The history of the Jews: From the war with Rome to the present time

by H. C. Adams

But there was one class upon whom these woes fell harmlessly, and this class was the Jews. It is bitter for men to be driven from their homes and deprived of their rights of citizenship. But the Jew had no home to lose, no right of citizenship to forfeit. His nationality had long been destroyed, and could not be taken from him. He was like Ladurlad, in Southey’s poem, whom the flood could not swallow up or the sea-monster destroy, because Kehama’s curse had rendered him secure against all minor ills. If the country in which the Jew was a sojourner was threatened by the approach of an invading horde, he simply removed elsewhere, and took his money with him. Nay, the march of the barbarian armies, which brought terror and destruction to others, was to him a source of profit. When some bloody defeat on the battle-field, or some frightful sack of a populous town, had plunged a whole people in misery and desolation, the Jew would drive a thriving trade with the ignorant conquerors, purchasing of them the spoil they had obtained by the plunder of palaces and churches, for, it might be, the twentieth part of their value, and conveying it to lands which were, as yet, safe from invasion; where they sold it again at an enormous profit. Their establishment in all the great cities of the known world, and the strong bonds of brotherhood which subsisted among them, made it easy for them to carry on mercantile transactions of this kind; nor can the rapidity with which they acquired wealth—and which was popularly attributed to their alliance with the Evil One—be any cause of wonder to us. Even in times when the principles on which commerce is conducted have become generally understood and acted on, the Jews have always had the advantage over their Christian neighbours, by reason of their greater astuteness and perseverance. But in those days, when they alone understood those principles, even in the rudest manner, it would have been a marvel indeed, if they had failed to gather riches, almost as easily as a child gathers pebbles on the shore.

One very profitable, but somewhat odious, branch of commerce seems to have fallen almost entirely into their hands. After one of the great victories of the Goths or Huns, when large numbers of captives became the property of the barbarian conquerors, their native ferocity often induced them to put their vanquished enemies to the sword; and possibly they might always have done so, had it not been that avarice, stimulated by the offer of money in exchange for them, proved the more potent passion of the two. The Jew knew what would be the value of an able-bodied slave in the markets of Alexandria or Constantinople, and was willing to pay, it might be, the sixth part of that price to the Goth or the Hun, for the prisoner whom he had at his disposal. None but the Jews, as has been observed, pursued this particular traffic; and the consequence was, that large numbers of Christian slaves passed into the possession of Hebrew masters, who in every city exposed them publicly for sale. It would not have been human nature if the Jews, despised and rejected as they were by their Christian fellow-citizens, had not experienced a sense of triumph, at finding themselves in this manner the undisputed owners and masters of those who had long held them in contempt. It is even less wonder that the spectacle should have roused the greatest indignation among the Christians themselves.

By the ancient law it was illegal, nay, a capital offence, for a Jew to keep a Christian in bondage. But either this law was treated from the first as a nullity, or it had been repealed by one of Constantine’s successors; for the edict of Honorius, while it forbids Jews to proselytize their Christian slaves, allows the full right of ownership over them. Now, however, the Jews had become the masters, not of a few Christian bondsmen, but of large numbers of them, many being persons belonging to a higher station, and reduced to their present state of degradation by having been conquered in battle with the barbarians. This appeared an intolerable scandal; and it is not unlikely that the old law of Constantine would have been re-enacted, if it had not been for the pretty certain fact that, in that case, all prisoners taken in battle would thenceforth be massacred. Therefore, though many efforts were made, and especially by the Church, to mitigate the evil, it was never proposed to prohibit the purchase of slaves by Hebrew masters. The Council of Macon, A.D. 582, distinctly lays down that ‘the conditions upon which a Christian—whether as a captive in war or by purchase—has become the slave of a Jew, must be respected.’ All that is stipulated for by that, or any other of the many Councils which deal with the subject, is, that the slaves shall have the right of purchasing their own freedom, or that others shall have the right of purchasing it for them. The Councils, further, continually exhort the clergy, indeed, all Christians, to shelter any slaves who may take refuge with them from the tyranny of their masters, and even to pay the price which will redeem them from captivity.

It is needless to add that these injunctions had but little effect. Neither clergy nor laity have, in any age, except that of the Apostles, been thus ready to part with their money for the benefit of any unhappy sufferer who might appeal to them. Gregory the Great, who succeeded to the Papal chair A.D. 590, was very earnest in his efforts to put down a traffic which he regarded as abominable. His letters, addressed to kings and bishops and others in authority, evince the warmth of his zeal and the nobility of his nature; but they show also that all efforts, up to that time, to eradicate the evil had proved abortive.

The condition of the Italian Jews at this period seems to have been unusually prosperous. They were protected by Theodoric, who several times—at Rome, at Milan, at Genoa—interfered to chastise those who had wrecked and plundered Jewish synagogues, and directed that due reparation should be made. The Bishops of Rome, throughout the century, and especially Gregory, towards its close, treated them with justice and clemency, and, though filled with an earnest desire for their conversion, repressed all violence or imprudent zeal.

But it was different in other parts of the world about this time. The attempts at proselytizing, which had hitherto erred on the side of holding out worldly inducements to bribe men to embrace the Gospel, were now exchanged for the still worse method of violent compulsion. Chilperic, the youngest son of Clotaire I., a monster of lust and cruelty, appears to have been the first who practised this. Believing, perhaps, that his own misdeeds might be atoned for by what he regarded as zeal in the cause of Christ, he forcibly compelled all the Jews in his dominions to receive baptism on pain of instant death. They appear to have complied—nothing more than the mere performance of the ceremony having been required of them—but to have carried on their own form of worship exactly as before.

Turning now to the Eastern Empire, we find that there is but little mention of the Jews during the fifth century of Christianity. But, whatever changes took place in their condition, we may reasonably infer that they were changes for the worse. Notwithstanding the religious distractions of the reign of the Eutychian Anastasius, the Church continued throughout this century to grow in power, several of the Roman emperors, Theodosius II., Marcian, and Leo, being her devoted adherents. We do not wonder at hearing that in the reign of Justin I., A.D. 518, who was at least as orthodox as any of his predecessors, the Jews were excluded by statute from all offices of state, as well as from holding commissions in the army. His nephew, Justinian, who succeeded him, not only confirmed these laws, but evinced such harshness to both Jews and Samaritans, as provoked a rebellious outbreak among the latter people. One Julian, who (like so many before and after him) professed himself the Messiah, stirred up an insurrection, and was only put down and slain after a bloody battle. Many of the Samaritans, we are told, became converts to the Gospel: but there are shrewd reasons for suspecting that their motive was to escape thereby the consequences of their rebellion.

Encouraged apparently by this success, Justinian proceeded to still harsher measures against the Jews. He no longer allowed their evidence to be taken against Christians. He materially limited their power of making wills and disposing of their property. He enacted that in case of a marriage between a Jew and a Christian—which he strongly discouraged—the control of the children should belong to the Christian parent. Finally, he interdicted the use of the Jewish Mishna, as a production full of absurdity and falsehood, and urged the use of the Greek language by the Jews, instead of the Hebrew. It is hardly necessary to add that these harsh measures had but little effect. The use of the Talmud was not discontinued, and the empire experienced, in the alienation of a wealthy and powerful body, such as the Jews then constituted, a sensible loss of strength.[67] A few years afterwards a new Imperial decree somewhat modified the rigour of these enactments. The Samaritans were allowed to make wills; but in case of intestacy, if any of their children had embraced the Christian faith, they inherited the father’s property to the exclusion of the others; if a will had been made, unbelievers could inherit one-sixth only of the property under it. About twenty-five years afterwards, the Jews and Samaritans in Cæsarea broke out in insurrection, and were with difficulty put down.

Farther eastward, under the reigns of the Persian sovereigns, beginning with that of Artaxerxes (the successor, A.D. 384, of Sapor), the Magians, who had obtained the upper hand in the royal counsels, persecuted Jews and Christians with equal severity. Even the observance of the Sabbath by the former is said to have been suppressed. Nevertheless, we are told that the Prince of the Captivity still retained his office, and even his wealth and dignity. The animosities between him and Chanina, the master of the Jewish schools, are related at length by the historians of those times; but are intermingled with wild and fanciful tales, to which it is impossible to attach any credit. It was at some time during this dark period that the Babylonian Talmud, to which reference was made in a recent chapter, first saw the light. It was mainly the work of Rabbi Asa, or Asche, chief of the schools at Sora. But he died before its completion, and the finishing touches were given to it by his pupils. The date of its appearance is a matter of much dispute; but the probability is that it was first published during this period. (See Appendix II.)

Not long after its appearance—early in the sixth century—a fierce persecution was set on foot by Cavades, or Kobad, one of the Persian kings, who desired to oblige all unbelievers in Magianism to embrace its tenets. In his time a Rabbinical impostor, named Meir, who probably pretended to be the Messiah, raised a rebellion, which was prolonged for seven years. Whether the insurrection was due to the persecution or the persecution to the insurrection, does not clearly appear. The impostor pretended, as nearly all his prototypes had done, to work miracles, and, amongst others, to raise up a fiery column, which always accompanied his march, as had been the case with his fathers in the wilderness. He was defeated, and slain by Kobad, and the Prince of the Captivity was involved in his fate.[68]