IV. SPINOZA AND SABBATAÏ ZEVI…

IV. SPINOZA AND SABBATAÏ ZEVI

Spinoza's Youth and Education--His Intellectual Breach with Judaism--Fresh Martyrs of the Inquisition--The Rabbis and Spinoza--Excommunication--Spinoza's "Tractate" and "Ethics"--Spinoza's Writings Concerning Judaism--Spinoza's Contemporaries in Amsterdam--De Paz and Penso--The Mystical Character of the Years 1648 and 1666--Sabbataï Zevi's early Career--The Jerusalem Community--Sabbataï's Travels--Nathan Ghazati--Sabbataï announced in Smyrna as the Messiah--Spread of Enthusiastic Belief in the pseudo-Messiah--Manoel Texeira-- Ritual Changes introduced by the Sabbatians--Sabbataï proceeds to Constantinople--Nehemiah Cohen--Sabbataï Zevi's Apostasy to Islam and its Consequences--Continuation of the Sabbatian Movement--Death of Sabbataï and Spinoza--Results of the Sabbatian Imposture.

1656-1677 C. E.

Whilst Manasseh ben Israel was zealously laboring to complete the fabric of Judaism by hastening on the Messianic era, one of his disciples was applying an intellectual lever to destroy this edifice to its foundation and convert it into a shapeless dust heap. He was earnest about what was only amusement for Leo Modena. The Jewish race once more brought a deep thinker into the world, one who was radically to heal the human mind of its rooted perversities and errors, and to prescribe a new direction for it, that it might better comprehend the connection between heaven and earth, between mind and matter. Like his ancestor Abraham, this Jewish thinker desired to break to pieces all idols and vain images, before which men had hitherto bowed down through fear, custom, and indolence, and to reveal to them a new God, not enthroned in heaven's height beyond their reach, but living and moving within them, whose temple they themselves should be. His influence was like that of the storm, deafening and crushing down, but also purifying and refreshing.

The lightning flashes of this great philosophical genius did greatest injury to Judaism which was nearest to him. In the degradation of the religion of his day and its professors, even his searching gaze could not recognize the fair form concealed beneath a loathsome exterior.

This great thinker, the most famous philosopher of his time, who brought about a new redemption, was Baruch Spinoza (really Espinosa, born in Spain 1632, died 1677). He belonged to a family eminent for neither intellect nor wealth. No sign at his birth portended that he would reign for more than two centuries a king in the realm of thought. With many other boys, he attended the Jewish school, consisting of seven classes, recently established in Amsterdam, whither his parents had migrated. With his extraordinary talents he surely kept pace with the requirements of the school, if he did not exceed them. In his thirteenth or fourteenth year he was probably introduced by Manasseh ben Israel to the study of the Talmud, and initiated into Hebrew grammar, rhetoric, and poetry. He received final instruction in Rabbinical lore from Saul Morteira, the greatest Talmudist of his time in Amsterdam. Together with Spinoza Morteira taught others who later had more or less influence on Jewish history, but were of quite another stamp.

Moses Zacut (1630-1697), a descendant of the famous family of that name, was held to be Morteira's first disciple. From his youth upwards, with his predilection for mysticism and poetry, he formed a direct contrast to Spinoza. He loved what was inexact and obscure, Spinoza the clear and definite. Two incidents may serve to portray Moses Zacut. He was asked when young what he thought of the fabulous narratives of Rabba Bar-Bar-Chana in the Talmud, which are like those of Münchhausen, and he replied that he regarded them as historical. When young he learned Latin like most Portuguese youths in Amsterdam. Later, he so regretted having learned that language, that he fasted forty days in order to forget it, because, as he thought, this tongue of the devil was not compatible with Kabbalistic truth. Another fellow-disciple of Spinoza was Isaac Naar (Nahar), likewise a mystic, and of a spiteful and not over-scrupulous nature.

Thirst for knowledge stimulated Spinoza to venture beyond the limited circle of studies pursued in Morteira's lecture-room. He plunged into the writings of older Jewish thinkers, three of whom alike attracted and repelled him: Ibn-Ezra with his free-thinking and his reticence, Moses Maimuni with his artificial system, aiming at the reconciliation of faith and science, of Judaism and philosophy, and Chasdaï Crescas with his hostility to traditional philosophy. Spinoza was also at home in the Kabbala, the main doctrines of which had been rendered accessible through Abraham de Herrera and Isaac Aboab. These various elements heaved and fermented in his mind, which strove for insight, and excited in his breast tormenting doubts, to which Ibn-Ezra's covert unbelief mainly contributed. A youth of fifteen, Spinoza is said to have expressed his doubts in the form of questions to his master Morteira, which may have not a little perplexed a rabbi accustomed to beaten tracks. To these elements of scepticism, conveyed to him from Jewish literature, others were added from without. Spinoza learned Latin, in itself nothing remarkable, since, as has been remarked, nearly all the Jewish youths of Amsterdam, as well as Christians of the educated classes of Holland, regarded that language as a means of culture. But he was not contented with superficial knowledge; he desired to drink deep of classical literature. He sought the instruction of an eminent philologist of his time, Dr. Franz van den Enden, who lectured in Amsterdam to noble youths, native and foreign. Here he learned, in contact with educated Christian youths, to adopt a different point of view from that which obtained in Morteira's lecture-room and in Jewish circles. Van den Enden also strongly influenced his mind. Though not an atheist, he was a man of sceptical and satirical vein, who turned religious customs and prejudices to ridicule, and exposed their weaknesses. But what with him was the object of humor and wit, excited Spinoza's susceptible and analytical mind to deep reflection and meditation. The natural sciences, mathematics, and physics, which he pursued with devotion, and the new-born, imposing philosophy of Descartes (Cartesius), for which his mind had special affinity, extended his circle of vision and enlightened his judgment. The more he imbibed ideas from various sources, assimilating them with those innate in him, and the more his logical understanding developed, the more did he become alienated from Judaism, in its Rabbinical and Kabbalistic trappings, and love of Van den Enden's learned daughter was not needed to make him a pervert from Jewish belief.

Independent, judicial reason, which disregards what is traditional or hallowed by time, and follows its own laws, was his mistress. To her he dedicated pure, undivided worship, and she led him to break with inherited views. All that cannot be justified before the inexorable tribunal of clear human vision, passed with him for superstition and clouded thought, if not actual frenzy. His ardent desire for truth, pure truth and certainty, led him to a complete breach with the religion endeared to him from childhood; he not only rejected Talmudical Judaism, but also regarded the Bible as the work of man. The apparent contradictions in the books of Holy Scripture appear to have first raised his doubts as to their inspiration. It must have cost him a hard struggle to give up the customs and opinions endeared to him through manifold ties, and to become, to a certain extent, a new man. For Spinoza was quite as much a moral character as a deep thinker. To hold anything as false in theory, and yet from fear, custom, or advantage to adopt it in practice was impossible for him. He was differently constituted to his revered master Descartes, who kept away from the church the torch of truth which he had kindled, made a gap between theory and practice to avoid offending that church, and, for example, vowed a pilgrimage to our Lady of Loretto for the success of his system and its destructive tendency. According to Spinoza's idea every action ought to be a true reflection of reason. When he could no longer find truth in Judaism, he could not bring himself to follow its ritual precepts. He ceased to attend the synagogue, cared no longer for the Sabbath and the festivals, and broke the laws concerning diet. He did not confine himself to the renunciation of Judaism, but imparted his convictions to young men who sought his instruction.

The representatives of the community of Amsterdam were the more concerned at the daily increasing report of Spinoza's estrangement from, and hostility to Judaism, as they had in a measure looked upon the gifted youth as their exponent, and as a firm support to the jeopardized religion of their fathers. Now it was to be feared that he would abandon it, go over to Christianity, and devote his intellectual gifts to doing battle against his mother-faith. Could the representatives of that faith, the college of rabbis and the secular heads of the community, behold with indifference this systematic neglect of Judaism in their midst? Fugitives were ever coming from Spain and Portugal, who forfeited their high position, and staked life and property, to remain true to Judaism. Others with unbending attachment to the faith of their fathers, let themselves be dragged to the dark prisons of the Inquisition, or with cheerful courage mounted the funeral pile. A contemporary writer, an eye-witness, reports:

"In Spain and Portugal there are monasteries and convents full of Jews. Not a few conceal Judaism in their heart and feign Christianity on account of worldly goods. Some of these feel the stings of conscience and escape, if they are able. In this city (Amsterdam) and in several other places, we have monks, Augustinians, Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, who have rejected idolatry. There are bishops in Spain and grave monks, whose parents, brothers, or sisters, dwell here (in Amsterdam) and in other cities in order to be able to profess Judaism."

At the very time when Spinoza became estranged from Judaism, the smoke and flames of the funeral piles of Jewish martyrs rose in several cities of Spain and Portugal, in Cuenca, Granada, Santiago de Compostela, Cordova, and Lisbon.

In the last-named city a distinguished Marrano, Manuel Fernando de Villa-Real, statesman, political writer, and poet, who conducted the consular affairs of the Portuguese court at Paris, returned to Lisbon on business, was seized by the Inquisition, gagged, and led to execution (December 1, 1652). In Cuenca on one day (June 29, 1654) fifty-seven Christian proselytes to Judaism were dragged to the auto-da-fé. Most of them only received corporal chastisement with loss of property, but ten were burned to death. Amongst them was a distinguished man, the court-saddler Balthasar Lopez, from Valladolid, who had amassed a fortune of 100,000 ducats. He had migrated to Bayonne, where a small community of former Marranos was tolerated, and had returned to Spain only to persuade a nephew to come back to Judaism. He was seized by the Inquisition, tortured, and condemned to death by the halter and the stake. On his way to the scaffold, Balthasar Lopez ridiculed the Inquisition and Christianity. He exclaimed to the executioner about to bind him, "I do not believe in your Christ, even if you bind me," and threw the cross which had been forced upon him to the ground. Five months later twelve Marranos were burnt in Granada. Again, some months later (March, 1655), a promising youth of twenty, Marcos da Almeyda Bernal, whose Jewish name was Isaac, died at the stake; and two months afterwards (May 3d) Abraham Nuñes Bernal was burnt at Cordova.

Whoever in the community of Amsterdam could compose verses in Spanish, Portuguese, or Latin, sang or bewailed the martyrdom of the two Bernals. Was Spinoza's view correct that all these martyrs, and the thousands of Jewish victims still hounded by the Inquisition, pursued a delusion? Could the representatives of Judaism allow unreproved, in their immediate neighborhood, the promulgation of the idea that Judaism is merely an antiquated error?

The college of rabbis, in which sat the two chief Chachams, Saul Morteira and Isaac Aboab--Manasseh ben Israel was then living in London--had ascertained the fact of Spinoza's change of opinion, and had collected evidence. It was not easy to accuse him of apostasy, as he did not proclaim his thoughts aloud in the market-place, as Uriel da Costa had announced his breach with Judaism. Besides, he led a quiet, self-contained life, and associated little with men. His avoidance of the synagogue, the first thing probably to attract notice, could not form the subject of a Rabbinical accusation. It is possible that, as is related, two of his fellow-students (one, perhaps, the sly Isaac Naar) thrust themselves upon him, drew him out, and accused him of unbelief, and contempt for Judaism. Spinoza was summoned, tried, and admonished to return to his former course of life. The court of rabbis did not at first proceed with severity against him, for he was a favorite of his teacher, and beloved in the community on account of his modest bearing and moral behavior. By virtue of the firmness of his character Spinoza probably made no sort of concession, but insisted upon freedom of thought and conduct. Without doubt he was, in consequence, laid under the lesser excommunication, that is, close intercourse with him was forbidden for thirty days. This probably caused less pain to Spinoza, who, self-centred, found sufficient resource in his rich world of thought, than to the superficial Da Costa. Also, he was not without Christian friends, and he, therefore, made no alteration in his manner of life. This firmness was naturally construed as obstinacy and defiance. But the rabbinate, as well as the secular authorities of the community did not wish to exert the rigor of the Rabbinical law against him, in order not to drive him to an extreme measure, i. e., into the arms of the Church. What harm might not the conversion to Christianity of so remarkable a youth entail in a newly-founded community, consisting of Jews with Christian reminiscences! What impression would it make on the Marranos in Spain and Portugal? Perhaps the scandal caused by Da Costa's excommunication, still fresh in men's memories, may have rendered a repetition impracticable. The rabbis, therefore, privately offered Spinoza, through his friends, a yearly pension of a thousand gulden on condition that he take no hostile step against Judaism, and show himself from time to time in the synagogue. But Spinoza, though young, was of so determined a character, that money could not entice him to abandon his convictions or to act the hypocrite. He insisted that he would not give up freedom of inquiry and thought. He continued to impart to Jewish youths doctrines undermining Judaism. So the tension between him and the representatives of Judaism became daily greater; both sides were right, or imagined they were. A fanatic in Amsterdam thought that he could put an end to this breach by a dagger-stroke aimed at the dangerous apostate. He waylaid Spinoza at the exit from the theatre, and struck at the philosopher with his murderous weapon. But the latter observed the hostile movement in time, and avoided the blow, so that only his coat was damaged. Spinoza left Amsterdam to avoid the danger of assassination, and betook himself to the house of a friend, likewise persecuted by the dominant Calvinistic Church, an adherent of the sect of the Rhynsburgians, or Collectants, who dwelt in a village between Amsterdam and Ouderkerk. Reconciliation between Spinoza and the synagogue was no longer to be thought of. The rabbis and the secular authorities of the community pronounced the greater excommunication upon him, proclaiming it in the Portuguese language on a Thursday, Ab 6th (July 24th), 1656, shortly before the fast in memory of the destruction of Jerusalem. The sentence was pronounced solemnly in the synagogue from the pulpit before the open Ark. The sentence was as follows:

"The council has long had notice of the evil opinions and actions of Baruch d'Espinosa, and these are daily increasing in spite of efforts to reclaim him. In particular, he teaches and proclaims dreadful heresy, of which credible witnesses are present, who have made their depositions in presence of the accused."

All this, they continued, had been proved in the presence of the elders, and the council had resolved to place him under the ban, and excommunicate him.

The usual curses were pronounced upon him in presence of scrolls of the Law, and finally the council forbade any one to have intercourse with him, verbally or by writing, to do him any service, to abide under the same roof with him, or to come within the space of four cubits' distance from him, or to read his writings. Contrary to wont, the ban against Spinoza was stringently enforced, to keep young people from his heresies.

Spinoza was away from Amsterdam, when the ban was hurled against him. He is said to have received the news with indifference, and to have remarked that he was now compelled to do what he would otherwise have done without compulsion. His philosophic nature, which loved solitude, could easily dispense with intercourse with relatives and former friends. Yet the matter did not end for him there. The representative body of the Portuguese community appealed to the municipal authorities to effect his perpetual banishment from Amsterdam. The magistrates referred the question, really a theological one, to the clergy, and the latter are said to have proposed his withdrawal from Amsterdam for some months. Most probably this procedure prompted him to elaborate a justificatory pamphlet to show the civil authorities that he was no violator or transgressor of the laws of the state, but that he had exercised his just rights, when he reflected on the religion of his forefathers and religion generally, and thought out new views. The chain of reasoning suggested to Spinoza in the preparation of his defense caused him doubtless to give wider extension and bearing to this question. It gave him the opportunity to treat of freedom of thought and inquiry generally, and so to lay the foundation of the first of his suggestive writings, which have conferred upon him literary immortality. In the village to which he had withdrawn, 1656-60, and later in Rhynsburg, where he also spent several years, 1660-64, Spinoza occupied himself (while polishing lenses, which handicraft he had learned to secure his moderate subsistence) with the Cartesian philosophy and the elaboration of the work entitled "The Theologico-Political Treatise." His prime object was to spread the conviction that freedom of thought can be permitted without prejudice to religion and the peace of the state; furthermore, that it must be permitted, for if it were forbidden, religion and peace could not exist in the state.

The apology for freedom of thought had been rendered harder rather than easier for Spinoza, by the subsidiary ideas with which he crossed the main lines of his system. He could not philosophically find the source of law, and transferred its origin to might. Neither God, nor man's conscience, according to Spinoza, is the fountain of the eternal law which rules and civilizes mankind; it springs from the whole lower natural world. He made men to a certain extent "like the fishes of the sea, like creeping things, which have no master." Large fish have the right, not only to drink water, but also to devour smaller fish, because they have the power to do so; the sphere of right of the individual man extends as far as his sphere of might. This natural right does not recognize the difference between good and evil, virtue and vice, submission and force. But because such unlimited assertion on the part of each must lead to a perpetual state of war of all against all, men have tacitly, from fear, or hope, or reason, given up their unlimited privileges to a collective body, the state. Out of two evils--on the one hand, the full possession of their sphere of right and might, tending to mutual destruction, and its alienation, on the other--men have chosen the latter as the lesser evil. The state, whether represented by a supreme authority elected for the purpose, such as the Dutch States General, or by a despot, is the full possessor of the rights of all, because of the power of all. Every one is bound by his own interest to unconditional obedience, even if he should be commanded to deprive others of life; resistance is not only punishable, but contrary to reason. This supreme power is not controlled by any law. Whether exercised by an individual, as in a monarchy, or by several, as in a republic, it is justified in doing everything, and can do no wrong. But the state has supreme right not merely over actions of a civil nature, but also over spiritual and religious views; it could not exist, if everyone were at liberty to attack it under the pretext of religion. The government alone has the right to control religious affairs, and to define belief, unbelief, orthodoxy, and heresy. What a tyrannical conclusion! As this theory of Spinoza fails to recognize moral law, so it ignores steadfast fidelity. As soon as the government grows weak, it no longer has claim to obedience; everyone may renounce and resist it, to submit himself to the incoming power. According to this theory of civil and religious despotism, no one may have an opinion about the laws of the state, otherwise he is a rebel. Spinoza's theory almost does away with freedom, even of thought and opinion. Whoever speaks against a state ordinance in a fault-finding spirit, or to throw odium upon the government, or seeks to repeal a law against its express wish, should be regarded as a disturber of the public peace. Only through a sophistical quibble was Spinoza able to save freedom of thought and free expression of opinion. Every man has this right by nature, the only one which he has not transferred to the state, because it is essentially inalienable. It must be conceded to everyone to think and judge in opposition to the opinion of the government, even to speak and teach, provided this be done with reason and reflection, without fraud, anger, or malice, and without the intention of causing a revolution.

On this weak basis, supported by a few other secondary considerations, Spinoza justified his conflict with Judaism and his philosophical attacks upon the sacred writings recognized by the Dutch States. He thought that he had succeeded in justifying himself before the magistrates sufficiently by his defense of freedom of thought. In the formulation of this apology it was apparent that he was not indifferent to the treatment which he had experienced from the college of rabbis. Spinoza was so filled with displeasure, if not with hatred, of Jews and Judaism, that his otherwise clear judgment was biased. He, like Da Costa, called the rabbis nothing but Pharisees, and imputed to them ambitious and degraded motives, while they wished only to secure their treasured beliefs against attacks. Prouder even than his contemporaries, the French and English philosophers, of freedom of thought, for centuries repressed by the church, and now soaring aloft the more powerfully, Spinoza summoned theology, in particular, ancient Judaism before the throne of reason, examined its dogmas and archives, and pronounced sentence of condemnation upon his mother-faith. He had erected a tower of thought in his brain from which, as it were, he wished to storm heaven. Spinoza's philosophy is like a fine net, laid before our eyes, mesh by mesh, by which the human understanding is unexpectedly ensnared, so that half voluntarily, half compulsorily, it surrenders. Spinoza recognized, as no thinker before, those universal laws, immutable as iron, which are apparent in the development of the most insignificant grain of seed no less than in the revolution of the heavenly bodies, in the precision of mathematical thought as in the apparent irregularity of human passions. Whilst these laws work with constant uniformity, and produce the same causes and the same phenomena in endless succession, the instruments of law are perishable things, creatures of a day, which rise, and vanish to give place to others: here eternity, there temporality; on the one side necessity, on the other chance; here reality, there delusive appearances. These and other enigmas Spinoza sought to solve with the penetration that betrays the son of the Talmud, and with logical consecutiveness and masterly arrangement, for which Aristotle might have envied him.

The whole universe, all individual things, and their active powers are, according to Spinoza, not merely from God, but of God; they constitute the infinite succession of forms in which God reveals Himself, through which He eternally works according to His eternal nature--the soul, as it were, of thinking bodies, the body of the soul extended in space. God is the indwelling, not the external efficient cause of all things; all is in God and moves in God. God as creator and generator of all things is generative or self-producing nature. The whole of nature is animate, and ideas, as bodies, move in eternity on lines running parallel to or intersecting one another. Though the fullness of things which have proceeded from God and which exist in Him are not of an eternal, but of a perishable nature, yet they are not limited or defined by chance, but by the necessity of the divine nature, each in its own way existing or acting within its smaller or larger sphere. The eternal and constant nature of God works in them through the eternal laws communicated to them. Things could, therefore, not be constituted otherwise than they are; for they are the manifestations, entering into existence in an eternal stream, of God in the intimate connection of thought and extension.

What is man's place in this logical system? How is he to act and work? Even he, with all his greatness and littleness, his strength and weakness, his heaven-aspiring mind, and his body subject to the need of sustenance, is nothing more than a form of existence (Modus) of God. Man after man, generation after generation, springs up and perishes, flows away like a drop in a perpetual stream, but his nature, the laws by which he moves bodily and mentally in the peculiar connection of mind and matter, reflect the Divine Being. Especially the human mind, or rather the various modes of thought, the feelings and conceptions of all men, form the eternal reason of God. But man is as little free as things, as the stone which rolls down from the mountain; he has to obey the causes which influence him from within and without. Each of his actions is the product of an infinite series of causes and effects, which he can scarcely discern, much less control and alter at will. The good man and the bad, the martyr who sacrifices himself for a noble object, as well as the execrable villain and the murderer, are all like clay in the hands of God; they act, the one well, the other ill, compelled by their inner nature. They all act from rigid necessity. No man can reproach God for having given him a weak nature or a clouded intellect, as it would be irrational if a circle should complain that God has not given it the nature and properties of the sphere. It is not the lot of every man to be strong-minded, and it lies as little in his power to have a sound mind as a sound body.

On one side man is, to a certain extent, free, or rather some men of special mental endowments can free themselves a little from the pressure exercised upon them. Man is a slave chiefly through his passions. Love, hate, anger, thirst for glory, avarice, make him the slave of the external world. These passions spring from the perplexity of the soul, which thinks it can control things, but wears itself out, so to speak, against their obstinate resistance, and suffers pain thereby. The better the soul succeeds in comprehending the succession of causes and effects and the necessity of phenomena in the plan of the universe, the better able is it to change pain into a sense of comfort. Through higher insight, man, if he allows himself to be led by reason, can acquire strength of soul, and feel increased love to God, that is, to the eternal whole. On the one hand, this secures nobility of mind to aid men and to win them by mildness and benevolence; and creates, on the other, satisfaction, joy, and happiness. He who is gifted with highest knowledge lives in God, and God in him. Knowledge is virtue, as ignorance is, to a certain extent, vice. Whilst the wise man, or strictly speaking, the philosopher, thanks to his higher insight and his love of God, enjoys tranquillity of soul, the man of clouded intellect, who abandons himself to the madness of his passions, must dispense with this joyousness, and often perishes in consequence. The highest virtue, according to Spinoza's system, is self-renunciation through knowledge, keeping in a state of passiveness, coming as little as possible in contact with the crushing machinery of forces--avoiding them if they come near, or submitting to them if their wild career overthrows the individual. But as he who is beset by desires deserves no blame, so no praise is due the wise man who practices self-renunciation; both follow the law of their nature. Higher knowledge and wisdom cannot be attained if the conditions are wanting, namely, a mind susceptible of knowledge and truth, which one can neither give himself, nor throw off. Man has thus no final aim, any more than the eternal substance.

Spinoza's moral doctrines--ethics in the narrower sense--are just as unfruitful as his political theories. In either case, he recognizes submission as the only rational course.

With this conception of God and moral action, it cannot surprise us that Judaism found no favor in Spinoza's eyes. Judaism lays down directly opposite principles--beckons man to a high, self-reliant task, and proclaims aloud the progress of mankind in simple service of God, holiness, and victory over violence, the sword, and degrading war. This progress has been furthered in many ways by Judaism in the course of ages. Wanting, as Spinoza was, in apprehension of historical events, more wonderful than the phenomena of nature, and unable as he therefore was to accord to Judaism special importance, he misconceived it still further through his bitterness against the Amsterdam college of rabbis, who pardonably enough, had excommunicated him. Spinoza transferred his bitterness against the community to the whole Jewish race and to Judaism. As has been already said, he called the rabbis Pharisees in his "Theologico-Political Treatise" and in letters to his friends, and gave the most invidious meaning to this word. To Christianity, on the contrary, Spinoza conceded great excellencies; he regarded Judaism with displeasure, therefore, detected deficiencies and absurdities everywhere, while he cast a benevolent eye upon Christianity, and overlooked its weaknesses. Spinoza, therefore, with all the instinct for truth which characterized him, formed a conception of Judaism which, in some degree just, was, in many points, perverse and defective. Clear as his mind was in metaphysical inquiries, it was dark and confused on historical ground. To depreciate Judaism, Spinoza declared that the books of Holy Scripture contain scribes' errors, interpolations, and disfigurements, and are not, as a rule, the work of the authors to whom they are ascribed--not even the Pentateuch, the original source of Judaism. Ezra, perhaps, first collected and arranged it after the Babylonian exile. The genuine writings of Moses are no longer extant, not even the Ten Commandments being in their original form. Nevertheless, Spinoza accepted every word in the Bible as a kind of revelation, and designated all persons who figure in it as prophets. He conceded, on the ground of Scripture, that the revelation of the prophets was authenticated by visible signs. Nevertheless, he very much underrated this revelation. Moses, the prophets, and all the higher personages of the Bible had only a confused notion of God, nature, and living beings; they were not philosophers, they did not avail themselves of the natural light of reason. Jesus stood higher; he taught not only a nation, but the whole of mankind on rational grounds. The Apostles, too, were to be set higher than the prophets, since they introduced a natural method of instruction, and worked not merely through signs, but also through rational conviction. As though the main effort of the Apostles, to which their whole zeal was devoted, viz., to reach belief in the miraculous resurrection of Jesus, were consistent with reason! It was only Spinoza's bitterness against Jews which caused him to depreciate their spiritual property and overrate Christianity. His sober intellect, penetrating to the eternal connection of things and events, could not accept miracles, but those of the New Testament he judged mildly.

In spite of his condemnatory verdict on Judaism, he was struck by two phenomena, which he did not fully understand, and which, therefore, he judged only superficially according to his system. These were the moral greatness of the prophets, and the superiority of the Israelite state, which in a measure depend on each other. Without understanding the political organization, in which natural and moral laws, necessity and freedom work together, Spinoza explains the origin of the Jewish state, that is, of Judaism, in the following manner: When the Israelites, after deliverance from slavery in Egypt, were free from all political bondage, and restored to their natural rights, they willingly chose God as their Lord, and transferred their rights to Him alone by formal contract and alliance. That there be no appearance of fraud on the divine side, God permitted them to recognize His marvelous power, by virtue of which He had hitherto preserved, and promised in future to preserve them, that is, He revealed Himself to them in His glory on Sinai; thus God became the King of Israel and the state a theocracy. Religious opinions and truths, therefore, had a legal character in this state, religion and civic right coincided. Whoever revolted from religion forfeited his rights as a citizen, and whoever died for religion was a patriot. Pure democratic equality, the right of all to entreat God and interpret the laws, prevailed among the Israelites. But when, in the overpowering bewilderment of the revelation from Sinai, they voluntarily asked Moses to receive the laws from God and to interpret them, they renounced their equality, and transferred their rights to Moses. Moses from that time became God's representative. Hence, he promulgated laws suited to the condition of the people at that time, and introduced ceremonies to remind them always of the Law and keep them from willfulness, so that in accordance with a definite precept they should plough, sow, eat, clothe themselves, in a word, do everything according to the precepts of the Law. Above all, he provided that they might not act from childish or slavish fear, but from reverence for God. He bound them by benefits, and promised them earthly prosperity--all through the power and by the command of God. Moses was vested with spiritual and civil power, and authorized to transmit both. He preferred to transfer the civil power to his disciple Joshua in full, but not as a heritage, and the spiritual power to his brother Aaron as a heritage, but limited by the civil ruler, and not accompanied by a grant of territory. After the death of Moses the Jewish state was neither a monarchy, nor an aristocracy, nor a democracy; it remained a theocracy. The family of the high-priest was God's interpreter, and the civil power, after Joshua's death, fell to single tribes or their chiefs.

This constitution offered many advantages. The civil rulers could not turn the law to their own advantage, nor oppress the people, for the Law was the province of the sacerdotal order--the sons of Aaron and the Levites. Besides, the people were made acquainted with the Law through the prescribed reading at the close of the Sabbatical year, and would not have passed over with indifference any willful transgression of the law of the state. The army was composed of native militia, while foreigners, that is, mercenaries, were excluded. Thus the rulers were prevented from oppressing the people or waging war arbitrarily. The tribes were united by religion, and the oppression of one tribe by its ruler would have been punished by the rest. The princes were not placed at the head through rank or privilege of blood, but through capacity and merit. Finally, the institution of prophets proved very wholesome. Since the constitution was theocratical, every one of blameless life was able through certain signs to represent himself as a prophet like Moses, draw the oppressed people to him in the name of God, and oppose the tyranny of the rulers. This peculiar constitution produced in the heart of the Israelites an especial patriotism, which was at the same time a religion, so that no one would betray it, leave God's kingdom, or swear allegiance to a foreigner. This love, coupled with hatred against other nations, and fostered by daily worship of God, became second nature to the Israelites. It strengthened them to endure everything for their country with steadfastness and courage. This constitution offered a further advantage, because the land was equally divided, and no one could be permanently deprived of his portion through poverty, as restitution had to be made in the year of jubilee.

Hence, there was little poverty, or such only as was endurable, for the love of one's neighbor had to be exercised with the greatest conscientiousness to keep the favor of God, the King. Finally, a large space was accorded to gladness. Thrice a year and on other occasions the people were to assemble at festivals, not to revel in sensual enjoyments, but to accustom themselves to follow God gladly; for there is no more effectual means of guiding the hearts of men than the joy which arises from love and admiration.

After Spinoza had depicted Israel's theocracy quite as a pattern for all states, he was apparently startled at having imparted so much light to the picture, and he looked around for shade. Instead of answering in a purely historical manner the questions, whence it came that the Hebrews were so often subdued, and why their state was entirely destroyed; instead of indicating that these wholesome laws remained a never realized ideal, Spinoza suggests a sophistic solution. Because God did not wish to make Israel's dominion lasting, he gave bad laws and statutes. Spinoza supports this view by a verse which he misunderstood. These bad laws, rebellion against the sacerdotal state, coupled with bad morals, produced discontent, revolt, and insurrection. At last matters went so far, that instead of the Divine King, the Israelites chose a human one, and instead of the temple, a court. Monarchy, however, only increased the disorder; it could not endure the state within the state, the high-priesthood, and lowered the dignity of the latter by the introduction of strange worship. The prophets could avail nothing, because they only declaimed against the tyrants, but could not remove the cause of the evils. All things combined brought on the destruction of the divine state. With its destruction by the Babylonian king, the natural rights of the Israelites were transferred to the conqueror, and they were bound to obey him and his successors, as they had obeyed God. All the laws of Judaism, nay, the whole of Judaism, was thereby abolished, and no longer had any significance. This was the result of Spinoza's inquiry in his "Theologico-Political Treatise." Judaism had a brilliant past, God concluded an alliance with the people, showed to them His exalted power, and gave them excellent laws; but He did not intend Israel's preëminence to be permanent, therefore He also gave bad laws. Consequently, Judaism reached its end more than two thousand years ago, and yet it continued its existence! Wonderful! Spinoza found the history of Israel and the constitution of the state excellent during the barbarism of the period of the Judges, while the brilliant epochs of David and Solomon and of King Uzziah remained inexplicable to him. And, above all, the era of the second Temple, the Maccabean epoch, when the Jewish nation rose from shameful degradation to a brilliant height, and brought the heathen world itself to worship the one God and adopt a moral life, remained to Spinoza an insoluble riddle. This shows that his whole demonstration and his analysis (schematism) cannot stand the test of criticism, but rests on false assumptions.

Spinoza might have brought Judaism into extreme peril; for he not only furnished its opponents with the weapons of reason to combat Judaism more effectually, but also conceded to every state and magistrate the right to suppress it and use force against its followers, to which they ought meekly to submit. The funeral piles of the Inquisition for Marranos were, according to Spinoza's system, doubly justified; citizens have no right on rational grounds to resist the recognized religion of the state, and it is folly to profess Judaism and to sacrifice oneself for it. But a peculiar trait of Spinoza's character stood Judaism in good stead. He loved peace and quiet too well to become a propagandist for his critical principles. "To be peaceable and peaceful" was his ideal; avoidance of conflict and opposition was at once his strength and his weakness. To his life's end he led an ideally-philosophical life; for food, clothing, and shelter, he needed only so much as he could earn with his handicraft of polishing lenses, which his friends disposed of. He struggled against accepting a pension, customarily bestowed on learned men at that time, even from his sincere and rich admirers, Simon de Vries and the grand pensionary De Witt, that he might not fall into dependence, constraint, and disquiet. By reason of this invincible desire for philosophic calm and freedom from care, he would not decide in favor of either of the political parties, then setting the States General in feverish agitation. Not even the exciting murder of his friend John de Witt was able to hurry him into partisanship. Spinoza bewailed his high and noble friend, but did not defend his honor, to clear it of suspicion. When the most highly cultivated German prince of his time, Count-Palatine Karl Ludwig, who cherished a certain affection for Jews, offered him, "the Protestant Jew," as he was still called, the chair of philosophy in the University of Heidelberg under very favorable conditions, Spinoza declined the offer. He did not conceal his reason: he would not surrender his quietude. From this predominant tendency, or, rather, from fear of disturbance and inconveniences and from apprehension of calling enemies down upon him, or of coming into collision with the state, he refused to publish his speculations for a long time. When at last he resolved, on the pressure of friends, to send "The Theologico-Political Treatise" to press, he did not put his name to the work, which made an epoch in literature, and even caused a false place of publication, viz., Hamburg, to be printed on the title-page, in order to obliterate every trace of its real authorship. He almost denied his offspring, to avoid being disturbed.

As might have been foreseen, the appearance of "The Theologico-Political Treatise" (1670), made an extraordinary stir. No one had written so distinctly and incisively concerning the relation of religion to philosophy and the power of the state, and, above all, had so sharply condemned the clergy. The ministers of all denominations were extraordinarily excited against this "godless" book, as it was called, which disparaged revealed religion. Spinoza's influential friends were not able to protect it; it was condemned by a decree of the States General, and forbidden to be sold--which only caused it to be read more eagerly. But Spinoza was the more reluctant to publish his other writings, especially his philosophical system. With all his strength of character, he did not belong to those bold spirits, who undertake to be the pioneers of truth, who usher it into the world with loud voice, and win it adherents, unconcerned as to whether they may have to endure bloody or bloodless martyrdom. In the unselfishness of Spinoza's character and system there lurked an element of selfishness, namely, the desire to be disturbed as little as possible in the attainment of knowledge, in the happiness of contemplation, and in reflection upon the universe and the chain of causes and effects which prevail in it. A challenge to action, effort, and resistance to opposition lay neither in Spinoza's temper, nor in his philosophy.

In this apparently harmless feature lay also the reason that his most powerful and vehemently conducted attacks upon Judaism made no deep impression, and called forth no great commotion in the Jewish world. At the time when Spinoza threw down the challenge to Judaism, a degree of culture and science prevailed in the Jewish-Portuguese circle, unknown either before or after; there reigned in the community of Amsterdam and its colonies a literary activity and fecundity, which might be called classical, if the merit of the literary productions had corresponded with their compass. The authors were chiefly cultivated Marranos, who had escaped from the Spanish or Portuguese prisons of the Inquisition to devote themselves in free Holland to their faith and free inquiry. There were philosophers, physicians, mathematicians, philologists, poets, even poetesses. Many of these Marranos who escaped to Amsterdam had gone through peculiar vicissitudes. A monk of Valencia, Fray Vincent de Rocamora (1601-1684), had been eminent in Catholic theology. He had been made confessor to the Infanta Maria, afterwards empress of Germany and a persecutor of the Jews. One day the confessor fled from Spain, reached Amsterdam, declared himself as Isaac de Rocamora, studied medicine at the age of forty, and became the happy father of a family and president of Jewish benevolent institutions. The quondam monk, afterwards Parnass (president of the community), was also a good poet, and wrote admirable Spanish and Latin verses.

Enrique Enriquez de Paz of Segovia (1600-1660), the Jewish Calderon, had a very different career. Having entered the army while young, he behaved so gallantly that he won the order of San Miguel, and was made captain. Besides the sword, he wielded the pen, with which he described comic figures and situations. Enriquez de Paz, or, as he was styled in his poetical capacity, Antonio Enriquez de Gomez, composed more than two and twenty comedies, some of which were put upon the stage at Madrid, and, being taken for Calderon's productions, were received with much applause. Neither Mars nor the Muses succeeded in protecting him against the Inquisition; he could escape its clutches only by rapid flight. He lived a long time in France. His prolific muse celebrated Louis XIV, the queen of France, the powerful statesman Richelieu, and other high personages of the court. He bewailed in elegies his misfortunes and the loss of his country, which he loved like a son, step-mother though she had been to him. Although blessed by fortune, Enriquez de Paz felt himself unhappy in the rude north, far from the blue mountains and mild air of Spain. He lamented:

"I have won for myself wealth and traveled over many seas, and heaped up ever fresh treasures by thousands; now my hair is bleached, my beard as snowy white as my silver bars, the reward of my labors."

He lived in France, too, as a Christian, but proclaimed his sympathy with Judaism by mourning in elegiac verses the martyrdom of Lope de Vera y Alarcon. Finally he settled down in the asylum of the Marranos, whilst his effigy was burnt on the funeral pile at Seville. There had been again a great auto-da-fé (1660) of sixty Marranos, of whom four were first strangled and then burned, whilst three were burned alive. Effigies of escaped Marranos were borne along in procession, and thrown into the flames--amongst them that of the knight of San Miguel, the writer of comedies. A new-Christian, who was present at this horrible sight, and soon after escaped to Amsterdam, met Gomez in the street, and exclaimed excitedly: "Ah! Señor Gomez! I saw your effigy burn on the funeral pile at Seville!" "Well," he replied, "they are welcome to it." Along with his numerous secular poems, Enriquez Gomez left one of Jewish national interest in celebration of the hero-judge Samson. The laurels which the older Spanish poet Miguel Silveyra, also a Marrano, whom he admired, had won by his epic, "The Maccabee," haunted him until he had brought out a companion piece. To the blind hero who avenged himself on the Philistines by his very death, Gomez assigned verses which expressed his own heart:

"I die for Thy holy word, for Thy religion, For Thy doctrine, Thy hallowed commandments, For the nation adopted by Thy choice, For Thy sublime ordinance I die."

Another point of view is presented by two emigrant Marranos of this period, father and son, the two Pensos, the one rich in possessions and charity, the other in poetical gifts. They probably sprang from Espejo, in the province of Cordova, escaped from the fury of the Inquisition, and at last settled, after many changes of residence, as Jews in Amsterdam. Isaac Penso (died 1683) the elder, a banker, was a father to the poor. He spent a tithe of the income from his property on the poor, and distributed, up to his death, 40,000 gulden. His decease aroused deep regret in the community of Amsterdam. His son (Felice) Joseph Penso, also called De la Vega from his mother's family (1650-1703), was a rich merchant, and turned his attention to poetry. A youth of seventeen, he awoke the long-slumbering echo of neo-Hebraic poesy, and caused it to strike its highest note. Joseph Penso boldly undertook a most difficult task; he composed a Hebrew drama. Since Immanuel Romi had written his witty tales in verse, the neo-Hebraic muse had been stricken with sterility, for which the increasing troubles of the times were not alone to blame. Moses da Rieti and the poetic school of Salonica composed verses, but did not write poetry. Even the greatest of Jewish poets, Gebirol and Jehuda Halevi, had produced only lyric and didactic poetry, and had not thought of the drama. Joseph Penso, inspired by the poetical air of Spain, the land of his birth, where Lope de Vega's and Calderon's melodious verses were heard beside the litany of the monks and the cry of the sacrificial victims, transferred Spanish art forms to neo-Hebraic poetry. Penso happily imitated the various kinds of metre and strophe of European poetry in the language of David and Isaiah.

One may not, indeed, apply a severe standard to Joseph Penso's drama, but should endeavor to forget that long before him Shakespeare had created life-like forms and interests. For, measured by these, Penso's dramatic monologue and dialogue seem puerile. However free from blame his versification is, the invention is poor, the ideas commonplace. A king who takes a serious view of his responsibilities as ruler is led astray, now by his own impulses (Yezer), now by a coquette (Isha), now by Satan. Three other opposing forces endeavor to lead him in the right way--his own judgment (Sechel), divine inspiration (Hashgacha), and an angel. These are the characters in Penso's drama "The Captives of Hope" (Asiré ha-Tikwah). But if one takes into consideration the object which Penso had in view, viz., to hold up a mirror to Marrano youths settled at Amsterdam, who had been used to Spanish licentiousness, and to picture to them the high value of a virtuous life, the performance of the youthful poet is not to be despised. Joseph Penso de la Vega composed a large number of verses in Spanish, occasional poetry, moral and philosophical reflections, and eulogies on princes. His novels, entitled "The Dangerous Courses" (los Rumbos peligrosos), were popular.

Marrano poets of mediocre ability were so numerous at this time in Amsterdam, that one of them, the Spanish resident in the Netherlands, Manuel Belmonte (Isaac Nuñes), appointed count-palatine, founded an academy of poetry. Poetical works were to be handed in, and as judges he appointed the former confessor, De Rocamora, and another Marrano, who composed Latin verses, Isaac Gomez de Sosa. The latter was so much enraptured of Penso's Hebrew drama, that he triumphantly proclaimed, in Latin verse:

"Now is it at length attained! The Hebrew Muse strides along on high-heeled buskin safe and sound. With the measured step of poetry she is conducted auspiciously by Joseph--sprung from that race which still is mostly in captivity. Lo! a clear beam of hope shines afresh, that now even the stage may be opened to sacred song. Yet why do I praise him? The poet is celebrated by his own poetry, and his own work proclaims the praise of the master."

Another of the friends of the Jewish dramatist was Nicolas de Oliver y Fullana (Daniel Jehuda), poet, and colonel in the Spanish service; he was knighted, entered the service of Holland, and was an accurate cartographer and cosmographer. There was also Joseph Szemach (Sameh) Arias, a man of high military rank, who translated into Spanish the work of the historian Josephus against Apion, which controverted the old prejudices and falsehoods against Jews. This polemic was not superfluous even at this time. Of the Jewish Marrano poetesses, it will suffice to name the fair and gifted Isabel Correa (Rebecca), who twined a wreath of various poems, and translated the Italian popular drama, "The True Shepherd" (Pastor Fido, by Guarini) into beautiful Spanish verse. Isabel was the second wife of the poet-warrior, De Oliver y Fullana.

Of a far different stamp was the Marrano Thomas de Pinedo (Isaac, 1614-1679) of Portugal, educated in a Jesuit college at Madrid. He was more at home in classical than in Jewish antiquity, and applied himself to a branch of study little cultivated in Spain in his time, that of ancient geography. He, too, was driven out of Spain by the Inquisition, and deemed himself fortunate to have escaped unhurt. The philologist De Pinedo dwelt later on in Amsterdam, where he printed his comprehensive work. He composed his own epitaph in Latin.

We must not leave unmentioned a personage celebrated at that time perhaps beyond his deserts, Jacob Jehuda Leon (Templo, 1603-1671). If not a Marrano, he was of Marrano descent, and resided first at Middelburg, then at Amsterdam, and was more an artist than a man of science. Leon devoted himself to the reproduction of the first Temple and its vessels, as they are described in the Bible and the Talmud. He executed a model of the Temple on a reduced scale (3 yards square, 1-1/2 in height), and added a concise, clear description in Spanish and Hebrew. Work of so unusual a character attracted extraordinary notice at a time when every kind of antiquarian learning, especially biblical, was highly prized. The government of Holland and Zealand gave the author the copyright privilege. Duke August of Brunswick, and his wife Elizabeth, wished to possess a German translation of Leon's description, and commissioned Professor John Saubert, of Helmstädt, to undertake it. While corresponding with the author so as to ensure thoroughness, he was anticipated by another man who brought out a German translation at Hanover. This circumstance caused great annoyance to Professor Saubert. Templo, as Leon and his posterity were surnamed from his work in connection with the Temple, engaged in controversies with Christian ecclesiastics on Judaism and Christianity, and published a translation of the Psalms in Spanish.

In this cultivated circle of Spinoza's contemporaries were two men who lived alternately at Hamburg and Amsterdam, David Coen de Lara and Dionysius Musaphia, both distinguished as philologists, but not for much besides. With their knowledge of Latin and Greek they explained the dialect of the Talmud, and corrected errors which had crept into the earlier Talmudical lexicons. David de Lara (1610-1674) was also a preacher and writer on morals; but his efforts in that direction are of small value. He associated too much with the Hamburg preacher, Esdras Edzardus, who was bent on the conversion of the Jews. The latter spread the false report that De Lara was almost a Christian before he died. Dionysius (Benjamin) Musaphia (born about 1616, died at Amsterdam, 1676), a physician and student of natural science, was up to the date of the monarch's death in the service of the Danish king Christian IV. He was also a philosopher, and allowed himself to question various things in the Talmud and the Bible. Nevertheless he held the office of rabbi at Amsterdam in his old age.

Much more important than the whole of this circle was Balthasar Orobio de Castro (1620-1687). He also sprang from Marrano parents, who secretly continued to cling to Judaism, in that they abstained from food and drink on the Day of Atonement. In this meager conception of Judaism, Orobio was brought up. Endowed with clear intellect, he studied the decayed and antiquated philosophy still taught in Spanish academies, and became professor of metaphysics in the University of Salamanca. This fossilized philosophy appears neither to have satisfied him nor to have brought him sufficient means of subsistence, for he applied himself in riper years to the study of medicine. In this pursuit Orobio was more successful; he gained a reputation at Seville, was physician to the duke of Medina-Celi, and to a family in high favor with the court, and amassed considerable wealth. He was a happy husband and father, when the Inquisition cast its baleful glance upon him. A servant, whom he had punished for theft, had informed against him. Orobio was seized, accused of Judaism, and thrown into a narrow, gloomy dungeon, where he had not room to move, and where he spent three years (about 1655-1658).

At first he filled up his time with philosophical subtleties, as pursued at the Spanish universities. He undertook to defend a thesis, acting at the same time in imagination as the opponent, who interposes objections, and as the judge, who sums up and sifts the arguments. By degrees his mind grew so perplexed that he often asked himself, "Am I really Don Balthasar Orobio, who went about in the streets of Seville, and lived in comfort with his family?" His past seemed a dream, and he believed that he had been born in prison, and must die there. But the tribunal of the Inquisition brought a change into his empty dream-life. He was ushered into a dark vault, lighted only by a dull lamp. He could hardly distinguish the judge, the secretary, and the executioner, who were about to deal with his case. Having been again admonished to confess his heresy, and having again denied it, the hangman undressed him, bound him with cords, which were fastened to hooks in the wall, brought his body into a swinging movement between the ceiling and the floor, and drew the cords so tight, that the blood spurted from his nails. His feet, moreover, were strongly bound to a small ladder, the steps of which were studded with spikes. Whilst being tortured, he was frequently admonished to make confession, and was threatened, in case he persisted in denial, with the infliction of still more horrible pains, for which, though they caused his death, he would have to thank his own obstinacy, not the tribunal. However, he survived the torture, was taken back to prison to allow his wounds to heal, then condemned to wear the garb of shame (San Benito), and was finally banished from Spain. He betook himself to Toulouse, where he became professor of medicine in the university. Although respected in his new position, Orobio could not long endure the hypocrisy. He went to Amsterdam, publicly professed the Jewish religion, and assumed the name of Isaac (about 1666). No wonder that he became a bitter opponent of Christianity, which he had learnt to know thoroughly. He became an adherent of Judaism from conviction, proved himself a courageous and able champion of the religion of his fathers, and dealt such powerful blows to Christianity as few before him, so that a distinguished Protestant theologian (Van Limborch) felt compelled to reply to Orobio's attacks.

All these cultivated youths and men, the soldier-poets Enriquez Gomez, Nicholas de Oliver y Fullana, and Joseph Arias, and the writers Joseph Penso, Thomas de Pinedo, Jacob Leon, David de Lara, and Dionysius Musaphia, knew of Spinoza's attacks upon Judaism, and undoubtedly read his "Theologico-Political Treatise." Isaac Orobio associated with Spinoza. Yet the blows by which the latter strove to shake Judaism did not cause the former to waver in their convictions. This is the more remarkable, as simultaneously, from another side, Judaism was covered with shame, or, what comes to the same thing, its followers everywhere in the East and West, with few exceptions, became slaves to a delusion which exposed them to the ridicule of the world, and enveloped them for the first time in the darkness of the Middle Ages.

Without suspecting it, Spinoza possessed in the East an ally, diametrically his opposite, who labored to disintegrate Judaism, and succeeded in throwing the whole Jewish race into a turmoil, which long interfered with its progress. Sabbataï Zevi was at once Spinoza's opposite and his ally. He possessed many more admirers than the philosopher of Amsterdam, became for a space the idol of the Jewish race, and has secret adherents even to the present time. Sabbataï Zevi (born Ab 9, 1626, died 1676), of Smyrna, in Asia Minor, was of Spanish descent, and became the originator of a new Messianic frenzy, the founder of a new sect. He owed the attachment which he inspired even as a youth, not to his qualities of mind, but to his external appearance and attractive manner. He was tall, well formed, had fine dark hair, a fine beard, and a pleasant voice, which won hearts by speech and still more by song. But his mind was befogged by reason of the predominance of fancy; he had an enthusiastic temperament and an inclination to what was strange, especially to solitude. In boyhood Sabbataï Zevi avoided the company and games of playmates, sought solitary places, and what usually has charms for the young did not attract him. He was educated by the current method. In early youth he studied the Talmud in the school of the veteran Joseph Eskapha, a staunch Talmudist of Smyrna, but did not attain to great proficiency. The more was he attracted by the confused jumble of the Kabbala. Once introduced into the labyrinth of the Zohar, he felt himself at home therein, guided by Lurya's interpretation. Sabbataï Zevi shared the prevailing opinion that the Kabbala can be acquired only by means of asceticism. He mortified his body, and bathed very frequently in the sea, day and night, winter and summer. Perhaps it was from sea-bathing that his body derived the peculiar fragrance which his worshipers strongly maintained that it possessed. In early manhood he presented a contrast to his companions because he felt no attraction to the female sex. According to custom Sabbataï Zevi married early, but avoided his young, good-looking wife so pertinaciously, that she applied for divorce, which he willingly granted her. The same thing happened with a second wife.

This aversion to marriage, rare in the warm climate of the East, his assiduous study of the Kabbala, and his ascetic life, attracted attention. Disciples sought him, and were introduced by him to the Kabbala. Twenty years old he was the master of a small circle. He attached disciples to himself partly by his earnest and retiring manner, which precluded familiarity, partly by his musical voice, with which he sang in Spanish the Kabbalistic verses composed by Lurya or himself. Another circumstance must be added. When Sultan Ibrahim ascended the throne, a violent war broke out between Turkey and Venice, which made the trade of the Levant unsafe in the capital. Several European, that is, Dutch and English, mercantile houses in consequence transferred their offices to Smyrna. This hitherto insignificant city thereby acquired importance as a mart. The Jews of Smyrna, who had been poor, profited by this commercial development, and amassed great riches, first as agents of large houses, afterwards as independent firms. Mordecai Zevi, Sabbataï's father, from the Morea, originally poor, became the Smyrna agent of an English house, executed its commissions with strict honesty, enjoyed the confidence of the principals, and became a wealthy man. His increasing prosperity was attributed by the blind father to the merit of his Kabbala-loving son, to whom he paid such great reverence, that it was communicated to strangers. Sabbataï was regarded as a young saint. The more discreet, on account of his folly, declared him to be mad. In the house of his English principal, Mordecai Zevi often heard the approach of the millennium discussed, either he himself or some of his people being enthusiastic believers in the apocalypse of the Fifth Monarchy. The year 1666 was designated by these enthusiasts as the Messianic year, which was to bring renewed splendor to the Jews and see their return to Jerusalem. The expectations heard in the English counting house were communicated by Mordecai Zevi to the members of his family, none of whom listened more attentively than Sabbataï, already entangled in the maze of the Luryan Kabbala, and inclined to mistake enthusiastic hopes for prosaic fact. What if he himself were called upon to usher in this time of redemption? Had he not, at an earlier age than any one before, penetrated to the heart of the Kabbala? And who could be more worthy of this call than one deeply immersed in its mysteries?

The central point of the later Kabbala was most intense expectation of the Messiah; Lurya, Vital, and their disciples and followers proclaimed anew, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." A peculiar redemption was to precede and accompany it--the redemption of the scattered elements of the original soul (Nizuzoth) from the fetters of original evil, the demon nature (Kelifoth), which, taking a hold on men through the fall of the angels or divine elements, held them in captivity, impeded their upward flight, and necessitated the perpetual transmigration of souls from body to body. As soon as the evil spirit was either consumed, annihilated, rendered powerless, or at least existed by itself without admixture of the divine, then the Kabbalistic order (Olam ha-Tikkun) would prevail, streams of mercy would pour forth without let or hindrance upon the lower world through the channels of the Sefiroth, and fructify and miraculously quicken it. This work of redemption can be accomplished by every truly pious man (Zaddik), who having an enlightened soul, and being initiated into the Kabbala, stands in close union with the world of spirits, comprehends the connection between the upper and lower world, and fulfills all religious exercises (Kewanoth) with concentrated devotion and with due regard to their influence upon the higher powers. Still more effectually the Messiah, the son of David, will accomplish the annihilation of demoniacal powers and the restoration of lost souls, or rather the collection of the scattered elements of the universal soul of Adam. For to the Messiah, in whom dwells a pure, immaculate soul, are unfolded the mysterious depths of the higher worlds, essences, and divine creation, even the Divine Being Himself. The Messiah of the seed of David would, to a certain extent, be the original man (Adam Kadmon) incarnate, part of the Godhead.

This Luryan mysticism dazzled the bewildered brain of the Smyrna youth, and produced such confusion and giddiness, that he thought he could easily usher in this spiritual redemption, which would be immediately followed by that of the body. In what manner this haughty wish to play the part of a Messiah germinates and breaks forth in enthusiastic minds, is an impenetrable riddle. Sabbataï Zevi was not the first to believe himself able to reverse the whole order of the world, by mystical hocus-pocus, and partly to succeed in the endeavor. Certain it is that the extravagant notions entertained by Jews and Christians with regard to the near approach of the time of grace worked upon Sabbataï's weak brain. That book of falsehoods, the Zohar, declared that in the year of the world 5408 (1648) the era of redemption would dawn, and precisely in that year Sabbataï revealed himself to his train of youthful companions as the Messianic redeemer. It happened in an apparently insignificant manner, but the mode of revelation was of great import to the initiated. Sabbataï Zevi uttered the full four-lettered name of God in Hebrew (Jhwh, the Tetra-grammaton) without hesitation, although this was strictly prohibited in the Talmud and by the usage of ages. The Kabbalists attached all sorts of mystical importance to this prohibition. During the dispersion of Israel, the perfection of God Himself was to a certain extent destroyed, on account of the sinfulness of men and the degradation of the Jewish people, since the Deity could not carry out His moral plan. The higher and lower worlds were divided from each other by a deep gulf; the four letters of God's name were parted asunder. With the Messianic period of redemption the moral order of the world, as God had laid it down in the plan of the universe, and the perfection and unity of God would be restored. When Sabbataï Zevi permitted himself to pronounce the name of God in full, he thereby proclaimed that the time of grace had begun with him.

However, despite his pious, mystical life, he had too little authority at the age of two and twenty for the rabbis to allow an infraction of the existing order of things, which might lead to further inroads. When Zevi's pretensions became known some years later, the college of rabbis, at their head his teacher Joseph Eskapha, laid him and his followers under a ban. Many bickerings ensued in the community, the particulars of which are not known. Finally he and his disciples were banished from Smyrna (about 1651). The Messianic delusion appeared to have been extinguished, but it smouldered on, and broke out again, about fifteen years later, in a bright, consuming flame. This persecution, far from terrifying Sabbataï Zevi, gave him a sense of his dignity. The idea of a suffering Messiah had been transplanted from Christianity to Judaism; it was the accepted view that humiliation was the precursor of the Messiah's exaltation and glorification. Sabbataï believed in himself, and his disciples, amongst them Moses Pinheiro, a man of mature age, highly esteemed for scientific acquirements, shared the belief with tenacity. If the Messiah had been obliged to beg his way through the world, his illusion would not have long held its ground. But Sabbataï was richly provided with means, he could maintain his independence and his presumed dignity, and win adherents to his cause. At first, however, he kept himself in concealment, did not say much about his Messiahship, and thereby escaped ridicule. Whither he betook himself after his banishment from his native city is not quite certain; probably to the Turkish capital, where dwelt the largest Jewish community, in which were so many clean and unclean elements, that everyone could find companions for plans and adventures. Here he made the acquaintance of a preacher, Abraham Yachini, who confirmed him in his delusion. Yachini stood in high repute on account of his talent as a preacher. He was a needy and artful fellow, and made neat transcriptions for a Dutch Christian, who dabbled in Oriental literature. From selfish motives or delight in mystification, and to confirm Sabbataï Zevi in his delusion, Yachini palmed off upon him an apocryphal manuscript in archaic characters, which he alleged bore ancient testimony to Sabbataï's Messiahship.

"I, Abraham, was shut up for forty years in a cave, and wondered that the time of miracles did not make its appearance. Then a voice replied to me, 'A son shall be born in the year of the world 5386 (1626), and be called Sabbataï. He shall quell the great dragon: he is the true Messiah, and shall wage war without weapons.'"

This document, which the young fanatic himself appears to have taken for a genuine revelation, became later on the source of many mystifications and impostures. However, it appeared inadvisable to the dupe and the deceiver that he should appear in Constantinople. Salonica, which had always paid homage to mysticism, seemed a more suitable field for Kabbalistic extravagances. Here, therefore, Sabbataï resided for some time, gained adherents, and came forward with greater boldness. Here he enacted one of his favorite scenes, by which he afterwards worked upon the imagination of the Kabbalists. He prepared a solemn festival, invited his friends, sent for the sacred book (Torah), and intimated to those present, that he was about to celebrate his mystical marriage with it. In the language of the Kabbala this meant that the Torah, the daughter of heaven, was to be united indissolubly with the Messiah, the son of heaven, or En-Sof. This scene displeased the discreet rabbis of Salonica, and they decreed his banishment. Thence he betook himself to the Morea, probably to relatives and friends of his father, and resided for some time at Athens, where at that time there was a Jewish community. When the Jews of this region heard of the sentence pronounced upon him, they gave him no encouragement. This opposition, far from discouraging him, only served to make him bolder; he probably regarded his sufferings as necessary for the glorification of the Messiah.

At last, after long wandering, a prospect of realizing his dream presented itself at Cairo. In the Egyptian capital there was a Jewish mint-master and tax-farmer, with the title of Saraph-Bashi, similar to the Alabarchs at Alexandria in earlier ages. At that time (after 1656) the office was held by Raphael Joseph Chelebi, of Aleppo, a man of great wealth and open-handed benevolence, but of unspeakable credulity, and ineradicable propensity to mysticism and asceticism. Fifty learned Talmudists and Kabbalists were supported by him, and dined at his table. Everyone who sought his compassion found help and relief in his need. While riding in the royal chariot, and appearing in splendid robes, he wore sackcloth underneath, fasted and bathed much, and frequently at night scourged himself. Samuel Vital, a son of Chayim Calabrese, superintended his constant penances according to the Kabbalistic precepts of Lurya (Tikkun Lurya). These were intended, as has been stated, to hasten the coming of the Messiah. To be in Cairo and not to make Raphael Joseph's acquaintance was an inconceivable course for a Kabbalist. Sabbataï Zevi thus came into his circle, and won his confidence the sooner, as, owing to his independent position, he did not desire anything of him. He appears to have partially revealed his Messianic plans to Raphael. He had grown older, maturer, and wiser, and knew how to make men amenable to his wishes. The Apocalyptic year, 1666, was drawing near, and it was important to use the auspicious moment.

He betook himself to Jerusalem, perhaps under the delusion that in the Holy Land a miracle would take place to confirm his greatness. The community at Jerusalem was at that time in every way poor and wretched. Besides being ground down by the oppressions and extortions of Turkish officials, it suffered because the supplies from Europe were exhausted on account of the constant massacres of the Jews in Poland. The consequence was that the best men emigrated, leaving the government of the community to thorough-going Kabbalists, devoted adherents of Lurya and Vital, or to a licentious set, who followed the impulses of bare-faced selfishness. There were at that time very few men of repute and authority in Jerusalem. A Marrano physician named Jacob Zemach appears to have stood at their head. He had leapt, so to speak, in one bound from a Portuguese church into the nest of Kabbalists at Safet, and there, as later at Jerusalem, had become an unconscious tool for the mystifications practiced by Vital. Abraham Amigo, a Talmudist of the second or third rank, had similar aims. A man of some importance, to be sure, was Jacob Chages (1620-1674), who had migrated from Italy to Jerusalem, and who wrote Spanish well. Chages, however, had no official position, but lived the life of a recluse in an academy, which two brothers named Vega, of Leghorn, had founded for him. The thoughtless credulity of the people of Jerusalem of that time is instanced by the gross deception practiced upon them by Baruch Gad, one of their alms-collecting emissaries, which they, the learned and the unlearned, not only credited, but swore to as true. Baruch Gad had gone on a begging journey to Persia, where he pretended that he had experienced many adventures, and had been saved by a Jew of the tribe of Naphtali, who had given him a Kabbalistic letter from one of the "Sons of Moses" at the miraculous river Sabbation. It contained much about the riches, splendor, and daily miracles of the Sons of Moses, and said that they were momentarily awaiting the commencement of the Messianic epoch as a signal for coming forth. This story, certified by a circular, was brought by Baruch Gad to Jerusalem, where it found unquestioning credence. When the community of Jerusalem had fallen into great want in consequence of the Cossack massacre, ten so-called rabbis, Jacob Zemach at their head, sent to Reggio to their envoy Nathan Spira, of Jerusalem, a copy of this document from the Sons of Moses, which was kept in careful custody. It was to serve as a bait to draw more abundant alms.

The miracle which Sabbataï Zevi was expecting for himself in the Holy City was present in the credulity and mania for miracles on the part of the people of Jerusalem, who were inclined, like the lowest savages, to accept any absurd message as a divine revelation, if only it was brought before them in the right manner. At first the Smyrna enthusiast kept himself quiet, and gave no offense. He lived according to the precepts of the Kabbala, imposed the severest mortifications on himself, and often stayed by the graves of pious men in order to draw down their spirits. Thereby, aided by his pleasing, attractive, and reverential behavior and taciturn manner, he gradually gathered round him a circle of adherents who had blind faith in him. One of his devoted followers related with credulous simplicity, that Sabbataï Zevi shed floods of tears in prayer. He sang Psalms the whole night with his melodious voice, while pacing the room now with short, now with long strides. His whole conduct was out of the ordinary groove. He was also wont to sing coarse love songs in Spanish, with a mystical meaning, about the emperor's fair daughter Melisselda, with her coral lips and milk-white skin, as she rose out of the bath. Sabbataï used another means to win hearts. When he showed himself in the streets he distributed sweet-meats of all sorts to the children, who in consequence ran after him, and he thus gained the favor of their mothers.

An incident brought his eccentric ideas nearer their realization. The community at Jerusalem was sentenced by one of the pachas or some minor official to one of those oppressive exactions which frequently carried torture or death in their train. The impoverished members rested their hopes solely on Raphael Joseph Chelebi at Cairo, known to have the means and inclination to succor his afflicted brethren, especially the saints of Jerusalem. A messenger was to be sent to him, and Sabbataï Zevi was universally regarded as the most fitting, particularly as he was a favorite with the Saraph-Bashi. He undertook this task willingly, because he hoped to get the opportunity to play the part of saviour of the Holy City. His worshipers date from this journey to Egypt the beginning of his miraculous power, and assert that he accomplished many miracles at sea. Sabbataï however traveled not by water, but by land, by way of Hebron and Gaza, probably joining a caravan through the desert. He excited so much attention that all the Jews of Hebron, in order to observe him, refrained from sleep during the night of his stay. Arrived at Cairo, he immediately received from Chelebi the sum required for the ransom of the community at Jerusalem, and, besides, an extraordinarily favorable opportunity presented itself to confirm his Messianic dreams.

During the massacre of the Jews in Poland by Chmielnicki, a Jewish orphan girl of about six was found by Christians, and put into a nunnery. Her parents were dead, a brother had been driven to Amsterdam, the whole community broken up and put to flight, and no one troubled himself about the forsaken child, so that the nuns of the convent regarded the foundling as a soul brought to them and gave her a Christian conventual education. The impressions received in the house of her parents were so lively, that Christianity found no entrance into her heart; she remained faithful to Judaism. Nevertheless, her soul was nourished by fantastic dreams induced by her surroundings, and her thoughts took an eccentric direction. She developed into a lovely girl, and longed to escape from the cloister. One day she was found by Jews, who had again settled in the place, in the Jewish cemetery. Astonished at finding a beautiful girl of sixteen lightly clad in such a position, they questioned her, and received answer that she was of Jewish extraction, and had been brought up in a convent. The night before, she said, she had been bodily seized by her father's ghost, and carried out of bed to the cemetery. In support of her statement, she showed the women nail-marks on her body, which were said to come from her father's hands. She appears to have learnt in the convent the art of producing scars on her body. The Jews thought it dangerous to keep a fugitive from the convent in their midst, and sent her to Amsterdam. There she found her brother. Eccentric by nature and excited by the change in her fortunes, she continually repeated the words, that she was destined to be the wife of the Messiah, who was soon to appear. After she had lived some years in Amsterdam under the name of Sarah, she came--it is not known for what purpose--by way of Frankfort-on-the-Main to Leghorn. There, as credible witnesses aver, she put her charms to immoral use, yet continued to maintain that she was dedicated to the Messiah, and could contract no other marriage. The strange history of this Polish girl circulated amongst the Jews, and penetrated even to Cairo. Sabbataï Zevi, who heard of it, gave out that a Polish-Jewish maiden had been promised to him in a dream as his spiritual wife. He sent a messenger to Leghorn, and had Sarah brought to Cairo.

By her fantastical, free, self-confident behavior and by her beauty, Sarah made a peculiar impression upon Sabbataï and his companions. He himself was firmly convinced of his Messiahship. To Sabbataï and his friends the immoral life of this Polish adventuress was not unknown. This also was said to be a Messianic dispensation; he had been directed, like the prophet Hosea, to marry an unchaste wife. No one was so happy as Raphael Joseph Chelebi, because at his house the Messiah met his bride, and was married. He placed his wealth at the disposal of Sabbataï Zevi, and became his most influential follower. The warm adhesion of so dignified, respected, and powerful a man brought many believers to Sabbataï. It was rightly said, that he had come to Egypt as a messenger, and returned as the Messiah. For, from this second residence at Cairo dates his public career. Sarah, also, the Messiah's fair bride, brought him many disciples. Through her a romantic, licentious element entered into the fantastic career of the Smyrna Messiah. Her beauty and free manner of life attracted youths and men who had no sympathy with the mystical movement. With a larger following than when he started, Sabbataï returned to Palestine, bringing two talismans of more effective power than Kabbalistic means--Sarah's influence and Chelebi's money. At Gaza he found a third confederate, who helped to smooth his path.

At Jerusalem there lived a man named Elisha Levi, who had migrated thither from Germany. The Jews of the Holy City dispatched him to all parts of the world with begging letters. Whilst he was roaming through northern Africa, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Poland, his son Nathan Benjamin Levi (1644-1680) was left to himself, or the perverse education of that time. He developed, in the school of Jacob Chages, into a youth with superficial knowledge of the Talmud, acquired Kabbalistic scraps, and obtained facility in the high-sounding, but hollow, nonsensical Rabbinical style of the period, which concealed poverty of thought beneath verbiage. The pen was his faithful instrument, and replaced the gift of speech, in which he had little facility. This youth was suddenly raised from pressing poverty to opulence. A rich Portuguese, Samuel Lisbona, who had moved from Damascus to Gaza, asked Jacob Chages to recommend a husband for his beautiful, but one-eyed daughter, and he suggested his disciple Nathan Benjamin. Thus he became connected with a rich house, and in consequence of his change of fortune, lost all stability, if he had had any. When Sabbataï Zevi, with a large train of followers, came to Gaza on his way back from Cairo, posing as the Messiah, and accepted as such by the crowds gathering about him, Nathan Ghazati (i.e., of Gaza) entered into close relationship with him. In what way their mutual acquaintance and attachment arose is not explained. Sabbataï's disciples declared that Nathan had dug up a part of the ancient writing, wherein Zevi's Messiahship was testified. It is probably nearer the truth, that Sabbataï, to convince Ghazati of his mission, palmed off on him the spurious document received from Abraham Yachini. At any rate Nathan became his most zealous adherent, whether from conviction or from a desire to play a prominent part, can no longer be discerned in this story, in which simple faith, self-deception, and willful imposture, border so close on one another.

After Nathan Ghazati and Sabbataï had become acquainted, the former a youth of twenty, the latter a man of forty, prophetic revelations followed close upon one another. Ghazati professed to be the risen Elijah, who was to pave the way for the Messiah. He gave out that he had received a call on a certain day (probably the eve of the Pentecost, 1665), that in a year and a few months the Messiah would show himself in his glory, would take the sultan captive without arms, only with music, and establish the dominion of Israel over all the nations of the earth. The Messianic age was to begin in the year 1666. This revelation was proclaimed everywhere in writing by the pretended prophet of Gaza, with the addition of wild fantasies and suggestive details. He wrote to Raphael Joseph acknowledging the receipt of the moneys sent by him, and begging him not to lose faith in Sabbataï; the latter would certainly in a year and some months make the sultan his subject and lead him about as a captive. The dominion would be entrusted to Nathan, until he should conquer the other nations without bloodshed, warring only against Germany, the enemy of the Jews. Then the Messiah would betake himself to the banks of the river Sabbation, and there espouse the daughter of the great prophet, Moses, who at the age of thirteen would be exalted as queen, with Sarah as her slave. Finally, he would lead back the ten tribes to the Holy Land, riding upon a lion with a seven-headed dragon in its jaws. The more exaggerated and absurd Nathan's prophetic vaporings were, the more credence did they find. A veritable fit of intoxication took possession of nearly all the Jews of Jerusalem and the neighboring communities. With a prophet, formerly a shy youth, proclaiming so great a message, and a Messiah, more profoundly versed in the Kabbala than Chayim Vital, who could venture to doubt the approach of the time of grace? Those who shook their heads at this rising imposture were laughed to scorn by the Sabbatians.

The rabbinical leaders of the Jerusalem community were unfavorably struck by this Messianic movement, and sought to stifle it at its birth. It was sufficient to prejudice them against Sabbataï that he stood in the foreground, and put them in the shade. He is said to have distributed the money from Egypt according to his own discretion, and in the division to have unduly favored his own followers. Jacob Chages and his college threatened him with the heaviest excommunication if he should persist in his course. Sabbataï Zevi appears to have cared little for this, especially as a ban could have no effect if the community was on his side. Even Moses Galante, the son-in-law of Jacob Chages, esteemed as an authority in the Holy Land, regarded him with respect, although, as he afterwards declared, he did not believe in him unconditionally. Sabbataï Zevi saw clearly that Jerusalem was not the right place for his plans, as the rabbis would place obstacles in his way. Nathan Ghazati thereupon proclaimed in an ecstasy that Jerusalem had lost its importance as the sacred city, and that Gaza had taken its place. At Smyrna, his native city--an important gathering-place for Europeans and Asiatics--Sabbataï thought he could obtain greater success. His rich brothers prepared a good reception for him by the distribution of money amongst the poor and needy, and Nathan's extravagant prophetic letters had kindled the imagination of the people. But before he left Jerusalem, Sabbataï took care to dispatch active missionaries of a fanatical and fraudulent character, to predict his Messianic appearance, excite men's minds, and fill them with his name. Sabbataï Raphael, a beggar and impostor from the Morea, enlarged in mountebank fashion on the Messiah's greatness; and a German Kabbalist, Matathias Bloch, did the same in blind simplicity.

Thus it came to pass that when Sabbataï Zevi left Jerusalem--of his own accord, as he pretended, banished, as others said--he was at once received in triumph in the large Asiatic community of Aleppo. Still greater was the homage paid him in his native city (autumn 1665). The ban pronounced against him was not remembered. He was accompanied by a man of Jerusalem, Samuel Primo, who became his private secretary, and one of his most zealous recruiting agents. Samuel Primo understood the art of investing trifles with an air of official seriousness and by a flowery style to give world-wide importance to the Messianic imposture. He alone remained sober in the midst of the ever-increasing fanaticism, and gave aim and direction to the enthusiasts. Primo appears to have heralded Sabbataï's fame from conviction; he had a secret plan to be accomplished through the Messiah. He appears to have made use of Sabbataï more than to have been employed by him. Sabbataï had tact enough not to announce himself at once at Smyrna as the Messiah; he commanded the believing multitude not to speak of it until the proper time. But this reserve, combined with other circumstances--the ranting letters of Nathan, the arrival of some men of Jerusalem who brought him the homage of the Holy City (though without being commissioned to do so), the severe mortifications which the people inflicted on themselves, to atone for their sins and become worthy of the coming of the Messiah--all this worked upon the minds of the multitude, and they could scarcely wait for the day of his revelation. He had the Kabbalists on his side through his mystical utterances. At length Sabbataï Zevi declared himself publicly in the synagogue, with blowing of horns, as the expected Messiah (New Year, September, or October, 1665), and the multitude shouted to him, "Long live our King, our Messiah!"

The proverb that a prophet is least honored in his own country was for once belied. The madness of the Jews of Smyrna knew no bounds. Every sign of honor and enthusiastic love was shown him. It was not joy, but delirium to feel that the long-expected Messiah had at last appeared, and in their own community. The delirium seized great and small. Women, girls, and children fell into raptures, and proclaimed Sabbataï Zevi in the language of the Zohar as the true redeemer. The word of the prophet, that God at the end of the world will pour forth his spirit upon the young, appeared fulfilled. All prepared for a speedy exodus, the return to the Holy Land. Workmen neglected their business, and thought only of the approaching kingdom of the Messiah. The confusion in men's brains showed itself in the way in which the Sabbatians of Smyrna strove to merit a share in the time of grace. On the one hand, they subjected themselves to incredible penances--fasted several days in succession, refrained from sleep for nights, in order that, by Kabbalistic prayers (Tikkunim) at midnight, they might wipe away their sins, and bathed in extremely cold weather, even with snow on the ground. Some buried themselves up to the neck in the soil, and remained in their damp graves until their limbs were stiff with cold. On the other hand, they abandoned themselves to the most extravagant delight, and celebrated festival after festival in honor of the Messiah, whenever Sabbataï Zevi showed himself--always with a large train of followers--or walked through the streets singing Psalms, "The right hand of the Lord is exalted, the right hand of the Lord bringeth victory," or preached in a synagogue, and proved his Messiahship by Kabbalistic interpretations of Scripture. He showed himself only in procession in public, waved a fan to cool himself, and whoever was touched with it was sure of the kingdom of heaven. The delirious joy of his followers knew no bounds. Every word of his was repeated a thousand times as the word of God, expounded, exaggerated, and intensified. All that he did was held as miraculous, published, and believed. The madness went so far that his adherents in Smyrna and elsewhere, as at Salonica, that Kabbalist hot-bed of old, married their children of twelve, ten, and even younger, to one another--seven hundred couples in all--that, according to Kabbalistic ideas, they might cause the souls not yet born to enter into life, and thereby remove the last obstacle to the commencement of the time of grace.

The activity of Sabbataï Zevi in electrifying the minds of simple believers, now by public pomp and pageantry, now by silent retirement, was supplemented by Sarah, his wife, who by her loose conduct worked on the passions of the male population. The bonds of chastity, drawn much tighter among Eastern Jews than in Europe, were broken. The assembling of persons of both sexes in great multitudes, hitherto unheard of, was a slight innovation. In Messianic transports of delight men and women danced with one another as if mad, and in mystical fervor many excesses are said to have been committed. The voice of censure and caution was gradually silenced; all were drawn into the vortex, and the unbelievers were rendered harmless. The rabbi Aaron de la Papa (died 1674), an aged and respectable man, who at first spoke against this Messianic madness, and pronounced the ban against its originator, together with other rabbis, was publicly reviled in a sermon by Sabbataï, removed from office, and obliged to leave Smyrna.

Most unworthy was the behavior of the rabbi Chayim Benvenisti (1603-1673), a very considerable authority on the Talmud, and of astonishing learning, who, because he was a literary opponent of De la Papa, not only suffered the latter's removal from office, but allowed himself to be appointed in his place by Sabbataï. Though at first harshly disposed towards the new Messiah, he became a believer, and led the multitude by his authority. The latter were instigated by Sabbataï to bloodthirsty fanaticism. Because a noble, rich, and respected man in Smyrna, Chayim Penya, who had liberally supported Chayim Benvenisti, opposed the widespread delusion with obstinate incredulity, he was suddenly attacked in the synagogue, persecuted, and nearly torn to pieces by the raging multitude. Sabbataï Zevi, the pretended incarnation of piety, commanded the synagogue to be broken open and the vile heretic to be seized. But when Penya's daughters, likewise attacked by the madness, fell into raptures, and prophesied, the father had no choice but to put a good face upon the wretched business. He also assumed the air of a zealous adherent. After Penya's subjugation Sabbataï Zevi became sole ruler in the community, and could lead the Jewish population at will for good or for evil. In this humor which lasted for some months, the Jews of Smyrna feared their tyrants, the Turkish cadis, very little; if they offered to check the prevailing tendency, they were induced by rich presents to remain inactive.

These events in the Jews' quarter at Smyrna made a great sensation in ever-widening circles. The neighboring communities of Asia Minor, many members of which had betaken themselves to Smyrna, and witnessing the scenes enacted in that town, brought home exaggerated accounts of the Messiah's power of attraction and of working miracles, were swept into the same vortex. Sabbataï's private secretary, Samuel Primo, took care that reports of the fame and doings of the Messiah should reach Jews abroad. Nathan Ghazati sent circulars from Palestine, while the itinerant prophets, Sabbataï Raphael and Matathias Bloch, filled the ears of their auditors with the most marvelous accounts of the new redeemer. Christians also helped to spread the story. The residents, the clerks of English and Dutch mercantile houses, and the evangelical ministers, reported the extraordinary occurrences in Smyrna, and though they scoffed at the folly of the Jews, could not withhold half-credulous sympathy. Did they not see with their own eyes the ecstasies, and hear with their own ears the predictions, of the prophets and prophetesses of Sabbataï Zevi, the true redeemer? On the exchanges in Europe men spoke of him as a remarkable personage, and eagerly awaited news from Smyrna or Constantinople. At first the Jews were dazed by the reports that suddenly burst upon them. Was the long cherished hope, that one day the oppression and shame of Israel would be removed, and that he would return in glory to his home, at length to be realized? No wonder that nearly everywhere scenes similar to those in Smyrna were repeating themselves, that men's minds were filled with credulity, accepting mere rumors as accredited facts, or that wild excitement, ascetic living, and almsgiving to the needy, by way of preparation for the time of the Messiah, were followed here and there by prophetic ecstasies. Not only the senseless multitude, but nearly all the rabbis, and even men of culture and philosophical judgment, fell a prey to this credulity.

At that time not a single man of weight and importance recognized that the primary source of all these phenomena lay in the Kabbala and the Zohar. Jacob Sasportas, originally from Africa, had lived in Amsterdam and London and, at this time, was in Hamburg. He was born about 1620, and died 1698. A man of courage and keen penetration, whose word had weight through his Talmudical learning, Sasportas from the first combated this Messianic rage with passionate warmth. He was unwearied in sending letter after letter to the various communities and their guides in Europe, Asia, and Africa, to unmask the gross deceptions practiced, and to warn against the sad consequences. But even he was entangled in the snares of the Kabbala, and adopted its principles. On the ground of this spurious philosophy, thoroughgoing enthusiasts were more in the right than half-hearted adherents. Spinoza, who might have scattered this thick mist with his luminous ideas, was not only estranged from Judaism and his race, but even hostile to them, and regarded the prevailing perplexities with indifference or malice.

The accounts of Sabbataï Zevi and the Messianic excitement either came direct, or in a roundabout way by Alexandria, to Venice, Leghorn, and other Italian cities.

Venice was led by the bigoted Kabbalist Moses Zacut, Spinoza's very uncongenial fellow-student, who had formed the design of migrating from Amsterdam through Poland to Palestine, but stopped short in Venice. Far from opposing the delusion of the multitude, he encouraged it, as did the rabbinate of Venice. The news from Smyrna had most striking effect upon the great and the lesser Jerusalem of the North. The prophet of Gaza, who was not devoid of sober calculation, had directed his propagandist circulars to the most considerable and the richest communities--Amsterdam and Hamburg. These entered into close relationship with the new Messianic movement. The Jews of Amsterdam and Hamburg received confirmation of the extraordinary events at Smyrna from trustworthy Christians, many of whom were sincerely rejoiced thereat. Even Heinrich Oldenburg, a distinguished German savant in London, wrote to his friend Spinoza (December, 1665):--

"All the world here is talking of a rumor of the return of the Israelites, dispersed for more than two thousand years, to their own country. Few believe it, but many wish it.... Should the news be confirmed, it may bring about a revolution in all things."

The number of believers in Amsterdam increased daily among the Portuguese no less than among the Germans, and numbers of educated people set the example; the rabbis Isaac Aboab and Raphael Moses D'Aguilar, Spinoza's fellow-student Isaac Naar, and Abraham Pereira, one of the capitalists of Amsterdam and a writer on morals in Spanish, all became believers. Even the semi-Spinozist Dionysius Musaphia became a zealous adherent of the new Messiah. In Amsterdam devotion to the new faith expressed itself in contradictory ways--by noisy music and dancing in the houses of prayer, and by gloomy, monkish self-mortification. The printing presses could not supply enough copies of special prayer-books in Hebrew, Portuguese and Spanish, for the multitude of believers. In these books penances and formulas were given by which men hoped to become partakers in the kingdom of the Messiah. Many Sabbatian prayer-books (Tikkunim) printed Sabbataï's likeness together with that of King David, also the emblems of his dominion, and select sentences from the Bible. In confident expectation of speedy return to the Holy Land, the elders of one synagogue introduced the custom of pronouncing the priestly blessing every Sabbath.

At Hamburg, the Jews went to still greater lengths of folly, because they wished to make a demonstration against the bigoted Christians, who in many ways tormented them with vexatious restrictions, and when possible compelled them to listen to Christian sermons. Whoever entered the synagogue, and saw the Jewish worshipers hop, jump, and dance about with the roll of the Law in their arms, serious, respectable men withal, of Spanish stateliness, had to take them for madmen. In fact, a mental disease prevailed, which made men childish; even the most distinguished in the community succumbed to it.

Manoel Texeira, also called Isaac Señor Texeira, was born about 1630, and died about 1695. Some months before the death of his father, Diego Texeira, a Marrano nobleman who had emigrated from Portugal and settled at Hamburg, Manoel became resident minister, banker, and confidant of Christina, former queen of Sweden. She valued him on account of his honesty, his noble bearing, and his shrewdness. She exchanged letters with him on important affairs, conferred with him on the political interests of Europe, and credited him with deep, statesmanlike views. During her residence at Hamburg she took up her abode in Manoel Texeira's house, to the vexation of the local ecclesiastical authorities--who were hostile to the Jews--and remained quite unconcerned, although the Protestant preachers censured her severely from the pulpits. Men of the highest rank resorted to Texeira's house, and played with him for high stakes. This Jewish cavalier also belonged to Sabbataï's adherents, and joined in the absurd dances; as also the skillful and famous physician Bendito de Castro (Baruch Nehemiah), now advanced in years, for a time the physician of the queen during her residence in Hamburg. De Castro was at that time director of the Hamburg community, and by his order the Messianic follies were practiced in the synagogue. Jacob Sasportas, who because of the outbreak of the plague in London at that time resided in Hamburg, used serious arguments and satire against this Messianic delusion; but he could not make his voice heard, and only just escaped rough handling by the Sabbatians. The community recently established in London in the reign of Charles II, which had elected Jacob Sasportas as chief rabbi, was no less possessed with this craze. It derived additional encouragement from contact with Christian enthusiasts who hoped to bring about the millennium. Curious reports flew from mouth to mouth. It was said, that in the north of Scotland a ship had appeared, with silken sails and ropes, manned by sailors who spoke Hebrew. The flag bore the inscription, "The Twelve Tribes or Families of Israel." Believers living in London in English fashion offered wagers at the odds of ten to one that Sabbataï would be anointed king at Jerusalem within two years, and drew formal bills of exchange upon the issue. Wherever Jews dwelt, news of the Kabbalistic Messiah of Smyrna penetrated, and everywhere produced wild excitement. The little community of Avignon, which was not treated in the mildest manner by the papal officers, prepared to emigrate to the kingdom of Judah in the spring of the year 1666.

If Sabbataï Zevi had not hitherto firmly believed in himself and his dignity, this homage from nearly the whole Jewish race must have awakened conviction. Every day advices, messengers, and deputations came pouring in, greeting him in most flattering terms as king of the Jews, placing life and property at his disposal, and overwhelming him with gifts. Had he been a man of resolute determination and strength of will, he might have obtained results of importance with this genuine enthusiasm and willing devotion of his believers. Even Spinoza entertained the possibility, with this favorable opportunity and the mutability of human things, that the Jews might re-establish their kingdom, and again be the chosen of God. But Sabbataï Zevi was satisfied with the savor of incense. He cherished no great design, or rather, he lived in the delusion that men's expectations would fulfill themselves of their own accord by a miracle. Samuel Primo and some of his confidants appear, however, to have followed a fixed plan, namely, to modify the Rabbinical system, or even to abolish it. That was in reality implied in the reign of the Messiah. The fundamental conception of the Zohar, the Bible of the Kabbalists, is that in the time of grace, in the world of order (Olam ha-Tikkun), the laws of Judaism, the regulations concerning lawful and forbidden things, would completely lose their significance. Now this time, the Sabbatians thought, had already begun; consequently, the minute ritualistic code of the Shulchan Aruch ought no longer to be held binding. Whether Sabbataï himself drew this conclusion, is doubtful. But some of his trusted adherents gave this theory prominence. A certain bitterness towards the Talmud and the Talmudic method of teaching prevailed in this circle. The Sabbatian mystics felt themselves confined by the close meshes of the Rabbinical network, and sought to disentangle it loop by loop. They set up a new deity, substituting a man-god for the God of Israel. In their wanton extravagance the Kabbalists had so entirely changed the conception of the deity, that it had dwindled away into nothing. On the other hand, they had so exalted and magnified the Messiah, that he was close to God. The Sabbatians, or one of them (Samuel Primo?), built on this foundation. From the Divine bosom (the Ancient of Days), they said, a new divine personage had sprung, capable of restoring the order in the world intended in the original plan of Divine Perfection. This new person was the Holy King (Malka Kadisha), the Messiah, the Primal Man (Adam Kadmon), who would destroy evil, sin, and corruption, and cause the dried-up streams of grace to flow again. He, the holy king, the Messiah, is the true God, the redeemer and saviour of the world, the God of Israel; to him alone should prayers be addressed. The Holy King, or Messiah, combines two natures--one male, the other female; he can do more on account of his higher wisdom than the Creator of the world. Samuel Primo, who dispatched circulars and ordinances in the name of the Messianic king, often used the signature, "I, the Lord, your God, Sabbataï Zevi." Whether the Smyrna fanatic authorized such blasphemous presumptuousness cannot be decided, any more than whether in his heart he considered the Jewish law null and void. For, although some Sabbatians, who uttered these absurdities, pretended to have heard them from his own lips, other disciples asserted that he was an adherent of traditional Judaism.

The truth probably is that Sabbataï Zevi, absorbed in idle ruminating, accepted everything which the more energetic among his followers taught or suggested. They began the dissolution of Judaism by the transformation of the fast of the tenth of Tebeth (Asara be-Tebeth) into a day of rejoicing. Samuel Primo, in the name of his divinity, directed a circular to the whole of Israel in semi-official form:

"The first-begotten Son of God, Sabbataï Zevi, Messiah and Redeemer of the people of Israel, to all the sons of Israel, Peace! Since ye have been deemed worthy to behold the great day and the fulfillment of God's word by the prophets, your lament and sorrow must be changed into joy, and your fasting into merriment, for ye shall weep no more. Rejoice with song and melody, and change the day formerly spent in sadness and sorrow, into a day of jubilee, because I have appeared."

So firmly rooted in men's minds was faith in Sabbataï Zevi, that the communities which the letter reached in time discontinued this fast, although they believed that they could enter into the kingdom of the Messiah only by strict abstinence. The staunch orthodox party, however, was shocked at this innovation. They could not conceive the Messiah as other than a pious rabbi, who, if possible, would invent fresh burdens. A thousand times had they read in the Zohar, and repeated to one another, that in the time of the Messiah the days of mourning would be changed into days of feasting, and the Law in general would be no longer binding; but when words were changed into deeds, horror seized them. Those rabbis who before had regarded the movement half incredulously, or had not interfered with the penances and deeds of active benevolence to which many of the Sabbatians had felt prompted, thereby giving silent assent, now raised their voice against the law-destroying Messiahship. There began to be formed in every large community a small party of unbelievers (Kofrim), chiefly men learned in the Talmud, who desired to guard the established religion against attacks and disruption.

Rabbinical Judaism and the Kabbala, hitherto in close confederation, began to be at variance with each other; this doubtful ally showing herself at last in her true form as the enemy of Rabbinism. But this sobering discovery, that the Kabbala was a serpent nursed into life by the rabbis themselves, was recognized only by a few. They still remained true to her, imputing the growing hostility to the Shulchan Aruch to Sabbataï and his aiders and abettors. It was too late, their voices were drowned in shouts of joy. Solomon Algazi, and some members of the Smyrna rabbinate who shared his opinions, tried to oppose the abolition of the fast, but were nearly stoned to death by the multitude of believers, and were obliged, like Aaron de la Papa, to leave the city in haste.

But the Messiah was at last forced to tear himself out of his fool's paradise and the atmosphere of incense in Smyrna, in order to accomplish his work in the Turkish capital--either because his followers compelled him to put his light, not under a bushel, but upon it, that the world at large might see it, or because the cadi could no longer endure the mad behavior of the Jews, and did not wish to bear the sole responsibility. It is said that the cadi gave Sabbataï Zevi three days to go to Constantinople and appear before the highest Turkish authorities. In his delusion, Zevi perhaps believed that a miracle would fulfill the prophecies of Nathan Ghazati and other prophets, that he would easily be able to take the crown from the sultan. He prepared for his journey. Before he left Smyrna, he divided the world among his six-and-twenty faithful ones, and called them kings and princes. His brothers, Elijah and Joseph Zevi, received the lion's share; the former was named king of kings, the latter king of the kings of Judah. To his other faithful followers he disclosed, in Kabbalistic language, which soul of the former kings of Judah or Israel dwelt in each of their bodies, that is, had passed into them by transmigration. Among the better known names were those of the companion of his youth, Isaac Silveira, and Abraham Yachini at Constantinople, who had imparted to him the art of mysticism. Raphael Joseph Chelebi could least of all be passed over; he had been the first firm supporter of the Messiah, and was called King Joash. A Marrano physician, who had escaped from Portugal, and was his devoted adherent, received the crown of Portugal. Even his former opponent Chayim Penya received a kingdom of his own. A beggar, Abraham Rubio of Smyrna, was likewise raised to a throne, under the name of Josiah, and was so firmly convinced of his approaching sovereignty that he refused large sums for his imaginary kingdom.

Sabbataï Zevi appears purposely to have started on his Messianic journey to Constantinople exactly at the beginning of the mystic year 1666. He was accompanied by some of his followers, his secretary Samuel Primo being in his train. He had announced the day of his arrival at Constantinople, but circumstances proved false to him. The ship in which he sailed had to contend with bad weather, and the voyage was prolonged by weeks. Since the sea did not devour him, the Sabbatians composed marvelous stories describing how the storm and the waves had obeyed the Messiah. At some place on the coast of the Dardanelles the passengers of the weather-beaten vessel were obliged to land, and there Sabbataï was arrested by Turkish officers, sent to take him prisoner. The grand vizir, Ahmed Coprili, had heard of the excitement of the Jews in Smyrna, and desired to suppress it. The officers had strict orders to bring the pretended redeemer in fetters to the capital, and therefore hastened to meet the ship by which he came. According to orders, they put him in fetters, and brought him to a small town in the neighborhood of Constantinople, because the eve of the Sabbath was near. Informed by a messenger of his arrival at Cheknese Kutschuk, his followers hastened from the capital to see him, but found him in a pitiable plight and in chains. The money which they brought with them procured him some alleviation, and on the following Sunday (February, 1666), he was brought by sea to Constantinople--but in how different a manner to what he and his believers had anticipated! However, his coming caused excitement. At the landing-place there was such a crowd of Jews and Turks who desired to see the Messiah, that the police were obliged to superintend the disembarkation. An under-pasha commissioned to receive him welcomed the man-god with a vigorous box on the ear. Sabbataï Zevi is said, however, to have wisely turned the other cheek to the blow. Since he could not play the part of the triumphant, he at least wished to play that of the suffering Messiah with good grace. When brought before the deputy-vizir (Kaimakam), Mustapha Pasha, he did not stand the first test brilliantly. Asked what his intentions were, and why he had roused the Jews to such a pitch of excitement, Sabbataï is said to have answered that he was nothing more than a Jewish Chacham, come from Jerusalem to the capital to collect alms; he could not help it if the Jews testified so much devotion to him. Mustapha thereupon sent him to a prison in which insolvent Jewish debtors were confined.

Far from being disappointed at this treatment, his followers in Constantinople persisted in their delusion. For some days they kept quietly at home, because the street boys mocked them by shouting, "Is he coming? is he coming?" (Gheldi mi, Gheldi mi.) But they soon began again to assert that he was the true Messiah, and that the sufferings which he had encountered were necessary, a condition to his glorification. The prophets continued to proclaim the speedy redemption of Sabbataï and of all Israel. A Turkish dervish filled the streets of Constantinople with prophecies of the Messiah, whose enemies said that Sabbataï's followers had bribed him. Thousands crowded daily to Sabbataï's place of confinement merely to catch a glimpse of him. English merchants whose claims were not satisfied by their Jewish debtors applied to the Messiah. An order in his handwriting, admonishing defaulters to do justice to their creditors, as otherwise they would have no share in his joy and glory, had the best effect. Samuel Primo took care that most fabulous accounts should reach the Jews of Smyrna and those at a distance, of the reverence paid the Messiah by the Turkish authorities. At heart, he wrote, they were all convinced of his dignity. The expectations of the Jews were raised to a still higher pitch, and the most exaggerated hopes fostered to a greater degree. It was looked upon as a palpable miracle that summary Turkish justice allowed him, the rebellious Jew, to live. Did not this act of mercy prove that he was feared? The Turkish government in fact seems to have stood in awe of the Jewish Messiah. The Cretan war was impending, which demanded all the energy of the half-exhausted Turkish empire. The prudent grand vizir, Ahmed Coprili, did not like to sentence him to death, thus making a fresh martyr, and causing a desperate riot among the Jews. Even the Turks, charmed by Sabbataï's manner, and deceived by extraordinary miraculous manifestations, especially by the prophecies of women and children, joined the ranks of his worshipers. It seemed to Coprili equally dangerous to leave Sabbataï, during his absence at the war, in Constantinople, where he might easily add fuel to the ever-increasing excitement in the capital. He therefore commanded, after Sabbataï had been imprisoned in Constantinople for two months--from the beginning of February to April 17--that he be taken to the castle of the Dardanelles at Abydos, where state-prisoners were wont to be kept in custody. It was a mild confinement; some of his friends, among them Samuel Primo, were allowed to accompany him thither. The Sabbatians called this fortress by a mystical name, the Tower of Strength (Migdal Oz).

If Sabbataï Zevi had doubted himself for a moment, his courage rose through his change of abode, the respectful clemency shown him by the divan, and the steady and increasing devotion of the Jews. He felt himself the Messiah again. On his arrival at the castle of the Dardanelles on April 19, the day of preparation for the Passover, he slew a Paschal lamb for himself and his followers, and ate it with the fat, which is forbidden by the laws of the Talmud. He is said, while doing so, to have used a blessing which implied that the Mosaic, Talmudic, and Rabbinical law was abrogated--"Blessed be God, who hath restored again that which was forbidden." At Abydos he held regular court with the large sums of money which his brothers and his rich adherents sent him with lavish hand. His wife Sarah, who was allowed to remain with him, demeaned herself as the Messianic queen, and bewitched the multitude by her charms. From the Turkish capital a number of ships conveyed his followers to the castle of the Dardanelles. The fare on vessels rose in consequence daily. From other countries and continents, too, crowds of Jews streamed to the place of his captivity, in the hope to be deemed worthy of beholding him. The governor of the castle reaped advantage thereby, for he charged the visitors entrance money, and raised it to fifteen or thirty marks a head. Even the inhabitants of the place profited, because they could earn high prices for board and lodging. A veritable shower of gold poured into Abydos. The impression which these facts, industriously circulated and exaggerated, made on the Jews in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and the effect which they produced, are indescribable. With few exceptions all were convinced of Sabbataï's Messiahship, and of a speedy redemption, in two years at the latest. They argued that he had had the courage to go to the Turkish capital, although he had openly proclaimed the dethronement of the sultan, yet had not forfeited his life, but had been left in a sort of mock imprisonment. What more was needed to confirm the predictions of prophets of ancient and modern times? The Jews accordingly prepared seriously to return to their original home. In Hungary they began to unroof their houses. In large commercial cities, where Jews took the lead in wholesale business, such as Amsterdam, Leghorn, and Hamburg, stagnation of trade ensued. In almost all synagogues his initials, S and Z, were posted up with more or less adornment. Almost everywhere a prayer for him was inserted in the following form: "Bless our Lord and King, the holy and righteous Sabbataï Zevi, the Messiah of the God of Jacob." In Europe the eyes of all communities were directed to Amsterdam, the representatives of which adhered to the movement most enthusiastically. Every post-day which brought fresh letters was a holiday for them. The Amsterdam Jews showed their joy openly, and were afraid neither of the Christian population nor of the magistrates. Isaac Naar, of Amsterdam, and the rich Abraham Pereira, prepared themselves for a journey to the Messiah, and the former ironically announced it to the unbelieving Jacob Sasportas. The Hamburg community always imitated that of Amsterdam, or went beyond it. The council introduced the custom of praying for Sabbataï Zevi, not only on Saturday, but also on Monday and Thursday. The unbelievers were compelled to remain in the synagogue and join in the prayer with a loud Amen. And all this was done at the suggestion of the educated physician Bendito de Castro. The believers went so far as to threaten their opponents if they ventured to utter a word of censure against Sabbataï. At Venice, on the Sabbath, a quarrel broke out between the Sabbatians and their opponents, and one of the latter nearly lost his life. When Sabbataï was asked how the Kofrim (unbelievers) should be dealt with, he, or Samuel Primo, answered that they might be put to death without ado, even on the Sabbath; the executors of such punishment were sure to enjoy eternal bliss. A learned Talmudist at Buda, Jacob Ashkenazi of Wilna, whose son and grandson became zealous persecutors of the Sabbatians, was guided by the decision, and declared a member of the community worthy of death, because he would not say the blessing for Sabbataï Zevi. In Moravia (at Nikolsburg) there were such violent dissensions and tumults in consequence of the craze about the Messiah, that the governor of the province was obliged to post up notices to calm men's minds. At Salee, in the north-western part of Africa, the ruling Emir Gailan (Gailand) ordered a persecution of the Jews, because they too openly displayed the hope of their coming redemption.

Many Christians shared the delusive faith in the new Messiah, and the weekly tidings from the East concerning Sabbataï Zevi and his doings made an overwhelming impression on them. At Hamburg, for example, pious Protestants betook themselves to the proselytizing preacher Esdras Edzard, and asked him what was to be done:

"We have certain accounts, not only from Jews, but also from our Christian correspondents at Smyrna, Aleppo, Constantinople, and other places in Turkey, that the new Messiah of the Jews does many miracles, and the Jews of the whole world flock to him. What will become of the Christian doctrine and the belief in our Messiah?"

The attention bestowed by educated classes of Christians upon the extraordinary events, which were published as news of the day, in turn enhanced the credulity of the Jews. In short, every circumstance tended to increase the deception. Only Jacob Sasportas raised his warning voice against the imposture. He sent letters in all directions, here to point out the absurdity of current rumors, there to collect exact information. He failed to obtain striking evidence of Sabbataï's, or Nathan's, roguery. Forged letters and documents were the order of the day; conscientiousness and uprightness had utterly disappeared. Thus the mist of false belief grew thicker and thicker, and one was no longer able to get at the truth.

For three months, from April to July, Sabbataï had been leading the life of a prince in the castle of the Dardanelles, intent only upon his own apotheosis. Either from caprice or at Samuel Primo's suggestion, he declared the fast of the 17th Tammuz to be abolished, because on this day he had realized his Messianic character. Was this a mere freak, or was it done with the intention of accustoming his adherents to the abolition of Rabbinical Judaism? At all events, he appointed the 23d of Tammuz (July 25th), a Monday, to be kept as a strict Sabbath. More than four thousand Jews, men and women, who happened to be at Abydos, celebrated this new Sabbath with great scrupulousness. Sabbataï, or his secretary, sent circulars to the communities directing them to celebrate the next fast, the ninth of Ab, his birthday, as a festival by a special service, with Psalms specially chosen, with eating of choice meats, and the sound of the harp and singing. He is said to have contemplated the annulling of all the Jewish festivals, even the Day of Atonement, and the introduction of others in their stead. But before this could be done, he was guilty in his pride of an act of folly which caused the whole fabric to collapse.

Among the many thousand visitors from far and near, two Poles from Lemberg made a pilgrimage to him, to confirm their faith and feast on his countenance. One was Isaiah, son of a highly-esteemed Rabbinical authority, the aged David Levi (Ture Zahab), and grandson of the no less celebrated Joel Serkes; the other, his half-brother, Leb Herz. From these two Poles Sabbataï heard that in the distant land from which they came, another prophet, Nehemiah Cohen, was announcing the approach of the Messiah's kingdom, but not through Sabbataï. He gave Isaiah Levi a laconic letter to take to his father, in which he promised the Jews of Poland revenge for the massacre by the Cossacks, and peremptorily ordered Nehemiah to come to him with all speed. He laid so much stress on Nehemiah's coming, that he made his followers eager for his arrival. The two Poles traveled back delighted to Lemberg, and everywhere told of the splendor amid which they had seen the Messiah. Nehemiah was ordered to hasten to Sabbataï, and he was not deterred by the length of the journey. When he arrived at Abydos at the beginning of September, he was immediately admitted to an audience which lasted several days. The Polish prophet and the Smyrna Messiah did not laugh in one another's faces, like two augurs, but carried on a grave discussion. The subject of their mystical conversation remained unknown, as may be imagined. It was said to concern the forerunner of the Messiah--the Messiah of Ephraim--whether or not he had appeared and perished, as had been predicted. Nehemiah was not convinced by the long argument, and did not conceal the fact. On this account, the fanatical Sabbatians are said to have secretly made signs to one another to do away with this dangerous Pole. He fortunately escaped from the castle, betook himself forthwith to Adrianople, to the Kaimakam Mustapha, became a Mahometan, and betrayed the fantastic and treasonable designs which Sabbataï Zevi cherished, and which, he said, had remained unknown to the government, only because the overseer of the castle of Dardanelles had an interest in the concourse of Jews.

The Kaimakam conveyed the intelligence to the sultan, Mahomet IV, and the course to be pursued with regard to Sabbataï was maturely considered, the mufti Vanni being also admitted to aid the deliberations. To make short work with the rebellious schemer appeared impracticable to the council, particularly as Mahometans also followed him. If he should fall as a martyr, a new sect might arise, which would kindle fresh disturbances. Vanni, a proselytizing priest, proposed that an attempt be made to bring Sabbataï over to Islam. This advice was followed, and the sultan's physician (Hakim Bashi), a Jewish renegade, by name Guidon, was employed as the medium. A messenger suddenly appeared at Abydos, drove away the Jews, who were besieging the Messiah with homage, conveyed him to Adrianople, and brought him first to the Hakim Bashi, who, as a former co-religionist, would be able to convert him the more easily. The physician represented to him the dreadful punishment that would inevitably befall him--he would be bound, and scourged through the streets with burning torches, if he did not appease the wrath of the sultan by adopting Islamism. It is not known whether this call to apostatize from Judaism cost the conceited Messiah great mental conflict. He had not much manly courage, and Judaism, in its existing form, was perhaps dead for him. So he adopted Guidon's advice. The following day (Elul 13, September 14, 1666) he was brought before the sultan. He immediately cast off his Jewish head-dress, in sign of contempt; a page offered him a white Turkish turban and a green instead of the black mantle which he wore, and so his conversion to the Mahometan religion was accomplished. When his dress was changed, it is said that several pounds of biscuit were found in his loose trousers. The sultan was highly pleased at this termination of the movement, gave him the name of Mehmed Effendi, and appointed him his door-keeper--Capigi Bashi Otorak--with a considerable monthly salary; he was to remain near the sultan. The Messiah's wife, Sarah, the Polish rabbi's fair daughter of loose behavior, likewise became a Mahometan, under the name of Fauma Kadin, and received rich presents from the sultana. Some of Sabbataï's followers also went over to Islam. The mufti Vanni instructed them in the Mahometan religion. Sabbataï is said to have married a Mahometan slave, in addition to his wife Sarah, at the command of the mufti. Nehemiah Cohen, who had brought about this sudden change, did not remain in Turkey, but returned to Poland, took off the turban, and lived quietly without breathing a word of what had happened. He disappeared as suddenly as he had come forward. The ex-Messiah impudently wrote, some days after his conversion, to his brothers at Smyrna: "God has made me an Ishmaelite; He commanded, and it was done. The ninth day of my regeneration." Nearly at the same time the rabbis and presidents of schools at Amsterdam assembled, and sent a letter of homage to Sabbataï Zevi, to testify their belief in and submission to him. The semi-Spinozist Dionysius (Benjamin) Musaphia, vexed at not being invited, wrote a separate letter to Sabbataï Zevi, signed by himself and two members of the school (Elul 24th). A week later, twenty-four distinguished men of Amsterdam sent another letter of homage to the apostate Messiah. At their head was Abraham Gideon Abudiente. Did these letters reach the Mahometan Mehmed Effendi? At Hamburg, where likewise his conversion was not suspected, the blessing was five times pronounced over the renegade Sabbataï, on the Day of Atonement (October 9, 1666).

But when the rumor of his apostasy went the rounds of the communities, and could no longer be denied, confidence was succeeded by a bewildering sense of disenchantment and shame. The highest representative of Judaism had abandoned and betrayed it! Chayim Benvenisti, the rabbi of Smyrna, who had invested the false Messiah with authority from motives far from honorable, almost died of shame. Mahometans and Christians pointed with scorn at the blind, credulous Jews. The street boys in Turkey openly jeered at Jewish passers-by. But this ridicule was not all. So widespread a commotion could not die out and leave no trace. The sultan thought of destroying all the Jews in his empire, because they had formed rebellious plans, and of ordering all children under seven to be brought up in Islamism. The newly converted Mahometan, Mehmed Effendi, in order to revenge himself, is said to have betrayed his own plans, and the consent of the Jews thereto. Two councilors and the sultana-mother are reported to have dissuaded the sultan from his design by the observation that the Jews ought to be regarded as having been misled. Fifty chief rabbis, however, because they had neglected their duty in teaching the people, were to be executed--twelve from Constantinople, twelve from Smyrna, and the remaining twenty-six from the other communities in Turkey. It was regarded as a special miracle that this resolution remained a dead letter, and that the Jews did not even have to pay a fine. The division in the communities might have had even worse consequences, if the unbelievers had heaped scorn and mockery upon the late devotees. But the colleges of rabbis in the East interposed, and sought to appease and reconcile, and threatened to excommunicate any one who, by word or deed, offended a former Sabbatian.

Although men's minds were calmed for the moment, it was long before peace was restored. After the first surprise at Sabbataï's conversion was over, his zealous followers, especially at Smyrna, began to recover. They could not persuade themselves that they had really been running after a shadow. There must be, or have been, some truth in Sabbataï's Messianic claims, since all signs so entirely agreed. The Kabbalists easily got over objections. Sabbataï had not turned Mahometan; a phantom had played that part, while he himself had retired to heaven or to the Ten Tribes, and would soon appear again to accomplish the work of redemption. As at the time of the origin of Christianity mystical believers (Docetæ) interpreted the crucifixion of Jesus as a phantasm, so now thorough-going mystics explained Sabbataï's apostasy from Judaism. Others, such as Samuel Primo, Jacob Faliachi, Jacob Israel Duchan, who had designed, through him, to bring about the fall of Rabbinical Judaism, and would not abandon their plan lightly, still clung to him. The prophets, who had been manifestly proved false through his conversion, were most interested in remaining true to him. They did not care quietly to renounce their functions and withdraw into obscurity, or be laughed at. The prophets residing at Smyrna, Constantinople, Rhodes, and Chios were silenced; but the itinerant prophets, Nathan Ghazati and Sabbataï Raphael, did not choose to abdicate. The former had remained in Palestine during Sabbataï's triumph in order to be paid homage on his own account. After the deception was unmasked he regarded himself as no longer safe; he made preparations to go to Smyrna, and continued to send out his mystical, bombastic letters. From Damascus he warned the Jews of Aleppo by letter not to allow themselves to be discouraged by strange circumstances in their belief in the Messiah; there was a deep mystery shortly to be revealed; but wherein the mystery consisted could not yet be disclosed. By these circulars the credulous were confirmed afresh in their delusion. In Smyrna many synagogues continued to insert the blessing for Sabbataï in their prayers. Hence the rabbis were obliged to interfere vigorously, especially the rabbinate of the Turkish capital. They laid under a ban all who should even pronounce the name of Sabbataï, or converse with his followers, and threatened to hand them over to the secular arm. Nathan Ghazati, in particular, was excommunicated, and everyone warned against harboring him or approaching him (Kislev 12, December 9, 1666). These sentences of excommunication were so far effectual that Nathan could not stay anywhere for any length of time, and even in Smyrna he could remain only a short time in secret at the house of a believer. But the rabbis were not able entirely to exorcise the imposture. One of the most zealous Sabbatians, probably Samuel Primo, who was ready in invention, threw out a more effective suggestion than that of the mock conversion. All had been ordained as it had come to pass. Precisely by his going over to Islam had Sabbataï proved himself the Messiah. It was a Kabbalistic mystery which some writings had announced beforehand. As the first redeemer Moses was obliged to reside for some time at Pharaoh's court, not as an Israelite, but to all appearance an Egyptian, even so must the last redeemer live some time at a heathen court, apparently a heathen, "outwardly sinful, but inwardly pure." It was Sabbataï's task to free the lost emanations of the soul, which pervade even Mahometans, and by identifying them with himself, as it were, bring them back to the fountain-head. By redeeming souls in all circles, he was most effectually furthering the kingdom of the Messiah. This suggestion was a lucky hit; it kindled anew the flame of the imposture. It became a watchword for all Sabbatians enabling them, with decency and a show of reason, to profess themselves believers, and hold together.

Nathan Ghazati also caught up this idea, and was encouraged to resume his part as prophet. He had fared badly so far; he had been obliged secretly to leave Smyrna, where he had been in hiding several months (end of April, 1667). His followers, consisting of more than thirty men, were dispersed. But by this new imposture he recovered courage, and approached Adrianople, where Mehmed Effendi presided, attended by several of his adherents, who as pretended Mahometans lived and made fantastic plans with him. The representatives of the Jewish community at Constantinople and Adrianople rightly feared fresh disturbances from the presence of the false prophet, and desired to get rid of him. Nathan Ghazati, however, relied on his prophecy, which might possibly, he said, be fulfilled at the end of the year. He expected the Holy Spirit to descend upon the renegade Mehmed on the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), and then he also would be able to show signs and wonders. Until then, he defiantly replied to the deputies, he could entertain no propositions. When the Feast of Weeks was over, the people of Adrianople again urged him to cease from his juggleries. After much labor they obtained only a written promise to keep at a distance of twelve days' journey from the city, not to correspond with Sabbataï, not to assemble people round him, and if by the end of the year the Redeemer did not appear, to consider his prophecies false. In spite of his written promise, this lying prophet continued his agitation, and admonished the Sabbatians in Adrianople to make known their continued adhesion by the suspension of the fast on the 17th of Tammuz. In this city there was a Sabbatian conventicle under the leadership of a former disciple, who stood in close connection with Mehmed Effendi. The rabbinate of Adrianople did not know how to check the mischievous course of this daring sect, and were obliged to have recourse to falsehood. They announced that the renegade had suddenly appeared before the Jewish communal council, had repented of his imposture, and laid the blame on Nathan and Abraham Yachini, who had made him their dupe. In this way the rabbinate succeeded in deceiving the Sabbatians. The effect did not last long. Nathan on the one hand, and Mehmed Effendi's circle on the other, awakened new hope, the number of believers again increased, and they made a special point of not fasting on the 9th of Ab, the birthday of their Messiah. The rabbinates of Constantinople and Smyrna sought to repress this imposture by the old means--excommunication and threats of punishment (end of July)--but with little success. The Sabbatians had a sort of hankering after martyrdom in order to seal their faith. The false prophet renewed his propagandism. He still had some followers, including two Mahometans. At Salonica, the home of a swarm of Kabbalists, he fared badly. The more easily did he find a hearing in the communities of the islands of Chios and Corfu. His hopes were however directed principally to Italy.

Here also confusion continued to reign. The first news of Sabbataï's defection had not been confirmed, as in consequence of the war in Crete the ships of the Christians had been captured by the Turks. Thus the Sabbatians were left free to maintain their faith and denounce the report as false, especially as encouraging letters arrived from Raphael Joseph Chelebi of Cairo and others. The most absurd stories of Sabbataï's power and dignity at the Porte were published in Italy, and found credence. Moses Pinheiro, Sabbataï's old companion, Raphael Sofino at Leghorn, and the Amsterdam fanatics, Isaac Naar and Abraham Pereira, who had gone to Italy to search for the Messiah, had a special interest in clinging to straws; they feared ridicule as dupes. The ignorant mountebank and strolling prophet, Sabbataï Raphael, from the Morea, then residing in Italy, was bent upon deception and fraud, and appears to have reaped a good harvest there. When at last there could be no doubt of Sabbataï's change of religion, Raphael turned his steps to Germany, where, on account of defective postal arrangements and the slight intercourse of Jews with the outer world, they had only a vague idea of the course of events, and took the most foolish stories for truth. Sabbataï Raphael was there regarded as a prophet; but, as he expected greater gain from the rich Amsterdam community, he betook himself thither (September, 1667). Here also the imposture continued. Ashamed that they, the shrewd and educated Portuguese, should have been so signally deceived, they at first placed no faith in the news of Sabbataï's treachery. Even the rabbis Isaac Aboab, Raphael Moses d'Aguilar, and the philosophical sceptic Musaphia, remained staunch. Justly Jacob Sasportas laughed them to scorn, especially Musaphia, on account of his present unshaken faith as contrasted with his former incredulity.

Meanwhile Nathan Ghazati, the prophet of Gaza was pursuing his mischievous course in Italy. Coming from Greece, he landed at Venice (end of March, 1668), but the rabbinate and the council, who had had warning of him, would not allow him to enter the Ghetto. A Sabbatian interceded for him with some Christians of rank, and under such protection he could not be expelled. To cure those who had shared in the delusion, the rabbinate wrung from him a written confession, that his prophecies of Sabbataï Zevi's Messiahship rested on a freak of his imagination, that he recognized them as such, and held them to be idle. This confession was printed with an introduction by the rabbinate of Venice, in order at last to open the eyes of the Sabbatians in Italy. But it was not of much avail. The delusion, resting as it did on the Kabbala, was too deeply rooted. From Venice Ghazati was sent to Leghorn, with the suggestion to render him innocuous there, where Jews enjoyed more freedom; but Nathan Ghazati secretly escaped to Rome, cut off his beard, disguised himself, and is said to have thrown notes written in Chaldee into the Tiber, to bring about the destruction of Rome. The Jews recognized him, and, since they feared danger for themselves on papal soil from his fraudulent absurdities, they procured his banishment. Then he went to Leghorn, and found followers there also. Promising himself more honor and profit in Turkey, or more opportunity to satisfy his restless mind, Nathan returned to Adrianople. He did not pay great regard to word and oath. Nathan Ghazati compiled much Kabbalistic nonsense, but acquired no fame. He is said to have died at Sophia, and to have been laid in a vault dug by himself (1680). Other men appeared at the head of the Sabbatians who far surpassed him, and pursued a definite end.

Sabbataï, or Mehmed Effendi, at this time began his revolutionary chimeras afresh. Immediately after his apostasy he was obliged, under the direction of the mufti Vanni, to acquire Mahometan ways, and guard carefully against any appearance of inclination to Judaism and the Jews. He therefore figured as a pious Mahometan. Gradually he was permitted greater freedom, and to give utterance to his Kabbalistic views about God and the universe. Vanni, to whom much was new, heard his expositions with curiosity, and the sultan also is said to have listened to his words attentively. Probably Sabbataï won over some Mahometans to his Kabbalistic dreams. Weary of quiet, and anxious to play an active part again, he once more entered into close relations with Jews, and gave out that he had been filled anew with the Holy Spirit at Passover (end of March, 1668), and had received revelations. Sabbataï, or one of his aiders and abettors, published a mystical work ("Five Evidences of the Faith," Sahaduta di Mehemnuta) addressed to the Jews and couched in extravagant language, in which the following fantastic views were set forth: Sabbataï had been and remained the true Redeemer; it would be easy to prove himself such, if he had not compassion on Israel, who would have to experience the same dreadful sufferings as the Messiah; and he only persisted in Mahometanism in order to bring thousands and tens of thousands of non-Jews over to Israel. To the sultan and the mufti, on the other hand, he said that his approximation to the Jews was intended to bring them over to Islam. He received permission to associate with Jews, and to preach before them at Adrianople, even in synagogues. Thus he played the part of Jew at one time, of Mussulman at another. If Turkish spies were present, his Jewish hearers knew how to deceive them. They threw away their Jewish headdress, and put on the turban. It is probable that many Jews were seriously converted to Islam, and a Jewish-Turkish sect thus began to form round Sabbataï Zevi. The Jews who had hitherto felt such horror of apostatizing, that only the outcasts amongst them went over to Christianity or Islam, became less severe. They said without indignation that so and so had adopted the turban. Through such jugglery Sabbatians at Adrianople, Smyrna, Salonica, and other cities, even in Palestine, allowed themselves to be confirmed in their obstinate faith in the Messiah. Even pious men, learned in the Talmud, continued to adhere to him.

As though this complication were to become more involved, and the Kabbalistic-Messianic disorder were to be pursued to its utmost limits, a Sabbatian champion unexpectedly appeared in a man of European culture, not wanting in gifts, Abraham Michael Cardoso. He was an original character, a living personification of the transformation of the Portuguese Jews after their expulsion. Born of Marrano parents in a small town of Portugal, Celarico, in the province of Beïra, Miguel Cardoso, like his elder brother Fernando, studied medicine. While the latter devoted himself earnestly to science, Miguel dawdled away his days amidst the luxury of Madrid, sang love-songs with the guitar under the balconies of fair ladies, and paid very little heed to Kabbala or Judaism. What influenced him to leave Spain is not known. Perhaps his more serious and thoughtful brother, who, after making a name in Spain as a medical and scientific author, out of love to Judaism migrated to Venice, where he plunged deeply into Jewish literature, infected him with enthusiasm. Both brothers assumed Jewish names after their return to the religion of their forefathers. The elder, Isaac Cardoso, gave up his name Fernando; the younger took the name of Abraham in addition to that of Miguel (Michael). Both composed verses in Spanish. While the elder brother led a regular life, guided by moral principles and a rational faith, the younger fell under the sway of extravagant fancy and an eccentric manner of living. Isaac Cardoso (born 1615, died after 1680) conferred renown on Judaism, while Abraham Michael Cardoso (born about 1630, died 1706) was a disgrace to it.

The latter lived as a physician at Leghorn, but not flourishing he accepted the position of physician in ordinary to the Bey of Tripoli. His warm-blooded, dissolute nature was a hindrance to his advancement. Contrary to the custom of African Jews, he married two wives, and instead of employing himself with his difficult science, he revolved fantastical schemes. Cardoso appears to have been initiated into the Kabbala and the Sabbatian delusion by Moses Pinheiro, who was living at Leghorn.

He continually had dreams and visions, which increased in frequency after the public appearance of Sabbataï at Smyrna and Constantinople. He communicated his delusion to his wives and domestics, who likewise pretended to have seen all sorts of apparitions. The apostasy of the false Messiah from Judaism did not cure Cardoso of his delusion; he remained a zealous partisan, and even justified the treachery of the Messiah by saying that it was necessary for him to be counted among sinners, in order that he might atone for Israel's sin of idolatry, and blot it out. He sent circulars in all directions, in order to support the Messianic claim of Sabbataï, and figure as a prophet. In vain his more sober brother, Isaac Cardoso, warned and ridiculed him, asking him ironically, whether he had received the gift of prophecy from his former gallantries and from playing the guitar for the fair maidens of Madrid. Abraham Cardoso's frivolity was in no way lessened, he even assumed a didactic tone towards his grave elder brother, who despised the Kabbala as he did alchemy and astrology, and sent him numberless proofs, from the Zohar and other Kabbalistic writings, that Sabbataï was the true Messiah, and that he must necessarily be estranged from Judaism. By his zeal he gained many adherents for the Sabbatian delusion in Africa; but he also made enemies, and incurred dangers. He continued to prophesy the speedy commencement of the Messiah's reign, although often proved false by reality. He put off the event from year to year, performed Kabbalistic tricks, set up a new God for Israel, and at last declared himself the Messiah of the house of Ephraim, until he was rigorously prosecuted by an opponent of these vagaries. Cardoso was driven back to his former uncomfortable position, forced to lead an adventurer's life, and win bread for himself and his family, so to speak, by his delusions, going through all sorts of jugglery, at Smyrna, at Constantinople, in the Greek islands, and at Cairo, and promoting the Sabbatian delusions with his abundant knowledge, eloquent tongue, and ready pen. Thanks to his education in Christian schools, he was far superior to other Sabbatian apostles, and knew how to give an air of rationality and wisdom to nonsense, thus completely blinding the biased, and stultifying even those averse to the Sabbatian movement.

Encouraged by the support of the Jews, continued in spite of his change of religion, Sabbataï persisted in keeping up his character as Messiah, and associated more and more with Jews. His weak brain had been turned by the overwhelming rush of events, and he completely lost balance. At one time he reviled Judaism and the God of Israel with foul words of abuse, and is said even to have informed against Jews as blasphemers of Islam before Turkish magistrates. At other times he held divine service according to the Jewish ritual with his Jewish followers, sang psalms, expounded the Zohar, ordered selections from the Torah to be read on the Sabbath, and frequently chose seven virgins for that purpose. On account of his constant intercourse with Jews, whom he was not able to bring over wholesale to Mahometanism, as he may have boastfully asserted, Mehmed Effendi is said to have fallen into disfavor, forfeited his allowance and been banished from Adrianople to Constantinople. He finally married another wife, the daughter of a man learned in the Talmud, Joseph Philosoph of Salonica. The Turkish patrol having surprised him in a village (Kuru Gisme) near Constantinople, while singing psalms in a tent with some Jews, and the Bostanji Bashi (officer) having reported it, the grand vizir commanded the Kaimakam to banish him to Dulcigno, a small town in Albania, where no Jews dwelt. There he died, abandoned and forsaken, it was afterwards said, on the Day of Atonement, 1676.

Spinoza, who had likewise broken away from Judaism, may well have looked with great contempt on this Messianic craze of his contemporaries. If he had cared to dig the grave of Judaism and bury it, he would have been obliged to recognize Sabbataï Zevi, his private secretary, Samuel Primo, and his prophets, as allies and abettors. The irrationality of the Kabbala brought Judaism much more effectually into discredit than reason and philosophy. It is a remarkable fact that neither the one nor the other could wean the numerous cultured Jews of Amsterdam from the religion of their forefathers, so strongly was it rooted in their hearts. At this time when two forces of Jewish origin were antagonizing Judaism in the East and the West, the Portuguese community, increased to the number of four thousand families, undertook (1671) the building of a splendid synagogue, and after some years finished the huge work, which had been interrupted by war troubles. The dedication of the synagogue (Ab 10, August 2, 1675), was celebrated with great solemnity and pomp. Neither the first Temple of Solomon, nor the second of Zerubbabel, nor the third of Herod, was so much lauded with song and eloquent speech as the new one at Amsterdam, called Talmud Torah. Copper-plate engravings, furnished with inscriptions in verse, were published. Christians likewise took part in the dedication. They advanced money to the Jews in the times of need, and a poet, Romein de Hooghe, composed verses in honor of the synagogue and the Jewish people in Latin, Dutch, and French.

Spinoza lived to see this rejoicing of the community from which he had become a pervert. He happened to be at Amsterdam just at the time. He was engaged in seeing through the press a treatise (Ethics) which reversed the views hitherto prevailing, and the second, enlarged edition of his other work, chiefly directed against Judaism. He may have laughed at the joy of the Amsterdam Jews, as idle; but the building of this synagogue in a city which a hundred years before had tolerated no Jews and had supported a Spanish Inquisition, was loud testimony of the times, and contradicted many of his assertions. He died not long afterwards, or rather, passed gently away as with a divine kiss (February 21, 1677), about five months after Sabbataï Zevi. Against his will he has contributed to the glory of the race which he so unjustly reviled. His powerful intellect, logical acumen, and strength of character are more and more recognized as properties which he owed to the race from which he was descended. Among educated Jews, Isaac Orobio de Castro alone attempted a serious refutation of Spinoza's philosophical views. Though his intention was good, he was too weak to break through the close meshes of Spinoza's system. It was left to history to refute it with facts.

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V. LIGHT AND SHADE

Jews under Mahometan Rulers--Expulsion from Vienna--Jews admitted by Elector Frederick William into the Mark of Brandenburg--Charge of Child-murder in Metz--Milder Treatment of Jews throughout Europe--Christian Champions of the Jews: Jurieu, Oliger Pauli, and Moses Germanus--Predilection of Christians for the Study of Jewish Literature--Richard Simon --Interest taken by Charles XI in the Karaites--Peringer and Jacob Trigland--German Attacks on Judaism by Wülfer, Wagenseil, and Eisenmenger--Circumstances of the Publication of _Judaism Unmasked_--The Alenu Prayer--Surenhuysius, Basnage, Unger, Wolf, and Toland.

1669-1700 C. E.

The princes and nations of Europe and Asia showed great consideration in not disturbing the Messianic farce of the Jews, who were quietly allowed to make themselves ridiculous. A pause had come in the constantly recurring persecution of the Jews, which did not, however, last very long. The regular succession of accusations, vexations, and banishments soon re-commenced. The contrast between the followers of Mahomet and those of Jesus is very striking. In Turkey the Jews were free from persecution, in spite of their great excitement, and absurd dreams of a national Messiah. In Africa, Sid Gailand and later Muley Arshid, sultan of Tafilet, Fez, and Morocco, oppressed the Jews, partly on account of their activity, partly from rapacity. But this ceased with the next sovereign, Muley Ismail. He was a patron of the Jews, and entrusted several with important posts. He had two Jewish advisers, Daniel Toledano of Miquenes, a friend of Jacob Sasportas, a Talmudist and experienced in state affairs, and Joseph Maimaran, likewise from Miquenes.

Within Christendom, on the contrary, Jews were esteemed and treated as men only in Holland; in other states they were regarded as outcasts, who had no rights, and no claim to compassion. Spain again led the way in decreeing banishments. That unfortunate country, becoming more and more depopulated through despotism, superstition, and the Inquisition, was then ruled by a foolish, fanatical woman, the dowager-regent Maria Anna of Austria, who had made her father-confessor, the German Jesuit Neidhard, inquisitor-general and minister with unlimited powers. Naturally, no toleration of other religions could be suffered at this bigoted court. There were still Jews in some parts of the monarchy, in the north-western corner of Africa, in Oran, Maxarquivir, and other cities. Many had rendered considerable services to the Spanish crown, in times of peace and war, against the native Arabs, or Moors, who endured with inward rage the dominion of the cross. The families of Cansino and Sasportas, the former royal interpreters, or dragomans, for the province of Oran, had distinguished themselves especially by their fidelity and devotion to Spain; and their conduct had been recognized by Philip IV, the husband of Maria Anna, in a special letter. Nevertheless, the queen-dowager suddenly ordered the banishment of the Jews from the district, because she could no longer tolerate people of this race in her realm. At the urgent request of Jewish grandees the governor allowed the Jews eight days' grace during the Passover, and admitted that they were banished, not because of misconduct or treason, but simply on account of the regent's intolerance (end of April, 1669). They were obliged to sell their possessions in haste at ridiculous prices. The exiles settled in the district of Savoy, at Villafranca, near Nice.

Like mother, like daughter. At about this time the banishment of Jews from Vienna and the arch-duchy of Austria was decreed at the instigation of the daughter of the Spanish regent, the empress Margaret, an ally of the Jesuits. The emperor did not easily allow himself to be prejudiced against Jews, from whom he derived a certain revenue. The community of Vienna alone, grown to nearly two thousand souls, paid a yearly tax of 10,000, and the country community of 4,000, florins. Including the income from Jews in other places, the emperor received from them 50,000 florins annually. But an empress need not trouble herself about finance; she can follow the inclinations of her heart, and Margaret's heart, filled with Jesuitism, hated Jews profoundly, and her father-confessor strengthened the feeling. Having met with an accident at a ball, she wished to testify her gratitude to heaven which had wonderfully preserved her, and could find no means more acceptable to God than the misery of Jews. More urgently than before she entreated her imperial consort to banish from the capital and the country the Jews, described by her father-confessor as outcasts of hell, and she received his promise. With trumpet-sound it was made known in Vienna (February 14, 1670) that by the emperor's command the Jews were to quit the city within a few months on pain of death. They left no measure untried to avert the stroke. Often before had similar resolutions been recalled by Austrian emperors. The Jews cited the privileges accorded them in writing, and the services which they had rendered the imperial house. They offered large sums of money (there were very rich court Jews at Vienna), used the influence of persons connected with the court, and, after a solemn service in honor of the recovery of the emperor from sickness, presented him as he left the church with a large gold cup, and the empress with a handsome silver basin and jug. The presents were accepted, but the command was not recalled.

At Vienna and at the court there was no prospect of a change of purpose; the Jesuits had the upper hand through the empress and her confessor. The community of Vienna in despair thought to avert the evil by another, roundabout course. The Jews of Germany had felt sincere sympathy for their brethren, and had implored heaven by prayer and fasting to save them. The Jews of Vienna could count confidently upon their zeal. Therefore, in a pitiful letter to the most influential and perhaps the richest Jew of that time, Isaac (Manoel) Texeira, the esteemed agent of Queen Christina, they begged him to exert his influence with temporal and church princes, through them to make Empress Margaret change her mind. Texeira had previously taken active steps in that direction, and he promised to continue them. He had written to some Spanish grandees with whom he stood in close connection to use their influence with the empress's confessor. The queen of Sweden, who, after her romantic conversion to Catholicism, enjoyed great esteem in the Catholic world, led Texeira to hope that, by letters addressed to the papal nuncio, to the empress, and to her mother, the Spanish regent, she might prevent the banishment of the Austrian Jews. The Jews of Rome also did their part to save their threatened brethren. But all these efforts led to nothing. Unhappily there had just been a papal election at Rome after the death of Clement IX, so that the head of the church, though Jews were tolerated in his states, could not be prevailed upon to assume a decided attitude. Emperor Leopold remained firm, and disposed of the houses of the Jews before they had left them. He was only humane enough to order, under pain of severe punishment, that no harm be done to the departing Jews.

So the Jews had to submit to the iron will of necessity, and grasp their pilgrims' staffs. When 1,400 souls had fallen into distress, or at least into an anxious plight, and many had succumbed, the remainder, more than three hundred, again petitioned the emperor, recounting the services of Jews to the imperial house, and showing all the accusations against them to be groundless, at all events not proven. They did not shrink from declaring that to be a Jew could not be called a crime, and protested that they ought to be treated as Roman citizens, who ought not to be summarily expelled. They begged at least for a respite until the next meeting of the Reichstag. Even this petition, in which they referred to the difficulty of finding a refuge, if the emperor, the ruler of half of Europe, rejected them, remained without effect. All had to depart; only one family, that of the court factor, Marcus Schlesinger Jaffa, was allowed to remain in Vienna, on account of services rendered. The Jesuits were full of joy, and proclaimed the praise of God in a gradual. The magistrates bought the Jews' quarter from the emperor for 100,000 florins, and called it Leopoldstadt in his honor. The site of the synagogue was used for a church, of which the emperor laid the corner-stone (August 18, 1670) in honor of his patron saint. A golden tablet was to perpetuate the shameful deeds of the Jews:

"After the Jews were banished, the emperor caused their synagogue, which had been as a charnel-house, to be made into a house of God."

The tablet, however, only proves the mental weakness of the emperor and his people. The Talmud school (Beth ha-Midrash) was likewise converted into a church, and named in honor of the empress and her patron saint.

But this dark picture had also its bright side. A struggling state, which hitherto had not tolerated the Jews, now became a new, though not very hospitable, home, where the Jewish race was rejuvenated. The Austrian exiles dispersed in various directions. Many sought protection in Moravia, Bohemia, and Poland. Others went to Venice and as far as the Turkish frontiers, others turned to Fürth, in Bavaria. Fifty families were received by Elector Frederick William, in the Mark of Brandenburg. This great prince, who laid the solid foundation for the future greatness of the Prussian monarchy, was not more tolerant than other princes of Louis XIV's century; but he was more clear-sighted than Emperor Leopold, and recognized that a sound state of finances is essential to the prosperity of a state, and that Jews retained somewhat of their old renown as financiers. In the Mark of Brandenburg no Jew had been allowed to dwell for a hundred years, since their expulsion under Elector John George. Frederick William himself took the step so difficult for many; he wrote (April, 1670) to his ambassador, Andrew Neumann, at Vienna, that he was inclined to receive into the electoral Mark from forty to fifty prosperous Jewish families of the exiles from Vienna under certain conditions and limitations. The conditions, made known a year later, proved in many points very harsh, but were more favorable than in other Protestant countries, as, for instance, in the bigoted city of Hamburg. The Jews might settle where they pleased in Brandenburg and in the duchy of Crossen, and might trade everywhere without hindrance. The burgomasters were directed to place no impediment in the way of their settlement and not to molest them. Every family had to pay eight thalers a year as a protective tax, a gold florin for every marriage, and the same for every funeral; on the other hand, they were freed from the poll-tax throughout the country. They might buy and build houses, on condition that after the expiration of a term they sell them to Christians. They were not permitted to have synagogues, but could have prayer-rooms, and appoint a school-master and a butcher (Shochet). This charter of protection was valid for only twenty years, but a prospect was held out that it would be prolonged by the elector or his successor. Of these fifty Austrian families, some seven settled in Berlin, and formed the foundation of the community afterwards so large and influential. One step led to another. Frederick William also admitted rich Jews from Hamburg, Glogau, and other cities, and thus communities sprang up at Landsberg and Frankfort-on-the-Oder.

It is evident that Frederick William admitted the Jews purely from financial considerations. But he occasionally showed unselfish goodwill towards some. When he agreed to the quixotic plan of Skytte, a Swedish royal councilor, to found, at Tangermünde in the Mark, a university for all sciences and an asylum for persecuted savants, he did not fail, according to his programme, to admit into this Athens of the Mark, Jewish men of learning, as well as Arabs and unbelievers of every kind, but on condition that they should keep their errors to themselves, and not spread them abroad.

At another spot in Christian Europe a few rays of light pierced the darkness. About the same time that the Jews were expelled from Vienna, a false accusation, which might have had far-reaching consequences, cropped up against the Jews of a city recently brought under French rule. In Metz, a considerable community had developed in the course of a century from four Jewish families, and had appointed its own rabbi since the beginning of the seventeenth century. The Jews of Metz behaved so well that King Louis XIV publicly declared his satisfaction with them, and renewed their privileges. But as Metz at that time still had a German population, narrow guilds continued to exist, and these insisted upon limiting the Jews in their occupations. Thwarted by the magistrates, some of them roused in the populace a burning hatred of the Jews. A peasant had lost a child, and the news was quickly spread that the Jews had killed it to practice sorcery with its flesh. The accusation was brought specifically against a peddler, Raphael Levi. Scraps of paper with Hebrew letters, written by him during his imprisonment, served as proofs of his guilt. A baptized Jew, Paul du Vallié (Vallier, formerly Isaac), son of a famous physician in that district, with the aid of another Jewish convert, translated the scraps to the disadvantage of the accused.

Du Vallié had literally been decoyed into Christianity, and changed into a bitter enemy of his former co-religionists. He had been a good son, adored by his parents. He had also been a pious Jew, and had declared to two tempters who had tried to influence him to apostatize from Judaism that he would sooner be burned. Nevertheless, the priests continued their efforts until they induced him to accept Christianity. The news of his baptism broke the heart of his mother, Antoinette. A touching letter to her son, in French, is still extant, in which she entreats him to return to Judaism. Du Vallié however refused, and proved himself besides to be a bad man and a traitor. He brought false evidence against the poor accused Jew. Accordingly, Raphael Levi was stretched on the rack, and, though he maintained his innocence in the tone of convincing truth, he was condemned by the Metz parliament, and put to death with torture, which he resolutely bore (January, 1670). The parliament intended to continue the persecution. The enemies of the Jews, moreover, caused a document on the subject to be printed and widely circulated, in order to produce the proper effect. But the Metz community found a supporter in a zealous fellow-believer, Jonah Salvador, a tobacco dealer, of Pignerol. He was learned in the Talmud, and a follower of Sabbataï Zevi. Richard Simon, an eager student, sought him out in order to study Hebrew under his guidance. Jonah Salvador managed to interest this Father of the Oratory in the Metz community, and inspired him to draw up a vindication of the Jews respecting child-murder. The tobacco merchant of Pignerol delivered this document to persons at court whose word had weight, and this turned the scale. The king's council ordered the records of the Metz parliament to be sent in, and decided (end of 1671) that judicial murder had been committed in the case of Raphael Levi. Louis XIV ordered that henceforth criminal charges against Jews be brought before the king's council.

Inhuman treatment of Jews, banishment, false accusations against them, and massacres did not actually cease, but their number and extent diminished. This phenomenon was a consequence of the increasing civilization of the European capitals, but a growing predilection for the Jews and their brilliant literature had a share in their improved treatment. Educated Christians, Catholics as well as Protestants, and sober, unbiased men, whose judgment had weight, began to be astonished at the continued existence of this people. How was it that a people, persecuted for ten centuries and more, trampled under foot, and treated like a pack of venomous or noisome beasts--a people without a home, whom all the world treated roughly--how was it that this people still existed--not only existed, but formed a compact body, separate from other peoples, even in its subjection too proud to mingle with more powerful nations? Numerous writers appeared as apologists for the Jews, urging their milder treatment, and appealing earnestly to Christians not to destroy or disfigure this living marvel. Many went very far in their enthusiasm for the Jews. The Huguenot preacher, Pierre Jurieu, at Rotterdam, wrote a book (1685) on "The Fulfillment of Prophecy," in which he expounded the future greatness of the Jews as certain--that God had kept this nation for Himself in order to do great wonders for it: the true Antichrist was the persecution of Jews. A Dane, Oliger (Holger) Pauli, displayed over-zealous activity for the return of the Jewish people to their former country. As a youth, he had had visions of the coming greatness of Israel, in which he also was to play a part. Oliger Pauli was so fond of the Jewish race that, although descended from Christian ancestors of noble rank, he always gave out that he had sprung from Jewish stock. He had amassed millions as a merchant, and spent them lavishly on his hobby, the return of the Jews to Palestine. He sent mystical letters to King William III of England and the dauphin of France to induce them to undertake the assembling and restoration of the Jews. To the dauphin the Danish enthusiast plainly declared that by zeal for the Jews, France might atone for her bloody massacre of St. Bartholomew and the dragonnades. John Peter Speeth of Augsburg, born of Catholic parents at Vienna, went still farther in his enthusiasm for Jews and Judaism. After writing a pamphlet in honor of Catholicism, he went over to the Socinians and Mennonites, and at last became a Jew at Amsterdam, and took the name of Moses Germanus (died April 17, 1702). He confessed that precisely the false accusations against Jews had inspired him with disgust for Christianity.

"Even at the present time much of the same sort of thing happens in Poland and Germany, where circumstantial tales are told and songs sung in the streets, how the Jews have murdered a child, and sent the blood to one another in quills for the use of their women in childbirth. I have discovered this outrageous fraud in time, and abandoned Christianity, which can permit such things, in order to have no share in it, nor be found with those who trample under foot Israel, the first begotten Son of God, and shed his blood like water."

Moses Germanus was Paul reversed. The latter as a Christian, became a zealous despiser of Judaism; the former, as a Jew, an equally fanatical opponent of Christianity. He regarded its origin as gross fraud. One cannot even now write all that Moses Germanus uttered about the teaching of Jesus. He was not the only Christian who at this time "from love for Judaism" exposed himself to the painful operation and still keener shame and reproach of circumcision. In one year three Christians, in free Amsterdam to be sure, went over to Judaism, amongst them a student from Prague.

Even more than the anticipated greatness of Israel, Jewish literature attracted learned Christians, and inspired them with a sort of sympathy for the people out of whose mine such treasures came. The Hebrew language was studied by Christians even more than in the beginning of the seventeenth century. In the middle and towards the close of that century Hebrew Rabbinical literature was most eagerly searched, translated into Latin or modern languages, quoted, utilized, and applied. "Jewish learning" was, not as before a mere ornament, but an indispensable element, of learning. It was regarded as a disgrace for Catholic and Protestant theologians to be ignorant of Rabbinical lore, and the ignorant could defend themselves only by abusing these Hebraists as semi-rabbis.

The first Catholic critic, Father Richard Simon, of the congregation of the Oratory at Paris, contributed very much to the high esteem in which the Jews and their literature were held. This man, who laid the foundation of a scientific, philological, and exegetical study of the Old and New Testament, investigated Jewish writings with great zeal, and utilized them for his purpose. He was gifted with a keen understanding, which unconsciously led him beyond the limits of Catholic doctrine. Spinoza's criticism of the Bible induced him to make original inquiries, and since, as a genuine Frenchman, he was endowed with sound sense rather than metaphysical imagination, he was more successful, and his method is thoroughly scientific. Richard Simon was disgusted with the biblical exegesis of the Protestants, who were wont to support their wisdom and their stupidity with verses of Holy Scripture. He undertook, therefore, to prove that the biblical knowledge and biblical exegesis of the Protestant church, on which it prided itself before Catholics and Jews, was mere mist and error, because it mistook the sense of the original text, and had no conception of the historical background, the coloring of time and place, of the books of the Bible, and in this ignorance multiplied absurd dogmas.

"You Protestants appeal to the pure word of God to do battle against the Catholic tradition; I intend to withdraw the ground from under you, and to leave you, so to speak, with your legs dangling in the air."

Richard Simon was the predecessor of Reimarus and David Strauss. The Catholics applauded him--even the mild Bishop Bossuet, who at first had opposed him from conceit--not dreaming that they were nourishing a serpent in their bosom. In his masterpiece, "The Critical History of The Old Testament," he set himself to prove that the written word in no way suffices for faith. Richard Simon appreciated with a master's eye, as no one before him, the wide extent of a new science--biblical criticism. Although he criticised freely, he proceeded apologetically, vindicated the sacred character of the Bible, and repelled Spinoza's attacks upon its trustworthiness. Richard Simon's writings, which were composed not in Latin, but in the vernacular, were marked by a certain elegance of style, and attracted well-deserved attention. They form an agreeable contrast to the chaos of oppressive learning of the time, and have an insinuative air about them. Hence they were eagerly read by the educated classes, even by women. Simon accorded much space to Jewish literature, and subjoined a list of Jewish writers. By this means Rabbinical literature became known to the educated more than through the efforts of Reuchlin, Scaliger, the two Buxtorfs, and the learned men of Holland who wrote in Latin.

To gain a comprehensive knowledge of this literature, Richard Simon was obliged, like Reuchlin before him, to seek intercourse with Jews; in particular he associated with Jonah Salvador, the Italian Sabbatian. By this means he lost a part of his prejudice against Jews, which still existed in France in its intensity. He was drawn to Jews in another direction. Laying stress on Catholic tradition as opposed to the literal belief of the Protestants, he felt in some degree related to the Talmudists and Rabbanites. They also upheld their tradition against the literal belief of the Karaites. Richard Simon, therefore, exalted Rabbinical Judaism in the introduction and supplements which he added to his translation of Leo Modena's "Rites." Familiar with the whole of Jewish literature as few of his time or of a later period, Richard Simon refrained from making the boastful assertion, grounded upon ignorance, that Christianity is something peculiar, fundamentally different to Judaism and far more exalted. He recognized, and had the courage to declare, the truth that Christianity in its substance and form was molded after the pattern of Judaism, and would have to become like it again.

"Since the Christian religion has its origin in Judaism, I doubt not that the perusal of this little book (the 'Rites') will contribute to the understanding of the New Testament, on account of its similarity to, and close connection with the Old. They who composed it were Jews, and it can be explained only by means of Judaism. A portion of our ceremonies also are derived from the Jews.... The Christian religion has this besides in common with the Jewish, that each is based on Holy Scripture, on the tradition of the fathers, on traditional habits and customs.... One cannot sufficiently admire the modesty and devotion of the Jews, as they go to prayer in the morning.... The Jews distinguish themselves, not only by prayers, but also by deeds of mercy, and one thinks one sees, in their sympathy for the poor, the image of the love of the first Christians for their brethren. Men obeyed in those times what the Jews have retained to this day, while we (Christians) have scarcely kept up the remembrance of it."

Richard Simon almost deplored that the Jews, formerly so learned in France, who looked upon Paris as their Athens, had been driven out of that country. He defended them against the accusation of their hatred of Christians, and emphasized the fact that they pray for the welfare of the state and its princes. His predilection for tradition went so far, that he maintained that the college of cardinals at Rome, the supreme court of Christendom, was formed on the pattern of the Synhedrion at Jerusalem, and that the pope corresponded to the president, the Nassi. Whilst he compared the Catholics to the Rabbanites, he called the Protestants Karaites, and jestingly wrote to his Protestant friends, "My dear Karaites." It has been mentioned that Richard Simon interested himself zealously in the Jews of Metz, when they were accused of murdering a Christian child. When other opportunities offered, he defended the Jews against false accusations and suspicions. A baptized Jew, Christian Gerson, who had become a Protestant pastor, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, in order to vilify the Talmud, had made extracts in the shape of ridiculous legends, printed and published in many editions. Richard Simon wrote to a Swiss, about to translate these German extracts into French, that Gerson was not guiltless of having passed off plays upon words and purely allegorical expressions in the Talmud as serious narratives. Gerson imputed to the whole Jewish nation certain errors, accepted only by the credulous, unable to distinguish fiction from fact, and he, therefore, abused the Talmud. It must not be forgotten that it was a distinguished ecclesiastic, moreover, a sober, moderate man, who spoke thus favorably of Judaism. His books and letters, written in a lively French style, and much read by the educated world, gained many friends for Judaism, or at least lessened the number of its enemies. The official Catholic world, however, appears to have reprimanded this eulogist of Judaism, and Richard Simon, who loved peace, was obliged partially to recant his praises.

"I have said too much good of this wretched nation, and through intercourse with some of them I have since learned to know them."

This cannot have been spoken from his heart, for he was not wont to judge a whole class of men by a few individuals.

The attention paid to Jews and their literature by Christian scholars and princes here and there produced droll occurrences. In Sweden, the most bigoted Protestant country, no Jew and no Catholic were allowed to dwell. Nevertheless King Charles XI felt extraordinary interest in the Jews, still more in the Karaites, who pretended to follow the simple word of God without the accretion of traditions, and were said to bear great resemblance to the Protestants. Would it not be easy to bring over to Christianity these people who were not entangled in the web of the Talmud? Charles XI accordingly sent a professor of Upsala, learned in Hebrew literature, Gustavus Peringer of Lilienblad (about 1690), to Poland for the purpose of seeking out the Karaites, informing himself of their manner of life and their customs, and especially buying their writings without regard to cost. Provided with letters of recommendation to the king of Poland, Peringer went first to Lithuania, where dwelt several Karaite communities. But the Polish and Lithuanian Karaites were even more degraded than their brethren in Constantinople, the Crimea, and Egypt. There were very few among them who knew any details about their origin and the history of their sect; not one had accurate information. At about this time the Polish king, John Sobieski, had ordered, through a Karaite judge, Abraham ben Samuel of Trok, who was in favor with him, that the Karaites, for some unknown object, scatter from their headquarters of Trok, Luzk, and Halicz, and settle also in other small towns; they obeyed, and dispersed as far as the northern province of Samogitia. These Polish Karaites, cut off from their center, isolated, avoiding intercourse with rabbis, and mixing only with the Polish rustic population, became more and more boorish, and sank into profound lethargy.

Whether Peringer even partially fulfilled the wish of his king is not known; probably he altogether failed in his mission. Some years later (1696-1697), two learned Swedes, probably also commissioned by Charles XI, traveled in Lithuania to visit Karaite communities and buy up their writings. At the same time they invited Karaites to visit Sweden, and give information respecting their doctrines. Zeal for conversion had certainly more share in the matter than curiosity about the unknown. A young Karaite, Samuel ben Aaron, who had settled at Poswol in Samogitia, and understood some Latin, resolved to make a journey to Riga, and hold a conference with John Puffendorf, a royal official. Through want of literary sources and the ignorance of the Karaites concerning the origin and development of their sect, Samuel ben Aaron could give only a scanty account in a work, the title of which proves that fancifulness had penetrated also to Karaite circles.

From another side the Karaites were the object of eager inquiry. A professor at Leyden, Jacob Trigland, fairly well acquainted with Hebrew literature, who intended to write a book about the old Jewish sects, no longer in existence, had his attention directed to the still existing Karaites. Inspired by the wish to get information concerning the Polish Karaites and obtain possession of their writings, he sent a letter with various questions through well-known mercantile houses to Karaites, to which he solicited an answer. This letter accidentally fell into the hands of a Karaite, Mordecai ben Nissan, at Luzk, a poor official of the community, who did not know enough to give the desired information as to the beginning and cause of the schism between Rabbanites and Karaites. He regarded it as a point of honor to avail himself of this opportunity to bring the forgotten Karaites to the remembrance of the educated world through the instrumentality of a Christian writer, and to deal blows at their opponents, the Rabbanite Jews. He spared no sacrifice to procure the few books by which he might be able to instruct himself and his correspondent Trigland. These materials, however, were not worth much, and Mordecai's dissertation for Trigland proved unsatisfactory, but for want of a better work it had the good fortune to serve during nearly a century and a half as the only source for the history of Karaism. Some years later, when Charles XII, the hero of the north, conquered Poland in his victorious career, and like his father was anxious to have more precise intelligence respecting Karaites, he also made inquiries concerning them. Mordecai ben Nissan used this occasion to compose a work in Hebrew for Charles XII, in which he freely indulged his hatred against Rabbanites, and strained every nerve to make Talmudical literature ridiculous.

The zealous attention paid by Christian scholars to Jewish literature could not fail to cause annoyance and inconvenience to Jews. They felt sorely burdened by German Protestant literati, who, acquiring cumbersome learning, strove to rival the Dutch writers and Richard Simon in France, without possessing their mild and gentle toleration towards Jews, or their elegance of style. Almost at the same time three German Hebraists, Wülfer, Wagenseil, and Eisenmenger, used their knowledge of Hebrew literature to bring accusations against the Jews. All three associated much with Jews, learned from them, and devoted much study to Jewish literature, mastering it to a certain degree.

John Wülfer of Nuremberg, who was educated for the church, and had studied with a Jew of Fürth and afterwards in Italy, thoroughly acquainting himself with biblical and Talmudical literature, sought after Hebrew manuscripts and old Jewish prayer-books to found an accusation against the Jews. Christians, instigated by baptized Jews, took offense at a beautiful prayer (Alenu), which arose in a time and country in which Christianity was little known. Some Jews were wont to add a sentence to this prayer: "For they (the heathen) pray unto vanity and emptiness." In the word "emptiness," enemies of the Jews pretended to see an allusion to Jesus and to find blasphemy against him. The sentence was not printed in the prayer-books, but in many copies a blank space was left for it. This vacant space, or the presence of the obnoxious word, equally enraged the Protestants, and Wülfer, therefore, searched libraries to find authority for it, and when he found the word in manuscripts, he did not fail to publish his discovery. He praised Prince George of Hesse because he made his Jews swear an oath never to utter a blasphemous word against Jesus, and threatened to punish them with death in case of transgression. Wülfer, on the other hand, was candid enough to confess that the Jews had been long and cruelly persecuted by Christians, that the accusation against them of using blood was a mischievous invention, and that the testimony of baptized Jews deserved little credence.

John Christopher Wagenseil, a lawyer and professor at Altorf, was a good-hearted man, and kindly disposed towards the Jews. He had traveled farther than Wülfer, had penetrated through Spain into Africa, and took the greatest pains to hunt up such Jewish writings as attacked Christianity from the ground of Holy Scripture or with the weapons of reason. His discoveries filled his quiver "with the fiery darts of Satan." Wagenseil looked up that insipid compilation of the magical miracles of Jesus (Toldoth Jesho), with which a Jew, who had been persecuted by Christians, tried to revenge himself on the founder of Christianity, and he spent much money in hunting up this Hebrew parody of the Gospel. Few Jews possessed copies of it, and the owners kept them under lock and key for their own security. Because one Jew had once written these absurdities about Jesus, and some Jews had copies of the book in their possession, while others had defended themselves against attacks by Christians, Wagenseil felt assured that the Jews of his time were vile blasphemers of Jesus. He therefore implored the princes and civil magistrates to forbid the Jews most strictly to continue such blasphemy. He directed a pamphlet, "The Christian Denunciation," to all high potentates, urging them to impose a formal oath upon Jews, not to utter any word of mockery against Jesus, Mary, the cross, the mass, and other Christian sacraments. Wagenseil had two pious wishes besides. One was that the Protestant princes should take active steps for the conversion of the Jews. He had, it is true, convinced himself that at Rome, where since the time of Pope Gregory XIII a Dominican monk was wont on certain Sabbaths to hold forth, in a sleepy manner, before a number of Jews, they either ignored him or mocked at him. But he thought that the Protestant princes, more zealous Christians than the Catholics, ought to devise a better plan. It also grieved this thorough scholar that the colleges of rabbis presumed to criticise writings concerning the Jewish religion, and that they ventured to express their approval or disapproval; this was an infringement of the rights and the dignity of Christians! Withal Wagenseil, as has been said, was kindly disposed to the Jews. He remarked with emphasis that he thought it wrong and unworthy to burn Jews, to rob them of all their property, or to drive them with their wives and children out of the country. It was excessively cruel that in Germany and other countries children of Jews should be baptized against the will of their parents, and compelled to accept Christianity. The oppressions and insults to which they were exposed at the hands of the Christian rabble were by no means to be approved. It was not right that they were compelled to say "Christ is risen," that they were assailed with blows, had dirt and stones thrown at them, and were not allowed to go about in safety. Wagenseil wrote a pamphlet to expose the horrible falsehood of the charge, that the Jews use the blood of Christians. For the sake of this pamphlet, which spoke so warmly for the Jews, his other absurdities should be pardoned. Wagenseil expressed his indignation at the horrible lie:

"It might pass if the matter stopped with idle gossip; but that on account of this execrable falsehood Jews have been tormented, punished, and executed by thousands, should have moved even stones to compassion, and made them cry out."

Is it credible that in the face of this judgment, spoken with firm conviction by Wülfer and Wagenseil, who not only had associated with Jews for years, but were accurately acquainted with Jewish literature, and had penetrated into its innermost recesses as none before them, their contemporaries should seriously revive the horrible falsehood, and justify it with ostentatious learning? A Protestant, John Andrew Eisenmenger, professor of Oriental languages, repeated the accusation, a thousand times branded as false, and furnished posterity with abundant material for charges against the Jews. Eisenmenger belonged to the class of insects which sucks poison even out of flowers. In confidential converse with Jews, pretending that he desired to be converted to Judaism, and in the profound study of their literature, which he learned from them, he sought only the dark side of both.

He compiled a venomous book in two volumes, the title of which in itself was an invitation to Christians to massacre the Jews, and was synonymous with a repetition of earlier scenes of horror for the Jews.

"Judaism Unmasked; or a Thorough and True Account of the Way in which the Stubborn Jews frightfully blaspheme and dishonor the Holy Trinity, revile the Holy Mother of Christ, mockingly criticise the New Testament, the Evangelists, the Apostles, and the Christian Religion, and despise and curse to the Uttermost Extreme the whole of Christianity. Much else besides, either not at all or very little known, and Gross Errors of the Jewish Religion and Theology, as well as Ridiculous and Amusing Stories, herein appear. All proved from their own Books. Written for the Honest Information of all Christians."

Eisenmenger intended to hurl Wagenseil's "fiery darts of Satan" with deadly aim at the Jews. If he had merely quoted detached sentences from the Talmudical and later Rabbinical literature and anti-Christian writings, translated them, and drawn conclusions from them hostile to the Jews, he would only have proved his mental weakness. But Eisenmenger represented most horrible falsehoods, as Wagenseil had called them, as indisputable facts. He adduced a whole chapter of proofs showing that it was not lawful for Jews to save a Christian from danger to life, that the Rabbinical laws command the slaughter of Christians, and that no confidence should be placed in Jewish physicians, nor ought their medicines to be taken. He repeated all the false stories of murders committed by Jews against Christians, of the poisoning of wells by Jews at the time of the Black Death, of the poisoning of the elector of Brandenburg, Joachim II, by his Jewish mint-master, of Raphael Levi's child-murder at Metz--in short, all ever invented by saintly simplicity, priestly fraud, or excited fanaticism, and imputed to Jews. That the martyrdom of little Simon of Trent was a fabrication had been clearly proved by the doge and senate of Venice on authentic documents. Not only the Jewish writers Isaac Viva and Isaac Cardoso, but also Christians, like Wülfer and Wagenseil, recognized these documents as genuine, and represented the charge against the Jews of Trent as a crying injustice. Eisenmenger was not influenced by that, declared the documents to be forged, and maintained the bloodthirstiness of Jews with fiery zeal and energy. One would be justified in ascribing his proceedings against Jews to brutality or avarice. Although very learned in Hebrew, he was otherwise uncultured. He was willing to be bribed by solid coin into silence with regard to the Jews. But for the honor of humanity one would rather impute his course to blindness; he had lived a long time at Frankfort-on-the-Main, formerly the center of hatred to Jews in Germany, and he may there have imbibed his bitter animosity, and have wished, at first from conscientious motives, to blacken the character of the Jews.

Some Jews had got wind of the printing of Eisenmenger's work at Frankfort, and were not a little alarmed at the danger threatening them. The old prejudices of the masses and the ecclesiastics against Jews, stronger amongst Protestants than Catholics, still existed too strongly for a firebrand publication to appear in German without doing mischief wherever it came. The Jews of Frankfort therefore placed themselves in communication with the court-Jews at Vienna in order to meet the danger. Emperor Leopold I, who, at the instigation of the empress and her father-confessor, had expelled the Jews from Vienna, being in need of money in consequence of the Turkish wars, fifteen years later allowed some rich Jews to settle in the capital. Samuel Oppenheim, of Heidelberg, a banker, one of the noblest of Jews, whose heart and hand were open to all sufferers, had probably brought about this concession. As before, several Jewish families, alleged to be his servants, came with him to Vienna. Samuel Oppenheim zealously endeavored to prevent the circulation of Eisenmenger's book against the Jews. He had the same year experienced what a Christian rabble instigated by hatred of Jews could do. A riotous assault was made upon his house, which was broken into, and everything there, including the money-chest, was plundered (July 17, 1700). Hence from personal motives and on public grounds Samuel Oppenheim exerted himself to prevent the 2,000 copies of Eisenmenger's work from seeing the light of day. He and other Jews could justly maintain that the publication of this book in German, unattractive though its style was, would lead to the massacre of the Jews. An edict was therefore issued by the emperor forbidding its dissemination. Eisenmenger was doubly disappointed; he could not wreak his hatred on the Jews, and he had lost the whole of his property, which he had spent on the printing, and was obliged to incur debts. All the copies, except a few which he had abstracted, were in Frankfort under lock and key. He entered into negotiations with Jews, and proposed to destroy his work for 90,000 marks. As the Jews offered scarcely half that sum, the confiscation remained in force, and Eisenmenger, deceived in all his hopes, died of vexation.

But the matter did not terminate there. Frederick I, the newly-crowned king of Prussia, took a lively interest in the book. The attention of this prince was keenly directed to the Jews from various causes. At the beginning of the eighteenth century more than a thousand Jews dwelt in his domains. The community of Berlin had grown in thirty years, since their admission, from twelve to some seventy families. Frederick I, who was fond of show and pomp, had no particular partiality for Jews, but he valued them for the income derived from them. The court jeweler, Jost Liebmann, was highly esteemed at court, because he supplied pearls and trinkets on credit, and thus held an exceptionally favorable position. It was said that Liebmann's wife had taken the fancy of the prince; she later obtained the liberty of entering the king's apartment unannounced. Through her the Jews received permission to have a cemetery in Königsberg; but Jewish money was more highly prized by this king than Jewish favorites. Frederick, who while elector had thought of banishing the Jews, tolerated them for the safety tax which they had to pay--100 ducats yearly--but they were subjected to severe restrictions, amongst others they could not own houses and lands. Yet they were allowed to have synagogues, first a private one granted as a favor to the court jeweler Jost Liebmann and the family of David Riess, an immigrant from Austria, and then, owing to frequent disputes about rights and privileges, a public synagogue as well.

Two maliciously disposed baptized Jews, Christian Kahtz and Francis Wenzel, sought to prejudice the new king and the population against the Jews. "Blasphemy against Jesus"--so runs the lying charge. The prayer "Alenu" and others were cited as proofs that the Jews pronounced the name of Jesus with contumely, and that they spat in doing so. The guilds not being well disposed to the Jews utilized this excitement for fanatical persecution, and such bitter feeling arose in the cities and villages against the Jews, that (as they expressed themselves, perhaps knowingly exaggerating) their life was no longer safe. King Frederick proposed a course which does honor to his good heart. He issued a command (December, 1700) to all the presidents of departments to call together the rabbis and, in default of them, the Jewish school-masters and elders on a certain day, and ask them on oath whether, in uttering or silently using the blasphemous word "va-rik," they applied it to Jesus. The Jews everywhere solemnly declared on oath that they did not refer to Jesus in this prayer at the place where the lacuna was left in the prayer-books. John Henry Michaelis, the theologian, of Halle, who was asked respecting the character of the Jews, pronounced them innocent of the blasphemy of which they were accused. As the king continued to suspect the Jews of reviling Jesus in thought, he issued orders characteristic of the time (1703). He said that it was his heart's wish to bring the people of Israel, whom the Lord had once loved and chosen as His peculiar possession, into the Christian communion. He did not, however, presume to exercise control over their consciences, but would leave the conversion of the Jews to time and God's wise counsel. Nor would he bind them by oath to refrain from uttering in prayer the words in question. But he commanded them on pain of punishment to refrain from those words, to utter the prayer "Alenu" aloud, and not to spit while so doing. Spies were appointed to visit the synagogues from time to time, as eleven centuries before in the Byzantine empire, in order to observe whether this concluding prayer was pronounced aloud or in a whisper.

Eisenmenger before his death, and his heirs after him, knowing that the king of Prussia was inclined to listen to accusations against the Jews, had applied to him to entreat Emperor Leopold to release the book against the Jews, entitled "Judaism Unmasked," from ban and prohibition. Frederick I interested himself warmly in the matter, and sent a kind of petition to Emperor Leopold I (April 25, 1705) very characteristic of the tone of that time. The king represented that Eisenmenger had sunk all his money in this book, and had died of vexation at the imperial prohibition. It would seem a lowering of Christianity if the Jews were so powerful as to be able to suppress a book written in defense of Christianity and in refutation of Jewish errors. There was no reason to apprehend, as the Jews pretended, that it would incite the people to a violent onslaught against them, since similar writings had lately appeared which had done them no harm. Eisenmenger's book aimed chiefly at the promotion of Christianity, so that Christians might not, as had repeatedly happened some years ago, be induced to revolt from it and become adherents of Judaism. But Emperor Leopold would not remove the ban from Eisenmenger's book. King Frederick repeated his request three years later, at the desire of Eisenmenger's heirs, to Emperor Joseph I. With him also King Frederick found no favorable hearing, and the 2,000 copies of "Judaism Unmasked" remained at Frankfort under ban for forty years. But with Frederick's approval a second edition was brought out at Königsberg, where the imperial censorship had no power. For the moment it had no such effect as the one side had hoped and the other feared; but, later on, when the rights of Jews as men and citizens were considered, it proved an armory for malicious or indolent opponents.

King Frederick I was often urged by enemies of the Jews to make his royal authority a cloak for their villainy. The bright and the dark side of the general appreciation of Jewish literature appeared clearly. In Holland, likewise a Protestant country, a Christian scholar of this period cherished great enthusiasm for the Mishna, the backbone of Talmudical Judaism. William Surenhuysius, a young man of Amsterdam, in the course of many years translated the Mishna with two commentaries upon it into Latin (printed 1698-1703). He displayed more than the usual amount of Dutch industry and application. Love certainly was needed to undertake such a study, persevere in it, and finish the work in a clear and attractive style. No language and literature present so many difficulties as this dialect, now almost obsolete, the objects which it describes, and the form in which it is cast. Surenhuysius sat at the feet of Jewish teachers, of whom there were many at Amsterdam, and he was extremely grateful for their help. But their assistance did not enable him to dispense with industry and devotion. He was influenced by the conviction that the oral Law, the Mishna, in its main contents is as divine as the written word of the Bible. He desired that Christian youths in training for theology and the clerical profession should not yield to the seductions of classical literature, but by engaging in the study of the Mishna should, as it were, receive ordination beforehand.

"He who desires to be a good and worthy disciple of Christ must first become a Jew, or he must first learn thoroughly the language and culture of the Jews, and become Moses's disciple before he joins the Apostles, in order that he may be able through Moses and the prophets to convince men that Jesus is the Messiah."

In this enthusiastic admiration for the corner-stone of the edifice of Judaism, which the builders up of culture were wont to despise, Surenhuysius included the people who owned these laws. He cordially thanked the senate of Amsterdam because it specially protected the Jews.

"In the measure in which this people once surpassed all other peoples, you give it preference, worthy men! The old renown and dignity, which this people and the citizens of Jerusalem once possessed, are yours. For the Jews are sincerely devoted to you, not overcome by force of arms, but won over by humanity and wisdom; they come to you, and are happy to obey your republican government."

Surenhuysius was outspoken in his displeasure against those who having learned what served their interest from the Scriptures of the Jews, reviled and threw mud at them, "like highwaymen, who, having robbed an honest man of all his clothes, beat him to death, and send him away with scorn." He formed a plan to make the whole of Rabbinical literature accessible to the learned world through the Latin language. While Surenhuysius of Amsterdam felt such enthusiasm for this, not the most brilliant, side of Judaism, and saw in it a means to promote Christianity (in which view he did not stand alone), a vile Polish Jew, named Aaron Margalita, an apostate to Christianity for the sake of gain, brought fresh accusations of blasphemy before King Frederick of Prussia against an utterly harmless part of Jewish literature-- the old Agada. An edition of the Midrash Rabba (1705), published at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, was accordingly put under a ban by the king's command, until Christian theologians should pronounce judgment upon it.

The best result of this taste for Jewish literature on the part of learned Christians, and of the literary works promoted thereby was an interesting historical work concerning Jews and Judaism, which may be said to have terminated the old, and foreshadowed a new epoch. Jacob Basnage (born 1653, died 1723), of noble character, a Protestant theologian, a solid historian, a pleasant author, and a person held in high esteem generally, rendered incalculable service to Judaism. He sifted the results of the laborious researches of scholars, popularized them, and made them accessible to all educated circles. In his assiduous historical inquiries, especially as to the development of the Church, Basnage met Jews at almost every step. He had a suspicion that the Jewish people had not, as ordinary theologians thought, become utterly bankrupt through the loss of its political independence and the spread of Christianity, a doomed victim, the ghost of its former self. The great sufferings of this people and its rich literature inspired him with awe. His sense of truth with regard to historical events would not allow him to dismiss facts or explain them away with empty phrases. Basnage undertook to compile the history of the Jews or the Jewish religion, so far as it was known to him, from Jesus down to his own times. He labored on this work for more than five years. It was intended to continue the history of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus after the dispersion of the Jewish people. Basnage strove, as far as was possible for a staunch Protestant at that time, to present and judge events in an impartial manner.

"Christians may not be surprised that we often acquit the Jews of crimes of which they are not guilty, since justice so requires. No partiality is implied in accusing those of injustice and oppression who have been guilty of them. We have no intention to injure the Jews any more than to flatter them.... In the decay and dregs of centuries men have adopted a spirit of cruelty and barbarism towards the Jews. They were accused of being the cause of all the disasters which happened, and charged with a multitude of crimes of which they never even dreamed. Numberless miracles were invented to convict them, or rather the better to satisfy hatred under the shade of religion. We have made a collection of laws, which councils and princes published against them, by means of which people can judge of the malice of the former and the oppression of the latter. Men did not, however, confine themselves to the edicts, but everywhere military executions, popular riots, and massacres took place. Yet, by a miracle of Providence, which must excite the astonishment of all Christians, this hated nation, persecuted in all places for a great number of centuries, still exists everywhere.... Peoples and kings, heathens, Christians, and Mahometans, opposed to one another in so many points, have agreed in the purpose of destroying this nation, and have not succeeded. The bush of Moses, surrounded by flames, has ever burned without being consumed. The Jews have been driven out of all the cities of the world, and this has only served to spread them abroad in all cities. They still live in spite of the contempt and hatred which follow them everywhere, while the greatest monarchies have fallen, and are known to us only by name."

Basnage, who by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes through the Catholic intolerance of Louis XIV was banished to Holland, could to some degree appreciate the feelings of the Jews during their long exile. He had acquired sufficient knowledge of Jewish literature to consult the authorities in the execution of his work. The historical works of Abraham ibn Daud, Ibn Yachya, Ibn Verga, David Gans, and others were not neglected; they served Basnage as building material wherewith to rear the great fabric of Jewish history of the sixteen centuries since the origin of Christianity.

But Basnage was not sufficiently an artist to unroll before the eye in glowing colors, even if in images fleeting as the mist, the sublime or tragic scenes of Jewish history. Nor had he the talent to mass together or marshal in groups and detachments facts widely scattered in consequence of the peculiar course of this people's history. One can feel in Basnage's presentation that he was oppressed and overpowered by the superabundance of details. He jumbled together times and occurrences in motley confusion, divided the history into two unnatural halves, the East and the West, and described in conjunction events without connection. Of the deep inner springs of the life and deeds of the nation he had no comprehension. His Protestant creed hindered him; he saw Jewish history only through the thick mist of Church history. Despite his efforts to be impartial and honest, he could not rid himself of the belief that the "Jews are rejected because they have rejected Jesus." In short, Basnage's "History of the Religion of the Jews" has a thousand faults. Hardly a single sentence can be regarded as perfectly just and in accordance with the truth.

Yet the appearance of this work was of great importance to the Jews. It circulated in the educated world a mass of historical information, crude and distorted though it was, because it was written in the fashionable French language, and this seed shot up everywhere luxuriantly. A people, which, despite bloody persecutions, without a home, with no spot on the whole earth where it could lay its head or place its foot, yet possessed a history not wholly devoid of splendor--such a people was not like a gipsy horde, but must find ever-increasing consideration. Without his knowledge or intention, even whilst casting many an aspersion upon the Jewish race, Basnage paved the way to raising it from its abject condition. Christian Theophilus Unger, a pastor in Silesia, and John Christopher Wolf, professor of Oriental languages in Hamburg, who were busily and earnestly engaged in the study of Jewish literature and history, became Basnage's disciples, and without his work could not have effected so much as they did in this field. Both, especially Wolf, filled many gaps which Basnage had left, and evinced a certain degree of warmth for the cause.

The admiration, or at least sympathy, felt for the Jews at this time, induced John Toland (an Irishman, the courageous opponent of fossilized Christianity) to raise his voice on behalf of their equality with Christians in England and Ireland. This was the first word spoken in favor of their emancipation. But the people, in whose favor this remarkable revulsion of sentiment had taken place in the educated world, was without knowledge of it, and felt no change in popular sentiment.

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