Thus arose a sect in Poland which, logically developed, might have given a fatal blow to Christianity in general. The ashes of Servetus of Aragon, burned at the stake in Geneva, the author of a treatise, "On the Errors of the Trinity," seem to have been the seed for fresh dissensions in the church. A number of his disciples, Socinus, Blandrata, and Paruta, Italians of bold intellect, who undermined the foundations of Christianity, and were outlawed by Catholics and Reformers alike, passed over the Polish frontier, and were allowed not only to live there free, but also to speak freely. The attacks of the Socinians or Pinczovinians (as this sect, which flourished in Poland, was called) were directed mainly against the Trinity as a form of polytheism. Hence they received the name of Unitarians or anti-Trinitarians. There arose a swarm of sects who met at synodic conventions to find grounds of union, but separated with still further divisions and dissensions.
Among the Unitarians, or disbelievers in the Trinity, were some who partially approached Judaism, rejecting the veneration of Jesus as a divine person. They were scoffed at by their various opponents as "Half-Jews" (semi-judaizantes). To the strictest sect of Unitarians in Poland belonged Simon Budny, of Masovia, a Calvinist priest, who founded a sect of his own, the Budnians. He died after 1584. He possessed more learning than the other founders of sects, and also had a slight knowledge of Hebrew, which he had probably learned from Jews. Simon Budny made himself famous by his simple translation of the Old and the New Testament into Polish (published at Zaslaw, 1572). His intercourse with Jews is shown by his respect for the universally despised Talmud.
Although the movement of religious reform in Poland, in spite of the frequent synods, disputations, and protests, did not penetrate very deep, it was not without effect upon the Jews. They were fond of entering into discussions with the leaders or adherents of the various sects, if not to convert them to Judaism, yet to show their own superiority in biblical knowledge. Conversations upon religion between Jews and "Dissenters" (as all Poles who had seceded from Roman Catholicism were called) were of frequent occurrence. A Unitarian, Martin Czechowic (born about 1530, died 1613), from Greater Poland, a man of confused intellect, who had passed through all the phases of the religious movements of the day, and who finally became a schismatic, rejected the baptism of infants, and maintained that a Christian could not undertake any office of state. This Martin Czechowic had written a work to refute the objections of the Jews to the Messianic claims of Jesus, and had fought against the continued obligatoriness of Judaism with old and rusty weapons. A Rabbanite Jew, Jacob of Belzyce, in Lublin (1581), wrote a refutation, so effective that Czechowic found himself compelled to justify his thesis in a rejoinder.
Isaac ben Abraham Troki, of Troki, near Wilna (born 1533, died 1594), a Karaite, engaged still more actively than Jacob of Belzyce in disputations with the adherents of Polish and Lithuanian sects. He had access to nobles, princes of the church, and other Christian circles, was deeply acquainted with the Bible, well read in the New Testament, and in the different polemical, religious writings of his day, and thus able to produce thoroughly accurate statements. Shortly before his death (1593) Isaac Troki collected the results of his religious conversations in a work that was subsequently to serve as the arsenal for destructive weapons against Christianity. He entitled his work "The Strengthening of Faith." He not merely answered the numerous attacks made upon Judaism by Christians, but carried the war into the camp of Christianity. With great skill and thorough knowledge of his subject, he brought into prominence the contradictions and untenable assertions in the Gospels and other original Christian documents. It is the only book by a Karaite author worth reading. It certainly does not contain anything specially new; all brought forward in defense of Judaism and against Christianity had been far better said by Spanish authors of a previous period, especially by the talented Profiat Duran. Yet Troki's work had more success, for books have a fate of their own. This book was translated into Spanish, Latin, German, and French, and gained still greater fame from the attacks upon it by Christians. One of the dukes of Orleans undertook to refute the onslaught of this Polish Jew upon Christianity. And when Reason, awakened and strengthened, applied the lever to shake the foundations of Christianity and demolish the whole superstructure, it was to this store-chamber that she turned for her implements.
[CHAPTER XIX.]
SETTLEMENT OF JEWS IN HOLLAND.—FEEBLE ATTEMPTS AT ENFRANCHISEMENT.
Revival of Catholicism—Decay in European Culture—Ill-treatment of Jews in Berlin—Emperor Rudolph II of Austria—Diminution in the Numbers of Italian Jews—Pope Gregory XIII—Confiscation of Copies of the Talmud—Vigorous Attempts at the Conversion of Jews—Pope Sixtus V—The Jewish Physician, David de Pomis—Renewal of Persecution by Clement VIII—Expulsion from Various Italian States—The Censors and the Talmud—The Jews of Ferrara—Settlement of Jews in Holland—Samuel Pallache—Jacob Tirado and the Marranos in Amsterdam—Tolerant Treatment—The Poet, David Jesurun—Moses Uri—Hebrew Printing in Amsterdam.
1593–1618 C.E.
The free spirit of the nations of Europe, which at the beginning of the century had taken so bold a flight, had broken the ancient bonds in which the church had long held minds captive, and cast the blight of doubt on the hitherto sacred authority of the wearer of the Roman purple—this spirit, which promised to bring the regeneration of civilized humanity and political freedom, seemed in the second half of the century to be utterly cast down. The papacy, or Catholicism, had recovered from its first feeling of terror, and collected itself. Extraordinarily strengthened by the council of Trent, it forged new chains to which the nations that had remained faithful, willingly submitted. The order of the Jesuits, restless and indefatigable champions, who not only disarmed their opponents, but even drew them over to their own ranks, had already reconquered much lost ground by their widespread plots, and had conceived new measures in order to win back with double interest what they had lost. Italy, a great part of southern Germany and the Austrian provinces, France—after long civil wars and convulsions, after the blood-stained eve of St. Bartholomew, and the murder of two kings—as also to a great extent Poland and Lithuania, had once more become Catholic, as fanatically Catholic, too, as Spain and Portugal, the blazing hells of the Inquisition. In Lutheran and reformed Germany another papacy had gained the mastery, a papacy of dry formulas of belief, and slavery to the letter of the law. The Byzantine quarrel about shadowy dogmas and meaningless words divided the evangelical communities into as many sects and subsidiary sects as there were points of discussion, and had a harmful influence upon political development. Classical philology, at first liberalizing and suggestive, was neglected, owing to excessive belief in the Bible by the one party and the sway of authority over the other, and had degenerated into fanciful dilettanteism or learned lumber. The study of the Hebrew language, which for a time had kindled great enthusiasm, was similarly debased, or only carried on superficially for the purposes of ecclesiastical wrangling. The knowledge of Hebrew had always been considered, at any rate was now thought, in orthodox Catholic society, to be actual heresy. And the same was still truer of rabbinical literature. The learned Spanish theologian, Arias Montano, published the first complete polyglot Bible in Antwerp, at the expense of Philip II. He also compiled grammars and dictionaries of the Hebrew and cognate languages, in which regard was had to the older Jewish expositors. He, the favorite of Philip II, who had himself drawn up a list of heretical books, was accused by the Jesuits and the Inquisition of favoring heresy, suspected of secret conversion to Judaism, and stigmatized as a rabbi. Thus, Europe seemed to be actually making a retrograde movement, only with this distinction—what had formerly been cheery, naïve credulity now became sinister, aggressive fanaticism.