And his trust was justified. Called ‘heretic’ by some faithful, fearful co-religionists whilst he lived, posterity has deliberately and unanimously reversed their sentence. Among the great men of Israel, Maimonides has long been accorded a place in the foremost rank.‘From Moses unto Moses,’ says one Jewish proverb, ‘there has been none like unto Moses.’[42] His books, once condemned, forbidden, and burnt in the open market-place, are now among the works which no orthodox Jewish theologian’s library may be without. Some of his doctrines, certainly, still leave room for amicable discussion, but the important hymns of [a]אְדוֹן עוֹלָם] and [a]יִנְדַּל] which are founded on his teachings have an honoured home in the Jewish prayer-book.
7. The End of his Life.—In 1204, when not quite seventy years old, Maimonides died, rich in ‘honour, fame, and troops of friends.’ He was happy in his domestic relations, and his honest, earnest belief that the good of all creeds and of all nations have a share in the life to come, made him in full sympathy with ‘all sorts and conditions of men’ in this life. An upright and consistent Jew, he lived on the pleasantest terms with the large Mahomedan circle of which he was a prominent and distinct figure. He was courteous without undue concession, helpful without unnecessary interference, and thus self-respecting, wasuniversally respected. Maimonides had to bear the sorrow of the death of several children, but a good and clever son survived, to follow the great Jewish philosopher to his honoured grave in Tiberias.
CHAPTER XXIX.
DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN.
1. The Stars die out.—Maimonides was not only the greatest of the fixed stars in the Jewish literary firmament of the Middle Ages, but he was also the last star that found a chance of shining through the ever-gathering gloom. Denser and denser grew the thick clouds, and, one by one, the stars waned and died out. Even had stars continued to arise, brilliant enough and near enough to pierce that terrible thick darkness, life to the Jewish nation was fast becoming so mere a hurrying from death, that the frantic, stumbling struggle would have left little opportunity or inclination for stargazing. There was no leisure to look up. Jews had to ‘take heed to their ways’ in the saddest and most sordid sense. And even the heedfulness was hopeless of result. The brute force, and the bigoted faith, of the age were both arrayed against the Jews, and oppressions culminated in edicts of expulsion. In 1290 the race was exiled from England, in 1394 from France, and in 1492 from Spain.
2. Whither the Exiles went.—The English exiles had little choice of asylum. The ‘sea-girt isle’pushed them from her shores, and the nearest ports must have seemed to promise least misery in the way of transit, and most chance of safe landing somewhere. As the opposite coast of France came in view, it must have looked to those poor sea-sick and heart-sick fugitives as if the worst of their troubles were over. They disembarked at any and all of the French ports which would take them in, and journeyed hither and thither inland, eager and grateful to share the comparative security of their French brethren. They did not stay to think how unsafe it all was; they did not look back to see how, but sixteen years before, under a decree of Philip the Fair, the Jews of France had been in like evil case with themselves, nor did they look forward through a gloomy hundred years to see all this dreary drama of exile acted over again, with added details of hardship. It was, perhaps, well for them that they could only see a little way at a time.
3. Life in Germany.—The English Jews who went further, and found a refuge in the German states, like the Continental Jews who joined them there, when exiled a century later, were certainly no better off. Germany, so called, extended from Russia in the east to the Netherlands in the west; and Jewish settlements existed in all the principal states and provinces. In the flourishing cities on the banks of the Danube or the Elbe, on the Maine or the Rhine, the Jews were all nominally ‘serfs of the Imperial Chamber,’ and avowedly under the protection of the Emperor. This ‘protection’ consisted in the Emperor, for the time being, possessingthe first, and, in theory, the sole right of plunder. German Jews were the Emperor’s Jews—his absolutely. He might sell them, or pawn them, or make presents or legacies of them. And, as a rule, the Emperors did protect this property of theirs from other depredators. If the vassal princes of the various states desired to plunder the Jews, they had to do it after a fashion that should not be found out. For this ‘protection,’ the Jews, of course, had to pay a tax to their protector. On some occasions it was raised so high as a third of each man’s ascertainable property. To regular, or irregular, taxation the Jews generally submitted, for any outbreak of resistance only made matters worse.
Towards the end of the thirteenth century, with the new influx of French exiles, things altogether looked so desperate in the German states, that a large number of Jews, principally from the Rhenish provinces, determined on emigrating to Palestine. Rudolph of Hapsburg, the then reigning Emperor, was very angry at this prospect of losing so large a slice out of his revenue. He at once confiscated all the Jewish goods on which he could lay his hands, and, as a speculation, seized on the chief Rabbi of Germany, and held him as a prisoner in one of his castles in Alsace. Rudolph calculated on getting a large ransom for his Rabbi, and the Jews would gladly enough have paid generously for his release. But the Rabbi refused to be ransomed. He would not play into his enemies’ hands in that way. It was too easy a mode of raising money, and one that, if he yielded to it, would most certainly become a precedent. So theRabbi declined his liberty on such terms, and he died a prisoner.
Unlike England and France and Spain, Germany never went to the length of expelling her Jews altogether, but she would hunt them, now and again, from place to place in her dominions, and the hospitality she extended to them was, at best, the hospitality of a sponging-house. There is not a state, nor a province, nor a city of now united Germany which has not, at some time or other, taken its evil share in ill-treatment of the Jews. Prague, in Bohemia, could, perhaps, tell the most sensational tales of all, if it were well or wise to write out such sad stories in sober pen and ink. But the good old rule is best: ‘Write kindnesses in marble, and injuries in dust.’ It is sufficient to say emphatically that things did not improve. Towards the end of the fifteenth century the poor persecuted Jews of Germany made another effort at emigration, but not to Palestine this time, for the feeling which inspired the crusades had done its work, and the site of the ‘Holy Sepulchre’ was considered, at this date, too holy for Jewish feet to profane with their tread. By order of the Popes, the masters of vessels, bound for any parts connected with Palestine as a destination, were forbidden to carry Jewish freight or Jewish passengers. Their own land was denied to outcast Jews. Emigration, however, of some sort was growing imminent. Poland and Turkey, in their undeveloped civilisation, were found to be tolerant of aliens, and in these countries Jewish settlements began to be made. There was no general desertionof the German states, but the Jewish element in many of the cities perceptibly dwindled, and, by degrees, only Frankfort, Worms, and Ratisbon continued to be important centres of Jewish life.
4. A New Crusade.—At the beginning of the sixteenth century there was a new sort of crusade got up against the Jews, and what might be called a paper warfare opened upon them in Germany. It was mostly the fault of one man, a wretched apostate named Joseph Pfefferkorn, who, from the same vulgar love of profit and notoriety which had induced him to change his faith, published a silly and offensive pamphlet, ridiculing and abusing the habits and customs of his former co-religionists. Such a crusade as this wretched convert inaugurated was sure of supporters. His chief point for malicious attack was the Talmud, which he represented as the stronghold and storehouse for Jewish crime, stupidity, and superstition. He invented his examples to prove his rule. And the Talmud, for such an object, was well chosen. It is extremely easy to make assertions against a book which very few people can read. Those who were ignorant of the real contents of the Talmud naturally did not like to confess to their ignorance. Jews were an unpopular subject, and it looked so wise and dignified to agree in a condemnation which was apparently founded on much learned research. The Emperor Maximilian listened to Pfefferkorn’s lying revelations, and we may be sure that the priests pricked up their ears. It was all but decided that the ‘horrible book’ which Pfefferkorn denounced should be burnt wholesale. But a saviour was at hand for ‘Rabbi Talmud,’as some of the most ignorant of all called it, actually believing, in their hot haste, that all this wickedness which they were called on to shudder at was contained in a man, and not in a book! There was living at the time a sensible and learned Christian scholar named Reuchlin. He was heartily ashamed of all the stupid malignity, the spite, and the folly. He made a spirited appeal, and not in vain, to the Senate of Frankfort and to the Elector of Mayence. ‘Read the book,’ he bravely urged, ‘before you burn it. The best way to fight Judaism is to try and understand something about it. Burning is no argument.’The Dominican monks were very angry with Reuchlin, but he gained his point, and the Talmud was not burnt that time.[43]