A.D. 622-740.
THE JEWS IN THE EASTERN EMPIRE; IN SPAIN, IN FRANCE.
Recurring now to the Jews under the rule of the Eastern emperors, we
cannot fail to be struck by the difference of the demeanour exhibited
by these latter towards them from what has been recorded of the
Moslem conquerors. Mahomet, it is true, would permit the existence of
but one faith in Arabia; but outside the bounds of that sacred land,
all who would acknowledge the dominion of the Caliph were secure from
insult or wrong. But the Christian emperors of Constantinople—such
of them, that is to say, as felt themselves strong enough to invade
the rights of any portion of their subjects—made it a matter of
conscience to endeavour to require the acceptance of Christianity
by the Jews, though at this period they did not proceed to inflict
penalties in case of refusal. Even Phocas, whose zeal for the faith
could not have been very keen, had sent the Prefect Georgius to
Jerusalem, requiring the principal Jews there, on their allegiance,
to receive baptism. Heraclius attempted the same, using, it is
said, violent and cruel measures to accomplish his purpose, but
with very partial success. This emperor had two special causes of
dislike to them, one of which appealed to the nobler, the other to
the weaker side of his character. The first was the recollection of
the barbarities practised by them at the capture of Jerusalem by
the Persian troops; the second, the prediction delivered to him by
a soothsayer in whom he trusted, that the Roman empire should be
overthrown by a circumcised people.[78] Ignorant altogether of the
storm which was gathering in the mountains of Arabia, he naturally
presumed the people in question to be the Jews, and therefore sought
to avert the evil by converting these to the Gospel. He is said to
have been so far influenced by his alarm as to despatch letters to
the Kings of Spain and France, urging them to unite with him in the
extirpation of the dangerous race.
Whether any of the many feeble successors to the purple who
intervened between him and the Isaurian Leo pursued the same policy,
we are not informed. But it is unlikely that they would attempt it.
The existence of a circumcised and warlike race different from that
of the Jews, would in their time have become matter of notoriety;
and alarm would have been directed to a different quarter. Nor
would it have been either safe or politic to attack the Jews. Their
wealth and intelligence rendered them useful instruments in carrying
out the imperial policy, and their numbers and turbulent spirits
discouraged interference with them. In the numerous riots which took
place between the Orthodox Christians and their adversaries, the Jews
were wont to interfere and give the preponderance to the latter.[79]
Unless they provoked interference of the authorities by actual
sedition, it is likely that they would be left to themselves.
But when a powerful ruler in the person of Leo again grasped the
sceptre, A.D. 716, the case became different. It was said, indeed,
that this emperor had been promised the purple, on condition of his
employing the power thus committed to him in the destruction of
images in Christian churches; but the tale rests on no trustworthy
evidence, and is disproved by his acts at the very outset of his
reign; for he was no sooner seated on his throne than he required
that all his Jewish and Montanist subjects should submit to baptism.
The Jews seem to have consented to the ceremony, though they
continued the exercise of their own faith without change. What part
they took in the subsequent destruction of images,[80] and wrecking
of Christian churches, may readily be surmised from what has been
already told.
Passing to Spain, we find the Jews, during this century, occupying
a different position, and subjected to far heavier penalties. In
this country they had long been settled, certainly previously to the
Christian era, and, as it would appear, lived in peace and security.
Previously to the Council of Elvira, no law is recorded to have been
made which restrained their liberty. But it was then decreed that
no marriages should take place between Christians and Jews, nor
should they sit down to table together. This was the first note, as
it were, of the bigotry and intolerance which afterward rang with
such hideous discord throughout the length and breadth of Spain. The
outburst was checked for a while by the incursion of the Visigoths,
who, though Christians, professed the Arian creed. With them, as
has been already remarked, the Jews always lived on terms of amity.
But towards the end of the sixth century Reccared abjured Arianism,
embracing the Catholic faith; and a new condition of things was soon
the result.[81] By the decree of the Council of Toledo, held in the
fourth year of his reign, Jews were not allowed to have Christian
slaves, or to hold public offices, or marry Christian wives, or sing
psalms when carrying their dead to the grave.
These decrees were soon followed up by much severer measures.
Sisebut, who succeeded to the Gothic kingdom A.D. 612, is supposed to
have received an urgent entreaty from the Emperor Heraclius, as has
already been intimated, to put down Judaism throughout his dominions.
Whether the report be true or not, he certainly acted as though such
was his intention. He issued the command that all Jews should offer
themselves for baptism, imprisoning many, and putting to death many
more, who would not obey his order. Large numbers abandoned their
whole possessions, and migrated to various parts of Gaul. Yet the
Spanish historians affirm that as many as 90,000 were baptized, not
because of any change in their convictions, but through dread of the
consequences of refusal. After the death of Sisebut there seems to
have been a short lull in the storm of persecution, and many of the
pseudo-converts thereupon returned to the profession of their ancient
faith.
The fourth Council of Toledo, held A.D. 633, under the presidency
of Isidore of Seville, enacted that ‘men ought not to be forced
into believing, but believe of their own free will.’ But although
Isidore—to whom in all likelihood this single ray of light in the
midst of surrounding darkness must be attributed—could thus give
expression to the language of charity and truth, he was not wise
enough, or perhaps influential enough, to be consistent; for the
decree adds, immediately afterwards, that all who had received
baptism—whether willingly or unwillingly—must be compelled to abide
by it, ‘because otherwise the Holy Name of God would be blasphemed,
and the faith disgraced;’ as though there was not worse blasphemy and
deeper disgrace in a false profession than in an honest renunciation!
The same Council adds decrees against which Isidore’s large and
charitable nature must have rebelled. The 60th canon requires ‘that
the sons and daughters of Jews should be separated from their
parents, lest they be involved in their errors;’ the 63rd, that ‘Jews
who have Christian wives, if they wish to live with them, must become
Christians; and if they refuse to obey, they are to be separated;’
the 64th, that ‘Jews who were formerly Christians are not to be
admitted as witnesses;’ the 65th, that ‘Jews and their descendants
are not to hold public offices, and any one who obtains such office
shall be publicly scourged.’ A still more monstrous decree enacts
that any Christian convert who so much as speaks to a Jew shall
become a slave, and the Jew he spoke to be publicly scourged!
The twelfth Council of Toledo, in 681, repeats these merciless
severities, which (it is no wonder to find) could not be carried
into effect, except by direct State interference, and adds others
of a like character. ‘The Jews,’ it is ordered, ‘are to offer
themselves, their children, and their servants for baptism:’ they
‘shall not celebrate the Passover, or practise circumcision:’ they
‘shall not presume to observe the Sabbath or any Jewish festival:’
they ‘shall not dare to defend their religion to the disparagement
of the Christian faith:’ and ‘they shall not read books abhorred by
the Christian faith.’ The penalties for breach of these and the like
statutes had hitherto been death. But the extreme severity of such
a sentence, it is argued, had acted as a preventive to its being
enforced. Therefore new orders were issued, by which the rigour of
the punishments was abated. Henceforth, if a Jew profaned the name
of Christ or of the Holy Trinity, or rejected the Sacraments, or
kept the Jewish feasts, or worked on the Sunday, he was _only_ to
receive one hundred lashes on his naked body, and afterwards be put
into chains and banished from the country, his whole property being
confiscated to the State! If a man circumcised his child, he was to
suffer mutilation, or if it were a woman who so offended, she was
to lose her nose. If a Jew presumed to take a public office under a
noble, he was to forfeit half his property, and suffer scourging;
but if it was under an ecclesiastical superior that he undertook a
situation of trust, he was to lose his whole estate, or be burned
alive! The reader will surely call to mind Solomon’s saying,
respecting the ‘tender mercies of the wicked,’ as he reads these
ordinances.
But the avenger was at hand. For some years past the tide of Saracen
conquest had been rolling along the northern coast of Africa, until
it had reached the kingdom of Morocco; when it must turn southward
into the barren wastes of the Sahara, or northwards, into the
populous and fertile land of Spain. There could be little doubt
which of the two they would prefer; and Wamba, one of the wisest
and ablest of the Gothic sovereigns of Spain, in anticipation of
such a catastrophe, collected a fleet, with which he encountered the
Saracens, A.D. 675, and inflicted on them a disastrous defeat, which
deferred the invasion of Spain for nearly forty years. But in the
reign of Egica, and still more in that of his successor, Witiza, the
imminent danger of the Spanish monarchy became so evident, and the
fear that the Jews would co-operate in and accelerate the Mussulman
invasion so alarming, that measures were taken to prevent it which
indicate at once terror, haste, and self-reproach.
At first attempts were made to intimidate the Jews. Egica declared
that he had learned, by their open avowal, that the Jews had plotted
with enemies beyond the sea to effect the ruin of Christendom.
Therefore, to counteract their efforts, all Jewish children upwards
of seven years old were to be taken from their parents, the males
married to Christian girls, and the girls to Christian men, and the
children in all instances brought up in the Christian belief, so
that in the next generation the Jews might cease altogether to exist
as a separate people. This seems to have had no other effect than
that of causing a general flight of Jews from Spain, the very thing
of all others likely to bring about the mischief that was dreaded.
Witiza endeavoured to repair the mistake. He issued a proclamation
permitting all Jews to return to Spain, and enjoy there the full
rights of freedom and citizenship. But the step was taken too late.
If the Jews had concerted with Muza the invasion of Spain, as their
enemies affirmed, their intrigues could not be annulled. In the year
711, two years after the accession of a new sovereign, Roderic,[82]
to the throne, the Moors crossed into Spain; a decisive battle was
fought on the banks of the Guadelete, in which the Moslems were
victorious, and the Gothic kingdom of Spain ceased to exist.
Once more the miseries of fire and sword, which laid waste the whole
of the Spanish peninsula, inflicted no suffering on the Jews residing
within it. Whether any of the accusations with which the Christians
have assailed them—of leaguing with the Moslem, furnishing them with
secret information, opening the gates of beleaguered cities to them
and the like—contain any admixture of truth, it would be difficult to
say. In some instances the charges are manifestly false; in others
the decision is very doubtful. But even allowing them to be true,
it cannot be matter of wonder that men so persistently wronged and
slandered should turn on their oppressors, when the opportunity was
given them. The settlement of the Moors in Spain was followed by a
long period of prosperity and peace, during which the Jews became
famous throughout Europe for their wealth, their intelligence, and
their learning. A famous Hebrew school was founded at Cordova, to
which students from all parts of Europe are said to have resorted.
In France, during this century, something of the same spirit seems to
have prevailed, by which the Catholic kings of Spain were actuated.
Chilperic, as has been already recorded, towards the end of the
previous century had insisted on the compulsory baptism of his Jewish
subjects.
Early in the seventh century Clotaire II. issued a decree forbidding
Jews to hold any military or civil office. Dagobert, who reigned from
628 to 638, enacted still more sternly, that the whole of his Jewish
subjects should forswear their faith or depart from his dominions.
It is said that he too acted under the influence of the Emperor
Heraclius.[83] But of this there is no evidence, and it has been
urged that the royal order, if issued, was but little observed, since
the Jews, in the southern parts of his kingdom at least, continued
to be a numerous and wealthy body throughout his reign. Wamba,
the Gothic king of Languedoc, however, certainly took the step in
question, and banished them from his kingdom.
FOOTNOTES:
[78] One would suspect the genuineness of this story, but that
historians accept it apparently without doubt.
[79] The Jews took the opportunity of the popular outbreak against
Martina and Heracleonas, to desecrate the church of St. Sophia with
every kind of outrage, and apparently with impunity.
[80] Beyond doubt they were charged with having incited it.
[81] I do not desire to imply that the concord between the Arians
and Jews, as contrasted with the disagreements between the Catholics
and Jews, is any ground for commending the one or blaming the other.
It may not unreasonably be argued that it is the indifference of the
Arians to our Lord’s honour, and the zeal of the Catholics for its
maintenance, which occasion both the concord and the strife. I only
record the fact.
[82] The commonly received story—that Count Julian persuaded Muza
to invade Spain, in order to avenge the violation of his daughter
Florinda—is in all likelihood mere fiction. It is not mentioned
by any historian for nearly 500 years after Roderic’s death, and
then only as a legend. Considering the manners of the time and the
unbounded licence of the Gothic kings, it is most unlikely that such
an act, if perpetrated, would have been so furiously resented: and
the invasion of Spain is to be accounted for in a more simple way,
viz., the carrying out of Mahomet’s plan of progressive conquest.
[83] Rabbi Joseph, i. p. 2.