THE DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZATION OF THE SYNAGOGUE.
The spirit of monotheism is essentially democratic both in politics and religion. There is to be but one king, and he the spiritual Lord in heaven. All the people are equal before him. When the Hebrews clamorously demanded a king the prophet charged them with treason against their proper ruler. The prophet and priest were hostile powers; and their antagonism was clearly felt, and sometimes energetically expressed. The Lord takes no delight in the slaughter of animals. The bloody sacrifices are an offence to Him. What He requires is purity of heart, righteous judgment, and care for the widow and the fatherless. The idea of priestly mediation—of mediation in any shape—was repugnant to the Jews. "The whole people are priests," it was said. When the sanctuary at Jerusalem had been laid in ashes, anything resembling a hierarchical caste was no longer tolerated among them. The Law and the Science of the Law were open to all; and each one was expected, according to the measure of his capacity, to draw directly from the fountain-head of faith. The autonomy of the congregations was strictly guarded. Entire uniformity in the ritual was never achieved.* The public lector of prayers was called "the delegate of the congregation." The Rabbies (the word means Masters, in the sense of teachers) were men distinguished for superior erudition and the blamelessness of their lives, and these qualities formed their only title to distinction.** Their duties differed radically from those of the Catholic priest or the Protestant clergyman. They never took upon themselves the care of souls. Their office was to instruct the young, and in general to regulate the practice of religion according to the principles and precedents laid down in the sacred traditions of their people. The several congregations were independent of each other. There were no general synods or councils, no graded hierarchy culminating in a spiritual head, no oligarchy of ministers and elders; but rather a federation of small communities, each being a sovereign unit, and connected with the others solely by the ties of a common faith, common sympathies, and common sufferings. Any ten men were competent to form themselves into a congregation, and to discharge all the duties of religion. The fact that this was so proved of the utmost consequence in preserving the integrity of Judaism. The Jews were parcelled out over the whole earth. The body of the people was again and again divided. But in every case the barest handful that remained sufficed to become the nucleus of new organizations. Had the system of Judaism required any one central organ, a blow aimed against this would doubtless have proved fatal to the whole. But by the wise provisions of the federative system the vital power seems to have been equally disseminated over the entire community. Like the worm that is trodden under foot, to which Israel so often likens itself in the Hebrew prayers, the divided members lived a new life of their own, and though apparently crushed beneath the heel of their oppressors, they ever rose again in indestructible vitality.
* Vide Zunz Die Ritus.
** Many of them supported themselves by following some
humble calling, refusing to receive remuneration for their
teachings, on the principle that the Law "should not be made
a spade to dig with."
THE INFLUENCE OF PERSECUTION.
In surveying the history of the Jewish people we find a strange blending of nationalism and cosmopolitism illustrated in their actions and beliefs. They proudly styled themselves the elect people of God, they looked down with a certain contempt upon the Gentile nations, yet they conceived themselves chosen, not on their own account, but for the world's sake, in order to spread the knowledge of the true God among men. They repudiated heathenism, and regarded Trinitarianism as an aberration. In contradistinction to these their mission was to protect the purity of the monotheistic religion until in the millennial age all nations would gather about their "holy Mount." They considered their own continued existence as a people foreordained in the Divine scheme,* because they believed themselves divinely commissioned to bring about the eternal happiness of the human race. The centripetal and centrifugal forces of character were thus evenly balanced, and this circumstance contributed not a little to enliven their courage in the face of long-continued adversity. When the independence of Greece was lost, the Greeks ceased to exist as a nation. But the loss of the Temple and the fatherland gave barely more than a passing shock to the national consciousness of the Jews. Easily they acclimatized themselves in every quarter of the globe. The fact of their dispersion was cited by Christianity as a sign of their rejection by God. They themselves regarded it as a part of their mission to be scattered as seed over the whole earth. That they should suffer was necessary, they being the Messianic people! Their prayers were filled with lamentations and the recital of their cruel woes. But they invariably ended with words of promise and confidence in the ultimate fulfillment of Israel's hope. Thus in the very depths of their degradation they were supported by a sense of the grandeur of their destinies, and by the proud consciousness that their sufferings were the price paid for the world's spiritual redemption.
* "Let it not seem strange to you that we should regain our
former condition, even though only a single one of us were
left, as it is written, 'Fear not, thou worm, Jacob!'"—Juda
HA-Levi, in the book Cusari (twelfth century), iii. ii.
In the earlier half of the Middle Ages the Jews were still permitted to enjoy a certain measure of liberty. In Spain, France and Germany they lived on amicable terms with their neighbors, they engaged in trade and manufacture, and were allowed to possess landed property. In the tenth and eleventh centuries a great part of the city of Paris was owned by Jews. But at the time of the Crusades a terrible change in the aspect of their affairs took place. The principles embodied in the canonical law had by this time entered into the practice of the European nations. Fanaticism was rampant. The banks of the Rhine and the Moselle became the theatre of the most pitiless persecution. Among the Crusaders the cry was raised, "We go to Palestine to slay the unbelievers; why not begin with the infidel Jews in our own midst?" Worms, Spires, Mayence, Strassburg, Basle, Regens-burg, Breslau, witnessed the slaughter of their Jewish inhabitants. Toward the close of the thirteenth century one hundred thousand Jews perished at the hands of Rindfleisch, and the murderous hordes of whom he was the leader. To add fuel to the passions of the populace the most absurd accusations were brought forward against them, and their religion was made odious by connecting it with charges of grave moral obliquity. Jewish physicians being in great request, especially at the court of kings, it was given out that with fiendish malice they were wont to procure the death of their Christian patients.* They were accused of killing Christian children, and using the blood of Christians in celebrating the Passover festival, and this monstrous falsehood was repeated until no one doubted its substantial truth. Let it be remembered that this charge was originally preferred, in a somewhat different shape, against the Christians themselves. It floated down, as such rumors will, from age to age, until, its authorship being forgotten, it was finally used as a convenient handle against the hated Jews. In this manner the Easter-tide which was to announce the triumph of a religion of love became to the Jews a season of terror and mortal agony, and the Easter dawn was often reddened with the flames that rose from Jewish homes.
* Thus in the case of Charles the Bald, and others.
It is impossible to calculate the number of lives that have been lost in consequence of this single accusation. It has lived on even into the present century.* In the fourteenth century the Black Death devastated the Continent of Europe. Soon the opinion gained ground that the Jews were responsible for the ravages of the plague. It was claimed that the Rabbi of Toledo had sent out a venomous mixture concocted of consecrated wafers and the blood of Christian hearts to the various congregations, with orders to poison the wells. The Pope himself undertook to plead for their innocency, but even papal bulls were powerless to stay the popular madness. In Dekkendorf a church was built in honor of the massacre of the Jews of that town, and the spot thus consecrated has remained a favorite resort of pilgrims down to modern times. The preaching friars of the Franciscan and Dominican orders were particularly active in fanning the embers of bigotry whenever they threatened to die down. In England, France and Spain the horrors enacted in Germany were repeated on a scale of similar magnitude. The tragic fate of the Jews of York, the fury of the Pastoureaux, the miserable scenes that accompanied the exodus of the Jews from Spain are familiar facts of history. In Poland, in the seventeenth century, the uprising of the Cossacks under the chieftainship of Chmielnicki became once more the signal of destruction. It is estimated that in ten years (1648-1658) upwards of two hundred and fifty thousand Jews perished.** Even when the lives of the Jews were spared, their condition was so extremely wretched that death might often have seemed the preferable alternative.