VI. GENERAL DEMORALIZATION OF JUDAISM
Low Condition of the Jews at the End of the Seventeenth Century-- Representatives of Culture: David Nieto, Jehuda Brieli--The Kabbala--Jewish Chroniclers--Lopez Laguna translates the Psalms into Spanish--De Barrios--The Race after Wealth-- General Poverty of the Jews--Revival of Sabbatianism--Daniel Israel Bonafoux, Cardoso, Mordecai of Eisenstadt, Jacob Querido, and Berachya--Sabbatianism in Poland--Abraham Cuenqui-- Judah Chassid--Chayim Malach--Solomon Ayllon--Nehemiah Chayon--David Oppenheim's Famous Library--Chacham Zevi--The Controversy on Chayon's Heretical Works in Amsterdam.
1700-1725 C. E.
At the time when the eyes of the civilized world were directed upon the Jewish race with a certain degree of sympathy and admiration, and when, at the dawn of enlightenment in the so-called philosophical century, ecclesiastical prejudices were beginning to disappear, the members of this race were making a by no means favorable impression upon those with whom they came into contact. Weighed in the balance, they were found wanting even by their well-wishers. The Jews were at no time in so pitiful a plight as at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century. Several circumstances had contributed to render them utterly demoralized and despised. The former teachers of Europe, through the sad course of centuries, had become childish, or worse, dotards. Every public or historical act of the Jews bears this character of imbecility, if not contemptibility. There was not a single cheering event, hardly a person commanding respect who could worthily represent Judaism, and bring it into estimation. The strong-minded, manly Orobio de Castro (died in 1687), the former victim of the Inquisition, whose fidelity to conviction, whose dignity, and the acumen with which he contested Christianity commanded the respect of the leading opponents of Judaism, was indeed still living. But he left no successor of equal standing within the highly cultured community of Amsterdam, certainly not outside of it, where the conditions for an independent Jewish personality possessed of culture were entirely wanting. The leaders of the community were for the most part led astray, wandering as in a dream, and stumbling at every step. But few rabbis occupied themselves with any branch of knowledge beyond the Talmud, or entered on a new path in this study. The exceptions can be counted. Rabbi David Nieto, of London (born 1654, died 1728), was a man of culture. He was a physician, understood mathematics, was sufficiently able to defend Judaism against calumnies, and, besides many platitudes, wrote much that was reasonable. The Italian rabbi, Jehuda Leon Brieli, of Mantua (born about 1643, died 1722), was also an important personage--a man of sound views, of solid, even philosophical knowledge, whose style in the vernacular was elegant, and who knew how to defend Judaism against Christian aggressiveness. Brieli had the courage to disregard two customs, which was accounted worse than criminal by his contemporaries: he remained unmarried all his life, and though a rabbi, did not wear a beard. But Brieli's influence on his Jewish contemporaries was very slight. He knew the weaknesses of Christianity, but had not the same sharp vision for the faults of Judaism and the Jews. Of the mischievous nature of the Zohar and the Kabbala generally, however, Brieli was thoroughly aware; he wished that they had not seen the light of day; but his critical knowledge extended no further.
For the rest, the rabbis of this period were not models, the Poles and Germans being for the most part pitiable figures, their heads filled with unprofitable knowledge, otherwise ignorant and helpless as little children. The Portuguese rabbis presented a dignified, imposing appearance, but they were shallow. The Italians bore more resemblance to the Germans, but had not their learning. Thus, with no guides acquainted with the road, sunk in ignorance, or filled with conceit, beset with phantoms, the Jews in all parts of the world without exception were passing from one absurdity to another, and allowing themselves to be imposed upon by jugglers and visionaries. Any absurdity, however transparent, provided it was apparently vindicated with religious earnestness, and interlarded with strained verses of Scripture, or sayings from the Talmud artificially explained, or garnished with scraps of the Kabbala, was persistently believed and propagated. "The minds of men, estranged from life and true knowledge, exhausted their powers in subtleties and the superstitious errors of the Kabbala. Teachers spoke seldom or only in the words of the Talmud to their scholars; no attention was paid to delivery, for there was no language and no eloquence." The culminating point of the Middle Ages was reached in Jewish history at a time when it had been passed by the most of Western Europe. The spread of superstitious usages with a coating of religion was in no wise checked. To write amulets (Kamea) for the exorcism of diseases was required of the rabbis, and they devoted themselves to this work; many wished to be thought conjurors of spirits. A rabbi, Simon Baki at Casale in Italy, complained to his master, the foolish Kabbalist Moses Zacut at Venice, that he had used the prescribed formulas of conjuration for a woman at Turin supposed to be possessed, without any successful result. Thereupon the latter gave him more efficacious means, viz., whilst using God's name in prayer, he was to hold burning sulphur to the nose of the possessed. The more sensitive she was, and the more she struggled against the remedy, the more might he be convinced that she was possessed by an evil spirit. An instructed Jew of the Kabbalist school of Damascus once boasted seriously before the free-thinking critic Richard Simon, that he could evoke a genius of a high order, and began to make preparations. The incredulous Father followed his movements with a satirical smile, and the conjuror got out of the predicament with the remark that the soil of France was not suited for apparitions.
To elevate Judaism in the eyes of the nations and to represent it in a manner worthy of respect was at this time not in the power of the Jews. They rather degraded and made it contemptible. Thoughtful Christians stood astonished before this wonderful monument of history, this people with its learning and its alternately glorious and tragic destiny; but its own sons were too dull to feel their own greatness, or sought it only in silly stories and absurd actions. Whilst Christians industriously and with feelings of amazement investigated the history of the Jews during three thousand years, the Jews had no such feeling, not even the cultivated Portuguese Jews. Manasseh ben Israel had outlined a history of the Jews, and probably suggested Basnage's work, but he did not accomplish his own design. Three historians, indeed, are named as belonging to this time--the itinerant rabbi David Conforte, secondly, Miguel (Daniel) de Barrios, a Marrano, born in Portugal, who returned to Judaism at Amsterdam, and lastly the Polish rabbi Jechiel Heilperin, of Minsk. But all three resemble the monkish chroniclers of the barbarous ages, and their style is more repulsive than attractive.
If literature is the true photograph of the thoughts and aspirations of an age, then the century between Spinoza and Mendelssohn, judged by its literary productions, must have had very ugly features. A good deal, it is true, was written and published; every rabbi by a fresh contribution to the already stupendous pile of Rabbinical matter essayed to perpetuate his name, to secure his future bliss, and withal to earn a pittance. Subtle Rabbinical commentaries, insipid sermons, and books of devotion, acrimonious controversial writings were the emanations of the Jewish mind or lack of mind at this time. The flower of poetry found no soil in this quagmire. This age produced only two Jewish poets, genuine sons of the Jewish muse, who lived at a great distance from each other, one in the island of Jamaica, the other in Italy--Lopez Laguna and Luzzatto--as if the old Jewish trunk, crownless and leafless, wished to reveal the life at its heart and prove its capability to renew its youth even under the most unfavorable circumstances. Lopez Laguna, born a Marrano in France (about 1660, died after 1720), came when but a youth to Spain, where he made the acquaintance of the horrible Inquisition. In his night of suffering, the Psalms, full of tender feeling, brought light and hope to him as to so many of his companions in sorrow. Released from prison, and having escaped to Jamaica, Laguna, under the Jewish name of Daniel Israel, attuned his harp to the holy songs which had revived his soul. To make the Psalms accessible to others, especially to Marranos ignorant of Hebrew, he made a faithful translation of them into melodious, elegant Spanish verse. This psalter, "a mirror of life," Daniel Israel Lopez Laguna took to London, where his work procured him a triumphant reception from several minor poets and also from three Jewish poetesses, Sarah de Fonseca Pinto y Pimentel, Manuela Nuñez da Almeida, and Bienvenida Coen Belmonte, who addressed him in Latin, English, Portuguese, and Spanish verses.
Moses Chayim Luzzatto, a victim to the dreary errors of this time, composed two Hebrew dramas full of beauty and youthful freshness. With the exception of these poetical flowers this long period shows a colorless waste. Daniel de Barrios, captain, historian, and beggar, cannot be reckoned a poet, although he composed an astonishing number of Spanish, as well as Hebrew rhymes, besides several Spanish dramas, and he sang before, and without shame begged of, nearly every Jewish and Christian magnate who possessed a full purse.
Not only the scientific and artistic spirit, but also the moral sense was lost, or at least blunted in this general demoralization. The fundamental virtues of the Jewish race continued to exist even at this time in undiminished strength--idyllic family love, brotherly sympathy towards one another, and chastity. Gross vices and crimes occurred even then but seldom in the tents of Jacob. Thoroughly corrupt outcasts were considerate enough to leave it, and to pollute the church or the mosque with their immorality. But the feeling of right and honor amongst Jews was on the whole weakened. There was a lowering in tone of that tender conscience, which with a sort of maiden shame avoids even what the precepts of religion and the paragraphs of the civil code leave unforbidden. To make money was so imperious a necessity that ways and means became indifferent, and were not exposed to censure. To take undue advantage, and to overreach, not merely a hostile population, but even their own co-religionists, was regarded for the most part not as a disgrace, but rather as a kind of heroic action. From this sprang worship of Mammon, not merely love, but also respect for gold, no matter how impure its source. The democratic equality hitherto maintained amongst Jews, who refused to recognize distinctions of class and caste, was lost in the furious dance round the golden calf. The rich man was held worthy of honor--one to whom those less kindly favored by fortune looked up as to something higher, and in whom they therefore overlooked many failings. The richest, not the most worthy, were made the managers of the community, and were granted a charter for arbitrary conduct and arrogance. A satire of the period scourges very severely the almighty power of money, to which all bowed down. "The dollar binds and looses, it raises the ignorant to the chief offices in the community."
Increasing poverty among Jews was partly the cause of this state of affairs. Only among the small number of Portuguese Jews at Amsterdam, Hamburg, Leghorn, Florence, and London, there were men of considerable wealth. Isaac (Antonio) Suasso, created Baron Alvernes de Gras by Charles II, of Spain, was able to advance to William III, for his semi-adventurous expedition to London to obtain the English crown, two million florins without interest, with the simple words, "If you are fortunate, you will repay them to me; if not, I am willing to lose them." The millionaires at Amsterdam were the Pintos, the Belmontes, David Bueno de Mesquito, Francisco Melo, who rendered many services to Holland by his wealth. One of the De Pintos bequeathed several millions for noble objects, making provision for Jewish communities, the state, Christian orphanages, clergy, clerks, and sextons. At Hamburg there were the Texeiras, who were related by marriage to Suasso, and Daniel Abensur, able to make large advances to the poor rulers of Poland. On the other hand, the Polish, German, and also the Italian and the Oriental Jews, were extremely impoverished. The changes which commerce had experienced brought about this alteration. The Jews could no longer practice usury, they had no capital, or rather Christian capitalists competed with them. Poorest of all were the Polish Jews,--they who used to lord it over all the Jews in Europe. They could not recover from the wounds which the Cossack disturbances had inflicted on them, and the disruption of the Polish kingdom that followed caused them fresh troubles. The increasing poverty of the Polish Jews every year drove swarms of beggars to the west and south of Europe. They resorted to the large communities to procure shelter and food from their rich brethren. Polish students of the Talmud, superior to all other Jews in knowledge of the Talmud, went principally to the important rabbinates, Prague, Nikolsburg, Frankfort-on-the-Main, Amsterdam, and Hamburg, and even to Italian communities. Every Polish emigrant was, or proclaimed himself to be, a rabbi or preacher, and was so regarded. Many of them were a disgrace to the rabbinical office, for which they had no qualifications, either mental or moral. They fawned on the rich from need and habit. From them sprang the ever-increasing demoralization among Jews. To their care, or rather to their neglect, were entrusted the Jewish youth, who, as soon as they could talk, were introduced to the Talmud, after the sophistical, artificial method. Through this perversity the language of the German Jews, like that of the Poles, degenerated into a repulsive stammer, and their manner of thinking and love of disputation into crabbed dogmatism that defied all logic. Their feeling for simplicity and truth was lost, and even the Portuguese Jews, who kept themselves aloof from the odious jargon, did not remain uncontaminated by the perverse manner of thinking prevalent at the time.
Added to this was the fact that the mud-streams of Sabbatian fanaticism burst forth afresh. They besmirched all who came in contact with them, but, nevertheless, they were regarded as a pure stream from the fountain-head of the Deity. Their one good effect was that they stirred up, and set in motion the stagnant swamp; or, to speak without metaphor, the sluggish routine in which the Jews lived was broken, and the rabbis, dull with unfruitful learning, were roused to a certain degree of passion and energy. After Sabbataï's death one of his followers, Daniel Israel Bonafoux, an ignorant officiating reader (Chazan) at Smyrna, kept up the faith in the dead Messiah by all sorts of jugglery. At one time he pretended to have seen a moving fire-ball; at another, to have heard a voice say that Sabbataï was still alive, and would reign forever. The community at Smyrna bribed the Kadi to banish him from the city, but Daniel Israel took up his residence in the neighborhood of Smyrna, and encouraged the sect to persevere in its belief. He was aided and abetted by Abraham Michael Cardoso of Tripoli, who reappeared on this stage, where he found a conventicle of Sabbatian associates, who flocked round him, because with his scientific education, his culture, and fluency of speech, he was far superior to them. Cardoso announced dreams and visions, declared himself Sabbataï Zevi's successor, the Ephraimite Messiah, practiced extraordinary impositions, and visited graves to be inspired by departed spirits, and obtain predictions to suit his theory. This consisted in the blasphemous assumption that there are two Gods--one the First Cause, incomprehensible, without will and influence over the universe; the other the God of Israel, the actual Creator of the world, and Lawgiver of the Jewish people, who alone should be worshiped. But the rabbis of Smyrna put a stop to Cardoso's proceedings, threatened him with death, and compelled him to leave Sabbataï Zevi's birthplace. He betook himself thence to Constantinople with his Smyrna adherents, later pursued his mischievous behavior at Adrianople, Rhodosto, in Egypt, the Archipelago, and Candia; now as Messiah, now as physician, composed numerous treatises on the advent of the Messianic kingdom, expounded his theosophical-dualistic theory, incurred debts, drew women into his Kabbalistic conventicle, and is said to have lived immorally even to old age. At last Cardoso was stabbed by his nephew, who believed that he had been cheated by him (1706). His imposture did not cease with his death; for his writings, a mixture of sense and nonsense, were eagerly read, and inflamed men's minds. Abraham Michael Cardoso remained at least faithful to Judaism, did not reverence Sabbataï Zevi as divine, vehemently contended against this blasphemy, and did not go over to Mahometanism. His prophet, Daniel Israel Bonafoux, on the other hand, assumed the turban, probably on account of the persecution suffered at the hands of the rabbinate of Smyrna.
Far more important was the Kabbalistic fanaticism spread by an itinerant Sabbatian preacher, and transplanted to Poland, where it found congenial soil, and maintained its ground tenaciously. Mordecai of Eisenstadt (Mochiach), even after the death of the renegade, remained his faithful follower. A disciple of Nathan and partisan of Cardoso, he returned to his home from the East, was of prepossessing appearance and awe-inspiring features, lived an ascetic life, fasted eleven days in succession, preached in Hungary, Moravia, Bohemia, and Italy with much impressiveness on penitence and contrition--in fact, played the part of a Jewish Vincent Ferrer. The applause which his preaching excited awakened his confidence, and he gave himself out as a prophet. In word and writing the preacher of Eisenstadt maintained that Sabbataï Zevi was the true Messiah, obliged to become a Mussulman by high mystical dispensation. The Hungarian, Moravian, and Bohemian Jews listened to these Sabbatian preachings and prophecies with eager interest. The Sabbatian frenzy had so blunted their power of thought that they were not offended at the notion of a new Messiah who had apostatized from Judaism. Mordecai went further in his folly, gave himself out as the true Messiah of the house of David, and maintained that he was Sabbataï Zevi risen from the dead. The latter had not been able to accomplish the work of redemption, because he was rich. The Messiah must be poor; therefore he, Mordecai, being poor and persecuted, was the true redeemer. All this nonsense was accepted with credulous devotion. Some Italian Jews formally invited the Hungarian Messiah to come to them, and he obeyed the summons. At Modena and Reggio he was received with enthusiasm. He talked of his mission--that he must go to Rome in order to make Messianic preparations in the sinful city. He cunningly hinted that he might be obliged to assume a Christian disguise, as Sabbataï Zevi had been obliged to veil himself in Turkish clothing: that is, in case of need he would apparently submit to baptism. Some Jews appear to have betrayed his plans to the Roman Inquisition, and his Italian followers advised him to leave Italy. He went once more to Bohemia, but could not find a footing there, and emigrated to Poland. Here, whither only a dim rumor of Sabbataï and the Sabbatians had penetrated, he found, it appears, numerous followers; for a sect was formed there which pursued its baneful career until the beginning of the age of Mendelssohn, and even beyond that period.
At the same time the old imposture reappeared under new forms in Turkey. Sabbataï Zevi had left a widow, the daughter of Joseph Philosoph of Salonica, a learned Talmudist. She is said either from ambition or, as her enemies declared, from licentious motives, to have led the Sabbatians into fresh frenzy. Having returned to Salonica, she is said to have passed off her brother, Jacob (surnamed Querido, the favorite), as her son by Sabbataï Zevi. This boy, who received the name of Jacob Zevi, became an object of devout reverence to the Sabbatians. They believed that in him the united souls of the two Messiahs of the houses of Joseph and David were born again; he was therefore to be regarded as the true redeemer, the genuine successor of Sabbataï. This new fantastic idea found the more adherents because Querido's own father, Joseph Philosoph, a man deeply versed in the Talmud, and another learned Talmudist, Solomon Florentin, joined the believers, and supported the new claimant. The widow of the Messiah and her brother Querido are said straightway to have recommended and practiced sexual indulgence as a means of promoting the work of redemption. The sinfulness of the world, they maintained, could be overcome only by a superabundance of sin, by the extremest degree of licentiousness. Among these Salonica Sabbatians, then, shameless profligacy, even incest, were openly practiced--so their enemies declared. One thing only is certain, marriage was not regarded as sacred among these people. According to the perverse teachings of the Luryan school of Kabbalists, women who were not acceptable to their husbands, being a hindrance to a harmonious mystical marriage, could be divorced without further ceremony, and made over to others, who felt themselves attracted to them. This precept was only too eagerly obeyed in the mystical circle. It was a peculiar sort of "elective affinity." Several hundreds in Salonica belonged to this Sabbatian sect, chiefly young people. Amongst them was a young man named Solomon Ayllon, afterwards rabbi in London and Amsterdam, who shared in the prevailing loose life. He married a wife, as the one appointed by heaven, whom another man had forsaken without formal divorce, and she was carried off from him by a third. The Sabbatians of Salonica stood in close connection with other members of the sect in Adrianople and Smyrna.
The rabbis could not regard this disorder with indifference, and denounced the offenders to the Turkish authorities. The latter instituted investigations, and sentenced them to severe punishments. But the Sabbatians had learned from their founder a means of appeasing the anger of Turkish rulers. They all, to the number of four hundred it is said, assumed the white turban (about 1687), and displayed more earnestness than Sabbataï in their newly-adopted faith. The pseudo-Messiah Jacob Zevi Querido with many of his followers made a pilgrimage to Mecca, in order to pray at the tomb of the prophet Mahomet. On the journey back he died at Alexandria. The leadership of the Turco-Jewish sect at Salonica was afterwards undertaken by his son Berachya, or Barochya (about 1695-1740). He also was regarded as the successor of Sabbataï Zevi, as the embodiment of the original soul of the Messiah, as the incarnate Deity. His followers lived under the name Dolmäh (properly Donmäh), that is, apostates from Judaism, a sect distinct alike from Jews and Turks, who married only one another, and attended the mosques now and then, but more frequently assembled in secret for their own mystical service, to worship their redeemer and man-God. There are still in Salonica descendants of the sect of Sabbataï-Querido-Berachya, who observe a mixture of Kabbalistic and Turkish usages. Of Judaism they retained only circumcision on the eighth day and the Song of Solomon, the love dialogues and monologues of which left them free play for mystical and licentious interpretations. Recently the sultan granted the Donmäh, now said to number 4,000 members, the free exercise of their religion.
In spite, perhaps on account of these excesses on the part of the Sabbatians of Salonica, opposed alike to Judaism and morality, they continually found fresh supporters, who clung to the delusion with pertinacity, deceived themselves and others, and gave impostors an opportunity to profit by this fanatical humor. From the East and from Poland secret Sabbatians crossed to and fro, from the latter as itinerant preachers, from the former as pretended messengers from the Holy Land, and continually incited to fresh errors. The emissary Abraham Cuenqui, from Hebron, who in Poland and Germany claimed charity for the poor of that city, at the request of a mystic gave a glowing description of the life of Sabbataï, whom he had seen and admired in his youth. This biography, a sort of Sabbatian gospel, is an excellent example of how in the field of religion history takes the shape of myth, and myth again transforms itself into history. In Poland, probably at the instigation of the crazy Mordecai of Eisenstadt, there arose a Sabbatian sect, which believed that it was hastening the advent of the kingdom of heaven by penitence. At its head stood two men, Judah Chassid (the pious) of Dubno, a narrow-minded simpleton, and Chayim Malach, a cunning Talmudist. Both agitated the people by exciting sermons, and found an applauding audience, who joined them in penances and Kabbalistic extravagances. The association was called Chassidim. In Poland ignorance was so great that the rabbis themselves did not recognize the power and mischievous tendency of these Sabbatian enthusiasts. From 1,300 to 1,500 of this sect, under Judah Chassid, emigrated from Poland at the beginning of the year 1700, intending to journey to the Holy Land, to await redemption there. Like the Christian flagellants of old, these so-called devotees distinguished themselves by fasting many days, and by mortifications of every kind. The leaders wore on the Sabbath white garments of satin or cloth, whereby they intended to signify the time of grace. Wherever they went in Germany, they preached, and exhorted to strict penance. Judah Chassid by his powerful voice, his gestures, and bitter tears, carried away his hearers. He wrought especially upon the weak minds of women, to whom, contrary to custom, he was wont to preach, with a Torah roll under his arm, in the women's gallery. While the greater number of the Chassidim were assembling in Moravia and Hungary, Judah Chassid traveled with about 150 persons through Germany from Altona to Frankfort-on-the-Main and Vienna, everywhere preaching, wailing, and warning. The sect, especially in the larger communities, was richly supported. On account of the concourse of men and women who flocked to these sectarians, the rabbis did not venture to oppose their proceedings. Samuel Oppenheim, the rich court Jew at Vienna, supported the Chassidim richly, and procured passports for them to the East.
The enthusiasm of this sect soon came to an end. On the first day after their arrival in Jerusalem their principal leader Judah Chassid died; his followers were helpless, and instead of speedy redemption found only horrible misery. Some of the Chassidim, therefore, disappointed and in despair, went over to Islam. The rest dispersed in all directions. Many were baptized as Christians, amongst them Judah Chassid's nephew, Wolf Levi of Lublin, who took the name of Francis Lothair Philippi; another nephew, Isaiah Chassid, afterwards caused fresh Sabbatian disturbances. Chayim Malach, however, who made the acquaintance of the aged Samuel Primo, Sabbataï Zevi's private secretary and counselor, remained for several years in Jerusalem, and presided over a small Sabbatian sect. He also taught the doctrine of two Gods or three Gods, and of the Divine incarnation, paid Sabbataï Zevi divine reverence, and is said to have carried about his image, carved in wood, in the synagogue, to be worshiped, and his followers are said to have danced round it. Chayim Malach aimed at the destruction of Rabbinical Judaism or Judaism in general. It is incomprehensible how the community of Jerusalem could have witnessed his proceedings for years without opposing them. Probably the rabbis there shared the Sabbatian idolatry, or profited by it. However, Chayim Malach seems at length to have been banished from Jerusalem. He then betook himself to the Mahometan Sabbatians at Salonica, the Donmäh, took part in their extravagances, then went about preaching in several Turkish communities, and openly taught the Sabbatian imposture. At Constantinople he was excommunicated, and on his second residence in that community was banished by Chacham Bashi (about 1709). He thereupon returned through Germany to Poland, scattering the seed of Sabbatian heresy, destined to undermine Judaism. His death is said to have been due to excessive drinking.
At the same time that Malach was sowing seed-grains in Poland for the process of dissolution, the torch of discord was hurled into the Jewish camp by two disguised Sabbatians, Chayon and Ayllon. The one through imposture, the other through stubbornness and dogmatism, promoted a movement which presents very unpleasant features. Solomon Ayllon (born about 1667, died 1728), of Spanish descent, was born at Safet, and his mind was filled with the errors of the Kabbala. In his youth he fell in with the Sabbatians of Salonica, and in part shared their extravagances. Later he went to Leghorn, and after the death of the worthy and accomplished rabbi, Jacob Abendana, was invited to London to fill his place (1696-1707). Ayllon had enemies in London who, having heard of his not wholly irreproachable youth, implored one rabbi after another to procure his dismissal from office. From dread of the public scandal which would arise were it known that a former adherent of the notorious Sabbataï had officiated as rabbi, all who were consulted advised that the ugly story be forgotten. Ayllon was not distinguished in any branch of learning, not even in knowledge of the Talmud, nor could he have had an over-scrupulous conscience. While treating for the post of rabbi at Amsterdam, the London community being unwilling to lose him, he swore a solemn oath that he would not accept the post offered to him, although he had already given his consent to the Amsterdam council, and actually accepted the office. He palliated his conduct in a sophistical and Jesuitical manner. His youthful predilection for Sabbatian errors, which he does not appear entirely to have abandoned even as rabbi of Amsterdam, induced Ayllon to give his aid to an arrant rogue, and thereby to help in producing profound dissensions in the Jewish world.
This arch-impostor, who in hypocrisy, audacity, and unscrupulousness had but few equals in the eighteenth century, so rich in impostors, was Nehemiah Chiya Chayon (born about 1650, died after 1726). He took especial delight in mystification and extravagances, and from his youth led an adventurous, easy life of dissimulation. The career of this Kabbalistic adventurer is characteristic of the demoralization of the age in various ways. Chayon received his Talmudical instruction at Hebron, where the Sabbatian intoxication had made many victims. He possessed considerable logical acuteness, was ready at discovering contradictions and incongruities; but his giddy brain and cold heart, bent on the satisfaction of low cravings, induced him to make corrupt use of his powers. Of the Talmud and Rabbinical literature he understood enough to be able to appear at home in them, but he had no real attraction to these studies, nor any religious feeling. He was observant from hypocrisy; when not watched, he disregarded the demands of religion and morality. He could assume a serious, awe-inspiring manner, and held men enthralled by his attractive appearance, his Kabbalistic scraps, and his mysterious demeanor. He generally enacted the part of a saint, at the same time singing love-songs and associating with women. He was, as he himself confessed, in close relation with the Sabbatians at Salonica, and had taken trouble to get possession of their writings. He frequently conversed with their leader, Samuel Primo, about Kabbalistic projects. It is said that in one of these interviews he proposed a new doctrine of a Trinity. He composed a work in which he maintained that Judaism, to be sure Kabbalistic Judaism, inculcated belief in a triune God. With this manuscript in his otherwise empty coffer he went to Smyrna, in the spring of the year 1708, intending to seek his fortune either with the Sabbatians or with their opponents. He did, in fact, succeed in hoodwinking some rich men of Smyrna. His patrons pledged themselves mutually and to Chayon to give him powerful support. The arch-rogue was treated at Smyrna as a holy prophet, and nearly the whole community escorted him to the ship which was to convey him back to Palestine. His schemes were for the moment crowned with success. But before Chayon could settle down, the rabbinate of Jerusalem launched a sentence of excommunication against him, condemned his work, which they had not even read, to be burned (June 1708), and refused to give a hearing to the author. This gross blunder revenged itself afterwards. For the moment, however, Chayon was defeated. As one formally interdicted by the chief college in Palestine, he could not settle anywhere. The enthusiasm of his patrons in Smyrna was extinguished as quickly as it had blazed up, for the favor of men is changeable.
Thus Chayon after a few days of good fortune was again reduced to mendicancy. In Italy, whither he had gone after leaving Egypt, and where he spent some years begging (1709-1711), his schemes met with little sympathy. At Venice only he met with some consideration from rabbis and the laity. Here he printed a small pamphlet, an extract from his larger work, wherein he openly set forth the Trinity as an article of the Jewish faith, not the Christian Trinity, but three persons (Parzufim) in the Godhead, the holy Primeval One, or Soul of all Souls, the Holy King, or incarnation of Deity, and a female Person (the Shechina). This nonsense, an insult to Judaism and its conception of God, was repeated by Chayon in doggerel, which he recommended as edifying prayers for the especially pious. Bold and venturesome, he interwove with the first verses the words of a low Italian song, "Fair Margaret." And this blasphemous pamphlet ("Secret of the Trinity," "Raza di Yechuda") was accepted and recommended by the rabbinate of Venice, either because they had not seen it before it was printed, or because by reason of Kabbalistic stupidity they did not perceive its drift. Chayon did not stay long at Venice. He betook himself to Prague, where he found credulous faith, favorable to his work of deception. The leaders of the community, old and young rabbis and students of the Talmud, were all filled with it.
David Oppenheim, chief rabbi of Prague, more famous for his rich collection of books than on account of his deeds and literary work, was an inveterate Kabbalist. To be sure he had no leisure to concern himself about the itinerant preacher Chayon, or the affairs of the community and the interest of Judaism. He needed his time for money transactions with the funds which, together with a considerable library, his rich uncle at Vienna, Samuel Oppenheim, had left him. David Oppenheim, therefore, seldom met Chayon; but his son Joseph, who was enchanted with his Kabbalistic juggling, took him into his house. He was well received also by the Kabbalistic rabbi, Naphtali Cohen, who was then living at Prague, and whose thaumaturgy had cost him dear. And if the house of Oppenheim, and Naphtali Cohen paid him homage, who would fail to exert himself for the pretended preacher or emissary from Palestine, as Chayon professed to be? No wonder that industrious youthful students of the Talmud, thirsting for knowledge, thronged to Chayon! Among these was Jonathan Eibeschütz, afterwards so notorious, who was living at that time in Prague. Chayon preached sermons at Prague, and entranced his hearers by his sophistical and witty manner, which made the most inconsistent things appear reconcilable. Now and then he allowed the erroneous doctrine of the Salonica Sabbatians to crop out, viz., that sin can be overcome only by a superabundance of sinfulness, by the satisfaction of all, even the most wicked, desires, and by the transgression of the Torah. He told his Prague adherents, or caused it to be circulated by his Venetian companion, that he conversed with the prophet Elijah, that he could compel the Godhead to reveal itself to him, and that he was able to call the dead to life and to create new worlds--all of which found credence. He wrote amulets, which were eagerly sought after, and at the same time in secret led a profligate life. The money derived from imposture he wasted in card-playing. At last he ventured to submit his heretical work, his Sabbatian confession of faith in the Trinity, to Naphtali Cohen for his opinion, and showed him forged testimonials from Italian rabbis. From admiration for Chayon's person Naphtali Cohen, without even having glanced at the manuscript, expressed not simply his approval, but gave him a glowing recommendation--a careless habit characteristic of the rabbis of that time, which on this occasion was destined to revenge itself bitterly.
Provided with forged and filched recommendations, Chayon deceived many other communities, those of Vienna, Nikolsburg, Prosnitz, Breslau, Glogau, and Berlin. He succeeded in passing himself off as a prophet before the credulous German Jews, and in being maintained by them. Secretly he entered into close relations with a Sabbatian enthusiast or impostor, Löbele Prosnitz, who cut out the four Hebrew letters of the name of God in gold tinsel, stuck it on his breast, and made it shine before the dazzled eyes of the credulous by means of burning alcohol and turpentine. Like savages, the Moravian Jews gazed at Löbele Prosnitz's alcohol miracle. At Berlin, where Chayon spent several months, he enjoyed the best opportunity to fish in troubled waters. The community of Berlin, increased to more than a hundred families, had fallen into disunion, apparently through two mutually hostile families at court. The widow of the court jeweler, Liebmann, was a favorite of King Frederick I, and was therefore disliked by the crown prince, afterwards Frederick William I. The latter had his own Jew in attendance, Marcus Magnus, the mortal enemy of the house of Liebmann, not merely from complaisance to the successor to the throne. The feud between the two Jewish houses in Berlin spread to the whole community, divided it into two parties, and affected even the synagogue. When the fire of faction burned most furiously, Chayon came to Berlin, and turned the quarrel to his own advantage. He joined the Liebmann party, which, though the weaker of the two, was rich, and therefore more willing to make sacrifices. The rabbi of Berlin, Aaron Benjamin Wolf, son-in-law of the court Jewess Liebmann, a simple fellow, treated Chayon with honorable distinction. Naphtali Cohen, who had come to Berlin, could have unmasked Chayon, but was afraid, as he said, to inflame the quarrel still further. Thus Chayon without molestation was able in Berlin to print his heretical book, with which he had begun his mischievous proceedings five years before at Smyrna. He gave his work the artful title, "The Belief of the Universe" ("Mehemenuta de Cola"). The main text, the production of a Sabbatian (some thought of Sabbataï Zevi himself), proclaims the "holy king," the Messiah, the incarnate Deity, as the God of Israel, and as the exclusive object of reverence and worship. Chayon added two sophistical commentaries, wherein he proved in various ways that the God of Judaism was the Trinity. In the prayer, "Hear, O Israel, God is one," every Jew must needs think of this Trinity, otherwise he cannot attain to salvation, even if he fulfills all religious and moral duties. This belief alone can make a man certain of bliss. So low had Judaism sunk, that such blasphemy was printed before the eyes and with the consent of a rabbi--Aaron Benjamin Wolf, at Berlin--probably at the expense of the Liebmann party! Chayon had the audacity to order forged testimonials of rabbis to be prefixed, as though they had read the book and recommended it. With this work he hastened by way of Hamburg to Amsterdam, to make his fortune in that Jewish Eldorado, and thus schism was introduced into the Jewish world.
The community of Amsterdam had been sufficiently warned of the machinations of the Sabbatians. The Jerusalem rabbi, Abraham Yizchaki, who had been appointed an emissary to collect alms, behaved like a papal legate, invested with supremacy over everything religious, and like a grand inquisitor commissioned to destroy the heresy which had been gaining ground. At Smyrna the heretical writings of the fanatic Abraham Michael Cardoso were in the hands of a few secret Sabbatians. At Yizchaki's suggestion these had to be given up by their owners under threat of excommunication and severe temporal punishment, and they were burned. The community of Smyrna thereby felt itself freed from a heavy burden, and was thankful to its liberator. Yizchaki had also come to Amsterdam, and had warned the rabbis and the communal council against Sabbatian emissaries, and drew attention to the hint of the Smyrna rabbinate, that a secret Sabbatian was on his way to print Cardoso's writings. In fact a Sabbatian emissary did come to Amsterdam for that purpose. Chayon at first conducted himself modestly, and affiliated with the Portuguese. He presented the council with a copy of his work on the Trinity printed at Berlin, in order to obtain leave to sell it. He appears to have passed himself off as an emissary from Palestine. Hereupon bickerings arose, which began with personal feeling and ended in wide-spread dissension.
The rabbi of the German community, Zevi Ashkenazi, called Chacham Zevi, was much excited at the news of Chayon's presence in Amsterdam. This man, whose father had belonged to the most zealous Sabbatians, while he himself and his son, Jacob Emden, were destined to fight against them with vehement zeal, was gifted with a clear head, and combined thoroughness with acuteness in the study of the Talmud. In his eighteenth year he had been consulted as an expert in the Talmud. Pampered, sought after, married while young to the daughter of a rich man at Buda and thereby rendered independent, he became proud, self-conscious, and vain of his knowledge of the Talmud. On account of his Talmudical learning he was invited to be chief rabbi of the German community at Amsterdam (1710); he preferred to be called Chacham. Here he looked down with great contempt upon his Portuguese colleagues, especially upon Solomon Ayllon, and would never regard him as his equal in rank. "Chacham Zevi wishes to rank higher even than the prophet Moses," was the judgment passed upon him by Ayllon.
As soon as the name of Chayon reached the ears of the German Chacham, he connected it with a former enemy of his at Bosna-Seraï in Bosnia, where Zevi had been rabbi for a short time, and he immediately intimated to the Portuguese authorities that it would be wise to show no sort of favor to the stranger, as he was a man of evil notoriety. Nehemiah Chayon explained that the mistake in his identity was caused by similarity of names, and behaved so very humbly towards Chacham Zevi, that the latter soon informed the council that he had nothing to urge against the stranger, whose identity he had mistaken. Chayon appeared to have removed every obstacle from his path at Amsterdam, when Moses Chages, of Jerusalem, who was in Holland, sounded the alarm against him, perhaps because he feared him as a Palestinian rival. The heretical work printed at Berlin was put before him for examination, as some members of the council did not trust their Chacham Ayllon. Scarcely had he looked into it, when he raised the cry of heresy. In fact, it did not need lengthy search in the book to find an explicit enunciation of the doctrine of the Trinity. The German Chacham, having had his attention drawn by Moses Chages to Chayon's suspicious doctrine, again notified, almost ordered, the Portuguese council, to banish instead of favoring the stranger. The council, not disposed to accept such abrupt orders, requested Chacham Zevi either to point out the heretical passages in Chayon's book, or to join with some members nominated by the council as a committee to examine it. Chacham Zevi, at the advice of Chages, rejected both proposals flatly, saying that as rabbi he was not obliged to bring forward proofs, but simply to pronounce final judgment. Still less did he choose to take council with Ayllon, as this would have been tantamount to recognizing him as a Talmudist of equal rank with himself. The haughty behavior of the Chacham, on the one hand, and Ayllon's sensitiveness, on the other, kindled a spark into a bright flame.
The Portuguese Chacham had reason to feel himself slighted and to complain. His own congregation had passed him over in this matter, shown distrust towards him, and set his opponent over him as a higher authority. Besides, he appears to have feared the cunning adventurer, who if persecuted might reveal more than was desirable of Ayllon's past history and relations to the Salonica heretics. He felt it his interest to remain on Chayon's side and protect him against the threatened banishment from Amsterdam. It was not difficult for him to prejudice a member of the Portuguese council, Aaron de Pinto, a resolute, unbending, hard man, indifferent to spiritual problems, against the German Chacham, and persuade him of his duty to guard the independence of the old, respectable, and superior Portuguese, against the presumptuousness of the hitherto subordinate German, community. Ayllon converted the important question of orthodoxy and heresy into one of precedence between the communities. De Pinto treated the affair in this light, and the other members of the council conformed to his resolute will. He straightway rejected the interference of the German Chacham in an affair of concern only to the Portuguese community, broke off all negotiations with him, and commissioned Ayllon to appoint a committee of Portuguese to examine and report on Chayon's work. Ayllon added to the college of rabbis four men, of whom only one understood the question. This one hesitated to join the committee, but was compelled to do so. The others were totally ignorant of theology, and accordingly dependent on Ayllon's judgment. Ayllon and the council, that is, Pinto, made the members of the committee swear to let no one see the copies of Chayon's work handed to them for examination, in fact, to keep everything secret until the final judgment was pronounced. The petty question of tolerating or expelling a begging adventurer thus attained great importance.
Whilst the Portuguese committee was still apparently engaged in the business of examination, Chacham Zevi, in conjunction with Moses Chages, hastened to pronounce sentence of excommunication against Chayon and his heretical book, because "he sought to draw Israel away from his God and to introduce strange gods (the Trinity)." No one was to have dealings with the author until he recanted his error. His writings in any case were to be committed to the flames. This sentence of condemnation was printed in Hebrew and Portuguese, and circulated as a pamphlet. A great portion of the objections raised by these two zealots against Chayon's writings was equally applicable to the Zohar and other Kabbalistic books. Short-sighted as they were, they saw only the evil consequences of the Kabbalistic errors, not their original cause.
Great was the excitement of the Jews of Amsterdam over this step. Chacham Zevi and Moses Chages were affronted and abused in the streets by Portuguese Jews, and it was asserted that Ayllon employed disreputable people for this purpose. When Chages appeared the rabble shouted, "Stone him, slay him." Attempts at reconciliation failed; partly through the dogmatism of Ayllon, who refused to admit himself wrong, partly through the firmness of De Pinto, who simply had in view the dignity of the Portuguese community. Pamphlets increased the bitter feeling.
The quarrel of the Amsterdam Jews made a great stir elsewhere, and was the cause of party strife. Ayllon and De Pinto forbade the members of their community, under threat of excommunication, to read pamphlets, or to express themselves either verbally or in writing upon the matter. They also hastened the delivery of the verdict, which, however, was drawn up by Ayllon alone. It declared, in direct opposition to the decision of Chacham Zevi and Chages, that Chayon's work taught nothing offensive or dangerous to Judaism; it contained only the doctrines found in other Kabbalistic writings. It was officially made known in the synagogues (August 14, 1713) that Chayon was acquitted of the charge of heresy brought against him, and that he had been innocently persecuted. The day after, the original cause of the strife was carried in triumph into the Portuguese chief synagogue, and to the vexation of his opponents, almost worshiped. The false prophet, who had openly declared, "Come, let us worship false gods," was loaded with homage by the Portuguese who had staked life and property for the unity of God. They cheered Chayon in the synagogue, and cried "Down with his adversaries." In secret Chayon probably laughed at the complications he had caused, and at the credulity of the multitude. De Pinto took care that Chacham Zevi should not be supported by his own German community, but should be left exposed, without protection, to the rough treatment of his opponents. He found himself entirely isolated, almost like a person under interdict.
But help came to Chacham Zevi from without. The rabbis whose pretended letters of recommendation Chayon had prefixed to his work declared them to be forged. The deepest impression was made by the letters of the highly respected, aged rabbi of Mantua, Leon Brieli, who, well acquainted with the past history of the impostor, unmasked him, and approved of the sentence of condemnation against his heretical book. Brieli wrote urgently to the Amsterdam council, and to Ayllon, in Hebrew and Italian, imploring them not to lend their authority to so bad a cause. But they remained stubborn, answered him politely, yet evasively. The quarrel rose higher every day in the Amsterdam community; every one took one side or the other, defending his view with bitterness, passion, and frequently with vigorous action. Peace vanished from this pattern community, and dissension was carried into family life. Matters had gone so far that the leaders could not yield. Ayllon and De Pinto went to greater lengths in their obstinacy. They suggested that the Portuguese council summon Chacham Zevi, the rabbi of the German community (over whom it had no authority whatever), before its tribunal, with the intention of shaming him or of inducing him to recant. When he paid no heed, it laid him and Moses Chages under the ban, most strictly forbidding the members of the community to have dealings with them, protect them, or intercede for them with the civic authorities.
As though the council and the rabbinate had been infected by Chayon's baseness, they committed one meanness after another. In justification of their course of action they distorted the actual state of the case, and made use of notorious falsehoods. They encouraged, or at least countenanced, Chayon in calumniating his opponents with the vilest and most revolting aspersions, not only Chacham Zevi and Chages, but even the wise and venerable rabbi, Leon Brieli, and supported Chayon in all his audacities. The Portuguese council and the rabbinate, or rather De Pinto and Ayllon, for their colleagues were mere puppets, persecuted Chayon's opponents as though they were lost to all feeling of right. With Moses Chages they had an easy game. He lived on the Portuguese community; and when they withdrew the means of sustenance, he was compelled to leave Amsterdam with his helpless family and migrate to Altona. They also pressed Chacham Zevi hard, annoyed him, accused him before the civil authorities, and prevented any one's assisting him. He, too, left Amsterdam, either De Pinto procuring his banishment at the hands of the magistrates, or Chacham Zevi, in order to anticipate scandalous expulsion, going into banishment of his own accord. He repaired to London, in the first instance, then by way of Breslau to Poland, and was everywhere honorably received and treated.
His opponents, Chayon, Ayllon, and De Pinto, were not able to enjoy the fruits of their victory. The apparently trivial dispute had assumed large dimensions. Almost all the German, Italian, Polish, and even some African communities with their rabbis espoused the cause of the persecuted Chacham Zevi, and hurled sentences of excommunication upon the unscrupulous heretic. These anathemas were published, and unsparingly revealed Chayon's villainy, bringing to light the sentence passed upon him years before at Jerusalem. The exposure of his character by witnesses who came from countries where his past history was well known, contributed to ruin the false prophet of the new Trinity.
But the Portuguese of Amsterdam, or at least their leaders, would not drop him, either because they believed his audacious lies or from a sense of shame and obstinacy. They saw clearly, however, that Chayon must take steps to calm the storm raised against him. They therefore favored his journey to the East, providing him with money and recommendations to influential Jews and Christians, who were to aid him in loosing the ban passed upon him in the Turkish capital. But the journey proved full of thorns for Chayon; no Jew admitted him into his house, or gave him entertainment. Like Cain, curse-laden, he was obliged to flee from place to place in Europe. At last he had to take ship in haste to Constantinople. He was followed by fresh accusations of heresy, not only from Chages and Naphtali Cohen, but also from the highly esteemed Kabbalist Joseph Ergas, and the London preacher David Nieto, who calmly exposed, in Hebrew and Spanish, the heresy, falsehood, and villainy of this hypocritical Sabbatian.
At Constantinople Chayon was avoided by the Jews, and treated as an outcast; but his Amsterdam letters of recommendation paved the way for him with a vizir, who ordered his Jewish agents to accord him support. In spite of his artifices, however, the rabbinate of Constantinople refused to remove the sentence against him, but referred him to the college of Jerusalem, the first to proscribe him. Several years elapsed before three rabbis, probably intimidated by the vizir, declared themselves ready to free Chayon from the ban, but they added the condition that he should never again teach, preach, or publish Kabbalistic doctrines. Chayon bound himself by a solemn oath, given to be broken at the first opportunity. With a letter, which testified to his re-admission into the Jewish communion, he hastened to Europe for fresh adventures and impostures.
Meanwhile the Sabbatian intoxication had spread in Poland, especially in Podolia and the district of Lemberg. There are revolting evidences extant of the immorality of the Podolian Sabbatians: how they wallowed in a pool of shameless profligacy, all the while pretending to redeem the world. Their violation and contempt of Talmudical Judaism were for a long time kept secret, but they strove to win adherents, preaching, and explaining the Zohar to support their immoral theories. As their sect grew, they raised the mask of piety a little, came out more boldly, and were solemnly excommunicated by the Lemberg rabbinate with extinguished tapers in the synagogue. But this sect could not be suppressed by such means. Its members were inspired with a fanatical desire to scorn the Talmud, the breath of life of the Polish Jews, and to set up in its place the Kabbala and its Bible, the Zohar, and this plan they endeavored to put into execution.
Their leaders secretly sent (1725) an emissary in the person of Moses Meïr Kamenker into Moravia, Bohemia, and Germany, to establish a connection with the Sabbatians of these countries, and perhaps also to beg for money for their undertaking. Kamenker traveled through several communities without being found out. Who could divine the thoughts of this begging Polish rabbi, who understood how to dispute in the manner of the Talmud, and rolled his eyes in a pious, hypocritical manner? Moses Meïr entered into relations with Jonathan Eibeschütz at Prague, who though young was regarded as a most thorough and acute Talmudist, but who was entangled in the snares of the Sabbatian Kabbala. Moses Meïr pressed on unrecognized to Mannheim, where a secret Sabbatian of Judah Chassid's following passed himself off among his companions as the Messiah returned to earth. From Mannheim these two Polish Sabbatians threw out their nets, and deluded the simple with sounding phrases from the Zohar. Their main doctrine was that Jews devoted to the Talmud had not the right faith, which was rooted only in the Kabbala. At the same time a work, apparently Kabbalistic, was disseminated from Prague. Its equal can scarcely be found for absurdity, perversity, and blasphemy; the coarsest notions being brought into connection with the Godhead in Talmudic and Zoharistic forms of expression. It also develops the doctrine of persons in the Godhead--the Primeval One and the God of Israel, and hints that from a higher standpoint the Torah and the laws have no significance. It was reported at the time that Jonathan Eibeschütz was the author of this production, as revolting as it is absurd.
Chance brought these underhand proceedings to light. Moses Meïr was enticed to Frankfort by promises, and in the house of Rabbi Jacob Kahana his conduct was exposed. Many heretical writings were found upon him as well as letters by Sabbatians, amongst them letters from and to Eibeschütz. An examination of witnesses was held by three rabbis (July, 1725). Several witnesses denounced Moses Meïr, Isaiah Chassid, and Löbele Prosnitz as closely allied fanatical Sabbatians, Eibeschütz also being connected with them. These three, indeed, regarded him as Sabbataï's successor, as the genuine Messiah. The witnesses averred that they had received Kabbalistic heretical writings about the Song of Solomon, and others, from Moses Meïr. They pretended also to have heard many blasphemies that could not be repeated. Because of the writings found upon Moses Meïr Kamenker and the testimony of witnesses, the rabbinate of Frankfort pronounced upon him, his companions, and all Sabbatians, the severest possible sentence, decreeing that no one should have dealings with them in any form whatever, and that every Jew should be bound to inform the rabbis of the secret Sabbatians, and reveal their misconduct without respect of persons. The rabbis of the German communities of Altona-Hamburg and Amsterdam joined in this sentence; they ordered it to be read in the synagogues for the information of all, and had it printed. The same was done at Frankfort-on-the-Oder at fair-time in the presence of many Jews from other towns, and several Polish rabbis did the same. They at last realized that only by united forces and continuous efforts could an end be put to the follies of the Sabbatians.
Just at this time Chayon returned to Europe, and increased the confusion. To protect himself from persecution, he secretly approached Christians, obtained access to the imperial palace at Vienna, partly severed his connection with the Jews, reviled them as blind men who reject the true faith, let it be understood that he, too, taught the doctrine of the Trinity, and that he could bring over the Jews. Provided with a letter of protection from the court, he proceeded on his journey, and again played a double game, living secretly as a Sabbatian, openly as an orthodox Jew released from the interdict. It is hardly credible, as contemporaries relate of Chayon, that at the age of nearly eighty, he took about with him as his wife a notorious prostitute, whom he had picked up in Hungary. He did not meet with so good a reception this time; distrust had been excited against secret Sabbatians, especially against him. At Prague he was not admitted into the city. At Berlin, Chayon wrote to a former acquaintance that, if the money he needed were not sent him, he was resolved to be baptized to the disgrace of the Jews. At Hanover, his papers were taken from him, which exposed him still more. Thus the rogue dragged himself to Amsterdam in the hope of again finding enthusiastic friends. But Ayllon would have nothing more to do with him; he is said to have repented having favored Chayon. The latter was included in the proscription of the Sabbatians and excommunicated (1726). Moses Chages, formerly persecuted by him, now occupied an honored position in Altona. He was considered the chief of the heresy judges, so to say, and he dealt Chayon the last blow. The latter could not hold his own in Europe or in the East, and therefore repaired to northern Africa, where he died. His son was converted to Christianity, and, whilst at Rome, through his false, or half-true accusations, he drew the attention of the Inquisition to ancient Jewish literature, which he declared to be inimical to Christianity.
VII. THE AGE OF LUZZATTO, EIBESCHÜTZ, AND FRANK
Poetical Works of Moses Chayim Luzzatto--Luzzatto ensnared in the Kabbala--His Contest with Rabbinical Authorities-- Luzzatto's last Drama--Jonathan Eibeschütz--Character and Education of Eibeschütz--His Relations with the Jesuits in Prague--The Austrian War of Succession--Expulsion of the Jews from Prague--Eibeschütz becomes Rabbi of Altona--Jacob Emden--Eibeschütz charged with Heresy--The Controversy between Emden and Eibeschütz--The Amulets--Party Strife-- Interference by Christians and the Civil Authorities--Revival of Sabbatianism--Jacob Frank Lejbowicz and the Frankists-- The Doctrine of the Trinity--Excesses of the Frankists.
1727-1760 C. E.
The disgrace and disappointment caused by visionaries and impostors during almost a whole century, the lamentable effects of the careers of Sabbataï Zevi and his band of prophets--Cardoso, Mordecai of Eisenstadt, Querido, Judah Chassid, Chayim Malach, Chayon, and others--failed to suppress Kabbalistic and Messianic extravagances. As yet these impostors only invited fresh imitators, who found a credulous circle ready to believe in them, and thus new disorders were begotten. The unhealthy humors which, during the lapse of ages, had been introduced into the organism of Judaism appeared as hideous eruptions on the surface, but this might be considered the sign of convalescence. Corruption had seized even the most delicate organs. A gifted youth, endowed with splendid talents, who in ordinary circumstances would have become an ornament to Judaism, was tainted by the general degradation, and under the spell of mysticism misapplied his excellent gifts, and contributed to error. It is impossible to resist a feeling of sorrow at finding this amiable man with his ideal character falling into errors which bring him down to the level of such impure spirits as Chayon and Löbele Prosnitz--a many-colored sunbeam extinguished in a swamp. If we denounce the Kabbala, which has begotten such unspeakable misconceptions of Judaism, and are justly wrathful against its authors and propagators, we feel specially indignant when we find two noble young men of high endowments and purity of life, Solomon Molcho and Luzzatto, following its chimeras, and thereby precipitating themselves into the abyss. Both literally sacrificed their lives for dreams, the confused imagery of which was suggested by the dazing medley of the Kabbala. Although Luzzatto did not meet with a tragic end like the Portuguese Marrano who shared his convictions, yet he, too, was a martyr, none the less because his wounds had been inflicted by himself under the influence of excitement.
Moses Chayim Luzzatto (born 1707, died 1747) was the son of very wealthy parents, natives of Padua. His father, who carried on an extensive silk business, spared no expense in educating him. The two ancient languages, Hebrew and Latin, which in Italy were in a measure a literary necessity, the one among Jews, the other among Christians, Luzzatto acquired in early youth; but they had an influence on his mind altogether different from that which they obtained over his contemporaries. Both enriched his genius, and promoted its higher development. Latin opened for him the realm of the beautiful, Hebrew the gates of the sublime. Luzzatto had a poet's delicately-strung soul, an Æolian harp, which responded to every breath with harmonious, tuneful vibrations. His poetic gift displayed at once power and sweetness, wealth of fancy and richness of imagery, combined with due sense of proportion. A believer in the transmigration of souls might have said that the soul of the Hebrew-Castilian singer, Jehuda Halevi, had been born again in Luzzatto, but had become more perfect, more matured, more tender, and endowed with a more delicate sense of harmony, encompassed as he was by the musical atmosphere of his Italian fatherland. Even in early boyhood every event, joyful or sad, was to him a complete picture, a little work of art, wherein color and euphony were revealed together. A youth of seventeen, he discerned with such remarkable clearness the hidden charm of language, the laws of harmony, deducible from the higher forms of eloquence as from poetry, and the grace of rhythm and cadence, that he composed a work on the subject, and illustrated it by beautiful examples from sacred poetry. He contemplated introducing a new meter into modern Hebrew poetry, in order to obtain greater variety in the succession of long and short syllables, and thus produce a musical cadence. The Hebrew language is usually classified among the dead tongues. To Luzzatto, however, it was full of life, vigor, youth, clearness, and euphony. He used Hebrew as a pliant instrument, and drew from it sweet notes and caressing melodies; he renewed its youth, invested it with a peculiar charm, in short, lived in it as though his ear had absorbed the rich tones of Isaiah's eloquence. Incomparably more gifted than Joseph Penso de la Vega, Luzzatto, likewise in his seventeenth year, composed a drama on the biblical theme of Samson and the Philistines. This early work gives promise of the future master. The versification is faultless, the thoughts original, and the language free from bombast and redundancy. His Hebrew prose, too, is an agreeable contrast to the insipid, ornate, and laboriously witty style of his Jewish contemporaries; it has much of the simplicity, polish, and vivacity of the biblical narrative. Before his twentieth year Luzzatto had composed one hundred and fifty hymns, which are only an imitation of the old psalter, but the language of which is marked by fervor and purity. It was perhaps during the same period that he composed his second Hebrew drama, in four acts-- "The High Tower, or The Innocence of the Virtuous"--beautiful in versification, melodious in language, but poor in thought. The young poet had not yet seen life in its fullness, nor keenly studied its contrasts and struggles. He was acquainted only with idyllic family life and academic peace. Even virtue and vice, love and selfishness, which he desired to represent in his drama, were known to him but by hearsay. His muse becomes eloquent only when she sings of God's sublimity. Isolated verses are faultless, but the work as a whole is that of a schoolboy. He was too dependent on Italian models--still walked on stilts.
This facility and versatility in clothing both platitudes and original thoughts in new as well as borrowed forms, and the over-abundance of half-matured ideas, which, if he could have perfected them, might have proved a blessing to Judaism and to himself, were transformed into a curse. One day (Sivan, 1727) he was seized with the desire to imitate the mystic language of the Zohar, and he succeeded as well as in the case of the psalms. His sentences and expressions were deceptively similar to those of his model, just as high-sounding, apparently full of meaning, in reality meaningless. This success turned his head, and led him astray. Instead of perceiving that if the Kabbalistic style of the Zohar is capable of imitation, that book must be the work of a clever human author, Luzzatto inferred that his own creative faculty did not proceed from natural endowments, but, as in the case of the Zohar, was the product of a higher inspiration. In other words, he shared the mistaken view of his age with respect to the origin and value of the Kabbala. Isaiah Bassan, of Padua--who instructed Luzzatto in his early years--had infused mystical poison into his healthy blood. However, any other teacher would also have led him into the errors of the Kabbala, from which there was no escape. The air of the Ghettos was impregnated with Kabbala. From his youth upwards Luzzatto heard daily that great adepts in mysticism possessed special tutelar spirits (Maggid), who every day gave them manifestations from above. Why should not he, too, be vouchsafed this divine gift of grace? Some of the mystical writings of Lurya, at that time still a rarity, fell into his hands. He learnt them by heart, became entirely absorbed in them, and thus completed his derangement. Luzzatto was possessed by a peculiar delusion. His naturally clear and methodical intellect, his fine sense of the simplicity and beauty of the poetry of the Bible, and his æsthetic conceptions with regard to Italian and Latin literature urged him to seek clearness and common sense even in the chaos of the Kabbala, the divine origin of which was accepted by him as a fact. He in no way resembled the wild visionaries Moses Zacut and Mordecai of Eisenstadt; he did not content himself with empty formulas and flourishes, but sought for sound sense. This he found rather in his own mind than in the Zohar or in the writings of Lurya. Nevertheless, he lived under the delusion that a divine spirit had vouchsafed him deep insight into the Kabbala, solved its riddles, and disentangled its meshes. Self-deception was the cause of his errors, and religious fervor, instead of protecting, only plunged him in more deeply. His errors were fostered by the conviction that existing Judaism with its excrescences would be unintelligible without the Kabbala, the theories of which could alone explain the phenomena, the strife, and the contradictions in the world, and the tragical history of the Jewish people. Israel--God's people--the noblest portion of creation, stands enfeebled and abased on the lowest rung of the ladder of nations; its religion misjudged, its struggles fruitless. To account for this bewildering fact, Luzzatto constructed a system of cobwebs.
It flattered the vanity of this young man of twenty to gain this insight into the relations of the upper and the lower worlds, to explain them in the mystical language of the Zohar, and thus become an important member in the series of created beings. Having firmly convinced himself of the truth of the fundamental idea of the Kabbala, he accepted all its excrescences--transmigration of souls, anagrams, and necromancy. He wrote reams of Kabbalistic chimeras, and composed a second Zohar (Zohar Tinyana) with appropriate introductions (Tikkunim) and appendices. The more facility he acquired, the stronger became his delusion that he, too, was inspired by a great spirit, and was a second, perhaps more perfect Simon bar Yochaï. Little by little there crept over him in his solitude the fantastic conviction that he was the pre-ordained Messiah, called to redeem, by means of the second Zohar, the souls of Israel and the whole world.
Luzzatto could not long bear to hide his light under a bushel. He began operations by disclosing to Israel Marini and Israel Treves, two young men of the same way of thinking as himself, that his guardian spirit had bidden him grant them knowledge of his new Zohar. His disciples in the Kabbala were dazzled and delighted, and could not keep the secret. The result was that Venetian Kabbalists sought out the young and wealthy prodigy at his home in Padua, and thus confirmed him in his fanaticism. A vivacious, energetic, impetuous Pole, Yekutiel (Kussiel) of Wilna, who had come to Padua to study medicine, joined Luzzatto's circle. To hear of the latter, join him, abandon his former studies, and devote himself to mysticism was for the Pole a rapid, easy resolution. It was far harder for him to keep the secret. No sooner had he been initiated by Luzzatto than he blazoned forth this new miracle to the world. Kussiel circulated extravagant letters on the subject, which came into the hands of Moses Chages in Altona. The latter, who had stoutly opposed and effectually silenced Chayon and the other Sabbatian visionaries, was, so to speak, the recognized official zealot, whose utterances were decisive on matters of faith; and the rabbi of the so-called "three communities" of Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbeck, Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen, who had excommunicated Moses Meïr Kamenker and his confederates, was subservient to him. Chages therefore requested the Venetian community to suppress the newly-born brood of heretics before the poison of their doctrine could spread further.
The Venetian community, however, was not disposed to denounce Luzzatto as a heretic, but treated him with great forbearance, probably out of consideration for his youth, talents, and the wealth of his family, and merely ordered him to justify himself. The enthusiastic youth rebelled against this demand, proudly gave Chages to understand that he did not recognize his authority, repudiated the suspicion of Sabbatian heresy, and insisted that he had been vouchsafed revelations from Heaven. He referred him to his instructor Bassan, who would never refuse to testify that his orthodoxy was above suspicion. In this Luzzatto was perfectly right. Bassan was so infatuated with his pupil that he would have palliated his most scandalous faults, and encouraged rather than checked his extravagances. In vain Chages and Katzenellenbogen threatened him and the Paduan community with the severest form of excommunication, if he did not abandon his pretensions to second sight and mystical powers. Luzzatto remained unmoved: God had chosen him, like many before, to reveal to him His mysteries. The other Italian rabbis showed themselves as lukewarm in the matter as those of Padua and Venice. Moses Chages called on three rabbis to form a tribunal, but all three declined to interfere. He exerted himself so zealously, however, that he persuaded several German rabbis (June, 1730) to excommunicate all who should compose works in the language of the Zohar in the name of angels or saints. This threat proved effectual. Isaiah Bassan was obliged to repair to Padua and obtain a promise from his favorite disciple to discontinue his mystical writings and his instruction of young Kabbalists, or emigrate to the Holy Land. At last the Venetian rabbinate was stirred up to intervene, and sent three representatives to Padua--Jacob Belillos, Moses Menachem Merari, and Nehemiah Vital Cohen,--in whose presence Luzzatto was obliged to repeat his promise under oath. He was compelled to deliver his Kabbalistic writings to his teacher Bassan, and they were placed under seal. Thus the storm which had threatened him was averted.
Luzzatto appears to have been sobered by these events. He occupied himself with his business, wrote more poetry, and resolved to marry. He was a happy father, lived in concord with his parents and brothers and sisters, and was highly respected. The evil spirit, however, to whom he had sold himself would not release him, and led him back to his youthful follies. A quarrel in the family and business misfortunes in connection with his father's house, in which he was a partner, appear to have been the cause of this renewal of his former studies. Disquieted and troubled in the present he sought to learn the future by means of Kabbalistic arts. He began once more to write down his mystical fancies, and ventured to show them to Bassan, from whom he obtained permission to publish them. It was whispered that Luzzatto performed incantations by means of magic, and that his teacher had handed him for publication some of the sealed writings in his custody. The Venetian council of rabbis, owing to certain reports, was especially excited and prejudiced against him. Luzzatto had written a sharp reply to Leon Modena's forcible work against the Kabbala; and as the latter was a Venetian rabbi, though of doubtful sincerity, the members of the Venetian council, Samuel Aboab and his five colleagues, considered any attack upon him an insult to their own honor. Their esprit de corps roused them to greater activity than had zeal for their faith, when seemingly in peril. True Venetians, they had in their service a spy, Salman of Lemberg, who watched and reported Luzzatto's movements to them. As long as he was prosperous and surrounded by friends the Venetian rabbis had treated him with remarkable indulgence, and bestowed on him a title of honor; but after his family fell into misfortune, when he was on the verge of ruin, and deserted by his friends and flatterers, their regard for him ceased, and they could not find enough stones to throw at him. They believed one of their number who asserted that he had found implements of magic in Luzzatto's house. Absurdly enough, too, they reproached Luzzatto with having learnt Latin; to a man who had studied this language of Satan no angel, they said, could appear! The members of the Venetian council of rabbis believed, or pretended to believe that Luzzatto had boasted that in the Messianic age his psalms would take the place of David's psalter. They now showed themselves as active as they had previously been negligent in the persecution of the unfortunate author. They sent three inquisitors to Padua to examine him, search his house for writings, and make him declare on oath that he would publish nothing without first submitting it to the censorship of the Venetian council of rabbis. The poet, deeply mortified, haughtily answered that this council had no authority whatever over him, a member of the community of Padua. The Venetian rabbis then excommunicated him, and condemned his writings to the flames (December, 1734), taking care to give notice of their proceedings to all the communities in Germany, particularly to the "big drum," Chages. The Paduan community also abandoned the unfortunate Luzzatto. To the honor of his teacher Isaiah Bassan be it said, that he adhered to him as staunchly in misfortune as in prosperity. The rabbi Katzenellenbogen, or rather his crier Chages, on this occasion made the sensible suggestion that the study of the Kabbala be altogether forbidden to young men, to prevent their falling into deplorable errors, as had hitherto been the case; but the proposition failed to meet with the approbation of other rabbis. Twenty years later the evils produced by the Kabbala became so patent, that the synod of Polish Jews enacted a decree to the above effect without encountering opposition.
The unfortunate, excommunicated dreamer was obliged to leave his parents, his wife and child, and go forth a wanderer; but what grieved him even more was separation from his fellow Kabbalists and his mystic conventicle. He cherished the hope of being able to print his Kabbalistic writings in Amsterdam. Alas for his want of experience! Who would help him after fortune had turned her back! At Frankfort-on-the-Main he was rudely awakened from his pleasant dream. As soon as the rabbi, Jacob Kahana, heard of his arrival, he insisted that he should promise on oath to abandon his Kabbalistic illusions, and to refrain from writing on or instructing any one in the doctrines of the Zohar (January 12, 1735). One liberty, however, Luzzatto reserved for himself: to pursue his favorite studies at the age of forty in the Holy Land. Many rabbis of Germany, Poland, Holland, and Denmark, who were informed of Luzzatto's concessions, agreed in advance to his excommunication in case he should break his word. The name of Chages was of course upon the list.
Deeply humiliated and disappointed, Luzzatto repaired to Amsterdam. Here a gleam of sunlight smiled on him again. The Portuguese community received him kindly, as though desirous of atoning for the injustice he had experienced at the hands of the Germans and Poles. They granted him a pension; and he found a hospitable home in the house of Moses de Chaves, a wealthy Portuguese, and became instructor to his son. To be independent, he applied himself, like Spinoza, to the polishing of lenses, and this led him to study physics and mathematics. He found himself so comfortably settled that he induced not only his wife, but also his parents to come to Amsterdam, and they were well received by the Portuguese community. This favorable turn in his fortunes encouraged him to resume his chimerical theories. He repeatedly exhorted his disciples in Padua to remain true to their Kabbalistic studies; whereupon the council of rabbis at Venice, which had received intelligence of his proceedings, pronounced sentence of excommunication in the synagogues and in the Ghetto against all who possessed Kabbalistic writings or psalms of Luzzatto, and failed to deliver them to the council.
In addition to his various occupations, with the Kabbala for his spiritual wants and the polishing of lenses for his temporal needs, Luzzatto published a masterpiece second to none in Hebrew poetry; a drama, perfect in form, language, and thought; a memorial of his gifts calculated to immortalize him and the language in which it is composed. Under the unpretentious form of an occasional poem in honor of the wedding of his disciple, Jacob de Chaves, with the high-born maiden Rachel de Vega Enriques, he published his drama, "Glory to the Virtuous" (La-Yesharim Tehilla). It differs materially from his earlier works. The poet had in the interval enjoyed various opportunities of gaining pleasant and painful experiences, and of enriching his mental powers. His muse, grown more mature, had become acquainted with the intricacies of life. Luzzatto had learnt to know the vulgar herd well enough to see that it resembles a reed swaying to and fro in the water, and is kept by the fetters of Deceit in a state of ignorance and infirmity against which Wisdom herself is powerless. He had been taught by experience how Folly yoked with Ignorance makes merry over those born of the Spirit, and mocks at their labors, when they measure the paths of the stars, observe the life of the vegetable world, behold God's works, and account them of more value than Mammon. Superficiality sees in all the events of life and of nature, however powerfully they may appeal to the heart, only the sport of Chance or the inflexible laws of heartless Necessity. Luzzatto had proved in his own case that Craft and Pride closely united can deprive Merit of its crown, and place it on their own heads. None the less he cherished the conviction that Merit, though misjudged and calumniated, at last wins the day, and that its acknowledgment (Fame) will fall to its share like a bride, if only it allows itself to be led by Reason and her handmaid Patience, averting its gaze from ignoble strife, and becoming absorbed in the wonders of Creation. "Could we, with undimmed eyes, for a moment see the world as it is, divested of pretense, we should see Pride and Folly, which speak so scornfully of Virtue and Knowledge, deeply humbled." Through an extraordinary occurrence, a kind of miracle, Truth is revealed, Deceit unmasked, Pride becomes a laughing-stock, and the fickle mob is led to recognize true Merit.
Luzzatto in his dramatic parable clothes and vivifies this train of ideas, and enunciates them in monologues and dialogues through the mouth of acting, or, more correctly, speaking characters. Luzzatto's masterpiece is indeed not a drama in the strict sense of the word. The characters represented are not of flesh and blood, but mere abstractions: Reason and Folly, Merit and Deceit, are placed on the stage. The dramatic action is slight. It is in truth a beautiful wreath of fragrant flowers of poesy, a series of delightful monologues and dialogues. In it Luzzatto embodies deep thoughts, difficult to quicken into life or to paint in poetical colors; but he succeeded. The wonderful evolution of the vegetable world, the extraordinary phenomena of light, are treated in dramatic verse by Luzzatto with the same facility as the appropriate subjects for poetry, and this too in the Hebrew language, not readily lending itself to new forms of thought, and with the self-imposed fetters of a meter never sinned against. His style is dignified, and he employed a diction quite his own, replete with youthful charms, beauty, and harmony. Thereby he supplied a new impulse for the coming age. When the mists of error passed away, the general chaos of thought was reduced to some sort of order, and a happier period opened, young poets derived inspiration from the soft warm rays diffused by the genius of Luzzatto. A modern Hebrew poet who helped to accomplish the transition from the old to the new period, David Franco Mendes, owes his inspiration to Luzzatto.
What might not Luzzatto have accomplished if he could have liberated his mind from the extravagant follies of the Kabbala! But it held him captive, and drew him not long after the completion of his drama (about 1744) to Palestine. Here he hoped to be able to follow unmolested the inspirations of his excited fancy, or play the rôle of a Messiah. From Safet, too, he continued his communications with his band of disciples; but before he could commence operations he fell a victim to the plague, in the fortieth year of his age. His body was buried in Tiberias. The two greatest modern Hebrew poets, Luzzatto and Jehuda Halevi, were to rest in Hebrew soil. Even the tongues of the slanderous Jews of Palestine, to whom Luzzatto, with his peculiarities, must have seemed an enigma, could only speak well of him after his death. Nevertheless he sowed bad seed. His Italian followers reintroduced the Kabbala into Italy. His Polish disciple, Yekutiel of Wilna, whose buffooneries had first got him into trouble, is said to have led an adventurer's life in Poland and Holland, playing scandalous tricks under the mask of mysticism. Another Pole, Elijah Olianow, who belonged to Luzzatto's following, and proclaimed him as Messiah and himself as his Elijah, did not enjoy the best of reputations. This man took part in the disgraceful disorders which broke out in Altona after Luzzatto's death, and which, again stirring up the Sabbatian mire, divided the Jews of Europe into two hostile camps.
The foul pool which for centuries, since the prohibition of free inquiry and the triumph of its enemy the Kabbala, had been in process of formation in Judaism was, with perverse stupidity, being continually stirred up, defiling the pure and the impure. The irrational excitement roused by the vain, false Messiah of Smyrna was not suppressed by the proscription of Chayon and the Polish Sabbatians, but showed a still more ill-favored aspect, forcing its way into circles hitherto closed against it. The rabbis, occupied with the practical and dialectical interpretation of the Talmud, had hitherto refused admission to the Kabbala on equal terms, and only here and there had surreptitiously introduced something from it. They had opposed the Sabbatian heresy, and pronounced an anathema against it. But one influential rabbi espoused its cause, invested it with importance, and so precipitated a conflict which undermined discipline and order, and blunted still more the sense of dignity and self-respect, of truth and rectitude. The occasion of the conflict was the petty jealousy of two rabbis. Its true origin lay deeper, in intellectual perversity and the secret dislike on the one hand to the excess of ritualistic observances, and on the other to the extravagances of the Kabbala. The authors of this far-reaching schism--two Polish rabbis of Altona--each unconsciously had taken a step across the threshold of orthodoxy. Diametrically opposed to each other in faculties and temperament, they were suited by their characters to be pitted against each other. Both Jonathan Eibeschütz and Jacob Emden had taken part in the foregoing conflicts, and eventually gave these quarrels a more extended influence.
Jonathan Eibeschütz, or Eibeschützer (born at Cracow 1690, died 1764), was descended from a Polish family of Kabbalists. His father, Nathan Nata, was for a short time rabbi of the small Moravian town of Eibenschitz, from which his son derived his surname. Endowed with a remarkably acute intellect and a retentive memory, the youthful Jonathan, early left an orphan, received the irregular education, or rather bewildering instruction of the age, which supplied him with only two subjects on which to exercise his brains--the far-reaching sphere of the Talmud, with its labyrinthine mazes, and the ensnaring Kabbala, with its shallows full of hidden rocks. The one offered abundant food for his hungry reason, the other for his ill-regulated fancy. With his hair-splitting ingenuity he might have made an adroit, pettifogging attorney, qualified to make out a brilliant and successful justification for the worst case; or, had he had access to the higher mathematics of Newton and Leibnitz, he might have accomplished much in this field as a discoverer. Eibeschütz had some taste for branches of learning beyond the sphere of the Talmud, and also a certain vanity that made him desire to excel in them; but this he could not satisfy. The perverted spirit of the Polish and German Jews of the time closed to every aspiring youth the gates of the sciences based on truth and keen observation, and drove him into the mazes of Rabbinical and Talmudic literature. From lack of more wholesome food for his active intellect, young Eibeschütz filled his brain with pernicious matter, and want of method forced him into the crooked paths of sophistry. He imagined indeed, or wished it to be supposed, that he had acquired every variety of knowledge, but his writings on subjects not connected with the Talmud, so far as it is possible to judge of them, his sermons, his Kabbalistic compositions, and a mass of occasional papers, reveal nothing that can be described as wisdom or solid learning. Eibeschütz was not even familiar with the Jewish philosophers who wrote in Hebrew; he was at home only in the Talmud. This he could manipulate like soft clay, give it any form he desired, and he could unravel the most intricately entangled skeins. He surpassed all his contemporaries and predecessors not only in his knowledge of the Talmud, but also in ready wit.
But Eibeschütz did not derive complete satisfaction from his scholarship; it only served to sharpen his wits, afford him amusement, and dazzle others. His restless nature and fiery temperament could not content themselves with this, but aspired to a higher goal. This goal, however, was unknown even to himself, or was only dimly shadowed before his mind. Hence his life and conduct appear enigmatical and full of contradictions. Had he lived in the age of the struggle for reform, for the loosening of the bands of authority, he would have been among the assailants, and would have employed his Talmudical learning and aggressive wit as levers to upheave the edifice of Rabbinical Judaism, and oppose the Talmud with the weapons it had supplied. For he was easy-going, and disliked the gloomy piety of the German and Polish Jews; and though impressed by it, he lacked fervor to yield to its influence. He therefore found mysticism as interpreted by the followers of Sabbataï very comforting: the Law was to be abolished by the commencement of the Messianic era, or the spirit of the Kabbala demanded no over-scrupulousness with regard to trifles. Nehemiah Chayon appears to have made a great impression on young Eibeschütz in Prague or Hamburg. With the Sabbatian Löbele Prosnitz, he was in constant, though secret intercourse. He studied thoroughly the works of Abraham Michael Cardoso, though they had been publicly condemned and branded as heretical. Eibeschütz had adopted the blasphemous tenets of these and other Sabbatians--namely, that there is no relation of any kind between the Most High God, the First Cause, and the Universe, but that a second person in the Godhead, the God of Israel, the image and prototype of the former, created the world, gave the Law, chose Israel, in short governs the Finite. He appears to have embraced also the conclusions deduced from this heretical theory, that Sabbataï Zevi was the true Messiah, that the second person of the Godhead was incorporated in him, and that by his appearance the Torah had ceased to have any importance.
But Eibeschütz had not sufficient strength of character or determination to act in conformity with his convictions. It would have been contrary to his nature to break openly with Rabbinical Judaism, and by proclaiming himself an anti-Talmudist, as had been done by several Sabbatians, to wage war against the whole of Judaism. He was too practical and loved ease too well to expose himself to the disagreeable consequences of such a rupture. Should he, like Chayon, wander forth a fugitive through Asia and Europe, and back again? Besides, he loved the Talmud and Rabbinical literature as food for his wit, and could not do without them. The contradictions in his career and the disorders which he originated may be traced to want of harmony between his intellect and his temperament. Rabbinical Judaism did not altogether suit him, but the sources from which it was derived were indispensable to him, and had they not been in existence he would have created them. Fettered by this contradiction he deceived not only the world, but also himself; he could not arrive at any clear understanding with himself, and was a hypocrite without intending it.
At one-and-twenty Eibeschütz directed a school in Prague, and a band of subtlety-loving Talmud students gathered round him, hung on his lips, and admired his stimulating method, and playful way of dealing with difficulties. He captivated and inspired his pupils by his genial, one might almost say student-like, manners, by his sparkling wit, and scintillating sallies, not always within the bounds of propriety. His manner towards his pupils was altogether different from that of rabbis of the ordinary type. He did not slink along gloomily, like a penitent, and with bowed head, and he imposed no such restraints on them, but allowed them great freedom. Social life and lively, interesting conversation were necessities to him. For these reasons the number of Eibeschütz's disciples yearly increased, and counted by thousands. At thirty he was regarded not alone in Prague, but far and wide as an authority.
It has been stated that the council of rabbis of Frankfort-on-the-Main had clear proofs of Eibeschütz's connection with Löbele Prosnitz and the Podolian Sabbatians. Only his extensive influence and the great number of his disciples protected him from being included in the sentence of excommunication pronounced against the others. He had the hardihood to meet the suspicions against himself by excommunicating the Sabbatians (1725). Moses Chages, the man without "respect of persons," the "watchman of Zion" of that age, predicted that forbearance would prove hurtful. In fact, Eibeschütz was at that time deeply committed to the Sabbatian heresies, confessed the fact to Meïr Eisenstadt, the teacher of his youth, who knew his erring ways, and, apparently ashamed and repentant, promised amendment. Thanks to this clemency Eibeschütz maintained his reputation, increased by his erudition, his ever-growing body of disciples, and his activity. The suspicion of heresy was by degrees forgotten, and the community of Prague, in recognition of his merits, appointed him preacher (1728).
In another matter Eibeschütz left the beaten path, and placed himself in a somewhat ambiguous light. Either from vanity or calculation, he entered into intimate relations with the Jesuits in Prague. He carried on discussions with them, displaying a certain sort of liberality, as though he did not share the prejudices of the Jews. He associated, for instance, with that spiritual tyrant, Hasselbauer, the Jesuit bishop of Prague, who frequently made domiciliary visits among Jews, to search for and confiscate Hebrew books that had escaped the vigilance of the censor. Through this intimacy Eibeschütz obtained from the bishop the privilege to print the Talmud, so often proscribed by the Church of Rome. Did he act thus from self-interest, with the view of compelling the Bohemian Jews to use only copies of the Talmud printed by him, and in this way create a remunerative business, the profits to be shared with the Jesuits? This was most positively asserted in many Jewish circles. Eibeschütz obtained permission to print from the episcopal board of censors, on condition that every expression, every word in the Talmud which, in howsoever small a degree, appeared to be antagonistic to Christianity be expunged. He was willing to perpetrate this process of mutilation (1728-1739). Such obsequious pliability to the Jesuits excited the displeasure of many Jews. The community of Frankfort-on-the-Main spent a considerable sum--Moses Chages and perhaps David Oppenheim being at the bottom of the movement--in their efforts to obtain from the emperor a prohibition against the publication of the Prague edition. Eibeschütz, on the other hand, used his connection with Christian circles to avert perils impending over the Bohemian Jews.
Eibeschütz's early heretical leanings were not absolutely forgotten. When the post of rabbi at Metz became vacant, he applied for it. When the council were occupied with the election, the gray-haired widow of the late rabbi appeared at the meeting, and warned them not to insult the memory of her dead husband and the pious rabbis who had preceded him, by appointing a heretic, perhaps worse (a Mumar), their successor. This solemn admonition from the venerable matron who was related to the wife of Eibeschütz so impressed the council that his election fell through. Jacob Joshua Falk was appointed at Metz. He remained there only a few years, and, on his removal to Frankfort-on-the-Main, Eibeschütz was chosen in his place. Before he entered on his duties, the Austrian War of Succession broke out, a struggle between youthful, aspiring Prussia, under Frederick the Great, and decrepit Austria, under Maria Theresa. A French army, in conjunction with Prussia and the anti-emperor Charles VII, occupied Prague. The systematically brutalized population of Bohemia and Moravia conceived the false notion that the Jews were treacherously taking part with the enemy. It was said that Frederick the Great, the Protestant heretic, was an especial patron of the Jews. In Moravia, whither the Prussians had not yet penetrated, occurred passionate outbursts of fury against the Jews. An Austrian field-marshal in Moravia, under the delusion of the Jews' treachery, issued a decree that the communities, within six days, should "pay down in cash 50,000 Rhenish gulden at Brünn, failing which, they would all be delivered over to pillage and the sword." Through the devoted exertions of Baron de Aguilar and the wealthy rabbi, Issachar Berush Eskeles--two members of the Vienna community--this decree was revoked by the empress, Maria Theresa (March 21). These men had another opportunity to avert a crushing disaster from their brethren.
Jonathan Eibeschütz, having been appointed rabbi of Metz, either from self-conceit or in order to secure for himself the post of rabbi in French Lorraine, imprudently fraternized with the French soldiery who occupied the town. He obtained from the French commandant a safe-conduct enabling him to travel unmolested to France, and thereby aroused in the Bohemian population the suspicion that he had a treasonable understanding with the enemy. After the departure of the French (end of 1742), the Austrian authorities held an inquiry into his conduct; and all his property, which had not been seized by the Croats, was sequestered. Eventually all the Moravian and Bohemian Jews were suspected of treason. The most Catholic empress, who was at once good-natured and hard-hearted, published a decree, December 18, 1744, for Bohemia, January 2, 1745, for Moravia, that all Jews in these royal provinces should, "for several important reasons," within a brief period be banished; and that Jews found in these crown lands after the expiration of this period should be "removed by force of arms." Terrible severity was shown in enforcing this decree. The Jews of Prague, more than 20,630 souls, were obliged in the depth of winter hurriedly to leave the town and suffer in the villages; and the royal cities were forbidden to harbor them even temporarily. The position of the Bohemian and Moravian Jews was pitiable. Whither should they turn? In the eighteenth century Jews were not in request or made welcome on account of their wealth as they had been before. As though Eibeschütz felt himself in a measure to blame for their misfortunes, he took trouble to obtain relief for them. He preached on their behalf in Metz, addressed letters to the communities in the south of France, Bayonne and Bordeaux, asking for aid, and wrote to the Roman community begging them to intercede with the pope on behalf of their unhappy brethren. It was all of but little avail. More efficacious appears to have been the intercession of De Aguilar, Berush Eskeles, and other Jews connected with the court of Vienna. The clergy, too, spoke on their behalf, and the ambassadors of Holland and England interceded warmly and urgently for them. The empress revoked her severe decree, and permitted the Jews in both the royal provinces to remain for an indefinite time (May 15, 1745). In the case of the Prague community alone, which was chiefly under suspicion, the strictness of the decree was not relaxed. Not till some years later, in consequence of a declaration by the states of the empire "that their departure would entail a loss of many millions" was the residence of all Jews prolonged to ten years, but under degrading conditions. They were to be diminished rather than be permitted to increase, their exact number being fixed. Only the eldest son was permitted to found a family. Some 20,000 "Familianten," as they were called, were allowed in Bohemia and 5,100 in Moravia, who were obliged to pay annually to the imperial treasury a sum of about 200,000 gulden. These restrictions were maintained almost up to the Revolution of 1848. Jonathan Eibeschütz rightly or wrongly was declared a traitor to his country, and forbidden ever to set foot on Austrian soil.
If, during the first years passed in Metz, he was so popular that the community would not allow him to accept the post of rabbi at Fürth, offered to him, he must have made himself disagreeable later on, as during his difficulties, he could not find supporters there, nor any witnesses to his innocence. If he committed only a small portion of the mean actions with which he was reproached, his life must have presented a striking contrast to the sermons which he composed. Eibeschütz did not feel at home in Metz; he missed the bustling, argumentative band of young admirers, and the wide platform on which to display his Talmudical erudition. In France there were fewer students of the Talmud. It was therefore pardonable that he strenuously exerted himself to obtain the post of rabbi of the "three communities" (Hamburg, Altona, and Wandsbeck). Thanks to the efforts of his connections and admirers, and his fame as the most distinguished of Talmudists and miracle workers, the choice fell on him. As the Jews of the three towns had their own civil jurisdiction, based on Rabbinical law, they required an acute rabbi, a lawyer, and they could not, from this point of view, have made a better selection.
But an evil spirit seems to have entered Altona with his instalment, which threw into disorder not only the three communities, but also the whole of German and Polish Judaism. Eibeschütz, though not free from blame, must not alone be made answerable. The tendency of the age was culpable, and Jacob Emden, an unattached rabbi, was more especially the prime mover in the strife. He desired to unmask hypocrisy, and in doing so laid bare the nakedness of his Jewish contemporaries.
Jacob Emden Ashkenazi (abbreviated to Jabez; born 1698, died 1776) resembled his father Chacham Zevi, as a branch its parent stem; or rather he made the father whom he admired extravagantly his model in everything. The perverted spirit of the age prevented his following his natural bent and inspirations. A true son of the Talmud, he seriously believed that a Jew ought to occupy himself with other branches of knowledge only during "the hour of twilight," and considered it unlawful to read newspapers on the Sabbath. He, too, was well versed in the Talmud, and set a high value on the Kabbala and the Zohar, of the dangerous extravagances of which he at first knew nothing. Philosophy, although he possessed no knowledge of it, was an abomination to him. In his perverseness he maintained it to be impossible that the philosophical work, "The Guide," could have been composed by the orthodox rabbi, Maimuni. In character he was just, truth-loving, and staunch, herein forming a sharp contrast to Jonathan Eibeschütz. Whatever he considered as truth or false, he did not hesitate forthwith to defend or condemn with incisive acuteness; it was contrary to his nature to conceal, dissimulate, hide his opinions, or play the hypocrite. He differed from Eibeschütz in another respect. The latter was agreeable, pliant, careless, cheerful, and sociable; Emden, on the contrary, was unsociable, unbending, earnest, melancholy, and a lover of solitude. Well-to-do, and maintaining himself by his business, Emden was always disinclined to undertake the office of a rabbi. He was too well aware of his own craving for independence, his awkwardness, and impetuosity. Only once was he induced to accept the office of rabbi, in Emden (from which he derived his surname); but he relinquished it after a few years on account of his dislike to the work and from ill-health, and settled in Altona. He obtained from the king of Denmark the privilege of establishing a printing-press; built a house with a private synagogue, and, with his family and a few friends, formed a community within the community. He indeed visited the exchange, but he lived enwrapped in a dreamworld of his own.
Emden was on the list of candidates for the appointment of rabbi to the "three communities." His few friends worked for him, and urged him to exert himself to try and obtain the post. He, however, resisted all their solicitations, and declared decidedly, that he would not accept the election even if the choice fell on him, but he was none the less aggrieved that he obtained only a few votes, and entertained an unfriendly feeling towards Eibeschütz, because he was preferred. There was another peculiarity in Emden's character: his antipathy to heretics. His father Chacham Zevi had undauntedly pursued Nehemiah Chayon and the other Sabbatians, and had brought himself into painful positions by so doing. Emden desired nothing more ardently than to follow his father, and would not have shunned martyrdom in the cause. Since the return of Moses Chages to Palestine, he considered himself the watchman on behalf of orthodoxy among his fellow-believers. He was a Jewish grand inquisitor, and was in readiness to hurl the thunders of excommunication whenever heresy, particularly the Sabbatian, should show itself. The opportunity of exercising his unpaid office of inquisitor, of proving his zeal for orthodoxy, and even of suffering in its behalf, was granted him by Jonathan Eibeschütz.
At the time when Eibeschütz entered on his duties as rabbi a painful agitation was prevalent among the Jews of the "three communities." Within the year several young women had died in childbirth. Every wife in expectation of becoming a mother awaited the approaching hour with increasing anxiety. The coming of the new rabbi, who should drive away the destroying angel by whom young women had been selected as victims, was awaited with eager longing. At that time a rabbi was regarded as a protector against every species of evil (Megîn), a sort of magician, and the wives of Hamburg and Altona expected still greater things from Jonathan Eibeschütz, who had been heralded by his admirers as the most gifted of rabbis and a worker of miracles. How would he respond to these exaggerated expectations? Even if he had been honest, Eibeschütz would have been forced to resort to some mystification to assert his authority in his new office. Therefore, immediately after his arrival, he prepared talismans--writings for exorcising spirits (Cameos, Kameoth)--for the terrified women, and indulged in other forms of magic to impose upon the credulous. He had distributed similar amulets in Metz, Frankfort-on-the-Main, and other places. From Frankfort a rumor had reached Altona that the talismans of Eibeschütz were of an altogether different nature to what they usually were, and that they were heretical in character. Out of curiosity one of the amulets distributed by the chief rabbi Jonathan Eibeschütz, was opened in Altona, and was found to contain the following invocation:
"O God of Israel, Thou who dwellest in the adornment of Thy might [a Kabbalistic allusion], send through the merit of Thy servant Sabbataï Zevi healing for this woman, whereby Thy name and the name of Thy Messiah, Sabbataï Zevi, may be sanctified in the world."
It is hard to tell which is more surprising--Eibeschütz's stupid belief in and attachment to the impostor of Smyrna, who had apostatized from Judaism, or his imprudence in thus exposing himself. He had indeed altered the words a little, and put certain letters to represent others; but he must have known that the key to his riddle was easy to find. These attempts at deception naturally did not remain a secret. The amulets came into the hands of Emden, who no longer entertained a doubt that Eibeschütz still adhered to the Sabbatian heresy. Though he rejoiced greatly at having found an opportunity to exercise his office of inquisitor, he in a measure recoiled from the consequences of doing so. Was it wise to begin a contest with a man who had an extensive reputation as the most learned Talmudist of his day, as an orthodox rabbi, whose numerous disciples--over 20,000 it was said--were rabbis, officials of communities, and holders of influential posts, who clung to him with admiration, and were ready to form a phalanx round him and exert all their energies in his defense? On the other hand, the matter could not be suppressed, it having been discussed in the Jews' quarter and on exchange. The elders felt obliged to interrogate Eibeschütz on the matter, and he replied by a pitiful evasion. The council, whether believing Eibeschütz or not, was bound to lend him a helping hand in burying the matter. What a disgrace for the highly respected "three communities," which a quarter of a century earlier had condemned and branded the Sabbatians as heretics, that they themselves should have chosen a Sabbatian as their chief rabbi! Jacob Emden, from whose zeal the worst was to be dreaded, was partially beguiled by flatteries, partially intimidated by threats, to refrain from publishing the affair. But these threats against him necessarily led to publicity. Emden solemnly declared in his synagogue that he held the writer of the amulets to be a Sabbatian heretic who deserved to be excommunicated, that he did not charge the chief rabbi with their composition, but that the latter was in duty bound to clear himself from suspicion. This declaration caused a deep sensation in the "three communities," and aroused vehement animosity. The council, and the greater part of the community, regarded it as a gross piece of presumption and as an encroachment upon their jurisdiction. The friends of Eibeschütz, especially his disciples, fanned the flame. Religious hero-worship was so prevalent that some did not hesitate to declare that if their rabbi believed in Sabbataï Zevi, they would share his belief. Without putting Emden on trial the council arbitrarily decreed that no one, under pain of excommunication, should attend his synagogue, which was to be closed, and that he should not publish anything at his printing establishment. And now began a struggle which at first produced abundant evil, but which in the end had a purifying effect. Jonathan Eibeschütz published the affair far and wide among his numerous friends and disciples in Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland, and painted himself as an innocent man unjustly accused, and Jacob Emden as an audacious fellow who had the presumption to brand him as a heretic. He was hurried along from one untruth to another, from violence to violence; but he nevertheless had many partisans to support him. Jacob Emden on the contrary stood well-nigh alone, for the few who adhered to him had not the courage to come forward openly. He however informed his friends, Eibeschütz's enemies, on the same day of what had occurred. The foolish affair of the amulets thus acquired a notoriety which it was impossible to check. Every Jew capable of forming an opinion on the subject took one side or the other; the majority adhered to Eibeschütz. Many indeed could not conceive it possible that so distinguished a Talmudist could be a Sabbatian, and the accusation against him was accounted base slander on the part of the irascible and malignant Emden. Great ignorance prevailed with regard to the character and history of the Sabbatians (or Shäbs, as they were termed), for a quarter of a century had passed since they had been everywhere excommunicated. Public opinion was therefore at first in Eibeschütz's favor.
Eibeschütz thoroughly understood how to win over opponents to his side, and to soothe them with illusions. He convened a meeting in the synagogue, and took a solemn oath that he did not adhere to a single article of the Sabbatian creed; if he did, might fire and brimstone descend on him from heaven! He went on to anathematize this sect with all kinds of maledictions, and excommunicated his adversaries who had slandered him, and originated these elements of strife. This solemn declaration made a deep impression. Who could doubt the innocence of a rabbi of such high standing when he called God to witness respecting it? The council of the "three communities" considered itself fully justified in ordering Emden, as a common slanderer, to leave Altona. As he refused, and referred to the charter granted him by the king, he was cut off from all intercourse with others, pursued by intrigues, and relentlessly persecuted. This treatment only aroused Emden to more strenuous efforts. Letters had meantime been sent from Metz with other amulets (1751), which Eibeschütz had distributed there, and the genuineness of which he had himself admitted, clearly demonstrating that he revered Sabbataï Zevi as the Messiah and saviour. The Metz amulets were in the main of the same character:--
"In the name of the God of Israel ... of the God of his anointed Sabbataï Zevi, through whose wounds healing is come to us, who with the breath of His mouth slays the Evil One, I adjure all spirits and demons not to injure the bearer of this amulet."
A judicial examination of these amulets had been made by the council of rabbis and elders; and all who had any in their possession were commanded to deliver them up under pain of excommunication. A royal procurator confirmed their authenticity; that is to say, they were proved by the evidence of witnesses under oath to be the work of Eibeschütz; who did not find one person of note in Metz to maintain his honor. It was some small satisfaction to Jacob Emden to know that he did not stand alone in his conflict; but concurrence in his views did not profit him much. The members of the "three communities," with the exception of a small minority, adhered to Eibeschütz, and made his cause their own. It was forbidden to speak a slanderous word against the chief rabbi. Elsewhere his enemies made plans--he received notice from all quarters as to what was designed against him--but there was no definite scheme. His disciples, on the other hand, were extraordinarily zealous in his behalf. One of these, Chayim of Lublin, had the courage, in glorification of Eibeschütz and in defamation of his opponents, to excommunicate three of the latter in his synagogue, Jacob Emden, Nehemiah Reischer, and an elder in Metz, Moses Mayo, because they had dared slander "that most perfect man, Jonathan, in whom God glorified Himself." This decree of excommunication was distributed throughout Poland for observance and imitation. The remaining Polish rabbis agreed with it, either being supporters of Eibeschütz, or having been bribed, or being indifferent in the matter. By way of Königsberg and Breslau, for example, large sums were sent to Poland to commend the case of Eibeschütz to the rabbis of that country. Matters did not stop at excommunications and anathemas; in Altona (Iyar 25=May) they culminated in a riot. A hand-to-hand fight took place, and the police had to be called in. In consequence, Jacob Emden, believing his life to be endangered through the fury of Eibeschütz's partisans, fled to Amsterdam on the next day, and was kindly received there. Emden's wife was ordered by the council not to part with any of his property, as an action for damages would be brought against him.
Eibeschütz was acute enough to perceive that the residence of Jacob Emden in Amsterdam might prove dangerous, as he would have full scope, by means of his trenchant pen, to expose the rabbi's past history through the press. To counteract this, Eibeschütz issued to his followers in Germany, Poland, and Italy, an encyclical (Letter of Zeal, Sivan 3, 1751), in which, under the guise of an exhortation to bear testimony to his orthodoxy, he besought them to make his cause their own. He urged them to prosecute his adversary with all their energy and by every possible means: it would be set to their account as a special merit by the Almighty. It greatly resembled the command of a popular general to thousands of his soldiers to attack, and pitilessly ill-treat defenseless men. To complete the delusion, he induced two men, devotedly attached to mysticism, but not to truth--Elijah Olianow and Samuel Essingen--to declare that his amulets contained nothing dangerous or heretical, but a great deal of deep orthodox mysticism intelligible only to the few.
Eibeschütz had not yet just grounds for rejoicing. The excess of insolence of the newly-fledged rabbi of Lublin in excommunicating gray-haired rabbis aroused the leading men in the communities. A cry of horror resounded from Lorraine to Podolia at this arrogance, justly suspected to be due to the instigation of Eibeschütz. Three rabbis at length combined, Joshua Falk, Leb Heschels, and Heilmann, and others joined them. Eibeschütz was challenged to exculpate himself before a meeting of rabbis regarding the amulets ascribed to him, which undeniably were heretical. As was to be anticipated, Eibeschütz declined to justify himself in any way, and the confederates took council as to what further steps to take against him. The scandal continued to increase. The newspapers reported the quarrel amongst the Jews regarding the rabbi of Altona. Christians naturally could not comprehend the nature of the dispute. It was said that a vehement controversy had arisen amongst the Jews as to whether the Messiah had or had not already appeared. The Jews were derided, because they preferred to believe in the impostor Sabbataï Zevi, rather than in Jesus. This reacted on the Jews, and the two parties imputed to each other the offense of this scandal, this "profanation of God's name." An energetic man, Baruch Yavan, of Poland, transferred the schism to that country. He was a disciple of Falk, agent to the notorious Saxon minister Brühl, and enjoyed considerable reputation in Poland. Through his intrigues, a Polish magnate deprived Chayim Lublin of his office as rabbi, and ordered him and his father to be thrown into prison (Elul=September, 1751). In Poland the controversy assumed an ugly character--bribery, information through spies, acts of violence, and treachery being among its leading features. Seceders from each party betrayed the secrets of one to the other. Every fair and every synod were battlefields, where the partisans of Eibeschütz and Falk contended. The proceedings at the synods were more disorderly than those in the Polish Reichstag. When the defenders of either side proved more numerous or more energetic, the weaker party was excommunicated. The supporters of Eibeschütz were in the main more active. Count Brühl made them as many empty promises of protection, as he bestowed on their opponents through Baruch Yavan.
In Germany, naturally, matters were conducted with more moderation. The triumvirate of rabbis published a decision to the effect that the writer of the Sabbatian amulets should be cut off from communion with Israel. Every devout Jew lay under obligation to persecute him to the utmost of his power. No one might study the Talmud under his guidance. All who supported his cause were to be excommunicated. No mention was made of Eibeschütz's name. Many German rabbis concurred in this moderate decision, as also the Venetian rabbis who had excommunicated Luzzatto. The resolution was delivered to Eibeschütz and the council of the "three communities" (February, 1752), and notice was given to Eibeschütz that within two months he must clear himself before a rabbinical court of arbitration of the suspicion that he was the author of heretical amulets, failing which his name would be publicly stigmatized. This sentence of excommunication was to be printed by the Venetian council of rabbis, and published throughout the East and Africa. But Eibeschütz understood how to meet this blow craftily. The Italian rabbis were, for the most part, reluctant to burn their fingers in this violent quarrel, and declined to participate in any way. The council of rabbis at Leghorn, especially Malachi Cohen, the last of the Italian rabbinical authorities, inclined towards the side of Eibeschütz. The Portuguese in Amsterdam and London designedly kept themselves aloof from this domestic squabble among the Germans and Poles. One broker of Amsterdam, David Pinto, alone espoused Eibeschütz's cause, and threatened Emden with his anger if he continued his hostility. The council of rabbis in Constantinople, dazzled by Eibeschütz's illustrious name, or in some way deceived, declared decidedly for him, but would not pronounce a direct sentence of excommunication against his antagonists. What they neglected was done by a so-called envoy from Jerusalem, Abraham Israel, a presumptuous mendicant, who as a representative of the Holy Land and the Jewish nation, imprecated and anathematized all who should utter a slanderous word against Eibeschütz. Thus almost the whole of Israel was excommunicated; on the one side those who showed enmity towards the illustrious chief rabbi of the "three communities," and on the other those who supported that heretic. Thus the effects of excommunication were nullified, or rather it became ridiculous, and with it a phase of rabbinical Judaism disappeared.
A new turn was given this disagreeable controversy when it was transferred from its home to the law courts of the Christians. The fanaticism of Eibeschütz's followers was more to blame than the conduct of their opponents. One of the elders of Altona, who had so far remained true to the cause of the persecutors, in a letter to his brother showed himself somewhat doubtful of its justice. This letter was opened by the followers of Eibeschütz, and the writer was set down as a traitor, expelled from the council, ill-treated, and threatened with banishment from Altona. There remained no alternative for him but to address himself to the government of Holstein, to the king of Denmark, Frederick V, and unsparingly expose all the illegalities, meannesses, and violence of which Eibeschütz and his party had been guilty. The injustice of the council towards Jacob Emden and his wife was discussed in connection with the affair. An authenticated copy of the suspected amulets was translated into German. The trial was conducted with extreme bitterness; both parties spared no expense. The plaintiff and his faction in their anger did not confine themselves to necessary statements, but treacherously stigmatized as a crime much that was of an innocent nature. King Frederick, who loved justice, and his minister Bernstorff, gave judgment against the followers of Eibeschütz (June 3, 1752). The council of Altona was severely censured for its illegal and harsh treatment of Jacob Emden, and punished with a fine of 100 thalers. Emden was not only permitted to return to Altona, but the use of his synagogue and his printing establishment was restored. Eibeschütz was deprived of authority as rabbi of the Hamburg community, and ordered to clear himself with regard to the incriminating amulets, and to answer fifteen questions propounded to him. Events thus took an unfortunate turn for him. Even the well-intentioned letter of a partisan sent from Poland served to show how desperate his case was. Ezekiel Landau (born 1720, died 1793) as a young man had aroused hopes that he would become a second Jonathan Eibeschütz in rabbinical learning and sagacity. His opinion as rabbi of Jampol (Podolia) carried great weight. Landau wrote with youthful simplicity and straightforwardness to Eibeschütz that the amulets which he had seen were without doubt Sabbatian and heretical. He, therefore, could not believe that the honored and devout rabbi of Altona had written them. For that reason he was as much in favor of condemning the amulets, as of upholding Jonathan Eibeschütz and declaring war against his adversaries. He entreated Eibeschütz to condemn the amulets as heretical, and when occasion offered clear himself from the accusation that he was the author of the slanderous writings, full of unworthy expressions about God, and to condemn them leaf by leaf. This was a severe blow from the hand of a friend. As Eibeschütz had acknowledged the amulets to be genuine, and had only sophistically explained away their heresy, he was now in evil case. A follower of Emden's in addition published the correspondence and decisions of Eibeschütz's enemies, which stigmatized his conduct, together with an account of the amulets and their true interpretation ("The Language of Truth," printed August, 1752). Emden himself published the history of the false Messiah, Sabbataï Zevi, and the visionaries and knaves who had succeeded him, down to Chayon and Luzzatto, vividly describing the errors and disorderly excesses of the Sabbatians for his own generation, which was careless with regard to historical events, and had but scanty, confused knowledge on the subject. Thus it was made clear to many that the Sabbatian heresy aimed at nothing less than the dethronement of the God of Israel in favor of a phantom, and the dissolution of Judaism by means of Kabbalistic chimeras. But the worst that befell Eibeschütz was that Emden himself returned unmolested to Altona, and had the prospect of being indemnified for his losses.
The danger in which Eibeschütz found himself of being unmasked as a heretic in the courts of law, and before the eyes of the world, determined him to a step which a rabbi of the old stamp of honest piety, even under peril of death, would not have taken. He associated himself with an apostate baptized Jew, formerly his pupil, in order to obtain assistance from him in his difficulties. Moses Gerson Cohen, of Mitau, who, on his mother's side, was descended from Chayim Vital Calabrese, had studied the Talmud under Eibeschütz in Prague for seven years, then traveled in the East, and, after his return to Europe, had been baptized in Wolfenbüttel under the name Charles Anton. He was appointed by his patron, the duke of Brunswick, Reader in Hebrew in Helmstädt. It was afterwards proved that this convert had become a Christian solely from self-interest.
To him the chief rabbi of the "three communities" secretly repaired in order to induce him to compose a vindication, or rather a panegyric, of his conduct. It is evident on the face of it, even at the present day, that the work was written "to order," and it transpired that Eibeschütz had dictated it to Charles Anton. He is extolled as the most sagacious and upright Jew of his time, as a man versed in philosophy, history, and mathematics, and as a persecuted victim. Jacob Emden, on the other hand, is represented as an incompetent, envious fellow. Anton dedicated this work to the king of Denmark, and commended to him the case of the alleged innocent and persecuted man. This work, with another cunningly chosen expedient, had favorable results for Eibeschütz. He had screened himself not only behind a baptized Jew, but behind a princess. King Frederick V had married, as his second wife, a princess of Brunswick, Maria Juliana, and a Jewish agent--a partisan of Eibeschütz--did business at the court of Brunswick. The latter made the most of his direct and indirect influence with the young Danish princess, and said a good word to her on behalf of the chief rabbi under accusation of heresy. With the comment that the majority of rabbis except some litigious, malevolent individuals sided with Eibeschütz--proof of the justice of his cause--the court suppressed the amulet case. A royal decree, forbidding the continuation of this controversy, was read aloud in the Altona synagogue (February 7, 1753). At the suggestion of the government the vote of the community with regard to Eibeschütz was again taken, and resulted in his favor. He then took the oath of fealty to the king, and his position was more assured than ever. His sagacity had a second time gained the day, but his success was only transitory. The number of his enemies had materially increased even in Altona through the far-reaching dissensions and the better knowledge of his character gleaned little by little. His adversaries did not allow themselves to be silenced by the king's arbitrary decision without making another effort; and the rabbinical triumvirate urged them to petition for a revision of the heresy proceedings against Eibeschütz, and try to convince the king that the assertion that the majority of the rabbis were his partisans was entirely false, that, on the contrary, he was supported only by his relatives and disciples. The three rabbis and the rabbi of Hanover laid before the council a demand to consider Eibeschütz as excommunicated, and forbid him to exercise any rabbinical function until he repented of his heresy, and promised amendment. Hostile writings by Emden and others fed the fire of dissension; they were written in vehement, pitiless language and were full of petty gossip. To calm the public wrath, the Altona council with great difficulty induced Eibeschütz to make a binding declaration that he was prepared of his own free-will to justify himself before an impartial rabbinical court of arbitration, and submit to its decision (beginning of 1753). This only inflamed the strife. Eibeschütz proposed as his judges two rabbis, of Lissa and Glogau, men but little known, who were to add a third to their number. But the opposite party insisted that the court be composed of Joshua Falk and his colleagues. This angered Eibeschütz, who lost the calmness of mind he had hitherto maintained. At one time he desired to submit his cause to the rabbis of Constantinople, at another he proposed the Synod of the Four Polish Countries, to meet in Jaroslav late in the summer of 1753. He appears to have reckoned on obtaining a favorable sentence from this assemblage of many rabbis and influential persons. Relying on this, he believed that he could easily free himself from the compact forced upon him, of submitting to arbitration. He is said to have managed this by giving information at court that the royal prerogative had been encroached upon by this proposed appeal from the judgment of the sovereign to that of the rabbis. Both parties were therefore fined by the magistrates. This only increased his enemies, and several of his warmest supporters, former members of the communal council, renounced him, and proclaimed him, not only a heretic, but an intriguer. These opponents complained once more to the king with regard to the prevalent dissensions in the community, of which he was the cause. They could not, they said, obtain impartial judgment from him in their lawsuits, because he allowed himself to be guided in his decisions by spite and passion. The justice-loving king gave these complaints his attention. He desired to arrive at a definite conclusion with regard to the case, whether Eibeschütz was an arch-heretic, as his opponents maintained, or a persecuted innocent, as he described himself.
With this in view the king ordered certain Christian professors and theologians versed in Hebrew, to give him their opinion with regard to the amulets. Eibeschütz felt uneasy at the turn affairs had taken; he feared that the matter might prove disastrous to him. To place himself in a favorable light he resolved on a course which he had hitherto hesitated to adopt--to dispose public opinion in his favor through the press. As things then stood, there was no other course open to him, and he therefore composed a defense--"The Tables of Testimony," completed Tammuz 18, end of June, 1755, the first production of his pen. As might have been expected from a man of his ability, it is skillfully worked out; and he places his case in a favorable light. But Eibeschütz was unable to convince either his impartial contemporaries or posterity of his innocence. On the contrary, his vindication, and much of the evidence adduced, clearly betray his guilt. Emden and his disciple David Gans did not fail to publish refutations, drawing attention to weak points, and throwing doubt on the testimony in favor of Eibeschütz.
A publication by a professor and pastor, David Frederick Megerlin, early in 1756, made a fresh diversion, apparently in Eibeschütz's favor, with respect to this vexed question. This confused babbler and proselytizer, induced by the order of the Danish king to pronounce an opinion upon the matter, imagined that he had discovered the key to the enigmatical amulets of Eibeschütz, the disputed characters which his opponents explained as referring to Sabbataï Zevi being nothing less than a mystic allusion to Jesus Christ! The chief rabbi of Altona and Hamburg was at heart attached to the Christian faith, Megerlin maintained, but dared not come out openly through fear of the Jews. He himself, it is true, and his disciple, Charles Anton, had explained these amulets in quite another way, not in a Christian sense; but the latter had not comprehended the deeper meaning, and Eibeschütz had composed his vindication only for Polish Jews. In his heart of hearts the chief rabbi was a true believer in Christianity. Megerlin, therefore, called on the king of Denmark to protect Eibeschütz against the persecutions of the Jews, especially against the calumnies of Jacob Emden, who hated and persecuted the Christians, as his father had persecuted Chayon, also a secret Christian. In his folly Megerlin exhorted Eibeschütz most earnestly to throw off his mask, resign the post of rabbi of the "three communities," and allow himself to be baptized. He also addressed a circular letter to the Jews, urging them to arrange a general convention of rabbis and openly glorify Christianity. Had Eibeschütz possessed a spark of honor he would have repudiated, even at the risk of losing the king's favor, his supposed adherence to Christianity. But he did not take the smallest step to answer the charge of hypocrisy; he was content to profit by it. Megerlin's arguments, foolish as they were, convinced King Frederick. He revoked the suspension from office with which Eibeschütz was threatened, and decreed that the Jews of the Altona community should show him obedience. The Hamburg senate, also, again acknowledged him as rabbi of the German community. Eibeschütz exulted, and his admirers prepared a solemn triumph for him (Chanukkah--middle of December, 1756). His disciples, clad as knights, marched through the streets shouting, till they reached the rabbi's house, where they arranged a dancing-party. The six years of strife which had aroused every evil passion among the Jews, from Lorraine to Podolia, and from the Elbe to the Po, ended apparently in a dance. But at the same time Eibeschütz in another direction suffered defeat, which branded him in the eyes of those who had hitherto spoken favorably of him and supported him.
Facts flatly contradicted his assertion, put forward through his mouthpiece, Charles Anton, that "there were no longer any Sabbatians." They raised their serpent heads and shot forth their tongues full of poisonous rage at this very moment. The seed which Chayim Malach had scattered in Poland was by no means checked in growth by the anathemas of the rabbis. They had only forced the Sabbatians to disguise themselves better, and to counterfeit death; but they flourished secretly, and their following increased. Some towns in Podolia and Pakotia were full of Talmudists who, in Sabbatian fashion, scoffed at the Talmud, rejected the law of Judaism, and, under the mask of ascetic discipline, lived impure lives. The disorders to which the dispute regarding Eibeschütz had given rise in Poland encouraged the Polish Sabbatians to venture from their hiding-places and raise their masks a little. The time seemed favorable for an attempt to cast aside odious religious rites, and openly to come forward as anti-Talmudists. They needed a spirited leader to gather the scattered band, give it cohesion, and mark out a line of action. This leader now presented himself, and with his appearance began a new movement which threw the whole Jewish world of Poland into intense agitation and despair. This leader was the notorious Jacob Frank.
Jankiev Lejbovicz (that is, Jacob son of Leb) of Galicia, was one of the worst, most subtle, and most deceitful rascals of the eighteenth century. He could cheat the most sagacious, and veil his frauds so cleverly that after his death many still believed him an admirable man, who bore through life, and carried to the grave, most weighty secrets. He understood the art of deception even in his youth, and boasted how he had duped his own father. As a young man he traveled in Turkey in the service of a Jewish gentleman, and in Salonica entered into relations with the Sabbatians or Jewish Moslems there. If he did not learn from them how to work deceptive and mystifying miracles, he at all events learnt indifference towards all forms of religion. He became a Mahometan, as afterwards a Catholic, for so long as it served his purpose, and changed his religion as one changes one's clothes. From his long sojourn in Turkey he acquired the name of Frank, or Frenk. Ignorant of Talmudical literature, as he himself confessed, he was acquainted with the Zoharist Kabbala, explained it to suit his purpose, and took peculiar pleasure in the doctrine of metempsychosis, by virtue of which the successive Messiahs were not visionaries or impostors, but the embodiment of one and the same Messianic soul. King David, Elijah, Jesus, Mahomet, Sabbataï Zevi, and his imitators, down to Berachya, were one and the same personality, which had assumed different bodily forms. Why should not he himself be another incarnation of the Messiah? Although Jacob Frank, or Lejbovicz, loved money dearly, he accounted it only a lever by which to raise himself; he wished to play a brilliant part and surround himself with a mysterious halo. Circumstances were exceptionally favorable to him. He married in Nicopolis (Turkey) a very beautiful wife, through whom he attracted followers. He collected by degrees a small number of Turkish and Wallachian Jews, who shared his loose principles, and held him to be a superior being--the latest embodiment of the Messiah. He could not, however, carry on his mischievous schemes in Turkey, where he was persecuted.
Frank appears to have obtained intelligence of the schism in Poland caused by the Eibeschütz controversy, and thought that he might utilize the propitious moment to gather round him the Sabbatians of Podolia, and play a part among them, and by means of them. He came suddenly amongst them, visiting many towns of Podolia and the Lemberg district, where secret Sabbatians resided, with whom he may have been in communication previously. They fell, so to speak, into his arms. Frank needed followers, and they were seeking a leader. Now they found one who had come to them with a full purse, of the contents of which he was not sparing. In a trice he won the Sabbatians of Podolia. Frank disclosed himself to them as the successor of Sabbataï, or, what was the same thing, as the new-born soul of the Sabbatian chief Berachya. What this manifestation signified was known to the initiated. They understood by it the blasphemous and at the same time absurd theory of a kind of Trinity, consisting of the Holy and Most Ancient One, the Holy King, and a female person in the Godhead. Frank, like his predecessors, attributed the chief importance to the Holy King, at once the Messiah and God incarnate, and possessed of all power on earth and in heaven. Frank ordered his followers to address him as the Holy Lord. In virtue of his participation in the Godhead, the Messiah was able to do all things, even miracles, and Frank did perform miracles, as his followers maintained. The adherents whom he brought in his train, and whom he gathered round him in Poland, believed so strongly in his divine nature that they addressed to him mystic prayers in the language of the Zohar, with the same formulas that the Donmäh of Salonica were wont to address to Jacob Querido and Berachya. In short, Frank formed a sect from the Sabbatians of Podolia, called by his name, "Frankists." Their founder taught his disciples to acquire riches for themselves, even by fraudulent and dishonest means. Deceit was nothing more than skillful artifice. Their chief task was to undermine rabbinical Judaism, and to oppose and annihilate the Talmud. This task they undertook with a passion which perhaps owed its origin to the constraints imposed upon them through fear of persecution. The Frankists opposed the Zohar to the Talmud, and Simon bar Yochaï, its alleged author, to the other authorities of the Talmud, as though in earlier times the former had combated the latter and accused them of being the falsifiers of Judaism. The true teaching of Moses was said to be contained only in the Zohar, which had declared the whole of rabbinical Judaism to be on a lower level--a fact which blundering Kabbalists had so long overlooked. The Frankists, more clear-sighted, had discovered the half-concealed secret of the Zohar. They rightly called themselves anti-Talmudists as well as Zoharites. With a certain childish frowardness they did exactly those things which rabbinical Judaism strongly prohibited, and neglected those which the latter prescribed, not only in points of ritual, but also with regard to marriage and the laws of chastity. Among these anti-Talmudic Frankists were found rabbis and so-called preachers (Darshanim, Maggidim), Jehuda Leb Krysa, rabbi of Nadvorna, and Rabbi Nachman ben Samuel Levi of Busk. Of especial reputation among Polish Sabbatians was Elisha Schor of Rohatyn, an aged man, descended from distinguished Polish rabbis. He, his sons, his daughter Chaya (who knew the Zohar by heart, and was considered a prophetess), his grandson, and sons-in-law were from an early period thoroughgoing Sabbatians, to whom it was a positive pleasure to deride rabbinical precepts.
During the first months after his return to Poland, Frank held secret conferences with the anti-Talmudists of Podolia, as a public demonstration was attended with danger. One day, he with about twenty of his followers was surprised in Laskorun in a conventicle. The Frankists declared that they had been singing psalms in the Zohar language, while their adversaries asserted that they had been performing an indecent dance around a half-naked woman, and kissing her. Many gathered about the inn to force their way in; others ran to the police to give information that a Turk had stolen into Podolia to pervert the Jews to the Mahometan religion and make them emigrate to Turkey, and that those who had joined him were leading an Adamite, that is to say dissolute, life. The police immediately interposed, broke open the barricaded doors, and expelled the Frankists. Frank was dismissed next day as a foreigner, and repaired to the neighboring Turkish territory; and the Podolian Frankists were kept in custody. The incident made a sensation, and was perhaps intentionally exaggerated. Like wild-fire the news concerning the Sabbatians spread. It can be imagined what this defiance of Rabbinical Judaism meant in those days, especially in Poland, where the most insignificant religious rites were sedulously observed. It was now discovered that, in the midst of the excessive piety which characterized the Poles, a number of persons, brought up in the knowledge of the Talmud, scoffed at the whole system of Rabbinical Judaism. The rabbis and elders forthwith began to employ the usual weapons of excommunication and persecution against the offenders, and the secret heretics were hunted out. Won over by large sums, the Polish authorities energetically supported the persecutors. Those in distress showed signs of repentance, and made public confession of their misdeeds, which, be they accurate or exaggerated, present a sad picture of the deterioration of the Polish Jews. Before the council of rabbis in Satanov, in open court, several men and women stated that they and their friends had not only treated the rites of Judaism with contempt, but had abandoned themselves to fornication, adultery, incest, and other iniquities, and had done so in accordance with Kabbalistic-mystic teachings. The penitents declared that Frank had taught his followers to scoff at chastity.
In consequence of this evidence a solemn sentence of excommunication, during the reading of which tapers were extinguished, was pronounced in Brody against the Frankists: no one might intermarry with them, their sons and daughters were to be treated as bastards, and none who were even suspected could be admitted to the post of rabbi, to any religious office, or to the profession of teacher. Every one was in duty bound to denounce and unmask the secret Sabbatians. This excommunication was repeated in several communities, and finally ratified by a great synod in Konstantinov on the Jewish New Year (September, 1756). The document was printed, distributed, and ordered to be read aloud every month in the synagogues for observance. This sentence of excommunication contained one point of great importance. No one under thirty years of age was to be permitted to study the Kabbala. Necessity at length opened the eyes of the rabbis to the recognition of the impure spring, which since the time of Lurya had poisoned the sap of the tree of Judaism. More than four centuries had passed since philosophical inquiry had been forbidden, and the young Kabbala encouraged. In their blindness, the rabbis had imagined that they were strengthening Judaism in placing folly on the throne of wisdom. This course produced that book of lies, the Zohar, which impudently set itself above the Holy Writings and the Talmud. Finally, the delusions of the Kabbala declared a life and death war against rabbinical Judaism. Such were the fruits of blindness. The members of the synod of Konstantinov turned in their perplexity to Jacob Emden, who, since his controversy with Eibeschütz, was accounted the representative of sound orthodoxy. He, too, enjoyed a triumph, though of an altogether different kind from the one his antagonist was at the same time celebrating in the midst of his noisy admirers. The Polish Jews at last began to be aware that secular knowledge and cultivated eloquence are after all not altogether objectionable, since they can render assistance to Judaism. They were desirous that a cultured Portuguese should come to Poland, endowed with knowledge and readiness of speech, who would represent them before the Polish magistracy and clergy, in order to suppress the dangerous Frankist sect.
Jacob Emden, deeply affected by the despairing appeal of his Polish brethren, came to a conclusion of great importance for succeeding ages. Sabbatians of all shades appealed to the Zohar as a sacred authority, as the Bible of a new revelation, excusing all their blasphemies and indecencies by quotations from it. What if the Zohar should prove not to be genuine, but only a supposititious work? And this was the conclusion to which Emden came. The repulsive incidents in Poland first suggested the inquiry to him, and it became clear to him that at least a portion of the Zohar was the production of an impostor.
To the question whether it would be lawful to persecute the Frankists, Jacob Emden answered emphatically in the affirmative. He held them, according to the accounts received from Poland, to be shameless transgressors of the most sacred laws of decency and chastity, turning vice into virtue by means of mystical jugglery. No persuasion, however, was required from him; when persecution became necessary in Poland the will to inflict it was never wanting. The Frankists were denounced to the magistracy and clergy as a new sect, and handed over to the Catholic Inquisition, and the bishop of Kamieniec, Nicolas Dembowski, in whose diocese they were apprehended, had no objection to erect a stake. Frank was cunning enough to avert from his followers the blow aimed at them and to direct it against their enemies. From Chocim, where after a brief imprisonment he had settled in safety, he counseled them to emphasize two points in their defense: that they believed in a Trinity, and that they rejected the Talmud as a compilation full of error and blasphemy. His counsel meeting with opposition, he secretly assembled some of his followers in a small town in Poland, and reiterated his advice, with the addition that twenty or thirty of them must quickly be baptized to give more emphasis to their assertions that they acknowledged the Trinity and rejected the Talmud. To Frank change of religion was a small matter. The Talmud Jews of the district heard of Frank's secret conference with his confederates, collected a band, attacked them, and after using them roughly placed them in confinement. This proceeding provoked the anti-Talmudists to revenge. They would not, indeed, be baptized, but they declared before the tribunal of Bishop Dembowski that they were almost Christians, that they believed in a Divine Trinity, that the rest of the Jews, who repudiated this doctrine, did not hold the true faith, and persecuted them on account of their superiority. To make their breach with Judaism unmistakable, or to revenge themselves in a very sanguinary way, they made false accusations, namely, that believers in the Talmud make use of the blood of Christians, and that the Talmud inculcates the murder of Christians as a sacred duty. There was no difficulty in trumping up evidence in favor of the accusation. It was only necessary that some Christian child should be missing. Something of the kind must have occurred in Jampol in Podolia (April, 1756), and immediately the most respected Jews of the town were placed in chains, and the other communities menaced. Bishop Dembowski and his chapter, rejoiced at their good luck, favored the Frankists in every way in return for their false evidence, freed them from prison, protected them from persecution, allowed them to settle in the diocese of Kamieniec, permitted them to live as they pleased, and were delighted to foster their hatred of the Talmud Jews. The bishop flattered himself that, through the Frankists, among whom were several rabbis, he would be able to convert many Polish Jews to Catholicism. The new sect passed into the state in which the persecuted becomes the persecutor.
In order to drive their adversaries to desperation, the Frankists (1757) petitioned Bishop Dembowski to arrange a disputation between themselves and the Talmudists, and bound themselves to prove both the doctrine of the Trinity and the harmful nature of the Talmud, from the Scriptures and the Zohar. To this the bishop willingly consented. One of the Frankist rabbis--perhaps old Elisha Schor, of Rohatyn--composed a confession of faith, which, almost unequaled for audacity and untruthfulness, is so artful in its explanation of Sabbatian-Kabbalistic doctrines as to have led the bishop to suppose that they were in consonance with the Catholic faith, and to drive their adversaries into a corner. The Frankist confession of faith contains nine articles. The religion revealed by God to man contains so many deep mysteries, that it must be thoroughly searched out and examined; without higher inspiration, however, it cannot be understood. One of these mysteries is that the Godhead consists of three Persons, equal to one another, at once a Trinity and a Unity. Another mystery is that the Godhead assumes human form to manifest itself visibly to all men. Through the mediation of these deities incarnate, mankind is redeemed and saved--not through the Messiah expected to assemble the Jews and lead them back to Jerusalem. The latter is a false belief: Jerusalem and the Temple will never be rebuilt. The Talmud, indeed, interprets revealed faith otherwise; but its interpretation is baneful, and has led its adherents into error and unbelief. The Talmud contains most revolting statements; such as that Jews are permitted, indeed, obliged, to deceive and slay Christians. The Zohar, which is diametrically opposed to the Talmud, offers the only true and correct interpretation of the Holy Writings. All these absurd statements, the Frankist confession of faith supported by passages from the Bible and the Zohar; and to vilify the Talmud, passages in it were intentionally misrepresented. The creed was printed and published in the Hebrew and the Polish language. The representatives of the Polish community-- the Synod of the Four Countries--were painfully sensible, in their desperate situation, of the want of education prevalent among them. They could not produce a single man who could expose the imposture of the Frankists and the hollowness of their creed in well-turned or even tolerable language. The proud leaders of the Synod behaved like children in their anxiety. They helplessly devised extravagant schemes, wished to appeal to the pope, and to incite the Portuguese in Amsterdam and Rome to protect them from the machinations of their vindictive enemies.
Bishop Dembowski consented to the proposition of the Frankists, and issued a command that the Talmudists send deputies to a disputation at Kamieniec, failing which he would punish them and burn the Talmud as a book hostile to Christianity. In vain the Polish Jews referred to their ancient privileges, screened themselves behind great nobles, and spent large sums of money. They were obliged to prepare for the disputation and render account to the enemies they had so greatly despised. Only a few rabbis appeared. What could the representatives of the Talmud, with their profound ignorance and halting speech, effect against the audacious denunciations of the Frankists, particularly as they also acknowledged the Zohar as a sacred book, and this, as a matter of fact, formulates the doctrine of a kind of Trinity! What happened at the disputation of Kamieniec has never transpired. The Talmudists were accounted as vanquished and refuted. Bishop Dembowski publicly declared (October 14, 1757), that, as the anti-Talmudists had set down in writing and proved the chief points of their confession of faith, they were permitted everywhere to hold disputations with the Talmudists. Copies of the Talmud were ordered to be confiscated, brought to Kamieniec, and there publicly burned by the hangman. Dembowski was permitted arbitrarily to favor the one party and condemn the other. The king of Poland and his minister, Count Brühl, troubled themselves but little about internal affairs, still less about the Jews. Hence Dembowski, who at about that time was made archbishop of Lemberg, was allowed with the aid of the clergy, the police, and the Frankists, to search for copies of the Talmud and other rabbinical writings in the towns of his bishopric, collect them at Kamieniec, and drag them through the streets in mockery. Only the Bible and the Zohar were to be spared, as in the time of the Talmud persecution under Popes Julius IV and Pius V. Nearly a thousand copies of the Talmud were thrown into a great pit at Kamieniec and burnt by the hangman. The Talmudists could do nothing, but groan, weep, and proclaim a rigorous fast-day on account of "the burning of the Torah." It was the Kabbala that had kindled the torches for the funeral pile of the Talmud. The clergy, in conjunction with the anti-Talmudists, daily made domiciliary visits into Jewish houses to confiscate copies of the Talmud.
To free themselves and all other Jews from the oft repeated, and as often refuted, accusation of child-murder, which the abject Frankists had confirmed, the Jewish Talmudists sent Eliakim Selig (Selek) to Benedictus XIV, to procure an official exposure of the falsehood of the charge brought against Jews. Eliakim's determination and persistence succeeded in obtaining this authoritative acquittal in Rome at the end of 1757.
Suddenly Bishop Dembowski died (November 17, 1757) a violent death, and this led to a new development in the controversy. Persecution of the Talmudists immediately ceased, and from that time the Frankists were persecuted, imprisoned, and declared outlaws. Their beards were shaved off as a mark of disgrace and to make them easily recognizable. The majority, no longer able to maintain themselves in Kamieniec, fled to the neighboring province of Bessarabia. But they were even more disturbed under Turkish jurisdiction. Their persecutors informed the Jewish community of the arrival of the anti-Talmudists in their district and of their injuriousness to Judaism, and the former had only to notify the Pasha and the Cadi that these supposed Polish Jews were not under the protection of the Chacham Bashi (chief rabbi) of Constantinople in order to invite the Turks to fall upon the newcomers and mercilessly rob and ill-treat them. In despair the Frankists wandered restlessly about the borderlands of Podolia and Bessarabia. At length they addressed the king of Poland, and implored him to confirm the privilege tolerating their worship granted them by Bishop Dembowski. Augustus III, the weakling and martyr of the seven years' war, thereupon issued a decree (June 11, 1758) permitting the Frankists to return unmolested to their homes, and reside in Poland wherever they pleased. The decree was not enforced with sufficient energy, and the Frankists continued to be persecuted by their opponents aided by the nobles. In their trouble some of their body were sent to beg Frank, who had so long forsaken them, to assist them with his advice. While affecting to demur, he willingly obeyed their call and repaired again to Podolia (January, 1759).
With his appearance the old game of intrigue began once more. Frank was from that time the life and soul of his followers, and without his commands they undertook nothing. He saw clearly that the hypocrisy of simply declaring that the anti-Talmudists believed in the Trinity must not be repeated, but that they must make more of a concession to Christianity. By his advice six Frankists, the majority foreigners, repaired to Wratislav Lubienski, Archbishop of Lemberg, with the declaration (February 20, 1759), "in the name of their whole body," that they were all willing, under certain conditions, to be baptized. In their petition they used phrases savoring of Catholicism, and breathed vengeance against their former co-religionists. Lubienski had this petition of the Zoharites printed, in order, on the one hand, to proclaim the victory of the Church, on the other, to keep the members of this sect to their word; but he did nothing for them. Although in their Catholic and Kabbalistic language they declared that they were languishing for baptism "like the hart for the water-brooks," they did not in the least contemplate an immediate formal secession to Christianity. Frank, their leader, whom they blindly followed, did not consider the time ripe for this extreme measure. He reserved it to extort favorable terms, which were embodied in an address presented to the king and Archbishop Lubienski (May 16, 1759) by two deputies. They insisted especially on a disputation with their opponents, adducing as a reason, that they wished to show the world that they were led to embrace Christianity, not from necessity and poverty, but through conviction. They wished, moreover, to give an opportunity to their secret confederates to publicly avow themselves believers in Christianity, which they would infallibly do if their righteous cause should triumph in public argument. Finally they hoped in this way to open the blinded eyes of their antagonists. To this cunningly devised petition breathing malice against their enemies, the king made no reply, while Lubienski answered evasively that he could only promise them eternal salvation if they allowed themselves to be baptized; the rest would follow as a matter of course. He displayed no zeal whatever for the conversion of these ragged fellows whom he believed to be dissemblers. The papal nuncio in Warsaw, Nicholas Serra, did not regard with favor the idea of the conversion of the anti-Talmudists.
The position of affairs changed, however, when Lubienski withdrew to Gnesen, his arch-episcopal seat, and the administrator of the archbishopric of Lemberg, the canon De Mikulski, showed more zeal for conversion. He immediately promised the Frankists to arrange a religious conference between them and the Talmudists, if they would exhibit a sincere desire for baptism. On this the deputies, Leb Krysa and Solomon of Rohatyn, in the name of the whole body, made a Catholic confession of faith (May 25), which savored of Kabbalism: "the cross is the symbol of the Holy Trinity and the seal of the Messiah." It closed with these words: "The Talmud teaches the use of the blood of Christians, and whosoever believes in it is bound to use this blood." Thereupon Mikulski, without consulting the papal nuncio Serra, made arrangements for a second disputation in Lemberg (June, 1759). The rabbis of this diocese were summoned to appear, under pain of a heavy fine, and the nobility and clergy were requested in case of necessity to compel them. The nuncio Serra, to whom the Talmudists complained, was in the highest degree dissatisfied with the idea of the disputation, but did not care to prevent it because he wished to learn with certainty whether the Jews used the blood of Christians. This appeared to him the most important point of all. Just at this time Pope Clement XIII had given a favorable answer on this question to the Jewish deputy Selek. Clement XIII proclaimed that the Holy See had examined the grounds on which rested the belief in the use of human blood for the feast of the Passover and the murder of Christians by Jews, and that the Jews must not be condemned as criminals in respect of this charge, but that in the case of such occurrences legal forms of proof must be used. Notwithstanding this, the papal envoy at this very time, deceived by the meanness of the Frankists, partially credited the false accusation, and notified the Curia of it.
The religious conference which was to lead to the conversion of so many Jews, at first regarded with indifference, began to awaken interest. The Polish nobility of both sexes purchased admission cards at a high price, the proceeds to go to the poor people who were to be baptized. On the appointed day the Talmudists and Zoharites were brought into the cathedral of Lemberg; all the clergy, nobility, and burghers crowded thither to witness the spectacle of Jews, apparently belonging to the same religion, hurling at each other accusations of the most abominable crimes. In reality it was the Talmud and the Kabbala, formerly a closely united pair of sisters, who had fallen out with each other. The disputation failed miserably. Of the Frankists, who had boastfully given out that several hundreds of their party would attend, only about ten appeared, the rest being too poor to undertake the long journey and attire themselves decently. Of the Talmudists forty were present owing to their dread of the threatened fine. How Judaism had retrograded in the century of "enlightenment" when compared with the thirteenth century! At that time, on a similar occasion, the spokesman of the Jews, Moses Nachmani, proudly confronted his opponents at the court of Barcelona, and almost made them quake by his knowledge and firmness. In Lemberg the representatives of Talmudic Judaism stood awkward and disconcerted, unable to utter a word. They did not even understand the language of the country--their opponents, to be sure, were in like case--and interpreters had to be employed. But the Catholic clergy in Poland and the learned classes also betrayed their astounding ignorance. Not a single Pole understood Hebrew or the language of the rabbis sufficiently to be an impartial witness of the dispute, whilst in Germany and Holland Christians acquainted with Hebrew could be counted by hundreds. The Talmudists had a difficult part to play in this religious conference. The chief thesis of the Frankists was that the Zohar teaches the doctrine of the Trinity, and that one Person of the Godhead became incarnate. Could they dare to deny this dogma absolutely without wounding the feelings of the Christians, their masters? And that leanings toward this doctrine were to be found in the Zohar they could not deny. Of course, they might have refuted completely the false charge of using the blood of Christian children and of the bloodthirsty nature of the Talmud, or might have cited the testimony of Christians and even the decisions of popes. They were, however, ignorant of the history of their own suffering, and their ignorance avenged itself on them. It is easy to believe that the Talmudic spokesmen, after the three days' conference, returned home ashamed and confused. Even the imputation of shedding Christian blood continued to cling to their religion.
The Zoharites who had obtained their desire were now strongly urged by the clergy to perform their promise, and allow themselves to be baptized. But they continued to resist as if it cost them a great struggle, and only yielded at the express command of their chief, Frank, and in his presence. The latter appeared with great pomp, in magnificent Turkish robes, with a team of six horses, and surrounded by guards in Turkish dress. He wished to impress the Poles. His was the strong will which led the Frankists, and which they implicitly obeyed. Some thousand Zoharites were baptized on this occasion. Frank would not be baptized in Lemberg, but appeared suddenly, with dazzling magnificence, in Warsaw (October, 1759), aroused the curiosity of the Polish capital, and requested the favor that the king would stand godfather to him. The newspapers of the Polish capital were full of accounts of the daily baptisms of so many Jews, and of the names of the great nobles and ladies who were their godparents. But the Church could not rejoice in her victory. Frank was watched with suspicion by the clergy. They did not trust him, and suspected him to be a swindler who, under the mask of Christianity, as formerly under that of Islam, desired to play a part as the leader of a sect. The more Frank reiterated the demand that a special tract of country be assigned to him, the more he aroused the suspicion that he was pursuing selfish aims and that baptism had been but a means to an end. The Talmud Jews neglected nothing to furnish proofs of his impostures. At length he was unmasked and betrayed by some of his Polish followers, who were incensed at being neglected for the foreign Frankists, and showed that with him belief in Christianity was but a farce, and that he had commanded his followers to address him as Messiah and God Incarnate and Holy Lord. He was arrested and examined by the president of the Polish Inquisition as an impostor and a blasphemer. The depositions of the witnesses clearly revealed his frauds, and he was conveyed to the fortress of Czenstochow and confined in a convent (March, 1760). Only the fact that the king was his godfather saved Frank from being burnt at the stake as a heretic and apostate. His chief followers were likewise arrested and thrown into prison. The rank and file were in part condemned to work on the fortifications of Czenstochow, and partly outlawed. Many Frankists were obliged to beg for alms at the church doors, and were treated with contempt by the Polish population. They continued true, however, to their Messiah or Holy Lord. All adverse events they accounted for in the Kabbalistic manner: they had been divinely predestined. The cloister of Czenstochow they named mystically, "The gate of Rome." Outwardly they adhered to the Catholic religion, and joined in all the sacraments, but they associated only with each other, and like their Turkish comrades, the Donmäh, intermarried only with each other. The families descended from them in Poland, Wolowski, Dembowski, Dzalski, are still at the present day known as Frenks or Shäbs. Frank was set at liberty by the Russians, after thirteen years' imprisonment in the fortress, played the part of impostor for over twenty years elsewhere, in Vienna, Brünn, and at last in Offenbach; set up his beautiful daughter Eva as the incarnate Godhead, and deceived the world until the end of his life, and even after his death; but with this part of his career Jewish history has nothing to do.
For all these calamitous events, Jonathan Eibeschütz was in some measure to blame. The Frankists regarded him, the great Gaon, as one of themselves, and he did nothing to clear himself from the stigma of this suspicion. He was implored to aid the Polish Jews, to make his influence felt in refuting the charge of the use of Christian blood. He remained silent as if he feared to provoke the Frankists against himself. Some of his followers who had warmly upheld him began to distrust him, among them Ezekiel Landau, at that time chief rabbi of Prague. Jacob Emden had won the day, he could flourish over him the scourge of his scorn; and he pursued him even beyond the grave as the most abandoned being who had ever disgraced Judaism. The rabbinate had placed itself in the pillory, and undermined its own authority. But it thereby loosened the soil from which a better seed could spring forth.
Whilst Eibeschütz and his opponents were squabbling over amulets and Sabbatian heresy, and Jacob Frank Lejbowicz was carrying on his Zoharistic frauds, Mendelssohn and Lessing were cementing a league of friendship, Portugal was extinguishing its funeral fires for the Marranos, and in England the question of the emancipation of the Jews was being seriously discussed in Parliament.