The tenacity of the mind of the Israelite was amazing. It never relaxed its hold upon a valuable idea once within its grasp. Much as it communicated, its secretive character induced it always to suppress far more than it imparted, a habit which increased its mysterious influence. It had the peculiar quality of immediately quickening into life the more sluggish mental natures of all with whom it was brought in contact. No disposition, however harsh or ascetic, was proof against the exertion of its power. The Jewish colonies, transplanted into the midst of an ignorant population, became at once foci of learning. Bigotry itself regarded with awe and respect the intellectual superiority which anticipated and checked hostile measures directed against its continuance, and, without the employment of force, nullified laws especially enacted for its repression. It was not strange that prosperity maintained in the presence of such obstacles should be attributed to diabolical interference. Into his new home the Jew brought not only the energy and acuteness which were the guaranty of his success, but the intelligent curiosity which was the principal factor of his extraordinary mental development. Not a few possessed extensive libraries, luxuries absolutely unknown in many European countries where even writing materials did not exist, or, if they did, were unavailable. The scattered books to be found in churches and monasteries were palimpsests, ancient parchments from which the productions of classic authors had been laboriously effaced to make room for saintly homilies and patristic legends. Perfection in calligraphy had kept pace with the other artistic achievements of the Spanish Hebrews. Their Biblical manuscripts had a world-wide celebrity for accuracy of text and beauty of ornamentation. Many were illuminated with arabesques and floral designs executed in colors and embellished with gold. So highly were these copies of the Scriptures valued that in Spain one of but ordinary merit readily brought a hundred crowns.
The number of Hebrew writers who attained distinction in the Middle Ages was enormous. The great catalogue of Bartholoccius, which enumerates those of Spain, Italy, and France—countries particularly subject, directly and individually, to Arab influence—fills four volumes in folio and contains four thousand names. Among these, authors of Spanish origin largely predominate. The activity of the Hebrew intellect was not hampered by conventional restrictions of sex, nor deterred by the difficulties or demands of any profession or calling. Among that people, precautions arising from Oriental jealousy, which had been observed from time immemorial, required the seclusion of women; and this custom was naturally unfavorable to female education. They were practically the slaves, first of their fathers, then of their husbands. In public they always appeared veiled from head to foot. In so little esteem were they ordinarily held, that it was not considered necessary to instruct them even in the doctrines of religion. Whatever talents, therefore, Jewish females possessed were, until the Saracen domination in Europe, unknown and undeveloped.
The educational facilities afforded the Moorish women under the beneficent sway of the Ommeyade khalifs, and the prominence attained by many of them in the world of letters, did not fail to exercise its influence upon the habits and the career of their Jewish sisters. This fact is of the greatest importance, in view of the strict subordination enforced upon Hebrew women in all periods of their history, a regulation largely due to their naturally dependent condition and their alleged intellectual inferiority. In the cultivated society of Cordova, the stubborn tenacity of long-established prejudice vanished before the enlightened and progressive spirit of the age. Under such circumstances, even the severe authority of the rabbis became, in a measure, relaxed; and while the names of no Jewish women pre-eminently distinguished for learning have come down to us, it is an unquestionable fact that they were allowed to enjoy, to an extent hitherto unprecedented, the literary advantages whose possession was generally admitted to constitute an exclusive privilege of the masculine sex. As the policy and traditions of the Synagogue discouraged such innovations, it is not strange that no record of their results has been preserved. The exhaustive researches of Kayserling have brought to light the name of a single Hebrew poetess, Xemosa, of the era of the khalifate; but all particulars of time and locality, of her literary career, and of the character of her works are missing.
The most remarkable peculiarity of the Hebrew character was its versatility. In every pursuit in which his talents were employed the Jew of Spanish origin rose to unrivalled distinction. The marvellous erudition and diversified accomplishments of their scholars were not inferior to those of the Moorish philosophers of Cordova in the most glorious days of Moslem dominion. They became equally proficient in many branches of abstruse science, any one of which was sufficient to exhaust the mental resources of an ordinary student. Their eminence in the practice of medicine gave rise to the popular belief that an admixture of Jewish blood was absolutely essential to success in that profession, an opinion not confined to the vulgar, but seriously discussed by a learned Italian historian. The fact that the study of astronomy should have been almost always combined with that of medicine is one of the most singular incidents in the annals of literature. It might be explained by a predilection for astrology, if Hebrew intelligence had not long outgrown the belief in that delusion, so prevalent in the infancy of knowledge. In familiarity with the visible heavens, with the motions of the planets, and the relative position of stars, in accuracy of mathematical calculation, in dexterous use of the astrolabe and the armillary sphere, they surpassed all other observers except the Arabs. So popular was this science among them in Spain during the thirteenth century that the Jewish astronomers of Toledo alone exceeded in numbers all the others of Christian Europe combined. The invaluable services they rendered to learning were not inferior to the ingenious methods by which they facilitated international communication and promoted the convenience and security of trade. When suddenly expelled from France by Philip Augustus, they left with Christians in whom they could confide their personal property, which, from its bulk or its value, they were unable to carry with them. After their arrival in Italy, they drew through Lombard merchants upon the custodians of their chattels, either for the goods themselves or for the cash realized from their sale. In this way Europe became indebted to the Jews for the general introduction of bills of exchange, previously invented by their countrymen at Barcelona, which from a benefit to mercantile transactions in the settlement of foreign obligations have now grown to be a commercial necessity.
Popular prejudice against the Hebrew nationality was aggravated, not only because of the eminent ability in matters of literature and finance, implying superiority, which it displayed, but on account of its control of the markets of the world and of its possession of the greater part of the money in circulation west of the Bosphorus. From the tenth century, when the Moorish ports of Southern Spain had become the emporiums of the Mediterranean, to the sixteenth, when the discovery of Columbus and the passage of the Cape of Good Hope had opened a new field to the cupidity and ambition of Europe, the trade of three great continents was subservient to the enterprise of the Jews. The commercial heritage bequeathed to their allies by the Phœnicians had endured through changes of empire, through the wrecks of successive dynasties, through persecutions of incredible atrocity, for more than twenty centuries.
The persistency which is a marked ethnological peculiarity of the Jews is at once the cause and the effect of their claim to Divine favor. The more intelligent of that people have never expected the appearance of a personal Messiah. They regard the popular myth of his coming as symbolizing the termination of national exile,—a mere allegorical allusion to the eventual independence and tranquillity which hope, deepening through ages into belief, assured them would one day be the condition of their race. This conviction, founded rather in the knowledge of its justice than in any well-defined prospect of its realization, sustained them through a long series of grievous trials and misfortunes. Accused of crimes such as the utmost ingenuity of malice has never imputed to any other sect, they retaliated by acts of self-sacrifice and generosity. In the midst of the futile solemnities of the Church, the pomp of processions, the intonation of litanies, the muttering of prayers, the smoking of censers, the exhibition of relics, they administered the remedies of scientific medicine to the suffering stricken with the pestilence. During the first visitation of the plague at Venice, in addition to a liberal donation, they lent the government a hundred thousand ducats for the relief of the poor. In time of national peril, their loyalty never faltered, except when their spirit had been exasperated by continued oppression. The funds they advanced were employed to drive the Arabs out of Spain. Moorish domination, established through their instrumentality, was thus indebted to their contributions for its overthrow. The most exacting requirements of retributive justice were certainly satisfied with the penalty exacted by fate for this perfidious act of ingratitude.
Modern prejudice, like mediæval ignorance, is reluctant to confess the obligations learning owes to Hebrew genius and industry. The Jews were, in turn, the teachers, the pupils, and the coadjutors of the Moors; the legatees and the distributors of the precious stores of Arab wisdom. The rabbis, few of whom, it may be remarked, were not expert workmen in the mechanical trades, a knowledge of which was enjoined by their religion, spread the love of letters everywhere. All treatises in Arabic, of practical or scientific value, were translated into Hebrew. Their familiarity with every branch of classical literature is apparent in their writings; even the Fables of Æsop were reproduced in their language. Purity of diction and elegance of style were striking characteristics of all the literary productions of the Spanish Jews. The most eminent Christian prelates of Spain during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were apostate rabbis. The proficiency of their medical practitioners has already been repeatedly alluded to. For years after the banishment of the Jews from the Peninsula, entire districts remained without the benefits of medical treatment. Such as were able resorted to foreign countries at great expense and inconvenience; the vast majority of invalids suffered without relief. The reputation of the Hebrew was so great, even in the sixteenth century, that Francis I. sent to the Emperor Charles V. for a Jewish physician; and one who had been converted to Christianity having undertaken the journey to Paris, the French king refused to receive him as soon as he learned that he was an apostate. Hebrew erudition exercised no small influence on both Moorish and Spanish literature. Many of the treatises of the Jewish philosophers, written in Arabic, enjoyed a wide circulation in the cultivated society of the khalifate and of the principalities which succeeded it. The first biography of the Cid was written by Ibn-Alfange, a Jew. The collection of tales entitled El Conde Lucanor, by Don Juan Manuel, is borrowed from a composition of similar character by Moses Sephardi, a Hebrew fabulist.
In the works of all the distinguished Jewish writers who had either directly or remotely been subjected to the influence of the Moslem academies of Spain, Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic opinions prevail. Orthodox Judaism could not survive in the atmosphere of those infidel institutions. The rabbis were, without exception, to a greater or less degree, infected with pantheistic ideas. They were firm believers in the heretical doctrine of Emanation and Absorption. In common with their Arabic associates, who had long since repudiated the legends of the Koran, they accepted in all its portentous significance the aphorism, “Science is religion.”
Nothing is more remarkable in the history of the Jews of the Middle Ages than their survival under persecution. The most awful calamities failed to impair their organization or destroy their faith. They were naturally a rebellious people. Their ancient history is a tale of breaches of faith, treason, and sedition. They were enslaved in a body by Egiza, King of the Visigoths, for a conspiracy which aimed at the overthrow of the monarchy. The Crusaders, inflamed by the harangues of the clergy, on their march to Palestine butchered them wherever found. In France alone a hundred thousand were massacred by the truculent soldiers of the Cross. The Almohade fanatics drove them out of Spain. Philippe le Bel confiscated their property and expelled them from his kingdom. Henry III., of England, sold all the Jews in his dominions to his brother Richard for a large sum of money. The Emperor Louis IV. pawned the Hebrew colony of the city of Spires, like so much merchandise, to the Bishop as security for a debt. In Aragon, at the close of the fifteenth century, fifty thousand were put to death and double that number compelled to renounce their religion. The popes alternately treated them with severity and indulgence, as the financial condition of the Holy See was prosperous or necessitous. Thus, while grievously oppressed in other countries of Europe, they often enjoyed temporary immunity in Italy. Possessed of no civil rights, existing only by sufferance, they were the prey of every one clothed for the moment with power. Church and State, alike, regarded them as a most valuable source of income. The money annually extorted from the Jewish population of a kingdom was frequently far in excess of all other revenues combined.
The Hebrew works of mediæval antiquity contain the germs of scientific discoveries which modern pride is pleased to designate as of comparatively recent origin. In the Zohar, a collection of treatises belonging to the Kabbala, are embodied highly philosophic cosmological ideas, and rational conceptions relating to the vital principle of Nature, and the scientific treatment of disease, which were subsequently applied to public instruction and practical use in the famous schools of Salerno and Montpellier. The various physiognomical changes wrought upon the lineaments of the human countenance by the cultivation of benevolent instincts or the indulgence of evil passions are there described with a faithfulness which points to an extraordinary insight into the incentives and desires which control the actions of men. In this remarkable compilation of Hebrew learning, the doctrine of Pantheism, as suggested by the time-honored philosophy of India, is set forth; the globular form of the earth, its diurnal revolution on its axis, the varying phases of that planet, the difference in the length of day and night at the equator and the poles, and the scientific reasons for the existence of these phenomena, are all described with an accuracy which is wonderful when the general ignorance of the epoch during which these opinions, so far in advance of the time, were promulgated, is remembered. In the thirteenth century, Jedediah-ben-Abraham, of Béziers, advanced the hypothesis that all objects impelled in opposite directions, and undisturbed by other forces, move in straight lines,—the essential element of one of the laws now universally recognized as governing the motions of the heavenly bodies. Solomon-ben-Virga, a Spanish refugee, in his historical treatise, Sebeth-Jehuda, published in the sixteenth century, states that the earth, equally attracted by the surrounding stars, remains suspended in the midst of space; an unmistakable conception of the principle of gravity which antedates its republication in Europe by more than a hundred years. The philosophical truths just enumerated, which anticipate the important discoveries of Boerhaave, Lavater, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, afford a suggestive idea of the attainments of the rabbis, the accuracy of their reasoning, and the extent and profundity of their scientific knowledge.