IV. THE AGE OF THE GEONIM…

IV. THE AGE OF THE GEONIM

The Conquests of Islam--Omar's Intolerance--Condition of the Jews in Babylonia--Bostanaï--The Princes of the Captivity and the Geonim--Dignity and Revenues of the Prince --Communal Organization--Excommunication--Julian of Toledo and the Jews--The Moslems in Spain--The Jews and Arabic Literature--The Assyrian Vowel-system--The Neo-Hebraic Poetry: José ben José--Simon ben Caipha--Employment of Rhyme--Jannaï--Eleazar Kaliri--Opposition to the Study of the Talmud--The False Messiah Serenus, the Syrian--The Jews in the Crimea and the Land of the Chazars--The False Messiah Obadia Abu-Isa.

640-760 C. E.

Scarcely ten years after Mahomet's death the fairest lands in the north of Arabia and the northwest of Africa acknowledged the supremacy of the Arabs who, with the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other, swept across the borders of Arabia with the cry: "There is no God but Allah, and Mahomet is his prophet." Although there was no distinguished man at the head of the Arab troops, they conquered the world with far greater speed than the hosts of Alexander of Macedon. The kingdom of Persia, weakened by old age and dissension, succumbed to the first blow, and the Byzantine provinces, Palestine, Syria, and Egypt, whose inhabitants had but little sympathy with the intriguing court of Constantinople, did not offer the slightest resistance to the Arabs.

Medina, an oasis in the great desert, a spot unknown to the different nations, became the lawgiver for millions, just as Rome had been in olden times. The various peoples that had been conquered, had no choice but to recognize Mahomet as a prophet and be converted to Islam, or to pay tribute. The Emperor Heraclius had taken Palestine from the Persians only ten years before it was again lost. Jews and Samaritans both helped the Arabs to capture the land, in order that they might be freed from the heavy yoke of the malignant Byzantine rule. A Jew put into the hands of the Mussulmans the strongly-fortified town of Cæsarea, the political capital of the kingdom, which is said to have contained 700,000 fighting men, amongst whom were 20,000 Jews. He showed them a subterranean passage, which led the besiegers into the heart of the town. The Holy City, too, after a short siege, had to yield to the Mahometan arms. The second successor of Mahomet, the Caliph Omar, took personal possession of Jerusalem (about 638), and laid the foundation-stone of a mosque on the site of the Temple. Bishop Sophronius, who had handed over the keys of Jerusalem to Omar, untaught by the change of fate which he had himself experienced, is said to have made arrangements with the Caliph, in capitulating, that the Jews be forbidden to settle in the Holy City. It is true that Jerusalem was looked upon by the Mussulmans as a holy place, and pilgrimages were made thither by them. It was also called the Holy City (Alkuds) by them, but it was to remain inaccessible to its sons. Omar is said to have driven out both Jews and Christians from Tiberias. Thus ceased the literary activity of the school of that place. They, however, received permission to settle there again under the succeeding Caliphs.

Rising Islam was as intolerant as Christianity. When Omar had driven the Jews out of Chaibar and the Christians out of Najaran, he gave instructions to his generals against the Jews and Christians. These orders were called "the covenant of Omar," and contained many restrictions against the "peoples of the Book" (Jews and Christians). They were not allowed to build new houses of worship, nor to restore those that were in ruins. They had to sing in subdued tones in the synagogues and churches, and were compelled to pray silently for the dead.

They dared not hinder their followers from accepting Islam, and were compelled to show marks of respect to Mussulmans whenever they met them. Further, they were not allowed to fill judicial or administrative offices. They were forbidden to ride on horses, and had to wear marks whereby they could easily be distinguished from the Moslems. Jews and Christians were not allowed to make use of a signet-ring, which was considered a mark of honor. Whilst the Mahometans were exempt from taxes, and at most only had to pay a slight contribution for the poor, Jews and Christians had to pay a poll-tax and ground-rent.

In spite of this fact, the Jews felt themselves freer under the new rule of Islam than they did in the Christian lands. The restrictive laws of Omar were not carried out even during Omar's lifetime, and though the fanatic Mussulmans scorned the Jews for their religion, they did not despise them as citizens, but showed great honor to worthy Jews. The first Mahometans treated the Jews as their equals; they respected them as friends and allies, and took an interest in them even as enemies. The Asiatic and Egyptian Jews consequently treated the Mahometans as their liberators from the yoke of the Christians. A mystical apocalypse makes a distinct reference to the joy experienced at the victory of Islam. Simeon bar Yochaï, who was looked upon as a mystic, foretells the rise of Islam, and bewails the same in the prayer which runs as follows: "Have we not suffered enough through the dominion of the wicked Edom (the Roman-Christian dominion), that the dominion of Ishmael should now rise over us?" Metatoron, one of the chief angels, answers him: "Fear not, son of man! God sets up the kingdom of Ishmael only in order that it may free you from the dominion of the wicked Edom. He raises up a prophet for them, he will conquer countries for them, and there will be great hatred between them and the sons of Esau" (the Christians). Such were the sentiments of the Jews with regard to the conquests of the Mahometans.

The Jews in the ancient Babylonian district (called Irak by the Arabs) attained a great measure of freedom through the victories of the Mahometans. During their campaigns against the last Persian kings, the Jews and the Nestorian Christians, who had been persecuted under the last Sassanian princes, had rendered them much assistance. The Jews and the Chaldean Christians formed the bulk of the population near the Euphrates and the Tigris. Their assistance must have been opportune, as we find even the fanatical Caliph Omar bestowing rewards and privileges upon them. It was, doubtless, in consequence of the services which they had rendered that the Mahometan generals recognized Bostanaï, the descendant of the Exilarch of the house of David, as the chief of the Jews. Omar respected Bostanaï so highly that he gave him a daughter of the Persian king Chosru in marriage. She had been taken prisoner, together with her sisters (642)--a singular turn of fate! The grandson of a race that boasted descent from the house of David married a princess whose ancestors traced their descent from Darius, the founder of the Persian dynasty. Bostanaï was the first Exilarch who was the vassal of the Mahometans.

The Exilarch exercised both civil and judicial functions, and all the Jews of Babylonia formed a separate community under him. Bostanaï also obtained the exceptional permission to wear a signet-ring (Gushpanka). By this means he was able to give his documents and decrees an official character. The seal, in reference to some unknown historical allusion, bore the impress of a fly. Bostanaï must have been an important personage in other respects, since legends cluster about him, and would make his birth itself appear a miraculous event. The Judæo-Babylonian community, which had acquired some importance through Bostanaï, obtained its real strength under Ali, the fourth Caliph, Mahomet's comrade and son-in-law, the hero of Chaibar.

Omar had died at the hands of an assassin (644), and his successor, Othman, had been killed in an insurrection (655). Ali was nominated Caliph by the conspirators, but he had to struggle against many bitter opponents. Islam was divided into two camps. The one declared for Ali, who resided in the newly-built town of Kufa; the other for Moawiyah, a relative of the murdered Caliph Othman.

The Babylonian Jews and Nestorian Christians sided with Ali, and rendered him assistance. A Jew, Abdallah Ibn-Sabâ, was a spirited partisan of Ali. He asserted that the succession to the Caliphate was his by right, and that the divine spirit of Mahomet had passed to him, as it had from Moses to Joshua. It is said that when Ali took the town of Firuz-Shabur or Anbar, 90,000 Jews, under Mar-Isaac, the head of a college, assembled to do homage to the Caliph, who was but indifferently supported by his own followers (658). The unhappy Ali valued this homage, and, doubtless, accorded privileges to the Jewish principal. It is quite probable that from this time the head of the school of Sora was invested with a certain dignity, and took the title of Gaon. There were certain privileges connected with the Gaonate, upon which even the Exilarch did not venture to encroach. Thus a peculiar relation, leading to subsequent quarrels, grew up between the rival offices--the Exilarchate and the Gaonate. With Bostanaï and Mar-Isaac, the Jewish officials recognized by the Caliph, there begins a new period in Jewish history--the Epoch of the Geonim. After Bostanaï's death dissension arose among his sons. Bostanaï had left several sons by various wives, one of them the daughter of the Persian king. Perhaps her son was his father's favorite, because royal blood flowed in his veins, and he was probably destined to be his successor. His brothers by the Jewish wives were consequently jealous of him, and treated him as a slave, i. e., as one that had been born of a captive non-Jewess, who, according to Talmudic law, was looked upon as a slave, so long as he could not furnish proof that either his mother or himself had been formally emancipated. This, however, he could not do. The brothers then determined to sell the favorite, their own brother, as a slave. Revolting as this proceeding was, it was approved by several members of the college of Pumbeditha, partly from religious scruples, partly from the desire to render a friendly service to Bostanaï's legitimate sons. Other authorities, however, maintained that Bostanaï, who was a pious man, would not have married the king's daughter before he had legally freed her, and made her a proselyte. In order to protect her son from humiliation, one of the chief judges, Chaninaï, hastened to execute a document attesting her emancipation, and thus the wicked design of the brothers was frustrated; but the stain of illegitimacy still attached to the son, and his descendants were never admitted to the rank of the descendants of the Exilarch Bostanaï.

Bostanaï's descendants in the Exilarchate arbitrarily deposed the presidents of the colleges, and appointed their own partisans to the vacant places. The religious leaders of the people thus bore Bostanaï's descendants a grudge. Even in later times, an authority amongst the Jews had to defend himself with the words: "I am a member of the house of the Exilarch, but not a descendant of the sons of Bostanaï, who were proud and oppressive." The vehement quarrels about the Caliphate, between the house of Ali and the Ommiyyades, were repeated on a small scale in Jewish Babylonia. The half-century from Bostonaï and the rise of the Gaonate till the Exilarchate of Chasdaï (670 to 730) is in consequence involved in obscurity. Few also of the Geonim who held office and of the presidents of the colleges during this period are known, and their chronological order cannot be ascertained. After Mar-Isaac, probably the first Gaon of Sora, Hunaï held office, contemporaneously with Mar-Raba in Pumbeditha (670 to 680). These presidents issued an important decree with respect to the law of divorce, whereby a Talmudical law was set aside. According to the Talmud, the wife can seek a divorce only in very rare cases, e. g., if the husband suffers from an incurable disease. Even if the wife were seized with an unconquerable aversion to her husband, she could be compelled by law to live with him, and to fulfil her duties, on penalty of losing her marriage settlement, and even her dowry, in case she insisted upon the separation. Through the domination of Islam circumstances were now changed. The Koran had somewhat raised the position of women, and empowered the wife to sue for a divorce. This led many unhappy wives to appeal to the Mahometan courts, and they compelled their husbands to give them a divorce without the aforesaid penalties. It was in consequence of the events just related that Hunaï and Mar-Raba introduced a complete reform of the divorce laws. They entirely abrogated the Talmudical law, and empowered the wife to sue for a divorce without suffering any loss of her property-rights. Thus the law established equality between husband and wife. For the space of forty years (680 to 720), only the names of the Geonim and Exilarchs are known to us; historical details, however, are entirely wanting. During this time, as a result of quarrels and concessions, there arose peculiar relations of the officials of the Jewish-Persian kingdom towards one another, which developed into a kind of constitution.

The Jewish community in Babylonia (Persia), which had the appearance of a state, had a peculiar constitution. The Exilarch and the Gaon were of equal rank. The Exilarch's office was political. He represented Babylonian-Persian Judaism under the Caliphs. He collected the taxes from the various communities, and paid them into the treasury. The Exilarchs, both in bearing and mode of life, were princes. They drove about in a state carriage; they had outriders and a kind of body-guard, and received princely homage.

The religious unity of Judaism, on the other hand, was embodied in the Gaonate of Sora and Pumbeditha. The Geonim expounded the Talmud, with a view to a practical application of its provisions; they made new laws and regulations; administered them, and meted out punishment to those that transgressed them. The Exilarch shared the judicial power with the Gaon of Sora and the head of the college of Pumbeditha.

The Exilarch had the right of nomination to offices, though not without the acquiescence of the college. The head of the college of Sora, however, was alone privileged to be styled "Gaon"; the head of the college of Pumbeditha did not bear the title officially. The Gaon of Sora together with his college, as a rule, was paid greater deference than his colleague of Pumbeditha, partly out of respect to the memory of its great founders, Rab and Ashi, partly on account of its proximity to Kufa, the capital of Irak and of the kingdom of Islam in the East. On festive occasions, the head of the college of Sora sat at the right side of the Exilarch. He obtained two-thirds of certain revenues for his school, and performed the duties of the Exilarch when the office was vacant. For a long time, too, only a member of the school of Sora was elected president of the school of Pumbeditha, this school not being permitted to elect one from its own ranks.

Now that the Exilarch everywhere met with the respect due a prince, he was installed with a degree of ceremony and pomp. Although the office was hereditary in the house of Bostanaï, the acquiescence of both colleges was required for the nomination of a new Exilarch, and thus there came to be a fixed installation service. The officials of both the colleges, together with their fellow-collegians, and the most respected men in the land, betook themselves to the residence of the designated Exilarch. In a large open place, which was lavishly adorned, seats were erected for him and the presidents of the two schools. The Gaon of Sora delivered an address to the future Exilarch, in which he was reminded of the duties of his high office, and was warned against haughty conduct toward his brethren. The installation always took place in the synagogue, and on a Thursday. Both officials put their hands upon the head of the nominee, and declared amidst the clang of trumpets, "Long live our lord, the Prince of the Exile."

The people, who were always present in great numbers on the occasion, vociferously repeated the wish. All present then accompanied the new Exilarch home from the synagogue, and presents flowed in from all sides. On the following Saturday evening there was a special festive service for the new prince. There was a platform in the shape of a tower erected for him in the synagogue. This was decked with costly ornaments that he might appear like the kings of the house of David in the Temple, on a raised seat, apart from the people. He was conducted to divine service by a numerous and honorable suite. The reader chanted the prayers with the assistance of a well-appointed choir.

When the Exilarch was seated on his high seat, the Gaon of Sora approached the Exilarch, bent the knee before him, and sat at his right hand. His colleague of Pumbeditha having made a similar obeisance, took his seat on the left. When the Law was read, they brought the scroll to the Exilarch, which was looked upon as a royal prerogative. He was also the first one called to the reading of the Law, which on ordinary occasions was the prerogative of the descendants of the house of Aaron. In order to honor him, the president of the college of Sora acted as interpreter (Meturgeman), expounding the passage that had been read.

After the Law was read, it was customary for the Prince of the Exile to deliver an address. But if the Exilarch was not learned, he delegated this duty to the Gaon of Sora. In the final prayer for the glorification of God's name (Kadish, Gloria), the name of the Exilarch was mentioned: "May this happen in the lifetime of the Prince." Thereupon followed a special blessing for him, the heads of the colleges and its members (Yekum Purkan), and the names of the countries, places and persons, far and near, that had advanced the welfare of the colleges by their contributions. A festive procession from the synagogue to the house or palace of the Exilarch, and a sumptuous repast for the officials and prominent personages, which often included state officers, formed the conclusion of this peculiar act of homage to the Exilarch.

Once a year, in the third week after the Feast of Tabernacles, a kind of court was held at the house of the Exilarch. The heads of the college, together with their colleagues, the presidents of the community, and many people besides, came to see him at Sora, probably with presents. On the following Sabbath the same ceremonial took place as at the nomination. Lectures were delivered during this court week, which was afterwards known as "the Great Assembly," or the "Feast of the Exilarch."

The Exilarch derived his income partly from certain districts and towns, and partly from irregular receipts. The districts Naharowan (east of the Tigris), Farsistan, Holwan--as far as the jurisdiction of the Exilarch extended--even during the period of decadence, brought him an income of 700 golden denarii ($1700). We can easily imagine how great his revenue must have been in palmy days. The Exilarch also had the right of imposing a compulsory tax upon the communities under his jurisdiction, and the officials of the Caliph supported him in this because they themselves had an interest in it.

The president of the college of Sora was the second in rank in the Judæo-Babylonian community. He was the only one who held the title of Gaon officially, and he had the precedence over his colleague of Pumbeditha on all occasions, even though the former were a young man and the latter an aged one. Meanwhile, the school of Pumbeditha enjoyed perfect equality and independence with respect to its internal affairs, except when one or another Exilarch, according to Oriental custom, made illegal encroachments upon it.

Next to the president came the chief judge, who discharged the judicial duties, and was, as a rule, his successor in office. Below these were seven presidents of the Assembly of Teachers, and three others who bore the title of Associate or scholar, and who together seem to have composed the Senate in a restricted sense. Then came a college of a hundred members, which was divided into two unequal bodies, one of seventy members representing the "great Synhedrion," the other of thirty forming the "smaller Synhedrion." The seventy were ordained, and consequently qualified for promotion; they bore the title of Teacher. The thirty or "smaller Synhedrion" do not seem to have been entitled to a seat and vote, they were simply candidates for the higher dignity. The members of the college generally bequeathed their offices to their sons, but the office of president was not hereditary.

This peculiarly organized council of the two colleges by degrees lost its strictly collegiate character, and acquired that of a deliberative and legislative Parliament. Twice a year, in March and September (Adar and Elul), in accordance with ancient usage, the college held a general meeting, and sat for a whole month. During this period the members occupied themselves also with theoretical questions, discussing and explaining some portion of the Talmud, which had been given out beforehand as the theme. But the attention of the meeting was principally directed to practical matters. New laws and regulations were considered and decreed, and points which had formed the subject of inquiry by foreign communities, during the preceding months, were discussed and answered. Little by little the replies to the numerous inquiries addressed to them by foreign communities on points of religion, morals, and civil law, came to occupy the greater part of the session. At the end of the session all opinions expressed by the meeting on the points submitted for their consideration were read over, signed by the president, in the name of the whole council, confirmed with the seal of the college (Chumrata), and forwarded by messenger to each community with a ceremonious form of greeting from the college. It was customary for the various congregations to accompany their inquiries with valuable presents in money. If these presents were sent specially to one of the two colleges, the other received no share; but if they were remitted without any precise directions, the Soranian school, being the more important, received two-thirds, and the remainder went to the sister-college. These presents were divided by the president among the members of the college and the students of the Talmud.

Over and above such irregular receipts, the two colleges derived a regular income from the districts which were under their jurisdiction. To Sora belonged the south of Irak, with the two important cities Wasit and Bassora, and its jurisdiction extended as far as Ophir (India or Yemen?). In later times the revenues of these countries still amounted to 1500 gold denars (about $3700). The northern communities belonged to Pumbeditha, whose jurisdiction extended as far as Khorasan.

The appointment of the judges of a district was, in all probability, the duty of the principal of the college, in conjunction with the chief judge and the seven members of the Senate-council. Each of these three heads of the Babylonian-Jewish commonwealth accordingly possessed the power of appointing the judges of his province, and the communities were thus either under the Prince of the Captivity or the Soranian Gaonate, or were dependent on the college of Pumbeditha. When a judge was appointed over a certain community he received a commission from the authorities over him. He bore the title of Dayan, and had to decide not only in civil but also in religious cases, and was therefore at the same time a rabbi. He chose from amongst the members of the community two associates (Zekenim), together with whom he formed a judicial and rabbinical tribunal. All valid deeds, marriage contracts, letters of divorce, bills of exchange, bills of sale, and deeds of gift, were also confirmed by this rabbi-judge. He was, at the same time, the notary of the community. For these various functions he received--first, a certain contribution from every independent member of the community; secondly, fees for drawing up deeds; and, thirdly, a weekly salary from the vendors of meat. The children's schools, which were in connection with the synagogue, were probably also under the supervision of this rabbi-judge.

The communal constitution in Jewish Babylonia has served as a model for the whole Jewish people, partly until the present time. At the head of the community stood a commission entrusted with the public interests, and composed of seven members, who were called Parnesé-ha-Keneset (Maintainers of the Community). A delegate of a Prince of the Captivity, or of one of the principals of the colleges, was charged with the supervision of public business, and also possessed the power of punishing refractory members. The punishments inflicted were flogging and excommunication. The latter, the invisible weapon of the Middle Ages, which changed its victims to living corpses, was, however, neither so often nor so arbitrarily exercised by the Jews as by the Christians; but even among them it fell with terrible force. Those who refused to comply with religious or official regulations, were punished with the lesser excommunication. It was mild in form, and did not entail the total isolation of the person excommunicated, and affected the members of his own family still less. But whosoever failed to repent within the given respite of thirty days, and to make application to have the excommunication annulled, incurred the punishment of the greater ban. This punishment scared away a man's most intimate friends, isolated him in the midst of society, and caused him to be treated as an outcast from Judaism. No one was allowed to hold social intercourse with him, under penalty of incurring similar punishments. His children were expelled from school, and his wife from the synagogue. All were forbidden to bury his dead, or even to receive his new-born son into the covenant of Abraham. Every distinctive mark of Judaism was denied him, and he was left branded as one accursed of God. The proclamation of the ban was posted up outside the court of justice, and communicated to the congregation. Although this punishment of excommunication and its consequences were extremely horrible, it was nevertheless, at a time when the multitude was not open to rational conviction, the only means of preserving religious unity intact, of administering justice, and of maintaining social order.

The Jewish commonwealth of Babylonia, notwithstanding its dependence on the humors of a Mahometan governor and the caprice of its own leaders, seemed nevertheless to those at a distance surrounded with a halo of power and greatness. The Prince of the Captivity appeared to the Jews of distant lands, who heard only confused rumors, to have regained the scepter of David; for them the Geonim of the two colleges were the living upholders and the representatives of the ideal times of the Talmud. The further the dominion of the Caliphate of the house of Ommiyyah was extended, to the north beyond the Oxus, to the east to India, in the west and the south to Africa and the Pyrenees, the more adherents were gained for the Babylonian Jewish chiefs. Every conquest of the Mahometan generals enlarged the boundaries of the dominion under the rule of the Prince of the Captivity and the Geonim. Even Palestine, deprived of its center, subordinated itself to Babylonia. The hearts of all Jews turned towards the potentates on the Euphrates, and their presents flowed in freely, to enable the house of David to make a worthy appearance, and the Talmudical colleges to continue to exist in splendor. The grief for their dispersion to all corners of the earth was mitigated by the knowledge that by the rivers of Babylon, where the flower of the Jewish nation in its full vigor had settled, and where the great Amoraim had lived and worked, a Jewish commonwealth still existed. It was universally believed by the Jews that in the original seat of Jewish greatness the primitive spring of ancient Jewish wisdom was still flowing. "God permitted the colleges of Sora and Pumbeditha to come into existence twelve years before the destruction of the Temple by Nebuchadnezzar, and vouchsafed them His special protection. They never suffered persecution at the hands of the Romans or the Byzantines, and have known neither coercion nor bondage. From thence will proceed the deliverance of Israel, and the dwellers in this happy corner of the earth will be spared the sufferings that are to usher in the age of the Messiah." Such was the view held by all who had not seen the Babylonian settlement with their own eyes.

It was accounted an honor for a dead person to be mentioned at a memorial service at the colleges. For this purpose a special day was set apart in each month of assembly, during which no business was transacted by the colleges; the members mourned for the benefactors of the colleges that had died during the past year, and prayed for the peace of their souls (Ashkabá). Later on it became customary to forward lists of the dead, even from France and Spain, in order that they might also be thus honored.

The Jews of Spain, to whom so brilliant a part is allotted in Jewish history, drained the cup of misery to the dregs, at the very time when their brethren in Irak obtained almost perfect freedom and independence. Some of them had been obliged to emigrate; others were compelled to embrace Christianity, and were required by the king Chintila, solemnly to declare in writing their sincere adherence to the Catholic faith and their entire repudiation of Judaism. But although they had been forcibly converted, the Jews of Visigothic Spain nevertheless clung steadfastly to their prohibited religion. The independent Visigothic nobles, to a certain extent, protected them from the king's severity, and no sooner were the eyes of the fanatical Chintila closed in death than the Jews openly reverted to Judaism under Chindaswinth, his successor (642-652). This monarch was at open enmity with the clergy, who desired to restrain the power of the throne in favor of the Church, but was well affected towards the Jews.

His son, Receswinth, however, who was altogether unlike him, adopted an entirely different policy. Either from fanaticism, or in order to ingratiate himself with the clergy, at that time hostile to the throne, he proposed in an ecclesiastical council (which was at the same time a parliament) to deal rigorously with the Jews, more especially with such of them as had formerly feigned to be Christians. In his speech from the throne, Receswinth made the following appeal to the members of the council: "It is because I have learnt that my kingdom is polluted by them as by an epidemic that I denounce the life and the behavior of the Jews. For while the Almighty has entirely freed the country from heresy, a disgraceful desecration of the churches still continues. This shall either be reformed by our piety or rooted out by our severity. I mean that many of the Jews still persist in their old unbelief, while others, although purified by baptism, have relapsed so deeply into the errors of apostasy that their blasphemy seems even more abominable than the sin of those who have not been baptized. I adjure you, therefore, to decree against the Jews, without favor or respect of persons, some measure which shall be agreeable to God and to our faith." The Council of Toledo (the eighth), however, passed no new law against the Jews, but simply confirmed the canonical decisions of the fourth Council of Toledo. The Jews were, it is true, allowed to remain in the country, but could neither possess slaves, nor hold any office, nor appear as witnesses against Christians. But far harder was the fate of those who, during the persecutions, had pretended to embrace Christianity. They were compelled to remain within the pale of the Church, and to abjure Judaism once again. Flight was impossible, for severe punishments were decreed against all who renounced Christianity, or hid themselves anywhere, or attempted to leave the country. Even the abettors of, or accessories to, the flight of converts incurred heavy punishment. Those, however, who desired to continue outwardly in their pretended faith, but who still clung to Judaism in their inmost hearts, were required to subscribe anew to a renunciation of their religion (placitum Judæorum).

On February 18th, 654, the Jews of the capital Toletum (Toledo) signed a confession of the purport that they had already promised, it was true, under king Chintila, to remain steadfast to the Catholic faith, but that their unbelief and the erroneous opinions which they had inherited from their fathers had prevented them from acknowledging Christ as their Master. Now, however, they voluntarily promised for themselves, their wives, and their children that, in future, they would not observe the rites and ceremonies of Judaism. They would no longer hold culpable intercourse with unconverted Jews, neither would they intermarry with near relations (children of brothers and sisters), nor take Jewish wives, nor observe Jewish marriage-customs, nor practice circumcision, nor keep the Passover, the Sabbath, nor any other Jewish festivals; they would no longer observe the dietary laws--in a word, they would henceforward disregard the laws of the Jews and their abominable customs. On the other hand, they would honestly and devoutly profess a religion in conformity with the gospel and the apostolic traditions, and observe the precepts of the Church without deceit or pretense. One thing, however, was impossible, namely, that they should partake of pork; they were entirely unable to overcome their abhorrence of it. They promised, however, to partake freely of anything which might have been cooked with pork. Whoever among them should be guilty of a violation of this promise was to be put to death by fire or by stoning at the hands of their companions or their sons. To all of this they swore "by the Trinity." It is probable that the forced converts in the other cities of the Visigothic-Spanish empire were obliged to give similar written assurances. At the same time they were still compelled to pay the tax levied on the Jews, for the Treasury could not afford to lose by their change of faith.

As king Receswinth was well aware, however, that the independent nobles of the country afforded the Jews their protection, and allowed such of them as had been converted by force to live according to their convictions, he issued a decree forbidding all Christians to befriend the secret Jews, under penalty of excommunication and exclusion from the pale of the Church. But these measures and precautions by no means accomplished the intended result.

The secret Jews, or as they were officially termed, the Judaizing Christians, could not tear Judaism out of their hearts. The Spanish Jews, surrounded as they were by perils of death, early learnt the art of remaining true in their inmost soul to their religion, and of escaping their Argus-eyed foe. They continued to celebrate the Jewish festivals in their homes, and to disregard the holy-days instituted by the Church. Desirous of putting an end to such a state of things, the representatives of the Church issued a decree, which aimed at depriving this unfortunate people of their home life; they were henceforward compelled to spend the Jewish and Christian holy-days under the eyes of the clergy, in order that they might thereby be obliged to disregard the former and to observe the latter (655).

When, after a long reign, Receswinth died, the tormented Jewish converts took part in a revolt against his successor, Wamba (672-680). Count Hilderic, Governor of Septimania, a province of Spain, having refused to recognize the newly-elected king, raised the standard of revolt. In order to gain adherents and means, he promised the converted Jews a safe refuge and religious liberty in his province, and they, taking advantage of the invitation, emigrated in numbers. The insurrection of Hilderic of Nismes assumed greater proportions, and at first gave hopes of a successful issue, but the insurgents were eventually defeated. Wamba appeared with an army before Narbonne, and expelled the Jews from this city. At the council which he convened (the eleventh) the Jews did not form the subject of any legislation; they seem, on the contrary, to have enjoyed a certain amount of freedom during his reign, and to have made some efforts towards their self-preservation.

In order, on the one hand, to prove that, although they were unable to reconcile themselves to Christianity, they were not entirely bereft of reason, as their enemies had declared at the councils and also in their writings; and, on the other hand, in order to keep their ancestral belief alive both in themselves and in such of their brethren as only partly belonged to the Christian faith, certain talented Jews set themselves to compose anti-Christian treatises, probably in Latin. One point alone is known of the arguments advanced in these polemical writings. The authors referred to a tradition relating that the Messiah would not appear before the seventh cycle of a thousand years, counting from the creation of the world; the first six cycles corresponded to the six days of the creation, and the seventh would be the universal Sabbath, the reign of the Messiah. But as, according to their method of reckoning, hardly five thousand years had elapsed from the creation to the birth of Jesus, it was impossible, they maintained, that the Messiah had appeared. This objection must have been forcibly urged by the Jewish writers, for many Christians were thereby made to waver in their faith.

This partial liberty of religion, thought, and speech, was suppressed by Wamba's successor, who gained possession of the throne by treacherous means. Erwig, who was of Byzantine origin, and who possessed to the full the deceitfulness and unscrupulousness of the degenerate Greeks, caused Wamba to assume the cowl, and proclaimed himself king. In order to have his usurpation recognized as lawful succession, Erwig found himself obliged to make some concessions to the clergy, and accordingly he handed the Jews over to them as victims. With assumed earnestness, he addressed the council which was assembled to crown him, and in a fanatical speech, submitted for confirmation a series of laws against the Jews. The portion of the royal speech which was directed against the Jews ran as follows: "With tears streaming from my eyes, I implore this honorable assembly to manifest its zeal, and free the land from this plague of degeneracy. Arise, arise, I cry unto you; put to the test the laws against the apostasy of the Jews which we have just promulgated."

Of the seven-and-twenty paragraphs which Erwig submitted to the council for ratification, one alone related to the Jews; the rest were leveled at those forced converts who, despite their promises to persist in the Christian faith, and the severe punishment that followed in case of detection, were still unable to abandon Judaism. Erwig's edict made but short work of the Jews. They were commanded to offer themselves, their children, and all persons under their control, for baptism within the space of a year, otherwise their property would be confiscated, one hundred lashes would be inflicted on them, the skin torn off their head and forehead to their everlasting shame, and they themselves driven out of the country. On the converted Jews, fresh hardships were imposed. They were now not only obliged to spend the Christian and Jewish holy-days under the eyes of the clergy, but were further subjected to clerical control in all their movements. Whenever they set out upon a journey, they had to present themselves before the ecclesiastical authorities of the place, and obtain a certificate from them, setting forth the time they had lived there, and attesting that their conduct had been in rigorous conformity with Church law during that period. At the same time, unless they could prove that they had led a blameless, Christian life, they were incompetent to hold any office, even to act as village bailiff (vilicus, actor) over Christian slaves. They always had to carry about with them a copy of the laws which had been passed against them, so that they might never be able to plead ignorance in excuse. The ecclesiastical and royal judges were instructed to watch strictly over the execution of these orders, and all Christians were forbidden to accept any presents from converted Jews.

The council, at the head of which was Julian, the Metropolitan of Toledo, a man of Jewish descent, passed all Erwig's proposals, and enacted that these laws, as ratified by the decision of the synod, were by general acknowledgment inviolable for all time. Two days after the prorogation of this council, the Jews, both those that had remained true to their religion and those that had been converted, were called together, the laws were read to them and their rigid observance strictly enjoined (January 25th, 681). A third time the converted Jews were compelled to abjure Judaism and to draw up a confession of faith--with the same sincerity, of course, as under Chintila and Receswinth.

But the Visigothic-Spanish Jews fared still worse under Erwig's successor, Egica. He did not drive them out of the country, it is true, but he did what was worse, he restricted their rights. He prohibited the Jews and the Judaizing Christians from possessing landed property and houses; moreover, they were forbidden to repair to Africa, or to trade with that continent, or to transact business with any Christians whatever. They were compelled to surrender all their real estate to the Treasury, and were indemnified, probably not too liberally, for the same (693). Only those that were really converted were left unfettered by these restrictions.

The Jews were driven to despair by this new law, which it was impossible to evade, as their real estate was actually confiscated; they accordingly united in a perilous conspiracy against their unrelenting foe. They entered into an alliance with their more fortunate brethren in Africa, with the intention of overthrowing the Visigothic empire, and were probably aided by the boldly-advancing Mahometans and the malcontent nobles of the country (694). The attempt might easily have succeeded, for, owing to dissension, unnatural vices and weakness, the country was far advanced in a state of ruin and dissolution. But the conspiracy of the Jews was discovered before it had matured, and severe punishment was inflicted not only on the culprits, but on the whole Jewish population of Spain, including that of the province of Septimania (together with Narbonne). They were all sentenced to slavery, presented to various masters, and distributed throughout the country, their owners being prohibited from setting them free again. Children of seven years of age and upwards were torn from their parents and given to Christians to be educated. The only exception made was in favor of the Jewish warriors of the narrow passes of the Gallic province, who formed a bulwark against invasion. They were indispensable, and their bravery protected them from degradation and slavery, but even they were compelled to change their religion.

The Spanish Jews continued in this state of degradation until Egica's death. When his son Witiga followed him to the grave, the last hours of this empire were evidently at hand. The Jews of Africa, who at various times had emigrated thither from Spain, and their unlucky co-religionists of the Peninsula, made common cause with the Mahometan conqueror, Tarik, who brought over from Africa into Andalusia an army eager for the fray. After the battle of Xeres (July, 711), and the death of Roderic, the last of the Visigothic kings, the victorious Arabs pushed onward, and were everywhere supported by the Jews. In every city that they conquered the Moslem generals were able to leave but a small garrison of their own troops, as they had need of every man for the subjection of the country; they therefore confided them to the safe-keeping of the Jews. In this manner the Jews, who but lately had been serfs, now became the masters of the towns of Cordova, Granada, Malaga, and many others. When Tarik appeared before the capital, Toledo, he found it occupied by a small garrison only, the nobles and clergy having found safety in flight. While the Christians were in church, praying for the safety of their country and religion, the Jews flung open the gates to the victorious Arabs (Palm-Sunday, 712), receiving them with acclamations, and thus avenged themselves for the many miseries which had befallen them in the course of a century since the time of Reccared and Sisebut. The capital also was entrusted by Tarik to the custody of the Jews, while he pushed on in pursuit of the cowardly Visigoths, who had sought safety in flight, for the purpose of recovering from them the treasure which they had carried off.

Finally, when Muza Ibn-Nosair, the Governor of Africa, brought a second army into Spain and conquered other cities, he also delivered them into the custody of the Jews. It was under these favorable conditions that the Spanish Jews came under the rule of the Mahometans, and like their co-religionists in Babylonia and Persia, they were esteemed the allies of their rulers. They were kindly treated, obtained religious liberty, of which they had so long been deprived, were permitted to exercise jurisdiction over their co-religionists, and were obliged, like the conquered Christians, to pay only a poll-tax (Dsimma). Thus were they received into that great alliance, which, to a certain extent, united all the Jews of the Islamite empire into one commonwealth.

As the Mahometan empire grew in size, the activity of its Jewish inhabitants increased in proportion. The first Caliphs of the house of Ommiyyah, by reason of their continual wars with the descendants and comrades of Mahomet, with the fanatical upholders of the letter of the Koran, and with the partisans of the spiritual Imamate (high-priesthood), had become entirely free from that narrow-mindedness and mania for persecution which characterized the founder and the first two Caliphs. The following rulers of the Mahometans, Moawiyah, Yezid I., Abdul-Malik, Walid I., and Suliman (656-717), were far more worldly than spiritual; their political horizon was extensive, and they fettered themselves but little with the narrow precepts of the Koran and the traditions (Sunna). They loved Arabic poetry (Abdul-Malik was himself a poet), held knowledge in esteem, and rewarded the author quite as liberally as the soldier who fought for them. The Jewish inhabitants of Mahometan countries soon adopted the Arabic language. It is closely related, in many of its roots and forms, to Hebrew, with which language all of them were more or less familiar, and they needed a knowledge thereof, as it was the indispensable medium of communication. The enthusiasm which the Arabs felt for their language and its poetry, the care which they took to keep it pure, accurate and sonorous, had their effect upon the Jews, and taught them to employ correct forms of speech. During the six hundred years which had elapsed since the fall of the Jewish nation, the Jews had lost the sense of beauty and grace of expression; they were negligent in their speech, careless of purity of form, and indifferent to the clothing of their thoughts and emotions in suitable terms. A people possessed of an imperfect delivery, using a medley of Hebrew, Chaldee, and corrupt Greek, was not in a position to create a literature, much less to enchain the wayward muse of poetry. But, as already mentioned, the Jews of Arabia formed an exception. They acquired from their neighbors correct taste, and the art of framing their speech pleasantly and impressively. The Jewish tribes of Kainukaa and Nadhir, which had emigrated to Palestine and Syria, the Jews of Chaibar and Wadil-Kora, who had been transplanted to the region of Kufa and the center of the Gaonate, brought with them to their new home this love and taste for the poetical Arabic tongue, and gradually instilled them into their co-religionists. Hardly half a century after the occupation of Palestine and Persia by the Arabs, a Babylonian Jew was able to handle the Arabic language for literary purposes: the Jewish physician, Messer-Jawaih of Bassorah, translated a medical work from the Syriac into Arabic. Henceforward the Jews, together with the Syrian Christians, were the channels through which scientific literature reached the Arabs.

The enthusiasm of the Arabs for their language and the Koran evoked in the hearts of the Jews a similar sentiment for the Hebrew tongue and its holy records. Besides this, the Jews were now obliged to make closer acquaintance with the Scriptures, in order that they might not be put to the blush in their controversies with the Mahometans. Until now the talented men among them had turned their attention exclusively to the Talmud and the Agadic exposition, but necessity at last compelled them to return to the source, the Bible.

As soon, however, as it was desired to recover what had been lost for centuries, and to return with ardor to the study of Biblical literature, a need manifested itself which first had to be supplied. In supplying the Biblical text with the vowel signs invented in Babylonia or in Tiberias, it was necessary to proceed in such passages, as had not become familiar by frequent reading in public, according to grammatical rules. The Punctuators were obliged to be guided partly by tradition and partly by their sense of language. In this manner there arose the rudiments of two branches of knowledge: one treating of the above-mentioned rules of the Hebrew language, the other of the science of orthography, together with the exceptions as handed down by tradition (Massora). This apparently unimportant invention of adding certain strokes and points to the consonants thus led to the comprehension of the Holy Scriptures by the general public and the initiation of a more general knowledge of Judaism. By its help the holy language could now celebrate its revival; it was no longer a dead language employed only by scholars, but might become a means of educating the people. The auxiliary signs tended to break down the barrier between the learned (Chacham) and the unlearned (Am-ha-Arez).

An immediate consequence of contact with the Arabs and the study of the Holy Writ was the birth of neo-Hebraic poetry. Poetical natures naturally felt themselves impelled to make use of the copious Hebrew vocabulary in metrical compositions and polished verse, in the same manner as the Arabs had done with their language. But while the Arabic bards sang of the sword, of chivalry, of unbridled love, bewailed the loss of worldly possessions, and attacked with their satire such of their enemies as they could not reach with the sword, the newly-awakened Hebrew poetry knew of but one subject worthy of enthusiasm and adoration, God and His providence, of but one subject worthy of lament, the destitution and sorrows of the Jewish nation. The new-born Hebrew poetry, however different in form and matter from that of the Bible, had a religious foundation in common with it. The psalm of praise and the soul-afflicting dirge of lamentation were taken by the neo-Hebraic poets as their models. But a third element also claimed attention. Since the state had lost its independence, learning had become the soul of Judaism; religious deeds, if not accompanied by knowledge of the Law, were accounted of no worth. The main feature of the Sabbath and festival services was the reading of portions of the Law and the Prophets, the interpretation thereof by the Targumists and the explanation of the text by the Agadists (preachers of homilies). Neo-Hebraic poetry, if it was to reach the hearts of the people, could not be entirely devoid of a didactic element. The poet's only scene of action was the synagogue, his only audience, the congregation assembled for prayer and instruction, and his poetry, therefore, necessarily assumed a synagogical or liturgical character.

The poetical impulse was strengthened by practical necessity. The original divine service with its short and simple prayers was no longer sufficient. It was extended, it is true, by the recitation of psalms and appropriate liturgical compositions, but even this did not fill up the time which the congregation would gladly have spent in the house of God. This was especially felt on the New Year's festival and on the Day of Atonement, which were dedicated to deep devotion, and during the greater part of which the congregation remained in the house of prayer, contrite, and imploring forgiveness and redemption. It was evident that the divine service must be amplified, and more matter for meditation provided. In this manner arose the synagogical, or, as it was also called, the poetanic composition. At the head of the succession of neo-Hebraic poets stands José bar José Hayathom (or Haithom), whose works are not without true poetic ring, although devoid of artistic form. The date and nationality of this poet are entirely unknown, but it appears probable that he was a native of Palestine, and that he lived not earlier than the first Gaonic century.

José b. José took as the subject of his poems the emotions and memories which move a Jewish congregation on New Year's Day. On this occasion, the birthday of a new division of time, on which, according to Jewish ideas, the fate that the year has in store for men and communities is decided, God is extolled in a sublime poem as the mighty Master, the Creator of the world, the just Judge and the Redeemer of Israel. This poem, which was attached to the old prayers for the prescribed blowing of the cornet, and was intended to interpret them, embraces in a small compass the story of Israel's glorious past, its oppressed present, and promised future. José's poem is at once a psalm of triumph and of lamentation, interwoven with penitential prayers and words of hope. The resurrection is described in a few striking, picturesque lines.

Another and longer of José's poems has for its theme the ancient worship in the Temple on the Day of Atonement, which an attentive nation had once followed in devotional mood, and the description of which was well calculated to awaken the great memories of the glorious times of national independence (Abodah). It is a sort of liturgical epic, which describes simply, and without any lyrical strain, the creation of the universe and of man, the ungodliness of the first generation, Abraham's recognition of God, the election of his posterity as God's peculiar people, and the calling of Aaron's family to the service of the Temple. Arrived at the priesthood of Aaron, the poet, following the account of the Mishna, goes on to describe the duties of the high-priest in the Temple on the Day of Atonement, and concludes with the moment when the high-priest, accompanied by the whole nation, joyful and assured by visible signs of forgiveness, leaves the Temple for his home,--a beautiful fragment of the past, which has always awakened a powerful echo in the hearts of the Jewish people.

Elevation of thought and beauty of language are the characteristics of José b. José's poetry. His New Year's sonnets and Temple epic have become parts of the divine service of certain congregations, and have served as models for others. His verses are unrhymed and without meter, a proof of their great antiquity. The only artificial feature of his poetical works is the alphabetical or acrostic commencement of verses, for which several of the Psalms, Jeremiah's Lamentations, and the post-talmudical prayers served as models. In the first fruits of the new Hebraic poetry, form is completely subservient to the subject-matter. There has been preserved from ancient times another Abodah, ascribed to a poet named Simon ben Caipha. It appears to have been written in imitation of that of José b. José, but is greatly inferior to its model. However, it was honored by being adopted by the synagogue of the Gaonate. To the name of Simon Caipha, which sounds like the Jewish name of the apostle Peter, a peculiar legend is attached: The apostle, who supports the foundation of the Catholic Church, is represented as having written this Abodah in order to declare in the opening part his truly Jewish acknowledgment of God's unity, and to renounce his adherence to Jesus, as though the disciple who three times denied his Master had desired in this liturgical poem to attest his unbelief.

It was impossible that Jewish liturgical poetry could long remain satisfied with this simplicity of form. Little by little the Jews became acquainted with the poetry of the Arabs, the agreeable sound of its rhymes captivated them, and they were led to regard rhyme as the perfection of poetry. The poetanists, therefore, if they would be well received, could not afford to neglect this artistic device, and they assiduously devoted themselves to its cultivation. As far as is known, the first poet who introduced rhyme into the neo-Hebraic poetry was a certain Jannai, probably an inhabitant of Palestine. He composed versified prayers for those special Sabbaths which, either by reason of historical events connected with them, or of being a time of preparation for the approaching festivals, were possessed of particular importance. The Agadic discourses, which had been introduced on these Sabbaths, do not seem to have pleased the congregations any longer, because the preachers were unable to find new and attractive matter; they seem, indeed, to have read out the same discourses in a given order from year to year.

The poems of Jannai and his fellow-workers aimed at giving the substance of these Agadic expositions in the form of agreeable verse. Hence, Jannai's productions are versified Agadas. But as he was not enough of a poet to reproduce the elevated and striking passages of Agadic literature, as his rhymes were heavy and labored, and as he also burdened himself with the task of commencing his verses with consecutive letters of the alphabet, and of interweaving his name into them, his poems are dull, clumsy, and unwieldy.

Altogether neo-Hebraic poetry gained nothing during its earlier years by the introduction of rhyme. Eleazar ben Kalir or Kaliri (of Kiriat-Sepher), one of the first and most prolific of the poetanic writers, and a disciple of Jannai, was just as clumsy and harsh as his master, and his style was even more obscure. He wrote over 150 liturgical pieces, including hymns for the festivals, penitential prayers for the holy-days, songs of lamentation for the principal fasts, and various other compositions which cannot be classed under distinct heads. Kaliri put into most artificial verses a large portion of the Agadic literature, but only a few of his compositions have any poetical value, and none possesses beauty. In order to overcome the difficulties which were presented by the allusions to the Agada, by the use of rhyme, of the alphabetically arranged initial words and the interweaving of his name, Kaliri was obliged to do violence to the Hebrew language, to set at defiance the fixed rules which govern the use of words, and to create unprecedented combinations. In place of word-pictures, he often presents to his reader obscure riddles, which it is impossible to solve without a thorough acquaintance with the Agadic writings. Nevertheless, Kaliri's poetic compositions made their way into the liturgies of the Babylonian, Italian, German, and French Jews; the Spaniards alone, guided by delicate feeling for language, refused to adopt them. Kaliri was honored as the greatest of the poetanic writers, and tradition has glorified his name.

By the introduction of these compositions, the liturgy acquired an altered character. The translation of the portions of the Law which were read out to the congregation, and the Agadic expositions thereof, which, as the Jews of the Islamic empire adopted the Arabic language, had become unfamiliar to the multitude, gradually disappeared from the divine service, and their places were filled by metrical compositions (Piyutim) which answered the same purpose, and at the same time possessed the advantage of a poetical character. By this means considerable extension was given to the divine service. The reader supplanted the preacher. Singing was introduced into the synagogue, as the poetical prayers were not recited, but chanted (Chazanuth). Special tunes were introduced for the various prayers. But the poetanic compositions were not adopted by all congregations as part of their divine service. The Talmudical authorities were at first opposed to their adoption, for the reason that they were usually interpolated between the various divisions of the principal prayer, and in this manner destroyed the continuity and coherence of its separate parts.

The return to the source of the Bible had the result of kindling a poetic flame in artistic natures; but, at the same time, it fanned into existence a wild spirit which at first brought trouble, schism, and malediction in its train, although afterwards it became a source of purification, vigor, and blessing to the Jews. The origin of this movement, which divided the Jewish commonwealth of the east and west into two camps, dates from the first Gaonic century.

The Babylonian Talmud held sway over the Jewish community in Babylonia; it was not only a code, but also the constitution for the community of which the Prince of the Captivity and the two presidents of the Talmudical colleges were the chief dignitaries. By the expansion of the Islamic dominion from India to Spain, from the Caucasus far down into Africa, the authority of the Talmud was extended far beyond its original bounds; for the most distant congregations placed themselves into communication with the Geonim, submitted points of religion, morals, and civil law to them for advice, and accepted in full faith their decisions, which were based on the Talmud. The Babylonian-Persian communities felt themselves in nowise hampered by the Talmudical ordinances, which were of their own creation, and had sprung up in their midst, the outcome of their views, morals, and customs, the work of their authorities. The African and European communities were too unlearned in the Bible and the Talmud to be able to express an opinion on the matter. They accepted the decisions of the Geonim as law, without greatly troubling themselves as to their agreement with the Bible.

Not so, however, with the Arabian Jews who had emigrated from Arabia to Palestine, Syria and Irak, the Benu-Kainukaa, the Benu-Nadhir, and the Chaibarites. They were sons of the desert, men of the sword, soldiers and warriors, accustomed from their childhood to a free life and to the development of their strength; men who cultivated social intercourse with their former Arabic allies and fellow-soldiers, in whose midst they again settled after the conquest of Persia and Syria. Judaism was indeed dear to them, for they had sacrificed liberty, country, fame and wealth in its cause, and had resisted Mahomet's importunities, and had not allowed themselves to be converted to Islam. But between the Judaism which they practised in Arabia, and the Judaism taught by the Talmud, and set up as a standard by the colleges, there lay a deep gulf. To conform to Talmudical precepts, it would have been necessary for them to renounce their genial familiarity with their former comrades, and to give up their drinking-bouts with the Arabs which, despite their interdiction by the Koran, the latter greatly loved. In a word, they felt themselves hampered by the Talmud.

The Jews of Arabia, who came into close contact with the Mahometans, and were, therefore, frequently involved in controversy as to whether Judaism was still possessed of authority or had been superseded by Islam, were obliged, so as not to be at a loss in such discussions, to familiarize themselves with the Bible. They in that way probably discovered that much of what the Talmud and the colleges declared to be religious precept, was not confirmed by the Bible. But from whatever cause this aversion to Talmudical precepts may have arisen, it is certain that it first had its origin in the Arabian Jewish colony in Syria or Irak. It is related, in an authentic source, that during the first part of the eighth century, many Jews allowed themselves to be persuaded to abandon Talmudical Judaism and to conform only to the precepts of the Bible.

The leader of this movement was a Syrian, Serene (Serenus) by name, who called himself the Messiah (about 720). He promised the Jews to put them into possession of the Holy Land, having first, of course, expelled the Mahometans. This attempt to regain their long-lost independence was perhaps occasioned by the fanatical Caliph Omar II (717-720). That bigoted prince, who had been raised to the throne by the intrigues of a zealous reader of the Koran, had re-enacted the restrictive laws of his predecessor, Omar I (the covenant of Omar), which had fallen into oblivion under the politic Ommiyyades. After his accession to the throne, he wrote to his governors as follows: "Do not pull down a church or a synagogue, but do not allow new ones to be built within your provinces." Omar devoted himself to making proselytes, holding out attractive promises to the new converts, or unceremoniously compelling both Jews and Christians to embrace Islam. It was probably for this reason that the Jews were disposed to support the false Messiah, and to lend credence to his representations that he would make them free again in the land of their fathers, and exterminate their enemies. Upon his banner Serene inscribed the release from Talmudical ordinances; he abolished the second day's celebration of the festivals, the prescribed forms of prayer, and the laws of the Talmud relating to food: he permitted the use of wine obtained from non-Jews, and sanctioned marriage between persons of nearer relationship than was allowed by the Talmud, as also celebration of marriages without a marriage-contract. It is probable that this hostility towards the Talmud gained him many adherents.

Serene's fame spread as far as Spain, and the Jews of that country resolved to abandon their property and to place themselves under the leadership of the pseudo-Messiah. Hardly ten years after the Jews of Spain had been delivered from the yoke of the Visigoths by the conquests of the Mahometans, they, or at least many of them, were desirous of again abandoning their newly-acquired fatherland. It appears that they were dissatisfied with the rule and administration of the Mahometan governors. As they had rendered signal services to the Arabs in the conquest of the Peninsula, they probably expected particular consideration and distinction, and instead of this they were impoverished equally with the Christians. Serene's fate was miserable, as indeed he deserved. He was captured and brought before the Caliph Yezid, Omar II's successor, who put an end to his Messianic pretensions by propounding insidious questions to him, which he was unable to answer. Serene is said, however, to have denied before the Caliph that he had had any serious designs, but that he only intended to make game of the Jews; whereupon the Caliph handed him over to the Jews for punishment. Many of his adherents, repenting of their easy credulity, desired to rejoin the communities from which they had severed themselves by infringement of the Talmudical ordinances. The Syrian communities were doubtful, however, whether they ought to re-admit their repentant brethren into their midst, or whether they ought not to be treated as proselytes. They referred the matter, therefore, to Natronaï ben Nehemiah, surnamed Mar-Yanka, the principal of the college at Pumbeditha, and successor of Mar-Raba (719-730). Natronaï's decision concerning the reception of Serene's adherents was conceived in a liberal spirit, and ran as follows: According to the laws of the Talmud, there is nothing to prevent them from being re-admitted by the communities and being treated as Jews; but they are to declare openly in the synagogues their sorrow and repentance, and to promise that their future conduct shall be pious and in accordance with the precepts of the Talmud, and in addition they are to suffer the punishment of flogging. At that time there were also other apostates, who went so far as to disregard the Biblical precepts concerning the Sabbath, the ritual for slaughtering cattle, the eating of blood, and the intermarrying of near relations. It is not known, however, in what country these people lived. Without declaring either for Christianity or Islam, they had entirely severed their connection with Judaism. When some of these sought re-admission into the fold of Judaism, Natronaï was again asked for his opinion. He said, "It is better to take them under the wings of God than to cast them out."

At about this time the Jews of the Byzantine empire were subjected to severe persecution, from the effects of which they did not for a long time recover, and this, too, at the hands of a monarch from whom they had least expected hostile treatment. Leo, the Isaurian, the son of rude peasant parents, having had his attention drawn by the Jews and the Arabs to the idolatrous character of the image-worship which obtained in the churches, had undertaken a campaign with the intention of destroying these images. Being denounced, however, before the uncultivated mob as a heretic and a Jew by the image-worshiping clergy, Leo proceeded to vindicate his orthodoxy by persecuting the heretics and the Jews. He issued a decree commanding all the Jews of the Byzantine empire and the remnant of the Montanists in Asia Minor to embrace the Christianity of the Greek Church, under pain of severe punishment (723). Many Jews submitted to this decree, and reluctantly received baptism; they were thus less steadfast than the Montanists, who, in order to remain faithful to their convictions, assembled in their house of prayer, set fire to it, and perished in the flames. Such of the Jews as had allowed themselves to be baptized were of the opinion that the storm would soon blow over, and that they would be permitted to return to Judaism. It was, therefore, only outwardly that they embraced Christianity; for they observed the Jewish rites in secret, thereby subjecting themselves to fresh persecutions. Thus the Jews of the Byzantine empire pined away under unceasing petty persecution, and for a time they are hidden from the view of history.

Many Jews of the Byzantine empire, however, escaped compulsory baptism by emigration. They quitted a country in which their forefathers had settled long before the rise of that Church which had so persistently persecuted them. The Jews of Asia Minor chose as their home the neighboring Cimmerian or Tauric peninsula (the Crimea), whose uncivilized inhabitants, of Scythian, Finnish and Sclavonian origin, practised idolatry. These Alani, Bulgarians and Chazars were, however, not jealous of men of other race and of a different belief who settled in their vicinity. Thus, side by side with the Jewish communities which had existed from early times, there arose new communities on the shores of the Black Sea and the Straits of Theodosia (Kaffa), and in the interior, in Sulchat (Solgat, now Eski-Crimea), in Phanagoria (now Taman), and on the Bosporus (Kertch), which lies opposite. From the Crimea the Greek Jews spread towards the Caucasus, and the hospitable countries of the Chazars on the west coast of the Caspian Sea and at the mouth of the Volga (Atel). Jewish communities settled in Berdaa (Derbend), at the Albanian Gates, in Semender (Tarki), and finally in Balanyiar, the capital of the land of the Chazars. By their energy, ability and intelligence, the Greek-Jewish emigrants speedily acquired power in the midst of these barbarian nations, and prepared the way for an important historical event.

Hardly thirty years after the fall of the false Messiah, Serene, an anti-Talmudical movement, coupled with Messianic enthusiasm, was again set on foot, but this time on a different scene. The prime mover was a fantastic and warlike inhabitant of the Persian town of Ispahan, one Obaiah Abu-Isa ben Ishak. He was not an ignorant man; he understood the Bible and the Talmud, and was capable of expressing his thoughts in writing. It is said that he was made aware of his call to an exalted vocation by a sudden cure from leprosy. Abu-Isa did not proclaim himself to be the Messiah, but asserted that he was the forerunner and awakener (Dâï) who was to prepare for the coming of the Messiah. His views concerning the office of precursor of the Messiah were, indeed, altogether peculiar. He taught that five forerunners would precede the Messiah, and that each one would be more perfect than his predecessor. He considered himself the last and most perfect of the five, and of equal merit with the Messiah. He assumed his vocation in good earnest, and announced that God had called him to free the Jewish race from the yoke of the nations and of unjust rulers.

The Messianic precursor of Ispahan found many partisans, 10,000 Jews, it is said, gathering around him for the purpose of aiding him in his work of deliverance. To them Abu-Isa expounded a form of Judaism differing in some respects from that accepted at the time; the points of difference, however, are not known. He entirely abolished divorce, even in the case of adultery. He augmented the three daily periods for prayer by four new periods, citing in support of this innovation the verse of a psalm: "Seven times a day do I praise thee." Abu-Isa retained the forms of prayer as prescribed by the Talmud, and in no way disturbed the existing order of the calendar. He explained his own peculiar system of religion in one of his works, in which he prohibits the use of meat and wine by his followers, but pronounces the abrogation of sacrificial worship.

Abu-Isa desired to accomplish his Messianic task of liberation with sword in hand. He accordingly made soldiers of his followers, and rode at their head like a general. There could have been no more favorable moment for an attempt to regain liberty by open force. In all the provinces of the Mahometan empire the spirit of rebellion against Mervan II, the last Caliph of the Ommiyyad dynasty, was aroused. Ambitious governors, dissatisfied partisans, the Abassides, who laid claim to the supreme power, all these antagonistic elements conspired to overthrow the house of Ommiyyah, and turned the wide dominions of the empire into a battlefield of fierce passions. During this period of rebellion, Abu-Isa and his band seem to have begun their work of deliverance in the neighborhood of Ispahan. They probably strengthened their position during the disturbances consequent upon the severe defeat sustained by Mervan's general on the Euphrates (at Kerbella, August, 749).

Finally, Abu-Isa fell in battle; his followers dispersed, and the Jews of Ispahan had to suffer for his revolt. His adherents, however, loyally cherished his memory; under the name of Isavites or Ispahanites they continued to exist until the tenth century, forming the first religious sect to which Judaism had given birth since the fall of the Jewish state. The Isavites lived in accordance with their master's teaching, observing some points of Talmudical Judaism, while disregarding many others.

During this time, however, no extraordinary movement occurred in the center of Jewish religious life; everything continued on the old lines, the principals of the colleges and the Geonim succeeded each other without leaving any perceptible traces behind them. They had no suspicion that a new spirit was abroad in Judaism, which would shake it to its very foundations.

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V. RISE OF KARAISM AND ITS RESULTS

Anan ben David, the founder of Karaism--His life, writings, and influence--Hostility to the Talmud--Anan's innovations --Karaite reverence of Anan--The Exilarchate becomes elective--Adoption of Judaism by the Chazars--King Bulan and Isaac Sinjari--Bulan's Jewish successors--Charlemagne and the Empire of the Franks--The Jews and Commerce-- Jewish Envoy sent to the Caliph Haroun Alrashid--Spread of the Jews in Europe--The Caliphs and the Jews--The study of philosophy--Sahal--The Kalam--Mutazilists and Anthropomorphists--Judah Judghan--The Shiur Komah--The Akbarites--Moses the Persian.

761-840 C. E.

It is as little possible for an historical event to be evolved, as for a natural birth to occur without labor. For a new historical phenomenon to struggle into existence, the comfortable aspect of things must be destroyed, indolent repose in cherished custom disturbed, and the power of habit broken. This destructive activity, although at first painful, is eventually favorable to the growth of healthy institutions, for thereby all vagueness is dissipated, all pretense destroyed, and dim reality brought more clearly to light. Opposition, the salt of history, which prevents corruption, had been wanting in Jewish history for several centuries, and religious life had been molded in set forms, and had there become petrified. Pauline and post-apostolic Christianity in its day supplied just the opposition required. It abrogated the standard of the Law, did away with knowledge, substituted faith, and thus produced in the evolution of Judaism a disposition to cling firmly to the Law, and to develop a system of religious teachings which should deal with the minutest details. The Talmud resulted from this movement of opposition; it was the sole prevailing authority in Judaism, and succeeded in supplanting the Bible in the estimation of the people. Even the study of the Talmud, which had possessed a refreshing and enlightening influence in the time of the Amoraim, had degenerated in the following century and in the first Gaonic period into a mere matter of memory, entirely devoid of any power of intellectual fructification. A free current of air was wanting to clear the heavy atmosphere. Opposition to the Talmud, the password of the two heralds of the Messiah, Serene and Abu-Isa, had left no lasting impression, partly because the movement, accompanied by fanatical agitation in favor of a pretended Messiah, led to no other result than the undeceiving of its partisans, and partly because it had been set on foot by obscure persons, possessed of neither importance nor authority. If this one-sidedness was to be overcome, if the Bible was to be re-instated in its rights, and religious life to regain its spirituality, it was necessary that opposition to it, which up till then had been manifested only in narrow circles, should be imparted to a more extended public by some moderate reformer invested with official character. Until this movement proceeded, not from some out-of-the-way corner, but from the region which at that time formed the center of Jewish life, it was impossible for it to be taken up by the multitude, or to produce any regenerative effects. The required agitation was set on foot by a son of the Prince of the Captivity, of the house of Bostanaï, and produced lasting effects.

It appears that the Exilarch Solomon died (761-762) without issue, and that the office ought to have been conferred on his nephew, Anan ben David. The biography of this man, who exercised so profound an influence upon Jewish history, and whose adherents exist at the present day, is quite unknown, and the facts have been entirely distorted in consequence of the schism which occurred later on. While his disciples honor him as a pious and holy man, who, "if he had lived at the time when the Temple was still standing, would have been vouchsafed the gift of prophecy," his opponents cannot sufficiently disparage him. But even they admit that Anan was exceedingly well read in the Talmud, and that he employed its style with great ability. It is also certain that the son of the Exilarch held that certain decisions of the Talmud possessed no religious authority, and that his anti-Talmudical tendency was known, at all events, to the representatives of the two academies, who directed the election of the Exilarch. The Gaonic office was at that time held by two brothers, sons of Nachman: that of Sora by Judah the Blind (759-762), and that of Pumbeditha by Dudaï (761-764). These two brothers united with their colleges to prevent Anan from succeeding to the dignity of Exilarch, and to choose in his stead his younger brother Chananya (or Achunaï). But Anan did not stand entirely alone; of elevated rank, he naturally had friends. His expectation of succeeding to a position of authority, whose sway was acknowledged by all the Jewish communities of the East at least, had doubtless attracted many ambitious, greedy and parasitical followers. But he also possessed adherents among those who refused more or less openly to regard the Judaism of the Talmud as true Judaism, and who welcomed Anan as a powerful champion. The Ananite party were not sparing in their efforts to obtain the nomination of their chief by the Caliph Abu Jafar Almansur, who, they supposed, was favorably disposed towards them; but their opponents gained the day. They are said to have attempted the life of Anan, and to have accused him of planning a rebellion against the Caliph, who thereupon threw him into prison, where, the legend goes on to relate, a Mahometan was incarcerated. Both of them were to have been hanged, but Anan's companion in misfortune advised him to explain to the Caliph that he did not belong to the same sect as his brother Chananya. Thereupon Almansur is said to have liberated him, because, according to Anan's adherents, he regarded him with kindness, according to his adversaries, in consequence of handsome presents of money, and permitted him to emigrate with his followers to Palestine.

One thing only among all these doubtful statements is certain, namely, that Anan was obliged to leave his country and settle in Palestine. In Jerusalem he built his own synagogue, which was still standing at the time of the first crusade. It is likewise certain that, in consequence of the mortifying slight cast upon him by the Gaons, Anan became hostile to the Gaonate, and directed all his animosity against the Talmud, the principal source of its importance. He displayed, in fact, a fierce hostility to the Talmud and its supporters. He is reported to have said that he wished that all the adherents of the Talmud were in his body, so that by killing himself he might at the same time make away with them. He considered everything in the Talmud reprehensible, and was desirous of returning to the Bible in the ordering of religious life. He reproached the Talmudists with having corrupted Judaism, and accused them at the same time, not only of adding many things to the Torah, but also of disregarding many of its commandments, which they declared to be no longer obligatory. Many things which, according to the text of the Bible, ought to have been binding for all time, they set aside. The advice which he impressed on his followers was "to seek industriously in the Scripture." On account of this return to the letter of the Bible (Mikra), the system of religion which Anan founded received the name of the Religion of the Text, or Karaism.

Anan expounded his views concerning religious commandments and prohibitions in three works, one of which was a commentary on the Pentateuch, certainly the very first of all productions of this class. Anan's works have not survived the lapse of time; the original character of Karaism is thus enveloped in complete obscurity. This only is clear, that in his hostility to the Talmud the founder of the Karaite sect increased rather than lessened the religious duties of life, enforced many observances which time and custom had long abolished, and in his blind eagerness to change the Talmudical exposition of the Law, often fell into ridiculous exaggerations. He made use of the Talmudical, or more properly the Mishnaic rules of interpretation, and with their help considered himself entitled, equally with the old teachers (of the Mishna), to deduce new laws of religion. The most important alterations were those made in the dates of the festivals, the Sabbath, in the laws of marriage, and the dietary regulations. Anan abolished the fixed calendar, which had been established in the middle of the fourth century; but finding no grounds in the Bible for this innovation, he was obliged to refer back to the time of the Second Temple and the Tanaites. As in former times, the beginning of every month was to be fixed by observation of the new moon. The leap years were not to follow in a regular series, according to the nineteen-years cycle, but were to be determined by repeated examination of the condition of the crops, especially at the time of the ripening of the barley. This was not so much an absolute innovation as a renewal of a method of regulating the festivals, the untenableness of which in the state of dispersion of the Jewish nation is evident. This variability of the calendar offered but little difficulty to Anan and his followers in Palestine, but it shows little foresight for the future. As had been formerly done by the Sadducees, Anan fixed the Feast of Pentecost fifty days after the Sabbath following the Passover.

In the strict observance of the Sabbath, Anan far outstripped the Talmud. He pronounced it unlawful to administer any medicines on the Sabbath, even in the case of dangerous illness, or to perform the operation of circumcision, or to leave the house in those cities where the Jews did not live separate from the non-Jewish population; he did not allow any warm food to be eaten, nor even a light or fire to be kindled on the eve of the Sabbath by the Jews themselves, or by others for their use. Anan introduced the custom among the Karaites of spending the Sabbath-eve in entire darkness. All these alterations and many others he pretended to deduce from the letter of the Bible. He made the laws relating to food severe beyond all measure, and he extended the prohibition of marriage to relatives who, according to the Talmud, were allowed to intermarry, so that the marriage of uncle and niece and of step-brothers and sisters, who were absolutely unrelated to one another, was regarded by him as incest. Compared with this exaggerated severity, of what importance was the abolition of the phylacteries (Tephillin), of the festal plants at the Feast of Tabernacles, and of the festival of Dedication, instituted in remembrance of the time of the Hasmoneans, and of other trifles? As his opponents rightly affirmed, he set up a new and much stricter Talmud. Religious life was thus invested by Anan with a gloomy and unpoetical character. The forms of prayer, which had been employed during many centuries, some of which had been in use in the Temple, were forbidden by the founder of this sect to be used in the synagogue, and they were banished, together with the prayers of the poetanim. Instead of them, only Biblical selections, made without taste, were to be read out in the manner of a litany in the Karaite synagogues. As the Jews of the Islamic empire were possessed of their own jurisdiction, Anan's innovations dealt also with points of civil law. In opposition to the text of the Bible, he placed the female heirs on an equal footing with the males with reference to property inherited from parents, while on the other hand he denied to the husband the right of succeeding to the property of his deceased wife.

But although Anan gave great impetus to the study of the Bible, the system of vowel points having been already introduced, thus enabling all men to read the Scriptures, nevertheless the age in which he lived was neither ripe enough nor his mind sufficiently comprehensive to enable him to produce a healthy, independent exposition of the text. He himself was obliged, in order to establish his innovations, to have recourse to forced interpretations, such as would hardly have been proposed by the Talmudists whom he reviled. In rejecting the Talmud, he broke the bridge connecting the Biblical past with the present. The religion of the Karaites is thus no natural growth, but an entirely artificial and labored creation. Anan had no regard for the customs and sentiments of the people. As his system of religion depended on the interpretation of the Scripture, Karaism naturally was unsettled in character. A new explanation of the text might threaten the very foundations of religious life, for what had been lawful might become unlawful, and vice versâ. Anan was as devoid of the power of appreciating poetry as of understanding history. The sacred prophetic and poetic literature was of no further use to him than to prove the existence of some law or some religious command. He closed the gates of the sanctuary on the newly-awakened poetical impulse.

It is singular that Anan and his followers justified their opposition to the Talmud by the example of the founder of Christianity. According to their idea, Jesus was a God-fearing, holy man, who had not desired to be recognized as a prophet, nor to set up a new religion in opposition to Judaism, but simply to confirm the precepts of the Torah and to abrogate laws imposed by human authority. Besides acknowledging the founder of Christianity, Anan also recognized Mahomet as the prophet of the Arabs. But he did not admit that the Torah had been repealed either by Jesus or by Mahomet, but held it to be binding for all time.

It is impossible to ascertain the number of Anan's adherents who followed him into exile. His disciples called themselves, after him, Ananites and Karaites (Karaim, Bene Mikra), while to their adversaries they gave the nickname of Rabbanites, which is equivalent to "Partisans of Authority." At first the irritation existing between the two parties was extremely violent. It is hardly necessary to say that the representatives of the colleges placed the chief of the party and his adherents under a ban of excommunication, and excluded them from the pale of Judaism. But on their side, the Karaites renounced all connection with the Rabbanites, entered into no marriage with them, refused to eat at their table, and even abstained from visiting the house of a Rabbanite on the Sabbath, because they considered that the holy day was desecrated there. The Rabbanites pronounced the Karaites heretics, preached against them from the pulpit, especially against their custom of spending the Sabbath-eve in darkness, and refused to allow the followers of Anan to take part in the prayers. The Karaites, on the other hand, could not sufficiently abuse the two colleges and their representatives. They applied to them the allegory of the prophet Zachariah, of the two women who carried Sin in a bushel to Babylon, and there founded a dwelling-place for her. "The two women are the Geonim in Sora and Anbar (Pumbeditha)." This satire, which probably originated with Anan, became current among the Karaites, and they never called the two colleges otherwise than "the two women."

Thus, for the third time, the Jewish race was divided into two hostile camps. Like Israel and Judah, during the first period, and the Pharisees and Sadducees in the time of the Second Temple, the Rabbanites and Karaites were now in opposition to each other. Jerusalem, the holy mother, who had witnessed so many wars between her sons, again became the scene of a fratricidal struggle. The Karaite community, which had withdrawn from the general union, acknowledged Anan as the legitimate Prince of the Captivity, and conferred this honorable title on him and his descendants. Both parties exerted themselves as much as possible to widen the breach.

After Anan's death, his followers, out of reverence, introduced memorial prayers for him into the Sabbath service. They prayed for him thus: "May God be merciful to the Prince Anan, the man of God, who opened the way to the Torah, and opened the eyes of the Karaites; who redeemed many from sin, and showed us the way to righteousness. May God grant him a good place among the seven classes who enter into Paradise." This service, in memory of Anan, is still in use with the Karaites of the present day.

It is impossible, however, for impartial judgment to endorse this encomium, for it is impossible to discern in Anan any greatness of mind. He was not a profound thinker, and was entirely devoid of philosophical knowledge. He had so mean a conception of the soul that, in painful adherence to the letter of the Bible, he designated the blood as its seat. But he was also inconsistent in his opposition to Talmudical Judaism, for he allowed not a few religious laws to continue in force that could no more be traced to a Biblical origin than the institutions which he rejected.

After Anan's death the Karaite community conferred the leadership on his son, Saul. Anan's disciples, who called themselves Ananites, differed on various points with their master, especially with regard to the prescribed mode of killing birds. Thus, immediately after Anan's death, the enduring character which he had desired to impart to religious life was destroyed, and there arose divisions which increased with every generation. This schism caused the Karaites to study the Bible more closely, and to support and strengthen their position against one another, and against the Rabbanites, from Holy Writ. It was for this reason that the study of the Bible was carried on by the Karaites with great ardor. With this study went hand in hand the knowledge of Hebrew grammar and of the Massora, the determination of the manner of reading the Holy Scripture. There sprang up many commentators on the Bible, and altogether a luxuriant literature was produced, as each party, thinking it had discovered something new in the Bible, desired to have its authority generally acknowledged.

While the Karaites thus were extremely active, the Rabbanites were most unfruitful in literary productions. A single work is all that is known to have appeared in those times. Judah, the blind Gaon of Sora, who has already been mentioned, and who had done much to oppose Anan's claim, composed a Talmudical Compendium, under the title "Short and Established Practice" (Halachoth Ketuoth). In this work Judah collected and arranged, in an orderly manner, the subjects which were scattered through the Talmud, and indicated briefly, omitting all discussions, what still held good in practice. To judge from a few fragments, Judah's Halachoth were written in Hebrew, by which means he rendered the Talmud popular and intelligible. For this reason the work penetrated to the most distant Jewish communities, and became the model for later compositions of a similar description.

The Karaite disturbances also contributed to lessen the authority of the Exilarch. Until the time of Anan the academies and their colleges had been subordinate to the Prince of the Captivity, and to the principals of the schools chosen or confirmed by him; at the same time, however, they had no direct influence over the appointment to this office when it became vacant. But having once succeeded in dispossessing Anan of the Exilarchate, the Gaons determined that this power should not be wrested from their hands, and accordingly from this time exercised it on the ground that they could not allow princes of Karaite opinions to be at the head of the Jewish commonwealth. The Exilarchate, which had been hereditary since the time of Bostanaï, became elective after Anan, and the presidents of the academies directed the election. On the death of Chananya (Achunaï), and hardly ten years after Anan's defection from Rabbanism, a struggle for the Exilarchate broke out afresh between two pretenders, Zaccaï ben Achunaï and Natronaï ben Chabibaï. The latter was a member of the college under Judah. The two heads of the schools at this period, Malka bar Acha, of Pumbeditha (771-773), and Chaninaï Kahana ben Huna, of Sora (765-775), united to bring about the overthrow of Natronaï, and succeeded in procuring, through the Caliph's attendants, his banishment from Babylonia. He emigrated to Maghreb (Kairuan), in which city there had existed ever since its foundation a numerous Jewish population. Zaccaï was confirmed in the office of Exilarch. The Exilarchate continued to become more and more dependent on the Gaonate, which often deposed obnoxious princes, and not infrequently banished them. But as the Exilarchs, when they arrived at power, attempted to free themselves from this state of dependence, there occurred collisions which exerted an evil influence on the Babylonian commonwealth.

At about the same time as Karaism sprang into existence, an event occurred which only slightly affected the development of Jewish history, but which roused the spirits of the scattered race and restored their courage. The heathen king of a barbarian people, living in the north, together with all his court, adopted the Jewish religion. The Chazars, or Khozars, a nation of Finnish origin, related to the Bulgars, Avars, Ugurs or Hungarians, had settled, after the dissolution of the empire of the Huns, on the frontier between Europe and Asia. They had founded a kingdom on the Volga (which they called the Itil or Atel) at the place near which it runs into the Caspian Sea, in the neighborhood of Astrakhan, now the home of the Kalmucks. Their kings, who bore the title of Chakan or Chagan, had led these warlike sons of the steppe from victory to victory. The Chazars inspired the Persians with so great a dread that Chosroes, one of their kings, found no other way of protecting his dominions against their violent invasions than by building a strong wall which blocked up the passes between the Caucasus and the sea. But this "gate of gates" (Bab al abwab, near Derbend) did not long serve as a barrier against the warlike courage of the Chazars. After the fall of the Persian empire, they crossed the Caucasus, invaded Armenia, and conquered the Crimean peninsula, which bore the name Chazaria for some time. The Byzantine emperors trembled at the name of the Chazars, flattered them, and paid them a tribute, in order to restrain their lust after the booty of Constantinople. The Bulgarians, and other tribes, were the vassals of the Chazars, and the people of Kiev (Russians) on the Dnieper were obliged to pay them as an annual tax a sword and a fine skin for every household. With the Arabs, whose near neighbors they gradually became, they carried on terrible wars.

Like their neighbors, the Bulgarians and the Russians, the Chazars professed a coarse religion, which was combined with sensuality and lewdness. The Chazars became acquainted with Islam and Christianity through the Arabs and Greeks, who came to the capital, Balanyiar, on matters of business, in order to exchange the products of their countries for fine furs. There were also Jews in the land of the Chazars; they were some of the fugitives that had escaped (723) from the mania for conversion which possessed the Byzantine Emperor Leo. It was through these Greek Jews that the Chazars became acquainted with Judaism. As interpreters or merchants, physicians or counselors, the Jews were known and beloved by the Chazar court, and they inspired the warlike king Bulan with a love of Judaism.

In subsequent times, however, the Chazars had but a vague knowledge of the motive which induced their forefathers to embrace Judaism. One of their later Chagans gives the following account of their conversion: The king Bulan conceived a horror of the foul idolatry of his ancestors, and prohibited its exercise within his dominions, without, however, adopting any other form of religion. He was encouraged by a dream in his endeavors to discover the proper manner of worshiping God. Having gained a great victory over the Arabs, and conquered the Armenian fortress of Ardebil, Bulan determined to adopt the Jewish religion openly. The Caliph and the Byzantine emperor desired, however, to induce the king of the Chazars to embrace their respective religions, and with this intention sent to Bulan deputations with letters and valuable presents, and men well versed in religious matters. The king thereupon arranged for a religious discussion to take place before him between a Byzantine ecclesiastic, a Mahometan sage, and a learned Jew. The champions of the three religions disputed the whole question, however, without being able to convince one another or the king of the superior excellence of their respective religions as compared with the other two. But as Bulan had remarked that the representatives of the religion of Christ and of Islam both referred to Judaism as the foundation and point of departure of their faiths, he declared to the ambassadors of the Caliph and the Emperor that, as he had heard from the opponents of Judaism themselves an impartial avowal of the excellence of that religion, he would carry out his intention of professing Judaism as his religion. He thereupon immediately offered himself for circumcision. The Jewish sage who was the means of obtaining Bulan's conversion is supposed to have been Isaac Sanjari or Sinjari.

It is possible that the circumstances under which the Chazars embraced Judaism have been embellished by legend, but the fact itself is too definitely proved on all sides to allow any doubt as to its reality. Besides Bulan, the nobles of his kingdom, numbering nearly four thousand, adopted the Jewish religion. Little by little it made its way among the people, so that most of the inhabitants of the towns of the Chazar kingdom were Jews; the army, however, was composed of Mahometan mercenaries. At first the Judaism of the Chazars must have been rather superficial, and could have had but little influence on their mind and manners. A successor of Bulan, who bore the Hebrew name of Obadiah, was the first to make serious efforts to further the Jewish religion. He invited Jewish sages to settle in his dominions, rewarded them royally, founded synagogues and schools, caused instruction to be given to himself and his people in the Bible and the Talmud, and introduced a divine service modeled on that of the ancient communities. So great was the influence which Judaism exercised on the character of this uncivilized race, that while the Chazars that remained heathens, without a twinge of conscience sold their children as slaves, those of them that had become Jews abandoned this barbarous custom. After Obadiah came a long series of Jewish Chagans, for according to a fundamental law of the state only Jewish rulers were permitted to ascend the throne. Neither Obadiah nor his successors showed any intolerance towards the non-Jewish population of the country; on the contrary, the non-Jews were placed on a footing of complete equality with the other inhabitants. There was a supreme court of justice, composed of seven judges, of whom two were Jews for the Jewish population, two Mahometans and two Christians for those who were of these religions, and one heathen for the Russians and Bulgarians. For some time the Jews of other countries had no knowledge of the conversion of this powerful kingdom to Judaism, and when at last a vague rumor to this effect reached them, they were of opinion that Chazaria was peopled by the remnant of the former ten tribes. The legend runs thus: Far, far beyond the gloomy mountains, beyond the Cimmerian darkness of the Caucasus, there live true worshipers of God, holy men, descendants of Abraham, of the tribes of Simeon and the half-tribe of Manasseh, who are so powerful that five-and-twenty nations pay them tribute.

At about this time--in the second half of the eighth century--the Jews of Europe also emerged a little from the darkness which had covered them for centuries. Favored by the rulers, or at least neither ill-treated nor persecuted by them, they raised themselves to a certain degree of culture. Charlemagne, the founder of the empire of the Franks, to whom Europe owes its regeneration and partial emancipation from barbarism, also contributed to the spiritual and social advancement of the Jews in France and Germany. By the creation of the German-Frankish empire--which extended from the ocean to the further side of the Elbe, and from the Mediterranean to the North Sea--Charlemagne transferred the focus of history to Western Europe, whereas hitherto it had been at Constantinople, on the borderland between Eastern Europe and Asia. Although Charlemagne was a protector of the Church, and helped to found the supremacy of the papacy, and Hadrian, the contemporary Pope, was anything but friendly to the Jews, and repeatedly exhorted the Spanish bishops to prevent the Christians from associating with Jews and heathens (Arabs), Charlemagne was too far-seeing to share the prejudices of the clergy with respect to the Jews. In opposition to all the precepts of the Church and decisions of the councils, the first Frankish emperor favored the Jews of his empire, and turned to account the knowledge of a learned man of this race, who journeyed to Syria for him, and brought back to France the products of the East. While other monarchs punished the Jews for purchasing Church vessels or taking them as pledges from the clergy or the servants of the Church, Charlemagne adopted the opposite course; he inflicted heavy punishment on the sacrilegious ecclesiastics, and absolved the Jews from all penalties.

The Jews were at this period the principal representatives of the commerce of the world. While the nobles devoted themselves to the business of war, the commoners to trades, and the peasants and serfs to agriculture, the Jews, who were not liable to be called upon to perform military service, and possessed no feudal lands, turned their attention to the exportation and importation of goods and slaves, so that the favor extended to them by Charlemagne was, to a certain extent, a privilege accorded to a commercial company. They experienced only the restraint put upon all merchants in the corn and wine trade; the Emperor considered it dishonest to make a profit on the necessaries of life. This somewhat materialistic value set upon the Jews marks, however, great progress from the narrow-mindedness of the Merovingian monarchs, the Gunthrams and the Dagoberts, who saw nothing in the Jews but murderers of God. But Charlemagne also manifested deep interest in the spiritual advancement of the Jewish inhabitants of his empire. In the same way as he had cared for the education of the Germans and the French by inviting learned men from Italy, so also he earnestly desired to place a higher culture within the reach of the German and the French Jews. With this intention he removed a learned family, consisting of Kalonymos, his son Moses, and his nephew, from Lucca to Mayence (787), hoping besides to make the Jews independent of the academies of the Levant.

Charlemagne's embassy to the powerful Caliph Haroun Alrashid, to which was attached a Jew named Isaac, is familiar to every student of history (797). Although at first probably Isaac accompanied the two nobles, Landfried and Sigismund, only in the character of interpreter, he was nevertheless admitted into Charlemagne's diplomatic secrets. Thus, when the two principal ambassadors died on the journey, the Caliph's reply and the valuable presents which he had forwarded, fell into Isaac's sole charge, and he was received in solemn audience by the Emperor at Aix. The Emperor is also said to have requested the Caliph, through his embassy, to send him from Babylonia a learned Jew for his country, and Haroun is reported to have sent him a man answering his requirements. This man was a certain Machir, whom Charlemagne placed at the head of the Jewish congregation of Narbonne. Machir, who, like Kalonymos of Lucca, became the ancestor of a learned posterity, founded a Talmudical school at Narbonne.

Owing to their favorable position in the Frankish-German Empire, in which they held land, the Jews were permitted to undertake voyages and carry on business, and were harassed neither by the people nor by the really religious German ecclesiastics; they were also enabled to abandon themselves to their inclination for travel, and thus spread through many of the provinces of Germany. In the ninth century, numbers of them dwelt in the towns of Magdeburg, Merseburg, and Ratisbon. From these points, they penetrated further and further into the countries inhabited by the Slavonians on the further side of the Oder as far as Bohemia and Poland. Meanwhile, in spite of the favor which Charlemagne extended to them, he, like the best men of the Middle Ages, found it difficult to treat them on an entirely equal footing with the Christians. The chasm, which the Fathers of the Church had placed between Christianity and Judaism, and which had been widened by individual ecclesiastics and the synods, was far too deep to be overleapt by an emperor who was devotedly attached to the Church. Charlemagne himself maintained, on one point, a difference between Jew and Christian, and perpetuated it in the peculiar form of the oath which was imposed on the Jews who were witnesses against, or accusers of, a Christian. They were required, in taking an oath against a Christian, to surround themselves with thorns, to take the Torah in their right hand, and to call down upon themselves Naaman's leprosy and the punishment of Korah's faction in witness of the truth of their statement. If there was not a Hebrew copy of the Torah at hand, a Latin Bible was held to be sufficient. It is impossible not to admit, however, that to allow the Jews to testify against a Christian was in itself a deviation from the ordinances of the Church.

In the East, at the beginning of the ninth century, the Jews were also reminded, in a disagreeable manner, that they had to expect scorn and oppression even from the best rulers. The reigns of the Abassid Caliphs, Haroun Alrashid and his sons, are regarded as the most flourishing period of the Caliphate of the East, but it is at this very time that Jewish complaints of oppression rise loudest. It is possible that in re-enacting Omar's law against the Christians (807), Haroun also made it applicable to the Jews; for they were compelled to wear a distinctive badge of yellow on their dress, in the same way as the Christians were obliged to wear blue, and they had to use a rope instead of a girdle. When, after his death (809), his two sons, Mahomet Alemin and Abdallah Almamun, for whom their father had divided the Caliphate into two parts, engaged in a destructive civil war, throughout the whole extent of the great empire, the Jews, especially those in Palestine, experienced severe persecution. The Christians, however, were their companions in misfortune. During the four years (809-813) of this fratricidal struggle, robbery and massacre seem to have been the order of the day. The sufferings were so terrible, it seems, that a preacher of those times declared them to be a sign of the speedy coming of the Messiah. "Israel can only be redeemed by means of penitence, and true penitence can only be evoked by suffering, affliction, wandering, and want," declared this orator by way of consolation of his afflicted congregation. In the civil war raging between the two Caliphs, he fancied he saw the approaching destruction of the Ishmaelite rule and the approach of the Messianic empire. "Two brothers will finally rule over the Ishmaelites (Mahometans); there will then arise a descendant of David, and in the days of this king the Lord of Heaven will found a kingdom which shall never perish." "God will exterminate the sons of Esau (Byzantium), Israel's enemies, and also the sons of Ishmael, its adversaries." But these, like many others, were delusive hopes. The civil war, indeed, shook the Caliphate to its foundations, but did not destroy it. Alemin was killed, and Almamun became the sole ruler of this extensive empire.

It was during Almamun's reign (813-833) that the Caliphate of the East flourished most luxuriantly. As he was imbued with tolerance, it was possible for the sciences and a certain form of philosophy to develop. Bagdad, Kairuan in northern Africa, and Merv in Khorasan, became the centers of science, such as Europe did not possess until many centuries later. The genius of the Greeks celebrated its resurrection in Arabic garb. Statesmen competed with men of leisure for the palm of erudition. The Jews did not remain unaffected by this enthusiasm for science. Investigation and subtle inquiry are indeed part of their innermost nature. They took earnest interest in these intellectual activities, and many of their achievements gained the approbation of the Arabs. The history of Arab civilization has several Jewish names recorded in its annals. Sahal, surnamed Rabban (the Rabbanite, the authority on the Talmud), of Taberistan on the Caspian Sea (about the year 800), was celebrated as a physician and a mathematician. He translated into Arabic the Almagest of the Greek astronomer Ptolemy, the text-book of astronomy during the Middle Ages, and was the first to note the refraction of light. His son Abu-Sahal Ali (835-853) is placed among those that advanced the study of medicine, and was the teacher of two Arabic medical authorities, Razi and Anzarbi.

With even more ardor than that with which they had applied themselves to medicine, mathematics and astronomy, the Mussulmans prosecuted the study of the science of religion, a sort of philosophy of religion (Kalâm). It was invested with as much importance as the affairs of state, and exercised a certain influence on politics. The expounders of the Koran, in trying to explain away the grossly sensual references to God, and to reconcile the contradictions contained in that work, developed ideas which projected far beyond the restricted horizon of Islam. Many commentators, by reason of their rationalistic explanations, came into conflict with the champions of the text, and were branded by them as heretics. The Mutazilists (heretics) laid great stress upon the unity of God, and desired that no definite attributes should be ascribed to him; for thereby the essence of God appeared to them to be divided into parts, and several beings to be included in the idea of God, whose unity was thus negatived. They further asserted the freedom of the human will, because the unconditional predetermination by God, which the Oriental mind believes, and the Koran confirms, was incompatible with divine justice, which rewards the good and punishes the bad. They believed, however, that they still stood on the same ground as the Koran, although, of course, going far beyond it, and in order to bring their doctrine into harmony with the blunt sayings of their religious book, they employed the same method as the Alexandrian-Jewish philosophers of religion had used to reconcile the Bible with Greek philosophy; they adopted an allegorical interpretation of the text. This interpretation was employed for the purpose of bridging over the gulf existing between the rationalistic idea of God and the irrational idea as taught by the Koran. The rationalistic Mutazilist theology of the Mahometans, although denounced at first as heretical, steadily gained ascendancy; the schools of Bagdad and Bassora rang with its doctrines. The Caliph Almamun exalted it into the theology of the court, and condemned the old simple views of religion.

The adherents of orthodoxy were horrified by this license of interpretation, for the text of the Koran, in an underhand way, was forced into conveying an opposite meaning, and simple faith lost all support. They, therefore, adhered strictly to the letter and to the natural meaning of the text. Some of them went still further. They took, in their literal meaning, all the expressions concerning God, however gross they might be, which occurred in the Koran, or were used by tradition, and constructed a most vile theology. Mahomet expressed a revelation thus: "My Lord came to meet me, gave me his hand in greeting, looked into my face, laid his hand between my shoulders, so that I felt his cold finger-tips," and the orthodox school accepted all this in revolting literalness. This school (Anthropomorphists) did not hesitate to declare that God was a body possessed of members and a definite form; that he was seven spans high, measured by his own span; that he was in a particular spot--upon his throne; that it was permissible to affirm of him that he moves, mounts his throne and descends from it, stops and rests. These and still more blasphemous descriptions of the Supreme Being, in the same grossly materialistic strain, were given by the orthodox Mahometan teachers of religion, in order to show their adherence to the letter of the Koran in contradistinction to the Rationalists.

The Jews of the East lived in so close a connection with the Mussulmans that they could not fail to be affected by these tendencies. The same phenomena were repeated, therefore, in Jewish circles, and the variance between Karaites and Rabbanites assisted in transferring the Islamic controversies to Judaism. The official supporters of Judaism, however, the colleges of Sora and Pumbeditha, held aloof from them. Entirely absorbed in the Talmud, and its exposition, they either took no notice at first of the violent agitation of mind prevailing, or else refused to yield to it. But outside of the colleges men were actively interested in these new methods, and Judaism was pushed through another process of purification.

The faint ray of philosophy which fell into this world of simple blind faith, ignorant of its own beliefs, produced a dazzling illumination. The Karaites for the most part were of Mutazilist (rationalistic) tendency, while the Rabbanites, on the contrary, having to defend the strange Agadic statements concerning God, were antagonistic to science. But as the religious edifice of Karaism was not finished, there arose new sects within its pale, with peculiar theories and varying religious practices.

The first person known to have imparted the Mutazilist tendency of Islamic theology to Judaism was Judah Judghan, the Persian, of the town of Hamadan (about 800). His adversaries relate of him that he was originally a camel-herd. He himself pretended to be the herald of the Messiah, and when he had gained adherents, unfolded to them a peculiar doctrine, which he asserted had been made known to him in a vision.

In opposition to the ancient traditional views, in accordance with which the Biblical account of God's deeds and thoughts must be taken literally, Judah Judghan asserted that we ought not to represent God with material attributes or anthropomorphically, for he is elevated above all created things. The expressions which the Torah employs in this connection are to be taken in a wholly metaphorical sense. Nor may we take for granted that, by virtue of His omnipotence and omniscience, God predetermines the acts of man. Much rather ought we to proceed from God's justice, and assume that man is master of his actions, and possessed of free will, and that reward and punishment are meted out to us according to our merit. While Judah of Hamadan was possessed of liberal views concerning theoretical questions, he recommended the severest asceticism in practice. His adherents abstained from meat and wine, fasted and prayed frequently, but were less strict with respect to the festivals. His followers, who long maintained themselves as a peculiar sect under the name of Judghanites, believed so firmly in him that they asserted that he was not dead, but would appear again, in order to bring a new doctrine with him, as the Shiites believed of Ali. One of his disciples, named Mushka, was desirous of imposing the doctrine of his master on the Jews by force. He marched out of Hamadan with a troop of comrades of similar sentiments, but, together with nineteen of his followers, was killed, in the neighborhood of Koom (east of Hamadan, southwest of Teheran), most probably by the Mussulmans.

Judah Judghan attached more importance to an ascetic mode of living than to the establishing of the philosophical basis of Judaism, and was therefore rather the founder of a sect than a religious philosopher. A contemporary Karaite, Benjamin ben Moses of Nahavend (about 800-820), spread the Mutazilist philosophy among the Karaites. Benjamin Nahavendi is regarded by his fellow-Karaites as an authority, and is honored by them as greatly as Anan, their founder, although he differed from the latter on many points. Benjamin was entirely permeated with the conceptions of the Mutazilists. He was scandalized, not only by the physical and human characteristics of God contained in the Scripture, but also by the revelation and the creation. He could not rest satisfied with the idea that the spiritual Being had created this earthly world, had come into contact with it, had circumscribed himself in space for the purpose of the revelation on Sinai, and uttered articulate sounds. In order not to abandon his elevated idea of God, and at the same time to preserve the revelation of the Torah, he adopted the following notion, as others had done before him: God had himself created only the spiritual world and the angels; the terrestrial universe, on the other hand, had been created by the angels, so that God ought to be regarded only as the mediate creator of the world. In the same way the revelation, the giving of the Law on Sinai, and the inspiration of the prophets were all the work of an angel only. Certain disciples adopted Benjamin's views, and formed a peculiar sect, called (it is not known for what reason) the Makariyites or Maghariyites.

While Benjamin Nahavendi, as is generally acknowledged, deviated widely from the Jewish system with respect to religious philosophy, he approached the Rabbanites on the subject of morals; he adopted many Talmudical ordinances, and left it to the free choice of the Karaites to reject or adopt them as their standard. In order to enforce obedience to the laws, Benjamin Nahavendi introduced a species of excommunication, which differed only slightly from the excommunication of the Rabbanites. When an accused person refused to obey the summons served on him, and attempted to evade judgment, he was to be cursed on each of seven successive days, and then excommunication pronounced on him. The excommunication consisted in the prohibition of intercourse with all the members of the community, who also were forbidden to greet him, or to accept anything from him; he was to be treated in all respects like one deceased, until he submitted. If he obstinately disregarded the decree, it was lawful to hand him over to temporal justice. Although Benjamin Nahavendi inclined to Rabbanism on certain points, he adhered firmly, nevertheless, to the Karaite principle of unrestrained research in the Bible. One ought not to tie one's self down to the authorities, but to follow one's own conviction; the son may differ from the father, the disciple from the master, as soon as they have reasons for their different views. "Inquiry is a duty, and errors occasioned by inquiry do not constitute a sin."

In the same manner as the orthodox Mahometan teachers of religion worked counter to the unrestrained subtlety of the Mutazilists, and, falling into the opposite extreme, conceived the divinity as possessed of a bodily form, so also did the Jewish adherents of the orthodox doctrine go astray, and, regarding the rationalistic innovation as a defection from Judaism, they conceived the most absurd ideas concerning the materiality of God. They even desired to accept in their most literal sense the Biblical expressions, "God's hand, God's foot, his sitting down, or walking about." The Agadic exposition of the Scripture, which occasionally made use of material, tangible figures, adapted to the comprehension of the people, promoted the acceptance of this anti-Jewish theory. This theory, the creation of an imbecile, gained adherents by reason of its mysterious nature. It gives a minute, corporeal description of the Deity, measures his height from head to foot by the parasang-scale, speaks in blasphemous detail of God's right and left eye, of his upper and lower lip, of his beard and of other members, which it would be sacrilegious even to mention. In order, however, not to prejudice the sublimity and majesty of God, this theory enlarges each organ to enormous proportions, and considers that justice has been done to the case when it adds that the scale by which the members are measured considerably exceeds the whole world (Shiur-Komah). To this God, whom it thus dissected and measured, the theory assigned a special house in heaven with seven halls (Hechaloth). In the uppermost hall, God is seated upon an elevated throne, the proportions of which are measured by the same enormous scale. The halls are populated by this materialistic theory with myriads of angels, to some of whom are assigned names formed by the arbitrary combination of Hebrew and foreign words into barbarous sounds. The chief angel, however, is a certain Metatoron, and the theory adds, after the example of the Christian and Mahometan authors, that he was Enoch or Henoch, originally a man, but transported by God into heaven, and converted into flames of fire. With evident pleasure the theory dwells upon the description of this abortion of a morbid fancy. It even dared place him at the side of the Divinity, and call him the "little God."

This theory, which was a compound of misunderstood Agadas, and of Jewish, Christian, and Mahometan fantastic notions, clothed itself in mysterious obscurity, and pretended to be a revelation. In order to answer the inquiry whence it had acquired this wisdom which enabled it to scoff at Judaism, in other words, at the Bible and the Talmud, it quotes alleged divine instructions. As there is no nonsense, however apparent, which cannot find adherents when earnestly and impressively enunciated, this doctrine of mystery, which was based upon a grossly material conception of God, found many followers. Its adepts called themselves "Men of Faith." They boasted of possessing the means of obtaining a view of the divine household. By virtue of certain incantations, invocations of the names of God and the angels, and the recitation of certain prayer-like chants, combined with fasting and an ascetic mode of living, they pretended to be able to perform supernatural deeds. For this purpose they made use of amulets and cameos (Kameoth), and wrote upon them the names of God or the angels with certain signs. Miracle-working was a trifle to these mystics. They asserted that every pious man had the power of performing miracles, if he only employed the proper means. To this end they wrote a number of works on the theory and practice of the esoteric doctrine; for the most part they contained downright nonsense, but here and there they rose to poetry. But this mystical literature only gave hints; the adepts would surrender the real key to a knowledge of the divine secrets and to the power of performing miracles only to certain persons, in whose hand and forehead they pretended to discover lines that proved them to be worthy of this favor.

This mystical doctrine flourished chiefly in Palestine, where the real study of the Talmud was languishing; little by little it made its way into Babylonia. This became apparent on the occasion of the election of a principal of the Pumbeditha academy (814). The best claim to this office was that advanced by a certain Mar-Aaron (ben Samuel), by reason of his erudition and on account of his having acted up till then as chief judge. Nevertheless, preference was given to the claim of a rival, the aged Joseph bar Abba, who was far inferior to him in learning; the reason of this preference being that the latter was an adept in mysticism, and was believed to be favored with the intimacy of the prophet Elijah. One day when this same Joseph bar Abba was presiding at a public meeting, he exclaimed with rapture, "Make room for the old man who is just coming in." The eyes of all present were immediately turned to the entrance, and those to the right of the principal respectfully stepped aside. They saw no one enter, however, and were therefore all the more positively convinced that the prophet Elijah had entered invisible, had seated himself on the right of his friend Joseph, and had been present during the whole of his discourse. After that time no one dared occupy the place at the side of the principal of the Pumbeditha academy, for it had been honored and hallowed by Elijah, and it became the custom to leave it vacant.

Joseph's successor, Mar-Abraham ben Sherira (816-828), was likewise a mystic. It was said that he could foresee the future from the rustling of palm leaves on a calm day.

More liberal views, and even Karaism, found a way into the halls of learning, just as mysticism had done before. Through these opposed views quarrels naturally arose, which came to light when the office of Exilarch was to be filled. In the year 825 there was to be the election of a new Prince of the Exile. For this office there were two candidates, David ben Judah and Daniel. The latter was inclined to Karaism, and perhaps just on this account found in southern Babylonia many supporters who gave him their votes. The Babylonians in the north, who belonged to Pumbeditha (Anbar), decided in favor of David, as he doubtless belonged to the orthodox party. The quarrel was carried on with much virulence. The mystic Abraham ben Sherira was deposed in consequence, and Joseph ben Chiya appointed in his place. It is not known by which party this was brought about. But Abraham had followers in Pumbeditha, who gave him their support, and refused allegiance to the rival Gaon. The quarrel could not be decided by their own authorities, and both parties appealed to the Caliph Almamun to confirm the Exilarch of their choice. Almamun, however, at that time was engaged in a dispute about the Eastern Church. He had been called upon to decide between two claimants for the Chaldæo-Christian Patriarchate, and wanted to rid himself of such litigation. He therefore declined to interfere in the internal affairs of the Jews and Christians, and decreed that in future each party should be empowered to elect its own religious chief. If ten Jews wished to elect an Exilarch, ten Christians an Archbishop, or ten Fire-worshipers a Chief Priest, they had the power to do so. This decree was unsatisfactory to both parties, inasmuch as it left the quarrel undecided; it is not certain how it ended. So much, however, is known: David ben Judah asserted his authority, and filled the post for about ten years (till 840).

In the school of Sora also quarrels broke out (827). The quarrel between the chiefs lasted for a long time in the school of Pumbeditha. Eventually a compromise was effected. There were to be two Gaons holding office together, who should share equally the title and the revenue. Abraham, however, was to have the privilege of delivering the address at the general assemblies.

One day both heads of the school at Pumbeditha met in Bagdad at an installation ceremony, at which it was customary to give an address. The capital of the Caliphate had at this time a numerous Jewish community and several synagogues. Bagdad, which was nearer to Pumbeditha than to Sora, belonged to the district of the School of Pumbeditha. Its president was there given the preference to him of Sora.

When the lecture was to begin, and it was proclaimed aloud, "Hear what the heads of the schools are about to say," those present burst into tears on account of the disunion in their midst. The tears of the multitude had so mighty an effect upon Joseph ben Chiya that he arose, and publicly tendered his resignation in favor of his opponent.

He received an insulting blessing as the reward of his noble resolve. "May God give you a share in the world to come," said his opponent, who now assumed his position. It was only after Abraham's death (828), that the noble Joseph was re-installed as Gaon of Pumbeditha (828-833).

All disputes had ceased in the school of Sora, but they soon broke out again, and created such confusion, that Sora was without a Gaon for two years (837-839). We are in the dark as to the true reason of all this discord, but it is probable that the rise of Karaism had something to do with it. However much the Rabbanites hated the Karaite sect, and though they declared it heretical, and kept away from it, yet they adopted several of its teachings, and imitated it in others.

But if Anan's sect had sown the seeds of dissension amongst the followers of the more ancient sect, it was itself not by any means free therefrom. The principal dogma of Karaism was unlimited freedom in exegesis, and the regulation of religion according to the result of honest inquiry. The result was that every Karaite constructed his Judaism according to his own interpretation of the text. Religious practice was regulated according to the clever or silly ideas of the expositor. Moreover, exegesis was yet in its infancy. The knowledge of the Hebrew language, the basis of a healthy, rational exegesis, was still scanty, and arbitrariness had every opportunity of asserting itself. Every one believed himself to be in possession of the truth, and when he did not condemn them, pitied those who did not share his views. We have a sad picture of the condition of Karaism scarcely a century after Anan's death. New sects, too, arose from it, the founders of which had strange ideas about some customs of Judaism. Musa (or Mesvi) and Ishmael, from the town of Akbara (seven miles east of Bagdad), are said to have held peculiar views about the observance of the Sabbath. What these views were we do not now know, but they approached the doctrines of the Samaritans. The two Akbarites further declared that the Pentateuchal prohibition against eating certain parts of the fat of an animal only referred to the sacrifices, and that it was permissible to use them otherwise. Musa and Ishmael found followers who lived according to their doctrines. These formed a sect within Karaism, and called themselves Akbarites.

Simultaneously with these there arose another false teacher, Abu-Amran Moses, a Persian from the little town of Safran (near Kerman-Shah in Persia), who had emigrated to the town of Tiflis in Armenia. Abu Amran Altiflisi propounded other views, which he believed were based upon the text of the Bible. He, like the other Karaites, wished to have the marriage of an uncle with his niece considered among the prohibited unions. He had peculiar views about the calendar, differing both from those of the Karaites and those of the Rabbanites. There was to be no fixed calendar, nor was the month to commence when the new moon became visible, but at the moment of its eclipse. Moses, the Persian, denied bodily resurrection, and introduced other innovations which are not known in detail. His followers formed themselves into a peculiar sect, under the name of Abu-Amranites or Tiflisites, and continued to exist for several centuries.

Another Moses (or Mesvi), from Baalbek in Syria, continued the schism, and departed still more from Karaism. He affirmed that the Feast of Passover must always happen on Thursday, and the Day of Atonement on the Sabbath, because this day is designated in the Bible as "the Sabbath of Sabbaths." In many points, Moses of Baalbek differed from both the Karaites and the Rabbanites. He enacted amongst his sect that in praying they should always turn to the west, instead of turning in the direction of the Temple. He, too, formed a sect called by his name, which continued to exist for a long time.

As Karaism had no religious center, and no spiritual court to represent its unity, it is quite natural that there could be no sympathy between one Karaite community and another. And so it happened that the people of Khorasan observed the festivals in a manner different from that of the other Karaites.

In the principles which the Karaites by and by were forced to lay down, in order, in a measure, to put a stop to the individualistic tendencies of their adherents, who were always forming new sects, they recognized the authority of tradition. They accepted the laws for slaughtering and the manner of fixing the beginning of each month, under their rule that a great many customs, not prescribed in either the Law, the Prophets or the Hagiographa, yet universally observed among the members of the Jewish race, were obligatory as religious practices. This rule of agreement or analogy was later called by them tradition (Haatakah) or hereditary teaching (Sebel ha Yerusha). In practice, however, they were arbitrary, inasmuch as they retained one custom as traditional, while they rejected others possessed of equal claims to be considered traditional. The rule of analogy led Karaism into new difficulties, especially as regards the marriage of certain blood-relations. They fell from one difficulty into another. They held that the affinity between a man and his wife was, according to the Bible, continuous. Consequently step-children should not be allowed to intermarry. But they went still further. The affinity between a man and his wife continues, they said, even if the marriage is dissolved. If in such a case the husband or the wife marries again, the affinity extends to the new families, although they are unknown to each other. Hence the members of the family of the first husband cannot intermarry with the members of the second husband's family. This affinity continues to the third and fourth generations. Thus the circle of affinity was considerably enlarged. The authors of this system of artificial relationship called it "handing over" (Rikkub, Tarkib). Why they should have stopped at the fourth generation it is difficult to see, but it appears that they feared the ultimate consequences. Such was the confusion in which Karaism had enveloped itself in its endeavor to break with the past.

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Chapter VI

FAVORABLE CONDITION OF THE JEWS IN THE FRANKISH DOMINIONS, AND THE DECAY OF THE EXILARCHATE IN THE EAST.

The Jews under Louis le Débonnaire--The Empress Judith and her Veneration for Judaism--Agobard, Bishop of Lyons-- Conversion of Bishop Bodo--Amolo's effort against the Jews-- Charles the Bald--Troubles in Béziers and Toulouse--Decree against the Jews in Italy--Boso of Burgundy--Basilius-- Leo the Philosopher--Decline of the Exilarchate--The Geonim acquire Additional Influence--The Prayer Book of Amram-- Mar-Zemach--Literary and Scientific Activity of the Jews-- Decay of Karaism--Dissensions at Pumbeditha.

814-920 C. E.

The Jews of Europe had no knowledge of the split in Judaism in the East, of the struggle between the Exilarchate and the Gaonate, or of the rivalry of the heads of the schools. Babylonia, the seat of the Gaonic schools, was looked upon by them almost in the light of a heaven upon earth, as a place of eternal peace, and of the knowledge of God. A decision from Pumbeditha was considered an important event, and was read with the greatest respect. Such a decision was obeyed more willingly than a papal bull among the Catholics, because it was given without the assumption of authority. The western nations, as yet in their childhood with respect to literature, were under guardianship as regards religion--the Christians under the papal throne, the Jews under the Gaonic schools.

It is true, some prominent Jews in France and Italy occupied themselves with the study of mysticism and the Agada, but they regarded themselves as dependent upon the Eastern authorities.

The favorable condition of the Jews in the Frankish dominions, under Charles the Great, continued under his son Louis (814-840), and, under these advantageous circumstances, an impulse towards intellectual activity manifested itself. They showed so much zeal in the cause of Judaism that they even inspired Christians with love for it. The successor of Charles the Great, the generous but weak Louis, in spite of his religious inclination, which obtained for him the name of "the Pious," showed extraordinary favor to the Jews. He took them under his special protection, shielding them from injustice, both on the part of the barons and of the clergy. They enjoyed the right of settling in any part of the kingdom. In spite of numerous decrees to the contrary, they were not only allowed to employ Christian workmen, but they might even import slaves. The clergy were forbidden to baptize the slaves of Jews to enable them to regain their freedom. Out of regard for them the market day was changed from the Sabbath day to Sunday. The Jews were freed from the punishment of scourging, and had the jurisdiction over Jewish offenders in their own hands. They were, moreover, not subject to the barbarous ordeals of fire and water. They were allowed to carry on their trades without let or hindrance, but they had to pay a tax to the treasury, and to render account periodically of their income. Jews also farmed the taxes, and obtained through this privilege a certain power over the Christians, although this was distinctly contrary to the provisions of canonic law.

An officer (Magister Judæorum) was appointed whose duty it was to watch over the rights of the Jews, and not permit them to be encroached upon. In the time of Louis this office was filled by a man named Eberard. One is almost tempted to believe that the remarkable favor shown to the Jews by the pious emperor was mainly due to commercial motives. The international commerce which Charlemagne had established, and which the counselors of Louis wished to develop, was mostly in the hands of Jews, because they could more easily enter into commercial relations with their brethren in other lands, as they were not hampered by military service. But there was a deeper reason for the extraordinary favor shown to the Jews, not only to the Jewish merchants, but also to the Jews as such--the bearers of the purified knowledge of God.

The empress Judith, Louis' second consort, was most friendly to Judaism. This beautiful and clever queen, the admiration of whose friends was equaled only by the hostility of her foes, had great respect for the Jewish heroes of antiquity. When the learned abbot of Fulda, Rhabanus Maurus, wished to win her favor, he could find no more effectual means than to dedicate to her his work on the books of Esther and Judith, and to compare her to both these Jewish heroines. The empress and her friends, and probably also the treasurer Bernhard, the real ruler of the kingdom, became patrons of the Jews, because of their descent from the patriarchs and the prophets. "They ought to be honored on this account," said their friends at court, and their view was shared by the emperor. Cultured Christians refreshed themselves with the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus and the Jewish philosopher Philo, and read their works in preference to those of the apostles. Educated ladies and courtiers openly confessed that they esteemed the Jewish lawgiver more highly than they did their own. They even went so far as to ask the Jews for their blessing. The Jews had free access to court, and held direct intercourse with the emperor and those near him. Relatives of the emperor presented Jewish ladies with costly garments in order to show their appreciation and respect.

As such favor was shown them in higher circles, it was only natural that the Jews of the Frankish dominions (which also included Germany and Italy) should enjoy wide toleration, perhaps more than at any other period of their history. The hateful canonical laws were tacitly annulled. The Jews were allowed to build synagogues, to speak freely about the meaning of Judaism in the hearing of Christians, and even to say that they were "descendants of the patriarchs," "the race of the just," "the children of the prophets." They could fearlessly give their candid opinion about Christianity, the miracles of the saints, the relics, and image worship. Christians visited the synagogues, and were edified by the Jewish method of conducting divine service, and, strangely enough, were better pleased with the lectures of the Jewish preachers (Darshanim) than with those of their own clergy, although the Darshanim could hardly have been able to reveal the deep tenor of Judaism. So much, however, is certain: the Jewish preachers delivered their sermons in the vernacular. Clergymen in high station were not ashamed to adopt their expositions of Holy Writ from the Jews. The abbot Rhabanus Maurus of Fulda confessed that he had learnt several things from the Jews which he made use of in his commentary to the Bible, dedicated to Louis of Germany, who afterwards became emperor.

In consequence of the favor shown to the Jews at court, some Christians conceived a liking for Judaism, looked upon Judaism as the true religion, found it more convincing than Christianity, respected the Sabbath, and worked on Sunday. In short, the reign of Emperor Louis the Pious was a golden era for the Jews of his kingdom, such as they had never enjoyed, and were destined never again to enjoy in Europe. But as the Jewish race has had enemies at all times, these were not lacking to the French Jews of this epoch, especially as they were in favor at court, were beloved by the people, and could openly declare their religious views. The followers of strict Church discipline saw in the violation of the canonical laws, in the favor shown to the Jews and in the liberty which was then being vouchsafed to them, the ruin of Christendom. Envy and hatred were concealed under the cloak of orthodoxy. The patrons of the Jews at court, with the empress at their head, were hated by the clerical party, which strove to rule the emperor, and which now transferred its anger against the liberal court party to the Jews.

The exponent of clerical orthodoxy and of hatred against the Jews at this time, was Agobard, Bishop of Lyons, whom the Church has canonized. A restless and passionate man, he calumniated the empress Judith, rebelled against the emperor, and incited the princes to revolt. He supported the disloyal sons of the emperor, especially Lothaire, against their father. He was called the Ahithophel who incited Absalom against his father David. This bishop wished to limit the liberty of the Jews, and to reduce them to the low position they had held under the Merovingian kings.

An insignificant occurrence gave him the desired opportunity. The female slave of a respected Jew of Lyons ran away from her master, and to regain her freedom she allowed herself to be baptized (about 827). The Jews, who saw in this act an encroachment on their chartered rights and on their property, demanded the surrender of the runaway slave. On Agobard's refusal to grant this, the Jews turned to Eberard, the Magister Judæorum, who threatened to punish the bishop, if he persisted in his refusal to restore her to her master.

This was the beginning of a contest between Agobard and the Jews which lasted for several years. It gave rise to many quarrels, and ended in the deposition of Agobard. He did not care so much about this slave, as about the maintenance and assertion of the canonical laws against the Jews. But he now encountered a serious difficulty. Incited, on the one hand, by his hatred of the Jews, restrained, on the other, by his fear of punishment, he did not know how to act. Perplexed, he turned to the representatives of the Church party at court, whom he knew to be enemies of the empress and her favorites, the Jews. He urged them to induce the emperor to restrict the liberty of the Jews. They appear to have proposed something of the sort to the emperor. The friends of the Jews at court, in the meantime, sought to frustrate the plans of the clergy. The emperor summoned the bishops and the representatives of Judaism to settle the points in dispute. Agobard, however, was so full of rage at the meeting that, as he himself says, "he roared rather than spoke." He then had an audience with the emperor. When the bishop appeared before Louis, the latter looked at him so fiercely that he could not utter a word, and heard nothing but the order to withdraw. Ashamed and confused, the bishop returned to his diocese. However, he soon recovered from his confusion, and plotted anew against the Jews. Agobard delivered anti-Jewish speeches, and urged his parishioners to break off all intercourse with the Jews, to do no business with them, and to decline entering their service. Fortunately, their patrons at court were active on their behalf, and did their best to frustrate the designs of the fanatic priest. As soon as they were informed of his action they obtained letters of protection (indiculi) from the emperor, sealed with his seal, and these they sent to the Jews of Lyons.

A letter was likewise sent to the bishop commanding him, under a severe penalty, to discontinue his anti-Jewish sermons. Another letter was sent to the governor of the Lyons district, bidding him render the Jews all assistance (828). Agobard took no notice of these letters, and spitefully alleged that the imperial decree was spurious--in fact, could not possibly be genuine. Thereupon Eberard, the Magister Judæorum, sent to him, telling him of the emperor's displeasure on account of his disobedience. But he remained so obstinate, that the emperor had to send two commissioners, Gerrick and Frederick, men in high standing at court, armed with full power to bring this stubborn and seditious bishop to reason. What means they were empowered to employ against him we do not know, but they must have been severe, because the few priests who had taken part in Agobard's agitation did not venture to show themselves. It is significant that the people of Lyons did not at all side with their bishop against the Jews.

The Jew-hater Agobard did not rest in his efforts against the Jews. He determined to oppose the court party which favored the Jews, and to win over the emperor by an appeal to his conscience. Perhaps he was acquainted with the plans of the conspirators, Wala, Helisachar, and Hilduin, who desired to incite the sons of the emperor's first marriage against the empress and the chief chancellor Bernhard, because these had induced the emperor to effect a new division of the kingdom in favor of Judith's son. Agobard henceforth divested himself of all timidity, and became quite resolute, as though he anticipated the speedy downfall of the party that favored the Jews. He first appealed to the bishops, and entreated them to reproach the king with his sin, and persuade him to reduce the Jews to the humble position they had occupied at the time of the Merovingians. Only one of Agobard's letters to the prelates is extant, the one to Bishop Nibridius of Narbonne. It is full of bitterness against the Jews, and is interesting on account of the fanaticism of the writer, and the confession he makes therein. Amongst other things he complains that the Christians, despite their efforts, could not succeed in winning over to Christianity a single Jewish soul, whilst the Christians, joining Jews at their meals, partook also of their spiritual food. Although Agobard's bitter hatred of the Jews is chiefly to be considered a manifestation of his own feelings, it cannot be denied that it was in entire harmony with the teachings of the Church. He justly appeals to the sayings of the apostles and to the canonic laws. The inviolable decrees of the councils, too, were on his side. Agobard, with his gloomy hatred, was strictly orthodox, whilst Emperor Louis with his mildness was inclined to heresy. But Agobard did not venture to spread this opinion openly. He rather suggested it in his statement that he could not believe it to be possible that the emperor had betrayed the Church to the Jews. His complaint was echoed in the hearts of the princes of the Church.

A number of bishops assembled at Lyons for the purpose of discussing the best method of humbling the Jews, and disturbing their hitherto peaceful existence. They also considered how the emperor might best be influenced to adopt their resolutions. It was resolved at the meeting that a letter should be handed to the emperor, setting forth the wickedness and the danger of favoring the Jews, and specifying the privileges which ought to be withdrawn (829). The letter of the synod, as we have it now, is signed by three bishops, and is entitled, "Concerning the Superstitions of the Jews." Agobard wrote the preface, in which he explains his position in the quarrel. In it, after accusing the Jews, he blamed their friends as being the cause of all the evil. The Jews, he said, had become bold through the support of the commissioners, who had given out that the Jews were not so bad after all, but were very dear to the emperor. From the standpoint of faith and of the canonic laws the argument of Agobard and the other bishops was irrefutable, and had Emperor Louis the Pious set store by this logic, he would have had to extirpate the Jews, root and branch. Fortunately, however, he took no notice of it. This happened either because he knew Agobard's character, or because the letter containing the accusations against the Jews never reached him. Agobard's fear that the letter would be intercepted by the friends of the Jews at court may have proved well founded. The Jew-hating bishop of Lyons, however, had his revenge. In the following year (830), he took part in the conspiracy against the empress Judith, by joining the sons, who nearly succeeded in dethroning their father. Agobard was thereupon deprived of his office, and had to seek safety in Italy, but Louis soon restored him to his office, after which Agobard left the Jews unmolested.

Till the end of his life Louis remained well disposed toward the Jews. This is the more surprising as he felt very much hurt when one of his favorites became a convert to Judaism, which might easily have embittered him against them. The conversion of Bishop Bodo, who had hitherto occupied a high position, created a great sensation in its time. The chronicles speak of this event as they would of some extraordinary natural phenomenon. The event, indeed, was accompanied by peculiar circumstances, and was a great shock to pious Christians. Bodo, or Puoto, descended from an old Alemannic race, a man as well informed in temporal as in spiritual affairs, had become an ecclesiastic, and occupied the rank of a deacon. The emperor favored him, and in order to have him constantly near him, made him his spiritual adviser. Entertaining strict Catholic opinions, Bodo desired to go to Rome in order to receive the blessing of the Pope, and to make a pilgrimage to the graves of the apostles and the martyrs. He was given leave of absence, but in Rome, the stronghold of Christianity, Bodo conceived a strong liking for Judaism. Perhaps the favor shown to the Jews and Judaism at Louis' court had suggested to him a comparison of the two faiths, and his investigation may have led him to recognize the merits of Judaism. Besides, the immoral life of the clergy in the Christian capital, which had given rise to the satire about Pope Joan, who had defiled the chair of Peter, filled him with disgust, and attracted him to the purer religion of Judaism.

He himself wrote later, that he, in company with other divines, had used the churches for grossly immoral purposes. Christian orthodoxy, without inquiring into the true reason for Bodo's change of faith, had a ready answer, viz., that Satan, the enemy of mankind and of the Church, had led him to it. Bodo, without stopping at the court or in France, journeyed from Rome to Spain, and there formally became a Jew, giving up for the new faith his fatherland, his position, and his friends. He was circumcised in Saragossa, assumed the name of Eleazar, and let his beard grow (August, 938). He married a Jewess in Saragossa, and appears to have entered the military service of an Arab prince. He now conceived such hatred against his former co-religionists, that he persuaded the Mahometan conqueror not to tolerate Christians in his dominions, but to compel them to adopt either Islam or Judaism. Thereupon the Spanish Christians are said to have appealed to the emperor of the Frankish empire and to the bishops to use their utmost endeavors to get this dangerous apostate into their power. The emperor Louis was deeply moved by Bodo's conversion. He did not, however, allow the Jews to suffer on account of his grief, but continued to protect them against injustice. Of this we have a clear proof in his action in reference to a lawsuit which came under his notice some months after Bodo's conversion. It is probable that with Louis the Pious originated the theory, current throughout the later period of the Middle Ages, and doubtless inspired by benevolent desires, that the emperor is the natural patron of the Jews, and that they, being his wards, are inviolable.

With the death of the emperor Louis, the golden age of the Jews in the Frankish dominions came to an end, and their good fortunes were not renewed for a considerable time. Southern Europe, disturbed by anarchy, and ruled by a fanatic clergy, did not offer a favorable field for the development of Judaism. It is true that Charles the Bald, the son of Louis by Judith, who caused so much confusion in the Frankish dominions, that the subsequent division of the kingdom into France, Germany, Lorraine, and Italy ensued, was not hostile to the Jews (843). He appears, indeed, to have inherited from his mother a certain preference for Judaism. He had a Jewish physician, Zedekiah, to whom he was much attached, but whose skill in medicine was regarded, by the ignorant and superstitious people, as magic and the work of the devil, and also a Jewish favorite, whose political services won from his royal master the praise, "My faithful Judah."

Under Charles the Bald, as under his predecessor, the Jews enjoyed equal rights with the Christians. They were allowed to carry on their business unhindered, and also to possess landed property. Some of them controlled the tolls. But they had implacable enemies among the higher clergy. They had angered the dignitaries of the Church too much by their humiliation of Agobard, and the clergy, though they spoke constantly of love and kindness, would not allow the Jews to enjoy their advantages.

The bitterest enemy of the Jews was Agobard's disciple and successor, Bishop Amolo of Lyons. He had imbibed hatred of the Jews from his master; and he was not alone in this, for Hinkmar, the bishop of Rheims, a favorite of Emperor Charles, the archbishop of Sens, the archbishop of Bourges, and others of the clergy shared his anti-Jewish sentiments. At a council held by these prelates at Meaux (not far from Paris) in 845, for the purpose of exalting the spiritual power at the expense of the royal authority, and of repressing the riotous living of many clergymen, it was resolved to re-enact the old canonical laws and anti-Jewish restrictions, and to have them confirmed by Charles. The members of the council did not mark the limit of the revival of old restrictions, but on the list, similar to Agobard's, containing the spiteful ordinances from which the king was to select those to be enforced anew, were included some that dated from the time of the first Christian emperor Constantine. It also mentioned the decree of Emperor Theodosius II, according to which no Jew was allowed to occupy any office or position of honor. The decrees of the various councils and the edict of the Merovingian king Childebert, were also cited, by which the Jews were not permitted to occupy the positions of judges and farmers of taxes, nor show themselves on the streets during Easter week, and were required to pay the utmost respect to the clergy. They even cited synodal decrees which had been passed outside of France, and therefore had never been invested with the force of law, and also the inhuman Visigothic synod decrees, which had been directed more especially against baptized Jews who still clung to Judaism. The members of the council also mentioned the Visigothic synodal decrees, which prescribed that the children of converted Jews should be torn from their parents and placed amongst Christians. In conclusion, they laid stress upon the point that Jewish and Christian slave dealers should be compelled to sell heathen slaves within Christian territory, so that they might be converted to Christianity.

The prelates thought that they could cajole Charles into yielding to their wishes by representing to him that the Northmen's invasion was divine chastisement for his sinfulness. But Charles was not so humbled by state troubles as to allow laws to be dictated to him by a fanatic and ambitious clergy. Although his favorite, Hinkmar, took part in the council, he had the meeting dissolved. Later on, however, he summoned the members again for a new session, under his own supervision, at Paris (14 Feb., 846). The improvement of Church affairs was to be considered. They had to omit three quarters of the eighty decrees of the council of Meaux, amongst them the proposed anti-Jewish regulations. Thus neither under the Carlovingians nor under later rulers, was the degradation of the Jews in France decreed by law. Charles imposed upon the Jewish merchants a tax of eleven per cent. on the value of all merchandise sold, whilst the Christians had to pay only ten per cent.

Amolo and his colleagues could not forget the defeat they had suffered at the council of Meaux, where their plan to humble the Jews had been frustrated. Agobard's successor sent a letter to the spiritual authorities, reminding them that they ought to use their influence with the princes to deprive the Jews of all their privileges. Amolo's letter, full of virulence and calumny against the Jewish race, is a worthy appendix to Agobard's letter to Emperor Louis on the same subject. Much therein is borrowed from the latter. Towards the end of his letter, Amolo expresses his deep regret that the Jews in France were enjoying the rights of free speech, and that many Christians were well disposed toward them. The Jews were even allowed to have Christian servants to work in their houses and fields. He complains, too, that many Christians openly declare that the sermons of the Jewish preachers please them better than those of the Christian clergy, making it seem the fault of the Jews that the Christian clergy could not attract audiences. He also reproached the Jews with the fact that a noble Church official had gone over to Judaism, and now thoroughly hated Christianity. Amolo invited all the bishops of the country to do their utmost to re-introduce the old canonic restrictions against the Jews. He enumerated a number of anti-Jewish princes and councils that had insisted on the legal humiliation of the Jews, just as Agobard and the members of the council of Meaux had done before. Amolo, above all, reminded them of the pious Visigothic king, Sisebut, who had forced the Jews to adopt Christianity. "We dare not," ends his malignant letter, "either by our suavity, flattery, or defense, encourage the complacency of the Jews, who are accursed, and yet blind to their own damnation."

At the time, Amolo's virulent letter had as little effect as Agobard's letter and the decree of the council of Meaux. But gradually the poison spread from the clergy to the people and the princes. The division of France into small independent states, which refused allegiance to the king, was another unfavorable circumstance. Its effect was to leave the Jews at the mercy of the fanatical clergy and the tyranny of petty princes.

How malicious was the spirit animating the French clergy, can be judged from the fact that the successive bishops of Béziers were in the habit of preaching vehement sermons from Palm Sunday until Easter Monday, exhorting the Christians to avenge themselves on the Jews of the town, because they had crucified Jesus. The fanatical mob thus incited armed themselves with stones to attack the Jews. The mischief was repeated year after year for centuries. The Jews of Béziers often defended themselves, and on these occasions much damage was inflicted on both sides. The Jews of Toulouse, too, for a long time had to suffer numerous indignities. The counts of this town had the privilege of publicly giving the president of the Jewish community a box on the ears on Good Friday. This was no doubt meant as vengeance upon the Jews for Jesus' death; no doubt too in fulfilment of the precept, "Thou shalt love thine enemies." There is a story which tells of a chaplain called Hugh, who begged that he might be allowed to perform the office, and he dealt the victim so violent a blow, that he fell lifeless to the ground. Those who wished to find a justification for this barbarity alleged that the Jews on one occasion either had betrayed, or had intended to betray the town of Toulouse to the Mahometans. Later, the box on the ears was commuted to an annual money payment by the Jews. The great grandson of Louis the Pious, Louis II, son of Lothaire, was so influenced by the clergy, that as soon as he had the government of Italy in his own hands (855), he decreed that all the Italian Jews should quit the land where their ancestors had lived long before the arrival of the Germans and Longobards. No Jew should dare show himself after the 1st of October of that year. Any Jew that appeared in the street might be seized, and peremptorily handed over for punishment. Fortunately for the Jews this decree could not be carried out; for Italy was then divided into small districts, whose rulers, for the most part, refused obedience to the emperor of Italy. Mahometans made frequent irruptions into the land, and were often called in to help the Christian princes against each other, or against the king. This anarchy was the safeguard of the Jews, and the decree remained in abeyance.

Under Charles' successors, when the power of the king decreased greatly, and the bigotry of the princes increased, things came to such a pass that Charles the Simple granted all the lands and vineyards of the Jews in the Duchy of Narbonne to the Church, in order to show his great zeal for his religion (899-914). The French princes gradually accustomed themselves to think that the protection which the emperors Charles the Great and his son Louis had afforded the Jews, involved the inference that the wards and their property belonged absolutely to the guardian. This thought, at least, underlies the act by which the usurper Boso, king of Burgundy and Provence, who was greatly influenced by the clergy, presented the Jews as a gift to the Church, i. e., he considered them in every respect as his bondmen. This arbitrary treatment of the Jews came to an end only with the rule of the Capets.

Like their brethren in Western Europe, the Jews in the East, in the Byzantine dominion, had to suffer sad persecution. Despite forced baptism, and the oppression of the Emperor Leo the Isaurian, the Jews again spread over the whole Byzantine Empire, more especially over Asia Minor and Greece. Many Greek Jews occupied themselves with the cultivation of mulberry trees and with silk spinning. The Greek Jews in other respects were subject to all the restrictions imposed by the former rulers, and like the heathen and heretics, were not permitted to hold office. They were, however, granted religious freedom. Basilius, who ascended the throne in about 850, was comparatively a just and mild ruler. Yet he was resolved to bring the Jews over to Christianity. He therefore arranged that religious discussions should take place between Jewish and Christian clergymen, and decreed that the Jews should either prove by irrefutable arguments that their religion was the true one, or confess that "Jesus was the culmination of the Law and the Prophets."

Basilius, foreseeing that these discussions would probably lead to no results, promised appointments of honor to those who should prove themselves open to conversion. It is not known what punishment was inflicted on those unwilling to be converted, but they doubtless had to suffer severe persecution. Many Jews accepted or pretended to accept Christianity. Scarcely was Basilius dead (886), when they threw off the mask as they had done in Spain, France, and in other countries where they had been oppressed, and returned to the religion to which in reality they had never for a moment been unfaithful. But they had made a mistake. Basilius' son and successor, Leo the Philosopher--a title cheaply purchased in those times--excelled his father in intolerance. He decreed that those who had re-adopted the Jewish customs should be treated as apostates, that is, punished with death (about 900). Nevertheless, after the death of this emperor, the Jews returned to live in the Byzantine Empire, as they had done after the death of Leo the Isaurian.

In the lands of the Caliphate, especially in Babylonia (Irak), at that time the center of Jewish life, the Jews gradually lost the favorable position which they had hitherto enjoyed, although the intolerance of the Mahometan rulers was mild compared with that of the Christian princes. In the East, too, they were the prey of caprice, for the Caliphs resigned their power in favor of the vizirs, and thus deprived themselves of all power. The Caliphs after Al-Mamun became more and more the tools of ambitious and greedy ministers and generals, and the Oriental Jews frequently had to buy the favor of these ephemeral lords at a high price. The Caliph Al-Mutavakkil, Al-Mamun's third successor, renewed the laws of Omar against the Jews, Christians, and Magi, and compelled them to wear a characteristic dress, a yellow scarf over their dress, and a thick cord instead of a girdle. He, moreover, changed the synagogues and churches into mosques, and forbade the Mahometans to teach Jews and Christians, or to admit them to offices (849-856). A tenth part of their property had to be given to the Caliph; they were forbidden to ride upon horses, and were allowed to make use only of asses and mules (853-854). The Exilarchs had lost a part of their power, when Al-Mamun decreed that they should no longer be officially recognized and supported, and they lost still more through the fanaticism of Al-Mutavakkil. By and by they ceased to be officials of the state, invested with certain powers, and had to content themselves with the position which the Jewish communities gave them out of respect for old and dear memories.

As the Exilarchate declined, the respect increased for the school of Pumbeditha, because it was near the capital of the Bagdad Caliphate, whose Jewish community of influential men came under its jurisdiction. Pumbeditha now rose from the subordinate position into which it had been forced. It put itself on an equal footing with the sister academy of Sora, and its presidents likewise assumed the title of Gaon. It next made itself independent of the Exilarchate. Formerly the head of the school and the faculty of Pumbeditha had to go once a year to pay homage to the Exilarch, but now, if the Exilarch wished to hold a public assembly, he had to repair to Pumbeditha. This was probably brought about by the chief of the school, Paltoi ben Abayi (842-858), who heads the list of important Geonim, and who was noted for his free use of the Cherem (Excommunication). Dissensions about the succession to the Gaonate were not wanting during this period, although the Exilarchs could not make their influence felt.

A Gaon of Sora, Natronaï II, son of Hillaï (859-869), kept up a prolific correspondence with foreign communities in the Arabic language. His predecessors had employed a mixture of Hebrew and Chaldee as the medium of their communications. Natronaï II also corresponded with the Jewish-Spanish community at Lucena, whose members doubtless understood Arabic better than Hebrew. He opposed the Karaites as bitterly as the Geonim had done at the time of the rise of this sect, "because they despised the words of the sages of the Talmud, and set up for themselves an arbitrary Talmud of their own." His pupil and successor, Mar-Amram ben Sheshna (869-881), was the compiler of the liturgical order of prayers in use amongst European Jews. At the request of a Spanish community, preferred by their religious leader, Isaac ben Simeon, he collected everything that the Talmud and the custom of the schools had ratified concerning prayer and divine service (Siddur Rab Amram). The form which the prayers had assumed in the course of time was by him declared to have the force of fixed law. Every one that deviated from it was considered a heretic, and excluded from the community of Israel. The poetical compositions for the festivals were not yet in general use at this time, and Mar-Amram left the selection to the taste of the individual.

During Mar-Amram's Gaonate, there were two successive heads of the schools in Pumbeditha, Rabba ben Ami (869-872), of whom nothing is known, and Mar-Zemach I. ben Paltoi (872-890), who heads the list of literary Geonim. Hitherto, the leaders of the school had occupied themselves with the exposition of the Talmud, with the regulation of the internal affairs of the communities, and with answering questions which were submitted to them. The one or the other of them, it is true, made a collection of Agadic sayings, but for literary activity, they either had no leisure, or opportunity, or inclination. But when the zeal for the study of the Talmud increased in the different communities in Egypt, Africa, Spain and France, and students of the Talmud spent their time in studying obscure and difficult passages, they often had to appeal to the schools for the solution of their difficulties. Their questions soon concerned only theoretical points, and the Geonim found it necessary to write treatises on certain portions of the Talmud, instead of simple and short answers. These books were used by students as Talmudical handbooks. The Gaon Zemach ben Paltoi, of Pumbeditha, arranged an alphabetical index of difficult words in the Talmud, under the title of "Aruch." In it he shows acquaintance with the Persian language. This dictionary forms the first contribution to the constantly growing department of Talmudical lexicography. The second literary Gaon was Nachshon ben Zadok of Sora (881-889), Zemach's contemporary. He, too, wrote a book giving explanations of difficult words in the Talmud. Nachshon made himself famous through his discovery of a key to the Jewish calendar. He found that the order of the years and festivals repeat themselves after a cycle of two hundred and forty-seven years, and that the forms of the years can be arranged in fourteen tables. This key bears his name; it is known as the cycle of Rabbi Nachshon.

The third author of this time was Rabbi Simon of Cairo, or Misr, in Egypt, who, although not an official of the Babylonian school, was in a position to compose a code embracing all religious and ceremonial laws (about 900). This work, directed against the Karaites, bears the title "The Great Halachas" (Halachoth gedoloth), and forms a supplement to Jehudaï's work of a similar nature. The history of the post-exilic period till the destruction of the Temple was also written at this time; its author is unknown. It is written in Arabic, and is based partly upon Josephus, partly upon the Apocrypha, and partly upon tradition. It is called "The History of the Maccabees" or "Joseph ben Gorion." In later times an Italian translated it into Hebrew, and in its expanded form it bears the title Josippon (Pseudo-Josephus), and this work served to awaken in the Jews, who were ignorant of the original sources of Jewish history, interest in their glorious past.

The literary activity of the official heads of Judaism in the two schools confined itself to Talmudical subjects. They had no idea of scientific research, would have condemned it, in fact, as a leaning to Karaite doctrine. Outside of the Gaonate, in Egypt and Kairuan, there was a scientific movement among the Rabbanites, weak at first, but increasing in strength every year. The Rabbanite thinkers must have felt that so long as Talmudic Judaism maintained a hostile position towards science, it could not hold its own against the Karaites. Biblical exegesis and Hebrew philology formed the special studies of the Karaites, and in connection with these was developed a kind of philosophy, though only as an auxiliary science. It was in this branch that, towards the end of the ninth century, several Rabbanites emulated them. Famous amongst these was Isaac ben Suleiman Israeli (845-940). He was a physician, philosopher, and Hebrew philologist. He was an Egyptian, and was called to Kairuan about the year 904 as physician to the last Aghlabite prince, Ziadeth-Allah. When the founder of the Fatimide dynasty, Ubaid-Allah, the Messianic Imam (Al-Mahdi, who is said to have been the son of a Jewess), conquered the Aghlabite prince, and founded a great kingdom in Africa (909-933), Isaac Israeli entered his service, and enjoyed his full favor. Israeli had a great reputation as a physician, and had many pupils. At the request of the Caliph Ubaid-Allah, he wrote eight medical works, the best of which is said to be that on fever. His medical writings were translated into Hebrew, Latin, and part of them into Spanish, and were zealously studied by physicians. A Christian physician, the founder of the Salerno school of medicine, made use of his researches, and even republished some of his works without giving credit to Israeli for them. He was thus an important contributor to the development of medical science, but as a philosopher he did not do much. His work on "Definitions and Descriptions" shows scarcely the rudiments of philosophical knowledge.

His lectures must have made a greater impression than his writings. He instructed two disciples, a Mahometan, Abu-Jafar Ibn-Aljezzar, who is recognized as an authority in medicine; and a Jew, Dunash ben Tamim, who continued the work of his master. Isaac Israeli lived to be more than one hundred years old, and survived his patron the Caliph Ubaid-Allah, whose death was hastened by his disregard of the advice of his Jewish physician. When Isaac Israeli died, about 940, his example had made a place in the Rabbanite studies for the scientific method that shaped the activity of succeeding generations.

Whilst the Rabbanites were making the first attempt to follow a scientific method, the Karaites were disporting on the broad beaten path of Mutazilist philosophy. Although young in years, Karaism showed signs of advanced old age. All its strength was given to Biblical exposition, combined with philology, but even here it made no progress. In the central community of the Karaites, in Jerusalem, it assumed an ascetic character. Sixty Karaites agreed to leave their homes, their property and their families, live together, abstain from wine and meat, go poorly clad, and spend their time in fasting and prayer. They adopted this mode of living, as they said, with the object of promoting Israel's redemption. They called themselves the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem (Abele Zion), and every one of them added to his signature the term "The Mourner." It was through them that the religious life of the Karaites took on an ascetic tinge. They not only observed the Levitical laws of purity in the strictest manner, but they shunned intercourse with non-Jews. They would not buy bread from them, nor eat anything they had touched. The more rigorous the Karaites became, the more they looked upon the Rabbanites as reprobates and sinners, whose houses it was a sin to visit. The Karaites gradually spread from Babylonia and Judæa to Egypt on the one side and to Syria on the other, and northwards as far as the Crimea. There were large Karaite communities in Alexandria and Cairo, and also in the Crimea, on the Bosporus (Kertch), Sulchat and Kaffa (Theodosia). The zeal of individuals contributed much to spread Karaism. By means of disputations, sermons, and letters, they endeavored to secure followers amongst the Rabbanites. Like every other essentially weak sect the Karaites relied upon propaganda, as though numbers could atone for lack of real strength. There was amongst them a certain proselytizer, a cunning man, Eldad by name, who related wonderful adventures, and made a great stir in his day. Eldad's romantic travels throw a lurid light upon the Jewish history of the time. He belongs to that class of deceivers who have a pious end in view, know how to profit by the credulity of the masses, and can easily catch men in a web of falsehood. The Geonim themselves were almost deceived into believing his pretended traditions, which he affirmed had been received direct from Moses.

Meanwhile, the institution to which the memories of the former political independence of Judaism were attached was rapidly approaching dissolution. The Exilarchate fell into disregard through the rivalry of the school of Pumbeditha, and also lost the revenue which was its mainstay. Even though questions from abroad continued to be directed to the Geonim of Sora, the sister academy was considered even in Babylonia to be the chief authority, and to have most influence. This influence was increased still more through the choice as Gaon of Pumbeditha of Haï ben David (890-897), who had hitherto held the post of rabbi and judge in the capital of the Caliphate. It was just at this time, at the end of the 9th century, that the Jews again enjoyed a high position in the Caliphate, under the Caliph Al-Mutadhid (892-902). His vizir and regent Ubaid-Allah Ibn-Suleiman appointed Jews and Christians alike to state offices.

The community of Bagdad gained most through the favor shown to the Jews by the vizir. As Haï had occupied his post in the capital for a long time, and had made himself popular in the community, he was elected Gaon of Pumbeditha by the influential members. Their object was to make the school of Pumbeditha of greater importance, and the academy at Sora declined more and more. Haï's successors, who, like himself, had commenced their career with the rabbinate of Bagdad, worked in the same spirit, and were assisted by the powerful members of the community in the effort to make Pumbeditha the center of the Babylonian community and of Judaism generally, and to put an end to the Exilarchate as well as to the school of Sora. One of them was Mar Kohen-Zedek II. b. Joseph (held office 917-936). He was passionate and energetic, and was one of those who are, indeed, free from personal selfishness, but seek an increase of power for the community, regardless of every other consideration. As soon as he entered upon his office, Kohen-Zedek demanded that the school of Pumbeditha should have the greater share of the revenue which was contributed by the various communities. He based his demand upon the fact, that the pupils of the college at Pumbeditha were more numerous than those at Sora, and therefore deserved greater consideration. So many quarrels arose between the two schools in consequence of this demand that several important people found it necessary to interfere. A compromise was made, and it was agreed that in future the money should be equally divided, whereby the academy at Sora lost the last trace of its superiority. Kohen-Zedek then endeavored to deprive the Exilarchate of its little remnant of power. The Exilarch at the time was Ukba, a man of Arabic culture, who wrote poems in Arabic. Kohen-Zedek demanded that the appointment of judges in the communities of Khorasan should be vested in, and the revenues derived from the same, should be devoted to, the school of Pumbeditha. Ukba would not give up any portion of his dignity, and appealed to the Caliph. But Kohen-Zedek had friends at Bagdad, who had influence at court, and these succeeded in inducing the Caliph Al-Muktadir (908-932), or rather the vizir Ibn Furat, since the Caliph spent his time in riotous living, to deprive Mar-Ukba of his post, and banish him from Bagdad. The Exilarch went to Karmisin (Kermanshah, east of Bagdad), and Kohen-Zedek rejoiced that the Exilarchate was now destroyed. The weak president of Sora, Jacob ben Natronaï, permitted all these usurpations without interfering.

Meanwhile matters took a favorable turn for the banished Exilarch, by which he was able to frustrate the plans of Kohen-Zedek. Just at this time there came to Kermanshah the young and pleasure-seeking Caliph. The banished Exilarch Ukba frequently met him, and greeted and praised him in well-measured Arabic verses. His verses pleased Al-Muktadir's secretary so well that he had them copied, and called to the attention of the Caliph the many changes rung by the Jewish poet upon the one simple theme, allegiance.

Poetry was prized so much amongst the Arabs, that no conqueror, however uncouth, was insensible to it. Al-Muktadir sent for the poetical Exilarch, was pleased with him, and finally asked him what favor he could confer upon him. Ukba wished for nothing more eagerly than to be restored to his office. This the Caliph granted him. He now returned, after a year's absence, to Bagdad, to the astonishment of his opponent, and re-assumed his high position (918). Poetry had saved him. Kohen-Zedek and his party, however, did not allow him to enjoy his triumph long. Through bribery and intrigue they again effected his deposition, and he was banished. In order that he might not again be restored to favor, he was exiled beyond the limits of the Eastern Caliphate to the recently founded kingdom of the Fatimides--to Kairuan in Africa. Here, where the physician and philosopher, Isaac Israeli, was greatly respected, he was received with open arms, and held in high esteem. The community of Kairuan treated him as the Exilarch, set up a raised place for him in the synagogue, and caused him to forget the troubles he had suffered in the land of his fathers (919).

Kohen-Zedek had opposed the Exilarchate rather than Ukba personally; he now took care that no successor should be appointed to the Exilarchate, which he desired to extinguish. His contemporary Gaon in Sora, Jacob ben Natronaï, was either too weak or too much hampered to interfere. So the office of Exilarch was left vacant for a year or two. However, hated as the Exilarchate was by the representatives of the Pumbeditha college, the people were warmly attached to the house of David, about which traditions and memories clustered. They clamored for the restoration of the office. Thereupon the Gaon of Sora took courage, and refused any longer to be a weak tool in the hands of Kohen-Zedek. The people vehemently demanded that David ben Zaccaï, a relative of Ukba, be made Exilarch, and the whole college of the school of Sora paid homage to him in Kasr, where he lived (921). Kohen-Zedek and the college of Pumbeditha refused to recognize him. David ben Zaccaï was as resolute and ambitious as his opponent, and determined to assert his authority. By virtue of his power, he deposed Kohen-Zedek, and named his successor. Once more complications arose, this time dividing the school of Pumbeditha against itself. This bickering deeply pained the better class of the people; however, the disputes between the Exilarchate and the Gaonate, affecting the whole of the Jewish-Babylonian community, lasted nearly two years.

Nissi Naharvani, a blind man, who was respected by everybody for his piety, and who felt regret at this state of affairs, undertook to effect a reconciliation. Late one night he groped about till he found his way to the room of Kohen-Zedek, who was astonished at the sudden appearance of the venerable blind man at such an hour, and was persuaded by him to come to terms. Nissi then also induced the Exilarch to yield. David and Kohen-Zedek met, with their respective followers, in Sarsar (half-a-day's journey south of Bagdad), made peace, and Kohen-Zedek accompanied the Exilarch as far as Bagdad (Spring, 921). David in turn recognized Kohen-Zedek as the legitimate Gaon of Pumbeditha. Kohen-Zedek, who had not succeeded in his plan to extinguish the Exilarchate, lived to see the school of Sora, which had been humbled by him, rise again from its low position, and have fresh splendor shed upon it by a stranger from a foreign land, so that for several years it cast the school of Pumbeditha into the shade.

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