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

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СКАЧАТЬ spite of the antipathy of the leaders of opinion, the Jews of Italy were happy in comparison with their brethren of the Byzantine empire. Theodoric's successors, his beautiful and accomplished daughter Amalasuntha, and her husband and murderer Theodatus, a weakling with philosophical pretensions, followed his principles. The Jews supported King Theodatus with tenacious fidelity, even when he himself had given up all hope. The Jews of Naples risked their lives rather than come under Justinian's scourge. Belisarius, the conqueror of the Vandal empire, the laurel-crowned hero, trembled at Justinian's wrath, and allowed himself to be used as the blind tool of the latter's tyranny; he had already subjugated the whole of Sicily and the southern extremity of the Italian peninsula, and now was swiftly approaching Naples, the largest and most beautiful city of Lower Italy. On his summons to the inhabitants to surrender, the Neapolitans divided into two factions. But even the war party was not disposed to sacrifice itself for the Ostrogoths, who were hated in Italy. The Jews alone, and two lawyers, Pastor and Asclepiadotus, who had been raised to fame through the influence of the Ostrogothic kings, opposed the surrender of the city to the Byzantine general. The Jews, who were wealthy and patriotic, offered their lives and their fortunes for the defense of the city. In order to allay the fear of scarcity of provisions, they promised to supply Naples with all necessaries during the siege. The Jews, unaided, defended that part of the city which was nearest the sea, and fought with such bravery, that the enemy did not venture to direct their attacks against that quarter. A contemporary historian (Procopius) has raised a glorious monument to the heroic bravery of the Jews of Naples.

      Having one night, by means of treachery, penetrated into the city, the enemy almost made themselves masters of it (536), but the Jews, with the courage of lions, still continued the struggle. It was only at break of day, when the enemy had overwhelmed them with numbers, and many of their own side had been killed, that the Jews quitted their posts. It is not related how the surviving Jewish combatants fared – certainly no better than their confederates Asclepiadotus and Pastor, who fell victims to the fury of the people. Now occurred that which the Italian Jews had anticipated with horror; they came under the rule of the Emperor Justinian, whose anti-Jewish ideas place him in a class with Hadrian, Constantine, and Firuz. Italy, ruler of the world, sank to the rank of a province (Exarchate) of the Byzantine empire, and the Jews of Italy trembled before the exarch of Ravenna.

      This situation, however, did not continue long. Justinian's successors were obliged to abandon a great part of Italy forever to the powerful and uncouth Lombards (589), who, half heathen, half Arian, troubled themselves but little about the Jews. At all events there are no exceptional laws for the Jews to be met with in the Longobard code. Even when the Lombards embraced the Catholic faith, the position of the Jews in Italy remained bearable. The heads of the Catholic Church, the Popes, were free from extreme intolerance. Gregory I (590–604), called the Great and the Holy, who laid the foundation of the power of Catholicism, gave utterance to the principle that the Jews should be converted only by means of gentle persuasion and not by violence. He conscientiously maintained their rights of Roman citizenship, which had been recognized by various emperors. In the territory which was subject to the papal sway in Rome, Lower Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia, he steadfastly persisted in this course, in the face of the fanatical bishops, who regarded the oppression of the Jews as a pious work. His pastoral letters are full of earnest exhortations, such as the following: "We forbid you to molest the Jews or to lay upon them restrictions not imposed by the established laws; we further permit them to live as Romans and to dispose of their property as they will; we only prohibit them from owning Christian slaves."

      But greatly as Gregory abhorred the forcible conversion of the Jews, he exerted himself to win them for the Church by other means. He did not hesitate to make an appeal to cupidity, and remitted a portion of the land-tax to such of the Jewish farmers and peasants as embraced Christianity. He did not, indeed, deceive himself with the belief that the converts who were obtained in this manner were loyal Christians; he counted, however, upon their descendants. "If we do not gain them over," he wrote, "we at least gain their children." Having heard that a Jew named Nasas had erected an altar to Elijah (probably a synagogue known by this name) in the island of Sicily, and that Christians met there to celebrate divine service, Gregory commanded the prefect Libertinus to raze the building, and to inflict corporal punishment on Nasas for his offense. Gregory vigorously persecuted such of the Jews as purchased or possessed Christian slaves. In the Frankish empire, where fanaticism had not yet made its way, the Jews were not forbidden to carry on the slave trade. Gregory was indignant at this, and wrote to King Theodoric (Dieterich) of Burgundy, Theodebert, king of Austrasia, and also to Queen Brunhilde, expressing his astonishment that they allowed the Jews to possess Christian slaves. He exhorted them with great warmth to remove this evil, and to free the true believers from the power of their enemy. Reccared, the king of the Visigoths, who submitted to the papal see, was flattered beyond measure by Gregory for promulgating an edict of intolerance.

      In the Byzantine empire and in Italy, Christianity had from the very first shown more or less hostility to Judaism, but in the west of Europe, in France and Spain, where the Church established itself with difficulty, the situation of the Jews assumed a different and much more favorable aspect. The invasions of the barbarians had completely changed the social order existing in these countries. Roman institutions, both political and ecclesiastical, were nearly effaced, and the polity of the empires established by heathen or half Christianized nations was not built up on the basis of Church law. It was a long while before Catholicism gained a firm footing in the west of Europe, and the Jews who had settled there enjoyed undisturbed peace until the victorious Church gained the upper hand.

      The immigration of the Jews into these important and wealthy provinces took place probably as early as the time of the Republic or of Cæsar. The Jewish merchants whose business pursuits brought them from Alexandria or Asia Minor to Rome and Italy, the Jewish warriors whom the emperors Vespasian and Titus, the conquerors of Judæa, had dispersed as prisoners throughout the Roman provinces, found their way voluntarily or involuntarily into Gaul and Iberia. The presence of the Jews in the west of Europe is a certain fact only since the second century.

      The Gallic Jews, whose first settlement was in the district of Arles, enjoyed the full rights of Roman citizenship, whether they arrived in Gaul as merchants or as fugitives, with the peddler's pack or in the garb of slaves; they were treated as Romans also by the Frankish and Burgundian conquerors. The most ancient legislation of the Franks and Burgundians did not consider the Jews as a distinct race, subject to peculiar laws. In the Frankish kingdom founded by Clovis, the Jews dwelt in Auvergne (Arverna), in Carcassonne, Arles, Orleans, and as far north as Paris and Belgium. Numbers of them resided in the old Greek port of Marseilles, and in Béziers (Biterræ), and so many dwelt in the province of Narbonne that a mountain near the city of that name was called Mons Judaicus. The territory of Narbonne belonged for a long time to Visigothic Spain, and for this reason the Jewish history of this district reflects all the vicissitudes of the Jews on the further side of the Pyrenees.

      The Jews of the Frankish and Burgundian kingdoms carried on agriculture, trade, and commerce without restraint; they navigated the seas and rivers in their own ships. They also practised medicine, and the advice of the Jewish physicians was sought even by the clergy, who probably did not care to rely entirely on the miraculous healing powers of the saints and of relics. They were also skilled in the use of the weapons of war, and took an active part in the battles between Clovis and Theodoric's generals before Arles (508).

      Besides their Biblical names, the Jews of Gaul bore the appellations which were common in the country, such as Armentarius, Gozolas, Priscus, or Siderius. They lived on the best of terms with the people of the country, and intermarriages even occurred between Jews and Christians. The Christian clergy did not scruple to eat at Jewish tables, and in turn often entertained the Jews.

      The higher ecclesiastics, however, took umbrage, because the Jews refused, at Christian banquets, to eat of certain dishes, which the precepts of their religion forbade them to enjoy. For this reason the council of Vannes (465) prohibited the clergy from taking part in Jewish banquets, "because they considered it undignified that Christians should eat the viands of the Jews, while the latter СКАЧАТЬ