“Now Spain was something more to them than this. It was no foreign soil, passed and repassed with the indifference of a stranger. They had lived there for twelve hundred years. They had seen the Teutonic forest-creeds moulded and melted into the new faith of Rome. They had seen the Ishmaelite sweep that faith away. By him they had been welcomed as brothers. With him they had lit the lamp of science when all the world was dark. Then they had seen the Cross rise from the northern mountains, and the Crescent wane and wane before it. By the kings of Christian Spain [pg 278]their worth had been acknowledged; they had fostered their trade; they had called them to their councils; they had befriended and loved them. Persecution and jealousy had driven many of their brethren to accept another creed; but the new Christians were Jews still; they had married their daughters to the proudest nobles of a race where the peasant was proud; and not a duke in all Spain could despise them without despising his own mother's blood. Spain, too, was the land where Jewish wisdom had unfolded and blossomed. Their physicians and their astronomers were the first in Europe. Their poets and their philosophers were eminent among their nation. The psalms of Jehuda Halevi were sung in the synagogues of the Rhine. Aben Esra had eclipsed the fame of the great Eastern school of Pombeditha; above all, Spain claimed the son of Maimon, the great prophet of the Exile, famed from the Seine to the Euphrates as the second Moses.
“Such, besides escape from utter ruin, were the temptations to apostacy. And those who issued the decree fully hoped that apostacy would have been its result. Every means was taken. ‘In the public squares, in the synagogues, Catholic preachers thundered forth invective against the Hebrew heresy.’ They might thunder—they were not heard.
“ ‘Come,’ said their priests and elders, ‘let us strengthen ourselves in our faith and in the teachings of our God, against the voice of the oppressor, and the scorn of the enemy. If they destroy us—well; if they will let us live—well; but we will not depart from the Covenant, neither make our hearts froward; but we will go forth in the name of the Lord our God, who saved our fathers from Egypt, and brought them through the Red Sea.’
“The spirit of Moses and of Joshua rested on the aged rabbis, and their words prevailed. Few in number and bold in cowardice were those who yielded. They made ready for this second Exodus where no Canaan glistened in the distance. Forced to sell their possessions in three months, forbidden to sell them for gold, they were glad to exchange large houses or estates for an ass or mule, or for such trifling articles of travel as the wish to be first at the spoiling might induce purchasers to supply.
“Eastward, westward, northward—to Africa, to Portugal, to Italy and the Levant,—half a million Jews went forth. Eighty [pg 279]thousand sought shelter in Portugal, but did not find it. Thousands fell into the hands of the barbarians of Fez. They were sold for slaves; they were left to starve on desert isles; their bodies, yet living, were ripped open for the hidden gold. Thus writes Rabbi Josef:
“ ‘And there were among them who were cast into the isles of the sea, a Jew and his old father, fainting from hunger, begging bread; and there was none to break unto them in a strange country. And the man went and sold his little son for bread, to restore the soul of the old man; and when he returned to his father, he found him dead; and he rent his clothes. And he went back to the baker to take his son; but the baker would not give him back; and he cried out with a sore and bitter cry for his son, but there was none to deliver. All this befell us in the year Rabbim—for the sons of the desolate are “Many”—yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant. Hasten to help us, O Lord! For thy sake we are killed all the day; we are counted as sheep appointed for the slaughter. Make haste to help us, O God of our salvation.’
“Or listen to the chronicler of Genoa, who saw them as they drifted eastward:
“ ‘This expulsion,’ he says, ‘seemed to me at first a praiseworthy act, done in the cause and for the honor of God. Yet, when we remember that they were not brute beasts after all, but men made by God, surely it must be owned that some little cruelty was shown. Their woes were very piteous to see. The first who starved were the infants at the breast; then the mothers, carrying their dead children till they fell down and died with them. Many perished of cold and of squalor. Unused to the sea, countless numbers died from sickness; many were drowned by the sailors for their wealth; the poor, who could not otherwise pay their passage, sold their children. Lean, pale, with eyes deep-sunken, like ghosts from the dead, hardly moving enough to show that they were alive, they came into our city to find shelter for three days; for our ancient laws forbade a longer stay. Yet for the repair of their ships, and for health's sake, a short respite was granted. They were allowed to live on the Mole, while they made ready for their long voyage eastward. Thus the winter [pg 280]passed, and many of them died. The spring came, and ulcers broke out that had been hitherto kept under by the cold, and all that year there was a plague in that city.’ ”
This mournful narrative exhibits one of the most sublime examples of religious faith and conscientious self-sacrifice to what was deemed truth and duty in the persecuted. At the same time, when the avaricious Ferdinand relinquished thirty thousand ducats, and the tender and benevolent Isabella turned a deaf ear to such prayers and sufferings from her people, there can be no doubt that conscience ruled the persecutors also. Even Torquemada himself may have been acting from the most conscientious and benevolent motives in all the disastrous influences he brought to bear on his royal mistress.
This passage of history also teaches that honesty, and sincerity, and conscientiousness will not avail without a knowledge of the truth. Nay, more; had these persecutors been less conscientious, the natural instincts of humanity or personal interests would have mitigated or withheld the cruel doom.