In another part of Europe—the part, indeed, in which the Jews had hitherto enjoyed the most entire immunity from suffering—great troubles befell them about this time, in consequence of the rebellion of the Cossacks against the rule of the Poles. In the spring of 1648 massacres of Jews took place in the countries which lie to the east of the Dnieper, in which thousands perished. Still larger numbers were carried off as prisoners, and sold in Turkey. During the interregnum following on the death of King Ladislaus, hordes of barbarians overran the Ukraine, committing great havoc, from which all the inhabitants suffered, but none, we are told, so much as the Jews.
In 1670 the Jews were banished from the Austrian dominions by the Emperor Leopold, a weak and narrow-minded prince, who was easily persuaded to adopt measures which he was as speedily obliged to modify or reverse. He had granted, only a short time before, Rabbi Zachariah permission to build a magnificent synagogue and schools for the revival of learning. But the synagogue had hardly been finished when it was turned into a Christian church by the Emperor, and the whole of the Jews exiled from his dominions. The reason of this is said to have been that the Empress attributed her barrenness to the displeasure of Heaven at the toleration shown to the Jews. But her death in her confinement, shortly afterwards, doubtless had a counter-effect on the mind of the Emperor; and we are not surprised to hear that the Jews were recalled, and re-established in their possessions.[182] It was upon this occasion that the Jews expelled from Vienna found a refuge in Berlin, where a thriving community grew up.
In this century many learned Jews and Christian Hebrew scholars appeared, whose names are well known, even at the present day. Among these the most distinguished were Rabbi Menasseh, of whom we shall have occasion to speak presently, and the Christian writers Pocock, Surenhusius, and Vitringa. But the most renowned Christian Hebraists of this century were the two Buxtorfs. The elder, Johann, born at Westphalia in 1564, and dying in Basle in 1629, is the author of the famous Hebrew dictionary and grammar continually quoted by Hebrew scholars. His son, also called Johann, born 1599, and dying in 1664, finished the concordance which his father had commenced.
FOOTNOTES:
[180] It has already been observed that Martin Luther, though sometimes he speaks of the Jews rather with considerate compassion than anger, at other times, and especially later in his career, uses the very bitterest language respecting them, as, for instance, in his tract (published in 1543) on The Jews and their Lies, the title of which, it may be remarked, is quite in accordance with its contents. And again, in his exposition of Psalm xxii., written many years earlier, he thus writes: ‘Doubt not, beloved in Christ, that after the devil, you have no more bitter, venomous, violent enemy than the Jew.’ He also enjoins the sternest and most violent measures to be used against them. The great founder of Calvinism, again, though he is less fiery and vehement in his denunciation of them, cannot be said to regard them with any greater favour. He sees in them nothing but the virulent, determined enemies of Christ, whom it would be weakness, if not sin, to treat with any favour.
[181] It may be added that the very existence of the Sadducees, as a sect, at this period of history, is an anachronism.
[182] A different explanation has been given of Leopold’s strange changes in his treatment of the Jews. He is said to have shown them favour at first, on account of his attachment to a beautiful Jewess. But she was assassinated; and Leopold, at first believing the deed to have been done by the Jews, banished them. Afterwards, being convinced of his mistake, he allowed them to return.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
A.D. 1600-1700.
THE JEWS IN HOLLAND.—DA COSTA, SPINOZA.
The reader has already learned that, towards the close of the last century, many of the Portuguese exiles found a refuge from persecution in Holland. In truth, of all the countries of Europe, at this period of their history, none showed them such kindness as the republic of the Low Countries. If the Reformation had done the race of Israel no other service than that of opening to them this place of shelter, they would still have been largely indebted to it. No dream of the imagination could exceed the wretchedness of the Jews in Spain and Portugal at the outset of the seventeenth century. They had to choose between ruin, torture, and death on the one hand,—not for themselves only, but for their wives and children also,—or the surrender of their cherished faith, which was, in their eyes, the surrender of all hope, here and hereafter. Their only escape from these stern alternatives lay in a life-long duplicity and imposture, which must needs degrade them in their own eyes to the very dust. Of the three terrible issues thus offered them, we have seen that many of them did choose this last; but our contempt is disarmed, and only our pity is awakened, as we peruse their melancholy history. The toleration, however, that prevailed in Holland afforded a means of escape alike from the humiliation and the danger in which they were living. As the century advanced, increasing numbers of New Christians made their escape to the Low Countries, where they renounced the false profession they had made, and returned openly to their ancient worship. It has been already mentioned that in 1598 the first Jewish synagogue was built in Amsterdam. Ten or twelve years afterwards the numbers had so increased that a second became necessary, and in 1618 a third.
But it was not only the exiles from Spain and Portugal who crowded into Holland as a harbour of refuge. From many parts of Germany and the contiguous countries, whenever the flame of persecution broke out, as it was ever apt to do on the slightest provocation, the Jews, who had heard of the justice and favour shown to their countrymen by the Dutch, came to partake of it themselves. From Poland and Lithuania, again, thousands of Jews emigrated, driven from their homes by the ravages committed by the Cossacks, who, under Chelmnicki, had risen against their Polish masters. A large proportion of these settled in the United Provinces. One company, which consisted of three thousand, landed at Texel, and there were many others almost as numerous. After some inquiry they were received at Amsterdam, and permission given them to build a synagogue.