THE JEWS IN POLAND.
Condition of Poland--Favorable Situation of the Jews in
that Country--Anti-Jewish Party in Poland--The Jewish
Communities--Judaizing Poles--Studies of the Jews--The Talmud
in Poland--Solomon Lurya--Moses Isserles--The Historian, David
Gans--"Zemach David"--Supremacy of the Polish Authorities
in Rabbinical Matters--The Jewish Seminaries in Poland--The
Disputations at the Fairs--Chiddushim and Chillukim--Stephen
Bathori--His Kindness towards his Jewish Subjects--Sigismund
III--Restriction on the Erection of Synagogues--Jewish
Synods--Vaad Arba Arazoth--Mordecai Jafa--Christian Sects in
Poland--The Socinians or Unitarians--Simon Budny--The Reformers
and the Jews--Isaac Troki--"The Strengthening of Faith."
1566-1600 C.E.
Poland, which in this century had become a great power by reason of
its union with Lithuania under the sons of Casimir IV, like Turkey,
was the refuge of the outlawed or persecuted. Canonical Christianity,
with its love of persecution, had not yet struck firm roots there;
and monarchical despotism, encouraged by priests in its obstinate
determination to realize all its ends regardless of consequences, could
not prevail against the independent spirit of the Polish nobility.
The Starosts ruled unchecked in their provinces, like the English
and Scottish lords and clans, and could ward off the encroachments
of royalty. The reformed faith, that is to say Calvin's teaching,
was readily received by the nobility and the middle classes. Poland,
therefore, in this century, too, was a second Babylonia for the Jews,
in which on the whole they were protected from bloody persecutions,
where some of them could attain to respectable positions, and where
they were allowed to develop their individuality without restraint.
When the Jews were expelled from Bohemia, and turned their steps to
Poland, they were kindly received. Indeed, so highly appreciated were
they, that it was thought that the people could not do without them.
When, attracted by the favored position of their brethren in Turkey,
many prepared to migrate thither, the king made every exertion to
retain them in his land either by persuasion or compulsion. It mattered
very little what were the king's relations to them; for whether he
was kindly or evilly disposed, the nobles protected those who dwelt
on their estates from all attacks, in as far as their own interests
were not injured thereby. Under some kings, the Jews received favors,
under others, suffered restrictions, according as hostile or friendly
influences preponderated.
But there was a party in Poland hostile to the Jews. It regarded
with dissatisfied eyes their more favored position in that country
as compared with the rest of Christendom, and endeavored to abrogate
the statute of Casimir IV, still in force, giving protection against
unduly severe persecution. It consisted, on the one hand, of the
Catholic clergy which regretted the absence in the Polish legislation
of canonical restrictions regarding Jews; on the other, of the German
merchant and artisan class which feared Jewish competition.
There exists no estimate of the number of Jews in Poland at this time.
It is said that there were 200,000 adults. The community at Posen
numbered 3,000 members, and there were about as many in Cracow, or
rather in the suburb Kazimierz, to which they had on a former occasion
been banished. The third community in point of size was at Lublin. The
Jews had many taxes to pay under different heads. For this purpose,
indeed, they were received, and on this account tolerated in the
country, and protected by the kings and the nobility, being almost
the only ones in that impecunious land who possessed money. For this
reason, also, the kings encouraged their commercial enterprises.
When Sigismund Augustus, soon after his accession, negotiated for a
prolongation of the peace with the Russian Czar, Ivan IV, called "the
Terrible," he inserted the condition that the Jews of Lithuania be
allowed, as formerly, to freely carry on trade with Russia. But Ivan
absolutely refused this condition; he did not wish to see any Jews in
his realm. "We do not want these men," he said, "who have brought us
poison for our bodies and souls; they have sold deadly herbs among us,
and blasphemed our Lord and Saviour." A Judaizing sect had been founded
some seventy years before by a Jew called Zacharias, to which sect
even some of the priests, and a metropolitan named Zosina belonged.
This proselytizing sect continued to exist till the beginning of the
sixteenth century, but its adherents were severely persecuted when
discovered. On this account Jews were not allowed in Russia.
In consequence of the Reformation, which had made its way into Poland,
a purer taste and a love of science and literature had developed
there. Polish nobles fond of traveling brought back from Germany an
interest in these matters, and sent their sons to study at the reformed
universities of Wittenberg and Geneva. Schools arose in Poland where
Jewish boys and youths were instructed together with Christians. The
Polish Jews, it is true, did not devote themselves to science to a
marked degree, but they were by no means so devoid of it as their
German brethren.
Aristotle, that philosophical authority so familiar to the Hebrew
world and so closely akin to the Hebrew spirit, found admirers also
among Polish Jews. Even Maimuni's philosophic and religious writings
found a few readers. Astronomy and medicine, two favorite sciences
of the Jews from time immemorial, were studied also by Polish Jews.
Generally speaking, they did not share the intellectual degradation
of the Jewish inhabitants of Germany. Among them the study of the
Talmud received an impetus greater almost than in France in the
times of the Tossafist schools. Of all the Jews in Europe and Asia
those in Poland were the last to become familiar with the Talmud; as
though desirous of making up for lost time, they cherished it with
extravagant affection. It appeared as if the deep secrets of the
Talmud were to be rightly understood and completely unraveled and
appreciated only in Poland. Comprehensive erudition and marvelous
insight were united in a surprising manner in the Polish students of
this book, and everyone whom nature had not deprived of all talent
devoted himself to its study. The dead letter received new life from
the eager inspiration of the Jewish sons of Poland; in this land it
exerted an influence of great force, striking sparks of intellectual
fire, and creating a ceaseless flow of thought. The Talmudical schools
in Poland henceforward became the most celebrated throughout the whole
of European Judaism. All who sought sound learning betook themselves
thither. To have been educated in a college of the Polish Jews was of
itself a sufficient recommendation; and all who did not possess this
advantage were considered inferiors.
The fame of the rabbinical schools of Poland was due to three men:
Shalom Shachna, Solomon Lurya, and Moses Isserles. Solomon Lurya (born
in Posen about 1510, died about 1573) came from a family of German
immigrants. Had he been born in a better, a more intellectual epoch, he
would have been one of the makers of Judaism, perhaps another Maimuni.
But being the son of an age of decadence, he became only a profound
and thorough Talmud scholar, in the higher sense of the word, not
remaining satisfied with traditional data, but examining every single
point and weighing it in the golden balance of critical exactitude.
To the thorough and critical investigation of the great field of the
Talmud his whole mental activity was devoted, and he possessed the
greatest natural qualifications for such critical work. With his bold
spirit of inquiry, ruthlessly subjecting everything to the severest
examination, Lurya in any other age would have gone beyond the Talmud,
if its contradictions had made themselves glaringly apparent to him.
But by this son of an age of faith the whole book was regarded as an
actual continuation of the revelation made at Sinai, an unassailable
authority, which only needed to be properly understood, or which
wanted perhaps a little rectification here and there, but as a whole
contained the truth. Lurya was a strongly marked character, having all
the acerbity and angularity commonly associated therewith. Injustice,
venality, and hypocrisy, were so hateful to him, that he broke out
into what was sometimes imprudent excess of zealous indignation. By
reason of his distinct individuality and firmness, which he wished to
assert everywhere, Solomon Lurya offended and hurt the vanity of not a
few. He lashed in bitter terms those Talmudical scholars whose actions
did not correspond to their teaching, and devoted themselves to the
study of rabbinical literature only for the sake of discussion, or to
gain a reputation. Hence he made many enemies, and in his own time was
more feared than loved. In polemical discussion he was reckless and
unsparing, and very naturally brought upon himself retaliation which
only embittered him the more. Then he complained of persecution, and
even of the ingratitude of his disciples, who, he said, had turned
against him, and looked at everything in a gloomy light. He attacked
the students of the Talmud, because, he said, the ignorant were so
many and the possessors of knowledge so few, while their arrogance
continually increased, and no one was content to take the position
that properly belonged to him. No sooner was one of them ordained
than he assumed the airs of a master, collected a troop of disciples
around him for money, as people of rank hire a body-guard. "There are,"
he complained, "gray-headed rabbis with very little knowledge of the
Talmud, who behave imperiously to congregations and to people of real
knowledge, excommunicate and re-admit members, ordain disciples--all
for their own selfish purposes." Solomon Lurya extended the sarcastic
bitterness of his scorn to German experts in the Talmud, "who, in the
case of people of wealth and authority, show indulgence towards the
transgression of rabbinical precepts, while they spread evil reports
about men of moderate means and strangers who are guilty of slight
irregularities, such as going about with uncovered head."
However, things were not so bad in Jewish society as depicted by
Lurya's bitter humor; and this is proved in the most conclusive manner
by the recognition that this morose faultfinder himself received.
Talmudical students, both young and old, even in his lifetime, were
full of admiration for his achievements. While still betwixt youth and
middle age, he undertook his principal work of elucidating and sifting
Talmudic discussions with a view to establishing religious practice,
and he continued this work up to the end of his life without completing
it. Solomon Lurya performed this task with more thoroughness,
clearness, and depth than his contemporaries and predecessors. But
if he hoped, as it appears he did, to put an end to all variety and
confusion of opinion, he made the same mistake as Maimuni and others.
He only contributed to further entanglement of the knot. His numerous
other writings bear the same impress of thoroughness and critical
insight, but he could not reach the seat of the trouble any more than
others who had made the attempt; it lay too deep.
By reason of his critical faculty, Lurya laid stress upon what his
Polish and German fellow-students neglected as too trifling--
namely, on grammatical correctness and precision in the distinction
of the forms of speech. On the other hand, he was a declared enemy of
scholastic philosophy. It appeared to him to be dangerous and fatal to
faith.
Another leading rabbi in Poland was Moses ben Israel Isserles, of
Cracow (born in 1520, died Iyar, 1572). The son of a greatly respected
father, who had held the office of president of the community, he
distinguished himself more by his precocity and comprehensive learning
than by striking mental individuality. Inheriting so much property from
his family that he dedicated one of his houses as a synagogue, Isserles
was able to follow the bent of his genius with ease and comfort, devote
himself to the Talmud, and make himself familiar with its mazes. He
soon gained such a reputation that, while still almost a youth, he was
nominated rabbi-judge in Cracow. At thirty years of age he had embraced
the whole field of Talmudic and rabbinical literature as thoroughly as
Joseph Karo, a man double his age.
Isserles also felt the need of collecting and giving finality to the
widely scattered materials of rabbinical Judaism. But since Joseph Karo
had forestalled him by the compilation of his Code, it only remained
for him to rectify it, and comment upon it. For he regretted the
omission of several elements in that work, especially the neglect of
German rabbinical authorities and customs. This continuation of Karo's
Code, or "Table," he called the "Mappa" or "Table-cloth." As the Jews
in Germany had always been more scrupulous in their observances than
those elsewhere, the additions and supplementations made by Isserles
turned out to be burdensome. His decisions immediately received
recognition, and to the present day form the religious standard, the
official Judaism, of the German and Polish communities and those
allied to them. It cannot quite be said that he contributed to its
ossification, for he did not invent and introduce these burdens, but
only noted and codified them; he followed the universal tendency. If
Isserles had not arranged them into a religious code, some one else
would have done so.
Isserles had taste also for other subjects besides the Talmud,
especially for astronomy. He produced a commentary to Frohbach's
astronomical work, "Theorica." He likewise had an inclination for
philosophy, and pursued the subject rather deeply, though only through
the medium of Hebrew works. Maimuni's "Guide" was his guide, too. On
this account he had to submit to a sharp reproof from the proud Solomon
Lurya. Isserles also had some taste for history, which led him to
induce one of his disciples to occupy himself seriously with it. David
Gans (born in Westphalia in 1541, died in Prague in 1613) had come to
Cracow when a youth in order to study in the rabbinical academy there;
but his natural taste for scientific subjects, history, geography,
mathematics, and astronomy, was involuntarily aroused by Isserles,
who brought him up, and guided his studies. Gans devoted himself to
these subjects, and made the acquaintance of two great leaders in
mathematics and astronomy, Kepler and Tycho de Brahe. He wrote several
works on these subjects, of course in Hebrew. His chronicle (Zemach
David), consisting of annals of Jewish and general history, has become
celebrated. It was a very great thing for a German Jew to have devoted
himself to studies outside of the ordinary track. But one cannot call
David's historical work great. He introduced among Jews the dry, bare
form of historical narrative formerly employed by monks, which at
that time had already given place to a more artistic method. However,
unimportant as David's chronicle is, it possesses some merit, because
it reminded those wrapped up in the study of the Talmud that they were
the last links of a long historical chain. The want of appreciation of
history displayed by German Jews is indicated by the brief inscription
placed on Gans' tomb, while there were no limits to the eulogies
glorifying the memory of some obscure rabbinical dignitary. The study
of the Talmud, prosecuted merely as an effort of memory, won greater
fame for its votaries than devotion to any branch of science, however
profoundly grasped.
The three great rabbinical lights, first both in rank and in priority
of time, Shachna, Solomon Lurya, and Isserles, laid the foundation
of the extraordinary erudition of the Polish Jews. Any complicated
or generally interesting question, arising in Germany, Moravia,
Bohemia, even in Italy and Turkey, was submitted to them, especially
to Isserles, for final decision. The revoltingly vulgar actions of
the community at Prague, against which the local college of rabbis
was powerless, were brought before the rabbis of Poland, and attacked
vigorously by them. Passionate disputes in Frankfort-on-the-Main, which
threatened to produce persecution or expulsion, were settled, and a
reconciliation effected from Poland. Thus this rabbinical triumvirate
founded a kind of supremacy of Poland over the Jews of Europe,
acknowledged on all sides, and the Polish rabbis maintained their
position as leaders up to the end of the eighteenth century.
The triumvirate, whose numerous disciples rivaled each other in the
study of the Talmud, gradually caused nearly all Polish Jews to become
familiar with that book, and eligible for the rabbinical office. Even
in small communities of only fifty members there were at least twenty
Talmudical scholars, who in turn instructed at least thirty pupils.
Everywhere there arose schools with rabbis at their head as teachers,
whose chief duty was to deliver lectures, everything else being of
secondary importance. Young men crowded to these establishments, where
they could live free from care, their maintenance being defrayed out
of the treasury of the community, or by wealthy private individuals.
Children were put to the study of the Talmud at a tender age, certainly
to the detriment of the natural development of their minds. It was the
highest honor to conduct a rabbinical school, and their ambition was
encouraged to strive for this object. Supervisors were nominated to
watch over the industry of the students (Bachurim) and the children.
Gradually a kind of syllabus with alternating themes, in use up to
recent times, was introduced for the lectures on the Talmud in the
summer and the winter term.
At the end of the term, the teachers and their numerous pupils went to
the great Polish fairs, in summer to Zaslaw and Jaroslaw, in winter
to Lemberg and Lublin. Thus several thousand students of the Talmud
met, and there ensued a lively interchange of remarks and subtle
disputations upon the subject-matter of rabbinical and Talmudic study.
Public disputations were held, in which anyone might take part. The
keener intellects received wealthy brides as a reward for their mental
exertions. Rich parents took pride in having sons-in-law educated in
Talmudic schools, and sought for them at the fairs. The Polish Jews,
by reason of this fervent zeal, acquired a Talmudic deportment, so to
speak, which showed itself in every movement and every utterance, by
ungraceful shrugging of the shoulders and a peculiar movement of the
thumbs. Every conversation, whether of a perfectly indifferent nature
or even upon matters of business, resembled a disputation upon the
Talmud. Talmudical words, designations, phrases, and allusions, passed
into popular speech, and were understood even by women and children.
But this excessive study of the Talmud in Poland was of no real
advantage to Judaism. It was not carried on in order to gain a proper
understanding of the book, but merely to find something unique, rare,
witty, striking, something to tickle the intellectual palate. In these
meetings of thousands of students of the Talmud, masters and disciples,
teachers and pupils, at the great fairs, every individual exerted
himself to discover something new, startling, and casuistical, bringing
it forward only to surpass all others, without caring whether it stood
the test of proof, or was only relatively true, but merely to gain a
reputation for sharp-wittedness. The chief endeavor of the Talmudical
students of Poland was directed to bringing to light something new in
Talmudic criticism, or in inventing something (Chiddush). The lectures
of the heads of schools, and of all rabbis, had only this object in
view--to set up something hitherto unsurpassed, to weave a net of
sophistical Talmudical propositions, and to go still further in the
process of incomprehensible hair-splitting (Chillukim). Hence the
whole trend of Jewish thought in Poland was in a wrong direction.
The language of the Jews in particular suffered from this cause,
degenerating into a ridiculous jargon, a mixture of German, Polish,
and Talmudical elements, an unpleasant stammering, rendered still more
repulsive by forced attempts at wit. This corrupt speech, despising
all forms, could be understood only by Jews, natives of the country.
Together with their language the Polish Jews lost that which really
constitutes a man, and were thus exposed to the scorn and contempt of
non-Jewish society. The Bible had fallen gradually into the background
in the course of development since the time of Maimuni; now in Poland
knowledge of it was utterly lost. If anyone occupied himself with it,
it was merely to derive the materials for wit, or false wit, from its
pages.
The circumstances of the time were such that the Jews of Poland were
able, to a certain extent, to form an independent state within the
Polish state. Several kings in succession were favorable to them,
according them extensive protective privileges, and seeing, as far as
their power went, that these rights were respected. After the death of
the last king of the Jagellon dynasty, Sigismund Augustus (1572), the
Jews of Poland profited by the elective monarchy. Each newly-elected
king above all needed money, which could be supplied only by Jews; or,
he needed a party among the nobles, and this order, in general devoted
to the Jews, obtained a preponderating influence as compared with the
narrow-minded German middle class, hostile to Jews.
After a thirteen months' interregnum, occupied by election negotiations
and intrigues, the sagacious prince of Transylvania, Stephen Bathori,
gained the Polish throne, not without the co-operation of the Jewish
agent, Solomon Ashkenazi, for Turkey had supported his election. Not
long after his accession, he sent kind messages to the Jews, protected
those in Lithuania against false and calumnious accusation of the
murder of Christian children, and uttered his conviction that the Jews
conscientiously obeyed the Hebrew law of not shedding human blood.
His reign of nearly twelve years (1575-1586) forms a happy episode
in the history of the Jews in Poland. Stephen Bathori, moreover, did
not allow the privileges to remain a dead letter, but preserved them
in full force. He allowed Jews (in 1576) to carry on all kinds of
trade without restriction, even to buy and sell on Christian holidays,
desired that the murder of a Jew, like the murder of a Christian, be
punished by death, and made the city magistracies responsible for riots
and injuries caused by Christian mobs in synagogues, cemeteries, and at
Jewish funerals. The promoters of tumultuous attacks upon Jews, which
occurred chiefly in the half-German city of Posen, were to be fined ten
thousand Polish marks, and the magistrate who had not done his duty
in protecting Jews was to be fined a similar sum. Bathori's reign was
not, however, free from libelous attacks on the Jews. Where was there
at that time in Christian Europe a single country in which the enemies
of the Jews did not assail them? A Polish poet, Klonowicz, poured forth
his scorn of their trade, usury, and arrogance, in Latin verses; the
rulers, he said, robbed the Jews, only to be robbed by them in turn.
In the long reign of Sigismund III (1587-1632), the Swedish prince
whose election gave a pretext for internal dissensions and civil wars,
the Polish Jews fared better than might have been expected from a pupil
of the Jesuits and a zealous Catholic. Although he caused dissenting
Poles to be severely persecuted, the Jews under his government were by
no means unhappy. At the diet in Warsaw (1592) he confirmed the ancient
privileges of Casimir, considered to be in their favor. However,
Sigismund III introduced one law, very disadvantageous to Jews, and
disclosing the ecclesiastical bent of his mind. He ordained that the
permission of the clergy had to be gained to build new synagogues,
a regulation which, of course, rendered the practice of the Jewish
religion dependent on a church eager for persecution.
Under this king the Jews in Poland introduced (1586-1592) an
institution which had not existed in that particular form in Jewish
history. It gave the Polish communities extraordinary unity, firmness,
and strength, and hence secured respect both from their members and
outsiders. Hitherto it had naturally come about that, at the meeting
of rabbis and heads of schools with their followers at the great
fairs, important questions were discussed, law cases were settled, and
general consultations took place. The utility of such meetings may
have become clearly apparent, and given rise to the idea of arranging
regular conferences of the heads of communities, to draw up final,
binding decisions. Both leaders and communities must have been actuated
by a healthy spirit in agreeing to common action. The communities
of the chief provinces, Little Poland, Greater Poland, and Russia,
were the first to unite in instituting conferences (Vaad) at regular
intervals, to take place at the great fairs of Lublin and Jaroslaw. The
communities sent delegates, learned men of proved excellence, who had a
seat and a vote in the synod. They chose a president, who directed the
discussion of questions, and drew up a report of the session. Disputes
in the communities, questions of taxation, religious and social
regulations, the averting of threatened dangers, and help to brethren
in distress, were the main points treated by the synods, and settled
finally. The synods also exercised a literary censorship by granting
permission for certain books to be printed and sold, and refusing
it in the case of others which seemed to them harmful. Probably the
Lithuanian Jews were represented at a later period, and the synods were
called the Synods of the Four Countries (Vaad Arba Arazoth). These
conferences had a very beneficial effect: they prevented long-standing
dissensions, averted or punished acts of injustice, kept alive a
feeling of union amongst the communities, directing them towards common
action, thereby counteracting the narrowness and selfishness of merely
local interests, which so greatly encouraged the dismemberment and
isolation of communities, as, for example, in Germany. On this account
the synod of Polish Jews was respected even abroad; and distant German
communities or private individuals who had any complaint to make,
applied to these supreme assemblies, certain to obtain relief. It is to
the glory of the men who, for nearly two hundred years, presided over
the synods, that their names, worthy of the remembrance of posterity,
remained in obscurity, as though they had consciously suppressed their
individuality in favor of the community at large. Still less is known
of the originators of this institution, who succeeded in the difficult
task of overcoming the anarchic tendency of the people, as Jews and
as Poles, and of inducing them to subordinate themselves to one great
end. It is conjectured that Mordecai Jafa, a rabbi from Bohemia (born
about 1532, died 1612), who made many journeys, and suffered much
sorrow, was the organizer of these regular conferences. He had been
compelled, in his youth, to assume the wanderer's staff. In this way
he came to Venice; here he occupied himself in drawing up a religious
code more convenient than that of Joseph Karo. Apparently the search
made by the Inquisition for copies of the Talmud rendered his stay in
Venice unpleasant, and he again betook himself to Poland. There finally
he officiated as a rabbi, first in Grodno, afterwards in Lublin, from
about 1575 till the spring of 1592. In Lublin, one of the great fair
towns, many thousands of Jews used to meet, and there were always
undecided law-suits and disputes to be settled. Mordecai Jafa may very
possibly have gained from this the idea of transforming these chance
synods into regular conferences and of drawing up rules for them. His
authority was sufficient to gain acceptance for his proposals, which
satisfied an urgent need. When he left Lublin in his old age to take
up the office of rabbi at Prague, the presidency of the synod seems
to have been occupied by Joshua Falk Cohen, the head of a school at
Lemberg (1592-1616), whose great academy was maintained by his rich
and respected father-in-law. The frequent meetings of the Reformers in
Poland, the Lutherans and Unitarians, with their respective sects, seem
to have served as a model for the Jewish assemblies. Only the latter
did not discuss hair-splitting dogmas, like the others, but decided
practical questions of daily life.
Poland and Lithuania, superficially considered, presented the spectacle
of a land honeycombed with religious divisions, from which a new form
of Christianity was to arise. While in Germany the reforming movement
and the opposition to it was subsiding, while the Titans who stormed
the gates of heaven were settling down into ordinary parsons; while the
new church in its turn was entering upon a process of ossification,
and, after a short season of youthful ardor, was falling into the
feebleness of old age; the waves of religious and sectarian separation
were only now rising in Polish countries, and threatening a general
inundation. The German colonies in Poland had transplanted the
Reformation with them, and the Polish nobility thought it an imperative
fashion to pay homage to this anti-papal innovation. Christianity in
Poland and Lithuania, be it the new or the old church, was too young to
be firmly rooted; and so the Reformation, finding little opposition,
gained rapid admittance among the nobles and the bourgeoisie almost to
its own discomfiture. Sigismund Augustus had allowed the movement free
play; indeed, under the influence of the Radziwills of Lithuania, who
stood close to his throne, he almost renounced the papacy altogether.
Thus Poland became a free state in the widest sense, and an arena
for the new teaching of the Augustine monk of Wittenberg. Even those
thinkers or enthusiasts in Italy, Switzerland, or Germany, who wished
to push the religious movement, but were persecuted either by the
Catholics or the Reformers, found kindly welcome and protection under
the Polish nobility, who were quite independent in their own districts.
Thus arose a sect in Poland which, logically developed, might have
given a fatal blow to Christianity in general. The ashes of Servetus
of Aragon, burned at the stake in Geneva, the author of a treatise,
"On the Errors of the Trinity," seem to have been the seed for
fresh dissensions in the church. A number of his disciples, Socinus,
Blandrata, and Paruta, Italians of bold intellect, who undermined
the foundations of Christianity, and were outlawed by Catholics and
Reformers alike, passed over the Polish frontier, and were allowed
not only to live there free, but also to speak freely. The attacks
of the Socinians or Pinczovinians (as this sect, which flourished
in Poland, was called) were directed mainly against the Trinity as
a form of polytheism. Hence they received the name of Unitarians or
anti-Trinitarians. There arose a swarm of sects who met at synodic
conventions to find grounds of union, but separated with still further
divisions and dissensions.
Among the Unitarians, or disbelievers in the Trinity, were some who
partially approached Judaism, rejecting the veneration of Jesus as
a divine person. They were scoffed at by their various opponents as
"Half-Jews" (semi-judaizantes). To the strictest sect of Unitarians
in Poland belonged Simon Budny, of Masovia, a Calvinist priest, who
founded a sect of his own, the Budnians. He died after 1584. He
possessed more learning than the other founders of sects, and also
had a slight knowledge of Hebrew, which he had probably learned from
Jews. Simon Budny made himself famous by his simple translation of the
Old and the New Testament into Polish (published at Zaslaw, 1572).
His intercourse with Jews is shown by his respect for the universally
despised Talmud.
Although the movement of religious reform in Poland, in spite of
the frequent synods, disputations, and protests, did not penetrate
very deep, it was not without effect upon the Jews. They were fond
of entering into discussions with the leaders or adherents of the
various sects, if not to convert them to Judaism, yet to show their
own superiority in biblical knowledge. Conversations upon religion
between Jews and "Dissenters" (as all Poles who had seceded from Roman
Catholicism were called) were of frequent occurrence. A Unitarian,
Martin Czechowic (born about 1530, died 1613), from Greater Poland, a
man of confused intellect, who had passed through all the phases of the
religious movements of the day, and who finally became a schismatic,
rejected the baptism of infants, and maintained that a Christian could
not undertake any office of state. This Martin Czechowic had written a
work to refute the objections of the Jews to the Messianic claims of
Jesus, and had fought against the continued obligatoriness of Judaism
with old and rusty weapons. A Rabbanite Jew, Jacob of Belzyce, in
Lublin (1581), wrote a refutation, so effective that Czechowic found
himself compelled to justify his thesis in a rejoinder.
Isaac ben Abraham Troki, of Troki, near Wilna (born 1533, died 1594),
a Karaite, engaged still more actively than Jacob of Belzyce in
disputations with the adherents of Polish and Lithuanian sects. He had
access to nobles, princes of the church, and other Christian circles,
was deeply acquainted with the Bible, well read in the New Testament,
and in the different polemical, religious writings of his day, and
thus able to produce thoroughly accurate statements. Shortly before
his death (1593) Isaac Troki collected the results of his religious
conversations in a work that was subsequently to serve as the arsenal
for destructive weapons against Christianity. He entitled his work "The
Strengthening of Faith." He not merely answered the numerous attacks
made upon Judaism by Christians, but carried the war into the camp of
Christianity. With great skill and thorough knowledge of his subject,
he brought into prominence the contradictions and untenable assertions
in the Gospels and other original Christian documents. It is the only
book by a Karaite author worth reading. It certainly does not contain
anything specially new; all brought forward in defense of Judaism and
against Christianity had been far better said by Spanish authors of a
previous period, especially by the talented Profiat Duran. Yet Troki's
work had more success, for books have a fate of their own. This book
was translated into Spanish, Latin, German, and French, and gained
still greater fame from the attacks upon it by Christians. One of the
dukes of Orleans undertook to refute the onslaught of this Polish Jew
upon Christianity. And when Reason, awakened and strengthened, applied
the lever to shake the foundations of Christianity and demolish the
whole superstructure, it was to this store-chamber that she turned for
her implements.