RESETTLEMENT
THERE was much in Cromwell’s followers to dispose them favourably
towards Israel. Their history, their theology, their character, their
morals, and their ideals were all as Hebraic as anything could be that
had not had its birth in Asia. The Puritans boasted, as the Jews had
always done, that they themselves were the only pure Church, and hated
all others as idolaters. They believed, as the Jews had always done,
that they were the favourite people of Heaven, selected by the Almighty
to bear testimony to His unity, to fight His battles and to exterminate
His enemies: “Destroy the Amalekites, root and branch, hip and thigh,”
was the burden of the Puritan preachers. They dreamed of a Theocracy,
as the Jews had always done; of a state in which the civil should be
subordinated to religious authority. The spiritual arrogance of the
Jew met with its other half in the spiritual arrogance of the Puritan.
If the Jew held that for him Jehovah had spoken on Mount Sinai, the
Puritan was equally certain that for him God had suffered on the hill
of Calvary. If the Jew applied to himself the prophecies of the Old
Testament, the Puritan was as eager to appropriate the fulfilments
of the New. They both walked with their heads in the skies, but with
their feet firm upon solid earth. The daily contemplation of eternal
interests did not disqualify either of them for the successful pursuit
of temporal ends. Spiritual at once and practical, they saw in material
prosperity a proof of divine approbation. Believing, as they did, that
“thrift is blessing,” they strove to earn the fruits of thrift by
excessive piety. And, while they established their own rule, they had
no doubt that they were promoting the Kingdom of God.
The resemblance can be traced to the minutest details. The Puritan’s
detestation of the fine arts, of ecclesiastical decoration, and of
sacerdotal foppery was not less sincere than that of the Jew. Equally
strong was the hatred entertained by both sects towards public
amusements. Under the reign of the Puritans the playhouses were
closed, masques were anathematised, maypoles demolished; all beauty
was denounced as a sin, all pleasure punished as a crime. Even so at
the same period (about 1660) a Rabbi of Venice expressed his horror at
the establishment of theatres by Venetian Jews, wherein men, women,
and children of the chosen people assisted at frivolous performances,
and regretted his inability to suppress the graceless and godless
gatherings. Both Jews and Puritans in the seventeenth century were
ready to subscribe to the words of the Talmudic sage of the first: “I
give thanks to thee, O Lord, my God and God of my fathers, that thou
hast placed my portion among those who sit in the House of Learning and
the House of Prayer, and didst not cast my lot among those who frequent
theatres and circuses. For I labour, and they labour; I wait, and they
wait; I to inherit paradise, they the pit of destruction.”[131]
Lastly, both Puritans and Jews had suffered sorely for dissent, and
they had both made others suffer as sorely for the same reason. The
heroic fortitude of both sects under affliction was disgraced by their
fierce intolerance when in power.
This close similarity in temperament and ideas found expression in many
ways, more or less marvellous, more or less amusing. It originated
that partiality to the Old Testament which was responsible for most of
the Puritans’ peculiarities and sins. The Lord’s Day in their mouths
became the Sabbath; their children were baptized by the uncouth names
of ancient Hebrew patriarchs and prophets; their everyday conversation
was a compound of sanctity and Semitism. Hebrew was revered as the
primitive tongue of mankind, and it was held that a child brought up
in solitude would naturally speak Hebrew at four years of age. Not
only were their notions on social and moral questions derived from
the code of Moses, but even in matters judicial that code was gravely
recommended as a substitute for English jurisprudence, and the extreme
Puritans, who migrated to America, actually adopted the Mosaic law
in Massachusetts, acted Hebrew masquerades in the island of Rhode,
and called the members of the Constitutional Committee of New Haven
“The seven pillars hewn out for the House of Wisdom.” Last, but most
important of all, Cromwell’s Ironsides found in the Old Testament
precedent and sanction for deeds which are utterly abhorrent to the
teaching of the New.
Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that, while the
persecution of Papists and Episcopalians was at its highest in England,
the public attitude towards the Jews should have undergone a marked
change for the better. Members of the race were already established
in London, though secretly. On January 5, 1649, two inhabitants of
Amsterdam presented to Fairfax and the Army a petition for the repeal
of the banishment of the Jews under Edward I., and they must have found
the public mind not unprepared for their request. The question of
the rehabilitation of the Jews formed about this time the subject of
earnest consideration in certain circles. Edward Nicholas, ex-Secretary
to Parliament, advocated it with fervour and biblical erudition,
declaring his belief that the tribulations which England had endured
for a generation were a punishment for the expulsion of God’s people.
A newspaper, published on May 6, 1652, contains the account of a visit
to a synagogue in Leghorn by a friendly sailor, ending with the appeal,
“Shall they be tolerated by the Pope, and by the Duke of Florence, by
the Turks, and by the Barbarians and others, and shall England still
have laws in force against them?”[132] ♦1652♦ When Dr. John Owen drew
up his scheme for a national Church and submitted it to Parliament,
Major Butler and some others attacked it as not liberal enough. Not
only did they denounce interference on the part of the State in matters
spiritual and doctrinal, but they asked: “Is it not the duty of
magistrates to permit the Jews, whose conversion we look for, to live
freely and peaceably amongst us?” Roger Williams was strongly on the
same side, and so was Whalley, the gallant Major of Naseby fame, both
on religious and on practical grounds.
As a result of this agitation in favour of Israel, four conferences
were publicly held for a discussion of the matter. The last of these
occurred on Wednesday, December 12th, 1655, at Whitehall, under the
presidency of the Protector. It was a great event, and it created a
deep sensation throughout the country. All the highest authorities of
the Church and the State assisted at the consultation, and argued out
the question whether the Jews should be permitted to settle and trade
in England again.
The proposer was Manasseh Ben Israel, a Rabbi of Amsterdam, the son of
a Marrano of Lisbon, who had suffered at the hands of the Inquisition.
Manasseh was a true patriot: rich in nothing but Rabbinical and
Cabbalistic lore, a fluent speaker, and a prolific writer; withal a
firm believer in the approaching advent of the Messiah, and in his
own divinely appointed mission to promote that advent. Indeed, he had
a family interest in the matter; for he had married a descendant of
the House of David, and entertained hopes that, in accordance with
the ancient prophecies, the King of Israel might be among his own
offspring. Manasseh, thinking that the establishment of the Puritan
Commonwealth and of liberty of conscience in England, as well as the
enormous attention paid by the European world at that time to questions
of biblical prophecy, afforded an opportunity for the readmission
of his co-religionists, had already approached the English Puritans
and Millennarians, and had made several attempts to obtain a hearing
of Parliament; but he had failed until Cromwell’s accession to the
head of affairs. Manasseh, in his declaration to the Commonwealth of
England, dwelt at great length and with great historical knowledge on
the loyalty shown by the Jewish people in the countries where they were
treated kindly. Among other examples he quoted the heroic fidelity
of the Jews of Burgos to the fallen King of Castile, Don Pedro.[133]
But his principal argument was that by the admission of the Jews into
England the biblical prophecies concerning the Messianic era--namely,
that it would not dawn until the Israelites had been dispersed through
all the nations of the earth--would be fulfilled, and thus the era
itself brought materially nearer. It was an argument well calculated
to appeal to an audience thirsting for the Millennium and the Fifth
Monarchy of the Apocalypse, and terribly anxious to pave the way for
the Redeemer.
Cromwell himself--whether influenced by Messianic expectations, by
the desire to win over the Jews to Christianity through kindness, by
broad principles of religious toleration, or by the less aërial motive
of making use of the Jews as a means of obtaining intelligence on
international affairs and of profiting by their wealth and commercial
ability--was earnestly in favour of Manasseh’s proposal, and supported
it with great eloquence. But it was not to be. Though the conference
decided that there was no legal obstacle to the settlement of Jews in
England, public opinion, and religious sentiment more especially, were
not yet ripe for so revolutionary a measure. Despite the enlightened
example of leaders like Cromwell and Milton, the majority thought
otherwise. Liberty of conscience? they said. Yes, but within certain
limits. So, after a long and wearisome controversy, in which prophecies
and statutes were solemnly quoted by both sides, weighed and rejected,
prejudice prevailed over reason and Christian charity; and Manasseh
Ben Israel was obliged to depart--not quite empty-handed; for Cromwell
rewarded his labours in the good cause with an annual allowance of
one hundred pounds, which, however, the rabbi did not live to enjoy.
He died on the way to Amsterdam; like Moses, denied the satisfaction
of witnessing the fruit of his zeal. For, though a public and general
admission of his co-religionists was found impracticable, it was
understood that individual members of the race could settle in the
country by Cromwell’s private permission. Many availed themselves of
this privilege, in the teeth of strong opposition on the part of the
Christian merchants of the city, and soon a humble synagogue and a
Jewish cemetery were seen in London--nearly four hundred years after
their confiscation by Edward I. ♦1657♦ This return is still celebrated
by English Jews as Re-settlement Day, its anniversary constituting
one of the few “red-letter days” in their calendar. Nor is the man
forgotten who practically secured the boon. Manasseh’s memory is
held in deservedly high honour among Hebrews, and the English Jewish
community in 1904 celebrated the 300th anniversary of his birth.
♦1660♦
When, a few years after the settlement, the Commonwealth was overthrown
by the Restoration, the Jewish community survived their protector.
Charles II., too needy to despise the Jews, not bigoted enough to
persecute them, followed the tolerant policy of his great predecessor,
and, though from entirely different motives, granted to them the
benefit of an unmolested, if legally unrecognised, residence in his
dominions. Mr. Pepys visited their synagogue in London on October 13th,
1663, and seems to have been greatly amazed, amused, and scandalised by
what he saw therein:
“After dinner my wife and I, by Mr. Rawlinson’s conduct, to the Jewish
Synagogue: where the men and boys in their vayles, and the women behind
a lettice out of sight; and some things stand up, which I believe is
their law, in a press to which all coming in do bow; and at the putting
on their vayles do say something, to which others that hear the Priest
do cry Amen, and the party do kiss his vayle. Their service all in a
singing way and in Hebrew. And anon their Laws that they take out of
the press are carried by several men, four or five several burthens in
all, and they do relieve one another; and whether it is that every one
desires to have the carrying of it, thus they carried it round about
the room while such a service is singing. And in the end they had a
prayer for the King, in which they pronounced his name in Portugall;
but the prayer, like the rest, in Hebrew.
“But, Lord! to see the disorder, laughing, sporting, and no attention,
but confusion in all their service, more like brutes than people
knowing the true God, would make a man forswear ever seeing them more;
and indeed I never did see so much, or could have imagined there had
been any religion in the whole world so absurdly performed as this.”
Such was the impression which the Jewish congregation produced on that
keen observer of the surface of things.
The inference to be drawn from these sprightly comments is that the
Jew was far from having outlived his unpopularity. Though the doctrine
of toleration, for which Cromwell had fought and Milton suffered, was
still preached by divines like Taylor and expounded by philosophers
like Locke, the English public was far from recognising every man’s
right to think, act and worship as seemed good to him. So hard it is
even for the faintest ray of light to pierce the mists of prejudice.
To Mr. Pepys we also owe a curious glimpse of the vigour with which
the Messianic Utopia was cherished at this time amongst us. The fame
of Sabbataï Zebi had reached England, and the Prophet of Smyrna found
adherents even in the city of London. We are in 1666, on the eve of
the mystic era fixed by enthusiasts as the year that was to see the
restoration of Israel to the Holy Land. Under date February 19th, Mr.
Pepys makes the following entry in his Diary;--“I am told for certain,
what I have heard once or twice already, of a Jew in town, that in the
name of the rest do offer to give any man £10 to be paid £100, if a
certain person now at Smyrna be within these two years owned by all
the Princes of the East, and particularly the Grand Segnor, as the
King of the world, in the same manner we do the King of England here,
and that this man is the true Messiah. One named a friend of his that
had received ten pieces in gold upon this score, and says that the Jew
hath disposed of £1,100 in this manner, which is very strange; and
certainly this year of 1666 will be a year of great action; but what
the consequences of it will be, God knows!”
♦1689♦
But the Messiah did not come; and twenty-four years later, under
William and Mary, an attempt was made to fleece the unpopular race in
London. It was proposed in the Commons that £100,000 should be exacted
from the Jews; and the proposition impressed the House as tempting.
But the Jews presented a petition pleading their inability to comply
and declaring that they would rather leave the kingdom than submit
to such treatment. Their protest was seconded by statesmen who, be
their personal feelings towards the Jews what they might, objected to
the measure as contrary to the spirit of the British Constitution;
and after some discussion the project was abandoned, though not the
prejudice which had made such a proposal possible.
Sober Protestantism did not in the least share the Puritan preference
for Hebrew ideals. If the _Spectator_ may be taken as a mirror of
public opinion on the subject, in the reign of Queen Anne, English
Protestants objected to “the Multiplicity of Ceremonies in the Jewish
Religion, as Washings, Dresses, Meats, Purgations, and the like.”
Addison states that the reason for these minute observances, adduced
by the Jews, was their anxiety to create as many occasions as possible
of showing their love to God, by doing in all circumstances of life
something to please Him. However, this explanation does not seem
convincing to the critic, who goes on to remark that Roman Catholic
apologists use similar arguments in defence of their own rites, and
concludes, “But, notwithstanding the plausible Reason with which
both the Jew and the Roman Catholick would excuse their respective
Superstitions, it is certain there is something in them very pernicious
to Mankind, and destructive to Religion.”[134] Accordingly, a statute
of Queen Anne encouraged conversion to Christianity by compelling
Jewish parents to support their apostate children.
Addison, elsewhere, recognises the advantages, commercial and other,
which the world owes to the Jews’ dispersion through the nations of the
earth; but he quaintly observes: “They are like the Pegs and Nails in a
great Building, which, though they are but little valued in themselves,
are absolutely necessary to keep the whole Frame together.”[135] He is
impressed by the multitude of the Jews, despite the decimations and
persecutions to which they had been exposed for so many centuries, no
less than by their world-wide dissemination and firm adherence to their
religion; and he endeavours to explain these remarkable phenomena by
several reflections which deserve to be quoted, not only on account of
the intrinsic sound sense of some of them, but also for the sake of the
picture which they present of the Jewish nation in the early days of
the eighteenth century, as it appeared to a highly cultured Gentile,
and of the highly cultured Gentile’s attitude towards the nation:
“I can,” says the Spectator, “in the first place attribute their
numbers to nothing but their constant Employment, their Abstinence,
their Exemption from Wars, and, above all, their frequent Marriages;
for they look on Celibacy as an accursed State, and generally are
married before Twenty, as hoping the Messiah may descend from them.”
Their dispersion is explained as follows:
“They were always in Rebellions and Tumults while they had the Temple
and Holy City in View, for which reason they have often been driven out
of their old Habitations in the Land of Promise. They have as often
been banished out of most other Places where they have settled....
Besides, the whole People is now a Race of such Merchants as are
Wanderers by Profession, and, at the same time, are in most if not all
Places incapable of either Lands or Offices, that might engage them to
make any part of the World their Home. This Dispersion would probably
have lost their Religion had it not been secured by the Strength of its
Constitution: For they are to live all in a Body, and generally within
the same Enclosure; to marry among themselves, and to eat no Meats that
are not killed or prepared their own way. This shuts them out from
all Table Conversation, and the most agreeable Intercourses of Life;
and, by consequence, excludes them from the most probable Means of
Conversion.
“If, in the last place, we consider what Providential Reason may be
assigned for these three Particulars, we shall find that their Numbers,
Dispersion, and Adherence to their Religion, have furnished every Age,
and every Nation of the World, with the strongest Arguments for the
Christian Faith, not only as these very Particulars are foretold of
them, but as they themselves are the Depositories of these and all
the other Prophecies, which tend to their own Confusion. Their Number
furnishes us with a sufficient Cloud of Witnesses that attest the
Truth of the Old Bible. Their Dispersion spreads these Witnesses thro’
all parts of the World. The Adherence to their Religion makes their
Testimony unquestionable. Had the whole Body of the Jews been converted
to Christianity, we should certainly have thought all the Prophecies
of the Old Testament, that relate to the Coming and History of our
Blessed Saviour, forged by Christians, and have looked upon them, with
the Prophecies of the Sybils, as made many Years after the Events they
pretended to foretell.”
This cold-blooded habit of drawing from the sufferings of fellow-men
an assurance of our own salvation is still cultivated by many good
Christians. It is a comfortable doctrine, though not particularly
complimentary to Providence.
♦1723♦
But if the progress of reason is slow, it is sure. A few years after
the publication of Addison’s essay, the Jews already established in
England were recognised as British subjects. ♦1725♦ Two years later
a Jewish mathematician was made Fellow of the Royal Society, and not
long after a Jew became secretary and librarian of the Society. Judges
also refrained from summoning Jewish witnesses on the Sabbath. ♦1753♦
The concession of 1723 was followed, thirty years later, by the right
of naturalisation. But, even then, though the Commons passed the Bill,
the Lords and the Bishops endorsed it, and King George II. ratified
it, so loud an outcry from traders and theologians arose thereat that
the gift had to be revoked. “No more Jews, no wooden shoes,” was the
elegant refrain in which the British public sang its sentiments on the
subject, and the effigy of an enlightened Deacon, who had defended the
Act, was burnt publicly at Bristol. England, which in the Middle Ages
had been induced to persecute and expel the Jews by the example of the
Continent, was once more to be influenced by the Continental attitude
towards the race. Fortunately, this influence was now of a different
kind.