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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ synod, were by general acknowledgment inviolable for all time. Two days after the prorogation of this council, the Jews, both those that had remained true to their religion and those that had been converted, were called together, the laws were read to them and their rigid observance strictly enjoined (January 25th, 681). A third time the converted Jews were compelled to abjure Judaism and to draw up a confession of faith – with the same sincerity, of course, as under Chintila and Receswinth.

      But the Visigothic-Spanish Jews fared still worse under Erwig's successor, Egica. He did not drive them out of the country, it is true, but he did what was worse, he restricted their rights. He prohibited the Jews and the Judaizing Christians from possessing landed property and houses; moreover, they were forbidden to repair to Africa, or to trade with that continent, or to transact business with any Christians whatever. They were compelled to surrender all their real estate to the Treasury, and were indemnified, probably not too liberally, for the same (693). Only those that were really converted were left unfettered by these restrictions.

      The Jews were driven to despair by this new law, which it was impossible to evade, as their real estate was actually confiscated; they accordingly united in a perilous conspiracy against their unrelenting foe. They entered into an alliance with their more fortunate brethren in Africa, with the intention of overthrowing the Visigothic empire, and were probably aided by the boldly-advancing Mahometans and the malcontent nobles of the country (694). The attempt might easily have succeeded, for, owing to dissension, unnatural vices and weakness, the country was far advanced in a state of ruin and dissolution. But the conspiracy of the Jews was discovered before it had matured, and severe punishment was inflicted not only on the culprits, but on the whole Jewish population of Spain, including that of the province of Septimania (together with Narbonne). They were all sentenced to slavery, presented to various masters, and distributed throughout the country, their owners being prohibited from setting them free again. Children of seven years of age and upwards were torn from their parents and given to Christians to be educated. The only exception made was in favor of the Jewish warriors of the narrow passes of the Gallic province, who formed a bulwark against invasion. They were indispensable, and their bravery protected them from degradation and slavery, but even they were compelled to change their religion.

      The Spanish Jews continued in this state of degradation until Egica's death. When his son Witiga followed him to the grave, the last hours of this empire were evidently at hand. The Jews of Africa, who at various times had emigrated thither from Spain, and their unlucky co-religionists of the Peninsula, made common cause with the Mahometan conqueror, Tarik, who brought over from Africa into Andalusia an army eager for the fray. After the battle of Xeres (July, 711), and the death of Roderic, the last of the Visigothic kings, the victorious Arabs pushed onward, and were everywhere supported by the Jews. In every city that they conquered the Moslem generals were able to leave but a small garrison of their own troops, as they had need of every man for the subjection of the country; they therefore confided them to the safe-keeping of the Jews. In this manner the Jews, who but lately had been serfs, now became the masters of the towns of Cordova, Granada, Malaga, and many others. When Tarik appeared before the capital, Toledo, he found it occupied by a small garrison only, the nobles and clergy having found safety in flight. While the Christians were in church, praying for the safety of their country and religion, the Jews flung open the gates to the victorious Arabs (Palm-Sunday, 712), receiving them with acclamations, and thus avenged themselves for the many miseries which had befallen them in the course of a century since the time of Reccared and Sisebut. The capital also was entrusted by Tarik to the custody of the Jews, while he pushed on in pursuit of the cowardly Visigoths, who had sought safety in flight, for the purpose of recovering from them the treasure which they had carried off.

      Finally, when Muza Ibn-Nosair, the Governor of Africa, brought a second army into Spain and conquered other cities, he also delivered them into the custody of the Jews. It was under these favorable conditions that the Spanish Jews came under the rule of the Mahometans, and like their co-religionists in Babylonia and Persia, they were esteemed the allies of their rulers. They were kindly treated, obtained religious liberty, of which they had so long been deprived, were permitted to exercise jurisdiction over their co-religionists, and were obliged, like the conquered Christians, to pay only a poll-tax (Dsimma). Thus were they received into that great alliance, which, to a certain extent, united all the Jews of the Islamite empire into one commonwealth.

      As the Mahometan empire grew in size, the activity of its Jewish inhabitants increased in proportion. The first Caliphs of the house of Ommiyyah, by reason of their continual wars with the descendants and comrades of Mahomet, with the fanatical upholders of the letter of the Koran, and with the partisans of the spiritual Imamate (high-priesthood), had become entirely free from that narrow-mindedness and mania for persecution which characterized the founder and the first two Caliphs. The following rulers of the Mahometans, Moawiyah, Yezid I., Abdul-Malik, Walid I., and Suliman (656–717), were far more worldly than spiritual; their political horizon was extensive, and they fettered themselves but little with the narrow precepts of the Koran and the traditions (Sunna). They loved Arabic poetry (Abdul-Malik was himself a poet), held knowledge in esteem, and rewarded the author quite as liberally as the soldier who fought for them. The Jewish inhabitants of Mahometan countries soon adopted the Arabic language. It is closely related, in many of its roots and forms, to Hebrew, with which language all of them were more or less familiar, and they needed a knowledge thereof, as it was the indispensable medium of communication. The enthusiasm which the Arabs felt for their language and its poetry, the care which they took to keep it pure, accurate and sonorous, had their effect upon the Jews, and taught them to employ correct forms of speech. During the six hundred years which had elapsed since the fall of the Jewish nation, the Jews had lost the sense of beauty and grace of expression; they were negligent in their speech, careless of purity of form, and indifferent to the clothing of their thoughts and emotions in suitable terms. A people possessed of an imperfect delivery, using a medley of Hebrew, Chaldee, and corrupt Greek, was not in a position to create a literature, much less to enchain the wayward muse of poetry. But, as already mentioned, the Jews of Arabia formed an exception. They acquired from their neighbors correct taste, and the art of framing their speech pleasantly and impressively. The Jewish tribes of Kainukaa and Nadhir, which had emigrated to Palestine and Syria, the Jews of Chaibar and Wadil-Kora, who had been transplanted to the region of Kufa and the center of the Gaonate, brought with them to their new home this love and taste for the poetical Arabic tongue, and gradually instilled them into their co-religionists. Hardly half a century after the occupation of Palestine and Persia by the Arabs, a Babylonian Jew was able to handle the Arabic language for literary purposes: the Jewish physician, Messer-Jawaih of Bassorah, translated a medical work from the Syriac into Arabic. Henceforward the Jews, together with the Syrian Christians, were the channels through which scientific literature reached the Arabs.

      The enthusiasm of the Arabs for their language and the Koran evoked in the hearts of the Jews a similar sentiment for the Hebrew tongue and its holy records. Besides this, the Jews were now obliged to make closer acquaintance with the Scriptures, in order that they might not be put to the blush in their controversies with the Mahometans. Until now the talented men among them had turned their attention exclusively to the Talmud and the Agadic exposition, but necessity at last compelled them to return to the source, the Bible.

      As soon, however, as it was desired to recover what had been lost for centuries, and to return with ardor to the study of Biblical literature, a need manifested itself which first had to be supplied. In supplying the Biblical text with the vowel signs invented in Babylonia or in Tiberias, it was necessary to proceed in such passages, as had not become familiar by frequent reading in public, according to grammatical rules. The Punctuators were obliged to be guided partly by tradition and partly by their sense of language. In this manner there arose the rudiments of two branches of knowledge: one treating of the above-mentioned rules of the Hebrew language, the other of the science of orthography, together with the exceptions as handed down by tradition (Massora). This apparently unimportant invention of adding certain strokes and points to the consonants thus led to the comprehension of the Holy Scriptures by the general public and the initiation of a more general knowledge of Judaism. By its help the holy language could now celebrate its revival; it was no СКАЧАТЬ