ON THE VOYAGE TO JERUSALEM.
I.
My two-score years and ten are over,
Never again shall youth be mine.
The years are ready-winged for flying,
What crav'st thou still of feast and wine?
Wilt thou still court man's acclamation,
Forgetting what the Lord hath said?
And forfeiting thy weal eternal,
By thine own guilty heart misled?
Shalt thou have never done with folly,
Still fresh and new must it arise?
Oh heed it not, heed not the senses,
But follow God, be meek and wise:
Yea, profit by thy days remaining,
They hurry swiftly to the goal.
Be zealous in the Lord's high service,
And banish falsehood from thy soul.
Use all thy strength, use all thy fervor,
Defy thine own desires, awaken!
Be not afraid when seas are foaming,
And earth to her foundations shaken.
Benumbed the hand then of the sailor,
The captain's skill and power are lamed.
Gaily they sailed with colors flying,
And now turn home again ashamed.
The ocean is our only refuge,
The sandbank is our only goal,
The masts are swaying as with terror,
And quivering does the vessel roll.
The mad wind frolics with the billows,
Now smooths them low, now lashes high.
Now they are storming up like lions,
And now like serpents sleek they lie:
And wave on wave is ever pressing,
They hiss, they whisper, soft of tone.
Alack! was that the vessel splitting?
Are sail and mast and rudder gone?
Here, screams of fright, there, silent weeping.
The bravest feels his courage fail,
What stead our prudence or our wisdom?
The soul itself can naught avail.
And each one to his God is crying,
Soar up, my soul, to Him aspire,
Who wrought a miracle for Jordan,
Extol Him, oh angelic choir!
Remember Him who stays the tempest,
The stormy billows doth control,
Who quickeneth the lifeless body,
And fills the empty frame with soul.
Behold! once more appears a wonder,
The angry waves erst raging wild,
Like quiet flocks of sheep reposing,
So soft, so still, so gently mild.
The sun descends, and high in heaven,
The golden-circled moon doth stand.
Within the sea the stars are straying,
Like wanderers in an unknown land.
The lights celestial in the waters
Are flaming clearly as above,
As though the very heavens descended,
To seal a covenant of love.
Perchance both sea and sky, twin oceans,
From the same source of grace are sprung.
'Twixt these my heart, a third sea, surges,
With songs resounding, clearly sung.
II.
A watery waste the sinful world has grown,
With no dry spot whereon the eye can rest,
No man, no beast, no bird to gaze upon,
Can all be dead, with silent sleep possessed?
Oh, how I long the hills and vales to see,
To find myself on barren steppes were bliss.
I peer about, but nothing greeteth me,
Naught save the ship, the clouds, the waves' abyss,
The crocodile which rushes from the deeps;
The flood foams gray; the whirling waters reel,
Now like its prey whereon at last it sweeps,
The ocean swallows up the vessel's keel.
The billows rage—exult, oh soul of mine,
Soon shall thou enter the Lord's sacred shrine!
ISRAEL, THE DOVE.[30]
I.
Thy undefiled dove,
Thy fondling, Thy love,
That once had, all blest,
In Thy bosom her nest—
Why dost Thou forsake her
Alone in the forest?
And standest aloof,
When her need is the sorest?
While everywhere
Threatens snare;
Strangers stand around her,
And strive night and day
To lead her astray,
While in silence she,
In the dead of night,
Looks up to Thee,
Her sole delight.
Dost Thou not hear,
Her voice sweet and clear:
Wilt aye thou forsake me?
"My darling, my One!
And I know that beside Thee,
Redeemer, there's none!"
II.
How long will Thy dove
Thus restlessly rove
In the desert so wild,
Mocked and reviled?
And the maid-servant's son
Came furiously on,
Dart after dart.
Pierced through my heart,
Horrid birds of prey
Lie soft in my nest,
While I, without rest,
Roam far, far away.
And still I am waiting
And contemplating;
And counting the days,
And counting the years;
The miracles ceased
No prophet appears;
And wishing to learn
And asking my sages:
"Is the end drawing nigh?"
They sadly reply:
"That day and that hour
But to him are known.
And I know that beside Thee,
Redeemer, there's none!"
III.
And my wee, cooing dear ones,
The bright and the clear ones,
Were dragged in their slumbers
By infinite numbers
Of vultures so horrid
To cold climes and torrid,
Far, far away.
And those birds of prey
Try to render them faithless,
And make them give up
Thee, their sole Hope!
To turn their affection
From Thee, O Perfection!
Thou Friend of the Friendless!
Thou Beauty endless!
Ah, where art thou?
My Darling, My One!
My foes are near,
My Friend is gone.
Fainting in sorrow,
I'm here all alone.
And I know that beside Thee,
Redeemer, there's none!
IV.
Oh, hasten, my Love,
To Thy poor, timid dove!
They trample with their feet me,
They laugh when I mourn;
There's no friend to greet me,
I am all forlorn!
My foes in their passion,
And wild frantic ire,
Employ sword and fire,
And all kinds of tortures,
And know no compassion
They drive from land to land me:
There's none to befriend me.
The stars there on high
Hear me silently moan.
And I know that beside Thee,
Redeemer, there's none!
Didst Thou reject me?
Dost love me no more?
Didst Thou forget all
Thy promises of yore?
Oh, rend Thy heavens!
Oh, come down again!
My enemies may see
That I, not in vain,
Have trusted in Thee.
As once upon Sinai,
Come down, my sole Dear
In Thy majesty appear!
Hurl down from his throne,
The maid-servant's son!
And strength impart
To my fainting heart,
Ere sadly I wander
To the land unknown.
For I know that beside Thee,
Redeemer, there's none!
Noble Ha-Levi, poet by the grace of God humbly we implore thy pardon for so feebly speaking of thee and thy glorious work! Would that we had the gift to speak of thee as thou deservest. Fill us thou sweet singer of Israel, with poetic instinct, and fill us, too, with thy religious zeal and fervor. Fill us with such a love for Israel and her cause, that we too might as thou didst toil for the of our people and our God.[31]
"Oh! city of the world, most chastely fair;
In the far west, behold I sigh for thee,
And in my yearning love I do bethink me
Of bygone ages; of thy ruined fame,
Thy vanished splendor of a vanished day.
Oh! had I eagles' wings I'd fly to thee,
And with my falling tears make moist thine earth.
I long for thee; though indeed thy kings
Have passed forever; what though where once uprose
Sweet balsam trees, the serpent makes his nest;
Oh! that I might embrace thy dust, the sod
Were sweet as honey to my fond desire."
CHAPTER. XIII.
IN PHILOSOPHY.
ALEXANDRIA, THE INTELLECTUAL METROPOLIS OF THE WORLD.—A PRODIGIOUS STIMULUS GIVEN TO LEARNING.—THE SEPTUAGINT.—DEVELOPMENT OF GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY INTO ARISTOTLIANISM.—THIS ENGRAFTED ON JEWISH THEOLOGY.—OPPOSITION OF CHRISTIANITY TO ARISTOTLIANISM.—AVERROES.—MOSES MAIMONIDES.—OPPOSITION UNSUCCESSFUL.
We must devote some little space and time to a review of the place the Moors and the Jews held in philosophy during their stay in Spain from the eighth to the fifteenth century. The purpose of this work makes this review necessary. Not that we shall see any wonderful advance in this department of learning, nor that we need show the glaring contrast between the sophistical cobwebs of the cotemporaneous scholastics and the rational researches of the Moorish and Jewish philosophers, but that we may see what a debt of gratitude modern philosophy owes the Jew and Moor, for taking up the thread of philosophical research where Greek intelligence had been forced to leave it, and for carrying it forward sufficiently for modern philosophy to build upon it, as a superstructure, the theories and systems of to-day.
To fully understand their place in philosophy it is necessary for us to retrace our steps in history some 2,000 years, and enter the city of Alexandria. Here Alexander the Great had established his seat of government. It became the intellectual metropolis of the world. Thither the conqueror brought the wealth and learning of the globe. Into that city the people streamed, or were brought as prisoners, from the remotest corners of the known world, from the Danube to the Nile, and from the Nile to the Ganges. For the first time in the world's history, there could be found in one city, men who could speak learnedly of the Borean blasts of the countries beyond the Black Sea, and of the simoons of the Oriental deserts, of pyramids and obelisks and sphinxes and hieroglyphics, of the Persian and Assyrian and Babylonian wonders, of the Chaldean astronomers, of hanging gardens, aqueducts, hydraulic machinery, tunnels under the river-bed, or of the Assyrian method of printing, on plastic clay. For the first time in the world's history seekers after knowledge could listen, in the Serapion of Alexandria, to learned discussions between Jewish monotheists and Persian dualists and Grecian polytheists and Egyptian mysticists and Indian Brahmanists and Buddhists, and between the Ionics and Pythagoreans, and Eleatics and the Atomists and Anaxagoreans, and the Socratists, and Platonists and Aristotelians and Stoics and Epicureans and Neo-Platonists. No age or city had ever furnished better opportunities for intellectual pursuits. No city could ever before this, point to kings more enthusiastic for the promotion of learning than were her Ptolemys, nor could all antiquity boast of a library equal to hers, or of a museum as justly celebrated for its botanical gardens and astronomical observatories and anatomical college and chemical laboratory.
A prodigious stimulus was thus given to learning, and it has left its impress upon the world's civilization. Here Euclid wrote the theorems which are still studied by the college students of to day. Here Archimedes studied mathematics under Conon. Here Eratosthones made astronomy a science. Here Ptolemy wrote his "Syntaxes." Here Ctesibius and Hero invented the steam engine. Here true philosophy flourished, and for the first time, too, in the world's history. The people of the Orient had dabbled in speculative thought before this, but the results achieved showed that the Oriental mind is not adapted to abstract reasoning. The luxurious habits and voluptuous surroundings and tropical climate of the Orient tend more toward poetry, music and love and languor than toward psychical contemplations. The awe-awakening phenomena of nature, which confront the Oriental everywhere, naturally lead him to accept as a priori principles what the philosophers of the Occident make the subject of endless, and for the most part, incomprehensible and unsatisfactory systems of philosophy.
It is for this reason that the great religions of the world sprang from Oriental soil, while the great philosophical systems took roots in Western lands. Yet, up to this period, not even the West, with all its labors, had sounded the depths of true philosophy. The entire pre-Socratic philosophy wasted its energies upon the futile effort to find some principle for the explanation of nature, which to the Hebrew mind had been solved thousands of years before in the opening verse of the Bible. One thought it to be water; another, air; and a third an original chaotic matter. The Pythagoreans declared that number is the essence of all things, and the Eleatics believed they were nearer the truth by negating all division in space and time. The Atomists endowed each atom with gravity and motion, and accounted thus for the origin of all physical existences and states. Socrates and Plato both came much nearer to the solution of the problem; the former postulated self-knowledge as the starting point of all philosophy, and the latter combined all preceding systems into one scheme, with an infinitely wise and just and powerful spirit as its guiding principle, but idealistically only. The additional realistic view of things had not yet been reached, and could not be reached, for that depends upon universal and exact and scientific knowledge, which prior to the great age of Alexandrian learning, to which all ages and climes and nations contributed their experiences and observation and knowledge, had never yet existed. Aristotle, the teacher of Alexander, and the friend of Ptolemy, thus found through Alexandrian influence, opportunities for philosophical reasoning, which necessarily gave his system an almost inestimable advantage over his predecessors. From the study of particulars he rose to a knowledge of universals, advancing to them by induction. This inductive method was grounded upon facts of his own experience and observation, as well as those of others, whom the intellectual metropolis had sent into Greece. He became the first and best absolute empiricist. His system acquired an encyclopedic character. He became the father of logic, natural history, empirical psychology and the science of rights. Aristotelian philosophy became the intellectual corner stone on which the Museum rested, and is to-day, through Jewish and Moorish influence, as we shall presently see, the corner stone of modern philosophy.
The Jewish community of Alexandria was very large. When Alexander founded this city and gave it his name, he wished to secure for it permanent success, and so he brought them thither by the thousands. Ptolemy brought 100,000 more, after his siege of Jerusalem, and Philadelphus, his successor, redeemed from slavery 198,000 Jews, "paying their Egyptian owners a just money equivalent for each." Alexander's expectations were realized; the city of his name led the world in commerce and intellect. With an enthusiasm almost bordering on passion the Hebrews devoted themselves to philosophy, especially to Aristotelian philosophy. They ingrafted it upon their own theology and philosophic speculations, some going even so far as to believe that Aristotle must have been a Jew himself.
Henceforth Aristotelian philosophy is Jewish philosophy. The occasional acceptance of the Neo-Platonic mysticism, theosophy and theurgy, was unable to obliterate it.
During seven centuries learning flourished in the city of Alexandria, zealously fostered by native Egyptian, Greek and Jew. A new power arose—Christianity. At once it recognized in Aristotelian philosophy an inimical foe, and began its work of suppressing rational research and free thought. The rest we need not relate. We know what happens when Christianity institutes inquisitors of faith instead of inquirers of learning. We know what happens when Christianity uses power instead of argument. That day, when the beautiful and young Hypatia, perhaps, the most accomplished woman that has ever lived, the popular lecturer of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy at the Museum, where her lecture room was crowded daily, with the wealth and intellect of Alexandria; that day, when this most noble of women was assaulted by Bishop Cyril's fanatical and blood-thirsty monks, when she was dragged by the followers of the "religion of love," from her chariot, stripped naked in the street, pulled into the church, where she was cut to pieces—where her flesh was scraped from the bones with a shell and the remnants cast into fire; that day marked the extinction of Alexandrian learning—it marked the extinction of Athenian learning. Science, so successful, died the death of strangulation, and the expounders of Aristotelian philosophy were silenced, and their literature condemned to the pyre.
But Aristotelian philosophy was not yet dead. The Jews still lived, and with them the works of Aristotle. They had succeeded in concealing translations and original copies of his works from the fanatical champions of ignorance. They had absorbed it into their system of thought. They had used it in their commentaries upon their Scriptures. They had saturated their very prayers with it. They had sought to reconcile Jewish theology with refined heathen philosophy. Whither they wandered, it wandered, and where they were permitted to study there also was Aristotelian philosophy studied. What they had long wished was granted them at last. They became the restorers of philosophy in Europe. Moorish and Spanish prosperity afforded them the opportunities for an uninterrupted study and development of the Aristotelian philosophy. Soon the Moor shared their enthusiasm. The caliphs sent special messengers to secure whatever of Aristotelian philosophy had escaped the mob of "St. Cyril."[32]
Many were they, both Jews and Moors, who devoted themselves to this philosophy, and vast the systems they unfolded. The wonderful advance they had made in the sciences, and in the other branches of learning, enabled them to enlarge upon the teachings of Aristotle. New facts and new experiences and new observations led them to new and advanced inductions. However great the temptations be to enter into some analysis of their philosophical system, we must not yield to them; that is not the object of this review. Our design is to show what influence Moorish and Jewish learning exercised upon European civilization. We have seen its impress upon the sciences and literatures of Europe, and its impress is visible still on modern philosophy.[33] From all parts of the world persons having a taste for philosophy found their way to the Moorish and Jewish sages of Spain. Gerbet himself, later Pope Sylvester II., had repaired to Cordova and Seville to hear Moorish and Jewish philosophers expound the mysteries of wisdom and philosophy, and so illustrious an example soon became the raging fashion among European scholars. As if desirous of dividing the honors equally, both the Moors and the Jews sent at the same time, a representative champion into the philosophical arena who, by their united labors, not only demolished scholasticism but also laid the permanent foundation of modern philosophy. The representative philosopher of the Moors was the great Averroes (Ibn Roshd, 1149-1198) whose name still occupies an honored place upon the pages of history of philosophy, and whose system, bearing his name—Averroism—is still recognized among the philosophical systems of the world. The representative Jewish philosopher was the great Moses Maimonides, (1135-1204) the greatest Jewish philosopher the Jews have ever produced, and one of the greatest the world has seen to this day, whose philosophical system, unfolded in his "More Nebuchim," ("Guide for the Perplexed") still remains truly, grandly immortal.
For several centuries the Moorish and Jewish philosophy was the delight of such men in whom Spanish learning kindled a desire for deeper research and loftier thought than Europe had hitherto offered. Even many of the schoolmen shared this enthusiasm. But this very enthusiasm was the deathblow to scholasticism. Once imbued with Moorish and Jewish empirical philosophy and inductive reasoning, the rational mind could no longer pursue the sophistic teachings which the church held up as the divine wisdom. That philosophy shook the old faith to its very root, produced new predispositions and prepared the way for the coming change. It weaned men from simply believing the church's "say-so" and taught them to think, and when men began to think scholasticism ceased, and the Reformation began, and with it modern thought. No longer would the rational mind believe that legends and miracles can decide such questions as are the starting point of philosophic thought. No longer would they endure the preposterous teaching—the product of ignorance and audacity—that the faith of the church is absolute truth; that faith is greater than knowledge; that a thing may be theologically true even though it be philosophically false. No longer would they disgrace themselves with continuing to waste time and parchment with discussions and treatises such as these, to which the schoolmen of several centuries devoted hundreds of volumes: "How many choirs of angels are there in heaven, how do they sit and upon what instrument do they play?" "To what temperature does the heat rise in hell?" "Wherein lies the difference between 'consubstantiatio and transubstantiato'?" "What kind of feathers had the angel Gabriel in his wings? What kind of a swallow it was that caused Tobias' blindness? Whether Pilate washed his hands with soap before he condemned Jesus? Whether it was an adagio or allegro which David played before Saul? What sort of salve it was which Mary brought to the Lord? Whether the coat for which the soldiers cast lots constituted the entire raiment of the Redeemer? Whether the valley of Jehosophat is large enough for the world's judgment day?" and so on ad nauseam. A schism arose. The indignation of St. Thomas Aquinas, the leader of the Dominicans, knew no bounds when he beheld Christians drinking in, in full draughts, Moorish and Jewish philosophy. The Franciscans opposed him and every effort of his to suppress their writings. The conflict lasted till 1512, when the Lateran council condemned "the abettors of these detestable doctrines to be held as heretics and infidels," and the Dominicans, armed with the weapons of the Inquisition, were not slow to silence Averoism in Europe.
But though silenced it lived in Jewish philosophy, and that, as little as its Talmud and Bible no power on earth has ever been strong enough to silence. Though silenced, with the aid of the Jews it flashed forth to all parts of Europe, where it found its way as readily into the "Opus Majus" of Roger Bacon as into the curriculum of studies of the University of Padua. Though silenced, it permeated the Renaissance. Though silenced, it formed the groundwork of Spinoza's system. Though silenced, with the aid of the Jewish philosophers, who laughed the Inquisition to scorn, it was studied everywhere, and everywhere it assumed those gigantic proportions destined to illumine the intellect of Europe. Though silenced, with the aid of the Jewish philosophy, it ushered in modern philosophy and the civilization of to-day.
CHAPTER. XIV.
IN THE INDUSTRIES.
INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS OF MOORS AND JEWS INDUCED BY THEIR MATERIAL PROSPERITY—REMARKABLE DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE—NEW DISCOVERIES IN EVERY INDUSTRY—MINING A SPECIALTY—THE MAGNET. MARINER'S COMPASS MECHANICAL APPARATUS. SPREAD OF COMMERCE LEADS TO GENERAL AWAKENING OF EUROPE THAT ENDS MIDDLE AGES.
Hark! Again the doleful knell is tolling. With greater speed and in larger numbers the people are hurrying to the public square. The procession of priests, chanting hymns of victory and imprecatory prayers, is starting towards the auto-da-fe. The victims supplicate for death more piteously than before. Hark! Again, and with greater alarm, the agonized voice of civilization calls unto us: Haste ye, the furnaces are heated! The pyres are prepared! The massive gates of the gloomy inquisition dungeons are open. The instruments of torture are ready for the cruel work of death. Haste ye, the moments are few, gather whatever knowledge there still remains to be collected concerning the wondrous achievements of the Jew and Moor, as speedily as you can; tarry, and flame and sword and rack and expulsion will hurl all knowledge of it into oblivion forever!
Let us heed the warning and briefly state what yet remains to be told. You have 'ere this surmised what we are about to prove, the imperishable monuments which the Moors and Jews have erected to their name and fame in the arts and sciences, in literature and philosophy bear witness, not only to their great intellectual wealth, but also to vast material possessions. Wherever learning is zealously fostered there wealth exists, and where wealth abounds, there agriculture and commerce and industry must have had prior existence.
Thus it was in Moorish Spain. Never before, nor ever since, did Spain enjoy a prosperity equal to that which blessed her lands, when Moorish and Jewish skill and diligence and enterprise made her, in glaring contrast with the rest of Europe, the granary and the industrial and the commercial center of the world. We have not yet forgotten how, when in the introductory chapters of this volume, we thought ourselves back some eight or ten centuries in the world's history, and hastened across the wild Atlantic to learn of the condition of Europe and her people, how spell-bound we stood, as we suddenly beheld wonders and beauties in Spain, scarcely equalled to-day in all Europe. And when we reflected upon the present condition of Spain, among the poorest of all European countries, its people proverbially indolent and ignorant, we had to assure ourselves, again and again, that it was Spain, indeed, which suddenly disclosed to us these unexpected, and still unequalled, proofs of industry and learning and cultured taste. Nor have we yet forgotten, when gliding upon the majestic Guadalquivir along fertile valleys, and luxuriant fields and graceful groves, and fragrant parks, and glittering palaces, and busy factories, and restless mines, we passed out of Spain, and visited the other countries of Europe how dreary and wretched and appalling the scenes were which met our gaze everywhere. Scarcely a city anywhere. Nothing that could, even with the broadest stretch of leniency, be designated as agriculture. Everywhere pathless deserts and howling wastes, and death-exhaling swamps. Wretched, windowless and chimneyless and floorless hovels sheltered man and beast under the same roof. Everywhere men with squalid beards, and women with hair unkempt and matted with filth, and both clothed in garments of untanned skin, that were kept on the body till they dropped in pieces of themselves, a loathsome mass of vermin, stench and rags. Everywhere beans and vetches and roots and bark of trees and horseflesh furnished largely the means of supporting life. Nowhere even a trace or semblance of industry. Everywhere the word commerce an unintelligible term. Such was the condition of the rest of Europe when Spain was basking in the sunshine of a most wonderful state of prosperity under the skill and enterprise of the Jew and the Moor.
From the very first both directed their attention to agriculture. The fertile valleys and the luxuriant fields, and the vine-clad hills, and the fruitful orchards, and the flowry meads and the sweet-scented pasture lands of Palestine bear eloquent testimony to Jewish skill in agriculture. The advice which the prophet Jeremiah had sent to the Jewish captives of Babylon: "Build ye houses, and dwell in them, and plant gardens and eat the fruits of them, ... and increase in your captivity and not diminish. Seek the welfare of the city whither you are carried as captives, and pray unto the Lord for it; for in the welfare thereof shall ye prosper and have peace."[34] This excellent advice the Jews applied to themselves, and faithfully followed, wherever they lived in exile, and wherever they were suffered to dwell in peace and promote the country's welfare. The Arab-Moors were no less devoted to this noble pursuit. When their warfare was over they beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning knives. Their motto was: "He who planteth and soweth, and maketh the earth bring forth fruit for man and beast, hath done alms that shall be reckoned to him in heaven." These two races devoted themselves to the cultivation of Spain with their hereditary love for the occupation, and with the skillful application of the experience, which they had gathered in other lands where they had dwelled or where they had established their power. By them agriculture in Spain was carried to a height, which until the invention of machinery was not surpassed in Europe. As early as the tenth century the revenue of agriculture of Moorish Spain alone amounted to nearly $6,000,000, more than the entire revenue of all the rest of Europe at that time. The ruins of their noble works for the irrigation of the soil, their great treaties on irrigation and crops, and improved breeds of cattle, on grafting and gardening, and their code of laws regulating agriculture, which still exist, still attest their skill and industry and put to shame the ignorance and indolence of their Spanish successors. Many plants were introduced in Europe, and successfully cultivated by them, which, after the expulsion of the Jews and Moors, and the discovery of America, Spain lost and neglected, such as rice and sugar cane (soukhar), as they called it, saffron and mulberry trees, ginger, myrrh, bananas and dates. The Spanish names of many plants show their origin, and some have traveled even to us, such as the apricot, from "albaric aque," the artichoke from "alca chofa" cotton from "al godon."[35] They gave Xeres and Malaga their celebrated wine, which has maintained its reputation to this day.
The mining industries, too, were zealously fostered by them. Spain was and is a widely metalliferous country. Her hidden treasures were known already to the Phœnicians, Carthagenians and Romans, and were mined by them with great profit. The gold and silver of Solomon's temple come through Hiram of Tyre from Tarshish, which was Southern Spain. But the dark ages had set in and with them Europe's universal sloth. When the Moors entered Spain the ancient mines had been, for the most part, abandoned. They revived this industry, and with a zeal which may best be told by the existence to-day of 5,000 Moorish shafts—distinguished from the former by being square instead of round—in one district (Jaen) alone gold was found in large quantities, and it was one of their leading articles for manufacture and export. They gave us the Arabic word "carat" which we still use in speaking of the quality of gold. They opened the inexhaustible vein of mercury which they worked with great profit and with such skill, that it still forms the largest deposit in the world, yielding still one-half of the quicksilver now in use, and being a government monopoly, this one remnant of Moorish and Jewish skill and industry, alone, still produces an annual revenue of $1,250,000. In addition to these, lead, copper, iron, alum, red and yellow ochre were mined in great quantity. Precious stones also were in great abundance—the beryl, ruby, golden marcasite, agates, garnets. Pearls were found on the coast near Barcelona. Building stones, marbles, and jaspers of all colors, were uninterruptedly quarried in the mountains.
The manufacturing industries kept pace in their success with that of mining and agriculture. With the Jews a knowledge of silk culture came into Europe, and with the assistance of Moorish skill it became one of the leading industries and one of the most profitable exports. All Europe, and the greater portions of Asia and Africa, looked to the Jews and Moors of Spain for their fine fabrics of silk and cotton and woolen, for all the wonders of the loom and the skilful and delicate patterns of filigree work in gold and silver. The carpet manufacture of the Moslems reached the excellence which it has maintained to our own day.
They made glass out of a silicious clay and used it for fashioning vessels, and also in glazing those beautiful tiles—for which Valencia is still famous—called azulejos, which they employed in embelishing floors and wainscoting. The best leather was made by the Jews and Arab-Moors in Cordova, and hence Spanish leather is still called Cordovan, which has given to English shoemakers their name of "Cordwainers." The still celebrated "Morocco" leather—the secret of its manufacture having been carried to Morocco, after their expulsion from Spain,—speaks to this day of Moorish and Jewish skill in this branch of industry. The "Toledo Blade," famous in the past and famous still, the invention of, and the plentiful and lucrative manufacture of cotton and linen paper, that blessed boon to civilization, which alone made the printing press possible and beneficial, the introduction of gunpowder and artillery, of the magnet and the mariner's compass, of mechanical and scientific apparatus and instruments, these and many more still speak in eloquent terms of Moorish and Jewish industry in Spain, and, more eloquently still, they tell the tale of Spanish ingratitude.[36]
This diligence and success in agriculture and in the industries made commerce necessarily very active and lucrative. The ports swarmed with vessels of traffic. The Jews and Moors of Spain maintained a merchant marine of thousands of ships. They had their factories and warehouses and consuls in all centers of industry. Their exports were very large.
The Jews, who had been compelled to wander the wide world over had acquired a most perfect geographical knowledge, which was serviceable to them now. It was through them that the existence of the Cape of Good Hope was made known in Europe. It was through Averroes that the attention of Columbus was drawn to his subject of finding a short route to the Indies. Their commerce opened the tide of discovery by navigation. Moorish and Jewish industry sought foreign markets and found them, too, from the Azores to the interior of China, from the Baltic to the coast of Mozambique, and eventually from the kingdom of Granada to the new world. Granada, especially in the words of the historian, became the common city of all nations. The reputation of its citizens for trustworthiness was such that their bare word was more relied on than a written contract is now among us, to which a Catholic bishop adds: "Moorish integrity is all that is necessary to make a good Christian."[37]
The position of the Moors and Jews of Spain in the industries may, therefore, be briefly summarized thus, a prosperous state of commerce arose never known before, and in the southern part of Europe never equalled since. Farther and farther this commerce pushed its interests, and more and more busy became the industries at home, and greater and greater grew their opulence. Gradually the rest of Europe awakened from its lethargy. Moorish and Jewish toil infused life and ambition into its people. Italy, Portugal, France and England began to compete. New markets became necessary. New discoveries followed, and with the general activity and prosperity which ensued, and the learning which it fostered, it dispelled the mists of ignorance, the middle ages disappeared and modern history made its appearance upon the world's stage. So glorious was the result of Moorish and Jewish industry. How Europe rewarded them in return for all their labors, let the following chapters speak.
CHAPTER. XV.
THE INQUISITION.
JEWISH AND MOORISH INTELLECTUAL ADVANCE FOLLOWED BY PHYSICAL DECLINE—THIS DECLINE THE CAUSE OF THEIR DOWNFALL—THE SPANIARD AGAIN RULER OVER SPAIN—THE INQUISITION ESTABLISHED—TO ESCAPE IT JEWS BECOME "NEW CHRISTIANS"—CHRISTIANITY NO HELP TO THE JEWS—THOMAS DE TORQUEMADA—THE TORTURES OF THE INQUISITION—A PUBLIC BURNING.
Physical decline follows mental advance. The nation that is devoted to learning is not the nation that worships a military life, or the pursuits of warfare. When the Mohammedans started on the enterprise of acquiring vast territorial possessions, there were few nations, if any, that could stand before them; when they were bent upon making intellectual acquisitions, there was no military body in Europe so poor that could not overthrow them. The military and patriotic virtues of the Arab-Moors had slowly passed away. Their original simplicity had been replaced by the extravagance of Oriental luxury, and their early devotedness to the Moslem faith had suffered much from their philosophical and scientific researches.[38] Internecine wars among themselves hastened their decline. Faster and faster their once invincible power slipped from their hands. Faster and faster advanced the Spanish hosts. Arab-Moor and Spanish Christian met at last on the plains of "Las Navas," (1213) and the great defeat which the Moslem army sustained here marked the beginning of the fatal hour. City after city, province after province, they were forced to yield. At last, all was lost, save the city of Granada, which stood alone to represent the Mohammedan dominion in the peninsula. And, for a time, it seemed as if that noble city, the city of the Alhambra, the pride of the Moors, would not only represent the Mohammedan dominion, and stay the victorious advance of the Spanish hosts, but also regain all that had been lost.
But the ancient valor was aroused too late. Ferdinand, of Aragon, had married Isabella, of Castile. Two of the most powerful crowns and armies were united, and unitedly they marched against the city of Granada.
Granada surrendered. On the second day of January, 1492, the last and ill-fated king of the Moors, Boabdil (Abu Abdillah,) met Ferdinand and his party at the entrance of the Alhambra, and presenting the keys of the city, thus he spoke in a loud voice and in sad accents:
"We are thine, O powerful and exalted king; these are the keys of this paradise. We deliver into thy hands this city and kingdom, for such is the will of Allah: and we trust thou wilt use thy triumph with generosity and clemency."
"We trust thy wilt use thy triumph with generosity and clemency." Did Boabdil have a foreboding of the infamous use the victor would make of his triumph? Did he really expect that his appeal for generosity and clemency would be favorably answered? If so, poor Boabdil, vain is thy hope, foolish thy trust. That hour in which the Christian cross replaced the Mohammedan crescent on the turret of the Alhambra, that hour when Christianity ruled again, and alone, in the peninsula, marked a climax in the history of cruelties and human sufferings. That hour, though the brightest in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, was most fatal for Spain, most pitiful to Europe, most unfortunate for civilization, and most calamitous for the Jews.
During all these unfortunate years of struggle for supremacy between the Mohammedan and Christian hosts the Jews were not forgotten. Sad as was the lot of the Moors, that of the Jews were inexpressibly more miserable. The Moors were conquered by soldiers, the Jews by monks. The Moors fought against the military of Spain, the Jews were inhumanly slaughtered by the "militia of Christ." The Moors suffered the pangs of war, and the Jews writhed in agony under the tortures of the Inquisition.
Inquisition! Who can utter the execrable word without a shudder! Who can think of this blood-thirsty institution without heaving a sigh of relief that it lasts no longer! What Jew can think of it with dry eyes, without lifting his heart to God in thanksgiving that this blood-reeking tribunal is no more!
Inquisition! Who knows its meaning better than the Jews? What people brought greater sacrifice to its bloody altars than they? Who has described it better than the Jew, Samuel Usque, the Jewish poet, whose lyre was silenced, and whose life was tortured out of his body by that very institution which he so eloquently and truthfully describes? "From Rome," he says, "a beast most monstrous, most ferocious, and most foul has come into our midst. Its very appearance strikes terror into every soul. When it raises its piercing, hissing, seething voice all Europe trembles. Its body is made of a composition of the hardest of steel and the deadliest of poison. In strength, in capacity for murder, in size and in speed it excels the fiercest of lions, the most poisonous of serpents, the tallest of elephants, and the speediest of eagles. Its very voice will kill quicker than the bite of the basilisk. Fire issues from its eyes, its jaws breathe forth flames. It lives from human bodies only. Wherever it comes, and though the sunshine in its noontide brightness, the densest darkness will at once set in. In its presence every blade of grass, every flower and blossom and tree, all wither and perish. Wherever it passes its pestiferous stench changes fertile valleys and luxurious fields and laughing meadows into unproductive deserts and howling wastes. Its name is The Inquisition."
It was born in the early part of the thirteenth century. Fanaticism was its mother; its father was St. Dominic, who also was the father of the Dominican Order, and so the Inquisition and the Dominican friars were natural brothers, and "par nobile fratrum," a noble pair of brothers they were. Pope Innocent III. stood godfather to it. I fully sympathize with all past and present humanitarians in their efforts to wean men from the pernicious belief in the existence of Hell, but I can not accept their claims that Hell never existed. Hell did exist, not 10,000 leagues beneath the earth, but on its very face. Hell existed wherever the Inquisition lived. And Devils there were, too, and their names were "Dominican Monks." This ferocious beast-child came into this world with a mission: to detect, punish and suppress Heresy, Free Thought, and every Religious belief save that of the Church of St. Peter. Under Dominican nursing and training, it grew and prospered, and rapidly acquired a relentless exercise of its mission. Its heart was killed, its conscience stifled. It was never taught the meaning of the words pity and mercy.
Scarcely was it full grown when it initiated its bloody career of 600 years of accursed life by a most cruel reign of terror in the southern provinces of France, where the presence and strength of the heretical Albigenses and where the Moorish and Jewish civilization from across the Pyrenees had made themselves felt. The reign of terror ceased with the extermination of almost the entire population.
At last it found its way into Spain, and in that country it entered upon a career so infamous that its deeds of ferocity, recorded upon the annals of History in letters of blood and fire, are not eclipsed by the combined cruelties of all mankind. Here lived and prospered thousands and thousands of Jews. When a holy war is waged against the infidel Moors shall the infidel Jews escape unscathed? When the Blessed Virgin crowns their zeal to their faith by giving them victory after victory over the Moors, will she not be wroth if the Jews escape? When the Moors are put to the edge of the sword, shall the Jews not be committed to the flames?
The cruelties of the Inquisition were not the first which were visited upon the Jews. Their second series of suffering in Spain began on the day when the Christian forces defeated the Moorish army upon the battle-field. The tolerance the Moor could afford to offer to the Jew, the Religion of Christ could not. In Aragon and Castile it was not a rare sight to see the fanatical populace, stimulated by the no less fanatical clergy, to make a fierce assault upon this unfortunate people—guilty of no other crime than that of promoting the prosperity of Spain and of adhering to their inherited belief,—breaking into their houses, violating their most private sanctuaries, and consigning them by the thousands to indiscriminate massacre, without regard to sex or age. Hatred of the Jews was for many centuries a faithful index of the piety of the Christians. Cruel laws were enacted against them. They were prohibited from mingling freely with the Christians, from following the trades and professions for which they were best suited by virtue of their high intelligence and thrift. Their residence was restricted within certain prescribed limits of the cities which they inhabited. They were held up to continuous public scorn, by being compelled to wear a peculiar dress, on which was sewed their badge of shame. Even in their executions they were branded, for a long time they were hanged between two dogs, and with the head downwards.
A choice was given them to escape these sufferings and degradations by entering "the religion of love unto all men." Thousands upon thousands of Jews availed themselves of this only alternative, and became feigned converts, or "new Christians," as they were called. They amply regretted the change later, but at present it seemed to them an almost justifiable step. The preceding chapters have acquainted us with the character of the Spanish Jews, with their high intellectual attainments, with their lofty demeanor, with their high social and political and industrial and commercial standing. Think of them now asked to sacrifice all these advantages, because the iron-handed and iron-hearted brute force of the priests so wanted it. Feel as they must have felt, when they were asked to exchange their mansions of elegance and refinement for the wretched hovels of the Ghetto; to lay aside their garments of silk, and their ornaments of grace and beauty and costliness, and don the gaberdine of disgrace; to drop the reins of the world's commerce which they held in their hands, and, instead, take a pack upon their back and wander from house to house, an object of ridicule and shame, and jeers and maltreatment. Think as they must have felt and thought and you will think less harshly of their feigned change of faith.
For a time all seemed bright. The "converts" were especially honored. They were appointed even to high ecclesiastical and municipal offices; their sons and daughters married into noble, and even royal families.
The few drops of baptismal water did not, however, change the character of the Jews. Their prosperity was as great as before, and, unlike the credulous and superstitious Spaniards, they failed to see any reason why they should lavish their worldly goods upon the Church. They preferred to do their own "taking care of," and their own "praying for" their soul. This was their crime. Their superior skill and industry, and the superior riches which these qualities secured, and their high standing in the community, aroused the priesthood's envy and covetousness. Thus the charge arose that the converts had relapsed into their old faith.
The charge was not unfounded. The allegiance to the Church was that of compulsion, and it never was anything else, except a masked external allegiance. The heart, soul, conscience, mind, continued Jewish, and as fervently so as ever before. This "scandalous spectacle of apostates returning to wallow in the ancient mire of Judaism," was the pretext by means of which the Dominicans sounded the alarm. And the Inquisition came to cure them of their back-sliding.
Castile, the kingdom of Isabella, had till then refused admission to the Inquisition. At one time its introduction was recommended, and the whole populace arose in rebellion. Isabella herself trembled at the very mention of it. But in an evil hour Thomas de Torquemada, "condemned to infamous immortality by the signal part which he performed in the tragedy of the Inquisition," became her confessor. That man—if "man" I may name him—that vilest blot upon the history of religion, of Spain, of civilization, was the fiend incarnate. His very name still represents the superlative of maniacal fanaticism. He labored hard to infuse into the pure mind of the noble hearted Isabella a fanaticism as fiendish as was his. And still she recoiled from the thought of introducing the monstrous slaughtering institution in her domains. Torquemada brought the weight of the entire church to bear upon her conscience, and still she refused. The fiend was not yet baffled. He influenced her husband, the crafty and greedy Ferdinand of Aragon, to advocate his cause. The husband prevailed.
On the 2nd day of January, 1481, the Inquisition commenced operation in the city of Seville, with Thomas de Torquemada as Inquisitor General of Castile and Aragon. A few years later it found its way into every prominent town of Spain, and confined itself everywhere almost wholly to the Jews. The severity, and savage alacrity of it, may best be learned from the appalling fact that during the eighteen years of Torquemada's ministry an average of more than 6,000 convicted persons suffered annually from this cruel tribunal by burning, or by condemnation to life long slavery, or by endless torture, making an average of nearly seventeen a day, and the entire number punished during its existence in Spain, from 1481 to 1808, amounted to 340,000 persons.[39]
All this to protect the interests of religion. All this for offenses so trivial that our blood boils with indignation at the very thought of the heinous cruelty. It was sufficient to burn a "convert," as a relapsed heretic, upon the mere accusations of crimes such as these: That he wore better clothes or cleaner linen on the Jewish Sabbath than on other days of the week; that he had no fire in his house on the Jewish Sabbath; that he ate the meat of animals slaughtered by Jews; that he abstained from eating pork; that he gave his child a Hebrew name—and yet he was prohibited by law, under severe penalties, from giving a Christian name—that on the Day of Atonement he had asked forgiveness; that he had laid his hands in blessing upon his child's head, without the sign of the cross, and numerous others, equally as harmless. Most of the charges did not even prove a relapse, their observance being, for the most, either purely accidental or the result of early habit, or, what was most frequently the case, pure invention. No better chance existed for wreaking vengeance, on a Jew. A simple accusation, even anonymously, sufficed. For the accused there was no safety against malice; no facing the accuser, who perhaps, was his bitterest enemy; no trial; no cross-examination; no justice. He was put under arrest and conveyed to the secret chambers of the Inquisition, where, cut off from the world, he remained, sometimes for months, in complete ignorance of the nature of the charges preferred against him. Once there, the famous words of Dante may be well applied to him: "Lasciate ogni speranze voich'entrate." "All hope abandon, ye who enter here."
At last he would be summoned before the Inquisitors and asked to confess. And well for him if he plead guilty. It is true, he will be convicted, but he has escaped the tortures which are well nigh beyond the power of endurance, and which will soon force a confession, true or not true, or which, even if endured, cannot save him, as he will nevertheless be convicted on the strength of positions of the accuser.
I shall spare you a recital of the tortures, of the sufferings endured in the deepest vaults of the Inquisition, where the cries of the victims could fall on no ear save that of the tormentors. It is difficult to realize that these iron-hearted and iron-handed henchmen, who thus eagerly, passionately, with a thirst for blood that knew no mercy, with zeal that never tired, devoted their whole life to cruelties such as we encounter here, could have been human beings, much less ministers of Christ. I shall spare you and spare myself a recital of these sufferings. I shall not speak of the tortures by rack and rope, and fire and water, how the victims' joints were dislocated, how every bone in their body was broken, how the body was roasted over a slow fire. I cannot speak of these tortures. I can only refer you to "The History of The Inquisition," by Don Juan Antonio Llorento, whose records are authentic, as he himself was Secretary to the Inquisition; or to Mosheim's "Ecclesiastical History," or to Prescott's "Ferdinand and Isabella," volume I, chapter VII. To endure all these tortures, and live, was thought positive proof of Satanic life, and the strongest ground for burning. Nearly all plead guilty to whatever they were accused of, and to more, too, after a short experience with the rack. And confession brought public burning.
This was the last scene in the bloody tragedy, so wrongly named "Auto De Fe" ("Act of Faith"). It was a gala day for the town in which it was enacted. The proudest grandees of the land acted as escorts to the ecclesiastical henchmen. The royal party seldom missed this pompous ceremony, and not infrequently heaped fagots on the blazing fire with their own hands. A military escort led the unfortunate victims, clad in coarse yellow garments called "san benitos" garnished with a scarlet cross, and with hideous figures of devils and flames of fire. And a horrible appearance they presented, emaciated, lacerated, crippled, dazed by the light and fresh air which had been denied them for months.
The pyre is lighted. The flames shoot up. The victims writhe in agony.
Lo! a fierce wind arises. For a moment it blows the flames from the bodies. One of the victims speaks. It is Antonio Joseph, the Jewish celebrated author and classical dramatist of Portugal, where the performance of his dramatic pieces draws tears even to this day. Thus the venerable sage speaks:
"I own I belong to a faith which you yourselves acknowledge to be of Divine origin. God loved this religion, and He, according to my belief, is still attached to it, while you think He has ceased to be so; and because your belief differs from mine, you condemn those who are of the opinion that God continues to love what He formerly loved. You demand that we should become Christians, and yet you are far from being Christians yourselves. Be at least men, and act towards us as reasonable as if you had no religion at all to guide you and no revelation for your enlightenment." "Osseitaro barbaro" ("clip his beard"), some of the spectators shout, and immediately one of the executioners besmears his venerable beard, by means of a long brush, with pitch and turpentine, and sets fire to it. One more cry, "Sh'ma, Yisrael, Adonay Elahenu, Adonay Echad" ("Hear, O Israel, the Eternal, Our God is One"), and the flames have done their work, amidst the rapturous applause of the spectators, and amidst the pious ejaculations: "Blessed be forever the goodness and mercy of the Holy Inquisition. Blessed be the Holy Trinity, the sister of the Virgin Mary." Not a tear among the spectators. Father, mother, husband, wife, child, relatives, friends, all are eye-witnesses to this bloody sacrifice, and yet from them not a sigh of regret, nor dare they be absent, nor dare they abstain from applauding, that would fasten suspicion upon them, and condemn them to a similar fate. A confiscation of the convicted possessions ended the mournful tragedy.
Such was the clemency and generosity for which Boabdil, the last of the Moorish kings, entreated. Praised be God, now and forever, who has emancipated us from the clemency and generosity of the Church.
