THE SCEPTICS.
Condition of Judaism--Complete Triumph of the Kabbala--The
Disciples of Isaac Lurya--Vital Calabrese, Abraham de Herrera,
and Isaiah Hurwitz--Immanuel Aboab--Uriel da Costa; his
Career and Death--Leo Modena; his Character and his Writings--
Deborah Ascarelli and Sarah Copia Sullam, Jewish Authoresses--
Leo Modena's veiled Scepticism--The Travels and Influence of
Joseph Delmedigo--The Writings of Simone Luzzatto.
1620-1660 C. E.
Judaism, then in its three thousandth year, was like a rich kernel,
covered and concealed by crusts deposited one upon another, and by
extraneous matter, so that only very few could recognize its true
character. The Sinaitic and prophetic kernel of thought had long
been covered over with the threefold layer of Sopheric, Mishnic, and
Talmudical explanations and restrictions. Over these, in the course of
centuries, new layers had been formed by the Gaonic, Spanish, French,
German, and Polish schools, and these layers and strata were enclosed
by an unsightly growth of fungus forms, the mouldy coating of the
Kabbala, which, settling in the gaps and chinks, grew and ramified.
All these new forms had already the authority of age in their favor,
and were considered inviolable. People no longer asked what was taught
in the fundamental Sinaitic law, or what was considered of importance
by the prophets; they scarcely regarded what the Talmud decided to be
essential or non-essential; the Rabbinical writers alone, Joseph Karo
and Moses Isserles being the highest authorities, decided what was
Judaism. Besides, there were superadditions from the Polish schools,
and lastly the Kabbalistic dreams of Isaac Lurya. The parasitic
Kabbala choked the whole religious life of the Jews. Almost all rabbis
and leaders of Jewish communities, whether in small Polish towns or
in cultivated Amsterdam, the Chacham Isaac Aboab de Fonseca, as well
as Isaiah Hurwitz, the emigrant to Palestine, were ensnared by the
Kabbala. Gaining influence in the fourteenth century, contemporaneously
with the ban against science, it had made such giant strides since
Isaac Lurya's death, or rather committed such gigantic ravages, that
nothing could keep it in check. Lurya's wild notions of the origin,
transmigration, and union of souls, of redemption, and wonder-working,
after his death attracted more and more adherents into his magic
circle, clouding their minds and narrowing their sympathies.
Lurya's disciples, the lion's whelps, as they boastfully called
themselves, made systematic efforts to effect conversions, circulated
most absurd stories about Lurya's miracles, gave out that their
master's spirit had come upon them, and shrouded themselves in mystery,
in order to attract greater attention. Chayim Vital Calabrese had
been most prominent, and with his juggleries deluded the credulous in
Palestine and the neighboring countries (1572-1620) till his death. He
claimed to be the Ephraimitic Messiah, and therefore assumed a sort of
authority over his fellow-disciples. In Jerusalem, where he resided
for several years, Vital preached, and had visions, but did not meet
with the recognition he expected. Only women said that they had seen
a pillar of fire or the prophet Elijah hovering over Vital while he
preached.
In Safet, Vital, imitating his master, visited graves, carried on
exorcism of spirits, and other mystic follies, but not living on good
terms with his colleagues, especially his brother-in-law, Gedaliah
Levi, of whom he was jealous, he settled at Damascus (1594-1620),
continued his mystifications, affected great personal importance, as if
the salvation of the world rested on his shoulders, and preached the
speedy appearance of the Messiah, and his mission to hasten it. Jesus
and Mahomet, repenting their errors, would lay their crowns at his
feet. Ridiculed on account of his wild proceedings, and declared to be
a false prophet, he took vengeance on his detractors by gross slanders.
In old age he continued his mystical nonsense, saying that he had been
forbidden to reveal his visions, but this prohibition having been
withdrawn, he could now announce that certain souls living in human
bodies would be united to him--of course, in a subordinate capacity--to
bring about the redemption, one of the souls destined for this mission
being in a foreign country. This was a bait to attract Kabbala
enthusiasts, and thus secure a following. And enthusiasts hastened
from Italy, Germany, Poland, and other countries to play a Messianic
part. The manuscript notes left by Lurya gave rise to further frauds.
Vital asserted that he alone was in possession of them, and obtained a
decree from the college at Safet, declaring that no one was authorized
to publish information about Lurya's Kabbala elsewhere. Kabbalists
became the more anxious to possess this incomparable treasure. Chayim
Vital's brother, Moses Vital, took advantage of their eagerness to make
a good business of it. During an illness of his brother's, he caused
the writings found at his house to be copied, and sold them at a high
price. After his recovery, Chayim Vital affirmed that the writings
stolen were not the genuine ones; these he would never publish. He
is said in his will to have directed them to be laid in his grave.
Nevertheless, after his death, his son, Samuel Vital, sold Luryan
Kabbalistic revelations, and published his father's dreams and visions
in a separate work. An immigrant Marrano from Portugal, a devotee of
the Kabbala, asserted that he had found the best collection in Vital's
grave.
After this time a regular search was made after the Kabbala of Lurya
and Vital. Whoever was in possession of copies, and offered them for
sale or publication, found ready purchasers. Messengers were employed
to give this fraud currency in the Jewish communities. Israel Saruk,
or Sarug, a German, one of Lurya's disciples, introduced the Luryan
Kabbala into Italy, gained many adherents for it, and much money for
himself. His account of his master's miracles offended the taste of
very few. From Italy he betook himself to Holland, and there gained
a disciple who knew how to give the Kabbalistic frenzy a philosophic
complexion. Alonzo, or Abraham, de Herrera (died 1639), a descendant of
the Great Captain, the viceroy of Naples, was introduced by Saruk into
the mysteries of the Luryan Kabbala. Having lived a Christian during
the greatest part of his life, he was more familiar with non-Jewish
philosophy than with Jewish literature; therefore it was easy to
deceive him into taking dross for gold. He felt clearly that Lurya's
Kabbala betrayed resemblances to Neoplatonic philosophy, but this
disturbed De Herrera little, or rather, it confirmed the Kabbalistic
teaching, and he endeavored to explain one by the other. Finding it
impossible to reconcile the two systems, he, too, fell into idle talk
and rambling expressions. Abraham de Herrera, who, as has been stated,
became a Jew at a ripe age, could not learn Hebrew, and hence had his
two Kabbalistic works, the "House of God" and the "Gate of Heaven,"
translated by the Amsterdam preacher Isaac Aboab from Spanish into
Hebrew, and in his will set apart a considerable sum of money for their
publication. The author and translator doubtless thought that they
had rendered an inexpressibly great service to Judaism. But by the
meretricious splendor which these works imparted to the Kabbala, they
blinded the superficial minds of the average Portuguese Jews, who, in
spite of their knowledge of classical literature and European culture,
abandoned themselves to the delusions of the Kabbala. Manasseh ben
Israel and all his older and younger contemporaries in Holland paid
homage to mysticism, and had no doubt of its truth and divinity.
In Germany and Poland two men, half Polish and half German, brought
Lurya's Kabbala into high estimation: Isaiah Hurwitz (Sheloh), called
the Holy, and Naphtali Frankfurter, to whom we may perhaps add the
credulous Solomon, or Shlomel, of Moravia, who glorified the silliest
stories of wonders performed by Isaac Lurya, Vital, and their circle,
in letters sent to Germany and Poland, which were eagerly read and
circulated.
However, in this thick unsightly crust over-spreading the Kabbala,
some rifts and chinks appeared, which indicated disintegration. Here
and there were found unprejudiced men, who felt and expressed doubts
as to the truth of Judaism in its later Rabbinical and Kabbalistic
form. Many went further, and included Talmudical interpretation.
Others advanced from doubt to certainty, and proceeded more or less
openly against the existing form of Judaism. Such inquirers, of
course, were not to be met with among German and Polish, nor among
Asiatic Jews; these considered every letter in the Talmud and Zohar,
every law in the code (Shulchan Aruch) as the inviolable word of God.
The doubters were only in Italian and Portuguese communities, which
had relations with educated circles. A pious adherent of tradition,
Immanuel Aboab, of Portuguese origin, who had long resided in Italy,
felt called upon to compose a defense of the Judaism of the Talmud and
the rabbis (Nomologia, composed 1616-1625), showing an unbroken chain
of exponents of true tradition down to his own time, a well-meant, but
not very convincing work. The confused Kabbalist Naphtali Frankfurter
complained of his contemporaries who ridiculed the Talmud. Three or
four gifted investigators more or less frankly revealed the scepticism
working beneath the surface. These three men, differing in character,
mode of life, and position, were Uriel Acosta, Judah Leo Modena, and
Joseph Delmedigo; we may perhaps add Simone Luzzatto to the list. They
endeavored to lay bare the disadvantages and weaknesses of existing
Judaism; but not one of them was able to suggest or apply a remedy.
Uriel da Costa (Gabriel Acosta, born about 1590, died April, 1640) was
an original character, whose inward unrest and external course of life
could not but bring him into conflict with Judaism. He was descended
from a Portuguese Marrano family at Oporto, whose members had been
made sincere believers in Christ by the terrors of the Inquisition.
His father, at least, who belonged to the higher classes in Portugal,
had become a strict Catholic. Young Gabriel learnt ecclesiasticism
and the accomplishments of a cavalier from his father, was, like
him, a good rider, and entered upon a course of education, limited,
indeed, but sufficient for that time. He adopted the only career open
to young Portuguese of the upper middle class, by means of which the
gifted could rise to distinction, and to a certain equality with the
nobility. He was prepared for the law, a study which might pave the
way to the second rank, the clerical. In his youth the Jesuits had
already obtained powerful influence over men's minds, and their methods
of exciting the imagination and subduing the intellect by depicting
everlasting damnation and the punishments of hell had proved effectual.
Nothing but punctilious, mechanical worship and continual confession
could overcome the terrors of hell.
Gabriel da Costa, in spite of his punctilious ecclesiasticism, did not
feel quieted in his conscience. Daily mechanical exercises failed
to influence his mind, and continual confession to obtain absolution
from the lips of the priest pleased him less as he became more mature.
Somewhat of the subtle Jewish spirit remained in his nature, and shook
the strongly built Catholic system of belief to its foundations.
The more deeply he plunged into the Catholic Jesuitic teaching, the
more did doubts trouble him, and disturb his conscience. However, he
accepted a semi-ecclesiastical office as chief treasurer to an abbey
about 1615. To end his doubts, he investigated the oldest records of
Holy Scripture. The prophets were to solve the riddles which the Roman
Catholic Church doctrines daily presented to him. The fresh spirit
which breathed from out of the Old Testament, disfigured though it
was in its Latin guise, brought repose to his mind. The doctrines of
Judaism appeared the more certain, as they were recognized by the New
Testament and the Church, while those of Catholicism were rejected
by Judaism; in the one case there was unanimity, in the other,
contradiction. Da Costa formed the resolution to forsake Catholicism
and return to Judaism. Of an impulsive, passionate temperament, he
sought to carry his resolution into effect quickly. With great caution
he communicated his intention to his mother and brothers--his father
was already dead--and they also resolved to expose themselves to
the danger of secret emigration, to leave their hearth and home, give
up a respected position in society, and exchange the certain present
for an uncertain future. In spite of the Argus-eyed espionage of
Marranos by the Inquisition and the secular authorities, the Da Costa
family succeeded in gaining a vessel and escaping to Amsterdam (about
1617-18). Gabriel da Costa and his brothers were admitted to the
covenant of Abraham, and Gabriel changed his name to Uriel.
Of a hot-blooded nature, an enthusiast whose imagination overpowered
his judgment, Uriel da Costa had formed for himself an ideal of Judaism
which he expected to meet with in Amsterdam, but which had never been
realized. He thought to see biblical conditions, supported by pure
Pentateuchal laws, realized in the young Amsterdam community, and to
find an elevation of mind which would at once clear up the puzzles that
the Catholic Church could not solve. What the Catholic confessors could
not offer, he thought that he would be able to obtain from the rabbis
of Amsterdam. Da Costa had built religious and dogmatic castles in the
air, and was annoyed not to meet with them in the world of reality. He
soon found that the religious life of the Amsterdam community and its
established laws did not agree with Mosaic or Pentateuchal precepts,
but were often opposed to them. As he had made great sacrifices for
his convictions, he thought that he had the right to express his
opinion freely, and point to the gap which existed between biblical and
Rabbinical Judaism. He was deeply wounded, embittered, and irritated,
and allowed himself to be completely overpowered by his feelings. He
did not stop at mere words, but regulated his conduct accordingly,
openly disregarded religious usages, and thought that in opposing the
ordinances of the "Pharisees" (as, in the language of the Church,
he called the rabbis), he was recommending himself to the favor of
God. He thereby brought upon himself unpleasantnesses destined to end
tragically. Were the Amsterdam Jews, who had suffered so much for
their religion, quietly to see one of their members openly assail and
ridicule Judaism, become so dear to them? Those born and brought up in
the land of the Inquisition had no idea of toleration and indulgence
for the conviction of others. The rabbis, perhaps Isaac Uziel and
Joseph Pardo, threatened Da Costa with excommunication, _i. e._,
expulsion from the religious community and severance of all relations
with it, if he persisted in transgressing the religious ordinances of
Judaism. This opposition only served to increase Da Costa's passion;
he was ill-content to have purchased new fetters by the sacrifices
he had made. He continued to disregard the laws in force, and was
eventually excommunicated. Uriel's relatives, who had more easily
adapted themselves to the new faith, avoided him, and spoke not a
word to him. Thus Da Costa stood alone in the midst of a great city.
Separated from his race, friends, and relatives, a stranger amongst
the Christian inhabitants of Amsterdam, whose language he had not yet
learnt, and thrown upon himself, he fell more and more into subtle
speculation. Acting under excessive irritation, he resolved to publish
a work hostile to the Judaism of the day, and bring out particularly
the glaring contrast between it and the Bible. As irrefragable proof,
he intended to emphasize that the former recognized only bodily
punishments and rewards, and taught nothing as to the immortality of
the soul. But he discovered that the Bible itself observes silence
about a purely spiritual future life, and does not bring within the
circle of religion the idea of a soul separated from the body. In
short, his investigations led him away not only from Catholicism and
Rabbinical Judaism, but from the Bible itself. It is not known how it
was circulated that the excommunicated Da Costa intended to give public
offense, but he was anticipated. Samuel da Silva, a Jewish physician,
in 1623 published a work in the Portuguese language, entitled "A
Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, in order to confute the
Ignorance of a certain Opponent, who in Delusion affirms many Errors."
In the course of the work the author plainly named Uriel, and described
him as "blind and incapable." Da Costa thought his opponents,
especially the rabbis, had hired Da Silva's pen to attack him. Hence
he hastened to publish his work, also in Portuguese (1624-1625),
entitled "An Examination of the Pharisaic Traditions, compared with
the written Laws, and Reply to the Slanderer Samuel da Silva." The
fact of his calling his opponent a slanderer shows his confusion, for
he actually asserted what Da Silva had reproached him with, that the
soul is not immortal. As he now had unequivocally declared his breach
with Judaism, he had to take the consequences. Before, he had been
openly scorned by young people in the street as an excommunicant, a
heretic, an Epicurean (in the Talmudical sense); he had been pelted
with stones, disturbed and annoyed in his own house (as he thought, at
the instigation of the rabbis). Now, after the appearance of his work,
the official representatives of the Amsterdam community complained to
the magistrates that by denying the immortality of the soul, he had
attacked not only the teaching of Judaism, but also of Christianity,
and had published errors. Da Costa was arrested, kept for several
days in prison, at last fined 300 gulden, and his work condemned to
the flames. The freest state of that time believed that it had the
right to keep watch over and limit freedom of thought and writing;
its distinction was merely that it kindled no funeral piles for human
beings. Da Costa's brethren in race could not have persecuted him very
severely, for he was able to bear excommunication during the long space
of fifteen years. Only his isolation was a heavy burden; he could not
endure to be avoided by his family as one infected with the plague.
Da Costa was not a strong-minded man, a thinker of the first order,
who could live happily in his world of ideas as in boundless space,
unconcerned about the outer world, and glad of his solitary freedom;
he could not do without the world. He had invested his capital with
one of his brothers, and he thought that it would be endangered if he
continued the war against the community. He thought of taking a wife,
which was impossible so long as he was excommunicated. Hence he at
last yielded to the urgency of his relatives to become reconciled with
the community. He was willing, as he said, "to be an ape among apes."
He confessed Judaism with his lips at the very time when he had in his
heart thoroughly fallen away from it.
Da Costa, in his philosophical inquiries, had come upon a new
discovery. Judaism, even in its pure biblical form, could not have been
of divine origin, because it contradicts nature in many points, and
God, the Creator of nature, can not contradict Himself in revelation.
He cannot command a principle in the Law, if He has implanted in nature
an opposing principle. This was the first step to the deistic tendency
then appearing in France and the Netherlands, which acknowledged God
only in nature, not in the moral law, and in religious and political
development. Da Costa's theory supposed a religion of nature inborn
in man, which produced and built up the moral law, and culminated in
the love of members of a family to one another. The best in Judaism
and other revealed religions is borrowed from the religion of nature.
The latter knows only love and union; the others, on the contrary, arm
parents and children against one another on account of the faith. This
theory was the suggestion of his bitterness, because his relatives
avoided him, and showed him but little consideration. Da Costa appears
to have put forward as the religion of nature what the Talmud calls the
Noachian commandments.
In spite of his complete falling away from Judaism, he resolved, as he
himself states, on the intervention of his nephew, and after passing
fifteen years in excommunication (about 1618-1633), to alter his course
of life and actions, make a confession, or rather put his signature to
such a document, an act of what he himself describes as thoroughgoing
hypocrisy, designed to purchase repose and comfort, at the cost of
conviction. But his passionate nature robbed him of both. He could not
impose renunciation upon himself to conform to the religious usages
of Judaism, but transgressed them immediately after his penitent
confession. He was detected by one of his relatives, and they all,
especially the nephew who had brought about the reconciliation, were
so embittered that they persecuted him even more relentlessly than
those less nearly connected with him. They again renounced intercourse
with him, prevented his marriage, and are said to have injured him in
his property. Through his passionate hatred of Judaism, which he had
confessed with his lips, he committed an act of folly which exposed his
true sentiments. Two Christians, an Italian and a Spaniard, had come
from London to Amsterdam to attach themselves to Judaism. When they
consulted Uriel da Costa on the subject, he gave a frightful picture of
the Jewish form of religion, warned them against laying a heavy yoke on
their necks, and advised them to continue in their own faith. Contrary
to promise, the two Christians betrayed Da Costa's remarks on Judaism
to the leaders of the community. The war between them and him broke out
afresh. The rabbis summoned him a second time before their tribunal,
set before him his religious transgressions, and declared that he could
escape a second severe excommunication only by submitting to a solemn
penance in public. More from a sense of honor than from conviction he
refused this penance, and so was a second time laid under the ban, much
more severe than the first, in which condition he continued for seven
years. During this time he was treated by the members of the community
with contempt, and even spat upon. His brothers and nephews behaved
with the greatest severity towards him, because they thought by that
means to force him to repentance. They reckoned on his helplessness and
weakness, and they did not reckon amiss.
Da Costa meanwhile had reached middle age, had been made submissive
by conflicts and excitement, and longed for repose. By process of
law, which he had instituted against the Amsterdam authorities, he
could obtain nothing, because he could not put his complaints into a
tangible form; he consented, therefore, to everything demanded for
his humiliation. His public penance was to be very severe. There was
no definite prescription on the subject in the religious Code, which,
in fact, is opposed in spirit to public penance; the sinner is not
to confess aloud his transgressions against religion, but in silence
to God. Judaism, from its origin, objected to confession and the
mechanical avowal of sins. For this reason it remained for the college
of rabbis to appoint a form of penance. The Amsterdam rabbis and the
communal council, consisting of Marranos, adopted as a model the gloomy
form of the tribunal of the Inquisition.
As soon as Da Costa had consented to his humiliation, he was led into
one of the synagogues, which was full of men and women. There was to
be a sort of auto-da-fé, and the greatest possible publicity was given
to his penance because the scandal had been public. He had to ascend
a stage and read out his confession of sins: that he had desecrated
the Sabbath, violated the dietary laws, denied articles of faith, and
advised persons not to adopt Judaism. He solemnly declared that he
resolved to be no longer guilty of such offenses, but to live as a
true Jew. On a whisper from the first rabbi, probably Saul Morteira,
he went to a corner of the synagogue, stripped as far as the girdle,
and received thirty-nine stripes with a scourge. Then he was obliged
to sit on the ground, after which the ban was removed. Not yet having
satisfied the authorities, he had to stretch himself out on the
threshold of the synagogue, that those present might step over him.
It was certainly an excessive penance which was imposed upon him,
not from a desire of persecution or vengeance, but from religious
scrupulousness and mimicry of Catholic forms. No wonder that the
disgrace and humiliation deeply wounded Da Costa, who had consented
to the punishment, not from inward repentance, but from exhaustion.
The public disgrace had shaken his whole being, and suggested
thoughts of revenge. Instead of pitying the rabbis as the creatures
of historical conditions, he hated them with a glowing feeling of
revenge as the refuse of mankind, and as if they thought of nothing
but deception, lying, and wickedness. His wounded sense of honor and
heated imagination saw in the Jews of the Amsterdam community, perhaps
in all the Jews on the earth's surface, his personal, venomous foes,
and in Judaism an institution to stir up men to hatred and persecution.
Thinking that he was surrounded by bitter enemies, and feeling too
weak for a fresh conflict, he resolved to die, but at the same time to
take vengeance on his chief persecutor, his brother (or cousin). To
excite the sympathy of his contemporaries and posterity, he wrote his
autobiography and confession, which, however, contain no new thoughts,
only bitterness and furious attacks against the Jews, intermingled with
fresh aspersions of them in the eyes of Christians: that even at this
time they would have crucified Jesus, and that the state ought not to
grant them freedom of religious profession. This document, drawn up
amidst preparations for death, breathed nothing but revenge against his
enemies. After he had finished his impassioned testament, he loaded
two pistols, and fired one at his relative, who was passing his house.
He missed his aim, so he shut the door of his room, and killed himself
with the other weapon (April, 1640).
On opening his residence after the report of the shot, they found on
the table his autobiography, "An Example of Human Life," in which he
brought Jews and Judaism to the bar, and with pathetic sentences
described them as his excited imagination in the last hour suggested.
By this act and legacy Da Costa showed that he suffered himself to
be overpowered by his feelings rather than guided by reason. He was
neither a thinker nor a wise man, nor was his a manly character. As his
system of thought was not well balanced, leading him to oppose what
existed as false and bad, because it was in his way, he left no lasting
impression. His Jewish contemporaries persisted in stubborn silence
about him, as if they wished his memory to fall into oblivion. He acted
like a boy who breaks the windows in an old decaying building, and thus
creates a draught.
The second seditious thinker of this time, Leo (Judah) ben Isaac
Modena (born 1571, died 1649), was of another stamp, and was reared
in different surroundings. Leo Modena was descended from a cultivated
family which migrated to Modena, in Italy, on the expulsion of the Jews
from France, and whose ancestors, from lack of intellectual clearness,
despite their education, fostered every kind of superstition and
fanciful idea.
Leo Modena possessed this family peculiarity in a high degree. He
was a marvelous child. In his third year he could read a portion
from the prophets; in his tenth, he delivered a sort of sermon; in
his thirteenth, he wrote a clever dialogue on the question of the
lawfulness of playing with cards and dice, and composed an elegy on
the death of the teacher of his youth, Moses Basula, in Hebrew and
Italian verses having the same sound--a mere trifle, to be sure,
but which at a riper age pleased him so well that he had it printed.
But the marvelous child did not develop into a marvelous man, into
a personage of prominence or distinction. Modena became, however,
the possessor of astonishingly varied knowledge. As he pursued all
sorts of occupations to support himself, viz., those of preacher,
teacher of Jews and Christians, reader of prayers, interpreter,
writer, proof-reader, book-seller, broker, merchant, rabbi, musician,
match-maker, and manufacturer of amulets, without ever attaining to a
fixed position, so he studied many departments of knowledge without
specially distinguishing himself in any. He grasped the whole of
biblical, Talmudic, and Rabbinic literature, was well read in Christian
theological works, understood something of philosophy and physics,
was able to write Hebrew and Italian verses--in short, he had read
everything accessible through the medium of three languages, Hebrew,
Latin, and Italian. He remembered what he read, for he possessed an
excellent memory, invented a method of sharpening it still more, and
wrote a book on this subject. But Leo Modena had no delight either
in knowledge or poetry; neither had value for him except so far as
they brought bread. He preached, wrote books and verses, translated
and commented, all to earn money, which he wasted in card-playing,
a passion which he theoretically considered most culpable, but in
practice could not overcome. At the age of sixty he acquired property,
but lost it more quickly than he had acquired it, squandering 100
ducats in scarcely a month, and twice as much in the following year.
Knowledge had not enlightened and elevated him, had had no influence
on his principles. Leo Modena possessed neither genius nor character.
Dissatisfied with himself and his lot, in constant disquiet on account
of his fondness for gaming, and battling with need, he became a prey
to doubt. Religion had no power over his heart; he preached to others,
but not to himself. Unbelief and superstition waged continual war
within him. He envied naïve believers, who, in their simplicity, are
undisturbed by doubt, expect, and, as Leo added, obtain happiness from
scrupulously observing the ceremonies. Inquirers, on the other hand,
are obliged to struggle for their faith and the happiness dependent
upon it, and are tortured incessantly by pangs of doubt. He had no real
earnestness nor true conviction, or rather, according to his humor and
mood, he had a different one every day, without being a hypocrite.
Hence he could say of himself, "I do not belong to the class of painted
people, my outward conduct always corresponds with my feelings."
Leo Modena was sincere at each moment. On one day he broke a lance
for the Talmud and Rabbinical Judaism, on the next, condemned them
utterly. He disapproved of gaming, and grieved that the stars had given
him this unfortunate propensity, for he believed also in astrology;
yet he prepared a Talmudical decision defending it. When the Venetian
college of rabbis pronounced the ban on cards and dice, he pointed out
that gaming was permissible by Rabbinical principles, and that the ban
had no justification. His disciple, Joseph Chamiz, a physician and
mystic, once asked him his opinion on the Kabbalistic transmigration
of souls. Modena replied that as a rule he would profess belief in
the doctrine even though convinced of its folly, in order not to be
pronounced a heretic and a fool, but to him he was willing to express
his sincere and true views. Thereupon Leo Modena prepared a work to
expose the absurdity and inconsistency with Judaism of the belief in
transmigration of souls. But so feebly was this conviction rooted in
his nature that, having had an extraordinary experience, he again, at
least for a time, believed in the transmigration of souls, a favorite
theory of the Kabbala.
The Ghetto of Venice must have been a totally different place from that
of Frankfort, or Prague, or from the Polish-Jewish quarters, since it
was possible for men like Leo Modena, with his peculiar principles,
and Simone Luzzatto, as little of a genuine rabbi, to be members of
the rabbinate. In the largest Italian community next to that of Rome,
consisting of 6,000 souls, there were cultivated Jews interested in
Italian and general European culture, and enjoying not only social,
but also literary intercourse with Christian society. The walls of
the Ghetto formed no partition between the Jewish and the Christian
population. At this time, in the age of Shakespeare, there was no
Shylock, certainly not in Venice, who would have stipulated as payment
for his loan a pound of flesh from his Christian debtor. The people
properly so called, workmen, sailors, and porters, precisely in Venice,
were milder and more friendly towards Jews than in other Christian
cities. Jewish manufacturers employed 4,000 Christian workmen in the
lagoon city, so that their existence depended on their Jewish employers
alone. At the time of a devastating pestilence, when, even in this well
policed city, the reins of government became slacker and looser, and
threatened to fall from the hands of those in power, Jewish capitalists
voluntarily offered their money to the state to prevent embarrassment.
There were not a few among them who vied with the cultivated classes
among the Christians in the elegant use of the Italian language in
speaking and writing, and in making good verses. Besides the two
rabbis, Leo Modena and Simone Luzzatto, two Jewish poetesses, Deborah
Ascarelli and Sarah Copia Sullam, are illustrations thereof. The first,
the wife of Joseph Ascarelli, a respected Venetian, translated Hebrew
hymns into elegant Italian strophes, and also composed original verses.
A Jewish-Italian poet addressed her in verses thus: "Others may sing of
great trophies, thou glorifiest thy people."
The graceful and spiritual Sarah Copia (born about 1600, died 1641)
excited a certain amount of attention in her time. She was an original
poetess and thinker, and her gifts, as well as her grace, brought
her temptations and dangers. The only child of a wealthy father,
Simon Copia (Coppio) in Venice, who loved her tenderly, she yielded
to her inclination for instruction, and devoted herself to science
and literature. To this inclination she remained true even after her
marriage with Jacob Sullam. Sarah Copia Sullam surpassed her sex and
even men of her age in knowledge. She delighted in beauty, and breathed
out her inspirations in rhythmic, elegant verses. Young, attractive,
with a noble heart and a penetrating understanding, striving after high
ideals, and a favorite of the muses, Sarah Sullam fascinated the old as
well as the young. Her musical, well-trained voice excited admiration.
When an elderly Italian priest, Ansaldo Ceba, at Genoa, published an
heroic poem in Italian strophes, of which the scriptural Esther was the
heroine, Sarah was so delighted, that she addressed an enthusiastic
anonymous letter full of praise to the author (1618). It pleased her
to see a Jewish heroine, her ideal, celebrated in verses, and the
attention of the cultivated public directed to Jewish antiquity. She
hoped that thereby the prejudice against the Jews of the day would
vanish. Sarah did not conceal from the poet that she always carried
his poetical creations about with her, and at night put his book under
her pillow. Instead of finding satisfaction in the sincere homage of
a pure woman's soul, Ceba, in his zeal for conversion, thought only
of bringing her over to Christianity. When he heard Sarah's beauty
extolled by the servant whom he sent with presents and verses, love for
her awoke in him. This was increased by her sending him her portrait,
accompanied by enthusiastic verses in the exaggerated style of that
time, in which she said: "I carry my idol in my heart, and I wish
everyone to worship him." But the beautiful Venetian Jewess did not
allow herself to be entrapped. She held firmly to her Jewish beliefs,
and unfolded to her priestly friend the reasons that induced her
to prefer Judaism. In vain did Ceba, by tenderness, reproofs, and
sentimental languishing, with intimations of his speedy end, and his
longing to be united with her in heaven, endeavor to make her waver in
her conviction. When he begged permission to pray for her salvation,
she granted his request on condition that she might pray for his
conversion to Judaism.
Her exceptional position as poetess, and her connection with Christians
of high rank, brought her renown, not unattended by annoyances.
Slanderous fellow-believers spread the report, that she esteemed the
principles of Judaism but lightly, and did not fully believe in their
divinity. An unprincipled Christian priest, Balthasar Bonifaccio,
who later occupied the position of bishop, published a work accusing
the Jewess Sarah Sullam of denying the immortality of the soul.
Such a charge might in Catholic Venice have had other effects than
that against Uriel da Costa in free-thinking, Protestant Amsterdam.
Not merely fine and imprisonment might have been inflicted, but the
Inquisition might have sentenced her to the dungeon, to torture, and
perhaps even the stake. Hardly recovered from illness, she wrote (1621)
a manifesto on the immortality of the soul, full of ripe dialectics,
noble courage, and crushing force, against her slanderous accuser. The
dedication to her deceased father is touching, and still more touching
is her fervent psalm-like prayer in melodious Italian verses. The
consciousness that she, a woman and Jewess, could not rely on her own
strength, but only on help from above, spreads a halo about her memory.
The end of this affair is not known. Ceba's epic "Esther" probably
induced Leo Modena to translate Solomon Usque's tragedy on the same
subject from Spanish into Italian verse; he dedicated it to Sarah
Copia, whose epitaph he composed in melodious Hebrew verses.
Leo Modena also had frequent intercourse with Christians. His peculiar
nature, his communicative disposition, and great learning, as also
his wit and his fondness for gaming, opened the doors of Christian
circles to the volatile rabbi. Christian disciples sat at his feet.
The French bishop Jacob Plantavicius, and the half-crazed Christian
Kabbalist Jacob Gaffarelli, were his pupils. Nobles and learned men
corresponded with him, and permitted him to inscribe his works to them
with flattering dedications. Leo Modena held in Italy nearly the same
position as Manasseh ben Israel in Holland. In the conversation of
serious men and in the merry circle of gamesters, he often heard the
ceremonies of Judaism ridiculed as childish nonsense (Lex Judæorum
lex puerorum). At first he defended his religion, but gradually was
forced to admit one thing and another in Judaism to be defective and
ridiculous; he was ashamed to be so thoroughly a Jew as to justify
all consequences. His necessities led him, on pressure from Christian
friends, to render single portions, and at last the whole, of the
Jewish code accessible to the Christian public in the Italian language.
An English lord paid him for the work, with the intention of giving it
to King James I, who made pretensions to extensive learning. Afterwards
his Christian disciple Gaffarelli had this work, entitled "The Hebrew
Rites," printed in Paris, and dedicated it to the French ambassador
at Venice. In this work, eagerly read by Christians, Leo Modena, like
Ham, uncovered his father's nakedness, exposed the inner sanctuary of
the Jews to prying and mocking eyes. To the uninitiated, that which
within the Jewish circle was a matter for reverence could not but
appear petty, silly, and absurd. Leo Modena explained what ceremonies
and statutes Jews employ in connection with their dwellings, clothing,
household furniture, up-rising and lying down, physical functions, and
in the synagogues and schools. Involuntarily the author associated
himself with the despisers of Judaism, which he as rabbi had practiced
and taught. He showed that he was conscious of this:
"While writing I in fact forgot that I am a Jew, and considered
myself a simple, impartial narrator. However, I do not deny
that I have taken pains to avoid ridicule on account of the
numerous ceremonies, but I had no intention to defend and
palliate, because I wished only to communicate, not convince."
However, it would be an error to infer from this that Leo Modena had at
heart completely broken with Rabbinical Judaism. He was, as has been
stated, not a man of firm and lasting convictions. Almost at the same
time when he exposed the rites of Judaism to the Christian public, he
composed a defense of them and oral teaching in general against attacks
from the Jewish side. A Hamburg Jew of Marrano descent had raised
eleven points to show the falsehood of Talmudic tradition. Of these
arguments some are important, others frivolous. The Hamburg sceptic
laid chief stress on the point that Talmudic and Rabbinic ordinances
are additions to Pentateuchal Judaism, and the Pentateuch had expressly
forbidden additions of this sort. At the wish of certain Portuguese
Jews, Leo Modena confuted these objections, raised by a sciolist. His
confutation was a feeble performance, and contains nothing new. With
Leo Modena one never knew whether he was earnest in his belief or his
unbelief. As in youth he had brought forward reasons for and against
games of chance, had finally condemned them, and nevertheless freely
engaged in them, so he behaved with regard to Talmudical Judaism. He
attacked it, defended it, made it appear ridiculous, and yet practiced
it with a certain degree of honesty.
Some years after his vindication of Talmudical Judaism against the
Hamburg sceptic he composed the best work (1624) that issued from his
active pen. On the one side it was a weighty attack on Rabbinical
Judaism, such as had hardly been made even by Christians and Karaites,
on the other side, an impressive defense of it. He did not venture
to put his own name to the heavy charges against Judaism, but used a
fictitious name. The part which contains the attacks he called "The
Fool's Voice" (Kol Sachal), and the defense, "The Roaring of the Lion"
(Shaagath Aryeh). Leo Modena allotted to two characters his own duplex
nature, his varying convictions. He makes the opponent of Judaism
express himself with a boldness such as Uriel da Costa might have
envied. Not only did he undermine the Rabbinical Judaism of the Talmud,
but also biblical Judaism, the Sinaitic revelation, and the Torah. But
the blows which Leo Modena, under the name of Ibn-Raz of Alkala, in an
attack of unbelief, inflicted on oral teaching, or Talmudical Judaism,
were most telling.
He premises that no form of religion maintains itself in its original
state and purity according to the views of its founder. Judaism,
also, although the lawgiver expressly warned his followers against
adding anything, had many additions thrust upon it. Interpretation and
comment had altered many things in it. Ibn-Raz (or Leo Modena in his
unbelieving mood) examines with a critical eye Jacob Asheri's code, and
at each point marks the additions made by the rabbis to the original
code, and where they had weakened and distorted it. He goes so far as
to make proposals how to clear Judaism of excrescences, in order to
restore genuine, ancient, biblical, spiritual Judaism. This was the
first attempt at reform: a simplification of the prayers and synagogue
service, abolition of rites, omission of the second day of the
festivals, relaxation of Sabbath, festival, Passover, and even Day of
Atonement laws. Every one was to fast only according to his bodily and
spiritual powers. He wished to see the ritual for slaughtering animals
and the laws as to food set aside, or simplified. The prohibition to
drink wine with those of other creeds made Jews ridiculous, as also did
the strictness against alleged idolatry. All this, observed Ibn-Raz,
or Leo Modena, at the close, does not exhaust the subject; it is only
a specimen of the evil of Rabbinical Judaism. He knew well that he
would be pronounced a heretic, and persecuted on account of his frank
criticism, but if he could open the eyes of a single reader, he would
consider himself amply rewarded.
Had Leo Modena been in earnest with this bold view, which would have
revolutionized the Judaism of his day, had he uttered it to the world
with deep conviction, he would no doubt have produced great commotion
in Judaism. But criticism of the Talmud was only mental amusement for
him; he did not intend to engage in an actual conflict. He composed a
reply with as little sincerity, and let both attack and defense slumber
among his papers.
Leo Modena was more in earnest with the attack on the Kabbala, which
had become burdensome and repulsive to him. He felt impelled to
discharge destructive arrows against it, and this he did with masterly
skill. He called the anti-Kabbalistic work, which he dedicated to
his disciple Joseph Chamiz, a Luryan enthusiast, "The Roaring Lion"
(Ari Noham). From many sides he threw light on the deceptions, the
absurdity, and the falsehood of the Kabbala and its fundamental
source, the Zohar. Neither this work nor his attacks on Talmudical
Judaism were published by him: the author was not anxious to labor
in either direction. To a late age he continued his irregular life,
without striving after real improvement. Leo Modena died, weary of the
conflict, not with gods (_i. e._, ideas) and men, but with himself, and
of the troubles which he had brought upon himself.
Apparently similar, yet differing fundamentally from him, was the
third burrower of this period: Joseph Solomon Delmedigo (born 1591,
died 1655). Scion of an old and noble family, in whose midst science
and the Talmud were cultivated, and great-grandson on the female side
of the clear thinker Elias del Medigo, he but slightly resembled the
other members of his house. His father, a rabbi in Candia, had not
only initiated him into Talmudic literature, but also made him learn
Greek. Later Delmedigo acquired the literary languages of the time,
Italian and Spanish in addition to Latin. The knowledge of languages,
however, was only a means to an end. At the University of Padua he
obtained his scientific education; he showed decided inclination for
mathematics and astronomy, and could boast of having as his tutor the
great Galileo, the discoverer of the laws of the heavens, the martyr
to natural science. By him he was made acquainted with the Copernican
system of the sun and the planets. Neither Delmedigo nor any believing
Jew labored under the delusion that the stability of the sun and the
motion of the earth were in contradiction to the Bible, and therefore
heretical. Delmedigo also studied medicine, but only as a profession;
his favorite subject continued to be mathematics. He enriched his mind
with all the treasures of knowledge, more varied even than that of Leo
Modena, to whom during his residence in Italy he clung as a disciple
to his master. In the circle of Jewish-Italian semi-freethinkers he
lost the simple faith which he had brought from home, and doubts as
to the truth of tradition stole upon him, but he was not sufficiently
animated by a desire for truth either to overcome these doubts and
become settled in the early belief to which he had been brought up, or
unsparingly to expose the false elements in Jewish tradition. Joseph
Delmedigo was as little formed to be a martyr to his convictions as Leo
Modena, the latter by reason of fickleness, the former, of insincerity.
With doubt in his heart he returned to his home in Candia, and gave
offense by his free mode of thought, especially by his preference for
secular knowledge. He made enemies, who are said to have persecuted
him, and was obliged to leave his native land. Then began a migratory
life, which drove him from city to city, like his model Ibn-Ezra.
Like him, he made friends with the Karaites wherever he met them,
and they thronged to his presence. At Cairo Delmedigo celebrated a
complete triumph with his mathematical knowledge, when an old Mahometan
teacher of mathematics, Ali Ibn-Rahmadan, challenged him, a youth, to
a public combat, in which Ali was beaten. The victorious combatant was
magnanimous enough to show honor to Ali before the world. Instead of
betaking himself to Palestine as he had intended, Delmedigo traveled
to Constantinople; here also he attached himself to the circle of the
Karaites, and at last passed through Wallachia and Moldavia to Poland.
There, mathematics procuring him no bread, he practiced medicine, of
which, however, he had learnt more from books than by the bedside of
patients. In Poland he passed for a great physician, and was taken
into the service of Prince Radziwill, in Wilna (about 1619-1620).
Here, through the excessive attention given to the Talmud, general
culture was forsaken, but youths and men eager for learning, especially
Karaites, thronged to Delmedigo to slake their thirst for knowledge. A
half-crazed Karaite, Serach ben Nathan of Trok, who had an inclination
to Rabbinical Judaism, in order to show his extensive knowledge, with
mock humility laid before him a number of important questions, which
Delmedigo was to answer offhand, and sent him a sable fur for the
Polish winter.
Delmedigo found it to his advantage, in order to give himself the
appearance of a distinguished character in Poland, to shroud himself
in silence and seclusion. He at first answered Serach's questions
not personally, but through one of his companions, an assistant and
follower, Moses Metz. This man described his teacher as a choice
intellect, a demi-god, who carried in his brain all human and divine
knowledge. He sketched his appearance and character, his occupation and
behavior, regulated, as he said, by higher wisdom, gave information
about his descent from a learned and distinguished family on his
father's and his mother's side, and, as his teacher's mouth-piece,
imposed upon the credulous Karaite by saying that he had composed works
on all branches of knowledge, at which the world would be astonished,
if they came to light. Metz also communicated to Serach some of his
teacher's theories in mathematics, religion, and philosophy, and thus
still more confused Serach's mind. In his communications on Judaism,
which Delmedigo either made himself or through Moses Metz, he was
very cautious; here and there, it is true, he allowed a suggestion of
unbelief to glimmer through, but quickly covered it over with a haze of
orthodoxy. Only where he could do so without danger Delmedigo expressed
his real opinion.
When he at last sent the Karaite an answer to a letter with his own
hand (about 1621), he did not conceal his true views, but declared
his preference for Karaism and its ancient teachers, loaded them
undeservedly with praise, exalted science, and ridiculed the delusions
of the Kabbala and its adherents. In the same letter to Serach,
Delmedigo indulged in scoffs against the Talmud, and thought the
Karaites fortunate that they were able to dispense with it. He had
nothing to fear when he unburdened his heart before his Karaite admirer.
Delmedigo does not seem, on the whole, to have been at ease in Poland.
He could not carouse with the nobles whom he attended professionally
for fear of the Jews, and it was not possible to earn money in so
poor a country. So he betook himself by way of Dantzic to Hamburg,
where a Portuguese community had been lately permitted to settle. His
knowledge of medicine seems to have met with little esteem in the
city on the Elbe. What was his skill in comparison with that of the
De Castros, father and son? He was compelled, in order to subsist, to
undertake a certain amount of rabbinical duty, if only as preacher. For
the sake of bread he had to play the hypocrite, and speak in favor of
Rabbinical Judaism. Nay, in order to dissipate the rumor from Poland,
which represented him as a heretic, he was not ashamed to praise the
Kabbala, which he had shortly before condemned, as the highest wisdom,
before which philosophy and all sciences must be dumb. For this
purpose he prepared his defense of the secret doctrine, in refutation
of the crushing arguments against it by one of his ancestors, Elias
Del Medigo. His work was of the kind to throw dust in the eyes of the
ignorant multitude; it displayed a smattering of learning on all sorts
of subjects, but no trace of logic. He was too clever to maintain
the sheepish style of dull, stupid credulity, and could not refrain
from satire. He defended the genuineness of the Zohar as an ancient
work by Simon bar Yochaï, or at least by his school. He argued that
one must not be shocked by its many incongruities and absurdities;
the Talmud also contains not a few, and is yet a sacred book. To save
his reputation with the more intelligent, Delmedigo intimated that he
had defended the Kabbala only from necessity. We must not, he says,
superficially judge the character of an author by his words. He, for
instance, was writing this defense of the Kabbala at the desire of a
patron of high position, who was enamored of it. Should this friend
come to be of another mind, and require an attack upon the Kabbala, he
would not refuse him. In conclusion, he observes that philosophical
students would no doubt ridicule him for having turned his back on
wisdom, and betaken himself to folly; but he would rather be called a
fool all his life than for a single hour transgress against piety.
This work, commenced in Hamburg, Delmedigo could not finish there.
A pestilence broke out, and drove him, physician though he was, to
Glückstadt. In this small community, where, as he said, there was
neither town (Stadt) nor luck (Glück), he could find no means of
subsistence, and he traveled on to Amsterdam about 1629. He could not
attempt to practice medicine in a city where physicians lived of even
higher eminence than at Hamburg, and so was obliged a second time to
apply himself to the functions of rabbi. To show his importance, he
printed his scientific replies to the questions of his Polish admirers,
with the fulsome eulogies, clouds of incense, and foolish homage which
the young Karaite Serach had offered him. It is a work of truly Polish
disorder, in which mathematical theorems and scientific problems are
discussed by the side of philosophical and theological questions, in
a confused way. Delmedigo took care not to print his attacks upon
the Kabbala and the Talmud, and his preference for the Karaites--in
short, all that he had written to please the rich Serach. Instead
of publishing an encyclopædic work which he boastfully said he had
composed in his earliest youth, and which embraced all sciences and
solved all questions, he produced a mere medley.
The Amsterdam community was then full of suspicion against philosophy
and culture owing to the reckless behavior of Da Costa, and therefore
Delmedigo thought it advisable to ward off every suspicion of unbelief,
and get a reputation for strictest orthodoxy. This transparent
hypocrisy did not answer well. He was, it is true, appointed preacher,
and partially rabbi, in or near Amsterdam, but he could remain in
Holland only a few years. Poor and unstable as he was, he went
with his wife to Frankfort-on-the-Main about 1630 to seek means of
subsistence. But here, in a German community, where Rabbinical learning
was diffused, he could not obtain a rabbinical office; but he could
turn his medical knowledge, scanty as it was, to account. As he felt
no vocation for the office of rabbi, nor for medical practice, it was
a matter of indifference if he changed the preacher's gown for the
doctor's mantle. He was engaged, under irksome conditions, as communal
doctor (February 14, 1631). How long he remained at Frankfort is not
known; his position cannot have been favorable, for he removed to
Prague (about 1648-1650), and in this most neglected community he
settled. Later (1652) he was at Worms, probably only temporarily, and
ended his life, which had promised so much, and realized so little, at
Prague. Nor did he publish any part of his great work, which he had
announced with so much pomposity.
In a measure Simone (Simcha) Luzzatto (born about 1590, died 1663)
may be reckoned among the sceptics of this time. He was, at the same
time as Leo Modena, rabbi in Venice. Luzzatto was not an eminent
personage; but he had more solidity than his colleague Modena, or than
Delmedigo. By the latter, who knew him personally, he was praised as
a distinguished mathematician. He was also well read in ancient and
modern literature. His uprightness and love of truth, which he never
belied, distinguished him more than his knowledge and learning. A
parable which Luzzatto wrote in Italian in his youth shows his views,
as also his maturity of thought, and that he had reflected early on
the relation of faith to science. He puts his thoughts into the mouth
of Socrates, the father of Greek wisdom. At Delphi an academy had been
formed to rectify the errors of human knowledge. Reason immediately
presented a petition from the dungeon, where she had been so long
kept by orthodox authority, to be set at liberty. Although the chief
representatives of knowledge, Pythagoras and Aristotle, spoke against
this request, and uttered a warning against her liberation, because,
when free, she would produce and spread abroad most frightful errors,
yet the academy set her at liberty; for by that means alone could
knowledge be promoted. But the newly liberated minds caused great
mischief; and the academicians were at a loss what to do. Then Socrates
rose, and in a long speech explained that reason and authority, if
allowed to reign alone, would produce only errors and mischief; but if
mutually limited, reason by revelation, and revelation by reason, they
mingle in the right proportion, and produce beautiful harmony, whereby
man may attain his goal here below and hereafter. This thought, that
reason and faith must regulate and keep watch over each other, which,
in Maimuni's time had passed into a commonplace, was at this period,
under the rule of Lurya's Kabbala, considered in Jewish circles a bold
innovation.
Simone Luzzatto did not suffer himself to be ensnared by Kabbalistic
delusions; he did not cast reason behind him; he was a believer, but
withal sober-minded. He did not share the delusion of Manasseh ben
Israel and others that the lost tribes of Israel were existing in
some part of the world enjoying independence as a military power.
With sober Jewish inquirers of former times, he assumed that Daniel's
revelation does not point to a future Messiah, but only reflects
historical events. He composed a work on the manners and beliefs of the
Jews, which he proposed to exhibit "faithfully to truth, without zeal
and passion." It was probably designed to form a counterpart to Leo
Modena's representation, which cast a shadow on Judaism.
Luzzatto's defense of Judaism and the Jews, under the title "A Treatise
on the Position of the Hebrews," is masterly. It speaks eloquently
for his practical, sober sense, for his love of truth, his attachment
to Judaism, and his solid knowledge. He did not wish to dedicate it to
any individual patron out of flattery, but to the friends of truth in
general. He conjured these friends not to esteem the remnant of the
ancient Hebrew nation, even if disfigured by sufferings, and saddened
by long oppression, more lightly than a mutilated work of art by
Phidias or Lysippus, since all men were agreed that this nation was
once animated and led by the greatest of Masters. It is astonishing
what thorough knowledge the rabbi had of the commerce of that time,
and the influence upon it of the political position of European and
neighboring Asiatic states. The object of his defense was primarily to
disarm the ill-will of certain Venetian patricians against the Jews in
that strictly governed state. The common people had little antipathy
to the Jews; they lived to some extent on them. But among those who
had a share in the government there were fanatical religious zealots
and envious opponents, who advocated further restrictions, or even
banishment. It did not suit them that the Venetian Jews, who, shut
up in the Ghetto, possessed neither land nor the right to carry on a
handicraft, competed with them in finance and trade. The commercial
city of Venice, far surpassed by the new naval powers, Holland and
England, which had gradually obtained control of the trade with the
Levant, saw many of its great houses of business in splendid misery,
while new Jewish capitalists stepped into their place, and seized the
Levantine business. With artful turns and delicate hints, Luzzatto gave
the politicians of Venice to understand that exhaustion was hastening
the downfall of the republic. The prosperous cared only to keep what
they had acquired and for enjoyment, and former Venetian commerce
seemed to be falling into the hands of foreigners. Hence the Jews
had become a blessing to the state. It was more advisable to leave
its extensive trade, especially that of the East, to native Jews, and
to protect them, than to see it diverted to neighboring towns, or
to strangers, who formed a state within the state, were not always
obedient to the laws, and gradually carried the ready money out of the
country. Luzzatto calculated from statistics that the Jews contributed
more than 250,000 ducats to the republic every year, that they gave
bread to 4,000 workpeople, supplied home manufactures at a cheap rate,
and obtained goods from distant countries. It was reserved for a rabbi
to bring this political-economical consideration, of vital importance
for the island republic, to the notice of wise councilors. Luzzatto
also called attention to the important advantage which the capital
of the Jews had recently been, when, during the pestilence and the
dissolution of political government, the Jews had spontaneously offered
money to the state to prevent embarrassment.
Luzzatto also defended the Jews against attacks on the religious side,
but on this point his exposition is not original. If he brought out
the bright traits of his Jewish contemporaries, he by no means passed
over their dark ones in silence, and that redounds to his credit.
Luzzatto depicted them in the following manner. However different may
be the manner of Venetian Jews from their brethren in Constantinople,
Damascus, Germany, or Poland, they all have something in common:--
"It is a nation of timid and unmanly disposition, at present
incapable of political government, occupied only with its
separate interests, and caring little about the public welfare.
The economy of the Jews borders on avarice; they are admirers
of antiquity, and have no eye for the present course of
things. Many are uneducated, without taste for learning or the
knowledge of languages, and, in following the laws of their
religion, they exaggerate to the most painful degree. But they
have also noteworthy peculiarities--firmness and endurance in
their religion, uniformity of doctrinal teaching in the long
course of more than fifteen centuries since the dispersion;
wonderful steadfastness, which leads them, if not to go into
dangers, yet to endure the severest suffering. They possess
knowledge of Holy Scripture and its exposition, gentleness and
hospitality to the members of their race--the Persian Jew
in some degree suffers the wrongs of the Italian--strict
abstinence from carnal offenses, extraordinary carefulness to
keep the family unspotted, and skill in managing difficult
matters. They are submissive and yielding to everyone, only not
to their brethren in religion. The failings of the Jews have
rather the character of cowardice and meanness than of cruelty
and atrocity."
What Luzzatto's position was with regard to the Talmud he did not
distinctly state, but only explained generally that there are three
or four classes of Jews: Talmudists or Rabbanites, who hold the oral
law of equal authority with the Bible; secondly, a philosophical and
cultured class; and, lastly, Kabbalists, and Karaites. Yet he intimated
that he held the Talmudical tradition to be true; whilst he considered
the Kabbala as not of Jewish, but of Platonic, Pythagorean, and Gnostic
origin. One of his disciples relates of him that he ridiculed the
Kabbalists, and thought their theory had no claim to the title of
tradition; it was wanting in the Holy Spirit.
These four thinkers, more or less dissatisfied with the Judaism
of the day, who were furnished with so much intellect, knowledge,
and eloquence, yet exerted very little influence over their Jewish
contemporaries, and thus did not break through the prevailing
obscurity in the smallest degree. Luzzatto wrote for only a limited
class of readers, and did not inflict, or wish to inflict, heavy
blows on Judaism. Uriel da Costa missed his mark on account of his
violent, impatient disposition; Leo Modena was himself too wavering,
driven hither and thither by the wind of conflicting opinions, to
acquire serious convictions and do battle for them. His attacks on
the weak side of Judaism, as has been stated, were made in private.
Joseph Delmedigo did more harm than good through his insincerity and
hypocrisy. Lacking character, he sank so low as to speak in favor
of the confused doctrines of the Kabbala, and by the weight of his
knowledge confirmed and increased the delusion of the multitude. But
from two other quarters, by two quite opposite characters, weighty
blows against Judaism were delivered, threatening completely to shatter
it. Reason incorporated, as it were, in one Jew, and unreason incarnate
in another, joined hands to treat Judaism as abolished and dissolved,
and, so to speak, to dethrone the God of Israel.