JESUITS AND JEWS. (about 1693.)
The Churches in Germany, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, suffered
from the weakness of the nation. Both had to pass through struggles and
sufferings, which threatened destruction to every exclusive Church
system; they became too narrow to embrace the whole spiritual and
intellectual life of men. Since the war, men had gradually felt the need
of toleration. With the Protestants, Luther's principle again revived,
that only inward conviction could bring men into the Church. It was
later, that the old Church yielded a grumbling toleration. Science had
discovered, amongst other things, that in spite of some passages of Holy
Scripture, the sun does not turn round our earth, but our earth round
the sun. Unwillingly did the Church receive this, after the discovery
had occasioned her many a heart's pang.
The Protestant Church had fewer difficulties to overcome, but the
aristocratic structure of the Roman Catholic Church, again so firmly
united, and supported by great political interests, would naturally find
it far more difficult to yield to necessity.
Whoever should wish to write a history of the religious conscience of
Germans, would have to examine how it was, that after the war there
arose in both confessions, precisely at the same time, a reaction of the
heart against the ruling parties, which in spite of the difference of
dogmas, shows a great similarity in the representations of this
tendency. The need of elevation of soul, in a period which was poor in
feeling, made the Protestant Spener, and the Catholic Spee and Scheffler
into pietists, and mystics. It is true, the restraining power of the
Protestant Church could no longer check the development of
individuality. Through it the scientific man could easily satisfy
himself, when he came, from the study of history, from observation of
the heavens, from the secret of numbers, and through the weighing and
measuring of the powers of the elements, to a new representation of the
world of creation, and thereby to new views of the being of the Godhead.
Thus the genius of the great Leibnitz was the growth of the Protestant
Church. Any one also whose fancy took a wild flight, or to whom deep
thought and meditation disclosed some peculiar aspect of the Deity,
might easily release himself from Church-communion with his
fellow-citizens, and unite himself perhaps with congenial spirits in
some special community. Thus did Böhme, and the eccentric Kuhlmann,
Zinzendorf, and Herrnhuter. This was incomparably more difficult in the
Roman Catholic Church. Whoever attempted to go his own way, had to
experience the anger of a strict mistress, and rarely did a powerful
mind break loose from the restraint.
But the ruling majority of ecclesiastics had even in the old Church lost
much of their energy. The warlike champion of the restored Church, the
order of Jesuits, had itself suffered in its greatness; it had become
powerful and rich, the connection between the provinces and Rome had
been loosened, the independence of individual houses was greater, and
the curse had fallen on it which pursues the prosperous. It became
pre-eminently the representative of modern courtly splendour in church
and school. Even in earlier times the order had not disdained brilliant
displays, nor to enter into the feelings of the great world, but then it
had been like the prophet Daniel, who only wore the Persian dress in
order to serve his God among the heathen; now Daniel had become a
satrap. Through the Westphalian peace, the great mission work of the
order was limited. Still however, did it continue skilfully to draw
within its circle the souls of individuals, whoever was rich or
distinguished was firmly ensnared. Its main object was not the salvation
of souls, but the fame which would accrue to the order. The greatest
amount of work was done in the Emperor's territory. Wherever heresy
still flickered, the lay authorities assisted. But one race, more
stubborn and stiff-necked than the sons of the Hussites, or the Moravian
brothers, incessantly excited the spirit of conversion in the order, it
was the Jews.
Already in the time of the Romans, the Jews may have dwelt within the
colonies on the Rhine, near the temple of Jupiter of golden Maintz, and
the baths of the proud Agrippina; they afterwards established themselves
within the German cities. In respect to German law they were as
foreigners; they were placed under the protection of the Emperor, who
transferred his power over them to the Archbishop of Maintz, the
Chancellor of the Empire. As the Emperor's dear servitors, besides the
other taxes, they had to pay him and the princes a penny offering, which
was raised on Christmas-day. This tax, one of the sources of the
Emperor's revenue, should have been security for his protection, but it
became an opportunity for the worst oppression; and they were drawn upon
for contributions on every occasion that money was wanted. Their taxes
reached to an exorbitant height. On sudden money emergencies, or as an
act of favour, the Emperor sold, or gave away his right of taxation to
the Princes and cities; and the year's rent of three, four, or even one
hundred Jews, was a secure and important income. Thus it was a source of
gain to the Princes and Sovereigns to possess many Jews, from whom they
raised money to the utmost.
On the other hand it was an exclusive right of the Jews to lend out
money on interest for notes of hand or mortgages, which was strictly
forbidden to the Christians of the middle ages by the Pope and Emperor.
Thus naturally the whole of the money dealing came into the hands of the
Jews. And by the high interest which they received--especially on short
loans--they must rapidly have acquired great wealth. But this boundless
right was not secure against sudden attacks, both Pope and Emperor
sometimes took the liberty of giving the creditor a dispensation from
the payment of the interest, nay even of the capital.
Thus they became the financiers of the olden time in both great and
little traffic, the richest persons in the country, in spite of
monstrous imposts.
But this opulence stimulated still more the hate and covetousness of the
multitude. In the early part of the middle ages they appear to have been
seldom persecuted by Christian fanaticism. But after the Crusades, the
declining Church and the populace of the towns vied with each other in
seeking their lives and treasure. A tradition which continues up to the
present day was brought forward against them. They were supposed to
poison wells, to introduce the plague, to murder Christian children, use
their blood at their Passover, and feed on their hearts; and to whip the
consecrated host with rods, &c. Persecutions, plundering of houses, and
extensive murders were almost periodical. Christianity was forced upon
them by the sword, torments, and imprisonment, but usually in vain. No
warlike people ever withstood brutal violence, with more heroic courage
than this defenceless race. The most magnanimous examples of enduring
heroism are mentioned by Christian writers themselves. Thus it went on
during the whole of the middle ages, and still in the sixteenth century
we find the Sovereigns endeavouring to fill their empty coffers from the
money bags of the Jews, and the populace still storming their houses, as
in the wild Jewish outbreak at Frankfort-on-Main in 1614. Some great
scholars, physicians, and natural philosophers among them, acquired a
repute which spread through all the countries of Europe, inspiring even
Christians with involuntary respect, but these were rare exceptions.
Amidst all these adverse circumstances, the indestructible vital
energies of this people still continued, as we find them among the Jews
of the present day: privileged by the Emperor, helpless before the law
of the country, indispensable, yet deeply hated, desired, but cursed, in
daily danger of fire, robbery, and murder, yet the quiet, masters of the
property and welfare of hundreds, in an unnatural adventurous position,
and yet always steadily occupied, amidst the densest mass of Christians,
yet separated from them by iron boundaries, they lived a twofold life;
in presence of Christians they were cold, stubborn, patient, timid,
cringing, and servile, bowed down under the oppression of a thousand
years: yet all the pride of noble blood, great wealth, and superior
talent, the full glow of southern feeling, every kindly emotion and
every dark passion were to be found in that race.
After the Thirty years' war, the Jews obtained scarcely more protection
from the fury of the multitude, and their spiritual trials became
greater. If the Protestants, who were then weak and embarrassed, vexed
them more by repulsive arrogance than by their arts of proselytism, the
old Church was the more zealous. They were more prosperous in trade and
usury since the Westphalian peace, indeed a splendid prospect had opened
for them. The diminution of international wholesale business, the ruin
of old commercial houses at Nuremberg and Augsburg, the continued
depreciation of the coinage, the unceasing need of money, with the
territorial lords, small and great, was favourable to the multifarious
activity of the Jewish business, which found skilful instruments
throughout all Germany, and connections from Constantinople to Cadiz.
The importance to German trade of the close cohesion of the Jews amongst
themselves, at a period when bad roads, heavy tolls, and ignorant
legislation, placed the greatest limits upon commerce, is not yet
sufficiently appreciated. With unwearied energy, like ants, they
everywhere bored their secret way through the worm-eaten wood of the
German Empire: long before the letter post and system of goods carriers
had spread a great network over the whole circuit of the country, they
had quietly combined for these objects; poor chafferers and travelling
beggars, passed as trusty agents between Amsterdam and Frankfort, Prague
and Warsaw, with money and jewels under their rags, nay concealed within
their bodies. In the most dangerous times, in spite of prohibitions, the
defenceless Jew stole secretly through armies, from one German territory
into another; and he carried Kremnitzer ducats of full weight to
Frankfort, while he circulated light ones among the people. Here he
bought laces and new church vestments for his opponents, the
ecclesiastics; there he smuggled through an enemy's territory, to some
prince, arms and implements of war; then he guided and accompanied a
large transport of leather from the interior of Russia to the fair of
Leipzig, he alone being capable by flattery, money, and brandy, of
overmatching the covetousness of the Sclave nobles. Meanwhile, the most
opulent sat in the well-grated rooms of their Jewish town, concealing
securely, under lock and key, the bills of exchange, and mortgages of
the highest lords, they were great bankers, even according to our
present standard.
The Jews of that period were probably richer in proportion to the
Christians than now, and at all events, from the peculiarities of their
traffic, more indispensable. They had friendly protectors alike at the
Imperial court, in the harem of the Sultan, and in the secret chamber of
the Pope; they had an aristocracy of blood, which was still highly
respected by their fellow-believers, and at bridal feasts they wore with
pride, the jewels which some ancestor, long perhaps before the days of
Marco Polo, had brought from India, while exposing his life to manifold
dangers; or another had got by bartering, from the great Moorish king at
Granada. But in the streets the Jew still bore the degrading mark of the
unhonoured stranger; in the Empire, a yellow cockade on his coat, and in
Bohemia the stiff blue cravat; as in the middle ages he had worn the
yellow hat, and in Italy the red mantle. It is true he was the creditor
and employer of numerous Christians, but in most of the greater cities
he still lived closely confined to certain streets or portions of the
city. Few German Jewish communities were larger or more opulent than
that in Prague, and it was one of the oldest in Germany. Seldom does a
traveller neglect to visit the narrow streets of the Jewish quarter,
where the small houses, clustered together like the cells of a beehive,
enclosed at once the greatest riches and the greatest misery of the
country, and where the angel of death so long caused tears of gall to
trickle into the mouth of the believer, till every inch of earth in the
dismal churchyard became the ashes of men. At the end of the seventeenth
century, near six thousand industrious men dwelt there in a narrow
space; the great money lenders, as well as the poorest frippery dealers
and porters, all closely united in firm fellowship and common interests,
indispensable to the impoverished country, yet in continual warfare
against the customs, coarseness, and religious zeal of the newly
converted kingdom.
For the second generation were then living, of the new Bohemia, which
the Hapsburgers by scaffolds, expulsion, and fearful dragooning, had won
back after the battle of Weissen Berge. The old race of nobles was, for
the most part, rooted out; a new Imperial nobility drove in gilded
carriages through the black Hussite city; the old biblical learning had
wandered into foreign lands, or died away in the misery of the long war;
in the place of the chalice priests and the Bohemian preachers, were the
holy fathers and begging monks; where once Huss defended the teaching of
Wickliff, and Zisk rebuked the lukewarmness of the citizens of the old
town, the gilded statue of the queen of heaven now rose triumphant.
Little remained to the people of their past, except the dark stones of
Königsstadt, a rough populace, and a harsh piety.
There remains to us a little pamphlet of this time, for which we are
indebted to two of the Prague celebrities of the order of Jesuits, the
Fathers Eder and Christel, the first of whom, wrote it in Latin, and the
second translated it into German; both writers are otherwise known, the
second as a zealous but insipid German poet. From this writing the
following narrative is taken.
"Thus in a few years a hundred and seventy persons of the Jewish
persuasion, were purified in the saving waters of baptism, by one single
priest of our society, in the Academical church of Our Saviour, of the
college of the Society of Jesus.
"I will by the way, here shortly mention, the wonderful bias of a Jewish
child for the Christian faith. A Jewess in the Zinkower domain was in
the habit of carrying her little daughter in her arms; one day she
accidentally met a Catholic priest, to whom she proposed to show her
child, and taking the veil off its little face, boasted what a
finely-shaped child she had brought into the world. The priest took
advantage of this preposterous and unexpected confidence, to bless the
unveiled child with the sign of the holy cross, admonishing the mother
at the same time to bring up the said child in the love and fear of God,
but leaving all else in the hands of Divine Providence. And behold this
little Jewess had hardly began to walk, when she forthwith considered
herself a Christian, knelt with them when they knelt, sang with the
singers, went out with them into the meadows and woods, made hay,
plucked strawberries, and picked up wood with them; besides this, she
learnt of them the paternoster and the angel's salutation, as also to
say the belief; in short she made herself acquainted with Christian
doctrine, and desired earnestly to be baptized. The high-born and Right
Honorable Countess of Zinkow, in order to fulfil this maiden's desire,
to her great delight took her in her carriage to Prague, that she might
there, out of sight of her parents, more securely obtain the privilege
of baptism. But after the parents had discovered that their daughter,
who had for so long a time carefully kept her designs secret, had become
a Christian, they bitterly lamented it, and were very indignant with the
priest who had blessed her in her mother's arms with the sign of the
cross, for they ascribed to him all their daughter's inclination for
Christianity.
"But by what intrigues the perfidious Jews endeavoured to frustrate
every conversion, I have myself not long since had experience, when for
the first time, a disciple in the faith of the Jewish race, Samuel
Metzel, was placed under me for instruction. The father, who had four
children yet minors, was a true Israelite, out of the Egypt of the
Jewish town, and had endeavoured, much and zealously, to bring them all,
together with himself, out of bondage. But, behold! Rosina Metzelin, his
wife, who then had a great horror of the Christian faith, would not obey
him; and when she found that the four children were immediately
withdrawn from her, this robbery of her children, was, like the loss of
her young to a lioness, hard to bear. She summoned her husband before
the Episcopal consistory, where she sued for at least two of the four
purloined children, which she had given birth to, with great labour,
pain, and weariness, both before, at, and after the time. But the most
wise tribunal of the Archbishop, decided that all the children belonged
to the husband, who was shortly to be baptized. Then did the wife lament
piteously, indeed more exceedingly than can be told or believed; and as
she was afeard that her fifth offspring, which was yet unborn, would be
stolen from her after its birth, she endeavoured earnestly to conceal
from the Christians the time of her delivery. Therefore she determined
first of all to change her place of abode, as her present one was known
to her husband and children. But there is no striving against the Lord!
The father discovered it by means of his innocent little daughter, who
for some months had been constantly kept in a Christian lodging, and was
unwarily admitted by her mother into her concealed dwelling. On
receiving this information, I sought out the Imperial Judge of the
_Altstadt_ of Prague, who, without delay, despatched his clerk to the
house, to demand the new-born child from the woman, and (in case she
refused) from the Elder of the Jewish people, as belonging to the now
baptized father. But as these crafty Jews would not consent to deliver
up the child, a Christian midwife was ordered for the Jewish woman, that
the same might, by some womanly, pious contrivance, carry off the child
from the mother. This midwife was accompanied by certain prudent
matrons. The conductress was to be Ludmilla, well known for her great
godliness, wife of Wenzeslaus Wymbrsky, who had gone through the baptism
of water and blood. Her husband Wenzeslaus was, with this his wife and
five children, baptized in our church by his Eminence the Cardinal and
Archbishop of Prague in 1464. It was above all displeasing to the
furious Jews, to see thirteen men of other families, following the
example of Wenzeslaus, abjuring Judaism the same year. At last it became
insupportable to them that Wenzeslaus, by whose shop many Jews had daily
to pass to their frippery market, should publicly set up in it the image
of the crucified Saviour, and every Friday keep a burning lamp before
it. Therefore he was greatly hated by the Jewish rabble, and often
assailed with derision and scoffing. Now, once when he went, according
to his daily custom, to the Teynkirche, an hour before day, three armed
Jews fell on him, by whom he was mortally wounded with two poisoned
pistol-balls, so that on the fifth day thereafter, he devoutly departed
this life, without having been persuaded to name the murderers. The
ringleader was caught later, and condemned to the wheel, but acting as
his own executioner hanged himself with a rope. Now the widow of the
deceased man, Ludmilla, could not slip in, with the little troop of
pious women, unperceived, because the Hebrews with their sharp lynx-eyes
watched narrowly. At that moment, many of them combined together and
pushed their way into the room of the Jewish woman about to be
confined. But Ludmilla did not take alarm at their presence, nor at the
possible danger of death. She handed over the consecrated water she had
brought with her, to the midwife, calling upon her in strong language,
to deliver the woman and baptize the child. And so it took place, and
the nurse took the child and baptized it. But the woman who had been
confined sprang frantically from her bed, and with vehement cries, tore
the child violently from the hands of the midwife. Forthwith, the city
judge made his appearance with armed men, in order to separate the now
little Christian son from the mother. But as she, like a frantic one,
held the child so firmly clasped in her arms, that it was feared it
would be stifled in extricating it from her, the judicious judge of the
city contented himself with strictly forbidding the old Jews there
assembled, to make the child a Jew. Thereupon it was commanded, by his
Excellence, the Lord Count of the Empire, Von Sternberg, Chief Burgrave
of the Kingdom of Bohemia, that this fifth child should be delivered
over to the father. Not long after, the mother also, who had so
stubbornly adhered to Judaism, gave in, and was baptized.
"The father of the Jewish boy Simon Abeles, was Lazarus, and his
grandsire Moses Abeles who for many years had been Chief Rabbi of the
Jews. Whilst already of tender years, there had been discovered in this
boy a special leaning of the spirit towards Christianity. Whenever he
could, he separated himself from the Jewish youths, and associated with
the Christian boys, played with them, and gave them sweets which he had
collected from his father's table, in order to gain their good will. The
Jewish cravat, stiffened with blue starch, which the Jews wear round the
neck, thereby distinguishing themselves here in Bohemia from the
Christians, was quite repugnant to Simon. As the light of his reason
became brighter, he took every opportunity of learning the Christian
mysteries. It happened that he was many times sent by his father, who
was a glove dealer, on business to the house of Christopher Hoffman, a
Christian glover. There he tarried in contemplation of the sacred, not
the profane, pictures that hung on the walls, although the last were
more precious and remarkable as specimens of artistic painting, and he
inquired with curiosity of the Christian inmates, what was signified in
these pictures. When in reply they told him, that one was a
representation of Christ, another of the mother of Christ, the
miracle-working mother of God, by Buntzel, and another, the holy
Antonius of Padua, he exclaimed, from his heart, sighing: 'Oh, that I
could be a Christian!' Moreover, a Jew called Rebbe Liebmann bore
witness, that the boy sometimes passed whole nights among Christians,
and did not appear at his father's house.
"Now many maintained that this leaning to Christianity arose from a
supernatural source, and was produced by the baptismal sign, which had
been impressed upon him by a Christian, whilst he was in the cradle.
When later this report had been carefully investigated, it was certified
that a preceptor, Stephen Hiller, was once sent to Lazarus Abeles to
obtain payment of a debt, that he there found a child lying alone in the
cradle, and had, from deep impulse of heart, baptized him with the
elemental water which was at hand. On being examined by the consistory
of the Right Reverend the Archbishop, this preceptor, who is now
invested with a chaplaincy, said that he did not know whether the child
was the little son of Lazarus; nay, his supposition had been far
stronger, that it was the son of a Jewish tailor. From such evidence
this weighty point remained doubtful.
"After some years, the steadfast leaning of Simon's spirit to
Christianity, having so much increased that it began to be clearly
perceived at home, the astute boy, foreseeing well that his parents and
relations would spare no pains to put impediments in his way, was minded
to prevent this, by flying from his father's house and Jewish friends,
before the path was closed against him. Now while, on the 25th of July,
1693, Lazarus the father, kept the solemn day of rest in the Jewish
school, his son betook himself to a Christian house near the Jewish
town, which was inhabited by the newly baptized Jew, Kawka, and that
same evening summoned to him Johannes Santa, a Jew who many years before
had been converted with his whole family, of whom he had already heard a
good repute, as a zealous man and assiduous guide. For this man had, at
the risk of his life, brought away Jews who had a desire for the
Christian faith, and their newly baptized children from the Jewish town,
had placed them under instruction in our college of St. Clement, had
provided them with food, clothes, and lodging, and had for hours
together read spiritual books, especially the Life of Christ, with deep
devotion to such as could not read, and whose greatest pleasure it was
to see them cleansed in holy baptism. To him Simon honestly opened his
heart, and entreated that Johannes would take him to the college of the
Society of Jesus.
"There was no necessity for entreating, the man borrowed clothes of a
Christian youth, covered Simon's head, which was shorn after the Jewish
fashion, with a peruke, and conducted him across the Altstadter Platz to
the college. In the middle of the said Platz, stands the large
richly-gilded image of the holy mother of God, carved out of one stone.
Johannes explained to his Christian scholar, that this richly-gilded
image represented the Queen of heaven, the faithful mediator of
believers with God. This Simon listened to with great eagerness, took
off his hat without delay, bowed his whole body low, and commended
himself with pious sighs, to the blessed mother of God, as her foster
child. Hereupon he turned to his guide and thus addressed him: 'If my
father saw this, he would straightway kill me.' Thus they reached our
college between seven and eight o'clock in the evening. I was called to
the door, and Simon imparted to me his desires with marvellous
eloquence, and at the same time begged with such fervent zeal to be
instructed in the Christian faith, that I was much amazed. I presented
him the same evening to the Reverend Father Rector of the college. It
almost seemed as if this twelve-year-old boy behaved himself, as afore
time Jesus among the doctors, seeing that he answered various questions
with an eloquence, acuteness, and judgment which far surpassed his age.
When it was objected to him, that his arrival excited a suspicion that
he had committed some evil deed in the Jewish town, and sought a refuge
in the ecclesiastical house, Simon answered with cheerful countenance:
'If there is a suspicion of any misdeed, let the truth be searched out
by proclamation, as is usual in the Jew town. If I were conscious of any
evil deed, I should have more hope of remaining unpunished among the
Jews than among the Christians, for I am a grandson of Moses Abeles,
their chief Rabbi.' Then when it was suggested that he had come among
the Christians in order to wear a peruke, a little sword, and
fashionable dress, the boy made a face and said: 'I must confess that
for a long time, I have not worn the Jewish collar. Nevertheless, I do
not desire to shine among Christians in any fashionable clothes, and
will be content with my old rags.' After he had given this earnest
answer, he began to strip his hands of his gloves, to ungird his little
sword, to tear the peruke from his head, and to unhook the clean, little
upper coat, determined were it necessary to follow the destitute Jesus,
unclothed.
"By such unexpected answers and heroic resolution, he drew tears from
the eyes of all present. But when he was commanded to put his clothes on
again, he soon dressed himself, and declared in strong words, which he
oft repeated, that he withdrew from the Jews on account of their wicked
course of life, and associated himself with Christians to secure his
salvation, because he knew well it was impossible to be blessed without
faith. But when he was asked who had taught him, that faith was
necessary to gain eternal life, he answered seven or eight times: 'God,
God, God alone,' therewith he oft sighed and smote his breast with both
hands. Then he went first to one priest, then to another, kissed their
hands, fell on his knees to them, exclaiming: 'Fathers, abandon me not;
do not reject me, do not send me again among the Jews; instruct me
quickly, quickly and' (as if he had a foreboding, and saw the impending
evil floating before his eyes), 'baptize me quickly.' Now when Simon
received the assurance that he would be reckoned among the scholars in
the Christian faith, he clapped his hands, and jumped for joy. His whole
discourse was as mature and discreet, as ready and free from hesitation,
as if he had long beforehand reflected upon it in his mind, and learnt
it by heart from his tablets, so that one of the four priests present
turned with astonishment to another, and said in Latin: 'This boy has a
miraculous understanding, which if not supernatural, is yet truly beyond
his age.'
"Meanwhile, the darkness of night had come on. But as there was not
convenient sleeping room at present for this new little Nicodemus, he
was with much inward striving of my spirit, left again in that Christian
house from whence he had been brought hither, in order to spend the
night in peace with the newly baptized Jew, George Kawka. This one was
called to the door of the college, and the boy was intrusted to him,
with an express order to bring him again to the college at the earliest
hour on the following morning, that they might provide him with a secure
dwelling.
"In the interim, Lazarus became aware of the absence of his son. Not
finding him either with his friends nor among other Jews, and being a
person of sound judgment, it occurred to him that his son must have gone
over to the Christians. Early on Sunday Lazarus betook himself to the
Christian house of the glove-maker Hoffmann, whom he did not find at
home. He concealed the loss of his son and his sorrow, and begged the
glove-maker's wife Anna, instantly to call George Kawka there, because
he had some weighty business to transact with him who was his debtor.
After a long Hebrew conversation with Lazarus, George Kawka came in all
haste to the college, but to my great sorrow, unaccompanied by the
Christian disciple. He appeared painfully disquieted, but did not tell
me a word of his conference with the father, but only said that Simon
was not sufficiently secure in his dwelling, and that it was necessary
to take good heed, or he would be entrapped by the crafty devices of the
Jews. After a sharp reproof for not bringing the boy with him when in
such danger, according to my strict orders, I commanded him to go to the
house forthwith and bring the boy hither. This he promised but did not
perform. Now when George Kawka returned home, he pretended that he
wished to go to church, and Simon prayed of him, as though he foreboded
some impending treachery, with many words and tears, not to leave him
behind, as the Jews would without fail lie in wait for him that day, and
seize him in the house; but that he would take him with him to church
and so bring him to the college. Now when he with great sorrow of spirit
perceived that George Kawka only answered with subterfuges, he withdrew
himself again, after the departure of the same, into his hiding-place
under the roof.
"Hardly had George crossed the threshold, when Katherina Kanderowa, a
lodger, came from the country into her lodging-room, which was close to
Simon's hiding-place, and saw the boy in his little Jewish coat, which
he had again been obliged to put on. As therefore the said Katherina
understood from the Jews who were standing round the house-door that
they were seeking for the son of a Jew, who had fled from his father,
and as she did not know that Simon was a disciple of the Christian
faith, she drew him out of his corner, and dragged him down to the front
part of the house. When the father saw his son, he presented to this
woman thirty silver groschen, that she might thrust the boy, who was not
strong enough to free himself from her hands, over the threshold. The
boy called upon the Christians to support him against such violence, but
in vain, for two robust Jews seized upon him each by an arm, and bore
him along as if he floated through the air, to the Jew town and his
father's house. But the father went craftily step by step slowly behind,
in order to chat with the Christians, and make them believe that his son
had only fled to the Christians, in order to escape lawful and deserved
punishment. He easily persuaded the populace of this.
"But George Kawka betook himself after the end of this tragedy to me,
and related the lamentable kidnapping of Simon with many light worthless
excuses. But I spoke sharply to him, put clearly before his eyes, how
evident it was that he had played with the Jews under the rose, and
sternly charged him if he would not be made answerable before the
tribunal, for the treacherous betrayal of Simon, to use all means
without delay, and on the requisition of a Christian judge to recover
him from the hand, of the Jews, and deliver him up to the college. And
truly it appeared as if he obeyed the command faithfully and
assiduously. Ha searched the whole Jew town many days, and examined
almost all the houses, as was testified of him by the person who
accompanied and was associated with him. He thereby turned almost all
the suspicion of treachery from him; and as Simon was nowhere to be
found, he confirmed the report that he had secretly been removed to
Poland. At a later period, George Kawka himself was driven, by a bad
conscience to take refuge in Poland, and has remained invisible to this
day.
"But Simon was dragged with violence to his father's house, and after
that day, was never seen outside the threshold. After their arrival at
home, the father could no longer control his anger, and beat his son
with a stick so savagely, that the Jews present began already to fear
that he would kill him. They therefore locked up Simon in a room in
which lived Sarah Bresin, afterwards a witness. But the father
endeavoured to break open the door of the room by repeatedly running at
it with violence, and at last angrily left the house. When his anger was
a little allayed, the Jews gave up to him the severely-beaten boy,
advising to tame him by fasting. So Simon was locked up in another room.
There he passed seven painful months, in hunger and imprisonment, daily
loaded with curses and oft threatened with death. But when the father
saw that his son's spirit was inflexible, and that on the Saturday
before Shrove Sunday, Simon again, before all the family, declared
undauntedly, that he would be baptized; he determined to go to
extremities. And that affection might not restrain his hand, he chose
for assistant a Jew, Levi Kurtzhandl, a man of savage spirit and in the
vigour of youth, who had already before advised him to poison the boy.
Levi Kurtzhandl invited the boy into the room of his stepmother, and
held converse with him out of the Talmud, in order to convert him. But
when Simon persevered in his intentions, he was knocked down by Levi,
and dragged by him and the father into the next room; there both fell
upon him furiously, broke his neck, and drove his head violently against
the corner of a wooden chest, whereby the glorious soldier of Christ
received a last blow on the left side of the temple.
"Whilst this barbarity was going on, Lia, the stepmother of Simon,
together with the journeyman Rebbe Liebmann, were occupied in the next
room making gloves. On hearing the moaning of the boy, and the noise of
the murderers, she hastened into the room. There she saw the dead body
on the floor, and both the murderers on their knees by him. Thereupon
the woman was so frightened, that she fainted, and had to be restored to
her senses by Kurtzhandl pouring vinegar over her.
"After the deed, Hennele, Lazarus's cook, came back, who had been sent
out of the house with the little children. These, when supper-time was
approaching, inquired where Simon was. They were obliged to take an oath
to keep the affair secret; whereupon, their father himself told them
that he, with Levi Kurtzhandl, had deprived the boy of life as an
apostate from the law of Moses, after the example of the patriarch
Phineas.
"After that, Lazarus took counsel with Levi how to keep the crime
secret, not only from the Christians, but also from the Jews,
especially from the family of Burianer, who were very hostile to all
that belonged to the Abeles. Levi offered while it was yet night, to
carry the body of Simon to his own house, and bury it himself in the
cellar. But Lazarus feared lest some of the Burian adherents should
discover it. They therefore decided on having the corpse buried in the
public burial-ground of the Jews. And truly, the neck of the body was
discoloured with blood, but otherwise there was no open wound to be
seen, with the exception of a blow on the left temple of about the size
of a ducat; so Lazarus called his household together, instructed and
made them swear, that they would say unanimously that Simon had become
insane, and in that state had fallen against the corner of the chest,
whereby he had been mortally wounded on the left temple.
"On the following morning early, this glorious soldier of Christ was
buried in great secrecy by two Jews, Jerochem and Hirsches Kesserlas,
the coroners.
"After the burial of Simon, from his grave arose the first great
summoner, the worm of conscience, which began to gnaw the heart of the
godless Lazarus. Memory unceasingly persecuted his conscience, and the
fear of worldly punishment ever hovered before his eyes. This fear was
much increased by the journeyman glove-maker, Rebbe Liebmann. The same
had after the deed, straight left Abele's house and made off, and had
only again returned to his work after the burial. When Lazarus began to
relate the particulars, Rebbe interrupted him, protesting that he did
not desire to hear a word about the evil deed, as he had already heard
the whole of yesterday's tragedy, related by the Jewish children in the
public streets. This burst upon the astonished Lazarus like a thunder
clap; without delay he collected and packed up all his light goods, sold
his house in the Jew town, and resigned his hired shop in an
aristocratic house, in order to settle himself in Poland. He was already
prepared, on the following day, to take flight; but it was
providentially ordained that the noble landlord of the house, who had
leased the shop to him, was just then hindered by palsy in his hand from
signing the release himself.
"Meanwhile, on the 23rd of February, one Johel, a Jew, not evil-disposed
towards the Christians, went into the Jew town through the Sommer-thor,
where he met some children playing, who were relating to one another,
how Simon Abeles had three days before been fresh and healthy, and had
early yesterday been buried without any funeral pomp. Johel betook
himself without delay to the burial-ground, and found a freshly-raised
grave; reflected upon all the other circumstances and reports, and came
to the sensible conclusion that Lazarus was the murderer of his son.
This he confided forthwith to a writer of the royal government in great
secresy. After I had received intelligence thereof, and had earnestly
admonished the Jewish informer to give a faithful report; he wrote down
the following day all the lamentable particulars, in order to deliver
them to the most noble government. They commanded the body of Simon to
be disinterred, and to be closely examined by a doctor appointed for the
purpose; and finally to take into custody those who were suspected of
the deed, as also their accomplices. All this was set on foot cautiously
and without delay. The body was disinterred under an armed guard; the
Jews who had collected, and the Jewish doctor who was called in,
declared that a bad blow on the head, and lastly a fit of insanity, had
killed the boy. But the medical gentlemen gave their opinion, that many
indications, the broken neck and a small round wound on the temple,
showed that the boy had died from a violent blow.
"Thereupon Lazarus Abeles was brought to see the body of his son. He
turned pale and trembled, and was so confused that he remained silent,
and for a good while could not say anything intelligible, nor answer
anything distinctly. At last as the Herr Commissary continued urging him
to say whether he knew the body of the boy, he answered with bent head
and weak voice that it was the body of his son Simon; and when it was
further put to him what was the cause of the wound on the left temple,
he gave a confused and contradictory answer. He was therefore again
taken to prison, but the body of the boy was put into a Christian
coffin, and placed meanwhile in the cellar of the council-house. The
_Herren_ commissaries were unwearied in cross-questioning Christians and
Jews. But in spite of all indications, Lazarus, and the women who were
in special custody, Lia, his wife, and Hennele, his cook, were almost
unanimous in their evidence: Simon had not taken flight from his
father's house to become a Christian, but for a long time had been
affected with a disease of the head, and therefore kept in the house; at
last he had felt an extreme repugnance for food, had become subject to
violent fits of insanity, and thus had met with his death. All means of
extracting the truth were unavailing; Lazarus Abeles and the two only
witnesses then known of, remained obstinate.
"One afternoon, the honourable Franz Maximilian Baron von Klarstein, the
official commissary, was reflecting on this matter as he went home, and
ascended the steps of his house; when it suddenly seemed to him that he
received a violent blow on the side, he turned round crossly, when
behold there appeared to him on the landing which divided the steps from
one another, a boy standing, who bowed his head, and smiled sweetly with
cheerful countenance, clothed in a Jewish winding-sheet, wounded on the
left temple, and in size and age like Simon, as this gentleman had seen
him with his own eyes, on inspection of the body, when a lively image of
him had been impressed on his memory. The gentleman was amazed, and
whilst he was sitting at table with his wife and some guests, pondered
in his mind what this might signify. Then he heard the tapping of a
person's finger several times on the door of the dining-room. The
servant was sent out, and informed him that an unknown maiden desired
instantly to be admitted. Having entered, and being kindly accosted, the
little maiden of fourteen answered that her name was Sarah Bresin, that
she now dwelt among the Christians to be instructed in the Christian
faith, and had shortly before lived as servant to the tenant in the
house of Lazarus Abeles; there she had seen with her own eyes how
cruelly Lazarus had attacked his son Simon, because he had fled to the
Christians, in order to be baptized. Upon this and other evidence Sarah
was confronted with Lazarus; before whom she declared freely, with much
feeling and in forcible language, all that she knew. But Lazarus roundly
denied it all; and with frantic curses called down all the devils upon
her head. But when he returned to his prison, confusion and despair
seized his soul; he perceived that his denials would no longer help him
before the court, and determined by a last expedient to escape judicial
proceedings. Although both his legs and one hand were impeded by his
fetters, yet he contrived to wind the girdle, called a _Tephilim_,
wherewith the Jews bind their heads and arms during prayer, instead of a
cord, round the iron window grating, and strangled himself thereby. Thus
on the following morning, he was found strangled. For the Jews
erroneously consider it allowable to throttle themselves, and oft-times
do the like. Judgment was passed on his dead body.
"After his death his wife Lia and the servant-maid Hennele being
confronted with Sarah Bresin, made a public confession; the fugitive
journeyman glover, Rebbe Liebmann, was also produced and confessed. His
Princely Grace the Archbishop decided that Simon should be buried in the
Teynkirche, in the chapel of St. John the Baptist, by the baptismal
font, within a vault of polished marble, in a fine oak coffin covered
with red velvet, and guarded by a lock and three keys. Further, that the
coffin was to be borne to the burial place by innocent and noble youths
dressed in purple. The most noble Frau Silvia, born Gräfin Kinskey, wife
of his Excellency the Lord Count of the Empire, Schlick, had a double
costly dress prepared for this day, an under dress of white satin and an
upper one of red, interwoven with gold, trimmed with gold buttons and
adorned with gold lace-work; she provided also stockings of the like
material to cover the feet, and an exceedingly beautiful garland of gold
and silver lilies and roses to crown the head of the innocent martyr.
"Hardly had his most precious body been attired and laid in the costly
coffin, when the high nobility of both sexes arrived, and pressed with
godly impetuosity into the chapel, where all were amazed, and praised
the God of all marvels when they saw that the holy pledge (the body of
Simon) was unchanged five weeks after his death, that no exhalation of
odour could be discovered or perceived, and that from his death wounds
there dropped continually fresh rose-coloured blood. Wherefore persons
even of the highest consideration caught up this precious liquor with
their pocket-handkerchiefs. But others who were not provided with clean
handkerchiefs, or who could not get near enough for the great throng,
made their way to the old grave and tore away the bloody clippings which
lay therein. Afterwards the revered body was exposed to view on this and
the following day in the great hall of the council-house. But even there
it was exceeding difficult to approach it. At last on the 31st of March
the funeral was performed. An armed force in three ranks surrounded the
council-house for two whole hours; throughout the whole city resounded
the pealing bells of seventy churches. Meanwhile the synagogue and the
whole body of Jews were ready to swoon away with anguish, because they
feared the vengeance of the Christian populace would fell upon them. It
was indeed almost a miracle that no deed of violence was committed, for
in the past year, the Christians had more than once for the most
trifling reasons, fallen upon and plundered the frippery market and Jew
town, and had also, as is well known, attacked the Jews themselves,
severely injuring and even murdering some.
"When towards ten o'clock, the painters had finished a double
representation of the martyr Simon, the church ceremonies began. After
the coffin had been closed, the commissaries prepared to seal up the
keyhole, but as the paper which was to be sealed over the lock might be
injured, they desired to have a suitable silk ribbon, and when this
became known to the most noble persons present, they tore what they had
of such material from their heads, stomachers and arms. His Excellency
the Reichsgraf von Martinez also unbound the ribbon that was hanging
from his sword-hilt. But a ribbon of red satin was chosen for this
purpose, which the most noble and right honourable the Countess Kolowrat
had worn; this was cut in two and placed over the lock and sealed. After
this the martyr's coffin was covered with a costly red velvet pall
prepared for the occasion; in the middle of the funeral bier was a fine
picture of Our Lady, and on both sides angels with palm branches.
Sixteen good youths of noble descent bore the funeral bier on their
innocent shoulders; they wore red mantles with gold lace glittering on
them, and wreaths of silvered roses wound with red silk. Then the
pealing of bells sounded through all the three towns; the clouds
suddenly cleared from off the heavens; the multitude covered every roof,
and occupied every window; they had flocked together, not only from the
three neighbouring vine-clad mountains but from distant places and
cities.
"The city authorities led the host of the funeral train; after them
followed the lately baptized young Jews, adorned with red badges, before
whom two church banners of like material were borne. Next a countless
multitude of schoolboys from all the schools of the three towns, ranged
under eight purple flags; thirdly all the young students from the under
Latin schools. Fourthly above four hundred heads of the Latin
brotherhood from the schools, before whom was carried cross and banner
under a canopy with lighted wax tapers. They were followed by a fifth of
the higher student brotherhood of Our Lady; among them many doctors, and
assessors, and divers nobles of the Empire; before them also were borne
the cross and banner with the canopy, and in their hands they carried
burning wax tapers, and flaming white torches. Sixthly came the first
set of choristers, then the clergy in their vestments, then the second
set of choristers; after them the deacons, parish priests, and the very
reverend the prebendaries with the officiating priests, and beside them
went the city soldiers in long rows. Seventhly came the sixteen finely
attired youths bearing the glorious corpse of the martyr Simon. On both
sides of the coffin went twelve boys with burning red torches, dressed
in exquisitely beautiful purple linen. Eighthly following the coffin
came the most noble the President and Governor of Königreichs, all
holding red torches in their hands; they were followed by the most
distinguished nobility of both sexes in great numbers, and lastly a
countless multitude of God-fearing people.
"The accomplice of the murderer, Levi Hüsel Kurtzhandl, was the son of
wealthy parents at Prague; he was tall, and twenty years of age, with a
daring countenance, was passionate, had a bold eloquence and ready wit,
and was perfectly acquainted with the Talmud, which he had studied
eleven years. He had concealed himself with his Jewish bride nine miles
from Prague. After diligent inquiries, armed men were despatched there
who put him in irons, and brought him in a carriage to Prague on the
22nd of March. Although the commissaries, having formerly had similar
cases, doubted whether the least atom of truth could be extracted from
this flint, yet they confronted him with the witnesses. But
notwithstanding the affidavits of three witnesses, he acknowledged
nothing. He was threatened with the executioner and the rack, but that
had no more effect upon him than threatening a crab with drowning. For
he trusted he should be able to endure the rack, and so escape. Nay, he
was hardy enough to say, that this trial was carried on contrary to all
law and justice. Thus he was, according to law, condemned to the wheel
on the evidence of three witnesses, though without his own confession.
"He however hindered the execution of the sentence for seven months,
having by means of a Jewish relation brought the affair before his
Imperial Majesty Leopold. The proceedings were now delayed by Jewish
tricks, and so tardily carried on, that it might plainly be seen, that
the culprit was only seeking a delay of some years in order to obtain a
mitigation of punishment or to obviate it by a voluntary death. At last
the tribunal obtained an order that the accused should deliver in his
defence within fourteen days; his frivolous pleas were rejected, and the
sentence of the tribunal confirmed by his Imperial Majesty. He however
adhered to his declaration: 'I am innocent of the blood of the murdered
boy.' This he oft repeated before Father Johannes Brandstedter of the
Society of Jesus, an unwearied apostolical labourer, who met a blessed
death four days after Kurtzhandl, from the virulent poison he had
imbibed in the work of love by a sick bed. When he inquired of the
condemned whether he could meet death with resignation, and exhorted him
to the reception of the saving faith, Levi answered with a cheerful
aspect and without embarrassment: 'I care as little for death as for
this straw'--he held one in his hand, which he thereupon threw
away--'but as concerns the faith, we will now argue out of the holy
Scriptures which of us two holds the true faith. But the father must not
think he has a common simple man before him, for I studied the Talmud
for eleven years.'
"Thus began a controversy concerning the faith; the priest attacked the
Talmud with powerful theological evidence, and Levi apprehended
everything by the strong capacity of his understanding. At last he threw
his Jewish bible away from him, impatiently saying: 'Let it be as it
may, I abide by the faith in which I was born.' As on the following day
the obdurate youth began to harp upon the same string, the priest set
about the matter again in another way; he no longer spoke to him, but
turned to his fellow-prisoners, and read to them divers evidence from
the holy Scriptures, whereby he proved that the Messiah had already
come.
"This, Levi listened to quietly and thoughtfully, and although he gave
no indications of being inclined to the holy faith, yet it might be seen
by his countenance that he was not as averse to the presence of the
priest as yesterday. On the third day Levi, hardened as he might be in
other respects, yet desired that the father should return in the
afternoon, as his presence was a special comfort to him in his miserable
position. When the priest promised him this as an encouragement, the
stony heart appeared softened. In the afternoon, the father in his holy
simplicity placed such reliance on the Jew, that he removed all the
others, and remaining alone with him, kindly and urgently begged of him
to give both himself and him consolation, by relating at his pleasure,
as the greatest secret, truly and faithfully, what he knew of the death
of Simon. At this unexpected address Levi was quite amazed; he continued
long silent; but at last struck with the rare confidence shown by a
Christian priest in a Jew, he conceived a high esteem for his
uprightness, and persuaded by the father's promise of secresy, confessed
before him and one of his fellow-prisoners, with great signs of sorrow,
with bent shoulders and head hanging down on the left side, that he had,
at the instigation of the father Lazarus Abeles, laid violent hands on
Simon, and caused his death from zeal for the law of Moses.
"Upon receiving this confession the priest was exceeding joyful, and
strove with all his powers, by arguments and urgent entreaties, to
persuade him to turn himself magnanimously to God. But to this Levi
would not return any satisfactory answer; and when, as evening twilight
was creeping on, the priest prepared to go home, Levi raised his eyes to
heaven, and said with a deep sigh: 'Father, where shall I be at this
time to-morrow?' Whereto the priest replied: 'My son, in heaven, if you
embrace the Christian faith; but if you die in Judaism, in hell as a
hardened Jew.' Thereupon he in the most friendly way wished him a good
night and a blessed end, and went away.
"On the following day the priest found the condemned man dressed in
white linen for the impending tragedy, as if he had prepared himself to
be baptized. After a friendly greeting the father asked him in which
faith he had at last resolved to die? Hereunto Levi returned this
answer: 'I will die in the same faith in which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
died. And as in the olden time Abraham offered up his son, so will I
to-day sacrifice myself for my sins.' When the priest made a further
rejoinder, he said with a pleasant countenance and in a calm manner: 'I
humbly beg of you, father, not to trouble me any more about baptism, for
I will now pray from the Psalms and prepare myself for a happy death.'
Thereupon he began to repeat the Psalms, but without the girdle called a
_Tephilim_, although the Jews usually consider prayer without binding
the forehead and hands a sin. But he prayed with such contrition of
heart and such vehement beating of the breast, and penitential tears,
that his fellow-prisoners and all present were greatly astonished at his
remorse.
"After a prayer that had lasted more than two hours he gave himself up
quickly into the hands of the executioner, and thus accosted him with a
cheerful countenance: 'Do to me what God and my judges have commanded
you.' He then turned to his fellow-prisoners, took a friendly leave of
them, and humbly begged of them to forgive his past failings.
"After ten o'clock they took him, amidst the gaze of countless
multitudes, from the prison, and bound him in a hide, whereat he showed
no sign of impatience or displeasure. Only he sometimes raised his bound
hands in prayer to heaven. Thus was he dragged by a horse to the field
of action. When he perceived that the accompanying priest in the middle
of the Platz was in danger of being severely injured by a horse, he
begged with sympathizing voice that he might go in front to avoid the
danger."
Thus far the Jesuit's narrative. On the scaffold Levi made a manly
confession of his deed before all the people, with a request that the
witnesses who had only spoken the truth should no longer be kept in
prison. The details of the execution were particularly horrible; the
experienced executioner could not--so the writer states--break the
strong body of the criminal on the wheel. At last Levi called to the
priest by his side and asked him in a clear voice what he would promise
if he should consent to be baptized? When the father promised him,
besides forgiveness of all his sins, also a speedy death, Levi answered:
'I will be baptized.' The Church triumphant hastened to impart private
baptism, much disposed to attribute this unheard-of bodily strength and
calm of the malefactor to a special miracle of Divine Providence. Levi
repeated the prescribed formula with a strong voice, and received calmly
the now effective stroke of death.
This is the sorrowful history of Simon Abeles. Whoever judges the Jesuit
narrative impartially will discover in it something which the narrator
wishes to conceal; and whoever contemplates with horror the fanatical
murder, will nevertheless not spend much sympathy on the fanatical
priests. They tear the scarcely born child out of the arms of its
mother; they consider it a pious contrivance to steal the suckling
secretly from her, by means of spies and tale-bearers; by promises and
threatenings, and excitement of the imagination, they win hosts of
proselytes in baptism to their God, who is very unlike the God of the
gospel; with the skill of experienced managers, they make use of a
miserable murder, for the sake of bringing on the scene a real tragedy,
and of the dead body of a Jewish boy, in order by pomp and glitter and
enormous processions, and if possible by miracles, to recommend their
faith to both Christians and Jews. Their fanaticism, in alliance with
the burgher magistracy and the compliant law, stands in comparison with
that of a despised, persecuted, and impulsive race; cunning, violence,
malice and a corrupt morality, are to be discovered on both sides.
During yet two generations, the zeal of the Jesuits against the Jews
continued to work, the struggle of two foreign communities on German
ground. The one consisted of the sons of the old dwellers in the
wilderness, whose leader, the Lord Jehovah, brought them forth with
their flocks and herds, going before them in the fiery pillar, and
pouring his wrath on all who fell away from him. And opposed to these
were the followers of a Spanish nobleman, who had undertaken the
monstrous task of forming the souls of men like the wheels of a machine,
making all the highest intellectual powers serve the one single object,
of a priesthood to the one appointed officer of the great head of the
church militant, Jesus.
What were Loyola and his school to the ancient Abeles and to Levi
Kurtzhandl? How ancient was Loyola? Their fathers had slaughtered the
sacrificial victim three thousand years before the first Jesuit had
tortured a Jewish heart; their descendants, they were sure, would offer
sacrifice three thousand years later in the kingdom of Messiah, after
the last Jesuit had been collected to his mother Lilith. The fearful S.
J. which shone in gold on the stones of the college, how long would it
last? In the time of their grandfathers it had its origin, in the time
of their grandchildren it would be erased. What was this new device to
the seed of Abraham? An extravagance, a short plague of Egypt. Proudly
did the Roman Catholic church look back on seventeen hundred years of
victory and conquest, but more proudly did the despised Jew look upon
his past, which stretches back to the dawn of the world, for his faith
was seventeen hundred years old when Christ was baptized. Both the
judgment of the pious fathers of the Church and the pious Jews was
narrowed, and their comprehension of the Highest disturbed by old
traditions.
When Jehovah spoke to Moses on the mountain, his law became the
groundwork of a higher moral law, to the hordes in the desert; when
Jesus proclaimed to the apostles the gracious message of love, his
teaching was a holy treasure for the human race. Since then, the Jews
have continued unweariedly to solemnize their Passover; still do they
shun the meat of the swine, and swing the young cocks on atonement day;
but the foundation of their faith has long vanished, also their pastoral
state on the borders of the Syrian wilderness. For many centuries also,
the pious fathers of the Roman Catholic church have offered their holy
sacrifice daily; but they also, have already ceased to be the most
pre-eminent of those who live under the law of the new covenant. The
Bohemian peasant, who benevolently raised up the sick Jew on the high
road, without tormenting the soul of the stranger with efforts to
convert him, was more Christian than they; that man of science, who
risked his life under the anger of the Church, that he might understand
how the lightning was made by God, and the earth caused to revolve, was
more a proclaimer of the Eternal, than they; and that citizen who died
for his duty, in order to teach that the general weal is of more value
than that of individuals, was nearer the most perfect pattern, than
they. Among them also, undoubtedly, were many good high-minded men; the
Jesuit, Friedrich Spee, met his death in a pesthouse, like that sailor
in the flames. But those who thus lived, are precious to us because they
showed themselves to be good men; whether they were considered good
priests we know not. When this same Spee protested so vehemently against
the burning of witches, which his Church so zealously carried on, he
published his writings, without his name, in a Protestant place.
Since Moses, and since the first feast of Pentecost, the Lord had never
left himself without witnesses; he had given the nations of the earth a
new culture, had led them to a higher civilisation. He had given them a
new code of morals, he had unlocked the other half of the earth, he had
willed that the new spirit in men should be contained in the narrow
space of one book, which might pass from hand to hand, from one soul to
another, from one century to every succeeding one. Restlessly and
unceasingly did the Divine Spirit agitate and stir the hearts of men;
ever more mighty and more holy did these manifestations of the Eternal,
appear to men of powerful intellect; it was a different manifestation to
that of the old writings, it was also another word of God, another
aspect of the Eternal, which was discovered. Thus men now sought the God
of the human race, of the earth, of the universe, not only in the old
faith but also in science. Together with the Jesuits and Jews there was
Leibnitz.
This new culture has elevated the Jews; their fanaticism has vanished
since the Christian zeal which persecuted them has ceased, and the
descendants of that wandering Asiatic race have become our countrymen
and fellow combatants. But the ecclesiastical community of the Society
of Jesus, already once expelled, then revived again, remains to this day
what it was at the beginning of its emigration into Germany--alien to
the German life.