JEWISH APOSTATES AND THE DISPUTATION AT TORTOSA.
The Marranos--The Satirists--Pero Ferrus of Alcala, Diego
de Valencia, and Villasandino--Astruc Raimuch and Solomon
Bonfed--Paul de Santa Maria and his Zealous Campaign against
the Jews--Joshua Ibn-Vives--Profiat Duran (Efodi)--Meïr
Alguades--The Philosophy of Crescas--Death of Henry III of
Castile and Unfavorable Change in the Position of the Jews--
Messianic Dreams of the Kabbalists--Jews seek an Asylum in
Northern Africa--Simon Duran--Geronimo de Santa Fé, Vincent
Ferrer and Benedict XIII--Anti-Jewish Edict of Juan II--
Special Jewish Costume--Conversion of Jews owing to Ferrer's
Violent Efforts--Disputation at Tortosa--The Jewish Spokesmen
at the Conference--Incidents of the Meeting--Geronimo
instigates the Publication of a Bull for the Burning of the
Talmud--Pope Martin V befriends the Jews.
1391-1420 C.E.
The baptized Jews who had abandoned their faith during the terrible
persecution of 1391 became a source of considerable trouble to their
Spanish brethren. They had embraced the cross only to save their lives,
or the lives of those dear to them; for, surely, they had found no
convincing demonstration of the truth of the Christian religion in
the violence of its missionaries, or in the death agonies of their
brethren in race who had perished rather than apostatize. Dazed and
broken-hearted, these forced converts (Anusim) to Christianity felt
more intense antipathy to their new religion than when they had been
openly opposed to it. It was natural for them to resolve to take the
first opportunity of casting away their disguise, and returning to
Judaism with increased zeal. Many of these new Christians emigrated to
the neighboring Moorish countries; to Granada or across the straits
to Morocco, Tunis, or Fez, where the people, wiser and more tolerant
than Christian Europe, gladly opened their doors to a wealthy and
industrious race. The majority, unable to leave Spanish territory,
yet averse to wholly discarding their ancient faith, joined in Jewish
ceremonies and celebrations whilst outwardly appearing Christians.
The kings of Castile, Aragon and Majorca, who had disapproved of
conversions by mob violence, allowed the Jews to do as they pleased.
The authorities either did not or would not see their relapse into
Judaism, and the Inquisition had not yet been established in Spain.
These forced converts gradually formed themselves into a peculiar
class, outwardly Christians, at heart Jews. By the populace, who
nicknamed them Marranos, or "The Damned," they were regarded with
more distrust and hatred than the openly observant Jews, not because
of their secret fidelity to Judaism, but on account of their descent
and inborn intelligence, energy, and skill. Baptized Jews, who had
been glad to disencumber themselves of their Judaism, shared in these
feelings of aversion. They were the worldlings who valued wealth, rank,
and luxury above religion, or the over-educated whose philosophy had
led them to skepticism, and whose selfishness induced them to welcome
a change which brought them out of the narrow confines of a small
community, and opened up a wider world to them. Their hearts had never
been with Judaism, and they had adhered to it only out of respect
or a certain compunction. To them, forced baptism was a relief from
chafing fetters, a welcome coercion to overcome scruples which had
always sat lightly upon them. For their own advantage they simulated
devotion to Christianity, but were on that account neither better nor
more religious men. The unscrupulous among them found special pleasure
in the persecution of their former religion and its followers. To
gratify their malice, they brought charges against rabbis and other
representative Jews, or any member of the community, thus endangering
the existence of the whole body of Jews in the country. It was bad
enough that the latter had been robbed of so many able and learned men
--physicians, authors, poets--and that the church had been enriched
by their wealth and intelligence; but these very forces were used to
inflict further mischief on the Jews that had remained steadfast.
Knowing the faults of their former brethren, the converts could easily
attack them. Don Pero Ferrus, a baptized Jew, made the community and
rabbis of Alcala the target for his ridicule. In a poem he represents
himself exhausted from want of sleep finding repose at last in the
synagogue of this town, when suddenly he is disturbed, and scared away
without mercy by "Jews with long beards and slovenly garments come
thither for early morning prayer." A sharp rejoinder to this effort of
Ferrus' "buffoon tongue" was put forth by a Jewish poet in the name
of the Alcala community. Spanish poetry reaped considerable advantage
from these passages at arms. Verse, up to that period starched, solemn,
and stately as the punctilious ceremonial of the Madrid court, in the
hands of Judæo-Christian satirists acquired the flexibility, wit and
merriment of neo-Hebraic poetry at its best. This tone and style were
gradually adopted by Christian poets, who borrowed expressions from
Jewish writers to give point to their epigrams. Not only the apostate,
the monk, Diego de Valencia, used Hebrew words in lampoons on the Jews,
but the same practice was adopted with surprising dexterity by the
Christian satirist, Alfonso Alvarez de Villasandino, the "poet prince"
of his day. A malicious critic might have been inclined to say that
Spanish poetry was in process of being Judaized.
A few of the new-Christians showed as active a zeal in the propagation
of Christianity as if they had been born Dominicans, or as if they felt
isolated in their new faith among the old Christians, and yearned for
the companionship of their former friends. A newly-baptized physician,
Astruc Raimuch, of Fraga, who, as a Jew, had been a pillar of
orthodoxy, exerted himself to make converts, taking to himself the name
of Francisco God-flesh (Dios-Carne). He spread his snares particularly
with a view to entrapping one of his young friends. A fluent writer of
Hebrew, Astruc-Francisco drew up a letter in that language, dwelling on
the decline of Judaism and enthusiastically propounding the dogmas of
Christianity. His applications of Biblical texts to the doctrines of
the Trinity, Original Sin, Redemption, and the Lord's Supper, appear
almost droll in Hebrew. His friend's answer was meek and evasive, every
word carefully weighed to avoid offending the delicate sensibilities
of the church and its zealous servants. More spirited was the reply
of the satirical poet, Solomon ben Reuben Bonfed, who in rhymed prose
set himself to confute Astruc-Francisco's arguments with unsparing
incisiveness. Apologizing in his introduction for interfering between
two friends, he proceeded to point out that as a Jew the questions
discussed concerned him nearly, whilst the misstatements made rendered
it impossible for him to remain silent. Solomon Bonfed examined
somewhat minutely the dogmas of the Incarnation, Original Sin, and
Transubstantiation, showing them to be irrational and untenable. He
justly said: "You twist and distort the Bible text to establish the
Trinity. Had you a Quaternity, you would demonstrate it quite as
strikingly and convincingly from the books of the Old Testament."
Of all the Jews baptized in 1391, however, none inflicted so much
injury on his former brethren as Rabbi Solomon Levi of Burgos (born
1351-1352, died 1435), who as a Christian rose to very important
ecclesiastical and political dignities under the name of Paul
Burgensis, or de Santa Maria. Previous to his change of creed he
had been a rabbi, and he was well versed in Biblical, Talmudical,
and Rabbinical literature. As a Jew he was extremely orthodox and
punctilious, passing in his own circle for a pillar of the faith. His
nature was, however, shrewd and calculating. Ambitious and vain to the
last degree, he soon began to regard as too narrow his sphere of action
within the walls of the college, which during a long period counted him
amongst its students and teachers. He longed for a life of bustling
activity. To obtain a state appointment, he sought access to court, and
began to live like a grandee, with equipage and horses and numerous
retinue. It was his ambition to become a Jewish Almoxarif or even to
obtain a higher appointment. His occupations bringing him into daily
contact with Christians, and frequently involving him in religious
controversies, he devoted some attention to church literature, in
order to be able to make a display of learning. The massacres of 1391
dissipated his last hope of obtaining high preferment as a Jew, and
he consequently resolved, in his fortieth year, to be baptized. To
derive the best advantage from his conversion, the new Christian,
Paul de Santa Maria, caused it to be understood that he had embraced
Christianity willingly, as a result of the convincing arguments put
forth in the theological writings of the schoolman Thomas Aquinas. The
Jews received such protestations with distrust. Knowing him well, they
did not scruple to ascribe his conversion to a craving for rank and
power. After his change of creed, his family, wife and sons, renounced
him.
For a commoner, the only road to high office lay through the church.
Solomon-Paul knew this well, and at once proceeded to Paris and
attended the University, where he pursued theology. His knowledge
of Hebrew gave him a great advantage, and helped him to distinguish
himself. It was not long before the quondam rabbi became a duly
ordained Catholic priest. Then he betook himself to the papal court
at Avignon, where the haughty, obstinate, and proselytizing cardinal,
Pedro de Luna, reigned as anti-pope under the title of Benedict XIII.
Here, during the stormy church schism, favorable opportunities for
intrigue and personal advancement presented themselves. Paul won the
pope's favor by his shrewdness, zeal, and eloquence. He was appointed
archdeacon of Trevinjo and canon of Seville, his first steps on the
ladder of the Catholic hierarchy. He abandoned himself to the most
ambitious dreams: he might become a bishop, a cardinal, and why not
the pope? The times were propitious. He boasted that he was descended
from the most ancient and the noblest branch of the Hebrew race, the
tribe of Levi, the same that had given birth to Mary, the mother of
Jesus. He was not an ordinary priest sprung from the people, but had
ancestors bound to be acknowledged and distinguished by the church. On
the recommendation of the pope, he was later on overwhelmed with honors
and favors by the king of Castile, Don Henry III, and his ambition was
satisfied.
The apostasy of so respected a rabbi as Solomon Burgensis not only
created the greatest astonishment among Jews, but filled them with
anxiety. Would this example not find imitators in a time of so much
trouble and temptation? Would it not bias waverers, or at least
encourage pretending Christians to persevere in the course begun? The
prevailing disquietude was increased when it was found that after
his own conversion Paul considered it his duty to convert his former
co-religionists. To this end he left no stone unturned. With voice
and pen he assailed Judaism, seeking his weapons in Jewish literature
itself. Not long after his conversion he addressed a letter to his
former acquaintance, Joseph (José) Orabuena, physician in ordinary
to King Charles III of Navarre, and chief rabbi of the Navarrese
communities, in which he stated that he acknowledged and honored Jesus
as the Messiah whose advent had been foretold by the prophets, and
invited Orabuena to follow his example. To another chief rabbi, Don
Meïr Alguades, physician in ordinary to the Castilian king, Don Henry
III, Paul de Santa Maria addressed a Hebrew satire in prose and verse,
in which he ridiculed the innocent celebration of the Jewish feast of
Purim. As if grudging the Jews the moderate pleasures in which they
indulged during this festival, he exaggerated their love of drink, and
boasted of his own sobriety. Paul evinces in this satire considerable
skill in handling the new-Hebrew language, but, notwithstanding his
opportunities, he exhibits little wit.
As soon as he had acquired a position at the papal court at Avignon, he
devoted himself to calumniating the Jews with a view to bringing about
new persecutions. His purpose became so obvious that the cardinal of
Pampeluna himself, and other ecclesiastics, ordered him to desist. It
is true the Jews had to pay dearly for his silence. He also intrigued
against Chasdaï Crescas. So far did this apostate carry his enmity
to Judaism that he advised the king, Don Henry III, to abstain from
employing both Jews and new-Christians in state offices. Did he wish
to render impossible the rivalry of some fellow-Hebrew, his superior
in adroitness? In his writings Paul de Santa Maria exhibited as much
hatred of Judaism as of Jews. While the Franciscan monk, Nicholas
de Lyra, a born Christian, held up the works of Jewish commentators
like Rashi as models of simple exegesis, the former rabbi found
every observation of a Rabbinical writer insipid, nonsensical, and
scandalous. On the other hand, the most ridiculous commentary of a
church writer was to him a lofty, unsurpassable work.
Thoughtful Jews were not slow to recognize their bitterest foe in
this new-Christian, and they prepared for a severe struggle with him,
notwithstanding that their choice of weapons was limited. Christians
were not only free to say what they pleased in demonstration and
defense of their doctrines, but could appeal to the summary authority
of the sword and the dungeon. Jews were forced to all kinds of
circumlocution and ambiguity to avoid provoking the violence of their
adversaries. The gallant stand of a mere handful of Jews against power
and arrogance should excite the admiration of all whose sympathies are
not with victorious tyranny, but with struggling right.
The campaign against Paul de Santa Maria was opened by a young man,
Joshua ben Joseph Ibn-Vives of Lorca (Allorqui), a physician and an
Arabic scholar, who had formerly sat at the feet of the renegade
rabbi. In an humble epistle, as though a docile pupil were addressing
an illustrious master, Joshua Allorqui administered many a delicate
reproof to his apostate teacher, and at the same time, by his naïve
doubts, dealt destructive blows at the fundamental doctrines of
Christianity. He observes in his introduction that the conversion of
his beloved teacher had to him more than to others been a source of
astonishment and reflection, as his example had been a main support
of his own religious belief. He was at a loss to conceive the motives
of the sudden change. He could not think that he had been led away by
desire for worldly distinction, "for I well remember," he says, "how,
surrounded by riches and attendants, thou didst yearn for thy former
humble state with its life of retirement and study, and how it was thy
wont to speak of thy high position as empty mockery of happiness." Nor
could he suppose that Paul's Jewish convictions had been disturbed
by philosophic doubt, as up to the moment of his baptism he had
conscientiously observed all the ceremonial laws, and had known how to
discriminate between the kernel of philosophic truth which harmonizes
with religion and the pernicious shell which so often passes for the
real teaching. Could it be that the sanguinary persecution of the Jews
had led him to doubt the possibility of the enduring power of Judaism?
But even this theory was untenable, for Paul could not be unaware
of the fact that only a minority of Jews live under Christian rule,
that the larger numbers sojourn in Asia, and enjoy a certain degree
of independence; so that if it pleased God to allow the communities
in Christian lands to be extirpated, the Jewish race would not by any
means disappear from the face of the earth. There remained, continued
Joshua Vives of Lorca, the assumption that Paul had carefully studied
Christianity, and had come to the conclusion that its dogmas were well
founded. He begged him, therefore, to impart to him the convictions at
which he had arrived, and thus dissipate the doubts which he (Joshua)
still entertained as to the truth of Christianity. Allorqui then
detailed the nature of his doubts, covertly but forcibly attacking the
Christian system. Every sentence in this epistle was calculated to cut
the Jew-hating new-Christian to the quick. The evasive and embarrassed
reply, which Paul indited later on, clearly indicated how he had winced
under this attack.
The philosopher, Chasdaï Crescas, also came forward in gallant defense
of the religion of his fathers. He composed (1396) a polemical treatise
(Tratado), in which he tested philosophically the Christian articles of
faith, and demonstrated their untenableness. This work was addressed
to Christians more than to Jews, and was particularly intended for the
perusal of Spaniards of high rank whose friendship Chasdaï Crescas
enjoyed. Hence it was written not in Hebrew but in Spanish, which
the author employed with ease, and its tone was calm and moderate.
Chasdaï Crescas set forth the unintelligibility of the doctrines of
the Fall, the Redemption, the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Immaculate
Conception, and Transubstantiation, and examined the value of baptism,
the coming of Jesus, and the relation of the New Testament to the Old,
with dispassionate deliberation, as if he did not know that he was
dealing with questions which might at any moment light the fires of an
auto-da-fé.
At about the same time an accomplished Marrano, who had relapsed
into Judaism, published a pungent attack on Christianity and the
new-Christians. In the entire history of Judæo-Christian controversy no
such stinging satire had been produced on the Jewish side as that now
issued by the physician, astronomer, historical student, and grammarian
Profiat Duran. During the bloody persecution of 1391 in Catalonia,
Profiat Duran, otherwise Isaac ben Moses, or, as he called himself in
his works, Efodi (Ephodæus), had been forced to simulate conversion
to Christianity. He was joined by his friend David Bonet Buen-Giorno.
Both resolved at a convenient opportunity to abandon their hated
mask and emigrate to Palestine, where they could freely acknowledge
Judaism. Their affairs being arranged, Profiat Duran traveled to a
seaport town in the south of France, and there awaited his friend.
The latter, in the meantime, was sought out by or came across the
Jew-hating apostate, Solomon Paul de Santa Maria, and was prevailed
upon to remain a Christian. What was Profiat Duran's astonishment when
he received a letter announcing, with much exultant vaporing, the
definite acknowledgment of Christianity by En Bonet, who exhorted him
also to remain in the pale of his adopted faith. The letter contained
an enthusiastic panegyric of Paul de Santa Maria, who had been taken
into the favor of the king of Castile. Profiat Duran could not remain
silent. In reply, he inflicted punishment on his friend, and more
particularly on the proselytizing Paul, in an epistle characterized
by the keenest irony, which has not yet lost its sting. It pretends
to assent to everything advanced by Bonet, and to confirm him in his
resolve to remain a Christian. "Be not ye like your fathers" (Altehi
ka-Abothecha) is the refrain throughout, and so artfully is this
admonition employed that Christians used it (under the title Alteca
Boteca) as an apology for Christianity. Whilst thus pretending to
criticise the errors of the older faith, Profiat Duran dwells on the
Christian dogmas, naïvely describing them in their most reprehensible
form. He concentrates on the weaknesses of Christianity the full light
of reason, Scriptural teaching and philosophic deduction, apparently
with no desire to change his friend's intention. A portion of the
satire is directed against the Jew-hater Paul de Santa Maria, upon
whom Bonet had bestowed unstinted praise. "Thou art of opinion that he
may succeed in becoming pope, but thou dost not inform me whether he
will go to Rome, or remain at Avignon"--a cutting reference to the
papal schism distracting the church. "Thou extollest him for having
made efforts to free Jewish women and children from the obligation of
wearing the Jew badge. Take the glad tidings to the women and children.
For myself, I have been told that he preached mischief against the
Jews, and that the cardinal of Pampeluna was compelled to order him
to be silent. Thou art of opinion that he, thy teacher, will soon
receive the miter or a cardinal's hat. Rejoice, for then thou also
must acquire honors, and wilt become a priest or a Levite." Towards
the end Profiat Duran changes irony into a tone of seriousness: he
prays his former friend not to bear as a Christian the name of his
respected father who, had he been alive, would sooner have had no son
than one faithless to his religion. As it is, his soul in Paradise
will bewail the faithlessness of his son. This satirical epistle was
circulated as a pamphlet. Its author sent copies not only to his former
friend, but also to the physician of the king of Castile, the chief
rabbi, Don Meïr Alguades. So telling was the effect produced, that the
clergy, as soon as they discovered its satirical character, made it the
subject of judicial inquiry, and committed it to the flames. At the
request of Chasdaï Crescas, Profiat Duran wrote another anti-Christian
work, not, however, a satire, but in the grave language of historical
investigation. In this essay he showed, from his intimate acquaintance
with the New Testament and the literature of the church, how in course
of time Christianity had degenerated.
Favored and promoted by the anti-pope, Benedict XIII, of Avignon, Paul
of Burgos rose higher and higher; he became bishop of Carthagena,
chancellor of Castile and privy counselor to the king, Don Henry III.
His malice did not succeed in prejudicing the king against the Jews,
or inducing him to bar them from state employment. Don Henry had two
Jewish physicians, in whom he reposed especial confidence. One, Don
Meïr Alguades, an astronomer and philosopher, he appointed, perhaps in
imitation of Portugal, to the chief rabbinate of the various Castilian
communities. He was always in the king's train, and it is probable that
to some extent he influenced him favorably towards his co-religionists.
The other was Don Moses Zarzel (Çarçal), who celebrated in rich Spanish
verse the long wished for birth of an heir to the Castilian throne,
borrowing the beauties of the neo-Hebraic poetry to do honor to the
newly-born prince, in whose hands, he prophesied, the various states
of the Pyrenean Peninsula would be united. The calm, as between two
storms, which the Spanish Jews enjoyed during the reign of Don Henry
was favorable to the production of a few literary fruits, almost the
last of any importance brought forth in Spain. None of these works was
epoch-making; they were useful, however, in keeping alive the spirit
of better times, and in preventing the treasures of Jewish literature
from being forgotten. Profiat Duran managed to make people forget
his baptism and to settle down quietly in Spain or Perpignan, where
he commentated Maimuni's philosophy, and some of Ibn-Ezra's works.
He also composed a mathematical and calendarial essay (Chesheb-Efod)
and an historical account of the persecutions to which his race
had been subjected since the dispersion. His best work is a Hebrew
grammar ("Maasé Efod," written about 1403), in which he summarizes the
results of older writers, rectifies their errors, and even attempts to
formulate the principles of Hebrew syntax.
A production of more than common merit was written by Chasdaï Crescas,
now on the brink of the grave, his spirits shattered by persecution. He
was a profound, comprehensive thinker, whose mind never lost itself in
details, but was forever striving to comprehend the totality of things.
His scheme for a work treating, in the manner of Maimuni, of all phases
and aspects of Judaism, investigating the ideas and laws out of which
Jewish teaching had gradually developed, and reharmonizing the details
with the whole where the connection had ceased to be apparent, bears
witness to the extraordinary range of his learning and the perspicacity
of his mind. The work was to be at once a guide to Talmudical study
and a practical handbook. Death appears to have prevented the
accomplishment of this gigantic enterprise, only the philosophic
portion, or introduction, being completed. In this introduction Chasdaï
Crescas deals, on the one hand, with the principles of universal
religion, the existence of God, His omniscience and providence,
human free-will, the design of the universe, and, on the other, with
the fundamental truths of Judaism, the doctrines of the creation,
immortality, and the Messiah.
Crescas was less dominated by the Aristotelian bias of mediæval
philosophy than his predecessors. It had lost its halo for him; he
perceived its weaknesses more clearly than others, and probed them more
deeply. With bold hands he tore down the supports of the vast edifice
of theory constructed by Maimuni on Aristotelian grounds to demonstrate
the existence of God and His relation to the universe, and, conversant
with the whole method of scholastic philosophy, he combated it with
destructive force.
While the philosophy of his day appeared to him thus vague and
illusory, he considered the foundations of Judaism unassailable, and
set himself to show the futility of the criticisms of the former. The
acknowledgment of Divine omniscience led him to the daring statement
that man in his actions is not quite free, that everything is the
necessary result of a preceding occurrence, and that every cause, back
to the very first, is bound to determine the character of the final
action. The human will does not follow blind choice, but is controlled
by a chain of antecedent circumstances and causes. To what extent can
the doctrine of reward and punishment be admitted, if the will is not
free? Chasdaï Crescas' answer to this is that reward and punishment
wait on intentions, not on actions. He who, in purity of heart, wishes
to accomplish good--which must, of course, necessarily follow--
deserves to be rewarded, as the man who willingly promotes evil,
deserves punishment. The highest good to which man can aspire, and the
end of all creation, is spiritual perfection, or bliss everlasting,
not to be obtained, as the philosophers imagine, by filling the mind
with metaphysical theories, but only through the active love of God.
This is the substance of all religion and particularly of Judaism. From
this point of view it may with justice be said that "the world was
created for the sake of the Torah," for the aim of the Law is to lead
to immortality by means of ideas and commandments and the guidance of
thoughts and actions.
Chasdaï Crescas, the first to distinguish between universal religion
and specific forms, such as Judaism and Christianity, propounded,
deviating from Maimuni's system, only eight peculiarly Jewish tenets.
His just objection to Maimuni's thirteen articles of faith was that
they were either too many or too few, inasmuch as they blended
indiscriminately fundamental truths common to all religions, and
teachings peculiar to Judaism.
Together with Profiat Duran and Chasdaï Crescas, Don Meïr Alguades,
the Castilian chief rabbi, appeared, in the brief interval between
two bloody persecutions in Spain, as a writer of philosophic works.
He was not an independent inquirer; he merely translated the ethics
of Aristotle (1405, in collaboration with Benveniste Ibn-Labi) into
Hebrew, making the work accessible to Jews, who, in practical life,
lived up to its principles better than the Greeks, who produced them,
or the Christians, who, in the pride of faith and church doctrine,
considered themselves above the necessity of conforming to the
requirements of morality.
Throughout the reign of Don Henry III of Castile the life of the Jews
was tolerable. The young but vigorous monarch severely punished Fernan
Martinez, the prime mover in the massacres of 1391, as a warning
against further excesses. He permitted the Jews to acquire land,
renewed the law of his ancestor, Alfonso XI, and relieved his Jewish
tax-farmers and finance administrators from restrictions. As soon
as he died (the end of 1406) the affairs of the Jews again took an
unfavorable turn, foreshadowing unhappy times. The heir to the crown,
Juan II, was a child, barely two years old. The regency devolved on
the queen-mother, Catalina (Catherine) of Lancaster, a capricious,
arrogant and bigoted young woman, who imagined that she ruled, while
she was herself ruled by her various favorites. The co-regent, Don
Ferdinand, later king of Aragon, who was intelligent and kind, allowed
himself to be guided by the clergy. By his side in the council of
state sat the apostate rabbi, Solomon _alias_ Paul de Santa Maria,
another and more mischievous Elisha-Acher, in whose eyes Judaism was
an abomination, and every Jew a stumbling-block. The deceased king,
Don Henry III, had appointed him executor of his will and tutor to
his heir; he consequently had an influential voice in the council of
the regency. What a prospect for the Jews of Castile! It was not long
before they were made to feel the hostile spirit of the court. First it
exhibited itself in attempts to humiliate the more notable Jews who had
intercourse with the court circle and the grandees of the kingdom, and
occupied positions of distinction. The intention was to dismiss them
from these positions with the reminder that they belonged to a despised
caste.
An edict was issued (October 25th, 1408), in the name of the infant
king, reviving the anti-Jewish statutes of the code of Alfonso the
Wise. "Whereas the exercise of authority by Jews may conduce to the
prejudice of the Christian faith," their occupation of posts in which
they might possess such authority was forbidden for all future time.
Every Jew permitting himself to be invested with official functions,
either by a nobleman or a municipality, was to be fined twice the
amount of the revenue of such post, and, if his fortune did not suffice
to make up the required amount, it would be confiscated, and the
delinquent become liable to a punishment of fifty lashes. A Christian
appointing a Jew to a post of influence would also be punished with
a fine. To insure the working of the edict, it was enacted that the
informer and the court of law concerned in a case should secure each
one-third of the confiscated estates. Officials were charged to make
the edict known everywhere, and carefully to watch that its injunctions
were carried out. It is impossible not to suspect the hand of Paul de
Santa Maria in this decree. No one knew better than he the strong and
the weak points in the character of the Spanish Jews, and he doubtless
calculated that Jewish notables, in danger of losing their official
employment and high social position, would go over to Christianity,
while the faithful, excluded from intercourse with Christian society
and from participation in the public life of the country, would suffer
a decline similar to that of the German Jews.
At the same time he vented his hate on Meïr Alguades, the physician
of the dead king. The queen-regent had no cause to injure this Jewish
notable; only Paul could desire his ruin, because he was the mainstay
of his opponents and the leader of those who held him up to contempt.
With the object of procuring his downfall, a vindictive accusation
was trumped up against him. While the queen-mother, with the infant
king, was staying at Segovia, some priests charged a Jew of the town
with having bought a consecrated host from the sacristan, in order
to blaspheme it. They further stated that the holy wafer had worked
such terrible wonders while in the possession of the Jew, that in fear
and trembling he had delivered it up to the prior of a monastery.
Whether this story was fabricated, or whether there was a grain of
truth in a bushel of fiction, it is impossible to say; it sufficed,
however, to attract the serious attention of the bishop, Velasquez de
Tordesillas, who caused a number of Jews to be arrested as accomplices
in the crime, among them Don Meïr Alguades. Criminal proceedings were
formally commenced by order of the queen-regent, and Alguades and
his fellow-prisoners were subjected to torture, and confessed their
guilt. It is stated that in his agony Meïr Alguades made a confession
of another kind--that the king, Henry III, had come by his death
at his hands. Although everybody knew that the king had been ailing
from his youth, Don Mëir--who must have been specially interrogated
while under torture as to whether he had poisoned the king--was put
to death in the most inhuman manner. He was torn limb from limb. The
same fate befell the other prisoners. Still not satisfied, the bishop
of Segovia accused some Jews of having bribed his cook to poison his
food, and they also were put to death. At about this time one of the
synagogues in Segovia was transformed into a church.
The troubled times, projecting shadows of a still more unhappy future,
produced the melancholy phenomenon of another Messianic frenzy. Again
it arose in the minds of mystics. The Zohar having adroitly been raised
to the dignity of an approved authority, the Kabbala daily acquired
more influence, although it was not studied in proportion to the
zeal with which its authority was advocated. Three Kabbalists were
particularly active in exciting the emotions and turning the heads
of the people--Abraham of Granada, Shem Tob ben Joseph, and Moses
Botarel. The first composed (between 1391 and 1409) a Kabbalistic work,
a farrago of strange names of the Deity and the angels, of transposed
letters, and jugglery with vowels and accents. Abraham of Granada
had the hardihood to teach that those who could not apprehend God
by Kabbalistic methods belonged to the weak in faith, were ignorant
sinners, and like the depraved and the apostate were overlooked by
God, and not found worthy of His special providence. He thought that
the relinquishment of their religion by cultured Jews was explained by
their fatal application to scientific study, and their contempt for the
Kabbala. On the other hand, he professed to see in the persecutions of
1391, and in the conversion of so many prominent Jews to Christianity,
the tokens of the Messianic age, the suffering that must precede it,
and the approach of the redemption. Shem Tob ben Joseph Ibn-Shem Tob
(died 1430) accused the Jewish philosophers, Maimuni, Gersonides, and
others, of seducing the people to heresy and infidelity, and with
being the real cause of apostasy in troubled times. In a work entitled
"Emunoth" he made violent attacks on Jewish thinkers and philosophic
studies generally, and taught that the salvation of Israel lies in the
Kabbala, the oldest Jewish tradition, and the genuine, pure truth. The
entire book is composed of grave charges against the more enlightened
school of Jewish thinkers, and panegyrics of Kabbalistic nonsense.
These two men, Abraham of Granada and Shem Tob, though narrow-minded,
were sincere, differing in this respect from Moses Botarel (or
Botarelo), also a Spaniard, from Cisneros, in Castile, who pursued his
course with fraudulent intent. He gave out that he was a thaumaturge
and prophet; he announced himself even as the Messiah. He prophesied
that in the spring month of 1393 the Messianic age would be ushered
in by extraordinary marvels. Later on he wrote a work full of lies
and delusions. In his pride and boastfulness, he addressed a circular
letter to all the rabbis of Israel, declaring that he was in a position
to solve all doubts, and throw light on all mysteries, that he was
the chief of the great Synhedrin, and a great deal more in the same
charlatanic strain.
As in the days of the oppression by the Visigothic kings, an asylum for
persecuted Jews was formed on that portion of the African coast facing
Spain. Many of the north African towns, such as Algiers, Miliana,
Constantine, Buja, Oran, Tenes, and Tlemçen, were filled with Jews
fleeing from the massacres of 1391, and with new-Christians anxious to
get rid of the Christianity which they had been forced to embrace,
but which they hated cordially. Almost daily there came fresh troops
of refugees from all parts of Spain and Majorca. They transplanted
to their new fatherland their intelligence, wealth, industry, and
commercial enterprise. The Mahometan Berber princes, then more tolerant
and humane than the Christians, received them without imposing a poll
tax. At first the Mahometan population grumbled a little at so sudden
and considerable an increase in the number of inhabitants, fearing
that the price of provisions would be raised. When, however, the
narrow-mindedness and selfishness of their complaints were pointed out
to them by an intelligent kadi they were satisfied, and the Jews were
allowed to settle in their midst in peace. The small Berber communities
formed since the cessation of the Almohade persecution a century
before, acquired greater importance through this immigration. The
new-comers preponderated in numbers over the native Jews, so that the
latter, to a certain extent, were forced to adopt the Spanish communal
organization and the Sephardic ritual. The Spaniards, in fact, became
the leading element in the old African communities.
The distinguished rabbi, Isaac ben Sheshet-Barfat, who had escaped
from Spain and settled in Algiers, was recognized by the king of
Tlemçen as chief rabbi and judge of all the communities. This he owed
to the influence of one of his admirers, Saul Astruc Cohen, a popular
physician and an accomplished man, who not only practiced his art
gratuitously, but spent his fortune in relieving both Mahometan and
Jewish poor. In the name of the king the local rabbis were forbidden
to assume clerical or judicial functions without the authority of
the chief rabbi, Isaac ben Sheshet. This in no way detracted from
the esteem in which Ben Sheshet was held, and applications for the
decision of difficult questions continued to pour in upon him. In
Algiers he continued to oppose wrong-doing with the conscientiousness
and impartiality that had always characterized him. Among the members
of his community was a mischievous personage (Isaac Bonastruc?), who
had considerable influence with the Algerian authorities. Actuated
by self-interest he was desirous of stopping the daily increasing
immigration of Marranos, and to this end persuaded the kadi to
impose a tax of one doubloon on every immigrant. Finding that troops
of fugitives continued to arrive, he set himself to work upon the
selfishness of the community, so that they might oppose any further
influx of their brethren. Fifty-five new-Christians, who had recanted,
from Valencia, Barcelona, and Majorca, were waiting to land in the
harbor of Algiers, but were refused permission by Jews. This was
tantamount to throwing them on the mercy of Christian executioners.
Such selfishness and injustice the chief rabbi, Isaac ben Sheshet,
could not tolerate, and he laid the ban on the heartless Jews, who
tried to escape the punishment. So determined was his attitude that,
with the assistance of Astruc Cohen and his brother, the Marranos were
ultimately brought safe to land. In Africa Ben Sheshet-Barfat worked
for nearly twenty years, promoting the welfare of his co-religionists
and the interests of religion and morality. His declining years were
embittered by the persistent attacks of a young rabbi, Simon ben Zemach
Duran, an able Talmudist, who had emigrated from Majorca.
Ben Sheshet was succeeded on his death by Simon Duran (born 1361, died
1444). The community of Algiers elected him on condition that he did
not seek a ratification of his appointment from the king, probably
because the authority derived by his predecessor from the royal
confirmation had been too uncontrolled. Simon Duran, an accomplished
mathematician and physician, was the first Spanish-Jewish rabbi to
take pay. He publicly excused himself for doing so, on the ground of
his necessitous circumstances. During the persecutions in Majorca a
portion of his large fortune had been lost, and the remainder had been
sacrificed in bribing the informers who threatened to deliver him as a
Judaizing Christian to the Dominican Moloch. He had arrived in Algiers
almost a beggar, and the healing art, by which he had hoped to earn a
subsistence, had brought him nothing, physicians enjoying but little
consideration among the Berbers. Subsequently Simon Duran justified
the payment of rabbis from the Talmud. Were the abbots, bishops, and
princes of the church equally conscientious?
As if the Jews of Spain had not had enough enemies in the poor,
indolent burghers and nobles, who regarded their opulence with so much
jealousy, in the clergy, who cloaked their immorality with zeal for
the propaganda of the faith, or in the upstart converts, who sought
to disguise their Jewish origin by a show of hatred of their former
brethren, there arose at about the beginning of the fifteenth century
three new Jew-haters of the bitterest, most implacable type. One was
a baptized Jew, another a Dominican friar, and the third an abandoned
anti-pope. On these three men, Joshua Lorqui, Fra Vincent Ferrer, and
Pedro de Luna, or Benedict XIII, the responsibility must rest for the
events which directly conduced to the most terrible tragedy in the
history of the Jews of Spain. Joshua Lorqui of Lorca assumed on his
baptism the name Geronimo de Santa Fé, became physician in ordinary
to the Avignon pope, Benedict, and, like his teacher, Solomon-Paul
de Santa Maria, considered it his mission in life to draw his former
brethren over to Christianity by every possible means. Vincent Ferrer,
afterwards canonized, was one of those gloomy natures to whom the
world appears a vale of tears, and who would wish to make it one. In
saint-like virtue, indeed, he stood alone among the clergy and monks
of his day. The pleasures of life had no charm for him; for gold
and worldly distinction he thirsted not; he was penetrated with true
humility, and entered on his work with earnestness. Unfortunately, the
degeneracy and foulness of society had impressed him with the fantastic
idea that the end of the world was at hand, and that mankind could
be saved only by adopting the Christian faith and a monastic mode of
life. Vincent Ferrer consequently revived flagellation. He marched
through the land with a troop of fanatics who scourged their naked
bodies with knotted cords, and incited the masses to adopt the same
form of penance, believing that it would bring about the salvation of
the world. Gifted with a sympathetic voice, an agreeable manner, and
considerable eloquence, this Dominican friar soon obtained ascendancy
over the public mind. When amid sobs he recalled the sufferings of
Jesus, and depicted the approaching end of the world, the emotions of
his auditors became violently agitated, and he could lead them to good
or to evil. He had given up a high position at the papal court to lead
the life of a flagellant and barefooted friar. This helped to increase
the number of his admirers and disciples, for renunciation of position
and wealth on the part of an ecclesiastic was without parallel. Ferrer,
however, abused his power by the promotion of sanguinary deeds.
He directed his fanatical denunciations not only against Jews and
heretics, but even against friends who had helped to raise him from the
dust. The terrible demoralization of the church is illustrated in this
monk. The wrangling of three contemporary popes, each declaring himself
to be the vicegerent of God, one of whom, John XXIII (1410-1415),
had exhausted the catalogue of vices and deadly sins, a pirate, a
trafficker in indulgences, an assassin, and a debauchee--all this did
not so strikingly indicate the prevailing degeneracy as the fanatical
excesses of one really pure, moral nature like Vincent Ferrer. The
dove had become transformed into a venomous snake, the lamb into a
rapacious beast. So much viciousness cannot be spontaneous in human
character, in the adherents of Christianity; it must have been derived
from the Christian teaching itself.
Unlike Wycliffe and other reformers, Ferrer did not raise his voice
against the shortcomings of the church, but devoted himself to Jews
and heretics, whom he hated as adversaries of Christianity and
opponents of the infallibility of the pope. With pen and voice he
opened a crusade against Jews, which he sustained for several years.
His most vehement invective was aimed at the Spanish new-Christians,
who during the massacres of 1391 had gone over to the church, but
still largely conformed to Judaism. Partly from fear of incurring the
severe punishment attaching to apostasy, partly won over by the fiery
eloquence of the preacher, the Marranos made a contrite confession
of faith, which Ferrer regarded as a great victory for the church, a
triumph for the truths of Christianity, leading him to hope that the
conversion of the entire body of Jews might be vouchsafed to him. By
his influence with the people, who honored him as a saint, he was very
useful to the kings of Spain in putting down popular risings during the
civil wars without bloodshed. Encouraged by the consideration of the
Castilian royal family, Ferrer craved permission not only to preach
in the synagogues and mosques, but to force Jews and Mahometans to
listen to his addresses. A crucifix in one arm, the Torah in the other,
escorted by flagellants and spearmen, he called upon the Jews, "with a
terrible voice," to enrol themselves under the cross.
Seraphic as he was, Vincent Ferrer was not averse to the employment of
force. He represented to the Spanish rulers that the Jews should be
strictly isolated, as their intercourse with the Christian population
was calculated to injure the true faith. His suggestions met with
too ready a response. Through him and the other two conversionists,
unspeakable sorrows were brought upon the Spanish Jews; indeed,
the years from 1412 to 1415 may be reckoned among the saddest in
the sorrowful history of the Jewish people. Shortly after Ferrer's
appearance at the most Christian court, the regent Donna Catalina, the
Infante Don Ferdinand, and the apostate Paul Burgensis de Santa Maria,
in the name of the child-king, Juan II, issued an edict of twenty-four
articles (January 12th, 1412), the aim of which was to impoverish
and humiliate the Jews, and reduce them to the lowest grade in the
social scale. It ordered that they should live in special Jew-quarters
(Juderias), provided with not more than one gate each, under pain of
confiscation of fortune and personal chastisement. No handicraft was to
be exercised by them; they were not to practice the healing art, nor
transact business with Christians. It goes without saying that they
were forbidden to hire Christian servants and fill public offices.
Their judicial autonomy was abolished, not only in criminal cases, in
which they had long ceased to exercise it, but also in civil disputes.
The edict prescribed a special costume for the Jews. Both men and women
were to wear long garments, in the case of males, of coarse stuffs.
Whoever dressed in the national costume, or in fine materials, became
liable to a heavy fine; on a repetition of the offense, to corporal
punishment and confiscation of property. The wearing of the red Jew
badge was, of course, insisted upon. Males were prohibited from shaving
the beard or cutting the hair under pain of one hundred lashes. No Jew
was to be addressed, either in conversation or in writing, by the title
"Don," to the infringement of which a heavy fine was also attached.
They were interdicted from carrying weapons, and might no longer move
from town to town, but were to be fixed to one place of abode. The Jew
detected in an evasion of the latter restriction was to lose his entire
property, and be made a bondman of the king. Grandees and burghers were
sternly enjoined to afford not the slightest protection to Jews.
It is not unwarrantable to assume the influence of the apostate Paul
de Santa Maria in the details of these Jew-hating laws. They singled
out the most sensitive features of the Jewish character, pride and
sense of honor. Wealthy Jews, in the habit of appearing in magnificent
attire and with smoothly-shaven chins, were now to don a disfiguring
costume, and go about with stubbly, ragged beards. The cultivated, who
as physicians and advisers of the grandees had enjoyed unrestricted
intercourse with the highest ranks, were to confine themselves to
their Jew quarter, or be baptized, baptism being the hoped-for result
of all these cruel restrictions, enforced with merciless vigor. A
contemporary writer (Solomon Alami) describes the misery caused by the
edict: "Inmates of palaces were driven into wretched nooks, and dark,
low huts. Instead of rustling apparel we were obliged to wear miserable
clothes, which drew contempt upon us. Prohibited from shaving the
beard, we had to appear like mourners. The rich tax-farmers sank into
want, for they knew no trade by which they could gain a livelihood, and
the handicraftsmen found no custom. Starvation stared everyone in the
face. Children died on their mothers' knees from hunger and exposure."
Amid this tribulation the Dominican Ferrer invaded the synagogues,
crucifix in hand, preached Christianity in a voice of thunder, offering
his hearers enjoyment of life and opportunities of preferment, or
threatening damnation here and hereafter. The Christian populace,
inflamed by the passionate eloquence of the preacher, emphasized his
teaching by violent assaults on the Jews. The trial was greater than
the unhappy Castilian Jews could bear. Flight was out of the question,
for the law forbade it under a terrible penalty. It is not surprising,
then, that the weak and lukewarm among them, the comfort-loving and
worldly-minded, succumbed to the temptation, and saved themselves by
baptism. Many Jews in the communities of Valladolid, Zamora, Salamanca,
Toro, Segovia, Avila, Benavente, Leon, Valencia, Burgos, Astorga, and
other small towns, in fact, wherever Vincent Ferrer preached, went
over to Christianity. Several synagogues were turned into churches
by Ferrer. In the course of his four months' sojourn (December,
1412-March, 1413) in the kingdom of Castile, this proselyte-monger
inflicted wounds upon the Jews from which they bled to death.
When, however, he repaired to the kingdom of Aragon--summoned thither
to advise on the rival claims of several pretenders to the throne--
and when through his exertion the Castilian Infante, Don Ferdinand,
was awarded the Aragonese crown (June, 1414), a trifling improvement
took place in the condition of the Castilian Jews. The regent, Donna
Catalina, issued a new edict in the name of her son (17th July).
In this document the Jews were still interdicted the exercise of
handicrafts, but were allowed, under a multitude of conditions, to
visit markets with their merchandise. The prohibition to hire Christian
or Mahometan domestics was confirmed; but, on the other hand, the
employment of day-laborers and gardeners for the fields and vineyards
of Jews, and shepherds for their flocks, was permitted. The new law
triflingly allowed Jews to trim their hair and to clip with shears, but
not entirely remove, their beards; a fringe of hair was ordered to be
left on the chin, and shaving with the razor was forbidden, as though
the queen-regent and her sage counselors were anxious that Jewish
orthodoxy should not be wronged. The new decree conceded the wearing of
dress materials of a value of sixty maravedis (under the former edict
the value had been fixed at half this sum), but imposed a funnel-shaped
head-covering, to which it was forbidden to attach tassels. The
vehemence with which the edict declaimed against the ostentation of
Jewish women disclosed its female authorship. Under this decree,
freedom of domicile was once more accorded to Jews. It is noteworthy
that the new edict applied only to Jews, whereas its predecessor
restricted Mahometans as well.
With the transfer of the fanatical Ferrer to Aragon, the communities
of that kingdom began to experience trials and misfortunes. The
newly-elected king, Don Ferdinand, owed his crown to Ferrer, for as
arbitrator between the rival pretenders he had warmly espoused his
cause, proclaimed him king, and united the populace in his favor.
Ferdinand consequently paid exceptional veneration to his saintliness,
appointed him his father-confessor and spiritual adviser, and granted
him his every wish. Foremost among Ferrer's aspirations was the
conversion of the Jews, and to advance it the king commanded the Jews
of Aragon to give every attention to his discourses. The zealous
proselytizer made a tour of the kingdom, vehemently denouncing the Jews
in every town he visited. His intimidations succeeded in converting a
large number, particularly in Saragossa, Daroca, Tortosa, Valencia, and
Majorca. Altogether Ferrer's mission to the Jews of Castile and Aragon
is said to have resulted in not less than 20,500 forced baptisms.
This, however, did not end the woes of Spanish Jews. Pope Benedict XIII
had still worse troubles in store for them, employing as his instrument
his newly-baptized Jewish physician, Joshua Lorqui, otherwise Geronimo
de Santa Fé. This pope, deposed by the council of Pisa as schismatic,
heretic and forsworn, deprived of his spiritual functions and put
under the ban, projected the conversion of the entire body of Jews in
Spain to the church, at that time the object of universal opprobrium.
On the Pyrenean peninsula he was still regarded as the legitimate pope,
and from this base of operations he used every effort to procure a
general acknowledgment of his authority. He was not slow to perceive
that the general conversion of the Jews would powerfully assist his
design. If it were vouchsafed to him to overcome at last the obstinacy,
blindness and infidelity of Israel, and to bring it under the
sovereignty of the cross--would it not be the greatest triumph for
the church and for himself? Would it not put all his enemies to shame?
Would not the faithful range themselves under the pope who had so
glorified the church? What better proof could he give that he was the
only true pontiff?
To promote this scheme, Benedict, by the authority of the king, Don
Ferdinand, summoned (towards the end of 1412) the most learned rabbis
and students of Scripture in the kingdom of Aragon to a religious
disputation at Tortosa. The apostate Joshua Lorqui, who was well read
in Jewish literature, was to prove to the Jews, out of the Talmud
itself, that the Messiah had come in the person of Jesus. The design
was to operate on the most prominent Jews, the papal court being
convinced that, their conversion effected, the rank and file would
follow of their own accord. Geronimo carefully selected the names of
those to be invited, and the pope or the king attached a punishment to
their non-attendance. What were the Jews to do? To come or to remain
away, to accept or to refuse, was equally dangerous. About twenty-two
of the most illustrious Aragonese Jews answered the summons. At their
head was Don Vidal ben Benveniste Ibn-Labi (Ferrer), of Saragossa, a
scion of the old Jewish nobility, a man of consideration and culture,
a physician and neo-Hebrew poet. Among his companions were Joseph
Albo, of Monreal, a disciple of Chasdaï Crescas, distinguished for his
philosophic learning and genuine piety; Serachya Halevi Saladin, of
Saragossa, translator of an Arabic philosophic work; Matathias Yizhari
(En Duran?), of the same town, also a polished writer; Astruc Levi, of
Daroca, a man of position; Bonastruc Desmaëstre, whose presence was
most desired by the pope, because he was learned and distinguished; the
venerable Don Joseph, of the respected Ibn-Yachya family, and others of
lesser note.
Although the Jewish notables summoned to the disputation were men
of liberal education, and Don Vidal even spoke Latin fluently, none
of them possessed that stout-heartedness and force of character
which impress even the most vindictive enemy, and which Nachmani so
conspicuously displayed when alone he encountered two of the bitterest
adversaries of Judaism--the Dominican General De Penyaforte and
the apostate Pablo Christiani. A succession of humiliations and
persecutions had broken the manhood of even the proudest in Jewry, and
had transformed all into weaklings. They were no match for perilous
times. When Benedict's summons reached them, they trembled. They
agreed to act with circumspection and calmness, not to interrupt
their opponent, and, above all, to be united and harmonious, but they
disregarded these resolutions, exposed their weakness, and eventually
broke up into factions, each of which took its own course.
Duly commissioned by his schismatic master, the renegade Geronimo drew
up a program. In the first place, proofs were to be adduced from the
Talmud and cognate writings that the Messiah had already come in the
person of Jesus of Nazareth. The papal court flattered itself that
this would bring about widespread conversion of the Jews, but, in
case of failure, there was to follow a war of extermination against
the Talmud on account of the abominations it contained, and the
support it afforded the Jews in their blindness. Geronimo de Santa Fé
accordingly composed a treatise on the Messianic character and Divinity
of Jesus as illustrated in Jewish sacred writings. He collected all
the specious arguments, the sophistries and text twistings which his
predecessors had developed from their obscure, senseless, Scriptural
interpretations, added nonsense of his own, declared playful Agadic
conceits to be essential articles of faith, and refuted Jewish views
of the questions discussed. He enumerated twenty-four conditions of
the coming of the Messiah, and exerted himself to show that they had
all been fulfilled in Jesus. His fundamental contention was that the
Christians constituted the true Israel, that they had succeeded the
Jewish people in Divine favor, and that the Biblical terms, mountain,
tent, temple, house of God, Zion and Jerusalem were allegorical
references to the church. An instance of his ridiculous arguments
may be mentioned. Like John of Valladolid, he saw in the irregular
formation of a letter in a word in Isaiah a deep mystery, indicating
the virginity of Mary, and the realization of the Messianic period by
the advent of Jesus. From another prophetic verse he expounded the
immaculate conception of Jesus in so indecent a manner that it is
impossible to repeat his explanation. This treatise, which blended the
Patristic and the Rabbinic spirit, having been examined by the pope and
his cardinals, was ordered to serve as the theme of the disputation.
No more remarkable controversy was ever held. It occupied sixty-eight
sittings, and extended, with few interruptions, over a year and nine
months (from February, 1413, until the 12th November, 1414). In the
foreground stands a pope, abandoned by almost the whole of Christendom,
and hunted from his seat, anxious for a favorable issue, not for the
glorification of the faith, but for his own temporal advancement; by
his side, a baptized Jew, combating Rabbinical Judaism with Rabbinical
weapons; and in the background, a frenzied Dominican preacher with his
escort of flagellants, promoting a persecution of the Jews to give
force to the conversionist zeal of Tortosa. The helpless, bewildered
Jews could only turn their eyes to heaven, for on earth they found
themselves surrounded by bitter enemies. When, at their first audience
with Pope Benedict (6th February, 1413), they were asked to give their
names for registration, they were seized with terror; they imagined
their lives in jeopardy. The pope quieted them with the explanation
that it was only a customary formality. On the whole he treated
them at first with kindness and affability, the usual attitude of
princes of the church when they have an end to attain. He assured
them that no harm would befall them; that he had summoned them merely
to ascertain whether there was any truth in Geronimo's statement
that the Talmud attested the Messianic character of Jesus, and he
promised them the fullest freedom of speech. At the end of the first
audience he dismissed them graciously, assigned quarters to each of
the notables, and gave instructions that their comfort should be cared
for. A few prophesied from this friendly reception a successful issue
for themselves and their cause, but they knew little of Rome and the
vicegerents of God.
A few days later the disputation began. When the Jewish notables
entered the audience hall, they were awe-struck by the splendor of
the scene: Pope Benedict, on an elevated throne, clad in his state
robes; around him the cardinals and princes of the church, resplendent
in jeweled vestments; beyond them nearly a thousand auditors of the
highest ranks. The little knot of defenders of Judaism trembled before
this imposing and confident array of the forces of Christianity.
The pope himself presided, and opened the sitting with an address
to the Jews. He informed them that the truth of neither Judaism
nor Christianity was to be called into question, for the Christian
faith was above discussion and indisputable, and Judaism had once
been true, but had been abrogated by the later dispensation. The
disputation would be confined to the single question, whether the
Talmud recognized Jesus as the Messiah. The Jews were consequently
limited to mere defense. At a sign from the pope, the convert Geronimo
stood forth, and, after a salutation of the papal toe, delivered
himself of a long-winded harangue, abounding in Christian, Jewish, and
even scholastic subtleties, and full of praise of the magnanimity and
graciousness of the pope in endeavoring to bring the Jews into the way
of salvation. His text, applied to the Jews, was a verse from Isaiah:
"If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; but
if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword"--which
disclosed the final argument of the church. In reply, Vidal Benveniste,
who had been elected spokesman by the notables, delivered a speech
in Latin, which evoked a compliment from the pope. Don Vidal exposed
Geronimo's malignity in threatening the sword and other punishments
before the arguments on either side were heard. The pope acknowledged
the justice of the reproof, and said in extenuation that Geronimo had
still the boorishness derived from his Jewish origin. The notables
plucked up courage to petition the pope to release them from further
controversy, giving as their reason that their opponent employed
scholastic methods of reasoning, in which it was impossible for them
to follow him, as their faith was founded not on syllogisms but on
tradition. The pope naturally declined to accede to this request, but
invited them to continue the discussion on the following day, and had
them escorted to their quarters by officers of high rank.
Overwhelmed with anxiety, the Jewish notables and the entire community
of Tortosa assembled in the synagogue to implore help of Him who had so
often stood by their fathers in their hours of need, and to pray that
acceptable words might be put into their mouths, so that by no chance
expression they should provoke the wild beasts seeking to devour them.
Serachya Halevi Saladin gave expression to the gloomy feelings of the
congregation in his sermon.
For a time the controversy retained its friendly character. Geronimo
quoted obscure Agadic passages from the Talmud and other Hebrew
writings to establish his astounding contention that the Talmud
attests that Jesus was the Messiah. Generally the pope presided at the
disputations, but occasionally grave matters affecting his own position
necessitated his absence. The maintenance of his dignity was threatened
by the convening of the council of Constance by the Christian princes,
which constituted itself the supreme court in the conflict between the
three popes. Consequently, Benedict had to hold frequent consultations
with his friends. On these occasions, his place was taken by the
general of the Dominicans or the chamberlain of the papal palace.
The proofs adduced by Geronimo in support of his statements were so
absurd that it should have been easy for the Jewish delegates to refute
them. But their words were wilfully misinterpreted, so that in several
instances it was recorded in the protocol that they had conceded the
point under discussion. A few of them consequently committed their
refutations to writing; but they still met with arbitrary treatment.
Some points raised by them were condemned as not pertinent to the
discussion. The Jewish delegates, who had entered on the controversy
with unwilling hearts, were exhausted by the talking and taunting,
and were anxious to avoid retort. Suddenly the pope threw aside his
mask of friendliness, and showed his true disposition by threatening
them with death. Sixty-two days the war of tongues had lasted, and
the representatives of Judaism showed no sign of their much-hoped-for
conversion. Their power of resistance appeared to grow with the battle.
So, in the sixty-third sitting, the pope changed his tactics. At his
command Geronimo now came forward as the censor of the Talmud, accusing
it of containing all kinds of abominations, blasphemy, immorality and
heresy, and demanding its condemnation. A few new-Christians, among
them Andreas Beltran (Bertrand) of Valencia, the pope's almoner,
valiantly seconded this demand.
Geronimo had prepared, at the instance of the pope, a treatise
with this purpose in view. He had collected all the extravagances
accidentally uttered by one or two of the hundreds of Agadists figuring
in the Talmud. Shameless malice or ignorance dictated manifestly
false accusations against the Talmud. Thus, he stated that it
permitted the beating of parents, blasphemy, and idolatry, also the
breaking of oaths, provided that on the previous Day of Atonement the
precaution had been taken to declare them invalid. Conscientiousness
in respect to oaths and vows he thus construed as perfidy, and, like
Nicholas-Donin, drew the conclusion that the Jews did not fulfill their
obligations towards Christians. Of course, he revived the calumny of
Alfonso of Valladolid, that the Jews cursed the Christians in their
daily prayers. Every inimical reference in the Talmud to heathens or
Jewish Christians, Geronimo interpreted as applying to Christians,
a fabrication with disastrous consequences, inasmuch as the enemies
of the Jews repeated these deadly charges without further inquiry.
When the attacks on the Talmud unexpectedly became the subject of
discussion, the Jewish representatives defended the arraigned points,
but were so hard pressed that they split up into two parties. Don
Astruc Levi handed in a written declaration, setting forth that he
ascribed no authority to the Agadic sentences quoted incriminating the
Talmud; that he held them as naught, and renounced them. The majority
of the notables supported him. To save the life of the whole they
sacrificed a limb. Joseph Albo and Ferrer (Don Vidal) alone maintained
their ground, declaring that the Talmudic Agada was a competent
authority, and that the equivocal passages had a different meaning from
that ascribed to them, and were not to be interpreted literally. So the
machinations of the pope and his creatures had at least succeeded in
bringing about a division in the ranks of the defenders of Judaism.
The principal object of the disputation--the conversion of the
Jews _en masse_ through the example of their most prominent leaders
--was not attained. All the means employed failed--the benignant
reception, the threats of violence, the attack on Jewish convictions.
An expedient, calculated entirely for effect, had also been tried,
which, it was thought, would so mortify the notables that, dazed
and overwhelmed, they would throw down their arms and surrender at
discretion. The fanatical proselytizer Vincent Ferrer had returned
from Majorca to Catalonia and Aragon, and, surrounded by his
terror-inspiring band of flagellants, had renewed his mission to the
Jews, amid dismal chants and fiery exhortations to embrace the cross.
Again he succeeded in winning over many thousands to Christianity.
In the great Jewish communities of Saragossa, Calatajud, Daroca,
Fraga and Barbastro, the conversions were limited to individuals;
but smaller congregations, such as those of Alcañiz, Caspe, Maella,
Lerida, Alcolea and Tamarite, hemmed in by hostile Christians, who
spared neither limb nor life, went over in a body to Christianity. All
these proselytes were gradually brought, in small and large troops, to
Tortosa, and conducted, at the order of the pope, into the audience
hall, where, before the entire assembly, they made public profession
of the Christian faith. Living trophies, they were intended to shadow
forth the impending victory of the church, dishearten the defenders of
Judaism, and press upon them the conviction that, as in their absence
the Jewish communities were melting away, all resistance on their part
was in vain. It is no small merit that Don Vidal, Joseph Albo, Astruc
Levi, and their companions refused to yield to the pressure. The pope
saw his hopes shattered. Not a single notable wavered, and conversions
of large masses did not take place. The great communities of Aragon and
Catalonia remained true to their faith, with the exception of a few
weaklings, amongst them some relations of Vidal Benveniste. The council
of Constance would soon meet, and Benedict would be unable to appear
before it as the triumphant conqueror of Judaism--would have no
special claim to preference over the other two competing popes.
In his disappointment he vented his spleen on the Talmud and the
already restricted liberties of the Jews. At the last sitting of the
disputation he dismissed the Jewish notables with black looks, from
which they easily divined his evil intentions. Various obstacles
prevented him from putting them into force for six months, when (May
11th, 1415) they were embodied in a bull of eleven clauses. The Jews
were forbidden to study or teach the Talmud and Talmudic literature;
all copies of the Talmud were to be sought out and confiscated.
Anti-Christian works, written by Jews, especially one entitled
"Mar Mar Jesu," were not to be read under pain of punishment for
blasphemy. Every community, whether large or small, was prohibited
from possessing more than one simple, poorly appointed synagogue. The
Jews were to be strictly separated from Christians, were not to eat,
bathe, or do business with them. They were to occupy no official posts,
exercise no handicrafts, not even practice medicine. The wearing of the
red or yellow Jew badge was also enjoined by this bull. Finally, all
Jews were to be forced to hear Christian sermons three times a year--
during Advent, at Easter, and in the summer. In the first sermon the
Prophets and the Talmud were to be used to prove that the true Messiah
had come; in the second, their attention was to be directed to the
abominations and heresies contained, according to Geronimo's treatise,
in the Talmud, alone responsible for their infidelity; and in the third
it was to be impressed upon them that the destruction of the temple and
the dispersion of the Hebrew people had been predicted by the founder
of Christianity. At the close of each sermon the bull was to be read
aloud. The strict execution of this malignant edict was confided by the
pope to Gonzalo de Santa Maria, son of the apostate Paul, who had been
taken over to Christianity by his father.
Fortunately, the vindictive schemes of Pope Benedict never came into
active operation. While he was still engaged in tormenting the Jews,
the council of Constance decreed his deposition. As he had obstinately
opposed the advice of the king, Don Ferdinand, and the German emperor,
Sigismund, to lay aside the tiara of his own initiative, he was
abandoned by his Spanish protectors. The weapons he had employed
recoiled upon himself. His last adherents were drawn from him by
Vincent Ferrer's fanatical preaching. The flagellant priest not only
exhorted the king of Aragon to renounce "this unfrocked and spurious
pope," but he held forth everywhere--in the churches and the open
streets--that "a man like this pope deserves to be pursued to death
by every right-thinking Christian." Deserted by his protectors, his
friends, and even his protégés, there now remained to Pedro de Luna,
of all his possessions, only the small fortress of Peñiscola, and even
here King Ferdinand, urged on by Santa Maria, the pope's creature,
threatened him with a siege. In the end this ambitious and obstinate
man covered himself with ridicule by attempting to continue to play
the part of pope in his tiny palace. He appointed a college of four
cardinals, and pledged them before his death not to recognize the pope
elected at Constance, but to choose a successor from among their own
body. When he died, his college elected two popes instead of one. Such
was the infallibility of the church, into the pale of which it was
sought to force the Jews. What became of the malicious apostate, Joshua
Lorqui-Geronimo de Santa Fé, after the fall of his master, is not
known. In Jewish circles he was remembered by the well-earned sobriquet
of "The Calumniator" (Megadef). King Ferdinand of Aragon, who had
always allowed himself to be influenced by enemies of the Jews, died in
1416. His death was followed, after a short interval, by that of the
Jew-hating regent, Catalina of Castile, the instrument of Vincent's
Jew-hunt (1418), and finally by that of Vincent himself (1419), who had
the mortification to see the flagellant movement, to which he owed his
saintly reputation, condemned by the council of Constance, he himself
being compelled to disband his "white troop."
Although the chief persecutors of the Jews had disappeared, the
unhappy conditions created by them remained. The exclusive laws of
Castile and the bull of Pope Benedict were still in force. Ferrer's
proselytizing campaigns had severely crippled the Spanish, and even
foreign communities. In Portugal alone they met with no success. The
Portuguese ruler, Don João I, had other interests to pursue than the
conversion of Jews. He was then occupied in that first conquest on
the coast of Africa, opposite to Portugal, which laid the foundation
of the subsequent maritime supremacy of the Portuguese. When Vincent
Ferrer petitioned King João for permission to come to Portugal in order
to make the pulpits and streets resound with his dismal harangues on
the sinfulness of the world and the blindness and obstinacy of the
Jews, the Portuguese king informed him that he "might come, but with
a crown of red-hot iron on his head." Portugal was the only refuge on
the Pyrenean peninsula from the proselytizing rage of the flagellant
preacher, and many Spanish Jews who had the means of escaping fled
thither. Don Judah Ibn Yachya-Negro, held in high esteem by King João
I, and, perhaps, appointed by him chief rabbi of Portugal, represented
to him the horrors of enforced baptism, and the necessary insincerity
of the professions of unwilling converts. The king consequently issued
his commands that the immigrant new-Christians should not be interfered
with or delivered up to Spain.
In other parts of Europe, where the fanatical Dominican had been, or
whither reports of his deeds or misdeeds had penetrated, the Jews
were forced to drain the cup of bitterness to the dregs. In Savoy,
which Vincent Ferrer had visited, they were obliged to hide themselves
with their holy books in mountain caves. In Germany, persecutions of
Jews had always found a congenial soil, and they were promoted by the
anarchy which prevailed during the reign of Sigismund and the sessions
of the council of Constance. Even the Italian communities, though
for the most part undisturbed, lived in continual anxiety, lest the
movement strike a responsive chord in their politically distracted
land. They convened a great synod, first at Bologna, then at Forli
(1416-1418), to consider what measures might be adopted to avert the
threatened danger.
Happily, at this moment, after a long schism, bitter strife and a
plurality of anti-popes, the council of Constance elected a pope,
who, though full of dissimulation, was not the most degraded in the
college of cardinals. Martin V, who was said by his contemporaries
to have appeared simple and good before his election, but to have
shown himself afterwards very clever and not very kind, received the
Jews with scant courtesy when, during his progress through Constance,
they approached him carrying lighted tapers in festive procession,
and offered him the Torah with a prayer for the confirmation of their
sufferance. From his white palfrey with silk and gold trappings he
answered them: "You have the law, but understand it not. The old has
passed away, and the new been found." (The blind finding fault with the
seeing.) Yet he treated them with leniency. At the request of Emperor
Sigismund, he confirmed the privileges granted to the Jews of Germany
and Savoy by the preceding emperor, Rupert, denouncing attacks on their
persons and property, and the practice of converting them by force. The
emperor, who may be accused of thoughtlessness but not of a spirit of
persecution, thereupon issued his commands to all the German princes
and magistrates, cities and subjects, to allow his "servi cameræ"
the full enjoyment of the privileges and immunities which had been
given them by the pope (February 26th, 1418). A deputation of Jews,
commissioned by the Italian synod, also waited upon the now generally
acknowledged pope, and craved his protection. Even the Spanish Jews
appear to have dispatched an embassy to him, consisting of two of their
most distinguished men, Don Samuel Abrabanel and Don Samuel Halevi.
When the Jews complained of the insecurity of their lives, the attacks
on their religious convictions, and the frequent desecration of their
sanctuaries, the pope issued a bull (January 31st, 1419), with the
following preamble:
"Whereas the Jews are made in the image of God, and a remnant
of them will one day be saved, and whereas they have besought
our protection, following in the footsteps of our predecessors
we command that they be not molested in their synagogues; that
their laws, rights, and customs be not assailed; that they
be not baptized by force, constrained to observe Christian
festivals, nor to wear new badges, and that they be not
hindered in their business relations with Christians."
What could have induced Pope Martin to show such friendly countenance
to the Jews? Probably he had some idea of checkmating by this means
the Jew-hating Benedict, who still played at being pope in his obscure
corner. The principal consideration probably was the rich gifts with
which the Jewish representatives approached him. Although at the
council of Constance no cardinal was poorer than Martin, and his
election was in great measure owing to this fact, on the throne of St.
Peter he showed no aversion to money. On the contrary, everything might
be obtained from him if money were paid down; without it, nothing.