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

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СКАЧАТЬ families. The Jews of Cologne enjoyed also the privilege of exercising their own jurisdiction, which they were allowed to retain until the Middle Ages. A non-Jewish plaintiff, even though he were a priest, was obliged to bring his suit against a Jew before the Jewish judge (bishop of the Jews).

      While the history of the Jews in Byzantium, Italy, and France possesses interest for special students, that of their brethren in the Pyrenean peninsula rises to the height of universal importance. The Jewish inhabitants of this happy peninsula contributed by their hearty interest to the greatness of the country, which they loved as only a fatherland can be loved, and in so doing achieved world-wide reputation. Jewish Spain contributed almost as much to the development of Judaism as Judæa and Babylonia, and as in these countries, so every spot in this new home has become classic for the Jewish race. Cordova, Granada, and Toledo are as familiar to the Jews as Jerusalem and Tiberias, and almost more so than Nahardea and Sora. When Judaism had come to a standstill in the East, and had grown weak with age, it acquired new vigor in Spain, and extended its fruitful influence over a wide sphere. Spain seemed to be destined by Providence to become a new center for the members of the dispersed race, where their spirit could revive, and to which they could point with pride.

      The first settlement of the Jews in beautiful Hesperia is buried in dim obscurity. It is certain that they went thither as early as the time of the Roman Republic, as free men, to take advantage of the rich resources of this country.

      The victims of the unhappy insurrections under Vespasian, Titus, and Hadrian were also dispersed to the extreme west, and an exaggerated account relates that 80,000 of them were carried off to Spain as prisoners. They probably did not remain long in slavery; the sympathy of their free brethren undoubtedly hastened to ransom them, and thus fulfil the most important of the duties prescribed by Talmudical Judaism to its adherents. How numerously the Jews had settled in some parts of Spain is shown by the names which they conferred upon these localities. The city of Granada was called the city of the Jews in former times, on account of its being entirely inhabited by them: the same name was also borne by the ancient town of Tarragona (Tarracona), before its conquest by the Arabs. In Cordova there existed a Jewish gateway of ancient date, and near Saragossa there was a fortress which at the time of the Arabs was called Ruta al Jahud. In the neighborhood of Tortosa a gravestone was found with both a Hebrew and a national name. This memorial was inscribed in three languages – Hebrew, Greek, and Latin; the Jews must, therefore, have emigrated at an early period from a Greek district to the north of Spain, and acquired the Latin language, without forgetting that of the Holy Writings.

      Pride of ancestry, which was a characteristic of the Jews of this country as of the other Spaniards, was not content with the fact that the Jewish colony in Spain had possessed the right of citizenship long before the Visigoths and other Germanic tribes had set their tyrannous iron foot in the land, but desired to lay claim to even higher antiquity for it. The Spanish Jews maintained that they had been transported hither after the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonian conqueror, Nebuchadnezzar. Certain Jewish families, the Ibn-Dauds and the Abrabanels, boasted descent from the royal house of David, and maintained that their ancestors had been settled since time immemorial partly in the district of Lucena, and partly in the environs of Toledo and Seville. The numerous Spanish-Jewish family of Nasi also traced back its pedigree to King David, and proved it by means of a genealogical table and seals. The family of the Ibn-Albalias was more modest, and dated its immigration only from the destruction of the Second Temple. A family tradition runs to the effect that the Roman governor of Spain begged the conqueror of Jerusalem to send him some noble families from the capital of Judæa, and that Titus complied with his request. Among those thus transported was a man named Baruch, who excelled in the art of weaving curtains for the Temple. This Baruch, who settled in Merida, was the ancestor of the Ibn-Albalias.

      Christianity had early taken root in Spain. In fact a council of bishops, priests, and the subordinate clergy met at Illiberis (Elvira, near Granada) some time before Constantine's conversion. The Jews were nevertheless held in high esteem by the Christian population as well as by the heathens. The Iberians and Romans who had been converted to Christianity had not yet discovered in the Jews a race repudiated by God, a people whose presence was to be shunned. They associated with their Jewish neighbors in perfect freedom. The newly-converted inhabitants of the country, who often heard their apostle preach about Jews and Judaism, had no conception of the wide gulf dividing Judaism from Christianity, and as often had the produce of their fields blessed by pious Jews as by their own clergy. Intermarriages between Jews and Christians occurred quite as frequently in Spain as in Gaul.

      The higher Catholic clergy, however, could not suffer this friendly intercourse between Jews and Christians to continue; they perceived it to be dangerous to the newly-established Church. To the representatives of the Church in Spain is due the honor – if honor it be – of first having raised a barrier between Jew and Christian. The Council of Illiberis (about 320), at whose head was Osius, Bishop of Cordova, forbade the Christians, under pain of excommunication, to hold friendly intercourse with the Jews, to contract marriages with them, or to allow them to bless the produce of their fields. The seed of malignant hatred of the Jews, which was thus first sown by the Synod of Illiberis, did not, however, produce its poisonous fruit until much later. When the migrating Germanic hordes of the Suevi, Vandals, and Visigoths first laid waste this beautiful country, and then chose it for their home, the Catholics of the land were obliged to bear the yoke of political and religious dependence, for the Visigoths, who had taken lasting possession of the peninsula, happened to have been converted to the Arian faith. On the whole, the Visigothic Arians were tolerably indifferent to the controversy of the creeds, as to whether the Son of God was the same as, or similar to, the Father, and whether Bishop Arius ought to be regarded as orthodox or heretical. But they thoroughly hated the Catholic inhabitants of the country, because in every Catholic they saw a Roman, and consequently an enemy. The Jews, on the other hand, were unmolested under the Arian kings, and besides enjoying civil and political equality, were admitted to the public offices. Their skill and knowledge, which gave them the advantage over the uncivilized Visigoths, specially fitted them for these posts. The favorable condition of the Jews in Spain continued for more than a century, beginning with the time when this country first became a province of the Toletanic-Visigothic empire, and extending over the later period, when, under Theudes (531), it became the center of the same. The Jews who dwelt in the province of Narbonne, and in that district of Africa which formed part of the Visigothic empire, also enjoyed civil and political equality; some of them rendered material service to the Visigothic kings. The Jews that lived at the foot of the Pyrenees defended the passes leading from Gaul into Spain against the invasions of the Franks and Burgundians, who longed to possess the country. They were regarded as the most trusty guardians of the frontier, and their martial courage gained for them special distinction. The Visigothic Jews must have remained in communication, either through Italy or through Africa, with Judæa or Babylonia, from which countries they probably received their religious teachers. They adhered strictly to the precepts of the Talmud, abstained from wine made by non-Jews, and admitted their heathen and Christian slaves into the covenant of Abraham, as ordained by the Talmud. While their brethren on the other side of the Pyrenees were greatly oppressed, and forcibly converted to Christianity, or compelled to emigrate, they enjoyed complete liberty of religion, and were further granted the privilege, which was denied the Jews in all the other countries of Europe, of initiating their slaves into their religion.

      But as soon as the Catholic Church obtained the supremacy in Spain, and Arianism began to be persecuted, the affairs of the Jews of this country assumed an unfavorable aspect. King Reccared, who had abjured the Arian creed at the Council of Toledo, was the first to unite with the Synod in imposing restrictions on the Jews. They were prohibited from contracting marriages with the Christians, from acquiring Christian slaves, and from holding public offices; such of their children as were born of intermarriages were to be forcibly baptized (589). They were thus made to assume an isolated position, which pained them all the more as they were animated by a sense of honor, and until now had lived upon equal terms with their fellow-citizens, having, in fact, been privileged more than the Catholics. Most oppressive of all was the restraint touching the possession of slaves. Henceforward the Jews were neither to purchase Christian slaves СКАЧАТЬ