STRIVINGS OF EASTERN JEWS FOR UNITY. SUFFERING IN THE WEST.
Efforts towards Unity--Jacob Berab proposes the Re-introduction
of Rabbinical Ordination into Palestine--Successful
Opposition of Levi ben Chabib--Joseph Karo--His Connection
with Solomon Molcho and his Messianic Visions--Karo's
Religious Code--Converts to Judaism at the Era of the
Reformation--Expulsion of the Jews from Naples and Prague--
Their Return to the latter Town--Dr. Eck--Martin Luther and
the Jews--Moses Hamon--Jewish Histories by Joseph Cohen,
the Ibn-Vergas, and Samuel Usque--Elegy of Samuel Usque--
Reaction in the Catholic Church: Loyola establishes the
Order of Jesuits--The Censorship of Books--Eliano Romano and
Vittorio Eliano--Fresh Attacks on the Talmud--Paul IV and
his anti-Jewish Bulls--Persecution of the Marranos by the
Inquisition in Ancona--Joseph Nassi--The Levantine Jews--
Expulsion of the Jews from Austria and Bohemia--Relations of
Popes Pius IV and V to the Jews.
1538-1566 C.E.
Every fresh column of smoke rising from the fires of the Inquisition
in Spain and Portugal drove Marranos, singly or in groups, far away
to the East, to Turkey, beyond the shadow of the cross. They no
longer felt safe even in Italy, since the popes, against their own
higher convictions, allowed themselves to be overborne concerning
the Inquisition. In Turkey a little Jewish world was thus by degrees
formed, on which even the sultan's despotic rule did not encroach,
however much individuals might be exposed to arbitrary treatment. Here,
as in Palestine, where numbers and prosperity had raised them in their
own estimation, they could indulge in dreams of obtaining some degree
of independence, might strive for national and religious unity, and
hope to realize their wild Messianic fancies. The career of the Mantuan
martyr, Solomon Molcho, did not fail to leave an impression; his words
echoed in the ears of his brethren. At Safet, the largest congregation
in Palestine, where he had made a long stay, forming intimate
relations and awakening hopes, the fulfillment of his Messianic
predictions was looked for even after his death. The completion of
the round number 5300 from the creation of the world (1540) seemed to
be a suitable year for the coming of the Messiah. But the Messianic
period, according to then prevailing ideas, would not come suddenly;
the Israelites had to do their part in preparing the way. Maimuni,
the highest authority, had taught that the Messianic time would or
must be preceded by the establishment of a universally recognized
Jewish court of justice, or Synhedrion. Hence the necessity was felt
of having authorized and duly appointed judges, such as existed at the
time of the Temple and the Talmud in Palestine, of re-introducing, in
fact, the long-disused ordination (Semichah). There was no hindrance
to be feared from the Turkish state. As it was, the rabbis had their
own civil and even criminal jurisdiction; but these rabbis (who were
also judges), being appointed by the community, had not the warrant of
authority required by Talmudic rules. Obedience was given them, but
they also met with opposition. Authority was conventional, not built
on the foundation of Talmudic Judaism. No unity of legislation and
exposition of the Law was possible while every rabbi was absolute in
his own congregation, not subject to some higher authority. It was,
therefore, a need of the times to create a sort of religious supreme
court, and where should that be done but in Palestine? The sacred
memories connected with that country could alone lend the dignity of
a Synhedrion to a college of rabbis. Teaching that was to meet with
universal acceptance could proceed from Zion alone, and the word of God
only from Jerusalem.
How excellent and necessary it was to re-introduce the ordination of
rabbis by a higher authority had been discussed by many, but only
one, the acute-minded but obstinate and daring Jacob Berab, had the
energy to set about doing the thing. After much journeying from Egypt
to Jerusalem, and thence to Damascus, Berab, in his old age, settled
at Safet. He was in good circumstances, and, owing to his wealth and
intellect, enjoyed marked respect and consideration. He determined
to give a definite direction to the aimless ideas floating in men's
minds with regard to the coming of the Messiah. This was certainly a
praiseworthy aim, but some little ambition was undoubtedly mixed up in
his plan: to be himself the highest authority, perhaps the chief of
the Synhedrion in Palestine, and consequently revered throughout the
East, and even by the whole Jewish race. The first step was difficult.
Ordination could be lawfully given only by those who themselves had
been ordained, and there had been no such for a very long time. An
utterance of Maimuni happily offered ground for a new departure, viz.,
when wise men gathered together in Palestine shall agree to ordain one
of their number, they have the right to do so, and the ordained rabbi
can also ordain others. At that time no community in Palestine, in
point of numbers, could compare with Safet, which had grown through
frequent immigrations till it contained more than 1,000 Jewish
families. Safet, or rather the Talmudists of that city, therefore,
had it in their own hands, if they could only agree, to re-establish
the dignity of the Synhedrion, even in the face of opposition from
other congregations, because the Safet party was in the majority. The
officiating and non-officiating rabbis of Safet, men without name
or fame, had far too high a respect for Berab's intellectual power,
Talmudic learning, and wealth, to gainsay his proposition, or put
any obstacle in his path. A hint from him sufficed to bring together
five and twenty men ready to confer on him the dignity of an ordained
judge and rabbi. Thus ordination was re-established (1538), and the
focus for a new Synhedrion determined. It rested with Jacob Berab to
ordain as many colleagues as he pleased. From principles laid down
in the Talmud he demonstrated in a lecture the legality of the step,
and confuted every possible objection. One after another, Talmudists
in other congregations in Palestine announced their assent to this
innovation. By this step Berab and his followers thought that they
had reached the first stage of preparation for the Messianic age.
In fact, this renewal of ordination, if not able to bring about the
Messianic times, might very well have been the nucleus of Jewish unity.
A re-established Synhedrion in the Holy Land would have had a grand
sound in Europe, might have exercised special attraction, and brought
still more immigrants to Palestine. Persecutions of Jews in Italy
and Germany, the war of extermination against Marranos in Spain and
Portugal, a thirst for what was eccentric and out of the common in an
age distinguished by strongly excited longing for the Messiah, all this
would have been sufficient inducement to allure rich, educated Jews
from western lands to the East. With the help of their capital, and
founded on the authority of a Synhedrion, a Jewish community having the
character of a state might have been organized, and Berab was the right
person to carry out so great a scheme with perseverance--not to say
stubbornness.
But difficulties immediately arose. It was to be expected that if the
congregation at Jerusalem and its representatives were not consulted
with regard to an act so pregnant with consequences, there would be
danger that the whole arrangement would be declared null and void, for
the Holy City should have the first vote in a matter of such weight for
the Holy Land. Jacob Berab saw this perfectly well, and proposed, as
the first exercise of his newly-acquired dignity, to ordain the head of
the Jerusalem college of rabbis. Levi ben Jacob Chabib, who held that
position, was born in Zamora, and was of about the same age as Berab.
As a youth, in the times of forced baptism, under King Manoel, he had
become a pseudo-Christian, received a baptismal name, made the sign
of the cross, and performed other ceremonies of the Catholic Church
with a heart full of despair. At the first favorable opportunity he
fled from Portugal, cast off his assumed garb of Christianity, sought
safety in Turkey, and finally betook himself to Jerusalem. There, by
virtue of the wide range of his Talmudic learning, more extensive than
profound, he became as rabbi the first person in the community. He
deserved its gratitude by caring for the physical and spiritual welfare
of his congregation, especially for piloting it through the disturbed
state into which it was in danger of falling afresh through the new
arrivals from various countries, who were disinclined to submit to law
and order. Levi ben Chabib had also some knowledge of mathematics,
astronomy, and the calculation of the calendar. Between himself and
Jacob Berab, with whom he had lived for some time in Jerusalem, there
was no friendly relationship. On several occasions they had come into
collision, though Levi ben Chabib had always behaved in a friendly,
unassuming manner, and avoided whatever might wound his opponent. Their
relations of late years had been more intimate, but Levi ben Chabib
could not forget how slightingly Jacob Berab had treated him.
And now, as chief rabbi of Jerusalem, he was invited to recognize the
election of Jacob Berab as the first lawfully ordained rabbi-judge,
member of the Synhedrion, and by his consent to approve of the same.
Jerusalem was thereby subordinated to Safet, and he himself to Jacob
Berab. This was a real offense, for Berab had not thought it worth
while to ask the consent of the Jerusalem college beforehand, but
had haughtily made his innovation known through a decree, in which,
by virtue of the dignity conferred upon him, he designated Levi ben
Chabib an ordained judge. At the same time he had made it evident that
disapproval from Jerusalem would disturb him but little, since it could
only be regarded as the opposition of a minority to the majority at
Safet. The moment for taking an important step towards Jewish unity
had come, and it found Levi ben Chabib, whose vote at all events was
of importance, wanting in magnanimity. Resentment gained the upper
hand; he forgot that in earlier days it had been also his desire to
re-establish the ordination of rabbis. As soon as a notification of
the act at Safet reached him, he immediately and emphatically declared
himself against the election. His antagonism seems, however, to
have found no response in Jerusalem, for only one of his rabbinical
colleagues, Moses de Castro, adopted his view, the remainder acquiesced
in Berab's action. In Talmudical and rabbinical law arguments could
not fail to be discoverable against the revival of ordination and the
Synhedrion. Such a confused host of opinions exists therein, that
arguments may be found for or against almost anything. Berab and the
electors obedient to his nod themselves furnished their opponents with
an objection. Rabbinical Judaism is so thoroughly practical that it
offers no foothold for romantic enthusiasm and sentimentality. The
Jews of Safet dared not give utterance to their underlying hope that
through ordination the Messianic time would be brought nearer. Though
the rabbis might be filled with Messianic hopes, such a motive for
the re-introduction of ordination would have sounded too fantastic
and ridiculous in their own ears. Other plausible grounds were not
just then to be found. The calendar of festivals, which had formerly
been prepared by ordained members of the college, had been fixed for a
thousand years, and could not now be meddled with. Other cases where
the Talmud required an ordained judge were of too rare occurrence
to permit that the necessity of ordination be proved on that head.
The people of Safet, therefore, made the most of a reason meant to
appear practical and suited to the times, which was nevertheless very
far-fetched. Many Marranos were to be found in Palestine who had been
forced during their outward assumption of Christianity to commit what
according to the Talmud were deadly sins. With contrite hearts they
repented of their transgressions, and longed for forgiveness and
atonement--they had not given up the Catholic doctrine of outward
penance when they cast off the mask of Christianity. Such forgiveness
of sins, however (Berab made it appear), could be theirs only when the
scourging prescribed by the Law (39 stripes) was inflicted; again,
this punishment could be decreed only by a lawfully ordained college.
Therein lay the necessity for ordination.
If Levi ben Chabib was disposed to extend his antipathy from the
originator to the execution of his work, there would be no difficulty
in proving this reason for the scheme invalid. Not content with this,
he brought forward a host of sophistries. Jacob Berab had not expected
such antagonism at Jerusalem from Levi ben Chabib and his colleague,
Moses de Castro, because he credited them either with less courage
or more self-denial, and it embittered him extremely. It was all the
more painful to him since their opposition was calculated to wreck
his whole undertaking. How could he hope to prove it acceptable to
Asiatic, European, and African Jews, when Jerusalem, the Holy City,
would have none of it? And without such acceptance, how could he
make it the central point of a re-organization? Besides, his life
was in danger at Safet, probably through denunciation to the Turkish
authorities, who were willing to grasp at any opportunity to get
hold of his property. Berab had to leave Palestine for a time. He
consecrated four Talmudists, as Judah ben Baba had done in Hadrian's
time, so that the practice of ordination might not immediately fall to
the ground. These four were chosen not from the elder, but from the
younger rabbis, among them Joseph Karo, the enthusiastic adherent of
Solomon Molcho and his Kabbalistic Messiahship, who entered heart and
soul into the ordination scheme. Such preference, shown to younger and
more pliable, if more gifted men, stirred up still more ill-will in
Jerusalem. The two rabbis of Palestine in the epistles exchanged on
the subject (written with a view to publication) grew more and more
bitter against each other, so offensive indeed that the most passionate
excitement cannot excuse their language. In reply to Levi ben Chabib's
censorious remark: "One who is consecrated and ordained should have
not only learning, but holiness also," Jacob Berab made a spiteful
reference to Levi's compulsory adoption of Christianity: "I have never
changed my name; in the midst of distress and despair I kept always in
the way of the Lord." He upbraided Levi ben Chabib with still having
somewhat of Christian dogma sticking to him. This thrust reached his
opponent's heart. The latter confessed that in the day of forced
baptisms in Portugal his name had been changed, that he had been made
a Christian, and that he had not been able to die for the religion of
his fathers. But he brought forward his youth as an excuse; he had not
been twenty years old, had remained a pseudo-Christian scarcely a year,
and he hoped that the flood of tears which he had shed since then, and
which he still shed, would wipe out his sin before God. After this
humiliation Levi ben Chabib's violence against Berab knew no bounds.
He flung the grossest insults at him, and declared that he hoped never
more to meet him face to face. Through this intemperate violence of the
chief rabbi of Jerusalem and Berab's death, which followed immediately
after (January, 1541), the system of ordination fell to the ground.
Joseph Karo alone, one of the ordained, refused to give in. This
remarkable man, who later on had so deep an influence on Jewish history
(born 1488, died 1575), when a child, was driven from Spain with his
parents. He early learned the bitter lessons of suffering, and after
long traveling about, came to Nicopolis in European Turkey. He studied
the text of the Mishnah so assiduously that he knew it by heart. Later
on Karo left Nicopolis to settle at Adrianople, where, on account
of his extraordinary Talmudical learning, he was looked up to with
respect, and found disciples. In his thirtieth year he undertook the
gigantic work of furnishing Jacob Asheri's Code with a commentary,
authorities, and corrections, to which he devoted twenty years of his
life (1522-1542). Twelve years more were spent in a further revision
(1542-1554). His imagination, kept in entire inactivity by such a
dry task, was fired by the appearance of Solomon Molcho. That young
enthusiast from Portugal made so overpowering an impression upon him,
that Karo allowed himself to be initiated into the tortuous mazes
of the Kabbala and to share Molcho's Messianic dreams. After this
time his mind was divided between dry rabbinical scholarship and the
fantastic ideas of the Kabbala. He kept up a correspondence with Molcho
during the latter's stay in Palestine, and formed plans for going
thither himself. Like Molcho, he prepared for a martyr's death, "as
a burnt-sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto
the Lord," and like Molcho, he had strange visions, which, according
to his belief, were inspired by some superior being. This superior
being (Maggid) was not an angel, or an imaginary voice, but--oddly
enough--the Mishnah personified, who descended to him, and generally
at night whispered revelations, because he had devoted himself to its
service. Joseph Karo had these visions (which he for the most part
committed to paper), not for a short period of time, but at intervals,
to the end of his life, for nearly forty years. Part of them were
afterwards published, and it is melancholy to see what havoc the
Kabbala played with the intellect of that day. The superior being (or
the Mishnah) laid the heaviest penances on Karo, forbade him to indulge
in meat and wine, and went to the extent of prohibiting much drinking
of water. If he was guilty of any fault, sleeping too long, being late
at prayers, or slightly neglecting his study of the Mishnah, the mother
Mishnah appeared, and made the most tender remonstrances. She certainly
made astonishing revelations to him. These predictions were far from
being mere deceptions, but were the promptings of a tumultuous epoch,
or an excited imagination, such as is found in the warm, luxurious East
oftener than in the cold, sober North.
Joseph Karo was so full of the thought that he was called to play a
part in Palestine, and die as a martyr, during the time of preparation
for the Messiah as begun by Solomon Molcho, that he left Adrianople. He
stayed for some time at Salonica, a place swarming with Kabbalists. At
length, he arrived in Safet, that nest of Kabbalists, with a companion
of like mind, Solomon Alkabez, a dull, spiritless writer, whose song
of welcome for the Sabbath bride (Lecha Dodi) has become more famous
than its author. At Safet, Joseph Karo experienced the joy of seeing
part of his fantastic dreams fulfilled; he was ordained by Berab
as a member of the Synhedrion. After Berab's death Karo dreamed of
nothing but his future greatness; he was to bring about ordination,
and to be recognized by the sages of Palestine and foreign countries
as a patriarch and leader of the Jews in Palestine. He would educate
the best Talmudists, so that disciples of his school only would be
accepted. Everyone would do him reverence as the holy likeness (Diokna
Kadisha), and he would work miracles. Like Molcho, he was to die a
martyr's death, that the name of God might be hallowed; but his
resurrection would soon afterwards follow, and he would enter into the
Messianic kingdom.
All these advantages and prerogatives were to be won by a single
achievement, which of itself would make the Jews into one great people,
and gain him universal admiration. When his thorough commentary
on Jacob Asheri's Code was completed, printed, published, and in
circulation, when he had elaborated a comprehensive code of religious
law grounded on that work, he would surely be acknowledged as
patriarch and lawgiver in all Israel. His guardian angel had whispered
to him that he would be made worthy to train many disciples and to
see his writings printed and circulated throughout Israel. Even the
supernatural worlds would ask, "Who is the man with whom the King of
kings is well pleased, the patriarch of Palestine, the great writer
of the Holy Land?" He would be enabled to publish his commentary,
elucidations, and decisions without fault or error.
Devoted piety, fantastical imagination, and some degree of ambition
inspired the author, who elaborated, for the whole Jewish race, the
final code of religious law, destined to end all wavering, uncertainty,
and antagonism of opinion. Kabbalistic enthusiasm combined with
the Messianic hopes excited by Solomon Molcho, and the ceremony of
ordination administered by Berab, gave Karo no rest, until by means of
a comprehensive written work he had accomplished these hopes, at least
so far as religious unity was concerned. Yet several decades were to
elapse before the Jewish world received this gift, a colossal work
which required years for its completion. Joseph Karo's astounding,
incessant industry had to eke out lack of genius. Such a work could be
accomplished only by religious devotion and inspiration united with a
fantastic imagination. Of all his lofty dreams one only was actually
realized, that he would be chief rabbi of Safet after Jacob Berab's
death, and would be acknowledged as a rabbinical authority, the latter
coming about only gradually. But his authority was not absolute; he had
a rival in Berab's best disciple, Moses de Trani.
While the Jews of the East were rejoicing in a measure of peace and
independence, and were able to indulge in Messianic speculations, and
endeavoring, although by mistaken means, to bring about an ideal state
of things, the Jews of the West were subjected to fresh persecutions
instituted against them. The old accusations of their harmful influence
upon mankind, their child-murder, their hostile attitude towards
Christianity, which had ceased for a time during the excitement of
the Reformation, were again heard. The bigoted ecclesiastical policy,
espoused by those who sought to maintain their position against the
ever-increasing strength of Lutheranism, reacted upon the Jews, and
brought fresh sufferings upon them, principally in Catholic countries.
To the old accusations was added a new one, which prejudiced also
Lutherans against them. The Lutheran and Calvinistic Reformation,
which had extended into England and Poland, had opened the eyes of
many concerning religion and Christianity, and led them to find much
that even the Reformers considered essentials of Christianity to be
false, mistaken, and blasphemous. The Bible translated into most
European languages gave thoughtful readers an opportunity of forming
a religious system for themselves differing wholly from the dogmas of
Rome, Wittenberg, or Geneva. In reading the Bible the Old Testament
came before the New, and in the transition from one to the other many
perceived that much in the two was irreconcilable; that the doctrine
of the unity of God in the prophets was in direct contradiction to the
doctrine of the Trinity propounded by the Church Fathers. Besides
this, the Reformation had had in view not only religious freedom, but
also political deliverance from the iron yoke of the princes, in whose
eyes the people were nothing, of importance only for the payment of
taxes and the forced service of bondmen. Now it struck not a few that
the Hebrew Scriptures make the people the source of all power, and
condemn the despotism of kings, whilst evangelical Christianity does
not recognize a people, but only humble believers, whom it exhorts
to bow the neck to the yoke of tyrants. The contrast between the Old
and the New Testament, the one teaching active virtue together with a
God-fearing life, the other glorifying passive virtue together with
blind faith, could not be overlooked by eyes sharpened through deep
research into the Bible.
Among the host of religious sects which the Reformation called forth in
the first decades, there arose some which nearly approached Judaism,
and whose adherents were stigmatized by the ruling party as half-Jews
or Judaizers (Judaïzantes, Semijudæi). These found the doctrine of the
Trinity a stumbling-block, and maintained that God must be conceived as
an absolute Unity. Michael Servetus, an Aragonese, perhaps instructed
by Marranos in Spain, wrote a pamphlet on the "Errors of the Doctrine
of the Trinity," which created a great sensation, and brought him
some faithful adherents; but he was burnt at the stake by Calvin at
Geneva. The Reformers had retained the fanatical intolerance of the
Catholic Church! Notwithstanding this, a sect of believers in the Unity
(Unitarians, Anti-trinitarians) arose which rejected the identification
of Jesus with God. In England, where Catholicism had been overthrown
only by the whim of a tyrant, Henry VIII, to gratify his sensual
desires, a religious-political party began to be formed, which proposed
to take the Old Testament system of government and adapt it to English
circumstances. It appeared to recognize only Old Testament types, and
not to take any account of the praying brethren and sisters of the New
Testament. Many kept the Sabbath as the day of rest appointed by God,
but with their windows closed. Some eccentric Christians conceived a
predilection for the Jews as the successors of the patriarchs, as the
remnant of that people whom God had once favored with the fullness of
His grace, as the direct descendants of the great prophets, on this
account deserving the highest respect.
Among the innumerable pamphlets appeared one, a dialogue between a Jew
and a Christian, in which the grounds of the Christian dogmas were
overthrown by texts out of the Old Testament. Publications of this sort
helped to make the Jews obnoxious to the Reformers, too. The adherents
of the new faith in a measure simulated hatred of Jews in order to
avert from themselves the suspicion that they wished to undermine
Christianity, and set up Judaism in its place. The Jews, therefore,
had enemies on both sides, and were soon compelled to relinquish the
illusion that Catholicism was overthrown, and that the new religion was
in sympathy with them.
When the peasants of South Germany, Alsatia, Franconia, and elsewhere,
trusting too readily in the evangelical freedom proclaimed by Luther,
attempted to throw off the yoke of their oppressors, the few Jews
in Germany found themselves between two fires. On the one hand they
were accused by the nobility and the upper classes of supporting the
rebellious peasants and citizens with their money, and egging them on;
and, on the other, the peasants attacked them as the confederates and
abettors of the rich and the nobility. The fanatical priest, Balthasar
Hubmaier, who had agitated the expulsion of the Jews from Ratisbon,
was the adviser of the peasants of the Black Forest, and probably the
author of the twelve written demands (articles) which the peasants
had proposed. Instead of becoming milder and more humane by his
apostasy from the Roman Catholic, he became still more fanatical as
an adherent of the Anabaptist faith. He had no doubt excited the rage
of the townspeople, who wished to free themselves from their debts to
their Jewish creditors, and that of the peasants who desired to enrich
themselves with the property of the Jews. The province of the Rheingau
among other things demanded that no Jew should be allowed to remain in
the district. The annals of the age of the Reformation thus continue
to present year after year accounts of banishments, tortures, and
restrictions. But, after all, times had improved. There were no longer
sudden attacks, massacres, wholesale murders--simply expulsions, mere
exile into poverty. Only events of deep and far-reaching effect can
find a place here.
In Naples, where the Spaniards ruled, the ultra-Catholic party had
long tried to introduce the Inquisition against the Marranos who
resided there. When Charles V returned from his victorious expedition
in Africa, this party tried to induce him to banish the Jews from
Naples, because the Marranos were but strengthened in their unbelief by
intercourse with them. But Donna Benvenida, the noble wife of Samuel
Abrabanel, who was held in high respect by the Spaniards, so ardently
entreated the emperor to revoke the decree of banishment, and her young
friend, the daughter of the viceroy, so warmly supported her request,
that he could not refuse them. It is also possible that Abrabanel's
money may have had something to do with it. But a few years afterwards,
Charles ordered the Neapolitan Jews to wear the badge of shame on
their dress, and in case of transgression to suffer punishment in
their person and property, or leave the country. They chose the latter
alternative, probably by the advice of Samuel Abrabanel. They probably
realized that persecution would not end there, but that it would form
the prelude to harsher treatment. But this voluntary exile was turned
into banishment, and every Jew who should venture to show himself again
in Naples, was threatened with severe punishment (1540-1541). Many
turned their steps towards Turkey, a few went to Ancona, under papal
protection, or to Ferrara, under the rule of Duke Hercules II, who
passed for a friend of the Jews. Those who emigrated by sea suffered
much hardship, and many of them were taken by pirates, and carried to
Marseilles. The Marranos who were living there did much for them, and
King Henry II also treated them humanely. As he could not keep them in
his country, he sent them in his ships to Turkey. Samuel Abrabanel also
left Naples, although he was offered the exceptional license to remain
there; but he refused to separate himself from the lot of his unhappy
co-religionists. He settled in Ferrara, and lived there for about ten
years. His noble wife, highly respected by Leonora, the daughter of the
viceroy of Naples, now the Duchess of Tuscany, survived him.
A year later, the Jews of Bohemia experienced a milder, so to speak,
more decent form of hatred. There had been many fires in the towns,
especially in Prague. The Jews and shepherds were accused of having
hired incendiaries. The Jews were also charged with having betrayed
to the sultan the secret preparations for war against the Turks. The
Bohemian diet therefore resolved to banish all Jews from Bohemia,
and King Ferdinand, brother of Charles V, gave his assent. They were
compelled to start on their exile with all their belongings (Adar,
1542), for of the numerous Jews of Prague only ten persons or families
received permission to remain there. Many of them found their way
into Poland and Turkey, then the two most tolerant countries. The
innocence of those who had suffered death, and of the banished Jews,
was established in the course of the same year. A few of the notables
interceded for their recall, for they were more indispensable than
trade jealousy, fanaticism, and the hatred of race would confess. Thus
those who had settled near the Bohemian frontier were able to return to
their home. But for this favor they were obliged to pay a tax of 300
schock groschen, and were ordered to wear a badge of yellow cloth as a
mark by which they might be distinguished.
At the same time two persons of exalted rank and great influence,
the one on the Catholic, the other on the Protestant side, attacked
the Jews so mercilessly, that it is a marvel that they were not
exterminated to a man. The cause of provocation in one instance was
as follows:--About Easter, a peasant boy, four years old, from the
duchy of Neuburg in Bavaria, was missed, and suspicions arose that he
was with the Jews. After Easter the boy was discovered by means of a
dog, and enemies of the Jews pretended to see signs of Jewish torture
on his body. Upon this the bishop of Eichstädt caused certain Jews to
be seized and dragged to his residence that they might be tried, and
sent a request to the neighboring princes to seize the Jews in their
domains. But the inquiry did not prove the guilt of the Jews. On this
occasion Duke Otto Henry of Neuburg warmly espoused the cause of the
Jews, and exerted his influence to oppose the bishop of Eichstädt.
The latter moved heaven and earth to have them banished at least. A
courageous writer, probably at the suggestion of the duke, boldly
defended the Jews against the prejudice of Christians in a pamphlet.
This publication, "Little Book about the Jews," the author of which was
a Lutheran pastor (perhaps Hosiander), for the first time placed the
whole falsehood and malice of the accusation of the murder of Christian
children in a clear light. The author, who professed to have had much
intercourse with Jews, and to have become thoroughly acquainted
with their language, laws, and customs, declared emphatically that a
shameful injustice was done to Jews by these perpetual accusations
of child-murder. The wealth and the pure faith of the Jews were the
reasons. On the one hand, avaricious and cruel princes, or impoverished
nobles or citizens, who owed money to Jews, invented such tales in
order to be able to use violence against them; and on the other, such
fables were invented by monks and the secular clergy in order to make
new saints and fresh shrines for the encouragement of pilgrimages. In
the long period since the dispersion of the Jews among Christians,
no one had asserted, till within the last 300 years, that they had
murdered Christian children. These idle tales had become current only
since monks and priests practiced so much deception with pilgrimages
and miraculous healings. For the priests feared no one more than Jews,
because the latter disregarded human invention, and understood the
Scripture better than the priests, who, therefore, persecuted the Jews
to the utmost, slandered them, and caused them to be hated. They even
wished to burn their sacred books. Therefore, it was fair to assume
that priests had invented the story of the murder of the child in the
province of Neuburg. The author further points out that till the third
century the Christians were accounted child-murderers and shedders of
blood in the heathen world. The confessions of Jews themselves, which
were quoted in confirmation of the accusations, had been made under
torture, and could not be received as evidence.
Fanatical Catholic priests, especially the bishop of Eichstädt, saw
with indignation that Jews, instead of being abhorred and persecuted,
were glorified in this book, and hastened to efface the impression.
Dr. John Eck, so notorious in the history of the Reformation, a
favorite of the bishop of Eichstädt, was commissioned to write an
answer, to prove the crime of bloodguiltiness, and to defame the Jews.
This lawyer-theologian, with the broad shoulders of a butcher, the
voice of a seditionist, and the disputativeness of a sophist, who had
brought the Catholic Church, which he intended to defend against the
Lutherans, into discredit by his vanity and his intemperate habits,
this unprincipled disputant gladly undertook to belabor the Jews. In
1541 he wrote a hostile reply to the above-mentioned pamphlet, in
which he set himself to prove "the evil and wickedness brought about
by Jews in all the German territories and other kingdoms." He revived
the old accusations against baptized Jews, patched together old wives'
tales about the cruel nature of the Jews, raked up the false stories
about Trent and Ratisbon uttered by Jews when undergoing torture, and
added his own experiences to them. Eck was so shameless as to bring
proofs of the cruelty of the Jewish character from the Old Testament.
To cast infamy upon them he even slandered the Old Testament heroes
held sacred by the church. In verbose language and with a false
show of learning he maintained that Jews mutilated the children of
Christians, and used their blood in the consecration of their priests,
to assist their wives in child-birth, and to heal sickness; and that
they desecrated the host. He exclaimed indignantly: "It is a great
mistake that we Christians leave the Jews so much freedom, and grant
them protection and security." Probably on the petition of Jews against
these accusations, the emperor, Charles V, renewed their privileges,
and declared them innocent of shedding the blood of Christians.
It is not edifying to find that Luther, the champion against obsolete
prejudices, the founder of a new faith, agreed completely on the
subject of Jews with his mortal enemy, Dr. Eck, who, with the same
effrontery, had employed similar falsehood against himself. These
two passionate opponents were of one heart and soul in their hatred
of Jews. Luther had become greatly embittered with advancing age. He
had lost much among his own followers by his obstinacy and persistent
caviling, had disturbed the unanimity of those of the same way of
thinking, and in his own camp created a breach which caused infinite
harm to the Reformation for several centuries. His hard disposition
had steadily gained the mastery over his gentle religion and humility,
and his monkish narrowness could not at all comprehend Judaism with
its laws, which brought forth and developed not the faith, but the
morality and elevation, of man. He became enraged when his colleagues,
Karlstadt, Münzer, etc., referred for example to the year of Jubilee,
and the enfranchisement of the slaves and serfs. A pamphlet, in the
form of a dialogue, in which Judaism was involved in a contest with
Christianity, probably written by a Christian, was now sent to him;
this was too much for him. Could Judaism be so bold as to think of
measuring itself against Christianity! Luther at once set about writing
a passionate, stinging pamphlet, "Concerning the Jews and their Lies"
(1542), which, in spitefulness, exceeded the writings of Pfefferkorn
and Eck.
Luther began by saying that he had made up his mind not to write
anything further about Jews, nor against them, but because he had
learnt that "this miserable, wicked people" dared entice Christians to
join them, he wished to warn weak-minded men not to allow themselves
to be befooled. Luther's principal argument, in proof of the truth
of Christianity against the denial of the Messiahship of Jesus by
the Jews, is written in very monkish style. Because the Christians,
for more than a thousand years, had robbed them of all the rights of
man, had treated them as evil beasts, had trodden them under foot,
lacerated, and slain them: in a word, because they had fallen into
distress through the harshness of Christians, therefore, they must be
rejected, and the Saviour of the world must have appeared!
This is mediæval logic. But it exceeds the limits of indulgence
towards the peculiarities of a strong character, when Luther, in his
uncharitableness towards Jews, employs language such as was usual with
those who burnt Jews at the stake. "Why should the Jews complain of
hard captivity among us?" he says. "We Christians suffered persecution
and martyrdom at their hands for nearly 300 years, so that we might
well complain that they took us captive and killed us. And to this very
day we know not what devil brought them into our land" (as if Jews had
not dwelt in some districts of what is now Germany long before Germans
were there). "We did not bring them from Jerusalem; besides that, no
one keeps them: the country and the roads are open to them, let them
return to their own land. We will gladly give them presents, if we can
but be rid of them, for they are a heavy burden upon us, a plague, a
pestilence, a sore trial." Luther, like Pfefferkorn and Eck, stated
with malicious delight how the Jews were often driven out by violence
"from France and recently from Spain by our beloved Emperor Charles
(an historical blunder); this year also from the entire dominion of
Bohemia, although one of their securest nests was in Prague; also from
Ratisbon, Magdeburg, and many other places in my time."
Without appreciation of the heroic patience displayed by Jews in the
midst of hostility, and untaught by history, Luther did nothing but
repeat the lying accusations of the vindictive Pfefferkorn, whose
falsehood and villainy had been palpably proved by the Humanists. In
imitation of this arch-enemy of the Jews he wrote that the Talmud
and the rabbis taught that it was no sin to kill the Goyim, that is,
heathens and Christians, break an oath to them, or rob and plunder
them, and that the one and only aim of Jews was to weaken the Christian
religion. It is incomprehensible that Luther, who had taken the part
of the Jews so strongly in the heat of the Reformation, could repeat
all the false tales about the poisoning of the springs, the murder of
Christian children, and the use of human blood. He also maintained,
in agreement with Eck, from whom in other respects he was so widely
divided, that the Jews were too prosperous in Germany, and in
consequence had become insolent.
What is to be done with this wicked, accursed race, which can no longer
be tolerated? asked Luther, and he gave an answer to the question which
shows equal want of charity and wisdom. First of all the reformer of
Wittenberg recommended that the synagogues be reduced to ashes, "to the
honor of God and of Christianity." Next, Christians were to destroy the
houses of the Jews, and drive them all under one roof, or into a stable
like gypsies. All prayer-books and copies of the Talmud and the Old
Testament were to be taken from them by force (as Luther's opponents,
the Dominicans, had advised), and even praying and the use of God's
name were to be forbidden under penalty of death. Their rabbis were to
be forbidden to teach. The authorities were to prohibit the Jews from
traveling, and to bar the roads against them, so that they must stay
at home. Luther advised that their money be taken from them, and that
this confiscated wealth be employed to establish a fund to maintain
those Jews who should embrace Christianity. The authorities were to
compel able-bodied Jews and Jewesses to forced labor, and to keep them
strictly employed with the flail, the axe, the spade, the distaff and
spindle, so that they might earn their bread in the sweat of their
brow, and not live in idleness, feasting, and splendor. Christians
were not to show any tender mercy to Jews. Luther urged the emperor
and the princes to expel them from the country without delay, and
drive them back into their own land. But anticipating that the princes
would not consent to such folly, he exhorted the clergy and teachers
of the people to fill the minds of their hearers with hatred of Jews.
He observed that if he had power over Jews, he would assemble the
best and most learned among them, and, under penalty of having their
tongues cut out, force them to accept the Christian teaching, that
there is not _one_ God, but that there are _three_ Gods. Luther even
stirred up the robber-nobles against them. He had heard that a rich Jew
was traveling through Germany with twelve horses. This Jew was known
as the wealthy Michael, of Frankfort, the protégé of the Margrave of
Brandenburg; if the princes did not close the road against him and
his fellow-believers, Luther urged the robber-knights to do so, for
Christians might learn from his pamphlet how depraved was the Jewish
nation. These absurd charges Luther ascribed to a worthless convert,
Anton Margaritha, the son of a rabbi of Ratisbon. He had become a
Catholic, and being punished on account of calumnies, had turned
Lutheran, and written a foolish book against the Jews, and from this
book Luther had taken his unjust attacks upon them.
Shortly before his death he exhorted his hearers in a sermon to drive
out the Jews:
"Besides all this you still have the Jews, who do great evil
in the land. If they could kill us all, they would gladly do
so, aye, and often do it, especially those who profess to be
physicians--they know all that is known about medicine in
Germany; they can give poison to a man of which he will die in
an hour, or in ten or twenty years; they thoroughly understand
this art. I say to you lastly, as a countryman, if the Jews
refuse to be converted, we ought not to suffer them, or bear
with them any longer."
In the reformer and regenerator of Germany, then, the Jews had almost a
worse enemy than in the Pfefferkorns, Hoogstratens, and Ecks, certainly
worse than in the popes till the middle of the century. But few
heeded the words of those wretches, known to be sophists and liars,
while Luther's uncharitable utterances were respected as oracles by
the Christians of the new faith, and but too well followed out. As
Jerome had infected the Catholic world with his openly avowed hatred
of Jews, so Luther poisoned the Protestant world for a long time to
come with his Jew-hating testament. Protestants became even more bitter
against Jews than Catholics had been. The leaders of Catholicism
demanded absolute submission to canonical law, but on this condition
granted them permission to remain in Catholic countries; Luther, on
the other hand, required their absolute expulsion. The popes often
issued exhortations to spare the synagogues; but the founder of the
Reformation insisted upon their desecration and destruction. It was
reserved for him to place Jews on a level with gypsies. This difference
arose from the fact that the popes occupied the highest rank in life,
and dwelt in Rome, the metropolis of the world, the center of affairs
in the four quarters of the globe; thus they had no eye for petty
events, and usually left the Jews unnoticed because of their small
importance. Luther, on the other hand, who lived in a petty country
town and amidst narrow surroundings, listened to all the gossip against
Jews, judged them by the measure of a country bumpkin, and reckoned up
every farthing that they earned against them. He, therefore, was the
cause of their being expelled by Protestant princes. In Roman Catholic
states the Dominicans alone were their deadly enemies.
This hatred followed the Jews even into Turkey. If there were neither
Roman Catholics nor Protestants, there were Greek Catholic Christians.
Turks and Greeks lived together in the towns of both Greece and Asia
Minor. The latter, who would not give up their arrogance, but dared not
display it towards the ruling Turks, persecuted the Jews with silent
hatred, and took advantage of every opportunity to draw upon them the
persecution of the government. On one occasion some of them gave rise
to a persecution in the town of Amazia in Asia Minor. They caused a
poor Greek, who was in the habit of associating with Jews, and had been
supported by them, to disappear, and then accused some Jews of having
murdered him. Hereupon the Turkish cadis seized the accused, put them
to the torture, and forced them to acknowledge the murder. They were
hanged, and a respected Jewish physician, Jacob Abi-Ayub, was burnt
(about 1545). A few days afterwards a Jew recognized the Greek supposed
to have been murdered, induced him to tell how he had been made to
disappear, and brought him before the cadi. The latter, justly incensed
against the malicious Greek accusers, had them executed. A similar
accusation, the falseness of which was brought to light, was lodged
against a Jew of the town of Tokat at about the same time.
These cruel occurrences suggested to Moses Hamon, Sultan Solyman's
Jewish physician, to obtain a decree from the sultan that an accusation
against Jews in Turkey of having murdered a Christian, and other
malicious calumnies, should not be brought before the ordinary judges,
but before the sultan himself.
Hatred against Jews, restrained in Turkey, raged the more openly in
Christian countries. The republic of Genoa for a long time had not
suffered a Jew to remain more than three days within its boundaries.
Notwithstanding this, fugitives from Spain or Provence from time to
time were received in the town of Novi, near Genoa; they went in
and out of the capital itself, and were suffered to remain there.
In the party differences between the patrician families, the little
community, repulsed by the one side, was taken up by the other. Most
of them were intelligent artisans, capitalists, or physicians. But
again the Dominicans stirred up the people against them, and roused
the professional jealousy of Christian physicians. Contrary to the
wishes of Doge Doria, the Jews were driven out of Genoa (April, 1550),
and, heralded by the sound of trumpets, a proclamation was made that
henceforth no Jews should be suffered. This expulsion from Genoa is of
importance, because a clever Jewish historian was included in it, whose
fate represents in miniature the painful lot experienced by the Jewish
race on a large scale.
The vicissitudes in the life of the nations, as well as the changes in
the life of the Jewish people, especially since their cruel expulsion
from Spain and Portugal, and the heartless persecution of the Marranos,
at length brought some clear-seeing Jews to the conviction that
history is not ruled by chance, but that a higher hand guides it,
bringing to pass destined events by bloodshed and tears. Since the
time of the crusades, no century had been richer in changeful, almost
dramatic, events than the sixteenth, when not only fresh continents
were discovered, but when a new spirit began to prevail among mankind,
striving after new creations, but always kept down by the leaden weight
of existing systems. This wealth of occurrences taught a few thoughtful
Jews, mostly of Sephardic origin, to trace the work of Providence
in the apparently whimsical and irregular course of universal and
Jewish history. They considered history a comfort to that portion of
mankind which had been overthrown, overridden, and downtrodden by
the tumultuous course of events. And what race stood in more need of
consolation than the Jewish, a martyr people apparently born only for
sorrow, always eating its bread in tears? Almost at one and the same
time, three enlightened Jews undertook the task of studying history,
and placing before the Jewish reading world its brazen tables. These
were the physician, Joseph Cohen, the learned Talmudist, Joseph
Ibn-Verga, and the poet, Samuel Usque. All three began with the same
fundamental idea. The spirit of the prophets, which recognized in the
course of historical events the fittest means for instruction and
improvement, had come upon them, incontestably showing that Jews even
in their degradation are not like the gypsy rabble, neither having
nor knowing a history; that, in fact, they stood higher than those
who wielded the scepter and the sword, the rack and the club, for the
subjugation of mankind.
The greatest of these historians was Joseph ben Joshua Cohen (born at
Avignon, 1496, died 1575). His ancestors had come from Spain at the
great expulsion, his father Joshua emigrating to Avignon, and thence
moving to Novi, in Genoese territory. For a while he lived in Genoa,
and was expelled thence. Joseph Cohen had studied medicine, devoting
himself both to the theory and the practice. He appears to have been
family physician to the doge, Andrea Doria. His heart beat warmly for
his Jewish brethren, and he was zealous in his endeavors to lighten
their unhappy lot. He once exerted himself to obtain the release
of a father and son, cast into prison by the heartless Giannettino
Doria, nephew and presumptive heir to the doge. But he succeeded in
delivering only the father, the son did not escape till the stormy
night of Fiesco's conspiracy. At the last expulsion from Genoa (1550),
the inhabitants of the little town of Voltaggio begged him to settle
amongst them as a physician, and he lived there for eighteen years. But
history attracted him more than the practice of medicine, and he began
to search for chronicles in order to write a sort of universal history
in the form of annals. He began with the period of the decline of the
Roman empire and the formation of the modern states, and represented
the course of the world's history as a struggle between Asia and
Europe, between the Crescent and the Cross; the former represented by
the then powerful dominion of Turkey; the latter, by France, which
had set up Charlemagne, the first emperor of a Christian realm. He
connected the whole of European history with these two groups of
nations. He included all the events and wars of Christendom, and of
the Mahometan countries in "The Annals of the Kings of France and of
the House of Othman," the title of his historical work. In the history
of his own times, which he either witnessed himself, or obtained
from the experience of contemporaries, he is an impartial narrator,
and, therefore, his work is a trustworthy source of information. The
Hebrew historical style, borrowed from the best books of the Bible,
renders his account most forcible. The Biblical language and dramatic
style give a charm to the work, and raise it above the level of a dry
chronicle.
Joseph Cohen introduced the history of the various persecutions of the
Jews at the different periods when they occurred. His chief aim was
to point out the justice of God in the course of history, showing how
violence and cunning met with their desert, and were cast down from the
height attained. He sympathized with the sorrows which he described;
therefore, he often wrote with intense bitterness.
Very different is another historical work of the same period,
upon which three generations, father, son, and grandson, were
employed. Judah Ibn-Verga, Kabbalist and astronomer, a member of the
distinguished Ibn-Verga family, related to the Abrabanels, had noted
down in a book some of the persecutions which Jews had undergone in
different countries and at various times. Solomon Ibn-Verga, who had
witnessed the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal, and who
for a time had pretended to be a Christian, and then emigrated to
Turkey as a Marrano, added several narratives to his father's notes.
He understood the Latin language, and so borrowed and added fresh
material from various Latin documents. His son, Joseph Ibn-Verga, who
belonged to the college of rabbis at Adrianople, completed the work
by adding some of the events of his own times and the age immediately
preceding, and then published the whole under the title of "Judah's
Rod of Correction" (Shebet Jehuda). Joseph Ibn-Verga was also learned
in Latin, and incorporated many narratives from Latin documents. This
martyrology of the Ibn-Vergas, then, is not a unit, but a medley
without plan or order, destitute even of chronological sequence.
Imaginary conversations between Jews and Spanish or Portuguese kings
are given as having actually taken place. But the Hebrew style is
brilliant and graceful, without possessing biblical coloring like that
of the historical works of Elias Kapsali and Joseph Cohen. Ibn-Verga
sought (towards the end of the first part) to show the reason why the
Jewish race, above all the Spanish Jews, were visited with so many
intolerable trials, and found it in the preference once shown for the
Jewish nation: "Whom God loves most He chasteneth most." But the chief
sources of persecution were to be found in the division between Jews
and Christians in the matter of food and drink, in the revenge taken
by Christians for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, in the offenses of
Spanish Jews against Christian women, in the envy of their riches, and
in the false oaths of which they were guilty. Ibn-Verga did not conceal
the faults of his race; perhaps he exaggerated them. Joseph Ibn-Verga
added a heartfelt prayer about the numerous sufferings which Israel had
undergone, and was still enduring, the last causing the first to be
forgotten. All the nations of the world were united in hatred to this
race; all creatures in heaven and on earth allied in enmity against it;
before a Jewish child began to prattle it was pursued by hatred and
scorn. "We are despised like the lowest worms; may God soon fulfill His
promises to His people."
The most original of the three historians, as well as of the three
Usques, probably belonging to the same family, was Samuel, who had no
doubt fled from the fire of the Inquisition in Portugal. He settled
with his relations in Ferrara. Like Solomon Usque, known under his
Spanish name of Duarte Gomez, he was a poet, but his muse did not
occupy herself with foreign material, with imitations and adaptations,
but created something original and peculiar. The brilliant and tragical
history of the Israelite people had great attraction for him; it did
not exist merely as a lifeless mass of learning in his memory, but
lived in his heart as a fresh bubbling spring from which he drew
comfort and inspiration. Biblical history with its heroes, kings,
and men of God, the history subsequent to the Captivity, with its
alternations of splendid victory and unhappy overthrow, the history
since the destruction of the Jewish rule by the Romans, all the events
and changes of these three periods were present to Samuel Usque's mind.
The material gathered from many sources he transformed by the breath
of poetry into a long, most touching lament and consolation in the
Portuguese language, not in verse, but in elevated prose, more charming
than a poetic garb. It is a conversation of three shepherds, Icabo,
Numeo, and Zicareo, the first of whom laments with bitter tears the
tragical fate of Israel since its appearance on the scene of history;
the other two pour the balm of comfort into the broken heart of the
unhappy shepherd, and show him that these sufferings are the necessary
steps to the attainment of a glorious goal. Samuel Usque named this
historical dialogue, "Consolation for the Sorrows of Israel." By his
vivid picture of the Jewish past, he intended to give to the Portuguese
fugitives in Ferrara and elsewhere, who had again attached themselves
to Judaism, comfort in their great sorrow and suffering, and lead them
to look forward to a happy future.
He represented the Israelite nation now as a mourning widow, wringing
her hands in lamentation, and weeping day and night over the sufferings
of her sons during thousands of years; now as a prophetess inspired by
God, clothed in a radiant robe, whose eye pierces the darkness, and
sees a glorious future, and whose lips utter wisdom, and pour balm on
burning wounds. Though he was not a regular historian, yet no one has
represented the principal features of Jewish history from the earliest
times down to his own with so much light and life as Samuel Usque.
The external form of this historico-poetical dialogue is as follows:
the shepherd, Icabo (or Jacob, the representative of the Jewish
nation), laments in a lonely spot the misery of his flock, dispersed
throughout all parts of the world, humiliated, and torn in pieces. "To
what quarter of the globe shall I turn and find healing for my wounds,
oblivion of my sorrows, and comfort in this grievous, heavy torment?
The whole earth is full of my misery and my distress. I am like a
poor, heavy-laden pilgrim in the midst of all the riches and delight
of favored Asia. Amid the wealth of the gold of sun-burnt Africa, I am
an unhappy, starving, fainting exile. And Europe, Europe! my hell upon
earth! what shall I say of thee, thou who hast adorned thy greatest
triumphs with the limbs of my flock? How can I praise thee, Italy,
thou blasphemous and warlike land! Thou who hast fed upon the flesh of
my lambs like a ravenous lion! Ye accursed pastures of France, which
did furnish poisoned grass for my flocks to feed on! Thou proud, rough
mountain-land of Germany, which hast taken my young, and dashed them
in pieces from the tops of thy wild Alps! And you sweet, fresh streams
of England, from you my flocks have drunk only bitter, brackish
waters! Hypocritical, cruel, bloodthirsty Spain, in you voracious and
ravening wolves have devoured, and still devour, my fleecy flocks!"
The two shepherds, Numeo and Zicareo, attracted by the heartrending
lamentations of Icabo, induce him by much persuasion to tell them his
sorrow, and thus obtain relief for his burdened heart. But not without
a struggle does he bring himself to do this. He then describes to his
two friends the former splendor of his flock, and thus brings before
their eyes the prosperous days of Israel. Then he passes to the trials
which God's flock has had to endure. Icabo is at length induced by
gentle persuasion to relate the history of his unhappy race in detail,
first its adverse fortunes, and its exile during the existence of the
first Temple; then, in a second dialogue, the bitterness endured, and
the exile till the second destruction of the Temple by the Romans;
and in a third dialogue, the sufferings of his people during the long
exile; the first forced baptism which Sisebut, king of the Visigoths,
imposed upon the Jews of Spain; the expulsion of the Jews from England
and France, Spain and Portugal; the horrors of the Inquisition, which
Usque had himself beheld; and lastly, the desecration of a synagogue at
Pesaro (1552). In this manner does Icabo (or Samuel Usque) go through
the long range of Jewish history. He concludes this summary of sorrows
thus:
"Scarcely hadst thou ceased to drink of the poisoned cup of
the Babylonians, which had well-nigh proved fatal to thee, O
Israel, when thou wast revived to endure the torments inflicted
by the Romans; and when this double misfortune, which so
cruelly tore thee in pieces, was at an end, thou wert indeed
still living, but fast bound to suffering and misery, tortured
by fresh pangs. It is the fate of all created beings to
experience change; only not thine, for thy unhappy lot is not
changed, and has no ending."
The friends offer comfort and consolation to Icabo. They say:
"Sorrows, be they never so great and intense, have an
object. They have been partly incurred by a sinful life and
by backsliding from God and are intended to serve for the
correction and purification of Israel. It is also a blessing
that thy people is scattered abroad among all the nations of
earth, that the wicked may not succeed in utterly destroying
them. When the Spaniards drove thee out, and burnt thy people,
God ordained that thou shouldst find a country ready to receive
thee, where thou couldst dwell in freedom, namely, Italy."