"When … Jannæus Alexander died, the Jewish kingdom stretched

towards the south over the whole Philistian territory as far

as the Egyptian frontier; towards the south-east as far as the

Nabatæan kingdom of Petra, from which Jannæus had wrested

considerable tracts on the right bank of the Jordan and the

Dead Sea; towards the north over Samaria and the Decapolis up

to the lake of Gennesareth; here he was already making

arrangements to occupy Ptolemais (Acco) and victoriously to

repel the aggressions of the Ityræans. The coast obeyed the

Jews from Mount Carmel as far as Rhinocorura, including the

important Gaza—Ascalon alone was still free; so that the

territory of the Jews, once almost cut off from the sea, could

now be enumerated among the asylums of piracy. Now that the

Armenian invasion, just as it approached the borders of Judæa,

was averted by the intervention of Lucullus, … the gifted

rulers of the Hasmonæan house would probably have carried

their arms still further, had not the development of the power

of that remarkable conquering sacerdotal state been arrested

by internal divisions.

{1915}

The spirit of religious independence and the national

patriotism—the energetic union of which had called the

Maccabee state into life—very soon became dissociated and

even antagonistic. The Jewish orthodoxy [or Pharisaism]

gaining fresh strength in the times of the Maccabees, …

proposed as its practical aim a community of Jews composed of

the orthodox in all lands essentially irrespective of the

secular government—a community which found its visible points

of union in the tribute to the temple at Jerusalem obligatory

on every conscientious Jew and in the schools of religion and

spiritual courts, and its canonical superintendence in the

great temple consistory at Jerusalem, which was reconstituted

in the first period of the Maccabees and may be compared as

respects its sphere of jurisdiction to the Roman pontifical

college. Against this orthodoxy, which was becoming more and

more ossified into theological formalism and a painful

ceremonial service, was arrayed the opposition of the

so-called Sadducees—partly dogmatic, in so far as these

innovators acknowledged only the sacred books themselves and

conceded authority merely, not canonicity, to the 'bequests of

the scribes,' that is canonical tradition; partly political,

in so far as instead of a fatalistic waiting for the strong

arm of the Lord of Zebaoth they taught that the salvation of

the nation was to be expected from the weapons of this world,

and above all from the internal and external strengthening of

the kingdom of David as re-established in the glorious times

of the Maccabees. The partisans of orthodoxy found their

support in the priesthood and the multitude. … Jannæus had

kept down the priesthood with a strong hand; under his two

sons there arose … a civil and fraternal war, since the

Pharisees opposed the vigorous Aristobulus and attempted to

obtain their objects under the nominal rule of his brother,

the good-natured and indolent Hyrcanus. This dissension not

merely put a stop to the Jewish conquests, but gave also

foreign nations opportunity to interfere and to obtain a

commanding position in southern Syria. This was the case first

of all with the Nabatæans. This remarkable nation has often

been confounded with its eastern neighbours, the wandering

Arabs, but it is more closely related to the Aramæan branch

than to the proper children of Ishmael. This Aramæan, or,

according to the designation of the Occidentals, Syrian, stock

must have in very early times sent forth from its most ancient

settlements about Babylon a colony, probably for the sake of

trade, to the northern end of the Arabian gulf; these were the

Nabatæans on the Sinaitic peninsula, between the gulf of Suez

and Aila, and in the region of Petra (Wadi Mousa). In their

ports the wares of the Mediterranean were exchanged for those

of India; the great southern caravan-route, which ran from

Gaza to the mouth of the Euphrates and the Persian gulf,

passed through the capital of the Nabatæans—Petra—whose

still magnificent rock-palaces and rock-tombs furnish clearer

evidence of the Nabatæan civilization than does an almost

extinct tradition. The party of the Pharisees, to whom after

the manner of priests the victory of their faction seemed not

too dearly bought at the price of the independence and

integrity of their country, solicited Aretas the king of the

Nabatæans for aid against Aristobulus, in return for which

they promised to give back to him all the conquests wrested

from him by Jannæus. Thereupon Aretas had advanced with, it

was said, 50,000 men into Judæa and, reinforced by the

adherents of the Pharisees, he kept king Aristobulus besieged

in his capital."

_T. Mommsen,

History of Rome,

book 5, chapter 4 (volume 4)._

"While this was going on, Pompey had meanwhile begun his

victorious campaign in Asia [see ROME: B. C. 69-63]. He had

conquered Mithridates in B. C. 66, and had in the same year

received the voluntary submission of Tigranes. While he

himself now pressed on farther into Asia, he sent Scaurus to

Syria in B. C. 65. When that general arrived at Damascus he

heard of the war between the brothers in Judea, and pushed

forward without delay to see how he might turn to account this

strife between the rival princes. He had scarcely reached

Judea when ambassadors presented themselves before him, both

from Aristobulus and from Hyrcanus. They both sought his

favour and support. Aristobulus offered him in return four

hundred talents; and Hyrcanus could not be behind, and so

promised the same sum. But Scaurus trusted Aristobulus rather

because he was in a better position to fulfil his engagement,

and so decided to take his side. He ordered Aretas to withdraw

if he did not wish to be declared an enemy of the Romans.

Aretas did not venture to show opposition. He therefore raised

the siege, and thereupon Scaurus returned to Damascus. But

Aristobulus pursued Aretas on his way homeward, and inflicted

upon him a crushing defeat. But the Roman favour which

Aristobulus had so exerted himself to secure, under the

protection of which he believed himself to be safe, soon

proved fatal to his well-being and that of his country. He

himself left no stone unturned in order to win the goodwill of

Pompey as well as of Scaurus. He sent Pompey a costly present,

a skilfully wrought golden vine worth five hundred talents,

which Strabo found still on view at Rome in the temple of

Jupiter Capitolinus. But all this could not save Aristobulus,

whenever Pompey found it to be for his advantage to withdraw

his favour and take the side of Hyrcanus. In the spring of B.

C. 63, Pompey proceeded from his winter quarters into Syria,

subdued the greater and smaller princes in the Lebanon, and

advanced by way of Heliopolis and Chalcis upon Damascus. There

he was met at one and the same time by representatives of

three Jewish parties. Not only did Aristobulus and Hyrcanus

appear, but the Jewish people also sent an embassy. Hyrcanus

complained that Aristobulus, in defiance of all law, had

violently assumed the government; Aristobulus justified his

conduct by pointing out the incapacity of Hyrcanus. But the

people wished to have nothing to do with either, asked for the

abolition of the monarchy and the restoration of the old

theocratic constitution of the priests. Pompey heard them, but

cautiously deferred any decision, and declared that he would

put all things in order when he had accomplished his

contemplated expedition against the Nabatheans. Till then all

parties were to maintain the peace. Aristobulus, however, was

by no means satisfied with this arrangement, and betrayed his

discontent by suddenly quitting Dium, whither he had

accompanied Pompey on his expedition against the Nabatheans.

Pompey grew suspicious, postponed his campaign against the

Nabatheans, and marched immediately against Aristobulus.

{1916}

He … pursued him through Jericho, and soon appeared in the

neighbourhood of Jerusalem. But now Aristobulus lost heart. He

betook himself to the camp of Pompey, gave him further

presents, and promised to surrender to him the city if Pompey

would suspend hostilities. Pompey was satisfied with this, and

sent his general Gabinius to take possession of the city,

while he retained Aristobulus in the camp. But Gabinius

returned without having obtained his object, for the people in

the city had shut the gates against him. Pompey was so enraged

at this that he put Aristobulus in prison, and immediately

advanced against the city. … The city was surrendered to

Pompey, who sent in his legate Piso, and without drawing sword

took possession of it. But the war faction gathered together

on the temple mount and there prepared themselves for

resistance. The temple mount was then, as afterwards, the

strongest point in Jerusalem. It presented to the east and the

south a sheer precipice. Also on the west it was separated

from the city by a deep ravine. Only on the north was there a

gradual slope; but even there approach was made almost

impossible by the construction of strong fortifications. In

this fortress, well nigh impregnable, the adherents of

Aristobulus had now taken refuge, and Pompey, whether he would

or not, had to engage upon a regular siege. … After a three

months' siege, a breach was made in the wall. A son of the

dictator Sulla was the first to make way through it with his

troops. Others quickly followed. Then began a frightful

massacre. The priests, who were then engaged offering

sacrifice, would not desist from the execution of their

office, and were hewn down at the altar. No less than 12,000

Jews are said to have lost their lives in this general

butchery. It was towards the close of autumn of the year B. C.

63, under Cicero's consulship, according to Josephus on the

very day of atonement, according to Dio Cassius on a Sabbath,

that this holy city bowed its head before the Roman commander.

Pompey himself forced his way into the Most Holy Place, into

which only the feet of the high priest had ever before

entered. But he left the treasures and precious things of the

temple untouched, and also took care that the service of God

should be continued without interruption. On the besieged he

passed a severe sentence. Those who had promoted the war were

beheaded; the city and the country were made tributary. …

The boundaries of the Jewish territories were greatly

curtailed. All the coast towns from Raphia to Dora were taken

from the Jews; and also all non-Jewish towns on the east of

the Jordan, such as Hippos, Gadara, Pella, Dium, and others;

also Scythopolis and Samaria, with the regions around them.

All these towns were immediately put under the rule of the

governor of the newly-formed Roman province of Syria. The

contracted Jewish territory was given over to Hyrcanus II.,

who was recognised as high priest, without the title of king.

… With the institutions of Pompey the freedom of the Jewish

people, after having existed for scarcely eighty years, if we

reckon it as beginning in B. C. 142, was completely

overthrown. Pompey, indeed, was acute enough to insist upon no

essential change in the internal government of the country. He

suffered the hierarchical constitution to remain intact, and

gave the people as their high priest Hyrcanus II., who was

favoured by the Pharisees. But the independence of the nation

was at an end, and the Jewish high priest was a vassal of the

Romans."

_E. Schürer,

History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ,

division 1, volume 1, pages 317-324._

Hyrcanus II. was not merely the vassal of the Romans; he was

the puppet of one of his own partisans—the able Idumean,

Antipater, who gathered the reins of government into his own

hands. "Antipater ruled without interfering with Hyrcanus; he

rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, and appointed Phasael, the

eldest of his four heroic sons (whose mother was Kypros, an

Arabian), to be ruler of the district of the holy city, and

Herod the younger to be ruler of Galilee. This young man, who

was at that time scarcely twenty-five years old, was soon able

to surpass even his father. … He purified Galilee from the

robber-bands, of which Hezekiah was the most dreaded leader,

and by so doing, although he was already a mark for the hatred

borne by the national and priestly party against the Edomites,

as friends of their new tyrants the Romans, he distinguished

himself by dealing summarily with the robbers, without

appealing to the legal authorities. He therefore appeared

before the Sanhedrim of Jerusalem, to which he was summoned by

Hyrcanus, with a military escort, wearing purple, with his

head anointed, and bearing a letter of safe-conduct from his

patron Sextus Cæsar, the ruler of Syria. … Hyrcanus allowed

him to withdraw in defiance: he hastened to Syria, bought the

governments of Cœle-Syria and Samaria (B. C. 46), marched

thence with an army towards Jerusalem, and when he had with

difficulty been persuaded by his father and brother to return,

he rejoiced that he had at least menaced the country. Neither

the death of Julius Cæsar (B. C. March 44), the civil war at

Rome, nor the poisoning of his father Antipater at the table

of Hyrcanus in the year 43, interfered with Herod's success:

He bought the favour of Cæsar's murderers by the unexampled

haste with which he brought in large contributions, amounting

to a hundred talents (more than £20,000) from Galilee alone,

so that Cassius appointed him Procurator of Syria, and

promised him the dignity of king, in the event of a victory

over Anthony and Octavianus, a prospect which indeed cost his

father his life. Nor was Herod's power destroyed by the

unfortunate battle of Philippi in the autumn of B. C. 42. He

succeeded in gaining Anthony by the influence of his person

and of his wealth; and in spite of all the embassies of the

Jews, Phasael and Herod were appointed tetrarchs of the whole

of Judea in the year B. C. 41. His betrothal to Mariamne,

grand-child of Hyrcanus, which took place at the same time,

added the illusion of national and hereditary right to Herod's

previous good fortune. But there was first an interval of

hardship. Immediately afterwards, the Parthian armies overran

Upper Asia, while Anthony remained in Egypt, ensnared by

Cleopatra: they took Jerusalem [B. C. 40], and to please that

place as well as the Jews of Babylon, they installed

Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, as king, taking Phasael and

Hyrcanus prisoners, while Herod escaped with difficulty. All

was ended with a blow, Herod was put to flight, Phasael killed

himself, and Antigonus cut off the cars of Hyrcanus the high

priest. Herod landed in Italy as an adventurer.

{1917}

He met Anthony, and by his means also gained over Octavianus.

Fear and hatred of the Parthians effected even more than old

acquaintance and new engagements: and beyond his most daring

hopes a decree of the senate [B. C. 40] bestowed the kingdom

of Judea upon him."

_T. Keim,

History of Jesus of Nazara,

volume I, page 231._

JEWS: B. C. 40-A. D. 44.

Herod and the Herodians.

Roman rule.

Returning to Judæa with his new rank and the confirmed support

of Rome, "Herod slowly obtained possession of the country, not

without the help of Roman legions, and in a third campaign, in

June (Sivan), B. C. 37, occupied Jerusalem [after a siege of

half a year] and the Temple, in the halls of which fire raged,

contrary to his wish, and blood streamed through its courts.

This was the second Roman occupation of Jerusalem, after an

interval of twenty-six years, even to a day. Antigonus fell,

by the king's wish, beneath the axe of Anthony, and the

Maccabean house had ceased to reign. The new kingdom underwent

its final crisis in the war between Octavianus and Anthony, in

which Herod was constrained to take part with Anthony. … The

frankness with which, after the battle of Actium (September,

B. C. 31), he proclaimed his friendship for Anthony to

Octavianus at the island of Rhodes, in order to set before him

the prospect of a like faithfulness, procured the crown for

him afresh, which Octavianus set upon his head." Octavianus

"restored to him all the possessions which his intriguing

enemy Cleopatra had obtained at his expense in the south of

the country and on its western coast, giving to him Gadra,

Hippo, Samaria, and on the coast Gaza, Anthedon, Joppa, the

tower of Strato, and in short the whole country, and even more

than he had lost by Pompey's conquests. A few years later the

same benefactor enlarged the kingdom on the north-east, by

making over to Herod, between the years B. C. 24-21, the wide

extent of territory reaching to Anti-Lebanon, and Damascus, in

order to protect that city from attacks on the side of the

desert. He was appointed Procurator-General of Syria, and

afterwards nearly obtained the government of Arabia. It was in

fact almost the kingdom of David which was again united under

Herod. Herod enjoyed the favour of Octavianus, with few

intervals, to the last. … Herod did not merely owe his

success to that officious attention which displayed the

greatness of Rome in costly hospitalities, gifts, and edifices

of every kind, but to his genuine fidelity and manly heroism,

his pre-eminent wisdom and readiness to accept the culture of

the West, qualities which were recognized as adapting him to

be a most useful ally in the territory which bounded the

eastern empire of Rome, where the inhabitants were so ready to

take offence. Herod, in a certain sense, emulated his friend

in Rome, in introducing an Augustan era into his land. He, as

well as Octavianus, put an end to war, and the dominion which

had been cemented together by the blood of its citizens

enjoyed a long peace, lasting for almost forty years. … The

prosperity of the country increased so much in these quiet

times that Herod, when he began to build the Temple, boasted

of the wealth and income which had accumulated in an

unprecedented manner, so as to confirm the most fabulous

accounts of the luxurious expenditure of his reign. … Herod

was not devoid of nobler qualities, even although they have

been forgotten by the Jews and Christians. He was not merely a

brave leader in war, a bold hunter and rider, and a sagacious

ruler; there was in him a large-heartedness and an innate

nobility of mind which enabled him to be a benefactor of his

people. This fundamental characteristic of his nature,

inherited from his father, is admitted by the Jewish

historian, times out of number, and has been shown by his

affection for his father, mother, and brothers, and also for

his friends, by his beneficence in good fortune, and even in

adversity. … When in the thirteenth year of his reign (B. C.

25), some years before the building of the Temple, famine and

sickness devastated the land, he sold the gold and silver

treasures in his house, and himself became poor, while he

bespoke great quantities of grain from Egypt, which he

dispensed, and caused to be made into bread: he clothed the

poor, and fed 50,000 men at his own expense: he himself sent

help to the towns of Syria, and obtained the immediate, and

indeed the enduring gratitude of the people as a second

Joseph. Yet it was only the large-heartedness of a barbarian,

without true culture, or deeper morality. Hence came the

unscrupulousness, the want of consideration for the national

peculiarities which he opposed, the base cunning and vanity

which coloured all his actions, and hence again, especially in

later life, he became subject to caprices, to anger and

repentance, to mistrust and cruelty, to the wiles of women and

of eunuchs. He was, in short, only the petty tyrant, the

successful upstart who was self-seeking, and at once rash and

timid; a beggar before Augustus; a foolish time-server before

the Greek and Roman world; a tyrant in his own house, and

incapable either of resisting influence or of enduring

contradiction. … The dangerous position of the upstart, with

respect to the earlier royal family and to the national

aversion, the divisions of his numerous family, the intrigues

of a court of women, eunuchs, barbers, and frivolous

flatterers of every description, drew him on, as if with

demoniacal power, from one stage of cruelty to another. …

Daily executions began on his entry into Jerusalem in the year

B. C. 37 with the execution of Antigonus, of the nephew of

Hyrcanus, and of his own dependants. … He pardoned no one

whom he suspected: he enforced obedience by an oath, and

whoever would not swear forfeited his life. Innumerable people

disappeared mysteriously in the fortress of Hyrcania. Life was

forfeited even for the offence of meeting or standing

together, when it was noticed by the countless spies in the

city and on the highways, and indeed by himself in his rounds

by night. The bloody decimation of his own family was most

revolting. About the year B. C. 35 he caused his wife's

brother Aristobulus, who had been high priest for eighteen

years, to be stifled by his Gallic guards in a pond at

Jericho, because he was popular, and belonged to the old

family: in the year B. C. 31, after the battle of Actium, he

murdered his grandfather-in-law Hyrcanus, aged eighty years,

and in the year B. C. 30 or 29 his wife Mariamne, and a little

later her intriguing mother Alexandra, since they had become

objects of suspicion to him: in the year B. C. 25 his

brother-in-law, Kostobar, find a long line of friends were

slain: about the year B. C. 6, the sons of Mariamne, Alexander

and Aristobulus, were judicially condemned and strangled in

Samaria: and finally the diabolical Antipater, the son of the

first marriage, who, together with Salome, Herod's sister, and

with Alexandra, his mother-in-law, had taken the greatest part

in the crimes of the family."

_T. Keim,

History of Jesus of Nazara,

volume 1, pages 233-246._

{1918}

Herod died within the year (B. C. 4) which has been most

generally agreed upon as that of the birth of Jesus. By ten

wives he had had many children, and had slain not a few; but a

large family survived, to quarrel over the heritage, disputing

a will which Herod left. There was a hearing of the disputants

at Rome, and also a hearing given to deputies of the Jewish

people, who prayed to be delivered from the Herodian family,

all and singly. The latter prayer, however, received small

consideration. The imperial judgment established Archelaus,

eldest son of Herod's sixth wife, Malthace, in the sovereignty

of Judæa, Idumæa, and Samaria, with the title of Ethnarch. To

Herod Antipas, second son of the same mother, it gave Galilee

and Peræa. Philip, another son, by a seventh wife, was made

tetrarch of a small principality. Archelaus governed so

oppressively that, after some years (A. D. 6), he was deposed

by the Romans and banished to Gaul. Judæa was then joined to

the præfecture of Syria, under a succession of Roman

governors, the fifth of whom was Pontius Pilate. "Judaea thus

became in the year 6 A. D. a Roman province of the second

rank, and, apart from the ephemeral restoration of the kingdom

of Jerusalem under Claudius in the years 41-44, thenceforth

remained a Roman province. Instead of the previous native

princes holding office for life and, under reservation of

their being confirmed by the Roman government, hereditary,

came an official of the equestrian order, nominated and liable

to recall by the emperor. The port of Caesarea rebuilt by

Herod after a Hellenic model became, probably at once, the

seat of Roman administration. The exemption of the land from

Roman garrison, as a matter of course, ceased, but, as

throughout in provinces of second rank, the Roman military

force consisted only of a moderate number of cavalry and

infantry divisions of the inferior class; subsequently one ala

and five cohorts—about 3,000 men—were stationed there. These

troops were perhaps taken over from the earlier government, at

least in great part formed in the country itself, mostly,

however, from Samaritans and Syrian Greeks. The province did

not obtain a legionary garrison, and even in the territories

adjoining Judaea there was stationed at the most one of the

four Syrian legions. To Jerusalem there came a standing Roman

commandant, who took up his abode in the royal castle, with a

weak standing garrison; only during the time of the Passover,

when the whole land and countless strangers flocked to the

temple, a stronger division of Roman soldiers was stationed in

a colonnade belonging to the temple. … For the native

authorities in Judaea as everywhere the urban communities

were, as far as possible, taken as a basis. Samaria, or as the

town was now called, Sebaste, the newly laid out Caesarea, and

the other urban communities contained in the former kingdom of

Archelaus, were self-administering, under superintendence of

the Roman authority. The government also of the capital with

the large territory belonging to it was organised in a similar

way. Already in the pre-Roman period under the Seleucids there

was formed … in Jerusalem a council of the elders, the

Synhedrion, or as Judaised, the Sanhedrin. The presidency in

it was held by the high priest, whom each ruler of the land,

if he was not possibly himself high priest, appointed for the

time. To the college belonged the former high priests and

esteemed experts in the law. This assembly, in which the

aristocratic element preponderated, acted as the supreme

spiritual representative of the whole body of Jews, and, so

far as this was not to be separated from it, also as the

secular representative in particular of the community of

Jerusalem. It is only the later Rabbinism that has by a pious

fiction transformed the Sanhedrion of Jerusalem into a

spiritual institute of Mosaic appointment. It corresponded

essentially to the council of the Greek urban constitution,

but certainly bore, as respected its composition as well as

its sphere of working, a more spiritual character than

belonged to the Greek representations of the community. To

this Synhedrion and its high priest, who was now nominated by

the procurator as representative of the imperial suzerain, the

Roman government left or committed that jurisdiction which in

the Hellenic subject communities belonged to the urban

authorities and the common councils. With indifferent

short-sightedness it allowed to the transcendental Messianism

of the Pharisees free course, and to the by no means

transcendental land-consistory—acting until the Messiah

should arrive—tolerably free sway in affairs of faith, of

manners, and of law, where Roman interests were not directly

affected thereby. This applied in particular to the

administration of justice. It is true that, as far as Roman

burgesses were concerned in the matter, justice in civil as in

criminal affairs must have been reserved for the Roman

tribunals even already before the annexation of the land. But

civil justice over the Jews remained even after that

annexation chiefly with the local authority. Criminal justice

over them was exercised by the latter probably in general

concurrently with the Roman procurator; only sentences of

death could not be executed by it otherwise than after

confirmation by the imperial magistrate. In the main those

arrangements were the inevitable consequences of the abolition

of the principality, and when the Jews had obtained this

request of theirs, they in fact obtained those arrangements

along with it. … The local coining of petty moneys, as

formerly practised by the kings, now took place in the name of

the Roman ruler; but on account of the Jewish abhorrence of

images the head of the emperor was not even placed on the

coins. Setting foot within the interior of the temple

continued to be forbidden in the case of every non-Jew under

penalty of death. … In the very beginning of the reign of

Tiberius the Jews, like the Syrians, complained of the

pressure of the taxes; especially the prolonged administration

of Pontius Pilatus is charged with all the usual official

crimes by a not unfair observer. But Tiberius, as the same Jew

says, had during the twenty-three years of his reign

maintained the time-hallowed holy customs, and in no part set

them aside or violated them. This is the more to be

recognised, seeing that the same emperor in the West

interfered against the Jews more emphatically than any other,

and thus the long-suffering and caution shown by him in Judaea

cannot be traced back to personal favour for Judaism. In spite of

all this both the opposition on principle to the Roman

government and the violent efforts at self-help on the part of

the faithful developed themselves even in this time of peace."

_T. Mommsen,

History of Rome: The Provinces, from Caesar to Diocletian,

book 8, chapter 11._

{1919}

In the year 41 A. D. the house of Herod rose to power again,

in the person of his grandson, Herod Agrippa, descendant of

the unfortunate Mariamne. Agrippa had lived long at Rome and

won the favor of two successive emperors, Caligula and

Claudius. Caligula deposed Herod Antipas from the tetrarchy of

Galilee and conferred it on Agrippa. Claudius, in 41, added

Judæa and Samaria to his dominions, establishing him in a

kingdom even greater than that of his grandfather. He died

suddenly in 44 A. D. and Judæa again relapsed to the state of

a Roman province. His young son, also named Herod Agrippa, was

provided, after a few years, with a small kingdom, that of

Chalcis, exchanged later for one made up of other districts in

Palestine. After the destruction of Jerusalem he retired to

Rome, and the line of Herod ended with him.

_H. H. Milman,

History of the Jews,

book 12._

ALSO IN:

_Josephus,

Antiquity of the Jews,

books 15-20._

_H. Ewald,

History of Israel,

book 5, section 2._

JEWS: B. C. 8-A. D. 1.

Uncertainty of the date of the birth of Jesus.

"The reigning Christian computation of time, that sovereign

authority in accordance with which we reckon our life, and

which is surely above the assault of any critical doubts,

goes, be it remembered, but a very little way towards the

settlement of this question [as to the year of the birth of

Jesus] in as much as its inventor, a Scythian by birth,

Dionysius the Less, Abbot of a Roman monastery (died 556 A.

D.) [see ERA, CHRISTIAN], … had certainly no entire immunity

from human frailty. … The comparatively best assured and

best supported account places the birth of Jesus in the reign

of King Herod the Great. Matthew knows no other chronology:

Luke gives the same, along with another, or, if we will, along

with two others. Matthew more particularly, in his own

account, puts the birth in the last years of that king. Jesus

is a little child at the time of the coming of the Magi, and

he is still a child at the return of Joseph from the flight

into Egypt, after the death of Herod has taken place. We shall

hit the sense of the writer most exactly if we assume that

Jesus, at the time of the coming of the Magi, who gave King

Herod ground for conjecturing a Messiah of about the age of

two,—was about two years old; at the time of Herod's death,

about four. … Now since Herod died … shortly before Easter

of the year 750 A. U. C., i. e., 4 years before the Christian

era, Jesus must have been born four years before. 746 A. U.

C., or 8 years before the reputed Christian era, a view which

is expressly espoused in the fifth Christian century;

according to Apocrypha, 3 years before Herod's death, 747 A.

U. C., 7 years B. C. If we are able in addition to build upon

Kepler's Conjunction of Planets, which Bishop Münter, in his

book, 'The Star of the Wise Men,' 1827, called to remembrance,

we get with complete certainty 747 or 748, the latter, that

is, if we attach any value to the fact that in that year Mars

was added to Jupiter and Saturn. Desirable however as such

certainty might be, it is nevertheless hard to abandon oneself

to it with enthusiastic joy. … An actual reminiscence on the

part of the Christian community of the approximate point of

time at which the Lord was born, would be hard to call in

question, even though it might have overlooked or forgotten

every detail of the youth of Jesus besides. Finally, there is

after all a trace of such reminiscence independent of all

legendary formation. The introductory history of Luke without

any appreciable historical connexion, rather in conflict with

the world of legend represented in his Gospel, places the

birth of John the Baptist and of Jesus in Herod's time. At the

same time there is just as little, or even less, sign than

elsewhere in Luke's preliminary story, of any dependence on

the account in Matthew, or any world of legend like his. We

should thus still be inclined to infer that Jesus, according

to ancient Christian tradition, was born under King Herod, and

more particularly, according to the legend of Matthew, which

after all is the better guaranteed of the two, towards the

close of his reign. … Luke appears … so far to give the

most precise boundary line to the birth of Jesus, inasmuch as

he brings it into immediate connexion with the first taxing of

Judæa by the Romans, which admits of exact historical

computation. The Roman taxing was indeed the occasion of

Joseph and Mary's journey to Bethlehem, and of the birth of

Jesus in the inn there. This taxing took place, as Luke quite

rightly observes, for the first time in Judæa, under the

Emperor Augustus, and more precisely, under Quirinius'

Governorship of Syria, and moreover, … not only after the

death of Herod, but also after his son Archelaos had been

reigning about ten years, in consequence of the dethronement

of Archelaos and the annexation of Judæa and Samaria by the

Romans in the year 760 A. U. C. 7 A. D. But here too at once

begins the difficulty. According to this statement Jesus would

have been born from ten to fourteen years later than the

Gospels otherwise assert, Luke himself included. This late

birth would not only clash with the first statement of the

Gospels themselves, but equally with all probability, inasmuch

as Jesus would then not have been as much as thirty years old

at his death, which in any case took place before the recall

of the Procurator Pilate (781 A. U. C. 35 A. D.). We are here

therefore compelled to acknowledge a simple error of the

writer. … Once more … does Luke incidentally compute the

time of the birth of Jesus. By describing the time of John the

Baptist's appearance and speaking of Jesus at that period as

about thirty years old, he favours the assumption, that Jesus

was born about thirty years before the fifteenth year of the

reign of the Emperor Tiberius. … We shall … see grounds

for considering the commencement of the Baptist's ministry, as

fixed far too early anywhere near the date 28 A. D. But if

after all we assume the figure, as it stands, the fifteenth

year of Tiberius, reckoning his reign from the 19th of August,

767, or 14 A. D., was the year 781-782, or 28-29 A. D. In that

case Jesus must have been born, reckoning about 30 years

backwards, towards the year 751-752, i. e., 2-3 years before

our reputed era. … Of the later attempts to restore the year

of Jesus' birth, those of antiquity and of modern times claim

our attention in different ways. …

{1920}

Irenæus, followed by Tertullian, Hippolytus, Jerome, gives the

forty-first year of the Emperor Augustus, Clement of

Alexandria the twenty-eighth year of the same, as the year of

birth: much the same in both cases, viz. (751-752), inasmuch

as the former reckons from the first consulate of Augustus

after the death of Cæsar (731 A. U. C.); Clement from his

conquest of Egypt (724). Later authorities since Eusebius, the

first Church historian, marked the forty-second year of

Augustus, following a notice of their predecessors, that is

752-753, which date however Eusebius would make out to agree

with the year of Clement, with the twenty-eighth year from the

occupation of Egypt. But how many other years besides were

possible! Here Sulpicius Severus (400 A. D.) pushed back

beyond the limit set by Irenæus, naming at one time 746-747 as

the time of Jesus' birth, at another the consuls of 750, and

the later date has also been found … by the Arabic Gospel of

the Infancy. Here again the date was shifted lower down than

the figure of Eusebius to the forty-third year of Augustus, i.

e., 753-754. This date is found already in Tertullian in one

reading, though in conflict with the year 41; the Chronograph

of the year 354 puts it down with the express mention of the

Consuls Cæsar and Paulus at 754 A. U. C., the Egyptian monk

Panodorus (400 A. D.) has so reckoned it; and the founder of

the Christian reckoning, the Abbot Dionysius (Easter Table 525

A. D.) introduced it for all time. … What is certain is that

this year 754 A. U. C. 1 A. D., this official Christian

calendar, does not hit the tradition of the Gospels. In modern

times, thanks to the efforts of great astronomers and

chronologists, Kepler, Ideler, and Münter, the year 747 or 748

has found the greatest favour as the year of the Wise Men's

star. But since people have come back from their enthusiasm

for the discovery of this conjunction to a more faithful

regard for the Gospels, it has always commended itself afresh,

to place the birth of Jesus at latest in the first beginning

of the year 750 (4 B. C.), i. e., before the death of King

Herod, but if possible from two to four years earlier still

746-748, or 8-6 B. C. Thus Ewald inclines half to the year

748, and half to 749: Petavius, Usher, Lichtenstein to 749,

Bengal, Anger, Winer, Wieseler to 750, Wurm indeed following

Scaliger to 751, finally in latest times Rösch, attaching

great weight to the statements of the Fathers, as well as to

the Chinese star, actually gets by a multifariously laborious

method, at 751-752, in which year, as he decides, even Herod

must have been alive in spite of Josephus, and on the strength

of an innocuous observation by a Jewish Rabbi. If it was hard

enough to arrive at any certainty, or, at all events,

probability with respect to the year of Jesus' birth, we must

entirely waive all pretensions to tell the month or the day,

however justifiable may be our curiosity on this head. Our

traditional observance of the Day of Jesus on the 25th of

December is not prescribed in any ancient calendar."

_Dr. T. Keim,

History of Jesus of Nazara,

volume 2, pages 109-126._

ALSO IN:

_W. H. Anderdon,

Fasti Apostolici,

introd._

JEWS: A. D. 26.

Political situation of Judæa

at the time of the appearance of Jesus.

"Let us recall, in a few outlines, the political situation of

Judæa at the exact moment when Jesus appeared before His

countrymen. The shadow of independence, which had been left to

it under the vassal kingdom of Herod the Great, had long

vanished. Augustus had annexed Judæa to the Roman empire, not

by making it one of those senatorial provinces governed by

proconsuls, but as a direct dependant on his authority. He

associated it with the government of Syria, the capital of

which was Antioch, the residence of the imperial legate. In

consequence, however, of its importance, and the difficulties

presented by the complete subjection of such a people, the

procurator of Judæa enjoyed a certain latitude in his

administration; he at the same time managed the affairs of

Samaria, but as a second department, distinct from the first.

Faithful to the wise policy which it had pursued with so much

success for centuries, Rome interfered as little as possible

with the usages and institutions of the conquered province.

The Sanhedrim was, therefore, allowed to continue side by side

with the procurator, but its power was necessarily very

limited. Its jurisdiction was confined to matters of religion

and small civil causes: the procurator alone had the right of

decreeing capital punishment. The high-priestly office had

lost much of its importance. The Asmoneans and Herods had

reduced it to a subordinate magistracy, of which they made a

tool for their own purposes. Herod the Great had constituted

himself guardian of the sacerdotal vestments, under pretext

that he had had them restored to their first magnificence, on

the Levitical model; he bestowed them only on the men of his

choice. The Romans hastened to follow his example, and thus to

keep in their hands an office which might become perilous to

them. The procurator of Judæa resided at Cæsarea. He only came

to Jerusalem for the solemn feasts, or in exceptional cases,

to administer justice. His prætorium stood near the citadel of

Antonia. The Roman garrison in the whole of Palestine did not

exceed one legion. The levying of imposts on movable property,

and on individuals, led to perpetual difficulties; no such

objection was raised to the tribute of two drachms for the

temple, which was levied by the Sanhedrim. The tax-gatherers

in the service of the Romans were regarded as the

representatives of a detested rule; thus the publicans—for

the most part Jews by birth—were the objects of universal

contempt. The first rebellion of any importance took place on

the occasion of the census under Cyrenius. At the period at

which we have arrived, Judæa was governed by Pilate, the third

procurator since the annexation to the empire; he had found in

the high-priestly office John, surnamed Caiaphas, son-in-law

of Annas, the son of Seth, who had for a long time filled the

same office under Valerius Gratus. Pilate had an ally rather

than a rival in the Sadducee Caiaphas, who acted on no higher

principle than the interest of his order, and the maintenance

of his power. Pontius Pilate was wanting in the political tact

which knows how to soften in form the severities of a foreign

rule; he was a man of vulgar ambition, or rather, one of those

men without patriotism, who think only of using their

authority for their own advantage. He took no heed of the

peculiar dispositions and aversions of the people whom he was

to govern. Thus he sent to Jerusalem a Roman garrison with

standards; the Jews regarded this as a horrible profanation,

for the eagles were worshipped as gods.

{1921}

Assailed in his prætorium at Cæsarea by a suppliant crowd,

which no violence could disperse, the procurator was compelled

to yield to prayers, which might soon be changed into

desperate resistance. From that moment his influence was gone

in Judæa; he compromised it still further when he caused

shields of gold, bearing his name engraved beside that of the

emperor Tiberias, to be suspended from the outer walls of the

citadel of Antonia. This flattery to the sovereign, which

might have been unaccompanied with peril elsewhere, was

received at Jerusalem as a gratuitous provocation, and he was

obliged to recall a measure, persistence in which would have

led to a terrible tumult. Having thus made himself an object

of general aversion, he could not even do good without danger:

his plan to build an aqueduct, a thing peculiarly needed on

the burning soil of Judæa, created opposition so violent, that

it could only be put down by force. Under such a governor, the

national passions were in a perpetual state of agitation. This

increase of patriotic fanaticism created great obstacles to a

purely spiritual work like that of Jesus. Gaulonitis, Peræa,

and Galilee still belonged, at this time, to the family of

Herod. The tetrarch Philip governed the north-west of the

country for thirty-seven years, and was distinguished for his

moderation. … Galilee and Peræa were the portion of Herod

Antipas, the murderer of John the Baptist. His divorce from

the daughter of Aretas, after his marriage with Herodias, his

brother's wife, had brought war upon the wide provinces which

he governed. He was about soon to undergo a humiliating

defeat. Like his brother, he was childless. Under the

influence of such a prince, surrounded by a licentious court,

evil propensities had free play, and the corruption of manners

was a bad preparation for a religion of purity and

self-denial. In the lowness of the times, the Herods, though

of the family of the vile despots who had sold the

independence of the Jews, were regarded as in some measure a

national dynasty. They had a party which bore their name, and

which, in religious matters, combined, after the example of

Herod the Great, Pharisaism and Sadduceeism. Such were the

political circumstances in the midst of which Jesus was

placed."

_E. de Pressensé,

Jesus Christ: His Times, Life, and Work,

book 3, chapter 1._

JEWS: A. D. 33-100.

The rise and diffusion of Christianity.

See CHRISTIANITY.

JEWS: A. D.66-70.

The Great Revolt.

The oppression of the Jewish nation under the Roman governors

who ruled Judæa directly, after the death of the first Herod

Agrippa (A. D. 44), may not have been heavier in reality than

it had been while the dependent and Romanized tyranny of the

Herodian kings prevailed, but it proved to be more irritating

and exasperating. "The burden, harshly shifted, was felt to be

more galling. The priests and nobles murmured, intrigued,

conspired; the rabble, bolder or more impatient, broke out

into sedition, and followed every chief who offered to lead

them to victory and independence. … It was only indeed under

extraordinary provocation that the populace of the Jewish

capital, who were generally controlled by the superior

prudence of their chiefs, broke into violence in the streets.

… But the ruder independence of the Galileans was not so

easily kept in check. Their tract of heath and mountain was

always then, as it has since always been, in a state of

partial insurrection. … For their coercion [at Jerusalem]

the Romans had invented a peculiar machinery. To Agrippa, the

tetrarch [the second Herod Agrippa], … they had given the

title of King of the Sacrifices, in virtue of which he was

suffered to reside in the palace at Jerusalem, and retain

certain functions, fitted to impose on the imagination of the

more ardent votaries of Jewish nationality. The palace of the

Herods overlooked the Temple, and from its upper rooms the

king could observe all that passed in that mart of business

and intrigue. Placed, however, as a spy in this watch-tower,

he was regarded by the Zealots, the faction of independence,

as a foe to be baffled rather than a chief to be respected and

honoured. They raised the walls of their sanctuary to shut out

his view, and this, among other causes of discontent between

the factions in the city, ripened to an enmity. … And now

was introduced into the divisions of this unhappy people a new

feature of atrocity. The Zealots sought to terrify the more

prudent or time-serving by an organized system of private

assassination. Their 'Sicarii,' or men of the dagger, are

recognised in the records of the times as a secret agency, by

which the most impatient of the patriots calculated on

exterminating the chief supporters of the foreign government.

… Hitherto the Romans, from policy rather than respect, had

omitted to occupy Jerusalem with a military force. They were

now invited and implored by the chiefs of the priesthood and

nobility, and Florus [the Roman governor] sent a detachment to

seize the city and protect the lives of his adherents. This

was the point to which the Zealots themselves had wished to

lead him."

_C. Merivale,

History of the Romans,

chapter 59._

A furious battle in the streets of Jerusalem occurred on the

entrance of the Roman troops. The latter gained possession of

the citadel, with the upper city, but, after seven days of

fighting, were forced to capitulate, and were ruthlessly put

to the sword, in violation of sworn pledges. "On that very day

and hour, while the Jews were plunging their daggers in the

hearts of the Romans, a great and terrible slaughter of their

own people was going on in Cæsarea, where the Syrians and

Greeks had risen upon the Jews, and massacred 20,000 of them

in a single day. And in every Syrian city the same madness and

hatred seized the people, and the Jews were ruthlessly

slaughtered in all. No more provocation was needed; no more

was possible. … The heads of the people began the war with

gloomy forebodings; the common masses with the wildest

enthusiasm, which became the mere intoxication of success when

they drove back Cestius from the walls of the city, on the

very eve of his anticipated victory—for Cestius [præfect of

Syria] hastened southwards with an army of 20,000 men, and

besieged the city. The people, divided amongst themselves,

were on the point of opening the gates to the Romans, when, to

the surprise of everybody, Cestius suddenly broke up his camp

and began to retreat. Why he did so, no one ever knew. … The

retreat became a flight, and Cestius brought back his army

with a quarter of its numbers killed. … Vespasian was sent

hastily with a force of three legions, besides the cohorts of

auxiliaries. … Of the first campaign, that in Galilee, our

limits will not allow us to write. …

{1922}

The months passed on, and yet the Romans did not appear before

the walls of the city. This meantime was a prey to internal

evils, which when read appear almost incredible. … The

events at Rome which elevated Vespasian to the throne were the

principal reasons that the siege of Jerusalem was not actually

commenced till the early summer of the year 70, when, in

April, Titus began his march from Cæsarea. … The city,

meanwhile, had been continuing those civil dissensions which

hastened its ruin. John [of Gischala], Simon Bar Gioras, and

Eleazar, each at the head of his own faction, made the streets

run with blood. John, whose followers numbered 6,000, held the

Lower, New, and Middle City; Simon, at the head of 10,000 Jews

and 5,000 Idumeans, had the strong post of the Upper City,

with a portion of the third wall; Eleazar, with 2,000 zealots,

more fanatic than the rest, had barricaded himself within the

Temple itself. … In the sallies which John and Simon made

upon each other all the buildings in this part of the town

were destroyed or set on fire, and all their corn burned; so

that famine had actually begun before the commencement of the

siege."

_W. Besant and E. H. Palmer,

Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin,

chapters 1-2._

The awful but fascinating story of the siege, as told by

Josephus and repeated by many writers since, is familiar to

most readers and will not be given here. It was prolonged from

April until the 7th of September, A. D. 70, when the Romans

forced their way into the upper city. "They spread through the

streets, slaying and burning as they went. In many houses

where they expected rich plunder, they found nothing but heaps

of putrid bodies, whole families who had died of hunger; they

retreated from the loathsome sight and insufferable stench.

But they were not moved to mercy towards the living; in some

places the flames were actually retarded or quenched with

streams of blood; night alone put an end to the carnage. …

The city was ordered to be razed, excepting the three towers,

which were left as standing monuments of the victory. …

During the whole siege the number killed [according to

Josephus] was 1,100,000, that of prisoners 97,000. In fact,

the population not of Jerusalem alone, but that of the

adjacent districts—many who had taken refuge in the city,

more who had assembled for the feast of unleavened bread—had

been shut up by the sudden formation of the siege." Of those

who survived to the end and were spared, when the Roman

soldiers had tired of slaughter, "all above seventeen years

old were sent to Egypt to work in the mines, or distributed

among the provinces to be exhibited as gladiators in the

public theatres, and in combats against wild beasts. Twelve

thousand died of hunger. … Thus fell, and forever, the

metropolis of the Jewish state. … Of all the stately

city—the populous streets, the palaces of the Jewish kings,

the fortresses of her warriors, the Temple of her God—not a

ruin remained, except the tall towers of Phasaelis, Mariamne,

and Hippicus, and part of the western wall, which was left as

a defence for the Roman camp."

_H. H. Milman,

History of the Jews,

book 16._

ALSO IN:

_H. Ewald,

History of Israel,

book 7._

_Josephus,

The Jewish War._

_A. J. Church,

Story of the Last Days of Jerusalem._

_I. M. Wise,

History of the Hebrew Second Commonwealth, 7th period._

JEWS: A. D. 70-133.

After the war with Rome.

The state of the surviving people.

"It might have been expected that, from the character of the

great war with Rome, the people, as well as the state of the

Jews, would have fallen into utter dissolution, or, at least,

verged rapidly towards total extermination. Besides the loss

of nearly a million and a half of lives during the war, the

markets of the Roman empire were glutted with Jewish slaves.

… Yet still this inexhaustible race revived before long to

offer new candidates for its inalienable inheritance of

detestation and misery. Of the state of Palestine, indeed,

immediately after the war, we have little accurate

information. It is uncertain how far the enormous loss of

life, and the numbers carried into captivity drained the

country of the Jewish population; or how far the rescript of

Vespasian, which offered the whole landed property of the

province for sale, introduced a foreign race into the

possession of the soil. The immense numbers engaged in the

rebellion during the reign of Hadrian imply, either that the

country was not nearly exhausted, or that the reproduction in

this still fertile region was extremely rapid. In fact, it

must be remembered that … the ravage of war was, after all,

by no means universal in the province. Galilee, Judæa, and

great part of Idumæa were wasted, and probably much

depopulated; but, excepting a few towns which made resistance,

the populous regions and wealthy cities beyond the Jordan

escaped the devastation. The dominions of King Agrippa were,

for the most part, respected. Samaria submitted without

resistance, as did most of the cities on the sea-coast. …

The Jews, though looked upon with contempt as well as

detestation, were yet regarded, during the reign of Vespasian

and his immediate successors, with jealous watchfulness. A

garrison of 800 men occupied the ruins of Jerusalem, to

prevent the reconstruction of the city by the fond and

religious zeal of its former inhabitants. … Still, … it is

impossible, unless communities were suffered to be formed, and

the whole race enjoyed comparative security, that the nation

could have appeared in the formidable attitude of resistance

which it assumed in the time of Hadrian."

_H. H. Milman,

History of the Jews,

book 18 (volume 2)._

JEWS: A. D. 116.

The rising in Trajan's reign.

"Not quite fifty years after the destruction of Jerusalem, in

the year 116, the Jews of the eastern Mediterranean rose

against the imperial government. The rising, although

undertaken by the Diaspora, was of a purely national character

in its chief seats, Cyrene, Cyprus, Egypt, directed to the

expulsion of the Romans as of the Hellenes, and, apparently,

to the establishment of a separate Jewish state. It ramified

even into Asiatic territory, and seized Mesopotamia and

Palestine itself. When the insurgents were victorious they

conducted the war with the same exasperation as the Sicarii in

Jerusalem; they killed those whom they seized. … In Cyrene

220,000, in Cyprus even 240,000 men are said to have been thus

put to death by them. On the other hand, in Alexandria, which

does not appear itself to have fallen into the hands of the

Jews, the besieged Hellenes slew whatever Jews were then in

the city. The immediate cause of the rising is not clear. …

To all appearance it was an outbreak of religious exasperation

of the Jews, which had been growing in secret like a volcano

since the destruction of the temple. …

{1923}

The insurgents were nowhere able to offer resistance to the

compact troops, … and similar punishments were inflicted on

this Diaspora as previously on the Jews of Palestine. That

Trajan annihilated the Jews in Alexandria, as Appian says, is

hardly all incorrect, although perhaps a too blunt expression

for what took place."

_T. Mommsen,

History of Rome,

book 8, chapter 11 (The Provinces, volume 2)._

See, also, CYPRUS, A. D. 117.

JEWS: A. D. 130-134.

The rising in Hadrian's reign.

The Emperor Hadrian, when his tour through the Empire brought

him to Palestine, A. D. 130, resolved to erect the destroyed

holy city of the Jews as a Roman colony with a Roman name, and

to divest it altogether of the character which made it sacred

in the eyes of the Jews. He forbade their sojourn in the new

city, and exasperated them still more by showing favor, it is

said, to the Christian sect. By this and by other measures a

fresh revolt was provoked, A. D. 132, incited by the priest

Eleazar and led by the bandit-chief Barcochebas, or

Bar-Kok-heba ('Son of the Star'). The cruel struggle, redeemed

by no humanity on either side, continued for three years, and

was ended only when hundreds of thousands of Jews had been

slain. "The dispersion of the unhappy race, particularly in

the West, was now complete and final. The sacred soil of

Jerusalem was occupied by a Roman colony, which received the

name of Ælia Capitolina, with reference to the emperor who

founded it [Publius Ælius Hadrianus] and to the supreme God of

the pagan mythology, installed on the desecrated summits of

Zion and Moriah."

_C. Merivale,

History of the Romans,

chapter 65._

"The whole body of the Jews at home and abroad was agitated by

the movement and supported more or less openly the insurgents

on the Jordan; even Jerusalem fell into their hands, and the

governor of Syria and indeed the emperor Hadrian appeared on

the scene of conflict. … As in the war under Vespasian no

pitched battle took place, but one place after another cost

time and blood, till at length after a three years' warfare

the last castle of the insurgents, the strong Bether, not far

from Jerusalem, was stormed by the Romans. The numbers handed

down to us in good accounts of 50 fortresses taken, 985

villages occupied, 580,000 that fell, are not incredible,

since the war was waged with inexorable cruelty, and the male

population was probably everywhere put to death. In

consequence of this rising the very name of the vanquished

people was set aside; the province was thenceforth termed, not

as formerly Judaea, but by the old name of Herodotus, Syria of

the Philistines, or Syria Palaestina. The land remained

desolate; the new city of Hadrian continued to exist, but did

not prosper. The Jews were prohibited under penalty of death

from ever setting foot in Jerusalem."

_T. Mommsen,

History of Rome,

book 8, chapter 11 (The Provinces, volume 2)._

JEWS: A. D. 200-400.

The Nation without a country.

Its two governments.

"In less than sixty years after the war under Hadrian, before

the close of the second century after Christ, the Jews present

the extraordinary spectacle of two regular and organized

communities: one under a sort of spiritual head, the Patriarch

of Tiberias, comprehending all of Israelitish descent who

inhabited the Roman empire; the other under the Prince of the

Captivity, to whom all the eastern [Babylonian] Jews paid

their allegiance. … Unfortunately it is among the most

difficult parts of Jewish history to trace the growth of the

patriarchal authority established in Tiberias, and its

recognition by the whole scattered body of the nation, who,

with disinterested zeal, and I do not scruple to add, a noble

attachment to the race of Israel, became voluntary subjects

and tributaries to their spiritual sovereign, and united with

one mind and one heart to establish their community on a

settled basis. It is a singular spectacle to behold a nation

dispersed in every region of the world, without a murmur or

repugnance, submitting to the regulations, and taxing

themselves to support the greatness, of a supremacy which

rested solely on public opinion, and had no temporal power

whatever to enforce its decrees. It was not long before the

Rabbins, who had been hunted down with unrelenting cruelty,

began to creep forth from their places of concealment. The

death of Hadrian, in a few years after the termination of the

war, and the accession of the mild Antoninus, gave them

courage, not merely to make their public appearance, but

openly to reëstablish their schools and synagogues. … The

Rabbinical dominion gradually rose to greater power; the

schools flourished; perhaps in this interval the great

Synagogue or Sanhedrin had its other migrations, … and

finally to Tiberias, where it fixed its pontifical throne and

maintained its supremacy for several centuries. Tiberias, it

may be remembered, was a town built by Herod Antipas, over an

ancient cemetery, and therefore abominated by the more

scrupulous Jews, as a dwelling of uncleanness. But the Rabbins

soon obviated this objection. Simon Ben Jochai, by his

cabalistic art, discovered the exact spot where the

burial-place had been; this was marked off, and the rest of

the city declared, on the same unerring authority, to be

clean. Here, then, in this noble city, on the shore of the sea

of Galilee, the Jewish pontiff fixed his throne; the

Sanhedrin, if it had not, as the Jews pretend, existed during

all the reverses of the nation, was formally reëstablished.

Simon, the son and heir of Gamaliel, was acknowledged as the

Patriarch of the Jews, and Nasi or President of the Sanhedrin.

… In every region of the West, in every province of the

Roman empire, the Jews of all ranks and classes submitted,

with the utmost readiness, to the sway of their Spiritual

Potentate. His mandates were obeyed, his legates received with

honour, his supplies levied without difficulty, in Rome, in

Spain, in Africa. … In the mean time the rival throne in

Babylonia, that of the Prince of the Captivity, was rapidly

rising to the state and dignity which perhaps did not attain

its perfect height till under the Persian monarchs. There

seems to have been some acknowledged hereditary claim in R.

Hona, who now appears as the Prince of the Captivity, as if

his descent from the House of David had been recognized by the

willing credulity of his brethren. … The Court of the

Resch-Glutha [Prince of the Captivity] is described as …

splendid; in imitation of his Persian master, he had his

officers, counsellors, and cupbearers. Rabbins were appointed

as satraps over the different communities. This state, it is

probable, was maintained by a tribute raised from the body of

the people, and substituted for that which, in ancient times,

was paid for the Temple in Jerusalem. … Whether the

authority of the Prince of the Captivity extended beyond

Babylonia and the adjacent districts is uncertain."

_H. H. Milman,

History of the Jews,

book 19 (volume 2)._

{1924}

JEWS: A. D. 415.

Driven from Alexandria by Cyril.

See ALEXANDRIA: A. D. 413-415.

JEWS: 5-6th Centuries.

Early Jewish settlements in Europe.

Arian toleration and Catholic persecution.

"The survey of the settlement of the Jews in Europe begins, as

we leave Asia, with the Byzantine Empire. They already lived

in its cities before Christianity acquired the empire of the

world. In Constantinople the Jewish community inhabited a

separate quarter, called the brass-market, where there was

also a large synagogue. They were, however, expelled thence by

an emperor, either Theodosius II., or Justinus II., and the

synagogue was converted into the 'Church of the Mother of

God.' … In Greece, Macedonia, and Illyria the Jews had

already been settled a long time. … In Italy the Jews are

known to have been domiciled as early as the time of the

Republic, and to have been in enjoyment of full political

rights until these were curtailed by the Christian emperors.

They probably looked with excusable pleasure on the fall of

Rome. … When Italy became Ostrogothic under Theodoric, the

position of the Jews in that country was peculiar. Outbreaks

of a spirit of hostility to them were not infrequent during

this reign, but at the bottom they were not directed against

the Jews, but were meant to be a demonstration against this

hated Arian monarch. … Those nations … which were baptised

in the Arian creed betrayed less intolerance of the Jews. Thus

the more Arianism was driven out of Europe and gave way before

the Catholic religion, the more were the Jews harassed by

proselytising zeal. … In spite of the antipathy entertained

against them by the leaders of opinion, the Jews of Italy were

happy in comparison with their brethren of the Byzantine

empire. … Even when the Lombards embraced the Catholic faith

the position of the Jews in Italy remained supportable. The

heads of the Catholic Church, the Popes, were free from savage

intolerance. Gregory I. (590-604), surnamed the great and

holy, who laid the foundation of the power of Catholicism,

gave utterance to the principle, that the Jews should only be

converted by means of persuasion and gentleness, not by

violence. … In the territory which was subject to the Papal

sway, in Rome, Lower Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia, he

steadfastly persisted in this course in the face of the

fanatical bishops, who regarded the oppression of the Jews as

a pious work. … In the west of Europe, in France and Spain,

where the Church was first obliged to make its way

laboriously, the situation of the Jews assumed a different and

much more favourable aspect. … It was a long while before

Catholicism gained a firm footing in the west of Europe, and

the Jews who had settled there enjoyed undisturbed peace until

the victorious Church gained the upper hand. The immigration

of the Jews into these important and wealthy provinces took

place most probably as early as the time of the Republic or of

Cæsar. … The presence of the Jews in the west of Europe is,

however, not certain until the 2d century. The Gaulish Jews,

whose first settlement was in the district of Arles, enjoyed

the full rights of Roman citizenship, whether they arrived in

Gaul as merchants or fugitives, with the pedlar's pack or in

the garb of slaves; they were likewise treated as Romans by

the Frankish and Burgundian conquerors." The Burgundian King

Sigismund, who embraced the Catholic faith in 516, "first

raised the barrier between Jews and Christians. … A spirit

of hostility to the Jews gradually spread from Burgundy over

the Frankish countries. … The later of the Merovingian kings

became more and more bigoted, and their hatred of the Jews

consequently increased. … The Jews of Germany are certainly

only to be regarded as colonies of the Frankish Jews, and such

of them as lived in Austrasia, a province subject to the

Merovingian kings, shared the same fate as their brethren in

France. … While the history of the Jews in Byzance, Italy,

and France, possesses but special interest, that of their

brethren in the Pyrenean peninsula rises to the height of

universal importance. … Jewish Spain contributed almost as

greatly to the development of Judaism as Judæa and Babylonia.

… Cordova, Grenada, and Toledo, are as familiar to the Jews

as Jerusalem and Tiberias, and almost more so than Naherdea

and Sora. When Judaism had come to a standstill in the East,

and had grown weak with age, it acquired new vigour in Spain.

… The first settlement of the Jews in beautiful Hesperia is

buried in dim obscurity. It is certain that they came there as

free men as early as the time of the Roman Republic, in order

to take advantage of the productive resources of this country.

The tortured victims of the unhappy insurrections under

Vespasian, Titus, and Hadrian were also dispersed to the

extreme west, and an exaggerated account relates that 80,000

of them were dragged off to Spain as prisoners. … The Jews

… were unmolested under the Arian kings; … but as soon as

the Catholic Church obtained the supremacy in Spain, and

Arianism began to be persecuted, an unfavourable crisis set in."

_H. Graetz,

History of the Jews,

volume 3, chapter 2._

JEWS: A. D. 615.

Siege and capture of Jerusalem by the Persians.

Sack and massacre.

See JERUSALEM: A. D. 615.

JEWS: A. D. 637.

Surrender of Jerusalem to the Moslems.

See JERUSALEM: A. D. 637.

JEWS: 7th Century.

General persecution.

First expulsion from Spain.

In the seventh century, during the reign of the Eastern Roman

Emperor Heraclius (A. D. 610-641) the Jews were subjected to a

more general and bitter persecution than they had experienced

before at the hands of the Christians. "It is said that about

this time a prophecy was current, which declared that the

Roman empire would be overthrown by a circumcised people. This

report may have been spread by the Jews, in order to excite

their own ardour, and assist their projects of rebellion; but

the prophecy was saved from oblivion by the subsequent

conquests of the Saracens. … The conduct of the Jews excited

the bigotry, as it may have awakened the fears, of the

imperial government, and both Phocas and Heraclius attempted

to exterminate the Jewish religion, and if possible to put an

end to the national existence. Heraclius not only practised

every species of cruelty himself to effect this object within

the bounds of his own dominions, but he even made the forced

conversion or banishment of the Jews a prominent feature in

his diplomacy." Thus Heraclius induced Sisebut, the Gothic

king in Spain, and Dagobert, the Frank king, to join him in

forcing baptism on the Jews, with the alternative of flight.

_G. Finlay,

Greece under the Romans,

chapter 4, section 5._

{1925}

"Urged by the request and incited by the example of Heraclius,

Sisebuto [or Sisebut] issued an edict in the year 616, that,

within a year, the Jews in Spain should either embrace

Christianity, or should be shorn, scourged, and expelled from

the kingdom, and their property confiscated. … It was a

premium on hypocrisy; for hypocrisy was an instrument of

self-preservation. Ninety thousand Jews made a nominal

submission."

_H. Coppée,

Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors,

book 2, chapter 3 (volume 1)._

See, also, GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 507-711.

JEWS: 7th Century.

The Epoch of the Geonim.

The Exilarchate and the Gaonate.

After the death of the Caliph Othman (A. D. 655), when the

followers of Mohammed were divided into two camps—the

partisans of Ali and the partisans of Moawiyah, "the

Babylonian Jews and Nestorian Christians sided with Ali, and

rendered him their assistance." Prominent among the Jewish

supporters of Ali was Mar-Isaac, the head of a school. "The

unhappy Ali valued this homage, and, doubtless, accorded

privileges to the Jewish head of the school. It is quite

probable that from this time the head of the school of Sora

occupied a certain dignity, and took the title of Gaon. There

were certain privileges connected with the Gaonate, upon which

even the Exilarch—also politically appointed—did not

venture to encroach. Through this there arose a peculiar

relationship between the two entirely opposing offices—the

Exilarchate and the Gaonate. This led to subsequent quarrels.

With Bostanaï [then Exilarch] and Mar-Isaac, the Jewish

officials recognised by the Caliph, there begins a new period

in Jewish history—the Epoch of the Geonim. … For the space

of 40 years (680 to 720), only the names of the Geonim and

Exilarchs are known to us, historical details, however, are

entirely wanting. During this time, through quarrels and

concessions, there arose peculiar relations between the

officials of the Jewish-Persian kingdom, which developed into

a kind of constitution. The Jewish community in Babylonia

(Persia), which had the appearance of a state, had a peculiar

constitution. The Exilarch was at their head, and next to him

stood the Gaon. Both together they formed the unity of the

community. The Exilarch filled political functions. He

represented the Babylonian-Persian Judaism under the Caliphs.

He collected the taxes from the various communities, and paid

them into the treasury. The Exilarchs, both in their outer

appearance and mode of life, were like princes. They drove

about in a state carriage; they had outriders and a kind of

body guard, and received princely homage. The religious unity

of Judaism, on the other hand, was represented in the two

chief schools of Sora and Pumbaditha. They expounded the

Talmud, giving it a practical application; they made new laws

and institutions, and saw that they were carried out, by

allotting punishments for those who transgressed them. The

Exilarch shared the judicial power in common with the Gaon of

Sora and the head of the school of Pumbaditha. … The head of

the school of Sora, however, was alone privileged to be styled

'Gaon'; the head of the school of Pumbaditha did not bear the

title officially. The Gaon of Sora enjoyed general preference

over his colleague of Pumbaditha."

_H. Graetz,

History of the Jews,

volume 3, chapter 4._

JEWS: 8th Century.

Conversion of the Khazars to Judaism.

See KHAZARS.

JEWS: 8th Century.

Origin of the Karaites.

See KARAISM.

JEWS: 8-15th Centuries.

Toleration by Moors and Christians in Spain, followed by

merciless persecution and expulsion.

Treatment in Portugal.

"Under the Moorish government in Spain the lot of this

persecuted, tormented people was more tolerable than in any

Christian country. … Under the Christian kings of the 12th

and 13th centuries, they rose to still greater influence as

financial advisers and treasurers, astronomers and physicians;

in Toledo alone they numbered 12,000. … Their condition in

Spain from the time of the Moorish supremacy to the end of the

13th century was upon the whole more favourable than in any

other country of Europe. … The 14th century brought disaster

to the Jews of the Peninsula and elsewhere. … They were

detested by the people; first in one town and then in another

they were attacked and murdered, and their synagogues were

burned down; and at length, in 1391, the storm broke upon them

in all its fury, and raged through the length and breadth of

Spain. … Many thousands were slain; whilst 200,000 saved

themselves by receiving baptism, but it was discovered in a

few years that 17,000 had lapsed into Judaism. A century

later, in 1492, a royal edict commanded all Jews to quit the

country, leaving their goods behind them. As the Inquisition

at the same time forbade the sale of victuals to the Jews, the

majority … were compelled to submit to baptism. Of those who

withdrew into exile—the numbers are variously reckoned from

170,000 to 400,000—the greater part perished from pestilence,

starvation, or shipwreck. The descendants of those who

survived, the Sephardim, found refuge in Italy, and under

Turkish rule in the East, and, for a short space, even in

Portugal. … In Portugal the Jews fared even worse than their

brethren in Spain. … The Inquisition was … introduced as

the approved means for handing over to the exchequer the

wealth of the new Christians."

_J. I. von Döllinger,

The Jews in Europe

(Studies in European History, chapter 9)._

ALSO IN:

_H. C. Lea,

Chapters from the Religious History of Spain,

pages 437-468._

_W. H. Prescott,

History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella,

part 1, chapter 17 (volume 2)._

See, also, INQUISITION: A. D. 1203-1525.

JEWS: 11th Century.

First appearance of Jews in England.

Their treatment as usurers.

"Their first appearance in England is said to have been due to

the Conqueror, who brought over a Jewish colony from Rouen to

London. They were special favourites of William Rufus; under

Henry they play a less conspicuous part; but in the next reign

we find them at Lincoln, Oxford, and elsewhere, and there can

be no doubt that they were already established in most of the

chief English towns. They formed, however, no part of the

townsfolk. The Jew was not a member of the state; he was the

king's chattel, not to be meddled with, for good or for evil,

save at the king's own bidding.

{1926}

Exempt from toll and tax and from the fines of justice, he had

the means of accumulating a hoard of wealth which might indeed

be seized at any moment by an arbitrary act of the king, but

which the king's protection guarded with jealous care against

all other interference. The capacity in which the Jew usually

appears is that of a money-lender—an occupation in which the

scruples of the Church forbade Christians to engage, lest they

should be contaminated with the sin of usury. Fettered by no

such scruples, the Hebrew money-lenders drove a thriving

trade."

_K. Norgate,

England Under the Angevin Kings,

volume 1, chapter 1._

"The Church declared against capitalism of any kind, branding

it as usury. It became impossible in Angevin England to obtain

the capital for any large scheme of building or organisation

unless the projectors had the capital themselves. Here was the

function which the Jew could perform in England of the twelfth

century, which was just passing economically out of the stage

of barter. Capital was wanted in particular for the change of

architecture from wood to stone with the better classes, and

especially for the erection of castles and monasteries. The

Jews were, indeed, the first in England to possess

dwelling-houses built with stone, probably for purposes of

protection as well as of comfort. And as a specimen of their

influence on monastic architecture, we have it on record that

no less than nine Cistercian monasteries of the North Country

were built by moneys lent by the great Aaron of Lincoln, who

also boasted that he had built the shrine of St. Alban. …

The result of the Church's attitude towards Jews and towards

usury was to put the king into a peculiar relation towards his

Jewish subjects. The Church kept them out of all other

pursuits but that of usury, which it branded as infamous; the

State followed suit, and confiscated the estates of all

usurers dying as such. Hence, as a Jew could only be a usurer,

his estate was always potentially the king's, and could be

dealt with by the king as if it were his own. Yet, strange to

say, it was not to the king's interest to keep the Jews'

wealth in his own hands, for he, the king, as a good

Christian, could not get usury for it, while the Jew could

very soon double and treble it, since the absence of

competition enabled him to fix the rate of interest very high,

rarely less than forty per cent., often as much as eighty. …

The only useful function the Jew could perform towards both

king and people was to be as rich as possible, just as the

larger the capital of a bank, the more valuable the part it

plays in the world of commerce. … The king reaped the

benefit of these riches in several ways. One of his main

functions and main source of income was selling justice, and

Jews were among his best customers. Then he claimed from them,

as from his other subjects, fines and amerciaments for all the

events of life. The Pipe Rolls contain entries of fines paid

by Jews to marry, not to marry, to become divorced, to go a

journey across the sea, to become partners with another Jew,

in short, for all the decisive events of life. And above all,

the king got frequent windfalls from the heirs of deceased

Jews who paid heavy reliefs to have their fathers' charters

and debts, of which, as we have seen, they could make more

profitable use than the king, to whom the Jew's property

escheated not qua Jew, but qua usurer. In the case of Aaron of

Lincoln the king did not disgorge at all at his death, but

kept in his own hands the large treasures, lands, houses and

debts of the great financier. He appears to have first

organised the Jewry, and made the whole of the English Jews

his agents throughout the country. … In addition to these

quasi-regular and normal sources of income from his Jews, the

king claimed from them—again as from his other

subjects—various contributions from time to time under the

names of gifts and tallages. And here he certainly seems, on

occasion at least, to have exercised an unfavourable

discrimination in his demands from the Jews. In 1187, the year

of Aaron of Lincoln's death, he took a tenth from the rest of

England, which yielded £70,000, and a quarter from the Jews,

which gave as much as £60,000. In other words, the Jews were

reckoned to have, at that date, one quarter of the movable

wealth of the kingdom (£240,000 against £700,000 held by the

rest). … They acted the part of a sponge for the Royal

Treasury, they gathered up all the floating money of the

country, to be squeezed from time to time into the king's

treasure-chest. … The king was thus … the sleeping-partner

in all the Jewish usury, and may be regarded as the

Arch-usurer of the kingdom. By this means he was enabled to

bring pressure on any of his barons who were indebted to the

Jews. He could offer to release them of their debt of the

usury accruing to it, and in the case of debts falling into

his hand by the death of a Jew, he could commute the debt for

a much smaller sum. Thus the Cistercian abbeys referred to

above paid Richard I. 1,000 marks instead of the 6,400 which

they had owed to Aaron of Lincoln."

_Joseph Jacobs,

The Jews of Angevin England,

introduction._

JEWS: A. D. 1076.

Capture of Jerusalem by the Seljuk Turks.

See CRUSADES: CAUSES, &C.

JEWS: A. D. 1096-1146.

Massacre of Jews in Europe by Crusaders.

The lawless and savage mobs of Crusaders which followed in the

wake of the disorderly hosts of Peter the Hermit and Walter

the Penniless, A. D. 1096, expended their zeal, at the outset

of their march, in hunting and killing Jews. "Acting on the

notion that the infidels dwelling in Europe should be

exterminated before those in Asia should be attacked, [they]

murdered 12,000 Jews. In Treves, many of these unfortunate

men, driven to despair, laid violent hands on their children

and on themselves, and multitudes embraced Christianity, from

which they lapsed the moment the peril had passed. Two hundred

Jews fled from Cologne and took refuge in boats; they were

overtaken and slain. In Mayence, the archbishop, Rudhart, took

them under his protection, and gave them the great hall of his

castle for an asylum; the pilgrims, nevertheless, forced their

way in, and murdered 700 of them in the archbishop's presence.

At Spires the Jews valiantly defended themselves. At Worms

they all committed suicide. At Magdeburg the archbishop,

Ruprecht, amused himself by attacking them during the

celebration of the feast of tabernacles, and by seizing their

property."

_W. Menzel,

History of Germany,

chapter 145 (volume 1)._

The fervors of the Second Crusade [A. D. 1146] inclined, in

Germany, to the same direction, of Jew-hunting; but St.

Bernard, the apostle of the Crusade, was enlightened and

humane enough to suppress the outrage by his great influence.

{1927}

A monk named Radulf, self-appointed preacher of the Crusade in

Germany, stirred up the people of the cities of the Rhine

against the Jews, and numbers were massacred, notwithstanding

attempts of the emperor, Conrad, to protect them. But Bernard

went in person to the scene, and, by his personal authority,

drove the brutal monk into his convent.

_T. Keightley,

The Crusaders

chapter 3._

ALSO IN:

_H. Graetz,

History of the Jews,

volume 3, chapters 9 and 11._

_H. C. Adams,

History of the Jews,

chapter 15._

JEWS: A. D. 1099.

Conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders.

See JERUSALEM: A. D. 1099.

JEWS: 11-17th Centuries.

Alternating toleration and oppression in Poland.

"It cannot be denied that this frugal, careful race formed the

only class of traders in the land [16th-17th centuries]. That

branch of industry which the nobleman despised, owing to pride

or carelessness, and from which the peasant was excluded by

stupidity and ignorance, fell to the share of the Jews. Though

their presence may have been a misfortune for the nation in

after years, they were certainly at the same time a national

necessity. … Perpetually oppressed by capricious laws, the

race raised itself by perseverance and cunning. Ill-treated,

persecuted by fire and sword, still they returned, or others

took their place; robbed and plundered repeatedly, the wealth

of the land was yet theirs. … The first Jewish immigrants

were exiles from Germany and Bohemia. In 1096 they fled to

Poland, where at that time there was more religious tolerance

than in the rest of Europe. The cruelty and greed of the first

crusaders caused this exodus of the Jews. … Casimir the

Great [1333-1370], instigated by his love for Esther, the

beautiful Jewess of Opocno, gave the Jews such civil rights

and privileges as a Polish king could grant, which conduced to

the advantage of the land; but already in the time of Lewis of

Hungary, 1371, they were sentenced to exile. Notwithstanding

this, we find them scattered over the whole of Poland in 1386.

Christians were forbidden on pain of excommunication to have

any intercourse with Jews or to purchase from them. When they

settled in towns they were forced to live in particular

suburbs. … The incredible increase of the Jewish population,

supposed to be three times as rapid as that of the Polish

inhabitants, was very alarming, as the Jews managed to avoid

all public burdens and taxes. Sigismund Augustus [1548-1572]

resolved, in spite of their objections, to impose a poll tax

of one florin per head, and at the same time to discover by

this means their actual number. It was estimated at 200,000,

but only 16,000 florins were paid as tax. Their power was

increased by John Sobiesky, to whom they had prophesied that

he would ascend the throne. He favoured the Jews so much, that

the senate in 1682 implored him to regard the welfare of the

state, and not let the favours of the crown pass through their

hands. The laws forbidding the Jews on pain of death to trade

with the peasants, to keep inns, to sell brandy—laws which

were passed anew in every reign—show that they never ceased

to carry on these trades, so profitable for them, so ruinous

for the peasant."

_Count Von Moltke,

Poland:

chapter 6._

ALSO IN:

_H. Graetz,

History of the Jews,

volume 4, chapter 18._

JEWS: A. D. 1189.

Massacres in England.

At the time of the accession of Richard Cœur de Lion, king of

England, the crusading spirit had inflamed a specially bitter

hatred of the Jews. Some of the obnoxious people were

imprudent enough to press in among the spectators of King

Richard's coronation. They were driven back with blows; "a

riot ensued, and the Jews' quarter was plundered. A day

elapsed before the king's troops could restore order, and then

only three rioters were punished, for damage done to

Christians. Thus encouraged, or allowed, the frenzy of

persecution spread over the land. Generally it was the country

people who were setting out as pilgrims for Palestine, who

began the crusade at home, while the cities interposed to

preserve the king's peace. But the rumour that the unbelievers

were accustomed to crucify a Christian boy at Easter had

hardened men's hearts against them. The cause of murder and

rapine prevailed in Dunstable, Stamford, and Lincoln. At York,

the viscount allowed 500 Jews to take refuge in the castle.

Fearing, in spite of this, to be given up, they closed the

gates against the king's officers. They were now besieged by

the townsmen, under orders of the viscount, and the defence of

men untrained to arms and without artillery lay only in the

strength of the walls. They offered to ransom their lives, but

the crowd thirsted for blood. Then a rabbi rose up and

addressed his countrymen. 'Men of Israel, hear my words: it is

better for us to die for our law than to fall into the hands

of those who hate it; and our law prescribes this.' Then every

man slew his wife and children, and hurled the corpses over

the battlements. The survivors shut themselves up with their

treasures in the royal chamber, and set fire to it. The crowd

indemnified themselves by sacking the Jews' quarter, and

burning the schedules of their debts, which were kept for

safety in the cathedral."

_C. H. Pearson,

History of England during the Early and Middle Ages,

volume 1, chapter 32._

ALSO IN:

_H. C. Adams,

History of the Jews,

chapter 16._

JEWS: 12-15th Centuries.

Treatment in France.

In France, during the Middle Ages, the extorting of money from

the Jews was one of the devices depended upon for replenishing

the royal treasury. "It is almost incredible to what a length

this was carried. Usury, forbidden by law and superstition to

Christians, was confined to this industrious and covetous

people. … The children of Israel grew rich in despite of

insult and oppression, and retaliated upon their Christian

debtors. If an historian of Philip Augustus may be believed,

they possessed almost one-half of Paris. Unquestionably they

must have had support both at court and in the halls of

justice. The policy of the kings of France was to employ them

as a sponge to suck their subjects' money, which they might

afterwards express with less odium than direct taxation would

incur. Philip Augustus released all Christians in his

dominions from their debts to the Jews, reserving a fifth part

to himself. He afterwards expelled the whole nation from

France. But they appear to have returned again—whether by

stealth, or, as is more probable, by purchasing permission.

St. Louis twice banished and twice recalled the Jews. A series

of alternate persecution and tolerance was borne by this

extraordinary people with an invincible perseverance, and a

talent of accumulating riches which kept pace with their

plunderers; till new schemes of finance supplying the turn,

they were finally expelled under Charles VI. and never

afterwards obtained any legal establishment in France."

_H. Hallam,

The Middle Ages,

chapter 2, part 2 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN:

_J. I. von Döllinger,

The Jews in Europe

(Studies in European History, chapter 9)._

{1928}

JEWS: 13-14th Centuries.

Hostility of the Papacy and the Church.

Doctrine of the Divine condemnation of the Jews to Slavery.

Claim of the Emperors to ownership of them.

"The declaration by Innocent III. [Pope, 1198-1216] that the

entire nation was destined by God on account of its sins to

perpetual slavery, was the Magna Charta continually appealed

to by those who coveted the possessions of the Jews and the

earnings of their industry; both princes and people acted upon

it. … The succeeding popes took their stand upon the maxims

and behests of Innocent III. If the Jews built themselves a

synagogue, it was to be pulled down; they might only repair

the old ones. No Jew might appear as a witness against a

Christian. The bishops were charged to enforce the wearing of

the distinctive badge, the hat or the yellow garment, by all

the means in their power. The wearing of the badge was

particularly cruel and oppressive, for in the frequent tumults

and risings in the towns the Jews, being thus recognisable at

a glance, fell all the more easily into the hands of the

excited mob; and if a Jew undertook a journey he inevitably

became a prey to the numerous bandits and adventurers, who

naturally considered him as an outlaw. … Where popes failed

to interfere, the councils of the various countries made

amends for the omission; they forbade, for instance, a

Christian letting or selling a house to a Jew, or buying wine

from him. Besides all this, the order was often renewed that

all copies of the Talmud and commentaries upon

it—consequently the greater part of the Jewish

literature—should be burnt. … The new theory as to the Jews

being in a state of slavery was now adopted and enlarged upon

by theologians and canonists. Thomas Aquinas, whose teaching

was received by the whole Roman Church as unassailable,

pronounced that since the race was condemned to perpetual

bondage princes could dispose of the possessions of the Jews

just as they would of their own. A long list of canonical

writers maintained, upon the same ground, the right of princes

and governors to seize upon the sons and daughters of Jews and

have them baptized by force. It was commonly taught, and the

ecclesiastical claim still exists, that a Jewish child once

baptized was not to be left to the father. Meanwhile princes

had eagerly seized upon the papal doctrine that the perpetual

slavery of the Jews was ordained by God, and on it the Emperor

Frederick II. founded the claim that all Jews belonged to him

as Emperor, following the contention prevalent at the time

that the right of lordship over them devolved upon him as the

successor of the old Roman Emperors. … King Albert went so

far as to claim from King Philip of France that the French

Jews should be handed over to him. … From the 14th century

this 'servitude to the state' was understood to mean complete

slavery. 'You yourselves, your bodies and your possessions,

belong,' says the Emperor Charles IV. in a document addressed

to the Jews, 'to us and to the empire; we may act, make and do

with you what we will and please.' The Jews were, in fact,

constantly handed about like merchandise from one to another;

the emperor, now in this place, now in that, declared their

claims for debts to be cancelled; and for this a heavy sum was

paid into his treasury, usually 30 per cent."

_J. I. Von Döllinger,

The Jews in Europe

(Studies in European History, chapter 9)._

JEWS: A. D. 1290.

Banished from England.

"At the same time [A. D. 1290], the King [Edward I.] banished

all the Jews from the kingdom. Upward of 16,000 are said to

have left England, nor did they reappear till Cromwell

connived at their return in 1654. It is not quite clear why

the King determined on this act of severity, especially as the

Jews were royal property and a very convenient source of

income. It is probable, however, that their way of doing

business was very repugnant to his ideas of justice, while

they were certainly great falsifiers of the coinage, which he

was very anxious to keep pure and true. Earlier in the reign

he had hanged between 200 and 300 of them for that crime, and

they are said to have demanded 60 per cent. for their loans,

taking advantage of the monopoly as money-lenders which the

ecclesiastical prohibition of usury had given them."

_J. F. Bright,

History of England, period 1,

page 179._

The expulsion was in compliance with a demand made by

Parliament. "We have no record of any special action or crime

on the part of the Jews which suggested the particular

parliamentary demand in 1290." It had been made four years

before, when, "in one night, all the Jews in England were

flung into prison, and would most likely have been expelled

there and then, had they not outbribed the King with £12,000."

_G. H. Leonard,

Expulsion of the Jews by Edward I.

(Royal History Society Transactions,

new series, volume 5, 1891)._

JEWS: A. D. 1321.

Persecution of Lepers and Jews.

"In the year 1321, a general rumour prevailed through Europe

that the unhappy beings afflicted with leprosy (a disease with

which the Crusaders had become infected in the East …) had

conspired to inoculate all their healthy fellow-creatures with

their own loathsome malady. … The King of Grenada and the

Jews were denounced as the prime movers of this nefarious plot

directed to the extermination of Christianity; and it was said

that the latter, unable to overcome the many impediments which

opposed their own agency, had bribed the lepers to become

their instruments. This 'enormous Creed,' in spite of its

manifold absurdities, found easy admission; and, if other

evidence were wanting for its support, torture was always at

hand to provide confessions. Philip V. [of France] was among

the firmest believers, and therefore among the most active

avengers of the imaginary crime; and he encouraged persecution

by numerous penal edicts. At Toulouse, 160 Jews were burned

alive at once on a single pile, without distinction of sex,

and, as it seems, without any forms of previous examination.

In Paris, greater gentleness was manifested; those only were

led to the stake from whom an avowal of guilt could be

extorted."

_E. Smedley,

History of France,

part 1, chapter 8._

{1929}

"The lord of Parthenay writes word to the king that 'a great

leper,' arrested on his territory, has confessed that a rich

Jew had given him money, and supplied him with drugs. These

drugs were compounded of human blood, of urine, and of the

blood of Christ (the consecrated wafer), and the whole, after

having been dried and pounded, was put into a bag with a

weight and thrown into the springs or wells. Several lepers

had already been provisionally burnt in Gascony, and the king,

alarmed at the new movement which was originating, hastily

returned from Poitou to France, and issued an ordinance for

the general arrest of the lepers. Not a doubt was entertained

by anyone of this horrible compact between the lepers and the

Jews. 'We ourselves,' says a chronicler of the day, 'have seen

with our own eyes one of these bags, in Poitou, in a burgh of

our own vassalage.' … The king ordered all found guilty to

be burnt, with the exception of those female lepers who

happened to be pregnant. The other lepers were to be confined

to their lazarettos. As to the Jews, they were burnt

indiscriminately, especially in the South."

_J. Michelet,

History of France,

book 5, chapter 5 (volume 1)._

JEWS: A. D. 1348-1349.

Accused of causing the Black Plague.

On the appearance in Europe, A. D. 1348, of the pestilence

known as the Black Death, "there was a suspicion that the

disease was due to human agencies, and, as usual, the Jews

were asserted to have contrived the machinations by which the

calamity was created. They were charged with poisoning the

wells, and through France, Switzerland, and Germany, thousands

of these unhappy people were destroyed on evidence derived

from confessions obtained under torture. As far as he could,

the Emperor Charles IV. protected them. They escaped

persecution too in the dominions of Albrecht of Austria. It is

said that the great number of the Jewish population in Poland

is due to the fact that Casimir the Great was induced by the

entreaties of one Esther, a favourite Jewish mistress of that

monarch, to harbour and shelter them in his kingdom. It should

be mentioned that Clement VI. forbad the persecution of the

Jews at Avignon."

_J. E. T. Rogers,

History of Agriculture and Prices,

volume 1, chapter 15._

ALSO IN:

_H. Graetz,

History of the Jews,

volume 4, chapter 4._

JEWS: A. D. 1391.

Massacre and expulsion from Spain.

See above: 8TH-15TH CENTURIES;

also, INQUISITION: A. D. 1203-1525.

JEWS: A. D. 1492.

Expulsion of Jews from Spain.

See INQUISITION: A. D. 1203-1525.

JEWS: 17th Century.

Toleration in Holland.

Attractiveness of that country to wealthy Israelites.

See NETHERLANDS A. D. 1621-1633.

JEWS: A. D. 1655.

Toleration in England by Cromwell.

"Wednesday, Dec. 12, 1655. This day, 'in a withdrawing room at

Whitehall,' presided over by his Highness [the Lord Protector,

Oliver Cromwell], who is much interested in the matter, was

held 'a Conference concerning the Jews';—of which the modern

reader too may have heard something. Conference, one of Four

Conferences, publicly held, which filled all England with

rumour in those old December days; but must now contract

themselves into a point for us. Highest official Persons, with

Lord Chief Barons, Lord Chief Justices, and chosen Clergy have

met here to advise, by reason, Law-learning,

Scripture-prophecy, and every source of light for the human

mind, concerning the proposal of admitting Jews, with certain

privileges as of alien-citizens, to reside in England. They

were banished near Four-hundred years ago: shall they now be

allowed to reside and trade again? The Proposer is Manasseh

Ben Israel,' a learned Portuguese Jew of Amsterdam; who, being

stirred up of late years by the great things doing in England,

has petitioned one and the other, Long Parliament and Little

Parliament, for this object; but could never, till his

Highness came into power, get the matter brought to a hearing.

And so they debate and solemnly consider; and his Highness

spake;—and says one witness, 'I never heard a man speak so

well.' His Highness was eager for the scheme, if so might be.

But the Scripture-prophecies, Law-learnings, and lights of the

human mind seemed to point another way: zealous Manasseh went

home again; the Jews could not settle here except by private

sufferance of his Highness."

_T. Carlyle,

Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,

part 9, letter 207._

"Cromwell … was able to overcome neither the arguments of

the theologians, nor the jealousies of the merchants, nor the

prejudices of the indifferent; and seeing that the conference

was not likely to end as he desired, he put an end to its

deliberations. Then, without granting the Jews the public

establishment which they had solicited, he authorized a

certain number of them to take up their residence in London,

where they built a synagogue, purchased the land for a

burial-ground, and quietly commenced the formation of a sort

of corporation, devoted to the Protector, on whose tolerance

their safety entirely depended."

_F. P. Guizot,

History of Oliver Cromwell,

book 6 (volume 2)._

JEWS: A. D. 1662-1753.

Condition in England.

Defeated attempt to legalize their naturalization.

"The Jews … were not formally authorised to establish

themselves in England till after the Restoration. The first

synagogue in London was erected in 1662. … There does not

appear … to have been any legal obstacle to the sovereign

and Parliament naturalising a Jew till a law, enacted under

James I., and directed against the Catholics, made the

sacramental test an essential preliminary to naturalisation.

Two subsequent enactments exempted from this necessity all

foreigners who were engaged in the hemp and flax manufacture,

and all Jews and Protestant foreigners who had lived for seven

continuous years in the American plantations. In the reign of

James II. the Jews were relieved from the payment of the alien

duty, but it is a significant fact that it was reimposed after

the Revolution at the petition of the London merchants. In the

reign of Anne some of them are said to have privately

negotiated with Godolphin for permission to purchase the town

of Brentford, and to settle there with full privileges of

trade; but the minister, fearing to arouse the spirit of

religious intolerance and of commercial jealousy, refused the

application. The great development of industrial enterprise

which followed the long and prosperous administration of

Walpole naturally attracted Jews, who were then as now

preeminent in commercial matters, and many of them appear at

this time to have settled in England,"—among others, the

family of Disraeli. In 1753, the Pelhams attempted to legalise

the naturalisation of Jews; "not to naturalise all resident

Jews, but simply to enable Parliament to pass special Bills to

naturalise those who applied to it, although they had not

lived in the colonies or been engaged in the hemp or flax

manufacture. …

{1930}

The opponents of the ministry raised the cry that the Bill was

an unchristian one, and England was thrown into paroxysms of

excitement scarcely less intense than those which followed the

impeachment of Sacheverell. There is no page in the history of

the 18th century that shows more decisively how low was the

intellectual and political condition of English public

opinion. According to its opponents, the Jewish Naturalisation

Bill sold the birthright of Englishmen for nothing, it was a

distinct abandonment of Christianity, it would draw upon

England all the curses which Providence had attached to the

Jews. The commercial classes complained that it would fill

England with usurers. … The clergy all over England

denounced it." After fierce opposition, the bill was finally

passed; "but as the tide of popular indignation rose higher

and higher, the ministers in the next year brought forward and

carried its repeal."

_W. E. H. Lecky,

History of England, 18th Century,

chapter 2 (volume 1)._

JEWS: A. D. 1727-1880.

Persecutions and restrictions in Russia.

The Pale.

"The refugees from the Ukraine who had settled in Little

Russia were expelled in 1727. No Jews from without were

allowed to enter Russia upon any pretext. The few physicians

and other professional men of the excluded race who did manage

to remain in Russia were in continual jeopardy of insult and

expulsion. Over and over again Russian statesmen who were

anxious to develop the resources and trade possibilities of

their backward and barbarous land, hinted at the advisability

of bringing in some Jews. The Imperial will was resolutely

opposed. … When the broad-minded Catherine II ascended the

throne these efforts were renewed, but she too resisted them,

and says in her Memoirs, 'their admission into Russia might

have occasioned much injury to our small tradesmen.' She was

too deeply bitten with the Voltairean philosophy of her time

to have, or even assume, any religious fervour in the matter,

but though in 1786 she issued a high-sounding edict

'respecting the protection of the rights of Jews of Russia,'

the persecution on economic and social grounds continued

unabated. By this time it will be seen the laws did, however,

recognise the existence of Jews in Russia. The explanation is

that the first partition of Poland and the annexation of the

great Turkish territory lying between the Dnieper and the

Dniester had brought into the empire such a vast Hebraic

population that any thought of expulsion was hopeless. … The

rape of Poland and the looting of Turkey had brought two

millions of Jews under the sceptre of the Czar. The fact could

not be blinked. They were there—inside the Holy Empire, whose

boast for centuries had been that no circumcised dog could

find rest for his foot on its sanctified territory. To an

autocracy based so wholly on an orthodox religion as is that

of the Czars, this seemed a most trying and perplexing

problem. The solution they hit upon was to set aside one part

of the empire as a sort of lazar house, which should serve to

keep the rest of it from pollution. Hence we get the Pale.

Almost every decade since 1786, the date of Catherine's ukase,

has witnessed some alteration made in the dimensions and

boundaries of this Pale. Now it has been expanded, now sharply

contracted. … To trace these changes would be to

unnecessarily burden ourselves with details. It is enough to

keep in mind that the creation of the Pale was Russia's

solution of the Jewish problem in 1786, and is still the only

one it can think of. Side by side with this naïve notion that

Holy Russia could be kept an inviolate Christian land in the

eyes of Heaven by juggling the map, there grew up the more

worldly conception of turning the Jew to account as a kind of

milch cow. … In 1819 Jewish brandy distillers were allowed

to go into the interior and settle 'until,' as the ukase said,

'Russian master distillers shall have perfected themselves in

the art of distilling.' They availed themselves of this

permission in great numbers, and at the end of seven years

were all summarily driven out again, a new ukase explaining

that 'the number of Christian distillers was now sufficient.'

… The past century's history of the Jews in Russia is made

up of conflicts between these two impulses in the childlike

Slavonic brain—the one to drive the heretic Jew into the Pale

as into a kennel with kicks and stripes, the other guardedly

to entice him out and manage to extract some service or profit

from him. … In 1825 Nicholas ascended the throne. Within a

year he had earned from the Jews that sinister title of 'The

Second Haman,' by which Israel still recalls him. … With the

death of Nicholas [1855] and the advent of Alexander II a new

era dawned. Dr. Mackenzie Wallace has drawn a spirited and

comprehensive picture of the literal stampede all Russia made

to reform everything. … Almost the first thing the young

Czar did was to revive a commission to inquire into the

condition of the Jews, which Nicholas had decreed in 1840 and

then allowed to lapse. This commission sent out a list of

inquiries to all the Provincial Governors. These gentlemen

returned voluminous reports, all, without exception,

favourable to the Jews. … Upon the strength of these reports

were issued the ukases of 1859, 1861, and 1865, … by which

Jews of the first mercantile guild and Jewish artisans were

allowed to reside all over the Empire. It is just as well to

remember that even these beneficent concessions, which seem by

contrast with what had gone before to mark such a vast forward

step in Russo-Jewish history, were confessedly dictated by

utilitarian considerations. The shackles were stricken only

from the two categories of Jews whose freedom would bring

profit to Russia. … Still, the quarter century following

Alexander II's accession in 1855 fairly deserves its

appellation of the 'golden age' when what preceded it is

recalled."

_H. Frederic,

The New Exodus,

chapters 4-5._

See, also, JEWS: 19TH CENTURY.

JEWS: A. D. 1740.

Rise of the modern Chasidim.

See CHASIDIM.

JEWS: A. D. 1791.

The French Revolutionary emancipation.

"It is to the French Revolution that the Jews owe their

improved position in the modern world. That prolific parent of

good and evil has at least deserved well of them. It was the

first to do justice, full and unequivocal, to those whom every

other great political movement passed over as too

insignificant or too contemptible to be taken into account.

Mirabeau and the Abbé Grégoire, the one in his desire to

secularise the State, the other in his policy of

Christianising the Revolution, as our historian Graetz puts

it, both urged on a movement which, in an incredibly short

space of time, succeeded in effecting the complete

emancipation of all the Jews under the rule of the Republic.

On the 17th September, 1791, the National Assembly decreed the

abolition of every exceptional enactment previously in force

against them, and thus made them by law what they had

previously been in heart, citizens of their country.

{1931}

He who started as the child, afterwards to become the master,

of the Revolution, proclaimed the same great principles of

religious equality wherever his victorious eagles penetrated.

Since that dawn of a better time, the light has spread more

and more, though even now [1890] it is only here and there

that it has shone forth unto the perfect day."

_S. Singer,

Jews in their Relation to Other Races

(National Life and Thought, chapter 20)._

JEWS: A. D. 1846-1858.

Removal of disabilities in England.

"In 1846 the Act of Parliament was formally repealed which

compelled Jews living in England to wear a distinctive dress.

The law had, however, been in abeyance for nearly two

centuries. About this time also the Jews were admitted to the

privileges of the naturalization laws; and in 1858 the House

of Commons by resolution altered the form of oath tendered to

all its members. As it had stood up to this time, Jews were

prevented from voting in the divisions, although a Jew could

take his seat in the House when sent there by a constituency."

_E. Porritt,

The Englishman at Home,

chapter 9._

JEWS: 19th Century.

The Anti-Semite movement.

Later persecution of the Jews in Russia.

"Among the strange and unforeseen developments that have

characterized the fourth quarter of the nineteenth century,

few are likely to be regarded by the future historian with a

deeper or more melancholy interest than the anti-Semite

movement, which has swept with such a portentous rapidity over

a great part of Europe. It has produced in Russia by far the

most serious religious persecution of the century. It has

raged fiercely in Roumania, the other great centre of the

Oriental Jews. In enlightened Germany it has become a

considerable parliamentary force. In Austria it counts among

its adherents men of the highest social station. Even France,

which from the days of the Revolution has been specially

distinguished for its liberality to the Jews, has not escaped

the contagion. … It is this movement which has been the

occasion of the very valuable work of M. Anatole

Leroy-Beaulieu on 'Israel among the Nations.' The author, who

is universally recognized as one of the greatest of living

political writers, has special qualifications for his task.

With an exceedingly wide knowledge of the literature relating

to his subject he combines much personal knowledge of the Jews

in Palestine and in many other countries, and especially in

those countries where the persecution has most furiously

raged. That persecution, he justly says, unites in different

degrees three of the most powerful elements that can move

mankind—the spirit of religious intolerance; the spirit of

exclusive nationality; and the jealousy which springs from

trade or mercantile competition. Of these elements M.

Leroy-Beaulieu considers the first to be on the whole the

weakest. In that hideous Russian persecution which 'the New

Exodus' of Frederic has made familiar to the English reader,

the religious element certainly occupies a very leading place.

Pobedonosteff, who shares with his master the chief guilt and

infamy of this atrocious crime, belongs to the same type as

the Torquemadas of the past, and the spirit that animates him

has entered largely into the anti-Semite movement in other

lands. … Another element to which M. Leroy-Beaulieu attaches

considerable importance is the Kultur Kampf in Germany. When

the German Government was engaged in its fierce struggle with

the Catholics, these endeavored to effect a diversion and to

avenge themselves on papers, which were largely in the hands

of Jews, by raising a new cry. They declared that a Kultur

Kampf was indeed needed, but that it should be directed

against the alien people who were undermining the moral

foundations of Christian societies; who were the implacable

enemies of the Christian creed and of Christian ideals. The

cry was soon taken up by a large body of Evangelical

Protestants. … Still more powerful, in the opinion of our

author, has been the spirit of intense and exclusive

nationality which has in the present generation arisen in so

many countries and which seeks to expel all alien or

heterogeneous elements, and to mould the whole national being

into a single definite type. The movement has been still

further strengthened by the greater keenness of trade

competition. In the midst of many idle, drunken and ignorant

populations the shrewd, thrifty and sober Jew stands

conspicuous as the most successful trader. His rare power of

judging, influencing and managing men, his fertility of

resource, his indomitable perseverance and industry

continually force him into the foremost rank and he is

prominent in occupations which excite much animosity. The

tax-gatherer, the agent, the middleman, and the money-lender

are very commonly of Jewish race and great Jewish capitalists

largely control the money markets of Europe at a time when

capital is the special object of socialistic attacks."

_W. E. H. Lecky,

Israel among the Nations

(The Forum, December, 1893)._

"Until 1881 the lives and property of Jews had been respected.

Their liberties were restricted, not obsolete. In that year

all was changed. The Pale of Settlement, especially in the

South, became a centre of riot. Crimes were charged against,

and violence was offered to, those who had no means of

retaliation; and whose only defence was passive endurance. The

restlessness of the country, the low moral tone of the most

ignorant and unreasonable peasantry in the world, commercial

jealousy, and official intrigues were responsible for the

outbreak. The Jews had thriven; that was a crime. As the

Government had refused them the privileges of citizenship,

they had no right to rise above their neighbours. A rescript,

for which General Ignatieff was responsible, took cognisance,

not of the sufferings of the Jews, but of the condition of the

Christians. Commissioners … were appointed, in all towns

inhabited by Jews, to inquire

(1) into the manner of mal-practices by which the presence of

Jews became injurious to the Christian population;

(2) into the best methods of preventing Jews from evading old

restrictions;

(3) what new laws were required to stop the pernicious conduct

of Jews in business.

The inquiry resulted in the May Laws of 1882. These laws,

which were so severe that hesitation was felt in applying them

throughout the Pale, were supposed to be of only temporary

application. They were known as laws for the time, and only

came into full operation in 1890. … The May Laws define the

Jews' duties to the State. These consist of military service,

and pecuniary contributions.

{1932}

In common with all Russians, Jews are subject to the Law of

Conscription. Unlike Christians, they may not provide a

substitute. They may not follow any trade, or profession,

until they have produced evidence of registration in the

recruiting district. While subject to military service, Jews

cannot rise higher than the rank of non-commissioned officer.

… The journal of statistics gives the proportion of Jews to

the population as 3.95 per cent., whereas the percentage on

the conscription rolls is 5.80. Thus the Hebrew is ground

between the upper and nether millstone. … In December 1890

Russians were forbidden to sell, lease, or mortgage real

estate to Jews throughout the Empire, a measure hitherto

applied only to Poland. Where Jews have acquired such property

they will be compelled to dispose thereof. The Jewish

artisans, apothecaries' assistants, dentists, and midwives,

with all apprentices, are to be expelled from all places

outside the Pale. Exceptions to this are obtainable only by

special permission from the Minister of the Interior. Even

then the children of such must be removed to the Pale as soon

as they come of age, or marry an unprivileged Jew. This Pale

of Settlement, which stretches along the frontier, from the

Baltic to the Black Sea, is a hell of seething wretchedness.

Here five millions of Jews are compelled to live, and die, in

a Ghetto of filth and misery, mocked with a feast of Tantalus.

Beyond are lands where corn rots for lack of ingatherers; yet

they are cabined and confined. Inability to bribe a corrupt

mass of administrators has led to the expulsion of poor Jews

from villages within the Pale, into crowded towns, such as

Tchernizo, where the population has consequently risen from

5,000 to 20,000. … In September [1890] the Jews were

expelled from Trans-caspian territory; in October, Jews, not

having the right to live in St. Petersburg, were ordered to be

transferred, with their families, to their proper places of

abode; in January the Jews were ordered to be expelled from

the Terke region of the Caucasus; in February the Jews in

Novgorod were expelled. It has been declared expedient to

expel them from the Cossack Stanitzas of the Caucasus. Three

years ago the Jews were forbidden to live on Crown lands.

Eighty-seven families were recently ordered to leave Saraka

districts; because they had settled there after the passing of

the Ignatieff laws. Artisans are henceforth to be confined to

limits of residence within the Pale. It is the same with

millers; therefore mills are idle, and the price of corn has

declined. In Courland and Livonia, descendants of Jewish

families, which were established when those provinces were

incorporated into Russia, may remain; but no others may

settle. … Jews who have lived eight years in a village may

be interned therein, and may not move, even walking distance,

without leave. Jews leaving one village for another lose their

rights, and must go to the Ghetto of the nearest town. This is

practically a sentence of death. Executions are going on, not

upon scaffolds, but in dusky Ghettos, where the victims of

oppression pine without hope in the world."

_C. N. Barham,

Persecution of the Jews in Russia

(Westminster Review, volume 136, 1891), pages 139-144._

ALSO IN:

_Persecution of the Jews in Russia:

issued by the Russo-Jewish Committee;_

_D. F. Schloss,

Persecution of the Jews in Roumania._

----------JEWS: End----------