CHAPTER IX.

THE ENTRANCE OF THE JEWS INTO SPAIN.

JEWS SETTLE IN SPAIN DURING THE REIGN OF KING SOLOMON.--JEWISH AGRICULTURAL SKILL MAKES ANDALUSIA THE GARDEN SPOT OF EUROPE.--PROSPERITY THE GREAT CRIME OF THE JEWS.--THE BEGINNING OF JEWISH PERSECUTIONS IN EUROPE.--CRUEL LAWS.--VENGEANCE.--JEWS CONSPIRE WITH COUNT JULIAN AND MOORS AGAINST SPAIN.--VICTORY.--MOORISH APPRECIATION OF THE SERVICES OF THE JEWS.

The week had passed. It was Sabbath Eve once more. Again we assembled in the library hall of Chasdai ben Isaac to listen to the narrative of "The Entrance of the Jews into Spain." When all were gathered Chasdai began and spoke as follows: History is more communicative about the entrance of the Jews into Spain than she is about their entrance into any of the other West European countries. The Bible gives us sufficient basis to build upon the fairly reliable theory that as early as the time of King Solomon (1,000 B. C.) the Iberian peninsula was known to the Israelites, that considerable traffic was carried on between them and the autochtones of the Southwestern corner of Europe, and that a settlement of a Jewish colony within the sunny lands of Andalusia may have taken place then. We have a tradition which tells us, that when in the early days of the Christian era the Jews of Spain were attacked for having crucified Jesus, they claimed that neither they nor their fathers had any share in the crucifixion, that they were the descendants of Jews who lived in Spain long before the time of Christ, and produced a gravestone upon which was inscribed: "This is the grave of Adonirams, the servant of Solomon the king, who came hither to collect the tribute for the king."

We know that when the Romans became complete masters of Spain in the second century B. C. they found a considerable number of Israelites domiciled there. About 60 A. C. the Jewish community of Spain must have been strong and influential enough to make the coming of the Apostle Paul among them necessary.[16]

[16] Romans xv:28.

Crowds of exiles wandered westward and swelled their number after the terrible siege of Jerusalem by Titus, and in addition 80,000 slaves are said to have been transferred thither and sold as slaves and speedily ransomed by their more fortunate brethren. Historic sources are agreed that these Jewish inhabitants of Spain by their passionate fondness for agricultural pursuits, a passion which they had brought along from the Holy Land, soon made Andalusia the garden spot of Europe, and by their industry, frugality, skill in traffic and intellectual powers, they became the pillars of the country's prosperity and acquired great wealth and distinction.

It could not have been otherwise. In habits, aims and ambitions there was an organic difference between the Jews and their warlike fellow citizens. The Romans, as well as the Visigoths, were wedded to military life. Every other calling or pursuit was degrading in their eyes. Trading or tilling the soil was in their eyes only befitting the slave. The uncertainty of their future, their roaming life, their habit of living from plunder, developed in them traits that were just the opposite to those of the Jews. The Jew hated war. His love for home was intense. His industry and frugality, his religious life and his love of study, were proverbial, and so in proportion as the others increased in brutality and ignorance, in poverty and moral corruption, the Jews reached the heights of prosperity, morality and intellect.

That prosperity, however, proved to be their curse. It is a mistake to believe that the greatest crime of the Jews was their faith; it was their prosperity. Idlers and spendthrifts have never yet been thrilled with ecstatic delight at another's prosperity, and never is their venom more poisonous and their wrath more bitter than when the Jew is unfortunate enough to be fortunate. In Spain, as elsewhere, a mighty power of soldiers, and monks, and priests, and dependants, all unproductive laborers, stood arrayed against the handful of Jews, the only productive laborers of the realm, and the battle cry was not the Jews' money, but the Jews' "soul." There was great diplomacy in this battle cry. They knew of the intensity of the Jew's faith in his religion. They knew how he was wedded to the traditions and hopes of his race. They knew that he would cheerfully part with all his treasures rather than sacrifice an iota of his belief. They knew that the industrial, and economical, and intellectual, and peace and home-loving traits of the Jew were so deeply rooted, that he would at once begin anew to acquire again, perhaps for the same end, all that had been cruelly torn from him, just as the bees, nothing daunted by the theft of their painfully hoarded wealth, will start anew to fill the hive. And so, whenever they had need of the money of the Jews, and that need was, alas, a frequent one, they became all at once painfully concerned about the Jewish soul, and its final fate, and they never failed to relieve the Jews of their treasures, even if they failed in the saving of their souls.

Spain took the lead in Jewish persecutions and maintained its odious distinction for centuries. Henceforth there is no lack of historic material concerning the Jews in Spain. But, alas! until the time of the conquest of Spain by the Moors, it is not a history of achievement, it is a history of suffering--a martyrology. That martyrology began with the Third Council of Toledo (589 A. C.) at which Recaredo presented his abjuration of Arianism and was anointed as the first Catholic monarch of Spain. At that council laws were passed, of which the spirit may be comprehended from the following preamble and titles:

"Laws concerning the promulgation and ratification of statutes against Jewish wickedness, and for the general extirpation of Jewish errors. That the Jews may not celebrate the Passover according to their usage; that the Jews may not contract marriage according to their own customs; that the Jews may not practice the Abrahamitic rite; that the Jews bring no actions against Christians; that the Jews be not permitted to bear witness against Christians."

The Jews knew what was wanted; they paid a large sum of money, and the laws remained inoperative till Recaredo's successor, Sisebuto, ascended the throne. This king entered into a league with Emperor Heraclius, with the pious determination of "extirpating the dangerous race throughout the world," and so he issued a law which gave the Jews a year's time to decide whether they would confess Christ and be baptized, or be shaved and scourged, their property confiscated, and themselves forced to leave the country.[17]

[17] "Confessar la region cristian y bantizarse, o ser decalvados, azotados, lanzados del reino y conficados sus bienes." Codex Visigothorum xii., tit. iii.

Ninety thousand are said to have submitted to baptism, but with them the enforced Christian rite was but a mask for their secret Jewish belief and practices. And they had ample cause for regretting their religious weakness, for baptism did not secure them from new indignities and humiliation. They were despised for their apostacy, and their property was taken from them as if they had not complied with the king's edict. Thousands upon thousands fled to the northern coasts of Africa, and with them fled the prosperity from the Gothic kingdom.

Having once discovered so excellent a source for satisfying their greed for money, they had no intention of letting such golden opportunities escape them. A few years had passed, and the baptized Jews, true to their industrial and economical habits, had hoarded up some wealth with which they might buy life from the infuriated mob, and so the Fourth Council met at Toledo, in the year 633, and enacted the cruel requirement that the children of those, who had accepted Christianity, should be torn, forever, from their parent's heart, to be educated by Christians in the Christian faith. The Sixth Council enacted a law, that every king on his accession shall take an oath, that he will execute all the laws against the Jews, and will issue others equally as severe. Another law enacted the punishment of death upon Christians, who should embrace Judaism, or commit "the monstrous and unutterable crime of pursuing an execrable commerce with the ungodly." The Ninth Council decreed, that all baptized Jews were bound to appear in the church, not only on Christian, but also on Jewish holidays, lest, while they outwardly profess Christianity, they should practice secretly Judaism.

The Twelfth Council, of Toledo, 681, far surpassed its predecessors in the cruelties of its enactments. The preamble complained that "the crafty Jews had eluded all former laws," and then decreed that hereafter 100 lashes would be inflicted upon the naked body, and after that, the offender would be put in chains, banished, and his property confiscated for any of the following offences: For rejecting the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, for not bringing children or servants or dependants to baptism, for observing the Passover, the New Moon, the Feast of Tabernacles, for violating the Christian Sabbath, or the great festivals of the church. The circumcision of a child brought additional tortures, upon the father mutilation, upon the mother the loss of her nose. No marriage was hereafter to be contracted, without solemn obligation that both would become Christians. All subjects of the kingdom who harbored, assisted or concealed the flight of a Jew, were to be scourged, and have their property confiscated. The Jew who read or allowed his children to read books written against Christianity was to suffer 100 lashes; on the second offense the lashes were to be repeated, with banishment and confiscation. No Jew was to hold any office by which he might have authority over Christians.

I shall spare you a recital of the numerous other cruel laws enacted, and the account of the terrible sufferings endured. The land re-echoed the piteous groans and lamentations of the lashed and scourged. Their wealth purchased but temporary immunity and exemption.

"Certainly the heroism of the defenders of every other creed fades into insignificance before this martyr people, who confronted all the evils that the fiercest fanaticism could devise, enduring obloquy and spoliation and the violation of the dearest ties, and the infliction of the most hideous sufferings, rather than abandon their faith. For these were no ascetic monks, dead to all the hopes and passions of life, but were men who appreciated intensely the worldly advantages they relinquished, and whose affections had become all the more lively on account of the narrow circle in which they were confined. Enthusiasm and the strange phenomena of ecstasy, which have exercised so large an influence in the history of persecution, which have nerved so many martyrs with superhuman courage, and have deadened or destroyed the anguish of so many fearful tortures, were here almost unknown. Persecution came to the Jewish nation in its most horrible forms, yet surrounded by every circumstance of petty annoyance that could destroy its grandeur, and it continued for centuries their abiding portion. But above all this the genius of that wonderful people rose supreme. While those around them were grovelling in the darkness of besotted ignorance; while juggling miracles and lying relics were the themes on which almost all Europe was expatiating; while the intellect of Christendom, enthralled by countless superstitions, had sunk into a deadly torpor, in which all love of enquiry and all search for truth were abandoned, the Jews were still pursuing the path of knowledge, amassing learning, and stimulating progress with the same unflinching constancy that they manifested in their faith."[18]

[18] Lecky's Rationialism in Europe, (pages 270-271) vol. 2, chap. 6, and also the following from Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella (p. 192), vol. 1:

"Under the Visigothic empire the Jews multiplied exceedingly in the country, and were permitted to acquire considerable power and wealth. But no sooner had their Arian masters embraced the orthodox faith, than they began to testify their zeal by pouring on the Jews the most pitiless storm of persecution. One of their laws alone condemned the whole race to slavery: and Montesquieu remarks, without much exaggeration, that to the Gothic code may be traced all the maxims of the modern Inquisition, the monks of the fifteenth century only copying, in reference to the Israelites, the bishops of the seventh."

The enemy succeeded in impoverishing the Jew, and in stifling his energies and efforts for the good of the country, but failed ignominiously in their effort to inspire him with a love for Christianity, which perhaps was never sincerely wanted, and, if wanted, the means chosen to secure the end were not such that are crowned with success. The degraded and tortured Jew was filled with a bitter hatred against Christianity, and with a burning longing for revenge.

* * * * *

And vengeance came. God had heard the wailings and seen the sufferings of the people that never was born to die. The Gothic kingdom of Spain was to suffer bitterly for its terrible crimes and the Jew was to be rewarded a thousandfold for the sufferings he had endured for his religion's sake. Weaker and weaker became that kingdom which the Jews had made in former years the pride of Europe. It was beset by foes within and by foes without. The tyranny of the church and of the throne had instigated dissatisfaction among the grandees of the state, and the insult of Roderick, the king, to Florinda, the young and beautiful daughter of Count Ilyan aroused this bravest of Spanish warriors and numerous powerful friends of his into open rebellion.

Nearer and nearer drew the Arab-Moors. They reached the Northwestern point of Africa, where the Jews, who had fled and who had been banished thither, and who had risen there to power and influence, greeted them with a hearty welcome. The martial sound of the Moslem hosts made as pleasant music to their ears as to the insulted father and his wrath-inspired followers. Both parties conspired with the Moorish chief, Amir Musa Ibn Nosseyr, for the invasion of Spain. Musa grasped eagerly at this ardently wished-for opportunity. He dispatched his valiant warrior Tarik, with 12,000 men across the narrow strait that separated Africa from Europe, and Islam from Christianity. Roderik met him at the banks of the Guadalete with an army eight times as large, and that day was the last Spain beheld him and his army. On that day Christianity ceased to rule within the land of Spain, and as its power sank, there dawned once more the sun of prosperity unto Israel.

The Moors did not forget the valuable services of the Jews. The early hatred against them in Arabia, for refusing to accept the creed of Mohammed, had long since been converted into tolerance and good will. Unlike the religion of Christianity, which started as the religion of love and soon became the religion of the sword, Islamism began as the religion of the sword but soon become the religion of love. Political and religious freedom and social recognition was granted to the Jew throughout the caliphate, and from that day unto this the two Oriental people have lived in peace side by side upon the Occidental soil, viewing with each other in their noble efforts to restore unto Spain her original beauty and prosperity, and to make her in culture and art and intelligence the mistress of Europe. We, sons of Israel, have labored hard and zealously in this noble contest, but with all our efforts our rival has passed beyond us, and humbly we cede the palm of victory to the Arab-Moors."

Here Chasdai ben Isaac ceased. He had spoken of the sufferings of the Jews with such perceptible anguish, he had related the part which the Jews took in the conquest of Spain with such vivid animation, and referred to the prosperity of the Jews under Moorish sway, and to Moorish tolerance and intellectual greatness, with such touching pathos that when he paused, a deep impressive silence ensued. At length Abdallah ben Xamri, the Moorish poet laureate to Caliph Abder Rahman III., arose, advanced towards Chasdai, and bowing low, thus he spoke:

"Your modesty must not bridle my tongue. I would appear an ingrate to my people should it become known that I listened in silence to your last remarks. The Arab-Moors forgot not their benefactors, nor are they so boastful as to arrogate to themselves, or allow others to bestow upon them a superiority which is unmerited.

Within our heart of hearts we treasure the services which your people have rendered. We owe the Hebrew people much more than your modesty, noble Chasdai, has suffered you to claim. You opened the portals of Spain unto us, and to you alone belongs the credit of turning Spain once again into a paradise, for a hundred years of uninterrupted warfare under the banner of Islam, had unfitted us for agricultural and mechanical and intellectual and artistic pursuits. You sowed the seeds of our prosperity. We sat at the feet of your masters, and if we have proven ourselves apt scholars, we bear testimony to the excellency of your teachers. Far be it from us to claim superiority over our honored rival. In the arts and sciences and philosophies your people hold distinguished places. Your theologians have given us many a problem which the wisest among us have failed to solve. In the purity of your home and social life, and in your industries you serve the world as models. In poetry I should never venture to compete for supremacy with friend Dunash ben Labrat and Menachem ben Saruk. In diplomacy, where lives the man who can equal you in intellect and sagacity, to whom else do we owe our political greatness than to you, Chasdai ben Isaac, the Jewish minister of our beloved Caliph Abder Rahman III."