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

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СКАЧАТЬ Troubled by cares for his subsistence, Abner did not obtain the desired support from his kinsmen in race. He was too little of a philosopher to accept his modest lot. His desires were extravagant, and he was unable to find the means to satisfy them. In order to be able to live in ease and splendor, Abner determined, when nearly sixty years of age, to adopt Christianity, although this religion was as little able to give him inward contentment as that which he forsook. As a Christian, he assumed the name of Alfonso. The infidel disciple of Aristotle and Averroes accepted an ecclesiastical office; he became sacristan at a large church in Valladolid, to which a rich benefice was attached, enabling him to gratify his worldly desires. He attempted to excuse his hypocritical behavior and his apostasy by means of sophistical arguments.

      Alfonso carried his want of conscientiousness so far that not long after his conversion to Christianity he attacked his former brethren in faith and race with bitter hate, and showed the intention of persecuting them. Owing to his knowledge of Jewish literature, it was easy for him to discover its weak points, employ them as charges against Judaism, and draw the most hateful inferences. Alfonso was indefatigable in his accusations against the Jews and Judaism, and composed a long series of works, in which he introduced arguments partly aggressive, partly defensive of his new faith against the attacks upon it by the Jews. In his abuse of Judaism, the Hebrew language, in which he composed with much greater ease than in Spanish, was made to do service.

      Alfonso had the brazen impudence to send one of his hateful writings to his former friend, Isaac Pulgar. The latter replied in a sharply satirical poem, and pressed him close in his polemical writings. The Jews of Spain had not yet become so disheartened as to suffer such insolent attacks in silence. Another less renowned writer also answered Alfonso, and thus a violent literary warfare broke out.

      Alfonso of Valladolid, however, did not content himself with polemical writings; he boldly presented himself before King Alfonso XI, and laid his accusations against the Jews before him. He raked up anew the remark of the Church Father Jerome and others, that the Jews had introduced into their book of prayer a formula of imprecation against the God of the Christians and his adherents. The representatives of the Jewish community in Valladolid, probably summoned by the king to justify themselves, emphatically denied that the imprecation originally leveled against the Minim (Nazarenes) referred to Jesus and his present followers. Alfonso, however, would not admit the validity of this exculpation, and pledged himself to prove his charges against the Jews in a disputation. The king of Castile thereupon commanded the representatives of the Valladolid community to enter upon a religious discussion with the sacristan. It took place in the presence of public officials and Dominicans. Here Alfonso Burgensis repeated his accusations, and was victorious, inasmuch as, in consequence of this disputation, King Alfonso issued an edict (25th February, 1336) forbidding the Castilian communities, under penalty of a fine, to use the condemned prayer or formula of imprecation. Thus the enemies of the Jews succeeded in winning over the king, who was really well-disposed towards the Jews. More ominous events were to happen.

      King Alfonso was not very constant; he transferred his favor from one person to another. He took into his confidence a man unworthy of the distinction, named Gonzalo Martinez (Nuñez) de Oviedo, originally a poor knight, who had been promoted through the patronage of the Jewish favorite, Don Joseph of Ecija. Far from being grateful to his benefactor, he bore deep hatred against him who had thus raised him, and his hostile feeling extended to all Jews. When he had risen to the post of minister of the royal palace, and later to that of Grand Master of the Order of Alcantara (1337), he revealed his plan of annihilating the Jews. He lodged a formal charge against Don Joseph and Don Samuel Ibn-Wakar, to the effect that they had enriched themselves in the service of the king. He obtained the permission of the king to deal with them as he chose, so as to extort money from them. Thereupon Gonzalo ordered both of them, together with two brothers of Ibn-Wakar, and eight relatives with their families, to be thrown into prison, and confiscated their property. Don Joseph of Ecija died in prison, and Don Samuel died under the torture to which he was subjected. This did not satisfy the enemy of the Jews. He now sought to destroy two other Jews, who held high positions at court – Moses Abudiel and (Sulaiman?) Ibn-Yaish. He implicated them in a charge, pretending all the while to be friendly towards them. Through their downfall Gonzalo Martinez thought to carry into effect his wicked plan against the Castilian Jews without difficulty.

      The Moorish king of Morocco, Abulhassan (Alboacin), whose help was implored by his oppressed co-religionists in Granada, had sent a very large army under the command of his son, Abumelik, over the straits to undertake a vigorous campaign against Castile. On the reception of this news, terror spread throughout Christian Spain. King Alfonso forthwith appointed Gonzalo Martinez, Master of the Order of Alcantara, as general in charge of this war, and invested him with plenary power. But funds were wanting; at the deliberation on ways and means of procuring them, Gonzalo propounded his plan for depriving the Jews of their wealth, and then expelling them from Castile. By this means, large supplies of money would flow into the royal treasury; for all the Christians who were dunned by the Jews would willingly pay large sums of money to rid themselves of their enemies. Fortunately this proposal met with opposition in the royal council, and even from the most prominent clergyman in Castile, the archbishop of Toledo. The latter urged that the Jews were an inexhaustible treasure for the king, of which the state should not deprive itself, and that the rulers of Castile had guaranteed them protection and toleration. Don Moses Abudiel, who obtained information concerning the council held to decide on the weal or woe of the Jews, advised the congregations to institute public fasts, and to supplicate the God of their fathers to frustrate the wickedness of Gonzalo. The latter marched to the frontier against the Moorish army, and secured an easy victory. It happened, fortunately for the Spaniard, that the Moorish general, Abumelik, fell pierced by an arrow, and his army, filled with dismay at this event, was defeated and put to rout. The vainglory of the Grand Master of Alcantara now attained a high pitch. He thought to obtain such great importance in Spanish affairs that the king would be compelled to approve of all measures proposed by him. He was, indeed, filled with that pride which precedes a fall.

      The feeble hand of a woman was the cause of his downfall. The beautiful and sprightly Leonora de Guzman, who had so enthralled the king with her charms that he was more faithful to her than to his wife, hated the favorite Gonzalo Martinez, and succeeded in making the king believe that he spoke ill of him. Alfonso desiring to learn the real truth of the matter sent a command to Gonzalo to present himself before him in Madrid; he, however, disobeyed the royal command. To be able to defy the anger of the king, he stirred up the knights of the Order of Alcantara and the citizens of the towns assigned to his government, to rebel against his sovereign, entered into traitorous negotiations with the king of Portugal and with the enemy of the Christians, the king of Granada. Alfonso was forced to lead his nobles against him, and besiege him in Valencia de Alcantara. In mad defiance, Gonzalo directed arrows and missiles to be aimed at the king, which mortally wounded a man in the vicinity of Alfonso. But some of the knights of the Order of Alcantara forsook their Grand Master, and surrendered the stronghold to the king. There remained nothing for Gonzalo except to yield. He was condemned to death as a traitor, and was burnt at the stake (1336), and thus ended the man who had sworn to annihilate the Jews. The Castilian congregations thereupon celebrated a new festival of deliverance, in the same month in which the evil plans of Haman against the Jews had recoiled on his own head. Alfonso again received the Jews into his favor, and raised Moses Abudiel to a high position at his court. From this time till the day of his death, Alfonso XI acted justly towards his Jewish subjects.

      It may be thought that, under these on the whole favorable circumstances, the Jews occupied themselves with their intellectual culture, which had already developed its full blossom; but it was not so. Castile in particular, and all Spain, at this epoch, were very deficient in men who cultivated Jewish science. The Talmud constituted the only branch of study which intellectual men attended to, and even here there was no particular fertility. Decrease in strength manifested itself even in the study of the Talmud. The most famous rabbis of this period had so great a mistrust of their own powers that they no longer dared take an independent view of anything, and relied more and more upon the conclusions of older authorities. They made it very convenient for themselves by slavishly following Maimuni's Code in practical decisions, СКАЧАТЬ