature, but taller than is common. It had, and still retains on the front, two lines in the Hebrew language and characters, the sense of which is, — ‘ The Sepulchre of Adoniram the servant of king Solomon, who came hither to col¬ lect the tribute.5 Of this Adoniram the servant of Solomon mention is made in the vth of the first book of Kings, and more expressly in the ivth of that book. The Hebrew letters rendered into Roman, are these : — c Zehukeber Adoniram, Ebed ha-Melec Selomo, seba ligbot et hammas, voniptar yom. 5 55 And in page 112 of the same MS. they found written, “ The marble mausoleum of surprising antiquity which was discovered at Saguntum in the year of our Lord 1482, and inscribed with Hebrew letters which are these in Roman, Zehukeber, &c. [as above] still exists in the citadel before the outer gate l.55 Such were the fruits of their enterprise ; the re- compence was sufficient to justify its undertaking. And it must be added, that Villalpando procured afterwards a careful copy, by others again of his order, of some other MS. which speaks honourably of the same sepulchre. The resume of the whole stands thus. An author 1 Villalpandus in Ezechielem, Yol. ii. Part ii. cli. Ivin. IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. makes a startling assertion connected with ancient history 5 he produces for voucher, a very respect¬ able MS. Some of the most learned men of their time (learned before they could become Jesuits) seek personally for information where they were directed. A popular tradition is found, mainly, though not entirely, coinciding with their object : and this tradition exists when there had been no Jew in the whole kingdom for nearly 120 years. They gain a strong corroboration in the ancient records of the place, affording even minute details of the Oriental construction of the tomb, and em¬ balming of the body ; this record having been guaided there during the fullest efficiency of the holy Inquisition, and prevalence of popular hatred against the Jews. Another MS. found subse¬ quently confirms the whole, and the inscription is exactly the same in all these sources of informa¬ tion. But if the facts thus elicited fail to demonstrate that Solomon collected tribute from Spain, we may and ought to make use of these subsidiary conside¬ rations. 1. The treasures of gold and silver in Spain, w ere vast in ancient times beyond general credence, even abating much from the report of Posidonius (apud Strabonem) who describes the natives as using mangers and barrels of pure silver. It is b 3 6 HISTORY OF THE JEWS known that Marcellus exacted at one time from the Celtiberi the sum of 600 talents. 2. The Phoenicians did unquestionably trade to Carthage and Spain ; and Hiram king of Tyre was a personal friend of Solomon. 3. The Phoenicians had a colony at Tarshish Tarsis, or Tartessus, near Cadiz, and Solomon did send ships to Tarshish in company with those of Hiram2, and procured metallic riches by their means. 1 a Tarshish was thy merchant,” [i. e. of Tyre] Ezek. xxvii. 12. 2 J osephus believed Tarshish to be Tarsus in Cilicia, but this is an utterly indefensible idea. Theodoret on Jer. x. 9. renders the word by Carthage, but the learned Bochart contends in reply that Carthage had no direct access to any metals. In his preface to “ Phaleg,” and in the “ Geographia Sacra,” lib. iii. c. 7- he decidedly concludes that the Tarshish of the Scriptures was Tar- tessus hi Spam with probably a district around, so as to include Cadiz. However distinctly it may be shown that the fleet of Am- aziah and Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. xx. 36.) built at Ezion-geber, was destined for India, this does not prove that the voyage to Tarshish was in the same direction. When Jonah deserted his prophetic charge, he embarked at Joppa for Tarshish, therefore Tarshish was along the Mediterranean. The verse in Chronicles might seem to imply that the way to Tarshish was by Ezion- geber : but in the original there is no the before ships, therefore the confederate kings made two separate fleets. The transaction in 1 Kings xxii. 48, 49, is not the same as this, and the appellation there of “ ships of Tarshish” denotes “ ships such as those for Tarshish.” The three years required for the voyage (1 Kings x. 22.) will not seem incredible when we recollect the long passage from Judeea to Italy (Acts xxvii. and xxviii.) in an age when the arts of navigation were still more advanced. IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 7 4. The name of Adoniram, as the Murviedran MS. observes, falls in precisely with the Scriptural history of 1 Kings iv. 6. “ Adoniram the son of Abda was over the tribute/5 (among the other ap¬ pointments of the king/ also 1 Kings v. 13. at the erection of the temple, “ And king Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel, and the levy was 30,000 men/5 and further on, “ Adoniram was over the levy.55 Now if these varied observations converge to any one point, it must be to this question at issue, and tend greatly to its establishment as a certainty : viz. that Adoniram, chancellor of Solomon, came in company with Tyrian ships toTarshishin Spain, and other neighbouring cities, for the collection of precious metals, died at Saguntum, and received a dignified burial from some of his countrymen settled there. They will not show that the sepul¬ chre described at Murviedro was a relic of that ancient period, but they may incline us to think less lightly of the asserted Jewish colony, than, fiom its novelty to us, we might be tempted to do. We need not, however, be so sanguine as Villal- pando, who in his gigantic Commentary on Ezekiel, believes this to be actually demonstrated \ and jumps to the further certainty , that therefore , 1 “ Ex quibus omnibus aperte demonstrari potest,” &c. B 4 8 HISTORY OF THE JEWS colonies of Hebrews existed all over the world in the reigns of David and Solomon ; and that there¬ fore the tribute for the erection and support of the temple attained its well-known large amount. Nor need we, on the other hand, with Basnage ’, rashly conjure up declarations that were never made, and then proceed to demolish them. What¬ ever becomes of this whole subject, it is certainly not a Rabbinical figment, but a matter of research conducted by Christian scholars. This latter writer says, pendix D. B 6 12 HISTORY OF THE JEWS the words, ‘To Amaziah.5 Then I believed that this form of rhymes and feet had been in use ever since our fathers were in their own land.” This author seems to have entertained no doubt of his people being settled in Spain before the Chaldaean captivity ; but as the book itself is a treatise upon rhymes and metrical scansion (which however are denied by Christians to be of ancient date in the Hebrew language,) and is the ori¬ ginal source of this individual epitaph ; and as it, like that described by the Jesuits, ends with the name Amaziah ; may it not be suspected that the learned Rabbi has yielded to the temptation of associating an lambic distich of his own with the reality of an inscription at Murviedro, for the purpose of proving his own argument? Never¬ theless, it is worth observing that this account was written about the time of the Soros being dis¬ covered, and above a century before the inquiry made by Villalpando. These several inscriptions are copied into the “ Globus Arcanorum Linguae Sanctae,” by Luis de San Francisco, p. 709 ; and Fabricius5 “ Bibliotheca Graeca,” vol. xiv. p. 166, besides Villalpando and Bartoloccio. Basnage advises, “ not to believe implicitly in monuments, which impostors have amused them¬ selves with burying for the astonishment of the IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 13 simple.” But it does not appear that the stone actually seen and copied, had ever been under gi ound ; and the Soros , or stone coffin, inscribed with Hebrew, containing an embalmed corpse, and surviving in the popular tradition, can hardly be supposed a cheat, unless we learn to disbelieve Villalpando’s whole narration of the search insti¬ tuted. at Saguntum, and the record in the archives, as well as the independent evidence of R. Moses* discovering an epitaph on the same spot, long before this account was made. Neither Spaniard nor Jew would be so rash as to doubt of more than the conclusion that has been drawn; and whatever either a heedless, or an overcautious reader may believe, he will the most securely scoff at the notion of Jews in Spain from a long antiquity, who has not from the wrecks of that ancient city, gazed upon the i deep and dark blue” Mediterranean, and has not there recollected that Tarshish was at his right hand, and Palestine along that sea to the left. 14 CHAPTER II. HEBREW SETTLEMENTS IN SPAIN DURING THE SECOND TEMPLE. A different origin is ascribed to the Jews of Spain by several of the principal Rabbinical writers, and has been hastily believed by some Christians, from whom more prudence might have been expected. R. Isaac Abarbanel, in his Commentary on Zech. xii. 7. “The Lord also shall save the tents of J udah,” has this remark : “ And even into Spain in the time of the desolation of the first Temple, according to R. Isaac aben Gheath, of blessed memory, that two families of the house of David ; one from the sons of David who settled in Lucena [near Granada], and the other, the family of the Abw banela, which inhabited Seville, and from it came a thousand offshoots This reference, howe\er, cannot now be found among the writings of R. Isaac aben Gheath. 1 R. Menasseli ben Israel ascribes the settlement of the Abar- banels in Spain to the date of the second Temple’s fall. 11 HISTORY OF THE JEWS; &C. 15 The Sceptre of Judah,” by R. Solomon ben Virga, relating events of the thirteenth century, inserts the following pretended conversation : “Then said Thomas the philosopher, £ It would delight thee, O king [Alonso], to converse with that Jew, who is said to be descended from the ancient stock of their kings.’ The king replied : But they say falsely; for we are told that the royal race of David was entirely destroyed when Nebuchadnezzar conquered the Jews - for he dreaded lest any one of that blood should survive, under whose influence the people might resume their arms, and vindicate their former freedom1 2.’ Thomas answered: £ Yet it appears, that when Nebuchadnezzar was on his way to besiege Jeru¬ salem, he had auxiliary forces sent him by some powerful princes, partly because they feared the ruler of the world, and partly out of that hatred toward the Jews which they held on account of religion. Among these one far superior to the rest was named Hispanus, from whom Spain derives its name, who, together with his relative Pyrrhus, a king of the Greeks set out for J erusalem. These 1 W lien the rabbi assigns this notion to a Christian kino, he forgets that the New Testament brings the genealogy of David down to Jesus, in the reign of Herod, and to his cousins, still later. 2 Mariana makes this Pyrrhus a prince of Merida in Lusitania, and describes his importation of Jews from Asia to have been 16 HISTORY OF THE JEWS two, Pyrrhus and Hispanus, subdued the Jews; and Nebuchadnezzar, in gratitude for their suc¬ cour, granted them, in a royal manner, a share of the acquisition. Moreover, it appears that Jeru¬ salem was divided by walls into three parts : the outermost was inhabited by artificers, and more especially by the vendors of spices for the temple sacrifices, and concerning whom the prophet says, c Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh V Between the first wall and the second resided all the students and the merchants, because the learned have more need of the merchants than the merchants have of the learned, for this single reason, that merchandize will never teach the want of true wisdom, but a learned man knows his want of money. The space between the second and third wall was occupied by the royal family ; that is to say, the whole seed of David; also the priests and the sacred ministers.5 “ * When Jerusalem was allotted for plunder to occasioned by the dispersion under Titus, omitting all mention of Hispanus. The Toledan Epistle makes Pyrrhus a captain in the army of Cyrus at the restoration. 1 Zephaniah i. 11. Note by W. Lowth. “ Maktesh, a part, or street of Jerusalem. The Chaldee interprets it of the inhabi¬ tants of the brook Cedron.” — Note by Archbishop Newcome. “ A valley in J erusalem, which divided the upper from the lower city. This is agreeable to the etymology of the word, which sig¬ nifies a hollow place” — (From D’Oyley and Mant’s Bible.) IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 17 these monarchs, Nebuchadnezzar took for himself the two lower walls and the people about them, besides the other cities of J erusalem, and led them captives into Persia and Media; but the third division he left for Pyrrhus and Hispanus. Pyrrhus conveyed these captives in his ships to ancient Spain, which is called Andalusia, and to the city of Toledo. When the land was found insufficient to contain so great an influx of population, they were removed to other parts of his dominions. Part of the royal descendants, who had at first gone to Seville, retired thence to Granada.’ [He adds, that the numbers were afterwards increased by the fugitives from Jerusalem, at the overthrow by Titus.] 6i c So that all the Jews now in thy realm, O king, are derived from the royal stock, at least the greater part are of the tribe of Judah. Therefore it is no marvel that some still survive who trace up their genealogy to David.’ ” The merits of this tale are easily appreciated. But we find that for centuries before Abarbanel and Ben Virga, the Spanish Jews urged the same pre¬ tensions. At the capture of Toledo in 1080, they assured their conqueror that they were a residue of the first captivity \ And again in 1492, when the general expulsion was announced, the Toledan 1 Sandoval, Historia de los Reyes de Castilla y de Leon. 18 HISTORY OF THE JEWS Jews appealed to an ancient monument in the open square of the city, bearing an inscription dictated by some very early bishop, which testified that this people had not quitted Spain during the whole time of the second Temple, and therefore could not have been participators in the guilt of cruci¬ fying Jesus. The Rabbis appealed likewise to the Scripture, in Obadiah, verse 20. “The captivity of Jeru¬ salem, which is in ScphuTctd^ where the Targum of Jonathan renders Sepharad as Spain. Now this Chaldee Targum was written about the time of the Christian era, in the reign of Tiberius Cassar • and if its authority be conclusive there were Jews in Spain during the prophecy of Obadiah, that is, soon after the days of Nebuchadnezzar. Again, the zealots on this debateable ground contend, that many of the names of places in the Peninsula are evidently repetitions of names in the Holy Land, obtained from the usual custom of colonists to designate their new settlements by appellations to which they had been familiar. Thus we have Escalona from Ascalon ; Noves from Nove; Maguedafrom Megiddo; Yepes or Jepes, from Joppa; and Toledo 2, from Toledoth (genea- 1 “ At first called Peritzolo, but the Hebrews named it Tolitola,” says the “ Branch of David,” by R. David Ganz. But this state¬ ment would lead to other conclusions. IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 19 logies), because the exiles there reviewed their family genealogies when they assembled to dig the wells and found the city. Nay the word Spain itself, from |DD, a rabbity the common symbol of the country upon the Roman medals. The very Moors are witnesses in this cause. When Taric gained Toledo in a.d. 710, he found, in a small town not far distant, a most precious article of booty, namely, the table of shew-bread, which had belonged to Solomoffis Temple, and which the Hebrews had secretly conveyed into Spain. It was formed of one huge emerald, encir¬ cled by three rows of pearls, and stood upon 360 feet of pure gold. That such a relic was found there, is proved by their changing the name of the place from Segoncia into Medinat-Al-Meida (the table). Assuredly these, or less numerous and recon¬ dite arguments would be sufficient to produce conviction in former ages ; yet to them all it may be rejoined : — 1. That the inscription in the market-place of Toledo, however venerable for age, could be no competent voucher for an event of twenty-one centuries before. It was most likely to be a rem¬ nant of the time when the Chaldaean pi ea was made to Alonso VI. 2. Sepharad is not Spain ; for if it were Spain, 20 HISTORY OF THE JEWS the prediction of Obadiah has failed : since “ the Captivity which was in Sepharad” did not return, according to their own showing, to C( possess the cities of the South,” but allowed their brethren from Babylon to take possession, and, under Hyr- canus, to devour Edom. The Septuagint trans¬ lation, made about two centuries before the Targum of J onathan, is the more trust-worthy of the two, when it substitutes Ephrata for Sepharad1. 3. The etymologies adduced, and which resemble Hebrew, belong rather to the cognate languages, Phoenician 2 or Arabic, and are not repetitions of local names. 4. The table of emerald paste 3 must have been St. Jerome, in the Vulgate, has strangely translated "n2D2 — in Bosphoro. Aldi ete, Origen de la lingua Castellana, iii. 4. Bochart argues from )SD the Phoenician intercourse with Spain. 3 Some suppose, that when the ancients mention large fabrica¬ tions of emerald, they mean green fluor spar. Dr. E. Clarke (Tomb of Alexander, p. 44.) understands them to signify the green breccia of Egypt. Mariana considers this table to have been of green marble. But Herodotus (Euterpe, 44,) describes the column of emerald in the temple of Hercules at Tyre, as “ diffus¬ ing by night an extraordinary splendour and it is now known, that some enormous specimens of emerald vases, &c. still extant on the continent from early times, are made of a vitrified paste, the art of which workmanship is stated to have been still in existence about the ninth century, by Heraclius. (See Dr. Charles O’Conor’s Appendix to the Catalogue of Stowe MSS.) IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 21 a valuable prize, as well for its accompaniments of gold and pearls1, as for the prestige connected with its history ; and, accordingly, we find a romantic account of its removal to Damascus : but it need not be a portion of the first Temple’s furniture. If a relic of J erusalem at all, it may have been a part of the Roman plunder which Alaric had seized, another portion of which had been taken from the Goths, by the Franks at Poitiers ; and a third share had been found in Carthage by B disarms, who graced with it his triumphant entry to Con¬ stantinople 2, and thus, it would only date from the second Temple. So, then, there is no adequate confirmation to be had of the statement in the “ Sceptre of Judah” respecting Pyrrhus, Hispanus, and their host of captives from the city of Zion. Mariana, Sarmiento3, and after them Basnage, have interwoven another subject with that which we have just considered, but which ought to be kept distinct from it, if mentioned in serious earnestness : viz. the pretended invasion of Spain by Nebuchadnezzar. The notion is founded on a passage in Strabo (lib. xv.), another in Eusebius, (Chron. Canon. 1. p. 41.) and two passages in 1 Its intrinsic value was estimated at 500,000 crowns. Cardonne. 2 Reland, de Spoliis Templi Hieros. 3 Obras Posthumas. 22 HISTORY OF THE JEWS Josephus (Ant. x. 11. 1. and Contra Apion.) ; all quoting from an otherwise unknown Persian au¬ thor, Megasthenes. Strabo cites him as affirming that “Nebu- chodonosor, renowned above Hercules by the Chaldaeans, traversed as far as the Pillars to Tear con, and returned with his army from Iberia into Thrace and Pontus.” In Eusebius, “ Also Megasthenes, in the fourth part of his Indian [history], where he endeavours to show, that the aforesaid king of the Chaldeeans surpassed Hercules in valour and greatness of action ; for he declares that he subjugated a great part of Africa and Iberia,” Basnage contends, that this Iberia is not Spain, but Georgia in Asia, which indeed would best accord with the expedition into Thrace and Pontus; but where is Tearcon? and where are the Pillars? The Latin paraphrase of Strabo renders Iberia by Hispania. Either, therefore, the Oriental writer believed the Iberia subdued by the Babylonians to be Spain, or the geographer (which is scarcely credible) conceived him to mean so, and inserted the Pillars as a flourish of his own, in connection with the name of Hercules 1. 1 Unless he intended the Pillars of Alexander in Asiatic Sar- matia (Ptolemy, Geogr. v.) ; but these are of posterior erection to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 23 Neither Josephus nor Eusebius mention the Pillai s, but they associate Africa with Iberia • and the Milan edition (1818) of Eusebius gives in its paraphrase Zyboei, a people of Africa, for Ibe¬ ria. Mariana, following the common reading of Strabo, has detailed from his own invention the disembarkation of the Babylonians near the Pyre¬ nees, their taking of successive cities, marching to Cadiz ; and then, at the pillars of Hercules, suffer¬ ing such reverses from the brave and hardy natives, as to cause their speedy departure for Thrace and Pontus, burdened with enormous treasures, and boasting to have carried their arms to the end of the world. Another theory of the same tendency has been stated at length by Sarmiento \ and then contro¬ verted. Polybius, Ptolemy, Pliny, and Strabo have mentioned a people inhabiting Andalusia and the modern Algarve, differing from all their neigh¬ bours, speaking a peculiar language, using refined grammatical rules, and possessing inscribed monu¬ ments of antiquity, and poems, nay, laws in verse, which Strabo states to be “ laws of six thousand years, as they say f or by an emendation of Pal- merius 2, “ six thousand verses.” Now, was this 1 Obras Posthumas. 2 *7 tu>v for iru>v. Strabo, Geogr. lib. iii. 24 HISTORY OF THE JEWS a Jewish population, descendants of the old colo¬ nists in the times of Solomon, Amaziah, and Nebu¬ chadnezzar ? It is certain that the laws of Exodus and Deuteronomy contain poems, not to mention the Psalms1 and Proverbs. The district thus peo¬ pled included Tarshish and the chief cities of the Mediterranean coast, and abounded so much in the precious metals, that Strabo says of it : “ The regions beneath the ground are, indeed, not the realm of Hades, but of Plutus.” In these two respects the spirit of merchandize would be fos¬ tered. Besides that the land was most exuberant in agricultural produce, and the Jews in their own country were all agriculturists. Reply. — These people are denominated Turde- tani and Turduli, by authors whose information was extensive upon national peculiarities, and who were at least so well acquainted with the Jews, as to have been able to pronounce at once, if war¬ ranted by facts, that these Andalusians were of that nation. They were, probably, a flourishing branch of the great Celtic family, which extended 1 The Psalms are termed Law in John x. 34. xv. 25. and Rom. iii. 19. But even the phrase “ six thousand years, as they say,” bears somewhat of a Jewish complexion. The Talmudic proverb says, that “ the world endures two thousand years of confusion (i. e. before the law of Moses), two thousand the years of the law, and two thousand the years of Messiah.” Sanlied. 97. 1. IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 25 from the river Oby in Russia, to Cape Finisterre on the Atlantic ; but they cannot be considered Isiaelites. St. Augustine considers them the pri¬ mitive population, and refers to their past history as affording the best specimen of the golden age. Reviewing, thus, all the speculations which assign to the Jews a residence in Spain prior to the Christian era, they must be each and all dismissed with the negative verdict. Not proven. In the present age of rigorously sifting the chronicles of past generations, there is little danger of giving in to the imposture practised upon King Alonso at Toledo1, where the Jews, asseverating that they had dwelt there ever since the first Temple of Jeru¬ salem, adduced in proof a copy of the Hebrew epistle, with its translation in Arabic, which their forefathers had dispatched to Judea, on the occa¬ sion of Caiaphas consulting the Toledan synagogue, as to the justice or expediency of putting to death the person named Jesus, who had assumed the august title of Messiah. They replied, that as the divine prophecies seemed to be accomplished in him, he ought not to be treated as a malefactor. Alonso, either from policy or facility of belief, respected their claim, and had the epistle further See page 15. C 26 HISTORY OF THE JEWS; &C. translated into Latin and Castilian, to be deposited in the royal archives, where it was guarded till 1494. The latter version is found in Sandoval \ Neither shall we allow much weight to the mere assertion that the Spanish Jews were so numerous before the fall of the latter Temple, as to invite, by deputation, the apostles of Christ to come and preach to them the new revelation. That St. James came in consequence, and, according to apostolic practice, not only proclaimed the Gospel, but in every town began by offering the law of grace to the Jews. This is heartily credited by De Vargas in the History of Merida, from the authority of Flavius Dexter, and sundry other monkish writers. 1 Historia de los Reyes, &c. See Appendix E. This artifice was imitated some centuries afterwards by the German Jews. They exhibited a similar letter to the inspection of the Emperor and Diet at Worms ; and obtained by its means some peculiar privileges. This epistle they have since published in that blas¬ phemous book, “ The Genealogy of Jesus,” (Basnage.) 27 CHAPTER III. EXPULSION PROM THE EAST BY TITUS AND ADRIAN - JEWS IN SPAIN. There was a Jew banished into Spain by Caligula'. This was Herod the tetrarch, the mur¬ derer of John the Baptist. But a disgraced exile with his scanty train can reflect hut little honour upon the higher pretensions of modern Rabbis : considering too that he was the son of a usurper on the throne of David, and but an Idumman proselyte in his origin. We now approach an epoch of which the world possesses fuller and more certain information than of earlier times, and are thus the better enabled to discriminate between the false and the true; the substance, and that which is but the baseless fabric “ °*' a Vlsl0n-” Jerusalem was again overthrown, the temple burned, and « Zion ploughed as a field V’ under Titus, son of Vespasian Cmsar. 1 Josephus, Wars, II. ix. 6. c 2 2 Micah iii. 12. 28 HISTORY OF THE JEWS A chronological book called the “ Order of Time \ bv R. Jose ben Hhilpetha, in the third or fourth century, affirms that the conqueror Aspasianus (Vespasian) destroyed the temple, and removed many families of the house of David and Judah into Aspamia, which is Spain.” The same statement was made to St. Jerome, only changing the name Aspasian into Adrian, and enumerating the families at 50,000. It was re¬ peated by the Jews at the Aragonese conference in 1414, with the numbers as above. Abarbanel continued the story, but severed the census into 40,000 families of Judah, and 10,000 of Benjamin and the priests. His son-in-law Menasseh ben Israel, asserting the general supremacy of Spanish Jews, and the royalty of the Abarbanel family in particular, transmitted the same fiction. To which likewise the “ Sceptre of Judah” gives countenance, by stating that the multitude brought out of Jeru¬ salem and other parts of Palestine into Spain, almost equalled in numbers that which was led out of Egypt by Moses ; but that many passed thence into France and Germany. But worldly-wise men as were Abarbanel and Ben Israel, they could not have themselves as they wrote, unless they had first procured different and 1 Seder Olam. by Genebrard. — Basle, 1580. IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 29 more certain accounts of the Roman siege than their countryman Josephus has recorded, who was an eye-witness, and whose history was attested by Titus himself, by Herod Agrippa, and Herod king of Chalcis, as to its strict veracity. His descrip- tion runs thus 1 : — “ And now since his soldiers were already quite tired of killing men, and yet there appeared to he a vast multitude still remaining alive, Czesar gave orders that they should kill none but such as were m arms and opposed them, but should take the lest alive. But together with those whom they had oiders to slay, they slew the aged and the in- fiim ; but foi those that were in their flourishing age and who might be useful to them, they drove them together into the temple, and shut them up within the walls of the court of the women ; over which Ceesar set one of his freed-men, as also Fi onto, one of his own friends, which last was to determine every one5s fate according to his merits. So this Fronto slew all those that had been sedi¬ tious or robbers, who were impeached one by another ; but of the young men he chose out the tallest and most beautiful, and reserved them for the ti iumph : and as for the rest of the multitude that were about seventeen years old, he put them 1 Wars, VI. ix. 2. 30 HISTORY OF THE JEWS in bonds, and sent them into the Egyptian mines. Titus also sent a great number into the provinces, as a present to them, that they might be destroyed upon the theatres by the sword and by the wild beasts ; but those that were under seventeen years of age were sold as slaves. Now during the days wherein Fronto was distinguishing these men, there perished for want of food, 11,000: some of whom did not taste any food through the hatred their guards bore to them ; and others would not take in any when it was given to them. The mul¬ titude also was so very great that they were in want even of corn for their sustenance. “Now the number of those that were carried captive during the whole war, was collected to be 97,000, as was the number of those who perished during the whole siege, 1,100,000: the greater part of whom were indeed of the same nation, but not belonging to the city itself; for they were come up from all the country to the feast of unleavened bread/” &c. The stern simplicity of this relation bespeaks its truth even without external corroboration. Before this the dreams of the Rabbis vanish. For in the fiist place, the Romans, while devising contrivances for the reduction of the people by tens of thou¬ sands at a time, and actually in want of bread to feed their victims till they could despatch them 11 IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 31 away to the mines or the lions, cannot be imagined to have shipped off 50,000 families with sufficient provisions to enable these favoured persons to reach the extremity of the known world. Secondly, had such a thing been done, what a noble theme it would have proved for Josephus to exhibit either his nations merit, or Caesar’s clemency ! But no hint of the kind is found in his History. Thirdly, the numbers are greatly at variance. Josephus gives 97,000 captives for the whole war; the Rabbis enumerate 50,000 families ; which, at six individuals for the average of these families, would raise the census to 300,000 removed from Jeru¬ salem alone into the single country of Spain. Fourthly, it is certain that the wretched sufferers in the city were not exclusively belonging to Judah and Benjamin with one section of priests and Levites; for, first, Josephus states that they had come up to the feast from all parts of the country : and as we know that families of other tribes re¬ sided even in the city itself, [Luke ii. 36.] so much more in Galilee, and the Galilaeans always attended the great festivals ; secondly, the Jews from every nation under heaven used to come up for the same pui pose [Acts ii, 5. and xxi. 27.] therefore from among the ten tribes of the Eastern dispersion. [See Acts xxvi. 7 and James i. 1.] And all the Passover worshippers were indiscriminately en- c 4 32 HISTORY OF THE JEWS closed^ when the enemy “ cast a trench about the city; and kept her in on every side/” After this great Roman vengeance of the year 72; some miserable relics of the two principal tribes continued to haunt the localities of Zion and Olivet ; to these were soon associated a motley collection from every Jewish class and party; still clinging to their central home : till from the re¬ peated demonstrations given by even these that “ in their ashes glowed their wonted fires” of enmity to their masters; Adrian in the year 135 deemed it necessary to chase every Jew under penalty of death from the vicinity of Jerusalem. He erected a new city on its site with the heathen name of ./Elia Capitolina; set up in it his idols, and scattered the hated people over the world, deprived of their ears and noses. It was not, then, under his directions that 40,000 families of Judah, and 10,000 of Benjamin and Levites, were transported in a united company to Spain. \ et it is undeniable that from the very infancy of Christianity there were many Jews in that country: whether as refugees from the Eastern desolations, or as purchased slaves at the will of their proprietors. Wafted, not annihilated, by the tempest along every shore of the ocean, like the indestructible thistle-down over cliffs and rocks, they obtained, though at the setting sun, a conge- IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 33 nial place of rest, where oppression being nearly unknown for centuries, they speedily rose above poverty and degradation. The mercantile and agricultural habits which they had exercised for ages, found adapted circumstances and ample scope in the ports from Barcelona to the Tagus, with the extreme fertility of the soil for necessary food and luxurious refreshment of human life. Whether they did or did not, in the first Christian century, meet a remnant of earlier settlers from their own, the holy land ; we have now to do with history, and to treat of Hebrews as a constituent portion of the Spanish population, however diversely or consentaneously they may have formed a banded race in that new and alien territory. The Western Peninsula was the most peaceful section of the Roman empire. After the defeat of Pompey’s sons, it was preserved in that state of repose most favourable to civilization and com¬ fort for about 400 years ; and though most sub¬ missive as a province, the atrocities of the detest¬ able among the Caesars were but little known or felt beyond the Pyrenees. The body of the inhabitants were originally Celts. Partial conquests and settlements had been successively made by the Phoenicians and Carthaginians ; the former of whom had instructed them in mining, with the culture of corn and the c 5 34 HISTORY OF THE JEWS vine : the latter had improved their husbandry, and introduced the olive. There were besides, some Grecian colonies on the southern coasts as Rosas,, named after Rhodes ; and Saguntum, from Zacyn- thus, now Zante. In the reign of Tiberius, Columella had extolled the Spanish farming, and described the hemp as indigenous to the soil; the flax as naturalized from Egypt; and the produce of wood, honey, and wax, as very abundant. Under Vespasian, the Spanish mines and fisheries were represented as inexhaustible, and the cities to be 360 in num¬ ber1. Corduba had already produced Lucan and the two Senecas to represent her literature ; and four of the posterior Emperors of Rome were Spaniards, viz. Trajan, Adrian, Maximus, and Theodosius II. The several religions in Spain, as they had ad¬ vanced from the most remote epoch, were, 1. The Druidism of the Celts. 2. The human sacrifices of the Carthaginians. 3. The Classic heathenism of the Romans. 4. Christianity. Whether the apostle James, or Paul, or Euge- 1 These cities consisted generally of a mere village with a castle, and from the redundancy of these the land was termed 7 ro\t£. IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 35 nius the missionary from France, had first preached the gospel of redemption in Spain, it is asserted that this Eugenius had very early a church in Toledo, which thus became the metro¬ politan centre of its Christianity. Such was the country at the period of the Jews resorting thither for the first time in sufficient numbers to excite attention. Their brethren were still fighting, apparently to extermination, in Cyprus, and Palestine ; but Jewish warfare is totally unknown in Spain, from the beginning to the end of their sojourn there. The insurrec¬ tion of Bar Cochab in the East, which cost Israel 580,000 lives by the sword, besides the other agents of war, could affect but indirectly these western settlers, for even Gibbon allows that Jews might be tamed by leniency ; as, for instance, in consequence of the humanity of Antoninus Pius : Awakened from their dream of prophecy and conquest, they assumed the behaviour of peaceable and industrious subjects. Their irreconcileable hatred of mankind, instead of flaming out in acts of blood and violence, evaporated in less danger¬ ous gratifications ; they embraced every opportu¬ nity of over-reaching the idolators in trade, &c. This statement is made in reference to the nation 1 Chap. xvi. c 6 36 HISTORY OF THE JEWS in general at a particular period ; but where the same causes operate, we may look for similar peace and industry. The Jews never became less Jewish for their residence in Spain ; religion forming an essential constituent in their individual and collective exist¬ ence; they combined rapidly into groups of brother¬ hood by ties and motives unknown to every other people. They had their pride of privilege, as the elected race, although under chastisement for a time ; they had an intensity of association depend¬ ing upon a language and a ritual they all but adored^ and an honourable attachment to each other in the time of suffering. Under persecu¬ tion; no doubt; a deep animosity rankled in the breasts of many ; but they all cherished their an¬ ticipations of future bliss; however mistaken in their views of it; but of which no extent of de¬ gradation has ever deprived them. Thus their synagogues became each a rallying-point; a nu¬ cleus of families; and in Spain these multiplied with surprising facility. They were still con¬ nected with the East ; for all the synagogues in Europe; Egypt; and Palestine; were ruled by the successive Patriarchs of Tiberias \ who had been 1 The Asiatic Jews, eastward of Jordan, continued subject in spiritual matters, and to some extent in temporals, to their Prince IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 3 7 allowed by rescript of Antoninus to exercise their extensive functions, and to levy a general tribute. This spiritual government was founded on the “ Traditions of the Elders,” which constituted the law for regulation of devotion, and for every minute transaction in common life. As these traditions were gradually extended beyond the stretch of recollection in almost any man ; as it was required that every decision should be the unanimous resolution of all the Rabbis; and as the ultimate appeal was to this Patriarch, it fol¬ lows that his juridical influence and proportion- able revenue must have been prodigious. Under this form of exclusive dominion, in com¬ mon with the majority of their scattered nation, but with greater advantages of worldly prosperity than the rest of the Patriarchate, we are to con¬ sider the Jews of Spain until the commencement of the fourth century. We have no information from themselves relating to these times, but may assume from that very quiescence, and the known security of the country, an omen of their general happiness. Of the Captivity at Babylon. The earliest known of these princes was Huna, in the second century. - 38 CHAPTER IV. COUNCIL OF ELVIRA - HISTORY OF MISHNA AND GEMARA. A time at length arrived, when the little leaven of Christianity had fermented silently through the kingdoms of this world. The Roman Emperor, from a patron, became a proselyte to its doctrines, and its outward symbol, the cross, displaced the Capitoline eagles on the military and civil ensigns. “ In this sign, conquer \” was the imperial motto ; “ In this sign, conquer !” was the devout reply, the grateful acknowledgment of every pious Christian, as he traced through the past the working of Omnipotence, and looked forward to the yet more extended and deeper victories to be achieved by the death of Jesus l. Councils for the settlement of church discipline, and the fixing of creeds, were now publicly sum- 1 See John xii. 32. A.D. 324.] HISTORY OP THE JEWS. 39 moned under the protection of the highest secular authority, and twelve years after the battle of the Milvian bridge, Constantine summoned the great Council of Nice in Bithynia, at whose sessions he himself often attended. In the same year (a. d. 324,) was convened another council, in the oppo¬ site extremity of the empire, that of Elvira (Eliberis) near Granada: the first national council of Spain1 2 This assembly consisted of nineteen bishops’ twenty-six (or, as another account says, thirty-six) presbyters, with the deacons and the people The Canons they enacted are interesting in many historical points of view, but for our present purpose only as they are connected with the Jews, against whom they made some regulations. These, of course, were obeyed merely in their own congregations ; for although this very year, imme¬ diately after the defeat of Licinius, Constantine had, by circular letters, invited all his subjects to follow his example in embracing Christianity, yet it would, perhaps, be too ample a concession to suppose that even half of the inhabitants of Spain at that time were under the ecclesiastical jurisdic- 1 There had been provincial synods 0f a prior dat as Elv; A. d. 57 ; Toledo, a. d. 230, &c. 2 Collectio maxima Conciliorum Hispanije. Aguirre. 40 HISTORY OP THE JEWS [a.D. tion. It was not till above sixty years later that idolatry was abolished in form by the Senate of Rome. We accordingly find these Eliberitan canons forbidding the sacrifices to idols, the burn¬ ing of tapers in burial-place s, the placing of pictures in churches, and other superstitious practices ; and from the sixtieth canon it is appa¬ rent that Christianity was as yet very far from general in the land : “ If any one shall destroy an idol, and on that account be slain : since this is not commanded in the Gospel, nor known to have been ever done by the Apostles : he is not to be placed in the catalogue of the martyrs.” Thus the following laws respecting the Jews would be viewed, by a neutral spectator of the period, merely as safeguards instituted by one community of religionists against the influence of another asso¬ ciation, neither being, as yet, supreme in the country which both inhabited ; although marked with this difference, that the one of these being under an obligation to sustain a spirit of prose- lytism, was flushed by recent success of no ordi¬ nary character ; the other, purely passive, had no further relation to the other communities than that of neighbourhood. This state of things distinguishes the Council of Elvira from all its successors. 324.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 41 Canon XVI. “ The daughters of Catholics shall not be given in marriage to heretics, unless these shall submit themselves to the Catholic church : the same is> also decreed of Jews and Schismatics : since there can be no communion of one that believeth with an infidel. (2 Cor. vi.) And if parents transgress this command, they shall be excommunicated for five years.” Canon XLIX. Landholders are to be admonished not to suffer the fruits which they receive from God with the giving of thanks, to be blessed by the Jews , lest our benediction be rendered invalid and unpiofitable. If any one shall venture to do so after this interdiction, let him be altogether ejected from the Church.” Canon L. “ ^ any person, whether clerical or one of the faithful, shall take food with the Jews, he is to abstain from our communion, that he may learn to amend.” Canon LXXVIII. If any one of the faithful, having a wife, shall commit adultery with a Jewess, or a Pagan, he is to be cast out from our communion.” 42 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. The first of these is too scriptural, and too well recommended by its useful tendency, to be ne¬ glected by conscientious Christians. The last one was, perhaps requisite in those times, when transgressors might be apt to plead for varied gradations in criminality, corresponding to the estimation in which the several religions were held. The interference of the forty-ninth canon seems to imply that the Jews were the principal culti¬ vators of the land, and that the people cherished some superstitious veneration for the rabbinical benediction, either pronounced in the synagogue, or over the crops standing in the field; a remnant of old feelings during pagan ignorance, just as we now detect popish habits lingering among the common people in protestant countries, long after the meaning of them is given up. The Jewish liturgies have preserved the ancient supplications for a blessing on the increase of the earth h The 1 Great Hosannah at the New Year. Seventh kneeling. 0 God, we beseech thee, to open thy good treasure from thy dwelling-place ; and may the earth give her verdure. “ Hosannah, we pray thee, save now ! “ 0 Hod, we beseech thee, let the refreshing drops satiate the verdure : and provide us a threshing and vintage. “ Hosannah, we pray thee, save now ! 324.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 43 Christians had likewise their forms of prayer at that period^ that the Almighty would ee give and “ 0 God, we beseech thee, let the grain of the earth be multi¬ plied by a blessing : for to eat, to satisfy, and to abound. “ Hosannah, we pray thee, save now ! “ 0 God, we beseech thee, give now thy seal in sealing ; and bless thou the wheat, the barley, and bear. “ Hosannah, we pray thee, save now ! u 0 God, we beseech thee, may the wind of the north give refreshing showers : and bless thou the oats and fine wheat. “ Hosannah, we pray thee, save now ! “ 0 God, we beseech thee, may food be supplied from month to month : and bless thou the rice, millet, bean and 1 entile. “ Hosannah, we pray thee, save now ! “ 0 God, we beseech thee to guard this year from the thorn and the thistle : and bless thou the oil tree and olive. u Hosannah, we pray thee, save now ! “ 0 God, we beseech thee, secure us from drought by refresh¬ ing showers : and bless thou the vine, the fig-tree and pome¬ granate. “ Hosannah, we pray thee, save now ! “ 0 God, we beseech thee to rear up the congregation of our young ones : and bless thou the walnut, the date, and the apple. “ Hosannah, we pray thee, save now ! “ O God, we beseech thee to enlarge thy hand, and increase the lightnings of heaven : Bless thou the pine-apple, almond, and bellotas (sweet acorns). “ Hosannah, we pray thee, save now ! “ G God, we beseech thee, let not the righteousness of thy jpeople be cut off : Bless thou the nectarine, apricot, and peach. “ Hosannah, we pray thee, save now ! HISTORY OF THE JEWS 44 [a.d. preserve to their use the kindly fruits of the earthy so as in due time they might enjoy them.” The reason here assigned, “lest our benedic¬ tion be rendered invalid and unprofitable,” is perhaps intended to be a caution, lest the people should seek the Jewish rather than the Christian blessing, by accounting the latter unprofitable : not that these venerable bishops would express before the world a fear of the heretical benediction weakening their own when bestowed. The fiftieth canon is directly opposed to the instruction and practice of the apostles. We read indeed of the self-righteous Pharisees refusing to eat with the Gentiles, but these were not models for imitation of Christian legislators. “Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing (according to the traditions) for a man that is a Jew to keep com¬ pany, or to come unto one of another nation (or religion, the case is the same) ; but God hath shown me,” said Peter the apostle of the circumcision. “ 0 God, we beseech thee, deliver this company which desires to be near thee : Bless thou the mulberry, citron and orange. “ Hosannah, we pray thee, save now ! “ 0 God, we beseech thee, call now for abundance with the showers of heaven : and bless all manner of things planted or sown. “ Hosannah, we pray thee, save now ! ” Orden de Ros Asanat y Kypur. Amst. 5412. (1G52.) 324.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 45 cc that I should call no man common or unclean There is indeed an injunction to refrain from the society of a certain class of persons. “If any man that is called a brother , be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such an one no not to eat 2 ” But when religious creeds are in question, the very instance where this council placed its veto , it is written, “ If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go,” &c. “ Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God 3.” The decree confesses virtually that the Jews had become sociable with Christians since the dis¬ persion ; but instead of encouraging the change, and developing the New Testament principle of breaking down the wall of partition by a generous expansion of heart, it sets itself, in defiance of the first and purest of all Christian councils, (Acts xv. 29.) to rear up a needless obstruction. Thus Spain had already commenced her dark career of religious persecution, in which she sought and gained pre-eminence over the rest of Europe. Had this not been done, who can calculate the 1 Acts x. 28. 3 1 Cor. v. 11. 3 1 Cor. x. 27. 31, 32. 46 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. effects that might have followed their home mis¬ sionary labours, “ to the Jew firsts and also to the Gentile “ beginning at Jerusalem 2” — at least in modifying the rising bigotry of Rabbinism, by an amenity of intercourse so to acquire that ascend¬ ancy which one of invincible suavity invariably gains over an angry opponent, until a large Jewish barrier should be founded in Spain, among the most influential of the nation, against the usurpa¬ tion of the coming Talmud, an authority which can only support itself by the principle of re¬ striction ? And this, even without direct conver¬ sion, would have proved of great value. In no country were circumstances more propitious to this object than in Spain, where for three cen¬ turies and a half the sword had not been drawn. There are several allusions in the New Testa¬ ment to a system of doctrinal tradition which ex¬ ercised over the people an oppressive sway. Against this influence our Lord Jesus and his followers protested with solemn earnestness and diligence; so much so, that the hostility of the two parties frequently appeared to be but a con¬ flict between the simplicity of Moses and the Prophets on one side, and the Pharisaic traditions on the other. It is conceded in Matt. v. xv. 1 Rom. i. 16. 2 Luke xxiv. 47. 324.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 47 and xxiii. that these were delivered “ of old time they were apparently an accumulation of sayings and decisions of the ruling Pharisees since the return from Babylon. But their votaries affirm them to be an integral constitution of law, co¬ existent with the code of Moses, to which it should be an auxiliary, and “ without which the written law appears to be imperfect1.” These traditions were preserved unwritten, and were administered by a corporation of persons kept aloof from the rest, whose reputation for piety could alone repress the natural suspicions that would arise in any other matter, where so much temptation and opportunity existed for the forg¬ ing of traditions just as circumstances might re¬ quire. This oral legislation rose in importance from the general dispersion of Israel. The Patriarch of the West dispensed its dictates, at first from the ruins of the holy city, then from Jamnia, and lastly from Tiberias, by means of agents termed apostles; but, in proportion as the people made settlements remote from the chief, the more incon¬ venient or impossible his administration became. To alleviate this difficulty, and yet preserve the 1 R. Menasseh ben Israel dared not to say (( is imperfect,” so long as Deut. iv. 2. is extant. 48 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. jurisdiction entire, the patriarch R. Judah (the holy, as he is designated) committed the traditions to writing, and published the work under the name of Mishna (the Duplicate), purporting to embody a law hitherto unwritten, which had first been given to Moses on Mount Sinai, and from him transmitted by word of mouth, through elders, judges, prophets, and rulers of Sanhedrins, down to the said R. Judah. This document was produced to the scattered synagogues upon its own bare authentication, having never been al¬ luded to in the writings of the prophets, &c. by whom they asserted it to have been delivered in succession ; unsanctioned by any testimony of the Targums, or Maccabman history, and after being ridiculed by Sadducees, Karaim, Samaritans, and Christians, while yet a floating tradition. As a Mosaic law it was a bold imposture ; but, owing to the peculiar circumstances of the J ewish nation, it became accepted & s of divine origin, and con¬ tinues, along with all the nonsense appended to it since, to form the law of modern Israel to this day. About a century later, or rather more, the col¬ lege of Tiberias superadded a mass of rabbinical expositions, proverbs, allegories, legendary tales, &c. which they styled the Gemara (Accomplish¬ ment). This, united with the Mishna, makes up 400.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 49 the Talmud (or Doctrine). As this huge compi¬ lation 1 was remotely diffused, the synagogues discovered that they needed no longer to under¬ take expensive and laborious voyages to Judeea for final appeals. All decisions were thence¬ forward made from the Talmud; more especially when in another century the prince of the cap¬ tivity sent forth from the banks of the Euphrates an improved Gemara, which has since almost superseded the former, and together with the Mishna forms the Babylonian Talmud. The college of Tiberias dwindled in its influence and revenue till the beginning of the fifth cen¬ tury, when Theodosius the Younger deprived the patriarch Gamaliel of his title of prophet, and forbade the conveyance of tribute. Thus the office itself expired after a long tyranny, and bequeathing to the world at least one Scriptural benefit — the Masora2. This prodigious effort of patient industry, this single work, demands from the learned of every nation, that the Jews be considered as eminently a literary people ; a character which they have not failed to uphold ever since those early ages ; — 1 Now printed in 12 vols. folio. 2 A verification of every “jot and tittle” of the Hebrew Scrip¬ tures in a diversity of modes, for the fixing of a full and exact text of the Holy Word. D 50 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. early to us,, but the Hebrews were already fathers in literature before one of the present nations of Europe had its existence. To estimate their value in this respect^ we must travel back by an as¬ tounding climax through the Gemara and Mishna, the Hellenic Jewish writings of Josephus, Philo, the New Testament, the Septuagint, and the Maccabees; through the minor prophets to Nehe- rniah, who wrote 140 years before Xenophon ; to Isaiah, 700 years before Virgil; to the Proverbs and Psalms, 1040 years before Horace ; to Ruth, 1030 years previous to Theocritus ; and to Moses, above 1000 years the predecessor of Herodotus. And the Israelites were alone in the popular diffusion of elementary literature. Before even entering the promised land, at a time when some would persuade us they were a wild horde of degraded and fugitive slaves, their legislator could address them in this manner : “ These words which I command thee this day . thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thine house, and upon thy gates . and when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies, &c. l” It was long before 1 Deut. vi. 8. See. 400.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 51 a Greek lawgiver could have proclaimed such an ordinance with any chance of being obeyed by the whole population. Jewish studies of old were certainly limited in extent, chiefly to that of the Divine Revelation, (except in the notable instances of Moses, “ who was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians Solomon in natural history, 1 Kings iv. 29, &c. ; and Daniel, whom “ the king made master of the magi, astrologers, Chaldseans, and soothsayers .”) But why? Hear Josephus1: “Our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations, and so adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their periods, because they look upon this sort of accomplishment as common, not only to free men, but to as many of the slaves as please to learn them. But they give him the testimony of being a wise man who is fully ac¬ quainted with our laws, and is able to interpret their meaning.” Considering that the Jewish law included ethics, such would no doubt have been the sentiment of Socrates and Demosthenes 2, even omitting the % 1 Antiq. xx. 11. 2. - Quod magis ad nos Pertinet, et nescire malum est, agitamus. 52 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. obligations arising from the divine origin of that volume. These reflections, apparently uncalled for, upon the primitive literature of the Hebrews, are not altogether unimportant in our present view of them, as settled in Spain at the period of the Eli- beritan Council, and during their subsequent eventful history ; in which their book-learning and talents for business served to elevate them above the surrounding ignorance, and afforded them security amid political convulsions. They were now in a condition of ease, celebrat¬ ing their festivals, rejoicing in the bounties of God^s workmanship, Nature — and that, too, in a luxurious climate, upon a land which comprised the gorgeous beauty of Valencia with the ee fairy fields of the Minho,” yet still looking through the vista of futurity towards brighter scenes than these. 409.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 53 CHAPTER V. GOTHIC INVASION — THE THIRD COUNCIL OF TOLEDO. In the middle of the fifth century, the European section of the empire became the prey of northern barbarians. The Roman proconsuls of Spain had succeeded each other in brief and unstable authority since the palmy days of the Caesars and Antonines, but soon after the partition of the empire by Arca- dius and Honorius in 409, the Pyrenees were crossed by extensive hordes of Suevi, Alani, and Vandals ; and, as it were immediately, the whole territory, from Pampeluna to Gibraltar, and thence again to Coruna, was covered and desolated by these ruthless invaders. The horrors of the time exceed all that history ever had to depict, with the solitary exception of J udaea^s ruin : and appear to have had no mitigation whatever. Spain, d 3 54 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. which had formerly ennobled her name by the resistance given to Hannibal and Caesar, was now so enervated, that in two years the barbarians cast lots for its shares : “ They wasted every thing with hostile cruelty ; the pestilence was no less destructive ; a dreadful famine raged to such a degree that the living were constrained to feed on the dead bodies of their fellow-citizens ; and all these terrible plagues desolated at once the un- happy kingdom 1 ” Procopius declines to narrate the cruelties of the invaders, lest he should afford examples of inhumanity to future ages. Some bodies of the natives retreated to the mountains of the north, and in those rugged fast¬ nesses maintained an independence. They are since denominated Biscayans and Basques. Five years afterwards, Adolphus, king of the Wisi (or Western) Goths, who had settled in Aquitaine, was induced to relieve Spain from these intruders upon his ally the Emperor of Rome. Further devastations, of course, ensued; and cities were now burned which had hitherto escaped the lavages of the Vandals. The latter preyed upon each other until, in 429, the Vandals and Alani retired to Africa, only leaving the Suevi in Spain, who were completely overthrown by Theoderic 1 Idatii Chronicon, 472.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 55 the Wisi-Goth, a. d. 456, in the Roman name. This deliverer, holding there an army of occu¬ pation, was murdered and succeeded by his bro¬ ther Euric, who instantly clutched the realm from even the shadow of Roman supremacy, by the capture of Tarragona, which had been their Spa¬ nish metropolis for 600 years. This was done a. d. 472, four years before the whole Western Empire was extinguished as such. During these troubles, to which we look back as to a blood-red cloud hovering upon the land, we lose sight of the Jews, in the absence of infor¬ mation from themselves, from the wretched monks, or the illiterate barbarians ; but as no change could take place, without materially affecting the agriculturists and traders, we may believe that they were not idle spectators. Whatever may have been their gain or loss by the wrecking of the huge empire, it is very possible that they generally regarded the event as a visitation of God’s vengeance on their old oppressors. The Talmud had already taught them to identify Edom with Christianity, and every curse recorded in the Bible against Edom, they learned to believe would light upon the European nations. It may have been therefore, that when they saw the Roman dominion first halved, and then that half which had most afflicted them, ground to powder : they d 4 56 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.d. might, while recurring to the 137th Psalm, have laid a peculiar emphasis on the three last verses. One thing is certain, that very soon after the Gothic royalty was established, the Jews were still very numerous and influential : they probably suffered least, from having resisted least the fury of the invaders. By an arrangement with Odoacer the Ostro (Eastern) Goth, Spain and Gaul became the al¬ lotted portion of the Wisi-Goths, and these held their regal courts at Arles or Bordeaux, until the Frank tribes, spreading westward from the Rhine, drove the Goths as far as the Pyrenees, and gave the name of France to their acquired territory. The rivalry of these nations was ex¬ asperated the more by a religious animosity. Alas ! that these two words should ever meet to¬ gether. The Franks held to the Catholic doctrine of Athanasius and the Nicene creed ; the court of Toledo and the majority of Spain to the Arian side of the great controversy: with these the Jews sided, not only for the sake of protection, by ad¬ hering to one party, but because the Arian doc¬ trine was much the least offensive to their own ' prejudices; and this course they had uniformly adopted in Asia and Africa. There existed, however, a virulent struggle within the Peninsula concerning orthodoxy and 589.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 57 heterodoxy; the Catholics producing miracles to attest the patronage of heaven to their doctrine and ritual, or frequently exciting political insur¬ rections against the tolerant rule of the Arians. At length, after the unnatural rebellion of Her- menegild the Catholic against his heretic father, and the dreadful issue, his execution in the tower of Seville ; on the death of the king, his next son, Recared, succeeded to the throne, and his first act was to recal the bishops who had been banished for aiding in the treason of Hermene- gild, and with them to convene the third coun¬ cil of Toledo. At this convocation he publicly adopted the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity, and the Deity of the world’s Saviour. The Catholics, now triumphant, became, as might be expected, stern and persecuting in pro¬ portion to the effort they had employed to gain the ascendancy. Would that they had, while fixing the national Church upon the divine na¬ ture of Christ, but imbibed more of the large benevolence of His Spirit ! The Council h “ In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the fourth year of Recared, our most glorious 1 Collectio maxima, &c. Aguirre. D 5 58 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. lord the king, the 25th of May 627 l, this sacred assemblage was held in the royal city of Toledo, by the undersigned bishops of all Spain, and of Gaul.” (i. e. Aquitaine.) “ When in the sincerity of his faith, the said most glorious prince commanded a convocation of the prelates throughout his dominions, that they might rejoice in the Lord on account of his con¬ version and the reformation of the Gothic people, and also render thanks for so great a blessing; that most sacred prince did thus address the vene¬ rable council, saying : — “ c I believe it to be not unknown to you, most renowned prelates, that my purpose in summon¬ ing you to our serene presence, is, the restoration of Ecclesiastical discipline. And whereas the heresy which has impended over the past times would not suffer the synodal decrees to take effect throughout the Catholic Church ; God, who has been pleased by our means to chase away that heretical impediment, has admonished us to re¬ form in fitting manner the Ecclesiastical institu¬ tions,5 &c. “ Hereupon giving thanks to God, and the 1 According to the eera of Caesar, which was 38 years in ad¬ vance of the Christian date, and w'as used by all Christians in Spain till a.d. 1353. IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 59 589.] whole council acclaiming praises to the most religious prince, a fast of three days from that time was proclaimed. « But upon the appointed 25th of May, the priests of God assembled in one body, and, after solemn prayer, each priest had taken his appro¬ priate seat; then in the midst of all, the most serene prince arose, and joining in prayer with the priests of God, and filled with divine impulse, he thus addressed them : — “ c This sacred assembly is well aware how long Spain has been oppressed with the heresy of the Arians,5 & c. After this address, the articles ol faith were drawn up; in accordance with which, the king and queen took the following oath : — “ f I, Recared, the king, holding sincerely that holy faith and true confession which alone and every where the Catholic Church confesses, and affirming it with my mouth, have sub¬ scribed thereto with my own right hand, by the help of God/ “ e 1^ Baddo l, the glorious queen, have sub¬ scribed with my hand to this faith, which with all my heart I believe and accept/ (( Then were acclamations made by all the clergy, to the praise of God, and honour of the king. 1 Daughter, it is said, to the British king Arthur. D 6 60 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. 44 4 Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost ; whose care it is to provide peace and unity for his holy Catholic Church.’ 44 4 Glory be to Jesus Christ our Lord\ who has by the price of his own blood collected his Catholic Church from among all nations/ 44 4 Glory be to Jesus Christ our Lord x, who has brought in so illustrious a nation to the true faith, and has made ‘ one fold and one Shepherd/ 46 ‘ On whom will God bestow eternal merit, but on Recared the true Catholic king ? ? 44 4 On whom will God bestow an eternal crown, but on Recared the orthodox king ? ’ ” This was a memorable day for the Spanish Church, because upon it a termination was given to the bickerings and contests of nearly 200 years. No doubt the king had previously calculated upon the accession of talents, wealth, and popular in¬ fluence which this proceeding gained for him, as well as upon the amity to be thus procured with neighbouring states. It was both humane and kingly to do so, however intelligent and heartfelt 1 Some copies have the word God in these places ; and it is not unlikely that in their zeal the council employed this equally Scrip¬ tural designation. See Acts xx. 28. 589.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 61 his assent might be to the Catholic belief, while on the part of the clergy there was much of bitter¬ ness in their ascendancy : “ Whosoever despises the creed of the Nicene council, let him be anathema ! “ Whosoever is not, and shall not be content with this faith, let him be anathema maran- atha unto the coming of our Lord Jesus v Christ !” O how these words would have thrilled in the hearts of the Hebrew Spaniards, could they have foreseen, even in a comparatively small degree, to what an extent their fellow men would thereafter work out these anathemas with their own hands upon all their victims, and every Jew between the Pyrenees and the Western ocean would that day have bowed his head with the utterance of one long and mournful groan. The council, in secular capacity *, enacted the two following canons. XIV. cs Conformably to the opinion of the council, our glorious lord (the king) has ordered to be in- 1 The ancient councils of Spain were not purely ecclesiastical in their functions : on the fourth clay of session they formed them¬ selves into cortes, when, secular barons being admitted, they de¬ liberated on state affairs. 62 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. serted among the canons, that it shall not be per mitted for Jews to have Christian wives or concu¬ bines *, or to purchase Christian slaves for their own service \ and all children born of such union are to be brought to baptism ; neither shall they hold any public office by virtue of which any punishment may be inflicted on Christians ; and if Christians (slaves) be circumcised, their freedom shall be restored without payment of ransom, and they revert to the Christian religion1 2 ” This was the earliest aggression in Spain upon Jewish emoluments, property, and family ties. Canon XXII. « The corpses of all the faithful are to be in¬ terred with psalms and hymns ; no funeral cries 1 This word bore a different signification to that which we now attach to it. It denoted wives of a secondary grade, such as were Hagar, Bilhah, and Zilpah in Genesis. Their children were legitimate and themselves honoured, but less so than the full wife, whom alone the husband endowed with all his worldly goods. The practice was common to Christians as well as Jews. (See Sparrow on Common Prayer.) 2 Of course all were accounted Christians who were not born Jews. Now a Jew is bound by his law to circumcise his slave as well as his own son (Gen. xvii. 13.) and to do so had not yet been forbidden by the law of the land ; therefore if this enactment was to operate retrospectively, the taking away such a slave was so much loss to the Jew, and effected by an ex post facto legislation. 11 589.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 63 to be allowed, nor beating of the breast \ ( c But I would not have you ignorant, brethren^ concern¬ ing them which are asleep^ that ye sorrow not as those which have no hope/) Moreover the Lord did not weep for the death of Lazarus^ but rather on account of his restoration to the cares of this life. So it behoves Christians all over the world/5 This enactment is to be taken in connexion with the following one of the council of Narbonne in the same year, and under the same king and government. Canon IX. “ This above all is decreed,, that Jews shall not be suffered to bear the bodies of their dead with the singing of psalms ; but to observe their ancient custom of carrying and depositing them. And in penalty for transgression of this decree,, six ounces (of gold) shall be paid to the count of the city/5 Hence we learn that the Jews were desirous 1 A Jewish practice, (See Jer. ix. 20, 21 ; Nahum ii. 7.) but among the mass of the people a relict of Phoenician habits, or of the Celtic, and thus indentified with the C40jtj4t) of their brother Celts in Ireland. 64 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. to imitate the Christian custom at burials \ but that the ecclesiastics were resolved to draw a broad distinction between the cheerful hope of the Christian in his death, and the prospect of such as can have no portion in Christ’s resur¬ rection. It is painful to reflect that this people would not feel the restriction as a penalty. Such was the third council of Toledo, a con¬ spicuous landmark in Church history. At its con¬ clusion the Jews endeavoured to bribe the king for a mitigation of its severity, by a large sum of money, but in vain1 2. Recared dispatched ambas¬ sadors to Rome, announcing the transaction to Pope Gregory the Great. The accompanying presents of gold and jewels were graciously ac¬ cepted, and in return the now Catholic monarch received a complimentary epistle , and some trumpery as relics of the saints, among which was a key having in its composition some par¬ ticles of iron filed from St. Peter’s chains. Henceforward the public institutions of Church and State acquired progressive stability. In the latter, the Gothic freedom was preserved amid many storms (compatible however with the tenure 1 About A.D. 420, the Jews at Poitiers voluntarily sang Hebrew chaunts at the funeral of good bishop Hilary. 2 D. Gregorii Epistoke. Hispanue Bibliotheca, by Peregnnus. 589.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 65 of praedial serfs and of the still lower domestic slaves) ; and in the former, they acknowledged the nominal supremacy of the Romans, but ap¬ pointed their own bishops, and used their own national liturgy. 66 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.d. CHAPTER VI. BAPTISMAL PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS BY KING SISEBUT. After more than twenty years of civil discord, and the assassination of two sovereigns, we find Sisebut, a vigorous and ambitious prince, upon the throne. He held the reins with a firm hand ; and after the establishment of security and union, he began to form armaments at sea for the protection of his coasts, and also as an instrument of African invasion ; “ for it is certain,” says Mariana, £i that the land always succumbs to the master of the sea, as Themistocles was aware.” In a.d. 614, this king had an embassy at Con¬ stantinople for a negociation touching certain towns in Spain and Lusitania, which the Oriental Romans possessed in recompense for services rendered above sixty years before in a con¬ tested succession to the Gothic crown. The emperor Heraclius was much addicted to the 614.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 67 study of judicial astrology, the professors of which had assured him that his dominions, nay the whole of Christendom, was in danger from the circum¬ cised race . £( And this, which he ought to have understood of the Arabs , he believed to denote the Jews; whereupon he set about persecuting that nation by all means and measures in his power The emperor’s political position was this : his dominions were contracted within very narrow limits; for the Magian fire-worshippers under Chosroes, aided by the Arabs, and 26,000 Asiatic Jews , had that very year deprived him of Pales¬ tine ; and after the slaughter of 90,000, Christians in Jerusalem, had carried off the True Cross into Persia, and were then threatening Egypt. To¬ wards Europe his capital had been recently almost entered by the Avars of the north, who carried olf 270,000 captives beyond the Danube. More¬ over in the back ground there was a serpent writhing into vigour, for about five years before had Mohammed announced himself to forty of his tribe as the commissioned apostle of God. At this climax of irritation, Theodoric the envoy arrived from Spain. The emperor urged, as a primary condition of the treaty, the banish- 1 Mariana — Gregory of Tours — Bartoloccio. 68 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. ment of all Jews from the Peninsula, denounc¬ ing at the same time his utmost vengeance upon those implacable foes of the human race ; and it is known that some years afterwards, on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, bearing with him the accredited wood of the cross of Calvary, he amply redeemed his threat to retaliate upon the Jews. Theodoric returned to Toledo, where his sovereign was but too ready to fulfil the imperial desire ; and a proclamation was issued, which is thus preserved in the “Fuero Juzgo ec Whereas truth itself instructs us to ask , and to knock , assuring us that the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence : it cannot be doubted that whosoever fails to approach it with an ardent desire, is a despiser of the proffered grace. “ Wherefore, if any of those Jews as yet unbap¬ tized, shall delay to be himself baptized, or neglect to send his children and slaves to the priest for baptism while it is offered *, thus abiding without the grace of baptism, for the space of one year from the issue of this decree : every such trans¬ gressor, wherever found, shall be stripped, and shall suffer one hundred lashes, as likewise the due penalty of exile : his goods shall be forfeit to 1 This of course involved the renunciation of circumcision and the whole Judaic system. 614.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 69 the king; and in order that his life may be the more painful, if unamended, such goods shall become the perpetual property of those on whom the king shall bestow them.” Now besides regarding this proceeding as indi¬ cative of a barbarian^ ignorance, it was a violent invasion of Jewish rights guaranteed to them in Spain, three hundred years before the Goths had invaded the land; for, by rescript of Antoninus Pius, they were allowed full toleration of religion, and freedom of circumcision — privileges, which no council or king had, as yet, ventured to infringe. Sisebut has also incurred the censure of eccle¬ siastical writers, for having not merely overpassed his royal duties, but even the divine commission of the Church. St. Isidore of Seville, who lived at the time, writes thus in his £e Chronicle of the Goths” some years afterwards : — “ Sisebut reigned six years and six months after his call to the royalty : who, in the commence¬ ment of his reign, by urging the Jews into Chris¬ tianity, had indeed f a zeal for God, but not accord¬ ing to knowledge/ (Rom. x.) For he forcibly compelled those whom he should rather have per¬ suaded by argument of the faith.” And, in later times, the Jesuit Mariana records the event with this remark : — “ Sisebut . not only banished the Jews 70 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. from Spain and all the Gothic territory, as the emperor had requested, but with threats and force he compelled them to be baptized : which is a thing unlawful and forbidden, that Christians should employ violence upon the will of any. And, moreover, this rash determination of Sisebut was contrary to the advice of the more prudent at the time, as St. Isidore testifies. Among the Gothic laws, called the “Fuero Juzgo,55 there are two to this effect, decreed by Sisebut in the fourth year of his reign. But as things were begun at the wrong end, we need not wonder that he erred ; for the king made himself judge of what should have been decided by the prelates. The kingly office is to rule in secular matters, but all that pertains to religion and spiritual government, is the charge of ecclesiastics. Yet, alas ! the self-will and ob¬ stinacy of princes are very great, and frequently are bishops obliged to dissemble in what they cannot remedy/5 The Jewish history of the event is as follows1; but it is proper to remark, that it was written about nine hundred years afterwards : — ce The most powerful of the Romans [i. e. Chris¬ tians] was Sisebut. He commanded all the Jews in Spain to be baptized; offering to make them 1 Sceptre of Judah, p. 93. 614.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 71 equal with Christians in every respect, if they would consent. The Jews assembled from every city, within the capital ; where fasting and afflict¬ ing themselves, they uttered loud wailings and cries. The Christians inquired the meaning of this ; and when informed, they bade them submit to the king’s command, ‘for he is a valiant king, firm, decided, and immoveable by bribes. If ye obey not, he will compel you, and your fasting will profit you nothing.’ They answered : e The precept of circumcision is the hinge of all our law1: he asks but one compliance, but we know that he requires the whole ; and it is better for us all to die than to omit the slightest of our pre¬ cepts, lest we pluck up the hinge of all our reli¬ gion. “ They then approached the king, and showed how he had decreed the death of them all ; for they would not transgress any precept of the law, much less that which is the hinge of all. The king replied : 6 Ye wretched and foolish people ! it is by God’s ordinance that ye are groaning in affliction; the realm shall speedily be freed from that obstinacy by which ye are hastening your own ruin, aiming to usurp, and to retain by force, 1 “ Circumcision is equivalent to all the commandments in the law.” Rashi, Nadarim. fol. 31. Coll. 2. 72 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [A.D. the dominion of this land. I swear, that unless ye accept Christ’s baptism, ye will drive me to enforce your abandonment of all the law of Moses.’ Then he proclaimed that except they submitted within a month to the Christian baptism, he would make them renounce the whole law, or put them to death. The Jews supplicated the nobles, pre¬ senting gold and silver, that they would induce the king to leave them their religion, though he should deprive them of all their wealth, which he might employ in war. The king added : 6 In that case I could not uphold my character for piety among my fellow kings ; they would suppose that I only made this decree as a means of extor¬ tion from my Jews, and not from the urgent necessity of baptism : besides, I do not constrain these wretches of the law to embrace our faith, for the sake of their riches, so much as from the con¬ sideration that they would do the same to us, were they to become our masters.’ “ Then answered Robert the Wise : c O king, our Master Moses, and his minister Joshua, urged no people to receive the Hebrew law, but only the seven precepts of Noah, which are — 66 c 1. To avoid idolatry. “ c 2. Not to eat flesh cut from a living animal. “ 4 3. To avoid reviling God. (i c 4. To avoid adultery. 614.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 73 “ 5. To avoid rapine. “ 6. To avoid murder. “ 7. To appoint magistrates. “ These had been delivered as precepts by Adam, the first man. And whenever Joshua besieged a city, he first proclaimed thus: £ Whosoever will make peace, let him do so ; but let him observe the seven precepts of Noah : if not, let him quit the city ; or if he will fight, let him come down and try the contest.’ “ The king rejoined : £ Joshua acted as he pleased, and so will I : I will select from his three conditions that which best suits my design ; viz. that instead of the seven precepts of Noah, which Joshua obtruded on the profane heathen, ye shall receive the Christian baptism.’ Then he added, £ I counsel you, for your salvation’s sake, which ye will assuredly forfeit by persisting to refuse it ; for I have been informed by the bishops, what I have likewise heard from the pontiff himself, that such as do not expiate their guilt by Christian baptism, are to be accounted impure, and will perish everlastingly.’ “One of the learned Jews then said: £ It is written in our law, that Israel formerly despised the great gift of God, £ the land flowing with milk and honey,’ — I ask, O king, what should be the penalty of those who despise the gift of God?' E 74 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. The king replied, ‘ That too is wisely stated in your law ; the loss of what they despise.’ The speaker continued : f See then, O king, to what thou hast said. Thou hast offered us in baptism a life everlasting. Be then the penalty for its neglect, the loss of that blessing.’ But the king answered, c Compulsion is unjust in matters con¬ cerning the body, and that goodly land related to the body ; but in things spiritual, it is proper, just as a child is coerced in his learning.’ « Instantly he commanded all the principal Jews to be put in chains, and they passed in darkness a life more wretched than death. Many synagogues in Spain, overborne by cruel persecu¬ tions, renounced the law of Moses. When the king died, and there was freedom to leave the country, many sought and found securer settle¬ ments for their religion, but many sought and found not.” Several curious particulars might be gathered from the above dialogue, if it could be depended on as an exact report, made after an interval of nine centuries. Among Catholic historians, John, the brother of Olaus Magnus, is transported with delight at the great piety of Sisebut.— “ The king did not say, I will first care for my realm and secure my throne, and then restore the decaying cause of 614.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 75 Christ; but he first of all was careful that the honour due to the divine Majesty should be fully rendered by all the people under him; and he omitted nothing which seemed necessary to the increase and conservation of Christianity. And so great was his zeal for the said most holy faith, that by his religious exhortation , ninety thousand Jews were converted to Christy and received the sacra¬ ment of baptism. Wherefore in the sacred De¬ cretals, especially in the chapter c On Baptism, and its effect/ he is styled c the most religious prince 1 .’ 55 And St. Isidore of Seville, although, as we have seen, he blames his sovereign (after his death) for having exceeded his legitimate authority, yet ex¬ claims with rapture, “ But, as it is written, c Whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice, yea, and I will rejoice.5 (Phil, i.) 55 The number of subjects to this violent chris¬ tening seems surprisingly large, but all historians concur in the same estimate ; and perhaps it is not overcharged; for the Jews had been at least 600 years in the country, enjoying a good average share of prosperity ; they had “ turned their swords 1 Hist. Gothorum Suenonumque, lib. xvi. c. 14. E 2 76 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning- hooks/’ while their brethren of Syria, Egypt, Mauritania, and Italy, had taken their share in the warfare of the times. To make these sub¬ stitute one set of religious ordinances for another, was deemed conversion, by the already corrupted Church; it being the main error of the age, fraught with serious evils in this life, as it must ever be injurious to practical godliness, that bap¬ tism is, intrinsically, the laver from original sin and past transgression. According to this unscrip- tural doctrine, it was in the present instance not only a ruinous infidelity to reject the initiatory sa¬ crament ; but, conversely, it was advantageous to the souls of 90,000 persons to become unwilling hypocrites in receiving it. St. Isidore and Mariana are insincere in throwing the odium upon king Sisebut ; the transaction was that of the Church ; for with all his peremptory violence, neither the monarch nor his soldiers could administer the rite of baptism, and no Gothic king was ever so much of a despot as to entrench upon the offices of the Church. The converts were, of course, Jews in secret, and fortunately for them, the Inquisition was not yet invented for investigating their private life, and brino-ino; them to the flames by thousands, if ZD O * 614.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 77 detected in hypocrisy. But many fled across the Pyrennees, and there found that the Frankish king Dagobert had been likewise induced by Heraclius to use extreme measures with the Jews h Dagobert, scorning to yield in point of religion to the Gothic zeal1 2, chased away not only the recent refugees, but also the old settlers in his realm, offering the single alternative of bap¬ tism, which many accepted. The people thus oppressed were descendants of the Maccabaean armies, and countrymen of Jo¬ sephus. The Jews of Naples had recently fought with desperation against Belisarius, merely in defence of their native place, when their deeply imbued religion was not called in question. These however were too far sunk under previous en¬ croachments, and softened by peaceful habits, to show that in a land abounding with mountain- passes, a wealthy population of 100,000, and more, could not be crushed at the first blow, even by Goths ; but could a fugitive obtain no rest for the sole of his foot, though he relinquished his property, his home-born ties, and connections? He could not, for in passing from the land which had hitherto 1 Mariana, 2 “ Turpe autem videbatur Franco . . . Go this religione cedere.” Bartoloccio, Bibb Rabb. iii. 709. 78 HISTORY OF THE JEWS, & C. [a.D. proved his nation’s best asylum, every such indi¬ vidual found accomplished in himself that ancient prophecy — “ They shall go out from one fire, and another shall devour them l.” 1 Ezekiel xv. 7- * 633.] 79 CHAPTER VII. FOURTH COUNCIL OF TOLEDO - ST. ISIDORE OF SEVILLE ON THE JEWS. Nineteen years elapsed, and the fourth council of Toledo was summoned. The occasion was this : — Sisenand, a daring soldier, had bribed the king of the Franks with ten pounds weight of gold, to aid in deposing the reigning sovereign Suintila, and in the establishment of himself upon the throne to be thus vacated. This was effected, and the last descendant of Recared reduced to a pri¬ vate station. Such opportunities are seldom passed over in constitutional monarchies without the binding of some new contract between the usurper and the subject ; or some remarkable concession being made to popular feeling. The clergy were -on the alert. In the third year of this reign (a.d. 633,) there e 4 80 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. were convened at Toledo, sixty-two bishops of Spain and of the province beyond the Pyrennees, four presbyters, and three archdeacons who were vicars for bishops. These were headed by the Venerable Isidore of Seville. The business for discussion lay in four main subjects. 1. The confirmation of the king’s title. 2. The adoption of the Fuero Juzgo, for a code of laws, the foundation of which had been laid by Euric, and had received additions continu¬ ally since. 3. The sanction of a public Liturgy, which had been compiled by Leander the pre¬ ceding, and Isidore the actual bishop of Seville : and, 4. to make regulations concerning the Jews. Sisenand, at the opening of the session, cast himself on the ground before the assembly, and in return the dynasty of his family was thus sanc¬ tioned by the seventy-fifth Canon. “ Whosoever shall resist this decree, let him be Anathema Maranatha, that is to say. Perdition, till the coming of the Lord ; and may he have his lot with Judas Iscariot, both he and his associates. Amen V’ The usurper could scarcely have desired a more loyal pledge of submission than this vote afforded. The decisions regarding the Jews are copious, 1 Colleetio Maxima &c. Aguirre. 633.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 81 and framed to meet the following emergency. Since the reign of Sisebut; many of the exiled Jews had returned^ and many of those baptized by con¬ straint; had renounced their novel vowS; and with the rest were openly professing the Judaic creed and practices. In their anxiety to eradicate entirely that reprobate religion; the council enacted : — “ Canon 57. “ Concerning Jews; this holy synod has re¬ solved to compel no one hereafter to accept our faith. For God ‘hath mercy on whom he will have mercy; and whom he will; he hardeneth:’ and such persons are not saved without consent; but willingly; that the attribute of Justice may be kept secure. For as man by his own free-will; in yielding to the serpent; did perish ; so when the grace of God doth call; each man is saved in be¬ lieving; by the conversion of his own mind. Therefore they are not to be urged by constraint, but persuaded through the free faculty of the will into conversion. u Respecting those already forced into Chris¬ tianity; as was done in the time of the most reli¬ gious prince Sisebut; since it is evident that they have been partakers in the Divine sacraments; have received the grace of baptism; have been e 5 82 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. anointed with the chrism ’, and have received the body and blood of our Lord, it is right that these be obliged to retain the faith which; although under compulsion and necessity, still they have undertaken, lest the name of God be blasphemed, and the faith which they have assumed be ac¬ counted worthless and despicable. “ Canon 58. ee So great is the cupidity of some, that through covetousness, as the apostle saith, 6 they have erred from the faith.5 Many of both clergy and laity, have, by accepting gifts from the Jews, bestowed their patronage on infidelity, and deserv¬ edly are such to be distinguished as belonging to Antichrist, who act against Christ. Whosoever therefore from henceforth, bishop, priest, or lay¬ man, shall afford to them his suffrage for reward or favour, in disparagement of the Christian faith, let him become an alien from the Catholic Church and the kingdom of God, as a truly profane and sacrilegious person. For it is just that he should be severed from the body of Christ, who makes himself a patron of Christ’s enemies. 1 Employed in baptism, together with breathing by the priest for the expulsion of evil spirits (John xx. 22) ; and immersion, to 633.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 83 “ Canon 59. “ Many who were formerly exalted to the Christian faith, are now known not only in blas¬ phemy against Christ to perpetrate Jewish rites, but have even dared to practise the abomination of circumcision. Concerning such, by the counsel of our most pious and religious prince, Sisenand the king, this sacred synod hath decreed, that transgressors after this sort, being apprehended by authority of the prelates, shall be recalled to the true worship according to Christian doctrine : so that those whom their own will cannot amend, may be coerced by sacerdotal correction. Also, such persons as they may have circumcised, if children of the above, shall be removed from asso¬ ciation with the parents ; and, if slaves, shall, in compensation for the injury, be made free. “ Canon 60. “ We decree that the sons and daughters of Jews are to be separated from the parents, lest they be likewise involved in their errors. To be placed either in monasteries, or with Christian men and women who fear God, that from their con¬ versation they may learn the worship of the true represent being buried with Christ in baptism (Col. ii. 12), which was repeated thrice, in the name of the Holy Trinity (Matt, xxviii. 19). — See Sparrow on the Common Prayer. E 6 84 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. faith, and thus instructed for the better, may be improved both in morals and belief. “ Canon 61. “ Baptized Jews, if afterwards they renounce Christ, and so become amenable to any penalty, their believing children shall not be excluded from inheriting their property, for it is written, c The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father/ “ Canon 62. “ The company of the wicked doth frequently corrupt even the good, how much more those who are inclined to vice ! Let there be therefore no further communion of Jews who have been trans¬ ferred to the Christian faith, with such as adhere to their ancient rites : lest perchance by mingling with them, they be subverted. Whosoever there¬ fore of the baptized shall not shun the society of unbelievers, these latter shall be given to Chris¬ tians \ and the former be delivered to public scourging. cc Canon 63. “ J ews having Christian wives, are to be ad¬ monished by the bishop of their diocese, that if they desire to abide with them, they must become 1 As serfs or slaves. 633.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 85 Christians ; and if, being so admonished, they refuse to obey, they shall be separated. Since an unbeliever cannot remain in wedlock with her who has become a Christian, and the offspring of such persons are to follow the faith of their mother. Likewise, those born of unbelieving mothers and believing fathers, are to follow the Christian religion, not the Jewish superstition. £i Canon 64. c( He cannot be true to man who is faithless towards God. Therefore Jews who were formerly Christians, but are now deniers of the faith in Christ, are not to be admitted in evidence, al¬ though they declare themselves Christians. For if suspected touching faith in Christ, they are insecure for human testimony : no trust can be placed in the testimony of such as are trained in the belief of falsehood ; nor is credit due to those who reject the belief of truth. “ Canon 65. “ This holy council has decreed by command of the most excellent lord and king, Sisenand, that Jews and their descendants are not to pursue public employments, because by such means a scandal would be given to Christians. Wherefore, the provincial judges, with the priests, are to obstruct all fraudulent creeping into such employ- 86 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. merits, and prevent their success. But if any judge shall tolerate such proceedings, he is to be excommunicated as for sacrilege, and he who shall obtain the office is to be publicly scourged. “ Canon 66. “ By decree of the most glorious prince, this council has resolved : — That no Jews shall have Christian servants, nor purchase Christian slaves, neither hold such by gift from any person. For it is shameful that the members of Christ should serve the ministers of Antichrist. And if, hence¬ forward, any Jews shall dare to retain Christian slaves of either sex, these shall be released and restored to freedom.” The first of these enactments is lauded for its Christian clemency, and probably, its formal re¬ cognition of the right to voluntary belief was effected by the influence of St. Isidore. Yet, if so, he gained but little ; for it is violated in the Canon 60, and the provision at its close is both foolish and cruel. The real blasphemy of God^s name and holy faith, lay in the profane adminis¬ tration of the sacraments to improper subjects, and this was an act of the clergy themselves ; but, for Christian priests to retract a previous error or crime, can never be sinful ; yet, shielded by this pretext, they stoop not to make the poor reparation 633.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 87 to those they have wronged, of removing that wrong : they rather act it out to the utmost, and perpetuate its grievance from generation to generation, as we see in those infamous canons which follow. What ! shall he who has been thus insulted with acknowledged iniquity and profanity, if discovered in conversation with one of his friends not thus degraded, be publicly scourged, while the other is consigned to slavery ? [Canon 62.] And one who has undergone this solemn mockery, but after¬ wards follows his own belief, shall he, when plundered of his property, or assaulted by armed ruffians (provided these have been christened) have no redress at a legal tribunal ? [Canon 64.] Shall a Christian wife be torn from her uncon¬ vinced husband, because she has herself dis¬ covered the truth of Christianity 1 ? or by another operation of the same decree, shall a faithless wife cause herself to be divorced from her family, by simply embracing the Christian name? [Canon 63.] Again, in that age it was an infringement upon the rights of property, (such property as it was) to proclaim emancipation to the slaves on the mere condition of submitting to be bap- 1 For the contrary, see 1 Cor.vii. 10. 13. 14. Was the mother of Timothy thus divorced 1 / 88 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. tized. [Canon 66.] These slaves were principally heathen captives from the swarms of barbarians which then infested Europe. The French and Italian councils; as well as the papal epistles of the period^ abound in complaints of Jews hold¬ ing slaves that professed Christianity. By some regulations they were compelled to sell their slaves for twelve solidi (shillings) each. It can¬ not be easily determined now, whether or not this was a fair price for the blood and sinews of a man ; but the Canon before us was in every way unjust. And what shall be said in regard to the 60th Canon ? that foul abomination enacted by grave teachers of the Gospel. Surely such barbarity could not have been conceived but in a conclave of celibates \ who had never,, any one of them; felt his offspring clinging about his neck. Surely such a resolution was a deep offence before the watchful eye; and to the tender heart of Jesus Christ. It is not now considered how far it may have been just; or politically urgent (too often perversely confounded) to provide the 58th and 65th Canons. 1 The vice of celibacy had already crept into the Spanish church. About 60 years later, king Witisa offended the clergy by granting them indulgence to marry. 633.J IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 89 They were not novelties, but appear to have been frequently evaded for money’s sake. The haughty sensitiveness of the Gothic hidalgo on this point is still shared even by nations who boast of popular freedom and broad toleration. St. Isidore was president of this council ; but the Canons thus promulgated, and his exclamation in narrating the violence of Sisebut (i£ I therein do rejoice; yea, and will rejoice!”) would lead to an erroneous estimate of his whole character. The following extracts from his writings will exhibit his deliberate sentiments respecting the Jews, as a theologian, in frequent contact with that people. In literary attainments he has been eulo¬ gized by his surviving friend, St. Ildefonso of To¬ ledo, for a delightful flow of eloquence which en¬ chanted by its suavity ; and his books show him to have been well versed in Latin literature 1 and in the sacred Scripture. C£ Comment on Genesis iv. “ God inquired of Cain, not as one in ignorance, and needing information, but as a judge, when 1 “ His writings are valuable for the numerous extracts thev contain from Latin books which are now lost . The works of Isidore were of great use in the subsequent ages, in which the ancients were little read.” — Enfield’s History of Philosophy. 90 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. about to punish a criminal. e Where is thy brother ?’ He replied, that he knew not, for he was not his brother’s keeper. And to this day what do the Jews reply, when we interrogate them in the voice of God, that is, of Holy Scripture, concerning Christ. They answer, that they know not. But the ignorance of Cain was untrue, and the denial of the Jews is a falsehood; for they might have been in a certain sense the keepers of Christ, had they accepted and retained the Christian faith. “ God said to Cain, c What hast thou done ? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.’ And thus in Holy Scripture doth the Voice Divine plead with the Jews ; for the blood of Christ has a loud voice upon earth \ and when received among all nations they respond to it, Amen ! This is the clear voice of Christ’s blood, uttered by the blood itself from the mouths of the faithful, who are redeemed by that same blood. ee God said to Cain, c Cursed art thou from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand.’ He said not, c Cursed is the earth,’ but f the earth which hath opened,’ &c. and accursed indeed are the faithless people of the Jews f from the earth,’ i. e. from 1 The same idea occurs in St. Augustine against Faustus. xii. 20. IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 91 633.] the Church, which hath opened her mouth in de¬ claration of all the iniquities by the hand of the persecutor, who would not be under grace but under the law. — “ 6 A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be/ or as in the LXX, ‘ groaning and trembling shalt thou be in the earth/ And now who does not see and acknowledge, in whatever land the Jews are cast, that they are fugitives among the nations, and wanderers from Jerusalem ? how they groan with lamentation for their lost country, and tremble with dread, amid the manifold kingdoms of Chris¬ tians ? — “ e Then answered Cain, My iniquity is greater than can merit pardon 1 ; behold, thou hast driven me out, &c.5 But what did the Lord God reply ? ‘ It shall not be so ; but whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold/ or, as in the LXX, ‘ he shall pay seven revenges / that is to say, ‘Not by corporeal death shall the impious race of carnal Jews be destroyed, but who¬ soever slays them, shall render seven revenges ; that is, He will exact seven revenges from all such as afflict them on account of the guilt of Christ’s death. For in all this time, now in the seventh century, it is evident to all faithful Chris- 1 According to the Vulgate and the Septuagint. 92 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.d. tians, that the J ewish nation has not perished, but has only deserved subjection and dispersion, ac¬ cording to the Scripture, 6 Slay them not, lest they forget thy law ; scatter them by thy power, and bring them down/ (Ps. lix.) — “ ‘ And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him/ This is indeed a surprising fact, that whereas other nations when subdued by the Romans, embraced the Roman religion, yet the Jewish people, whether under the Pagan or the Christian emperors, never abandoned the mark of the law and circumcision, by which they are distinguished from other na¬ tions. — “ ‘ And he went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod/ which is, by interpretation, commotion, or instability, or fluctu¬ ation, and of uncertain home. Against such a cala¬ mity God is entreated in Ps. lxvi. 6 Give not my feet to be moved:’ — Ps. xxxvi. ‘Let not the hand of the wicked remove me : * — Ps. xiii. 6 And those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved — Ps. xvi. ‘ God is at my right hand, I shall not be moved’ But now the J ews, and all such as are contumacious in resisting the truth by their divers errors, do remove ‘ from the face of the Lord/ that is, from his grace, and the participation of his light, and they dwell in exile in the land of restlessness, in carnal uneasiness, 633.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 93 far from delight, that is, Eden (or pleasure) in which the paradise was placed.” This long extract gives a fair specimen of the mode of interpreting Scripture which prevailed among the ancient Christian Fathers, few of whom have been more successful in tracing allegories than St. Isidore has proved in this parallelism of Cain and the Jews. Perhaps, however, the resem¬ blance would have acquired a deeper intensity from the consideration that the blood which cried from the earth against Israel was their own brother’s blood, for “ it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah.” (Heb. vii. 14.) His own brethren “ according to the flesh,” exclaimed, “ Crucify him,” and that crime which is specified as completing the measure of iniquity at the first desolation of Jerusalem, was the shedding of innocent blood, (i w hich thing the Lord would not pardon \” The large acquaintance which our author en¬ joyed with Holy Writ, is still more conspicuous in his Tract “ On the Calling of the Gentiles,” in the course of which there occurs an exclamation so alien to a persecuting spirit, (“ O infelicium Judae- orum dementia deflenda !”) as to remind us of the 1 2 Kings xxiv. 4. 94 HISTORY OF THE JEWS, &C. [a.D. apostolic disposition towards heretics expressed in Phil. iii. 18. Lastly, we may without offence smile at the theological taste of those times, as seen in the fol¬ lowing passage (on Levit. xi. 3) : “ Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is cloven-footed, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat/5 Thus the Jews ruminate , indeed, the words of the law, but part not the hoof \ since they do not re¬ ceive two testaments, nor take for bases of faith the Father and the Son ; therefore they are un¬ clean.” On the whole. Bishop Isidore is an estimable character. One other light shines out from the bigotry of the period. St. Mausona, archbishop of Merida, is described as using so much bene¬ volence and amenity of manners to Christians, Jews, and Pagans, that no language can suffi¬ ciently endear his memory h These, then, are the only persons in authority to whom we can revert with satisfaction during the long dominion of the Goths in Spain. 1 Paul the Deacon : — quoted in Historia de Merida, p. 1 49. 638.] 95 CHAPTER VIII. SIXTH COUNCIL OF TOLEDO - ON CATHOLICITY IN SPAIN - JEWISH ADDRESS TO KING REC- CESUINTH - TWELFTH COUNCIL OF TOLEDO - CHRONOLOGY OF LXX. - ROMISH INFLUENCE IN SPAIN. In the third and last year of the next reign, that of Chintila (a.d. 638), was summoned the sixth council of Toledo. The interval since the fourth council was five years, but Isidore of Seville was no more, and the effect of his removal to a better world, may be seen in this enactment : — “ Canon 3. “ The inflexible perfidy of the Jews comes at length to be subdued by piety and the divine grace. For by inspiration of the Most High God, our most excellent and Christian prince, inflamed with ardour for the faith, together with the clergy of his kingdom, has resolved to eradicate to the uttermost, their prevarication and superstition, 11 96 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [A.D* not suffering the residence of any one in the land, who is not a Catholic . For which zeal we render thanks to the almighty King of Heaven that He has created a soul so illustrious, and endued it with his wisdom. May He bestow upon him a long life in this world, and glory everlasting in the future. “ We do now, therefore, decree a corroboration of what has been heretofore instituted in general Synod concerning the Jews, seeing that all things necessary for their salvation that could have been enacted, we know to have been done, and with circumspection. All such edicts we now declare to be valid.” [And in a codicil to this Canon.] “ We do deliberately resolve, that whosoever in time to come shall obtain the royalty, he shall not ascend the throne before having promised on oath, never to allow the Jews to infringe upon this holy faith ; and that in no wise favouring their perfidiousness, neither seduced by negligence or cupidity, &c. The more evangelical and prudent views of Isidore ought to have been fresh in the recollec¬ tion of these Toledan councillors. Under his guidance they had blamed SisebuFs barbarian christening of 90,000 Jews, but immediately on 638.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 97 his decease, the ecclesiastics decree an act of equal oppression by “not suffering the residence of any one in the land who is not a Catholic” and proceed to bind their kings, present and future, to this determination. The new sovereign ac¬ quiesced, and thus “ gave proof that he was not chosen and appointed by man, but from God V* Modern Romish writers are enraptured with this noble resolve : — ■“ It is a most ancient and peculiar glory of the Gothic kings in Spain, that not only in the time of this council under Chintila, but even from the reign of Recared, in the third council of Toledo, they endured none to remain in their dominions alien to the Catholic religion. Thus have the Spanish monarchs ever preserved, and do still labour to sustain, their title of Most Catholic superlatively, above all other kings and princes in Christendon 1 2” We have here the express point avowed, towards which the Church in Spain had been advancing in each successive council with firm and well con¬ sidered steps. To pause awhile for cool consider¬ ation, endeavouring to understand the sentiments of a devoted churchman in that age and country, is it not possible that some such may have 1 Gothorum, &c. Historia, Joh. Magnus, lib. xvi. c. 18. 2 Collectio Maxima, &c. Aguirre. F 98 HISTORY OF THE JEWS [a.D. sanctioned this ultimate measure from purely religious, though still mistaken motives ? Imagine such a one musing in his cell, with the Bible open before him, and Augustine, u On the City of God,” in his hand. How bright and peaceful a vision he might frame to his imagination of an identi¬ fied world and church ; a reality predicted in glowing language by the early prophets, as the temple of the latter days, the growing stone cut out without hands, the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God ! Issuing from a little source it has already poured its tide over many nations, — ■“ it flows, and cannot cease to flow.” This land of Spain has received the boon, a land framed by nature to be “ at unity with itself,” and must not this cause extend till every heart that beats within our confines shall confess its sway, till every homestead, field, and hill shall be cheered with its peace and promise, till the hallelujahs sung upon the heights of Asturias, be caught up and rever¬ berated from peak to peak, even to the extremity of the Sierra Nevada? — Adveniat regnum tuum ! It is difficult for us to appreciate the feelings of twelve hundred years gone by, abstracted from the fever and agitations of our modern worldly Christianity; but in the effort to do so, it must not be forgotten, that the idea of unity or catholicity was in those times tenaciously cherished by all 638.] IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 99 who professed the name and service of Christ. “ The holy Catholic Church” was an endearing: bond of sentiment to all within its pale; and most justly so 1 : but human passions, mingled with Christianity, have so blinded men’s judg¬ ment^ as to confound internal unity with external uniformity. The meditation we have supposed would be that of the monk in his cloister. Bolder spirits were found to contrive and execute. Availing themselves of the common error of an uncon¬ ditional baptismal regeneration2, the efficacy of the opus operatum, they either believed, or, at least, caused others to believe, that the honour of God was concerned in “compelling to come in,” those most averse from doing so, and binding them to obedience with their children and chil¬ dren’s children for ever, under the doubled penalty awarded to apostasy. 1 It is, perhaps, impossible for language to be more emphatic than in the "iva w