SITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES JEWISH LITERATURE CHAPTERS ON JEWISH LITERATURE BY ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, M. A. Author of "Jewish Life in the Middle ^ges PHILADELPHIA The Jewish Publication Society of America 1899 •• • n • Copyright, iSqq, by The Jewish Publication Society of America Z^c £orb Q0afttmorc (pvcee THE hRlEDENWALI) COMPANY BALTIMORE, MD., U. S. A. PREFACE These twenty-five short chapters on Jewish Literature open with the faU of K Jerusalem in the year 70 of the current era, ^\^ and end with the death of Moses Mendels- X sohn in 1786. Thus the period covered \ extends over more than seventeen cen- -^^ turies. Yet, long as this period is, it is too ~^ brief. To do justice to the literature of Judaism even in outline, it is clearly neces- ij sary to include the Bible, the Apocrypha, ■ ^ and the writings of Alexandrian Jews, such ui as Philo. Only by such an inclusion can CD • the genius of the Hebrew people be traced 3 from its early manifestations through its inspired prime to its brilliant after-glow in the centuries with which this little vol- ume deals. One special reason has induced me to limit this book to the scope indicated .VIIM.'I 6 PRE FA CE above. The Bible has been treated in Eng- land and America in a variety of excellent text-books written by and for Jews and Jewesses. It seemed to me very doubtful whether the time is, or ever will be, ripe for dealing with the Scriptures from the purely literary stand-point in teaching young students. But this is the stand- point of this volume. Thus I have re- frained from including the Bible, because, on the one hand, I felt that I could not deal with it as I have tried to deal with the rest of Hebrew literature, and because, on the other hand, there was no necessity for me to attempt to add to the books already in use. The sections to which I have re- stricted myself are only rarely taught to young students in a consecutive manner, except in so far as they fall within the range of lessons on Jewish History. It was strongly urged on me by a friend of great experience and knowledge, that a small text-book on later Jewish Literature PREFA CE was likely to be found useful both for home and school use. Such a book might en- courage the elementary study of Jewish literature in a wider circle than has hitherto been reached. Hence this book has been compiled with the definite aim of providing an elementary manual. It will be seen that both in the inclusions and exclusions the author has followed a line of his own, but he lays no claim to originality. The book is simply designed as a manual for those who may wish to master some of the lead- ing characteristics of the subject, without burdening themselves with too many de- tails and dates. This consideration has in part deter- mined also the method of the book. In presenting an outline of Jewish literature three plans are possible. One can divide the subject according to Periods. Starting with the Rabbinic Age and closing with the activity of the earlier Gaonim, or Per- sian Rabbis, the First Period >vguld carry 8 PRE FA CE US to the eighth or the ninth century. A weh-marked Second Period is that of the Arabic-Spanish writers, a period which would extend from the ninth to the fif- teenth century. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century forms a Third Period with distinct characteristics. Finally, the career of Mendelssohn marks the definite beginning of the Modern Period. Such a grouping of the facts presents many ad- vantages, but it somewhat obscures the varying conditions prevalent at one and the same time in different countries where the Jews were settled. Hence some writers have preferred to arrange the ma- terial under the different Countries. It is quite possible to draw a map of the world's civilization by merely marking the succes- sive places in which Jewish literature has fixed its head-quarters. But, on the other hand, such a method of classification has the disadvantage that it leads to much overlapping. For long intervals together, PREFACE it is impossible to separate Italy from Spain, France from Germany, Persia from Egypt, Constantinople from Amsterdam. This has induced other writers to propose a third method and to trace Influences, to indicate that, whereas Rabbinism may be termed the native product of the Jewish genius, the scientific, poetical, and philo- sophical tendencies of Jewish writers in the ]\Iiddle Ages were due to the interaction of external and internal forces. Further, in this arrangement, the Ghetto period would have a place assigned to it as such, for it would again mark the almost complete sway of purely Jewish forces in Jewish lit- erature. Adopting this classification, we should have a wave of Jewish impulse, swol- len by the accretion of foreign waters, once more breaking on a Jewish strand, with its contents in something like the same condi- tion in which they left the original spring. All these three methods are true, and this has impelled me to refuse to follow any one lO PREFACE of them to the exckision of the other two. I have tried to trace infliicuccs, to observe periods, to distinguish couufrics. I have also tried to derive color and vividness by selecting prominent personalities round which to group whole cycles of facts. Thus, some of the chapters bear the names of famous men, others are entitled from periods, others from countries, and yet others are named from the general cur- rents of European thought. In all this my aim has been very modest. I have done little in the way of literary criticism, but I felt that a dry collection of names and dates Avas the very thing I had to avoid. I need not say that I have done my best to ensure accuracy in my statements by re- ferring to the best authorities known to me on each division of the subject. To name the works to which I am indebted would need a list of many of the best-known pro- ducts of recent Continental and American scholarship. At the end of every chapter PREFACE II I have, however, given references to some Ene:hsh works and essays. Graetz is cited in the Enghsh translation published by the Jewish Publication Society of America. The fissures in brackets refer to the edition published in London. The American and the English editions of S. Schechter's " Studies in Judaism " are similarly refer- red to. Of one thing I am confident. No pre- sentation of the facts, however bald and in- adequate it be, can obscure the truth that this little book deals with a great and an inspiring literature. It is possible to ques- tion whether the books of great Jews al- ways belonged to the great books of the world. There may have been, and there were, greater legalists than Rashi, greater poets than Jehuda Halevi, greater philoso- phers than IMaimonides, greater moralists than Bachya. But there has been no greater literature than that which these and numerous other Jews represent. 12 PRE FA CE Rabbinism was a sequel to the Bible, and if like all sequels it was unequal to its ori- ginal, it nevertheless shared its greatness. The works of all Jews up to the modern period were the sequel to this sequel. Through them all may be detected the uni- fying- principle that literature in its truest sense includes life itself; that intellect is the handmaid to conscience; and that the best books are those which best teach men how to live. This underlying unity gave more harmony to Jewish literature than is possessed by many literatures more dis- tinctively national. The maxim, " Right- eousness delivers from death," applies to books as well as to men. A literature whose consistent theme is Righteousness is immortal. On the very day on which Jerusalem fell, this theory of the intercon- nection between literature and life became the fixed principle of Jewish thought, and it ceased to hold undisputed sway only in the age of Mendelssohn. It was in the PREFACE 13 " Vineyard " of Jamnia that the theory re- ceived its firm foundation. A startingf- point for this vohniie will therefore be sought in the meeting-place in which the Rabbis, exiled from the Holy City, found a new fatherland in the Book of books. Chapter CONTENTS Pace Preface 5 I The "Vineyard" AT Jamnia . . 19 Schools at Jamnia, Lydda, Uslia, and Sepphoris. — The Tannaim compile the Mishnah. — Jochanan, Akiba, Meir, Ju- dah. — Aquila. II Flavius Josephus and the Jewish Sibyl 33 III The Talmud 43 The Amoraim compile the Palestinian Talmud and tiie Babylonian Talmud. — Representative Amoraim : I (220-280) Palestine — ^Jochanan, Simon, Joshua, Simla! ; Baby- lonia — Rab and Samuel. II (280.^20) Palestine — Ami, Assi, Abbahu, Chiya; Babylonia — Huna and Zeira. III (320-3S0) Babylonia — Rabba, Abayi, Rava. IV (3S0-430) Babylonia — Ashi (first compilation of the Babylonian Talmud). V and VI (430-500) Babylonia — Ra- bina (completion of the Baby- lonian Talmud). IV The MiDKAsii and it.s Poetry . . 55 Mechilla, Sifra, Sifre, Pesikta, Tan- chuma, Midrash Rabbah, Yalkut. — Proverbs. — Parables. — Fables. l6 CONTENTS Chapter ^'''^^ V The Letters of the Gaonim . . 68 Representative Gaonim : Achai, Amram, Zemach, Saadiah, Sherira, Samuel, Hai. VI The Karaitic Literature ... 75 Anan, Nahavendi, Abul-Faraj, Salman, Sahal, al-Bazir, Hassan, Japhet, Kir- kisani, Judah Hadassi, Isaac Troki. VII The New-Hebrew Piyut ... 83 Kalirian and Spanish Piyutim (Poems). — Jannai. — Kalir. VIII Saadiah OF Fayum 91 Translation of the Bible into Arabic. — Foundation of a Jewish Philosophy of Religion. IX Dawn of the Spanish Era ... 99 Chasdai Ibn Shaprut.— Menachem and Dunash, Chaynj and Janach. — Samuel the Nagid. X The Spanish-Jewish Poets (I) . .107 Solomon Ibn Gebirol.— "The Royal Crown." — Moses Ibn Ezra. — Abraham Ibn Ezra.— The Biblical Commentaries of Ibn Ezra and the Kimchis. XI RaSHI AND AlFASSI I I9 Nathan of Rome.— Alfassi.— Rashi.— Rashbam. XII The Spanish-Jewish Poets (II) . . 126 Jehuda Halevi. — Charizi. XIII Moses Maimonides 134 Maimon, Rambam = R. Moses, the son of Maimon, Maimonides.— His Yad Hachazaka and Moreh Nebuchim.^ Gersonides. — Crescas. — Albo. CONTENTS 17 Chapter Page XIV The Diffusion of Science . . . 144 Provenjal Translators. — The Ibn Tib- bons. — Italian Translators. — ^Jacob An- atoli. — Kalonymos. — Scientific Liter- ature. XV The Diffusion OF Folk-Tales . . 153 Barlaam and Joshaphat. — The Fables of Bidpai. — Abraham Ibn Chisdai. — Berachya ha-Nakdan. Joseph Zabara. XVI Moses Nachmanides . . . .160 French and Spanish Talinudists. — The Tossafists, Asher of Speyer, Tarn, Isaac of Dompaire, Baruch of Ratis- bon, Perez of Corbeil. — Nachmanides' Commentary on the Pentateuch. — Public controversies between Jews and Christians. XVII The ZoHAR AND Later Mysticism . 169 Kabbala.— The Bahir.—Abulafia.— Moses of Leon.— The Zohar. — Isaac Lurya.— Isaiah Hurwitz. — Christian Kabbalists. — The Chassidim. XVIII Italian Jewish Poetry . . . . 178 Immanuel and Dante. — The Machberoth. — Judah Romano. — Kalonymos. — The Eben Bochan.— Moses Rieti.— Messer Leon. XIX Ethical Literature . . . .189 Bachya Ibn Pekuda.— Choboth ha-Leba- both. — Sefer ha-Chassidim.— Rokeach. — Yedaiah Bedaressi's Bechinath Olam. — Isaac Aboab's Menorath ha- Maor. — Ibn Chabib's "Eyeofjacob." — Zevaoth, or Ethical Wills.— Joseph Ibn Caspi.— Solomon Alami. i8 CONTENTS Chapter XX XXIII XXIV XXV Travellers' Tales The Shulchan Aruch .... Asheri's Arba Turim. — Chiddushini and Tesluil:)oth. — Solomon ben Adereth. — Meir of Rothenbur>;. — Sheshet and Duran. — Moses and Judah .Minz. — Jacob Weil, Israel Isserlein, Maharil. — David Abi Zimra. — ^Joseph Karo. — Jair Bacharacli.— Chacham Zevi. — ^Jacob Emden.— Ezekiel Landau. Amsterdam Century Manasseh ben Israel. — Baruch Spinoza. — The Drama in Hebrew. — Moses Zacut, Joseph Feli.x Penso, Moses Chayim Luzzatto. Moses Mendelssoh.\ .... Mendelssohn's German Translation of the Bible. — Phsedo.— Jerusalem. — Les- sing's Nathan the Wise. Index Page 200 HI Eldad the Danite. — Benjamin of Tudela. — Petachiah of Ratisbon. — Esthori Parchi. — Abraham Farissol. — David Reubeni and Molcho. — Antonio de Montesinos and Manasseh ben Israel. — Tobiah Cohen. — Wessely. XXI H1STORLA.NS and Chroniclers . Order of the Tannaim and Amoraim. — Achimaaz. — .Abraham Il)n Daud. — Josippon. — Historical Elegies, or Seli- choth. — Memorial Books. — Abraham Zacuto. — Elijah Kapsali. — Usque. — Ibn Verga. — ^^Joseph Cohen. — David Gans. — Gedaliah Ibn Yachya. — Aza- riah di Rossi. XXII Isaac Abarbanel 225 Abarbanel's Philosophy and Biblical Commentaries. — Elias Levita. — Zeena u-Reena. — Moses Alshech. — The Biur. IN THE Seventeenth 243 253 ^63 CHAPTERS ON JEWISH LITERATURE CHAPTER I The "Vineyard" at Jamnia Schools at Jamnia. Lydda, Usha, and Sepphoris.— The Tannaini compile the Mishnah. — Jochanan, Akiba, ^Nleir, Judah.— Aquila. The story of Jewish literature, after the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem in the year 70 of the Christian era, centres round the city of Jamnia. Jamnia, or Jab- neh, lay near the sea, beautifully situated on the slopes of a gentle hill in the low- lands, about twenty-eight miles from the capital. \Vhen Vespasian was advancing to the siege of Jerusalem, he occupied Jamnia, and thither the Jewish Synhe- drion, or Great Council, transferred itself when Jerusalem fell. A college existed 20 JEWISH LITER A TURE there already, but Jamnia then became the head-quarters of Jewish learning, and re- tained that position till the year 135. At that date the learned circle moved further north, to Galilee, and, besides the famous school at Lydda in Judea, others were founded in Tiberias, Usha, and Sepphoris. The real founder of the College at Jam- nia was Jochanan, the son of Zakkai, called " the father of wisdom." Like the Greek philosophers who taught their pupils in the gardens of the " Academy " at Athens, the Rabbis may have lectured to their students in a " Vineyard " at Jamnia. Possibly the term " Vineyard " was only a metaphor applied to the meeting-place of the Wise at Jamnia, but, at all events, the result of these pleasant intellectual gatherings was the Rabbinical literature. Jochanan him- self was a typical Rabbi. For a great part of his life he followed a mercantile pursuit, and earned his bread by manual labor. His originality as a teacher lay in his per- THE VINEYARD AT JAMNIA 21 ception that Judaism could survive the loss of its national centre. He felt that " char- ity and the love of men may replace the sacrifices." He would have preferred his brethren to submit to Rome, and his polit- ical foresight was justified when the war of independence closed in disaster. As Graetz has well said, like Jeremiah Jocha- nan wept over the desolation of Zion, but like Zerubbabel he created a new sanctu- ary. Jochanan's new sanctuary was the school. In the " Vineyard " at Jamnia, the Jew- ish tradition was the subject of much ani- mated inquiry. The religious, ethical, and practical literature of the past was sifted and treasured, and fresh additions were made. But not much was written, for until the close of the second century the new literature of the Jews was oral. The Bible was written down, and read from scrolls, but the Rabbinical literature was committed to memory piecemeal, and 22 JE WISH LITER A TURE handed down from teacher to pupil. Notes were perhaps taken in writing, but even when the Oral Literature was collected, and arranged as a book, it is believed by many authorities that the book so compiled remained for a considerable period an oral and not a written book. This book was called the Mishiiah (from the verb shana, " to repeat " or " to learn "). The Mishnah was not the work of one man or of one age. So long was it in growing, that its birth dates from long before the destruction of the Temple. But the men most closely associated with the compilation of the Mishnah were the Tan- naim (from the root tana, which has the same meaning as sJiaiia). There were about one hundred and twenty of these Tannaim between the years 70 and 200 C. E., and they may be conveniently ar- ranged in four generations. From each generation one typical representative will here be selected. THE VINEYARD AT JAMNIA 23 The Tanxaim First Generation, 70 to 100 C. E. JocHANAN, the son of Zakkai Second deneration, 100 to 130 C. E. Akiba Third Generation, 130 to 160 C. E. Meir Fourth Generation, 160 to 200 C. E. JuDAH THE Prince The Tannaim were the possessors of wliat was perhaps the greatest principle tliat dominated a hteratiire until the close of the eighteenth century. They main- tained that literature and life were co-ex- tensive. It was said of Jochanan, the son of Zakkai, that he never walked a single step without thinking of God. Learning the Torah, that is, the Law, the authorized Word of God, and its Prophetical and Rabbinical developments, was man's su- preme duty. " If thou hast learned much 24 JE WISH LITER A TURE Torah, ascribe not any merit to thyself, for therefor wast thou created." Man was created to learn; literature was the aim of life. We have already seen what kind of literature. Jochanan once said to his five favorite disciples : " Go forth and consider which is the good way to which a man should cleave." He received various an- swers, but he most approved of this re- sponse : " A good heart is the way." Lit- erature is life if it be a heart-literature — this may be regarded as the final justification of the union eff'ected in the Mishnah between learning and righteousness. Akiba, who may be taken to represent the second generation of Tannaim, differed in character from Jochanan. Jochanan had been a member of the peace party in the years 66 to 70; Akiba was a patriot, and took a personal part in the later struggle against Rome, which was organized by the heroic Bar Cochba in the years 131 to 135. Akiba set his face against frivolity, and pro- THE VINEYARD AT JAMNIA 25 nounced silence a fence about wisdom. But his disposition was resolute rather than se- vere. Of him the most romantic of love stories is told. He was a herdsman, and fell in love with his master's daughter, who endured poverty as his devoted wife, and was sflorified in her husband's fame. But whatever contrast there may have been in the two characters, Akiba. like Jochanan. believed that a literature was worthless un- less it expressed itself in the life of the scholar. He and his school held in low esteem the man who, though learned, led an evil life, but they took as their ideal the man whose moral excellence was more con- spicuous than his learning. As R. Eleazar. the son of Azariah, said : " He whose knowledge is in excess of his good deeds is like a tree whose branches are many and its roots scanty; the wind comes, uproots, and overturns it. But he whose good deeds are more than his knowledge is like a tree with few branches but many roots, so that if all 26 JE WISH LITER A TURE the winds in the world come and blow upon it, it remains firm in its place/' ]\Ian, ac- cording to Akiba, is master of his own des- tiny; he needs God's grace to triumph over evil, yet the triumph depends on his own efforts: "Everything is seen, yet freedom of choice is given; the world is judged by grace, yet all is according to the work." The Torah, the literature of Israel, was to Akiba " a desirable instrument," a means to life. Among the distinctions of Akiba's school must be named the first literal translation of the Bible into Greek. This work was done towards the close of the second cen- tury by Ac|uila, a proselyte, who was in- spired by Akiba's teaching. Aquila's ver- sion was inferior to the Alexandrian Greek version, called the Septuagint, in graces of style, but was superior in accuracy. Aquila followed the Hebrew text word by word. This translator is identical with Onkelos, to wdiom in later centuries the THE VINEYARD AT JAMNIA 27 Aramaic translation (Targiim Onkelos) of the Pentateuch was ascribed. Aramaic versions of the Bible were made at a very carlv period, and the Targiim Onkelos may contain ancient elements, but in its present form it is not earlier than the fifth century. ]\Ieir, whom we take as representative of the third generation of Tannaim, was filled with the widest sympathies. In his con- ception of truth, everything that men can know belonged to the Torah. Not that the Torah superseded or absorbed all other knowledge, but that the Torah needed, for its right study, all the aids which science and secular information could supply. In this way Jewish literature was to some ex- tent saved from the danger of becoming a merely religious exercise, and in later cen- turies, when the mass of Jews were dis- posed to despise and even discourage scien- tific and philosophical culture, a minority was always prepared to resist this tendency and, on ihe ground uf the views of some 28 JE WISH LITER A TURE of the Tannaim like Meir, claimed the right to study what we should now term secular sciences. The width of Meir's sympathies may be seen in his tolerant conduct to- wards his friend Elisha, the son of Abuya. When the latter forsook Judaism, Meir re- mained true to Elisha. He devoted him- self to the effort to win back his old friend, and, though he failed, he never ceased to love him. Again, Meir was famed for his knowledge of fables, in antiquity a branch of the wisdom of all the Eastern world. Meir's large-mindedness was matched by his large-heartedness, and in his wife Beru- riah he possessed a companion v»hosc ten- der sympathies and fine toleration matched his own. The fourth generation of Tannaim is overshadowed by the fame of Judah the Prince, Rabbi, as he was simply called. He lived from 150 to 210, and with his name is associated the compilation of the JMishnah. A man of genial manners, strong intellec- THE VINEYARD AT JAMNIA 29 tiial grasp, he was the exemplar also of princely hospitality and of friendship with others than Jews. His intercourse with one of the Antonines was typical of his wide culture. Life was not, in Rabbi Judah's view, compounded of smaller and larger incidents, but all the affairs of life were parts of the great divine scheme. " Reflect upon three things, and thou wilt not fall into the power of sin : Know what is above thee — a seeing eye and a hearing ear — and all thy deeds are written in a book." The Mishnah, which deals with things great and small, with everything that con- cerns men, is the literary expression of this view of life. Its language is the new- Hebrew, a simple, nervous idiom suited to practical life, but lacking the power and poetry of the Biblical Hebrew. It is a more useful but less polished instrument than the older language. The subject- matter of the Mishnah includes both law and morality, the affairs of the body, of the J O JE WISH LITER A TURE soul, and of the mind. Business, religion, social duties, ritual, are all dealt with in one and the same code. The fault of this con- ception is, that by associating things of un- equal importance, both the mind and the conscience may become incapable of dis- criminating the great from the small, the external from the spiritual. Another ill consequence was that, as literature corres- ponded so closely with life, literature could not correct the faults of life, when life be- came cramped or stagnant. The modern spirit differs from the ancient chiefly in that literature has now become an inde- pendent force, which may freshen and stim- ulate life. But the older ideal was never- theless a great one. That man's life is a unity; that his conduct is in all its parts within the sphere of ethics and religion; that his mind and conscience are not inde- pendent, but two sides of the same thing; and that therefore his religious, ethical, aesthetic, and intellectual literature is one THE VINE YARD A T JAMNIA 3 1 and indivisible, — this was a noble concep- tion which, with all its weakness, had dis- tinct points of superiority over the modern view. The ]\Iishnah is divided into six parts, or Orders (Salariiu); each Order into Tractates (Masscchtoth); each Tractate in- to Chapters (Pcrakitn): each Chapter into Paragraphs (each called a Mishiiali). The six Orders are as follows : Zeraim (" Seeds "). Deals with the laws connected with Ag-ricultnre, and ojxmis with a Tractate on Prayer ("Blessings"). MoED ("Festival"). On Festivals. Nashim (" Women "). On the laws re- lating to Marriage, etc. Nezikin (" Damages "). On civil and criminal Law. KoDASHiM (" Holy Things "). On Sac- rifices, etc. TEnAKOTii (" Purifications "). On per- sonal and ritual Purity. 32 JE WISH LITER A TURE BIBLIOGRAPHY The Mishnah. Graetz. — History of the Jews, English translation, Vol. II, chapters 13-17 (character of the Mish- nah, end of ch. 17). Steinschneider. — Jewish Literature (London, 1857), P- 13- Schiller-Szinessy. — Encyclopedia Britannica (Ninth Edition), Vol. XVI, p. 502. De Sola and 'Ra^hzW.— Eighteen Tractates from the Mishnah (English translation, London). C. Taylor. — Sayings of the Jewish Ealhcrs (Cam- bridge, 1897). A. Kohut. — The Ethics of the Fathers (New York, 1885). G. Karpeles. — A Sketch of Jezvish History (Jewish Publication Society of America, 1895), p. 40. Aquila. F. C. Burkitt. — Jezvish Quarterly Review, Vol. X. p. 207. CHAPTER TI Flavius Josephus and the Jewish Sibyl Great national crises usually produce an historical literature. This is more likely to happen witli the nation that wins in a war than with the nation that loses. Thus, in the Alaccabean period, historical works dealing- with the glorious struggle and its triumphant termination were written by Jews both in Hebrew and in Greek. After the terrible misfortune which befell the Jews in the year 70, when Jerusalem sank before the Roman arms never to rise again, little heart was there for writing history. Jews sought solace in their existing liter- ature rather than in new productions, and the Bible and the oral traditions that were to crystallize a century later into the Mish- nah filled the national heart and mind. Yet more than one Jew felt an impulse 3 34 JEWISH LITERATURE to write the history of the dismal time. Thus the first complete books which ap- peared in Jewish literature after the loss of nationality were historical works written by two men, Justus and Josephus, both of whom bore an active part in the most re- cent of the wars which the}' recorded. Justus of Tiberias wrote in Greek a terse chronicle entitled, " History of the Jewish Kings," and also a more detailed narrative of the " Jewish War " with Rome. Both these books are known to us only from quotations. The originals are entirely lost. A happier fate has preserved the works of another Jewish historian of the same period. Flavins Josephus (38 to 95 C. E.), the literary and political opponent of Jus- tus. He wrote three histories : " Antiquities of the Jews "; an *' Autobiography "; '' The Wars of the Jews "; together with a reply to the attacks of an Alexandrian critic of Judaism, " Against Apion." The charac- ter of Josephus has been variously esti- FLA I VC'S JOSEPHUS 35 mated. Some regard him as a patriot, who yielded to Rome only when con\inced that Jewish destiny required such submission. But the most probable view of his career is as follows. Josephus was a man of taste and learning. He was a student of the Greek and Latin classics, which he much admired, and was also a devoted and loyal lover of Judaism. Unfortunately, circum- stances thrust him into a political position from which he could extricate himself only by treachery and duplicity. As a young man he had visited Rome, and there ac- quired enthusiastic admiration for the Romans. When he returned to Pales- tine, he found his countrymen filled with fiery patriotism and about to hurl them- selves against the legions of the Caesars. To his dismay Josephus saw himself drawn into the patriotic vortex. By a strange mishap an important command was en- trusted to him. He betrayed his country, and saved himself by eager submission to JEWISH LITER A TURE the Romans. He became a personal friend of Vespasian and the constant companion of his son Titus. Traitor though he was to the national cause, Josephus was a steadfast champion of the Jewish religion. All his works are animated with a desire to present Judaism and the Jews in the best light. He was indignant that heathen historians wrote with scorn of the vanquished Jews, and re- solved to describe the noble stand made by the Jewish armies against Rome. He was moved to wrath by the Egyptian Manetho's distortion of the ancient history of Israel, and he could not rest silent under the in- sults of Apion. The works of Josephus are therefore works written with a ten- dency to glorify his people and his religion. But they are in the main trustworthy, and are, indeed, one of the chief sources of in- formation for the history of the Jews in post-Biblical times. His style is clear and attractive, and his power of grasping the FLA VIUS JOSEPHUS 37 events of long periods is comparable with that of Polybius. He was no mere chroni- cler; he possessed some faculty for explain- ing as well as recording facts and some real insight into the meaning of events passing under his own eyes. He wrote for the most part in Greek, both because that language was familiar to many cultured Jews of his day, and be- cause his histories thereby became accessi- ble to the world of non-Jewish readers. Sometimes he used both Aramaic and Greek. For instance, he produced his " Jewish War " tirst in the one, subse- quently in the other of these languages. The Aramaic version has been lost, but the Greek has survived. His style is often eloquent, especially in his book " Against Apion." This was an historical and philo- sophical justification of Judaism. At the close of this work Josephus says : " And so I make bold to say that we are become the teachers of other men in the greatest num- .'iiiyi.j 38 JE WISH L ITER A TURE ber of things, and those the most excel- lent." Josephiis, like the Jewish Hellenists of an earlier date, saw in Judaism a univer- sal religion, which ought to be shared by all the peoples of the earth. Judaism was to Josephus, as to Philo, not a contrast or an- tithesis to Greek culture, but the perfection and culmination of culture. The most curious efforts to propagate Judaism were, however, those which were clothed in a Sibylline disguise. In heathen antiquity, the Sibyl was an inspired pro- phetess whose mysterious oracles con- cerned the destinies of cities and nations. These oracles enjoyed high esteem among the cultivated Greeks, and, in the second century B. C. E., some Alexandrian Jews made use of them to recommend Judaism to the heathen world. In the Jewish Sibyl- line books the religion of Israel is pre- sented as a hope and a threat; a menace to those who refuse to tollow the better life, a promise of salvation to those who repent. FLA VIUS JOSEPHUS 39 About the year 80 C. E., a book of this kind was composech It is what is known as the Fourth Book of the Sibyhine Ora- cles. The language is Greek, the form hexameter verse. In this poem, the Sibyl, in the guise of a prophetess, tells of the doom of those who resist the will of the one true God, praises the God of Israel, and holds out a beautiful prospect to the faithful. The book opens with an invocation : Hear, people of proud Asia, Europe, too, How many things by great, loud-sounding mouth, All true and of my own, I prophesy. No oracle of false Apollo this, Whom vain men call a god, tho' he deceived; Rut of the mighty God, whom human hands Shaped not like speechless idols cut in stone. The Sibyl speaks of the true God, to love whom brings blessing. The ungodly triumph for a while, as Assyria, Media, Phrygia, Greece, and Egypt had tri- umphed. Jerusalem will fall, and the 1\Mn- ple perish in flames, Init retribution will fol- 40 JE WISH LITER A TURE low, the earth will be desolated by the divine wrath, the race of men and cities and rivers will be rednced to smoky dust, unless moral amendment comes betimes. Then the Sibyl's note changes into a prophecy of Messianic judgment anrl bliss, and she ends with a comforting message : But when all things become an ashy pile, God will put out the fire unspeakable Which he once kindled, and the bones and ashes Of men will God himself again transform, And raise up mortals as they were before. And then will be the judgment, God himself Will sit as judge, and judge the world again. As many as committed impious sins Shall Stygian Gehenna's depths conceal 'Neath molten earth and dismal Tartarus. But the pious shall again live on the earth, And God will give them spirit, life, and means Of nourishment, and all shall see themselves. Beholding the sun's sweet and cheerful light. O happiest men who at that time shall live! The Jews found some consolation for present sorrows in the thought of past de- liverances. The short historical record known as the " Scroll of Fasting " FLA VIUS JOSEPH US 4 1 {AlcgillatJi TaonitJi) was perhaps begun be- fore the destruction of the Temple, but was completed after the death of Trajan in 118. This scroll contained thirty-five brief ]xu-a- graphs written in Aramaic. The compila- tion, which is of jjreat historical value, fol- lows the order of the Jewish Calendar, be- ginning with the month Nisan and ending with Adar. The entries in the list relate to the days on which it was held unlawful to fast, and many of these days were anni- versaries of national victories. The Me- gillath Taanith contains no jubilations over these triumphs, but is a sober record of facts. It is a precious survival of the his- torical works compiled by the Jews before their dispersion from Palestine. Such works differ from those of Josephus and the Sibyl in tlicir motive. They were not designed to win foreign adnn'ration for Ju- daism, but to provide an accurate record for home use and inspire the Jews with hope amid the threatening prospects of life. 42 JEWISH LITER A TURE BIBLIOGRAPHY JOSEPHUS. Whiston's English Translation, revised by Shilleto (1889). Graetz.— II. p. 276 [278]. SiuYLLiNE Oracles. S. A. Hirsch. — Jctvish Sibylline Oracles, J. Q. R., II, p. 406. CHAPTER III The Talmud The Amoraim compile the Palestinian Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud.— Representative Am- oraim: I (220-280) Palestine — Jochanan, Simon. Joshua, Simlai; Babylonia — Rab and Sanmel. II (280-320) Palestine— Ami, Assi, Abbahu, Chiya; Babylonia — Huna and Zeira. III (320-380) Babylonia — Rabba, Abayi, Rava. IV (380-430) Babylonia — Ashi (first compila- tion of the Babylonian Talmud). V and VI (430-500) Babylonia— Rabina (com- pletion of the Babylonian Talmud). The Talmud, or Gcmara (" Doctrine," or " Completion "), was a natural develop- ment of the Alishnah. The Talnuid con- tains, indeed, many elements as old as the Mishnah, some even older. But, consid- ered as a whole, the Talmud is a commen- tary on the work of the Tannaim. It is written, not in Hebrew, as the Mishnah is, 44 JE WISH LITER A TURE but in a popular Aramaic. There are two distinct works to which the title Talmud is applied; the one is the Jerusalem Talmud (completed about the year 370 C. E.), the other the Babylonian (completed a century later). At first, as we have seen, the Rab- binical schools were founded on Jewish soil. But Palestine did not continue to offer a friendly welcome. Under the more tolerant rulers of Babylonia or Persia, Jew- ish learning found a refuge from the harsh- ness experienced under those of the Holy Land. The Babylonian Jewish schools in Nehardea, Sura, and Pumbeditha rapidly surpassed the Palestinian in reputation, and in the year 350 C. E., owing to natural decay, the Palestinian schools closed. The Talmud is accordingly not one work, but two, the one the literary pro- duct of the Palestinian, the other, of the Babylonian Amorahn. The latter is the larger, the more studied, the better pre- served, and to it attention will here be THE TALMUD 45 mainly confined. The Talmud is not a book, it is a literature. It contains a lei;al code, a system of ethics, a body of ritual customs, poetical passages, prayers, his- tories, facts of science and medicine, and fancies of folk-lore. The Amoraim were what their name im- plies, "Expounders," or " Discoursers "; l)ut their expositions were often original contributions to literature. Their work extends over the long interval between 200 and 500 C. E. The Amoraim naturally were men of various character and condi- tion. Some were possessed of much ma- terial wealth, others were excessively poor. But few of them were professional men of letters. Like the Tannaim, the Amoraim were often artisans, field-laborers, or phy- sicians, whose heart was certainly in litera- ture, but whose hand was turned to the practical affairs of life. The men who stood highest socially, the I'rinces of the Captivity in Babylonia and the Patriarchs 46 JE WISH LITER A TURE in Palestine, were not always those vested with the highest authority. Some of the Amoraim, again, were merely receptive, the medium through which tradition was handed on; others were creative as well. To put the same fact in Rabbinical meta- phor, some were Sinais of learning, others tore up mountains, and ground them to- gether in keen and critical dialectics. The oldest of the Amoraim, Chanina, the son of Chama, of Sepphoris (180-260), was such a firm mountain of ancient learn- ing. On the other hand, Jochanan, the son of Napacha (199-279), of dazzling phy- sical beauty, had a more original mind. His personal charms conveyed to him per- haps a sense of the artistic; to him the Greek language was a delight, " an orna- ment of women." Simon, the son of Lakish (200-275), hardy of muscle and of intellect, started life as a professional ath- lete. A later Rabbi, Zeira, was equally noted for his feeble, unprepossessing figure THE TALMUD 47 and his nimble, ingenious mind. Another contemporary of Jochanan, Joshua, the son of Levi, is the hero of many legends. He was so tender to the poor that he declared his conviction that the Messiah would arise among the beggars and cripples of Rome. Simlai, who was born in Palestine, and migrated to Nehardea in Babylonia, was more of a poet than a lawyer. His love was for the ethical and poetic elements of the Talmud, the HagadaJi, as this aspect of the Rabbinical literature was called in con- tradistinction to the Halachali, or legal ele- ments. Simlai entered into frequent dis- cussions with the Christian Fathers on sub- jects of Biblical exegesis. The centre of interest now changes to Babylonia. Here, in the year 219, Abba Areka, or Rab (175-247), founded the Sura academy, which continued to flourish for nearly eight centuries. He and his great contemporary Samuel (180-257) enjoy with Jochanan the honor of supplying the 48 JEWISH LITERATURE leading materials of which the Talmud con- sists. Samuel laid down a rule which, based on an utterance of the prophet Jere- miah, enabled Jews to live and serve in non-Jewish countries. " The law of the land is law," said Samuel. But he lived in the realms of the stars as well as in the streets of his city. Samuel was an astron- omer, and he is reported to have boasted with truth, that " he was as familiar with the paths of the stars as with the streets of Nehardea." He arranged the Jewish Cal- endar, his work in this direction being per- fected by Hillel II in the fourth century. Like Simlai, Rab and Samuel had hea- then and Christian friends. Origen and Jerome read the Scriptures under the guid- ance of Jews. The heathen philosopher Porphyry wrote a commentary on the Book of Daniel. So, too, Abbahu, who lived in Palestine a little later on, fre- quented the society of cultivated Romans, and had his family taught Greek. Abbahu THE TALMUD 49 was a manufacturer of veils for women's wear, for, like many Amoraim, he scorned to make learning a means of living. Ab- bahu's modesty with regard to his own merits shows that a Rabbi was not neces- sarily arrogant in pride of knowledge! Once Abbahu's lecture was besieged by a great crowd, but the audience of his col- league Chiva was scantv. " Thv teach- ing," said Abbahu to Chiya, " is a rare jewel, of which only an expert can judge; mine is tinsel, which attracts every ignor- ant eye." It was Rab, however, who was the real popularizer of Jewish learning. He ar- ranged courses of lectures for the people as well as for scholars. Rab's successor as head of the Sura school, Huna (212-297), completed Rab's work in making Baby- lonia the chief centre of Jewish learning. Huna tilled his own fields for a living, and might often be met going home with his spade over his shoulder. It was men like 4 50 JEWISH LITER A TURE this who built up the Jewish tradition. Huna's predecessor, however, had wider experience of Hfe, for Rab had been a student in Palestine, and was in touch with the Jews of many parts. From Rab's time onwards, learning became the prop- erty of the whole people, and the Talmud, besides being the literature of the Jewish universities, may be called the book of the masses. It contains, not only the legal and ethical results of the investigations of the learned, but also the wisdom and supersti- tion of the masses. The Talmud is not ex- actly a national literature, but it was a unique bond between the scattered Jews, an unparallelled spiritual and literary in- strument for maintaining the identity of Judaism amid the many tribulations to which the Jews were subjected. The Talmud owed much to many minds. Externally it was influenced by the na- tions with which the Jews came into con- tact. From the inside, the influences at THE TALMUD 5 I work were equally various. Jochanan, Rab, and Samuel in the third century pre- pared the material out of which the Tal- mud was finally built. The actual build- ing was done by scholars in the fourth cen- tury. Rabba, the son of Xachmani (270- 330), Abayi (280-338), and Rava (299- 352) gave the finishing touches to the method of the Talmud. Rabba was a man of the people; he was a clear thinker, and loved to attract all comers by an apt anec- dote. Rava had a superior sense of his own dignity, and rather neglected the needs of the ordinary man of his day. Abayi was more of the type of the average Rabbi, acute, genial, self-denying. Under the impulse of men of the most various gifts of mind and heart, the Talmud was gradually constructed, but two names are prominently associated with its actual com- pilation. These were Ashi (352-427) and Rabina (died 499). Ashi combined mas- sive learning with keen logical ingenuity. 52 JE WISH LITER A TURE He needed both for the task to which he devoted half a century of his Hfe. He pos- sessed a vast memory, in which the accu- mulated tradition of six centuries was stored, and he was gifted with the mental orderliness which empowered him to deal with this bewildering mass of materials. It is hardly possible that after the com- pilation of the Talmud it remained an oral book, though it must be remembered that memory played a much greater part in ear- lier centuries than it does now. At all events, Ashi, and after him Rabina, per- formed the great work of systematizing the Rabbinical literature at a turning-point in the world's history. The Mishnah had been begun at a moment when the Roman empire was at its greatest vigor and glory; the Talmud was completed at the time when the Roman empire was in its decay. That the Jews were saved from similar dis- integration, was due verv largelv to the Talmud. The Talmud is thus one of the THE TALMUD 53 great books of the world. Despite its faults, its excessive casuistry, its lack of style and form, its stupendous mass of de- tailed laws and restrictions, it is neverthe- less a great book in and for itself. It is impossible to consider it further here in its religious aspects. But something must be said in the next chapter of that side of the Rabbinical literature known as the Midrash. BIBLIOGRAPHY TiiE Talmud. Essays by E. Deutsch and A. Darmesteter (Jewish Publication Society of America). Graetz. — II, 18-22 (character of the Talmud, end of ch. 22). Karpeles. — Jezcisli Literature and other Essays, p. 52. Stcinschneider.— /fit'/.?/; Literature, p. 20. SchiUer-Szinessy.— /:no'f^- ^^I'H-- Vol. XXIII, p. 35- M. Mielziner. — Introduction to the Talmud (Cincin- nati, 1894). S. Schechter. —Some Aspects of Rabbinic Theology. J. Q. R., VI, p. 405. etc. Studies in Judaism (Jewish Publication So- ciety of America, 1896), pp. 155. 182, 213, 233 [189, 222, 259, 283]. B. Spiers.— .9r//oo/ System of the Talmud (London, 1898) (with appendix on Baba Kama); the Three- 54 JEWISH LITER A TURE fold Cord (1893) on Sanhedrin, Baba Metsia, and Baba Bathra. i\I. Jastrow. — History and Future of the Text of the Talmud {Publieations of the Grate College, Phila- delphia, 1897, Vol. I). P. B. Benny. — Cri))iinal Code of the Jezvs according to the Talmud (London, 1880). S. Mendelsohn. — The Criminal Jurisprudence of the Ancient Hebrczvs (Baltimore. 1891). D. Castelli. — Future Life in Rabbinical Literature. J. Q. R.. I, p. 314. M. Giidemann. — Spirit and Letter in Judaism a)ui Christianity, ibid., IV. p. 345. I. Harris. — Rise and Development of the Massorah, ibid., I, pp. 128, etc. H. Polano. — The Talmud (Philadelphia. 1876). I. Myers.- — Cons front the Talmud (London. 1894). D. W. Amram. — Tlie Jec^'ish La-w of Divorce accord- ing to Bible and Talmud (Philadelphia, 1896). CHAPTER IV The ^^IinuASH and its Poetry Mecliilta. Sifra. Sifre. Pesikta. Tanchuma. Midrash Kabbah. Valkut.— Proverbs. — Parables. — Fables. In its earliest forms identical with the Halachah. or the practical and legal aspects of the Mishnah and the Talmud, the Mid- rash, in its fuller development, became an independent branch of Rabbinical litera- ture. Like the Talmud, the Midrash is of a composite nature, and under the one name the accumulations of ages are in- cluded. Some of its contents are earlier than the completion of the Bible, others were collected and even created as recently as the tenth or the eleventh century of the current era. Midrash (" Study," " Inquiry ") was in the first instance an Explanation of ilic Scriptures. This explanation is often the 56 JE \] 'ISH LITER A TURE clear, natural exposition of the text, and it enforces rules of conduct both ethical and ritual. The historical and moral tra- ditions which clustered round the incidents and characters of the Bible soon received a more vi\'id setting. The poetical sense of the Rabbis expressed itself in a vast and beautiful array of legendary additions to the Bible, but the additions are always de- vised with a moral purpose, to give point to a preacher's homily or to inspire the imagination of the audience with nobler fancies. Besides being expository, the Midrash is, therefore, didactic and poetical, the moral being conveyed in the guise of a narrative, amplifying and developing the contents of Scripture. The Midrash gives the results of that deep searching of the Scriptures which became second nature wdth the Jews, and it also represents the changes and expansions of ethical and theological ideals as applied to a changing and growing life. THE MIDRASH AND ITS POETRY 57 From another point of view, also, the ]\lidrash is a poetical literatnrc. Its fnnc- tion as a species of popular homilctics made it necessary to appeal to the emo- tions. In its warm and living application of abstract trnths to daily ends, in its re- sponsive and hopefnl intensification of the nearness of God to Israel, in its idealiza- tion of the past and future of the Jews, it employed the poet's art in essence, though not in form. It will be seen later on that in another sense the Midrash is a poetical literature, using the lore of the folk, the parable, the proverb, the allegory, and the fable, and often using them in the language of poetry. The oldest Midrash is the actual report of sermons and addresses of the Tannaite age; the latest is a medieval compilation froni all extant sources. The works to which the name Midrash is applied are the Mcchilta (to Exodus); the Sifra (to Leviti- cus); the Sifre (to Numbers and Detiter- 58 JE WISH LITER A TURE onomy); the Pcsikta (to various Sections of the Bible, whence its name); the Tan- cJiuma (to the Pentateuch); the Midrash Kabbah (the " Great Midrash," to the Pen- tateuch and the Five Scrolls of Esther, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs) ; and the Midrash Haggadol (identical in name, and in contents sim- ilar to, but not identical with, the Midrash Kabbah): together wath a large number of collected Midrashim, such as the Yalkiit, and a host of smaller works, several of which are no longer extant. Regarding the Midrash in its purely lit- erary aspects, we find its style to be far more lucid than that of the Talmud, though portions of the Halachic Midrash are identical in character with the Talmud. The IMidrash has many passages in which the simple graces of form match the beauty of idea. But for the most part the style is simple and prosaic, rather than ornate or poetical. It produces its effects by the THE MIDRASH AND ITS POETRY 59 most straightforward means, and strikes a modern reader as lacking distinction in form. The dead level of commonplace ex- pression is, however, brightened by bril- liant passages of frequent occurrence. Prayers, proverbs, parables, and fables, dot the pages of Talmud and Midrash alike. The ancient proverbs of the Jews were more than mere chips from the block of experi- ence. They were poems, by reason of their use of metaphor, alliteration, assonance, and imagination. The Rabbinical proverbs show all these poetical qualities. He who steals from a thief smells of theft. — Charity is the saU of WeaUh.— Silence is a fence about Wisdom. — Many old camels carry the skins of their young.— Two dry sticks and one green Inirn together. — If tlie priest steals the god, on what can one take an oath?— All the dyers cannot bleach a raven's wing. — Into a well from which you have drunk, cast no stone. — Alas for the bread which the baker calls bad. — Slander is a Snake that stings in Syria, and slays in Rome. — The Dove escaped from the Eagle and found a Serpent in her nest.— Tell no secrets, for the Wall has ears. 6o JE J VISH LITER A TURE These, like many more of the Rabbinical proverbs, are essentially poetical. Some, indeed, are either expanded metaphors or metaphors touched by genius into poetry. The alliterative proverbs and maxims of the Talmud and Midrash are less easily illus- trated. Sometimes they enshrine a pun or a conceit, or depend for their aptness upon an assonance. In some of the Talmudic proverbs there is a spice of cynicism. But most of them show a genial attitude to- wards life. The poetical proverb easily passes into the parable. Loved in Bi1)le times, the parable became in after centuries the most popular form of didactic poetry among the Jews. The Bible has its parables, but the Midrash overflows with them. They are occasionally re-workings of older thoughts, but mostly they are original creations, in- vented for a special purpose, stories de- vised to drive home a moral, allegories ad- ministering in pleasant wrappings unpalat- THE MIDRASH AND ITS POETRY 6 1 able satires or admonitions. In all ages up to the present. Jewish moralists have relied on the parable as their most effective instrument. The poetry of the Jewish parables is characteristic also of the para- bles imitated from the Jewish, but the latter have a distinguishing feature peculiar to them. This is their humor, the witty or humorous parable being exclusively Jew- ish. The parable is less spontaneous than the proverb. It is a product of moral poetry rather than of folk wisdom. Yet the parable was so like the proverb that the moral of a parable often became a new proverb. The diction of the parable is nat- urally more ornate. By the beauty of its expression, its frequent application of rural incidents to the life familiar in the cities, the rhythm and flow of its periods, its fertile imagination, the parable should certainly be placed high in the world's poetry. But it was poetry with a tendency, the mashal, or proverb-parable, being what the Rabbis 62 JE WISH LITER A TURE themselves termed it, " the clear small light by which lost jewels can be found." The following is a parable of Hillel, which is here cited more to mention that noble, gentle Sage than as a specimen of this class of literature. Hillel belongs to a period earlier than that dealt with in this book, but his loving and pure spirit breathes through the pages of the Talmud and Midrash : Hillel, the gentle, the beloved sage, Expounded day by day the sacred page To his disciples in the house of learning; And day by day, when home at eve returning. They lingered, clust'ring round him, loth to part From him whose gentle rule won every heart. But evermore, when they were wont to plead For longer converse, forth he went with speed. Saying each day: " I go— the hour is late — To tend the guest who doth my coming wait," Until at last they said: "The Rabbi jests, When telling us thus daily of his guests That wait for him." The Rabbi paused awhile, And then made answer: " Think you I beguile You with an idle tale? Not so, forsooth! I have a guest whom I must tend in truth. Is not the soul of man indeed a guest. Who in this body deigns a while to rest. And dwells with me all peacefully to-day: To-morrow — may it not have fled away?" THE MID RASH AND ITS POETR V 63 Space must be found for one other par- able, taken (like many other poetical quo- tations in this volume) from Mrs. Lucas' translations : Simeon ben Migdal. at the close of day, Upon the shores of ocean chanced to stray. And there a man of form and mien uncouth, Dwarfed and misshapen, met he on the way. " Hail. Rabbi," spoke the stranger passing by. But Simeon thus, discourteous, made reply: " Say, are there in thy city many more. Like unto thee, an insult to the eye? " " Nay, that I cannot tell," the wand'rer said, " But if thou wouldst ply the scorner's trade. Go first and ask the Master Potter why He has a vessel so misshapen made?" Then (so the legend tells) the Rabbi knew That he had sinned, and prone himself he threw Before the other's feet, and prayed of him Pardon for the words that now his soul did rue. But still the other answered as before: " Go, in the Potter's ear thy plaint outpour, For what am I! His hand has fashioned me, And I in humble faitli that hand adore." Brethren, do we not often too forget Whose hand it is that many a time has set A radiant soul in an unlovely form, A fair white bird caged in a mouldering net? 64 JEWISH LITERATURE Nay more, do not life's times and chances, sent By the great Artificer with intent That they should prove a blessing, oft appear To us a burden that we sore lament? Ah! soul, poor soul of man! what heavenly fire Would thrill thy depths and love of God inspire, Could'st thou but see the Master hand revealed. Majestic move "earth's scheme of things entire." It cannot be! Unseen he guideth us. But yet our feeble hands, the luminous Pure lamp of faith can light to glorify The narrow path that he has traced for us. Finally, there are the Beast Fables of the Talmud and the Midrash. Most of these were borrowed directly or indirectly from India. We are told in the Talmud that Rabbi Meir knew three hundred Fox Fables, and that with his death (about 290 C. E.) " fabulists ceased to be." Very few of Meir's fables are extant, so that it is im- possible to gather whether or not they were original. There are only thirty fables in the Talmud and the Midrash, and of these sev- eral cannot be parallelled in other litera- tures. Some of the Talmudic fables are THE MIDRASH AND ITS POETRY 65 found also in the classical and the earliest Indian collections; some in the later collec- tions; some in the classics, but not in the Indian lists; some in India, but not in the Latin and Greek authors. Among the latter is the well-known fable of the Fox and the Fishes, used so dramatically by Rabbi Akiba. The original Talmudic fables are, according to Mr. J. Jacobs, the following: Chaff, Strazv, and JJlicaf, who dispute for which of them the seed has been sown : the winnowing fan soon decides ; TJie Caged Bird, who is envied by his free fellow; TJie Wolf and the tzco Hounds, who have quar- relled; the wolf seizes one, the other goes to his rival's aid, fearing the same fate him- self on the morrow, unless he helps the other dog to-day; The Wolf at the Well, the mouth of the well is covered with a net : " If I go down into the well," says the wolf, " I shall be caught. If I do not de- scend, I shall die of thirst "; The Cock and the Bat, who sit together waiting for the 5 66 JE WISH LITER A TURE sunrise: ''I wait for the dawn," said the cock, " for the Hght is my signal; but as for thee — the Hght is thy ruin"; and, fin- ally, what Mr. Jacobs calls the grim beast- tale of the Fox as Singer, in which the beasts — invited by the lion to a feast, and covered by him with the skins of wild beasts — are led by the fox in a chorus : " What has happened to those above us, will hap- pen to him above," implying that their host, too, will come to a violent death. In the context the fable is applied to Haman, whose fate, it is augured, will resemble that of the two officers whose guilt Mordecai detected. Such fables are used in the Talmud to point religious or even political morals, very much as the parables were. The fable, however, took a lower flight than the parable, and its moral was based on expe- diency, rather than on the highest ethical ideals. The importance of the Talmudic fables is historical more than literary or THE MIDRASH AND ITS POETR V 6y religious. Hebrew fables supply one of the links connecting the popular literature of the East with that of the West. But they hardly belong in the true sense to Jewish literature. Parables, on the other hand, were an essential and characteristic branch of that literature. BIBLIOGRAPHY MiDRASH. Schiller-Szinessy. — Encycl. Brit., Vol. XVI, p. 285. Graetz.— II, p. 328 [331] seq. Steinschneider. — Jewish Literature, pp. 5 seq., 36 seq. L. N. Dembitz. — Jezvish Services in Synagogue and Home (Jewish Publication Society of America, 1898), p. 44. Fables. J. Jacobs. — The Fables of Msop (London, iSSoX I, p. no seq. Read also Schechter, Studies in Judaism, p. 272 [331]; and /. Q. R. (Kohler), V, p. 399: VII, p. S8i; (Bacher) IV, p. 406: (Davis^ VIII, p. 529; (Abrahams) I, p. 216; II, p. 172; Chenery. Legends from the Midrash (MisceUcny of the Society of Hebrew Literature, Vol. II). CHAPTER V The Letters of the Gaonim Representative Gaonim: Achai, Amram, Zemach, Saadiah, Sherira, Sam- uel, Hai. For several centuries after the completion of the Talmud, Babylonia or Persia con- tinued to hold the supremacy in Jewish learning. The great teachers in the Per- sian schools followed the same lines as their predecessors in the Mishnah and the Tal- mud. Their name w^as changed more than their character. The title Gaon (" Excel- lence ") was applied to the head of the school, the members of which devoted themselves mainly to the study and inter- pretation of the older literature. They also made original contributions to the store. Of their extensive works but little has been preserved. What has survived THE LETTERS OF THE GAONIM 69 proves that they were gifted with the fac- ulty of applying old precept to modern instance. They regulated the social and religious affairs of all the Jews in the dias- pora. They improved educational meth- ods, and were pioneers in the populariza- tion of learning. By a large collection of Case Law, that is, decisions in particular cases, they brought the newer Jewish life into moral harmony with the principles for- mulated by the earlier Rabbis. The Gaonim were the originators or, at least, the ar- rangers of parts of the liturgy. They com- posed new hymns and invocations, fixed the order of service, and established in full vigor a system of MinJiag, or Custom, whose power became more and more pre- dominant, not only in religious, but also in social and commercial affairs. The literary productions of the Gaonic age open with the Shccltoth written by Achai in the year 760. This, the first inde- pendent book composed after the close of JO JE WISH LITER A TL'RE the Talmud, was curiously enough com- piled in Palestine, whither Achai had mi- grated from Persia. The Sheeltoth (" In- quiries ■') contain nearly two hundred homilies on the Pentateuch. In the year 880 another Gaon, Amram by name, pre- pared a Siddur, or Prayer-Book, which in- cludes many remarks on the history of the liturgy and the customs connected with it. A contemporary of Amram, Zemach, the son of Paltoi, found a different channel for his literary energies. He compiled an Aruch, or Talmudical Lexicon. Of the most active of the Gaonim. Saadiah, more will be said in a subsequent chapter. We will now pass on to Sherira, who in 987 wrote his famous '* Letter," containing a history of the Jewish Tradition, a work which stamps the author as at once learned and critical. It shows that the Gaonim were not afraid nor incapable of facing such problems as this: Was the Mishnah orally transmitted to the Amoraim (or Rabbis of THE LETTERS OF THE GAONIM yi the Talmud), or was it ivrittcn down by the compiler? Sherira accepted the former al- ternative. The latest Gaonim were far more productive than the earlier. Samuel, the son of Chofni, who died in 1034, and the last of the Gaonim, Hai, who flourished from 998 to 1038, were the authors of many works on the Talmud, the Bible, and other branches of Jewish literature. Hai Gaon was also a poet. The language used by the Gaonim was at first Hebrew and Aramaic, and the latter remained the ofTficial speech of the Gaonate. In course of time, Arabic replaced the Ara- mean dialect, and became the lingua franca of the Jews. The formal works of the Gaonim, with certain obvious exceptions, were not, how- ever, the writings by which they left their mark on their age. The most original and important of the Gaonic writings were their " Letters," or " Answers " (Teshn- both). The Gaonim, as heads of the school 72 JE WISH LITER A TURE in the Babylonian cities Sura and Pumbe- ditha, enjoyed far more than local author- ity. The Jews of Persia were practically independent of external control. Their official heads were the Exilarchs, who reigned over the Jews as viceroys of the caliphs. The Gaonim were the religious heads of an emancipated community. The Exilarchs possessed a princely revenue, which they devoted in part to the schools over which the Gaonim presided. This position of authority, added to the world- wide repute of the two schools, gave the Gaonim an influence which extended be- yond their own neighborhood. From all parts of the Jewish world their guidance was sought and their opinions solicited on a vast variety of subjects, mainly, but not exclusively, religious and literary. Amid the growing complications of ritual law, a desire was felt for terse prescriptions, clear- cut decisions, and rules of conduct. The imperfections of studv outside of Persia, THE LETTERS OF THE GAONIM 73 again, made it essential to apply to the Gaonim for authoritative expositions of difificiilt passages in the Bible and the Tal- mud. To all such enquiries the Gaonim sent responses in the form of letters, some- times addressed to individual correspond- ents, sometimes to communities or groups of communities. These Letters and other compilations containing Halachic (or prac- tical) decisions were afterwards collected into treatises, such as the " Great Rules " {HalacJiotJi GcdolotJi), originally compiled in the eighth century, but subsequently re- edited. Mostly, however, the Letters were left in loose form, and were collected in much later times. The Letters of the Gaonim have little pretence to literary form. The}^ are the earliest specimens of what became a very characteristic branch of Jewish literature. " Questions and Answers " (SJiaaloth ti-TesJiubotJi) abound in later times in all Jewish circles, and there is no real parallel 74 JE WISH LITER A TURE to them in any other hterature. More will be said later on as to these curious works. So far as the Gaonic period is concerned, the characteristics of these thousands of letters are lucidity of thought and terseness of expression. The Gaonim never waste a word. They are rarely over- bearing in manner, but mostly use a tone which is persuasive rather than disciplinary. The Gaonim were, in this real sense, there- fore, princes of letter-writing. Moreover, though their Letters deal almost entirely with contemporary afifairs, they now con- stitute as fresh and vivid reading as when first penned. Subjected to the severe test of time, the Letters of the Gaonim emerge triumphant. BIBLIOGRAPHY Gaonim. Graetz.— Ill, 4-8- Steinschneider.— /fIf^,y/^ Literature, p. 25. CHAPTER VI The Karaitic Literature Anan, Nahavendi, Abul-Faraj, Salman, Sahal, al- Bazir, Hassan, Japhet, Kirkisani, Judali Hadassi, Isaac Troki. In the very heart of the Gaonate, the eighth century witnessed a reHgious and Hterary reaction against Rabbinism. The opposition to the Rabbinite spirit was far older than this, but it came to a head under Anan, the son of David, the founder of Karaism. Anan had been an unsuccessful candidate for the dignity of Exilarch, and thus personal motives were involved in his attack on the Gaonim. But there were other reasons for the revolt. In the same century, Islam, like Judaism, was threat- ened by a fierce antagonism between the friends and the foes of tradition. In Islam the struggle lay between the Sunnites, who 76 JE WISH LITER A TURE interpreted Mohammedanism in accordance with authorized tradition, and the Shiites, who relied exchisively upon the Koran. Similarly, in Judaism, the Rabbinites obeyed the traditions of the earlier authori- ties, and the Karaites (from Kcra, or Mikra, i. e. " Bible ") claimed the right to reject tradition and revert to the Bible as the ori- ginal source of inspiration. Such reactions ao-ainst tradition are recurrent in all re- ligions. Karaism, however, was not a true reac- tion against tradition. It replaced an old tradition by a new one; it substituted a rigid, unprogressive authority for one ca- pable of growth and adaptation to chan- ging requirements. In the end, Karaism became so hedged in by its supposed avoid- ance of tradition that it ceased to be a liv- ino- force. But we are here not concerned with the religious defects of Karaism. Re- garded from the literary side, Karaism pro- duced a double effect, Karaism itself gave THE KARAITIC LITERATURE yj birth to an original and splendid litera- ture, and, on the other hand, coming as it did at the time when Arabic science and poetry were attaining their golden zenith, Karaism aroused within the Rabbinite sphere a notable energy, which resulted in some of the best work of medieval Jews. Among the most famous of the Karaite authors was Benjamin Nahavendi, who lived at the beginning of the ninth century, and displayed much resolution and ability as an advocate of free-thought in religion. Nahavendi not only wrote commentaries on the Bible, but also attempted to write a philosophy of Judaism, being allied to Philo in the past and to the Arabic writers in his own time. At the end of the ninth century, Abul-Faraj Harun made a great stride forwards as an expounder of the Bible and as an authority on Hebrew grammar. During the ninth and tenth centuries, several Karaites revealed much vigor and 78 JE WISH LITER A TURE ability in their controversies with the Gaonim. In this field the most distin- guished Karaitic writers were Salman, the son of Yerucham (885-960) ; Sahal, the son of Mazliach (900-950); Joseph al-Bazir (flourished 910-930); Hassan, the son of Mashiach (930); and Japhet, the son of Ali (950-990). Salman, the son of Yerucham, was an active traveller; born in Egypt, he went as a young man to Jerusalem, which he made his head-quarters for several years, though he paid occasional visits to Babylonia and to his native land. These journeys helped to unify the scattered Ka- raite communities. Besides his Biblical works, Salman composed a poetical treatise against the Rabbinite theories. To this book, which was written in Hebrew, Sal- man gave the title, " The Wars of the Lord." Sahal, the son of Mazliach, on the other hand, was a native of the Holy Land, and THE KARAITIC LITERATURE 79 though an eager polemical writer against the Rabbinites, he bore a smaller part than Salman in the practical development of Karaism. His " Hebrew Grammar " {ScfcY Dikdiik) and his Lexicon {Lcshon Limmudim) were very popular. Unlike the work of other Karaites, Joseph al- Bazir's writings were philosophical, and had no philological value. He was an ad- herent of the IMohammedan theological method known as the Kalam, and wrote mostly in Arabic. Another Karaite of the same period, Hassan, the son of Mashiach, was the one who impelled Saadiah to throw off all reserves and enter the lists as a champion of Rabbinism. Of the remain- ing Karaites of the tenth century, the fore- most was Japhet, the son of Ali, whose commentaries on the Bible represent the highest achievements of Karaism. A large Hebrew dictionary (Iggaron), by a con- temporary of Japhet named David, the son of Abraham, is also a work which was often 8o JE WISH LITER A TURE quoted. Kirkisani, also a tenth century Karaite, completed in the year 937 a trea- tise called, " The Book of Lights and the Hisfh Beacons." In this work much valu- able information is supplied as to the his- tory of Karaism. Despite his natural pre- judices in favor of his own sect, Kirkisani is a faithful historian, as frank regarding the internal dissensions of the Karaites as in depicting the divergence of views among the Rabbinites. Kirkisani's work is thus of the greatest importance for the history of Jewish sects. Finally, the famous Karaite Judah Ha- dassi (1075-1160) was a young man when his native Jerusalem was stormed by the Crusaders in 1099. A wanderer to Con- stantinople, he devoted himself to science, Hebrew philology, and Greek literature. He utilized his wide knowledge in his great work, " A Cluster of Cyprus Flow- ers " {Eslikol ha-Kophcr), which was com- pleted in 1 1 50. It is written in a series of THE KARAITIC LITERATURE 8 1 rhymed alphabetical acrostics. It is ency- clopedic in range, and treats critically, not only of Judaism, but also of Christianity and Islam. Karaitic literature was produced in later centuries also, but by the end of the twelfth century, Karaism had exhausted its origi- nality and fertility. One much later pro- duct of Karaism, however, deserves special mention. Isaac Troki composed, in 1593, a work entitled " The Strengthening of Faith " {Chizzuk EmunaJi), in which the author defended Judaism and attacked Christianity. It was a lucid book, and as its arguments were popularly arranged, it was very much read and used. With this ex- ception, Karaism produced no important work after the twelfth century. On the intellectual side, therefore, Kara- ism was a powerful though ephemeral movement. In several branches of science and philology the Karaites made real addi- tions to contemporary knowledge. But 82 JE WISH LITER A TURE the main service of Karaism was indirect. The Rabbinite Jews, who represented the mass of the people, had been on the way to a scientific and philosophical development of their own before the rise of Karaism. The' necessity of fighting Karaism with its own weapons gave a strong impetus to the new movement in Rabbinism, and some of the best work of Saadiah was inspired by Karaitic opposition. Before, however, we turn to the career of Saadiah, we must con- sider another literary movement, which co- incided in date with the rise of Karaism, but was entirely independent of it. BIBLIOGRAPHY Karaites. Graetz.— Ill, 5 (on Troki, ihid., IV, i8, end. M. Mocatta, Faith Strengthened, London, 1851). Steinschneider. — Jeivish Literature, p. 1 15 scq. W. Bacher. — Qirqisani the Qaraite, and his Work on Jeivish Sects, J. Q. R.,Vll, p. 687. Jehtida Hadassis Eshkol Hakkofer, J. Q. R., VIII. p. 431. S. Poznariski. — Karaite Miscellanies, J. Q. R., VIII, p. 681. CHAPTER VII The New-Hebrew Piyut Kalirian and Spanish Piyutim (Poems). — Jannai. — Kalir. Arabic to a large extent replaced He- brew as the literary language of the Jews, but Hebrew continued the language of prayer. As a mere literary form, Rabbinic Hebrew retained a strong hold on the Jews; as a vehicle of devotional feeling, He- brew reigned supreme. The earliest ad- ditions to the fixed liturgy of the Syna- gogue were prose-poems. They were " Occasional Prayers " composed by the precentor for a special occasion. An ap- propriate melody or chant accompanied the new hymn, and if the poem and melody met the popular taste, both won a perma- nent place in the local liturgy. The hymns were unrhymed and unmetrical, but they may have been wTitten in the form of alpha- 84 JE WISH LITER A TURE betical acrostics, such as appear in the 119th and a few other Psahiis. It is not impossible that metre and rhyme grew naturally from the Biblical Hebrew. Rhyme is unknown in the Bible, but the assonances which occur may easily run into rhymes. Musical form is certainly present in Hebrew poetry, though strict metres are foreign to it. As an his- torical fact, however, Hebrew rhymed verse can be traced on the one side to Syriac, on the other to Arabic influences. In the latter case the influence was exter- nal only. Early Arabic poetry treats of war and love, but the first Jewish rhymsters sang of peace and duty. The Arab wrote for the camp, the Jew for the synagogue. Two distinct types of verse, or Piyut (i. e. Poetry), arose within the Jewish cir- cle : the ingenious and the natural. In the former, the style is rugged and involved; a profusion of rare words and obscure allu- sions meets and troubles the reader; the THE NE W-HEBRE W PI\ 'UT 8 5 verse lacks all beauty of form, yet is alive with intense spiritual force. This style is often termed Kalirian, from the name of its best representative. The Kalirian Piyut in the end spread chiefly to France, Eng- land, Burgundy, Lorraine, Germany, Bo- hemia, Poland, Italy, Greece, and Pales- tine. The other type of new-Hebrew Piyut, the Spanish, rises to higher beauties of form. It is not free from the Kalirian faults, but it has them in a less pronounced degree. The Spanish Piyut, in the hands of one or two masters, becomes true poetry, poetry in form as well as in idea. The Spanish style prevailed in Castile, An- dalusia, Catalonia, Aragon, Majorca, Pro- vence, and in countries where Arabic in- fluence was strongest. Kalir was the most popular writer of the earlier type of new-Hebrew poetry, but he was not its creator. An older contempo- rary of his, from whom he derived both his diction and his method of treating poetic 86 JE WISH LITER A TURE subjects, was Jannai. Though we know that Jannai was a prolific writer, only seven short examples of his verse remain. One of these is the popular hymn, " It was at Midnight," which is still recited by " Ger- man " Jews at the home-service on the first eve of Passover. It recounts in order the deliverances which, according to the Mid- rash, were wrought for Israel at midnight, from Abraham's victory over the four kings to the wakefulness of Ahasuerus, the crisis of the Book of Esther. In the last stanza is a prayer for future redemption: Bring nigh the hour which is nor day nor night! Most High! make known that thine is day, and thine the night! Make clear as day the darkness of our night! As of old at midnight. This form of versification, with a run- ning refrain, afterwards became very popu- lar with Jewish poets. Jannai also dis- plays the harsh alliterations, the learned allusions to Midrash and Talmud, which were carried to extremes by Kalir. THE NE W-HEBRE VV PI 1 'UT 87 It is strange that it is impossible to fix with any certainty the date at which Jannai and Kalir hved. KaHr may belong to the eiehth or to the ninth centnrv. It is equally hard to decide as to his birth-place. Rival theories hold that he was born in Palestine and in Sardinia. His name has been derived from Cagliari in Sardinia and from the Latin calynim, a cake. Honey- cakes were given to Jewish children on their first introduction to school, and the nickname " Kaliri." or " Boy of the Cake," may have arisen from his youthful pre- cocity. But all this is mere guess-work. It is more certain that the poet was also the singer of his own verses. His earliest audiences were probably scholars, and this may have tempted Kalir to indulge in the recondite learning which vitiates his hymns. At his worst, Kalir is very bad indeed; his style is then a jumble of words, his meaning obscure and even unintelligi- ble. He uses a maze of alphabetical acros- 88 JE WISH LITER A TURE tics, line by line he wreathes into his com- positions the words of successive Bible texts. Yet even at his worst he is ingeni- ous and vigorous. Such phrases as " to hawk it as a hawk upon a sparrow " are at least bold and effective. Ibn Ezra later on lamented that Kalir had treated the He- brew language like an unfenced city. But if the poet too freely admitted strange and ugly words, he added many of considerable force and beauty. Kalir rightly felt that if Hebrew was to remain a living tongue, it was absurd to restrict the language to the vocabulary of the Bible. Hence he in- vented many new verbs from nouns. But his inventiveness was less marked than his learning. " With the permission of God, I will speak in riddles," says Kalir in opening the prayer for dew. The rid- dles are mainly clever allusions to the Mid- rash. It has been pointed out that these allusions are often tasteless and obscure. But they are more often beautiful and in- THE NEW-HEBREW PIYUT 89 spiring. No Hebrew poet in the Middle Ages was illiterate, for the poetic instinct was fed on the fancies of the Midrash. This accounts for their lack of freshness and originality. The poet was a scholar, and he was also a teacher. Much of Kalir's work is didactic; it teaches the traditional explanations of the Bible and the ritual laws for Sabbath and festivals; it provides a convenient summary of the six hundred and thirteen precepts into which the duties of the Law were arranged. But over and above all this the genius of Kalir soars to poetic heights. So much has been said of Kalir's obscurity that one quotation must in fairness be given of Kalir at his simplest and best. The passage is taken from a hymn sung on the seventh day of Taber- nacles, the day of the great Hosannas : O give ear to the prayer of those who long for thy salvation, Rejoicing before thee with the willows of the brook, And save us now! 90 JEWISH LITERATURE O redeem the vineyard which thou hast planted, And sweep thence the strangers, and save us now! O regard the covenant which thou hast sealed in us! O remember for us the father who knew thee, To whom thou, too, didst make known thy love, And save us now! O deal wondrously with the pure in heart That thy providence may be seen of men, and save us now! O lift up Zion's sunken gates from the earth, Exalt the spot to which our eyes all turn. And save us now! Such hymns won for Kalir popularity, which, however, is now much on the wane. BIBLIOGRAPHY Kalir and Jannai. Graetz. — III, 4. Translations of Poems in Editions of the Prayer- Book. and 7. Q. R., VII, p. 460; IX, p. 291. L. N. Dembitz. — Jczvish Services, p. 222 seq. CHAPTER VIII Saadiah of Fayum Translation of the Bible into Arabic— Foundation of a Jewish Philosophy of Religion. Saadiah was born in Fayum (Egypt) in 892, and died in Sura in 942. He was the founder of a new literature. In width of culture he excelled all his Jewish contem- poraries. To him Judaism was synonymous with culture, and therefore he endeavored to absorb for Judaism all the literary and scientific tendencies of his day. He created, in the first place, a Jewish philosophy, that is to say, he applied to Jewish theology the philosophical methods of the Arabs. Again, though he vigorously opposed Ka- raism, he adopted its love of philology, and by his translation of the Bible into 92 JE WISH LITER A TURE Arabic helped forward a sounder under- standing of the Scriptures. At the age of thirty-six Saadiah received a remarkable honor; he was summoned to Sura to fill the post of Gaon. This elec- tion of a foreigner as head of the Baby- lonian school proves, first, that Babylonia had lost its old supremacy, and, secondly, that Saadiah had already won world-wide fame. Yet the great work on w^iich his reputation now rests was not then written. Saadiah's notoriety was due to his suc- cessful championship of Rabbinism against the Karaites. His determination, his learn- ing, his originality, were all discernible in his early treatises against Anan and his fol- lowers. The Rabbinites had previously opposed Karaism in a guerilla warfare. Saadiah came into the open, and met and vanquished the foe in pitched battles. But he did more than defeat the invader, he strengthened the home defences. Saad- iah's polemical works have always a posi- SAADIAH OF FA YUM 93 tive as well as a negative value. He wished to prove Karaism wrong, but he also tried to show that Rabbinism was right. As a champion of Rabbinism, then, Saad- iah was called to Sura. But he had an- other claim to distinction. The Karaites founded their position on the Bible. Saad- iah resolved that the appeal to the Bible should not be restricted to scholars. He translated the Scriptures into Arabic, and added notes. Saadiah's qualifications for the task were his knowledge of Hebrew, his fine critical sense, and his enlightened attitude towards the Midrash. As to the first qualification, it is said that at the age of eleven he had begun a Hebrew rhyming dictionary for the use of poets. He himself added several hymns to the liturgy. In these Saadiah's poetical range is very varied. Sometimes his style is as pure and simple as the most classical poems of the Spanish school. At other times, his verses have all the intricacy, 94 J^ WISH L ITER A TURK harshness, and artificiality of Kahr's. Per- haps his mastery of Hebrew is best seen in his " Book of the Exiled " {Scfer Jia-Galui), compiled in Biblical Hebrew, divided into verses, and provided with accents. As the title indicates, this book was written during Saadiah's exile from Sura. Saadiah's Arabic version of the Scrip- tures won such favor that it was read pub- licly in the synagogues. Of old the Tar- gum, or Aramaic version, had been read in public worship together with the original Hebrew. Now, however, the Arabic be- gan to replace the Targum. Saadiah's ver- sion well deserved its honor. Saadiah brought a hornet's nest about his head by his renewed attacks on Kara- ism, contained in his commentary to Gen- esis. But the call to Sura turned Saadiah's thoughts in another direction. He found the famous college in decay. The Exil- archs, the nominal heads of the w^hole of the Babylonian Jews, were often unworthy SAADIAH OF FA YUM 95 of their position, and it was not long before Saadiah came into conflict with the Exil- arch. The struggle ended in the Gaon's ex- ile from Sura. During his years of banish- ment, he produced his greatest works. He arranged a prayer-book, wrote Talmudical essays, compiled rules for the calendar, ex- amined the Massoretic works of various authors, and, indeed, produced a vast array of books, all of them influential and meri- torious. But his most memorable writings were his " Commentary on the Book of Creation " {Scfcr Yetsirah) and his master- piece, " Faith and Philosophy " (Emimoth ve-DeotJi). This treatise, finished in the year 934, was the first systematic attempt to bring revealed religion into harmony with Greek philosophy. Saadiah was thus the fore- runner, not only of Maimonides, but also of the Christian school-men. No Jew, said Saadiah, should discard the Bible, and form his opinions solely by his own reason- 96 JE WISH LITER A TURE ing. But he might safely endeavor to prove, independently of revelation, the truths which revelation had given. Faith, said Saadiah again, is the soul's absorption of the essence of a truth, which thus be- comes part of itself, and will be the motive of conduct whenever the occasion arises. Thus Saadiah identified reason with faith. He ridiculed the fear that philosophy leads to scepticism. You might as well, he ar- gued, identify astronomy with superstition, because some deluded people believe that an eclipse of the moon is caused by a dragon's making a meal of it. For the last few years of his life Saadiah was reinstated in the Gaonate at Sura. The school enjoyed a new lease of fame under the brilliant direction of the author of the great work just described. After his death the inevitable decay made itself felt. Under the Moorish caliphs, Spain had become a centre of Arabic science, art, and poetry. In the tenth century, Cordova SAADIAH OF FA YUM 97 attained fame similar to that which Athens and Alexandria had once reached. In Moor- ish Spain, there was room both for earnest pietv and the sensuous delights of music and art; and the keen exercise of the intel- lect in science or philosophy did not debar the possession of practical statesmanship and skill in affairs. In the service of the caliphs were politicians who were also doc- tors, poets, philosophers, men of science. Possession of culture was, indeed, a sure credential for employment by the state. It was to Moorish Spain that the centre of Judaism shifted after the death of Saad- iah. It was in Spain that the finest fruit of Jewish literature in the post-Biblical period grew. Here the Jewish genius ex- panded beneath the sunshine of Moorish culture. To Moses, the son of Chanoch, an envoy from Babylonia, belongs the honor of founding a new school in Cordova. In this he had the support of the scholar- statesman Chasdai, the first of a long line 7 98 JE WISH LITER A TURE of medieval Jews who earned double fame, as servants of their country and as servants of their own religion. To Chasdai we must now turn. BIBLIOGRAPHY Saadiah. Graetz.— Ill, 7. Schiller-Szinessy. — Encycl. Brit., Vol. XXI, p. 120. M. Friedlander. — Life and IVorks of Saadia, J. Q. R., Vol. V, p. 177. Saadiah's Philosophy (Owen), /. Q. R., Vol. Ill, p. 192. Grammar and Polemics (Rosin), /. Q. R., Vol. VI, p. 475; (S. Poznariski) ibid., Vol. IX, p. 238. E. H. Lindo. — History of the Jeivs of Spain and Portugal (London, 1848). CHAPTER IX Dawn of the Spanish Era Chasdai Ibn Shaprut. — Menachem and Dunash, Chaj'uj and Janach. — Samuel the Nagid. If but a small part of what Hebrew poets sang concerning Chasdai Ibn Shaprut be literal fact, he was indeed a wonderful figure. His career set the Jewish imagina- tion afiame. Charizi, in the thirteenth cen- tury, wrote of Chasdai thus : In southern Spain, in days gone by, The sun of fame rose up on high: Chasdai it was. the prince, who gave Rich gifts to all who came to crave. Science rolled forth her mighty waves, Laden with gems from hidden caves. Till wisdom like an island stood, The precious outcome of the flood. Here thirsting spirits still might find Knowledge to satisfy the mind. Their prince's favor made new day For those who slept their life away. They who had lived so long apart Confessed a bond, a common heart, From Christendom and Moorish lands, I OO JE WISH LITER A TURE From East, from West, from distant strands. His favor compassed each and all. Girt by the shelter of his grace, Lit by the glory of his face. Knowledge held their heart in thrall. He showed the source of wisdom and her springs. And God's anointment made them more than kings. His goodness made the dumb to speak his name. Yea, stubborn hearts were not unyielding long; And bards the starry splendor of his fame Mirrored in lucent current of their song. This Chasdai, the son of Isaac, of the family of Shaprnt (915-970), was a physi- cian and a statesman. He was something of a poet and linguist besides; not much of a poet, for his eulogists say little of his verses; and not much of a linguist, for he employed others (among them Menachem, the son of Zaruk, the grammarian) to write his Hebrew letters for him. But he was enough of a scholar to appreciate learning in others, and as a patron of literature he placed himself in the front of the new Jew- ish development in Spain. From Babylonia he was hailed as the head of the school in Cordova. At his palatial abode was gath- DA WN OF THE SPANISH ERA loi ered all that was best in Spanish Judaism. He was the patron of the two great gram- marians of the day, IMenachem, the son of Zaruk, and his rival and critic, Dunash, the son of Labrat. These grammarians fought out their literary disputes in verses dedicated to Chasdai. Witty satires were written by the friends of both sides. Sparkling epigrams were exchanged in the rose-garden of Chasdai's house, and were read at the evening assemblies of poets, merchants, and courtiers. It was Chasdai who brought both the rivals to Cordova, Menachem from Tortosa and Dunash from Fez. Menachem was the founder of scien- tific Hebrew grammar; Dunash, more live- ly but less scholarly, initiated the art of writing metrical Hebrew verses. The successors of these grammarians, Judah Chayuj and Abulwalid Merwan Ibn Janach (eleventh century), completed what Mena- chem and Dunash had begun, and placed Hebrew philology on a firm scientific basis. 1 02 JE WISH LITER A TURE Thus, with Chasdai a new literary era dawned for Judaism. His person, his glorious position, his liberal encourage- ment of poetry and learning, opened the sealed-up lips of the Hebrew muse. As a contemporary said of Chasdai : The grinding yoke from Israel's neck he tore, Deep in his soul his people's love he bore. The sword that thirsted for their blood he brake, And cold oppression melted for his sake. For God sent Chasdai Israel's heart to move Once more to trust, once more his God to love. Chasdai did not confine his efiforts on behalf of his brethren to the Jews of Spain. Ambition and sympathy made him extend his affection to the Jews of all the world. He interviewed the captains of ships, he conversed with foreign envoys concerning the Jews of other lands. He entered into a correspondence with the Chazars, Jews by adoption, not by race. It is not sur- prising that the influence of Chasdai sur- vived him. Under the next two caliphs, DA WN OF THE SPANISH ERA 103 Cordova continued the centre of a cultured life and literature. Thither flocked, not only the Chazars, but also the descendants of the Babylonian Princes of the Captivity and other men of note. Half a century after Chasdai's death, Samuel Ibn Nagdela (993-1055) stood at the head of the Jewish community in Gra- nada. Samuel, called the Nagid, or Prince, started life as a druggist in Malaga. His fine handwriting came to the notice of the vizier, and Samuel w^as appointed private secretary. His talents as a statesman were soon discovered, and he was made first minister to Habus, the ruler of Granada. Once a Moor insulted him, and King Habus advised his favorite to cut out the ofTender's tongue. But Samuel treated his re viler with much kindness, and one day King Habus and Samuel passed the same Moor. " He blesses you now," said the astonished king, " whom he used to curse." " \h ! " replied Samuel, " I did as you I04 JE WISH LITERA TURE advised. I cut out his angry tongue, and put a kind one there instead." Samuel was not only vizier, he was also Rabbi. His knowledge of the Rabbinical literature was profound, and his " Intro- duction to the Talmud " {Mcho Jia-Talmud) is still a standard work. He expended much labor and money on collecting the works of the Gaonim. The versatility of Samuel was extraordinary. From the palace he would go to the school; after inditing a despatch he would compose a hymn ; he would leave a reception of foreign diplomatists to dis- cuss intricate points of Rabbinical law or examine the latest scientific discoveries. As a poet, his muse was that of the town, not of the field. But though he wrote no nature poems, he resembled the ancient Hebrew Psalmists in one striking feature. He sang new songs of thanksgiving over his own triumphs, uttered laments on his own woes, but there is an impersonal note in these sones as there is in the similar DA IVN OF THE SPANISH ERA 105 lyrics of the Psalter. His individual triumphs and woes were merged in the triumphs and woes of his people. In all, Samuel added some thirty new hymns to the liturgy of the Synagogue. But his muse was as versatile as his mind. Samuel also wrote some stirring wine songs. The marvellous range of his powers helped him to complete what Chasdai had begun. The centre of Judaism became more firmly fixed than ever in Spain. When Samuel the Nagid died in 1055, the golden age of Spanish literature was in sight. Above the horizon were rising in a glorious con- stellation, Solomon Ibn Gebirol, the Ibn Ezras, and Jehuda Halevi. BIBLIOGRAPHY Chasdai. Graetz. — III, p. 215 [220]. DUNASH AND MeNACHEM. Graetz. — III, p. 223 [228]. Janach. Encycl. Brit., Vol. XIII, p. 737. 1 06 JE WISH LITER A TURE Chayuj. M. Jastrow, Jr. — The Weak and Geminative J'crbs in Hcbreiv by Hayyiig (Leyden, 1897). Hebrew Philology. Steinschneider. — Jewish Literature, p. 131. Chazars. Letter of Chasdai to Chazars (Engl, transl. by Zed- ner. Miscellany of the Society of Hebreiv Litera- ture, Vol. I). Graetz. — III, p. 138 [140]. Samuel Ibn Nagdela. Graetz.— Ill, p. 254 [260]. CHAPTER X The Spanish-Jewish Poets (I) Solomon Ibn Gebirol.— "The Royal Crown."— Moses Ibn Ezra.— Abraham Ibn Ezra.— The Biblical Commentaries of Ibn Ezra and the Kimchis. "In the days of Chasdai," says Charizi, " the Hebrew poets began to sing." We have seen that the new-Hebrew poetry was older than Chasdai, but Charizi's assertion is true. The Hebrew poets of Spain are melodious, and Kalir is only ingenious. Again, it was in Spain that Hebrew was first used for secular poetry, for love songs and ballads, for praises of nature, for the expression of all human feelings. In most of this the poets found their models in the Bible. When Jehuda Halevi sang in He- brew of love, he echoed the " Song of Songs." When Moses Ibn Ezra wrote penitential hymns, or Ibn Gebirol divine I o8 JE] VISH LITER A TURE meditations, the Psalms were ever before them as an inspiration. The poets often devoted all their ambition to finding apt quotations from the sacred text. But in one respect they failed to imitate the Bible, and this failure seriously cramped their genius. The poetry of the Bible depends for its beauty partly on its form. This form is what is called parallelism of line. The fine musical effect produced by repeat- ing as an echo the idea already expressed is lost in the poetry of the Spanish Jews. Thus Spanish-Jewish poetry suffers, on the one side, because it is an imitation of the Bible, and therefore lacks originality, and on the other side it suffers, because it does not sufficiently imitate the Biblical style. In spite of these limitations, it is real poetry. In the Psalms there is deep sympathy for the wilder and more awful phenomena of nature. In the poetry of the Spanish Jews, nature is loved in her gentler moods. One of these poets, THE SPANISH-JEWISH POETS 1 09 Nahnm. wrote prettily of his garden; an- other, Ibn Gebirol, sang of autumn; Jehuda Halevi, of spring. Again, in their love songs there is freshness. There is in them a quaint blending of piety and love; they do not say that beauty is a vain thing, but they make beauty the mark of a God-fear- ing character. There is an un-Biblical lightness of touch, too, in their songs of life in the city, their epigrams, their society verses. And in those of their verses which most resemble the Bible, the passionate odes to Zion by Jehuda Halevi, the sub- lime meditations of Ibn Gebirol, the peni- tential prayers of Moses Ibn Ezra, though the echoes of the Bible are distinct enough, yet amid the echoes there sounds now and again the fresh, clear voice of the medieval poet. Solomon Ibn Gebirol was born in Mal- aga in 1021, and died in 1070. His early life was unhappy, and his poetry is tinged with melancholy. But his unhappiness no JE WISH LITER A TURE only gave him a fuller hope in God. As he writes in his greatest poem, he would fly from God to God : From thee to thee I fly to win A place of refuge, and within Thy shadow from thy anger hide, Until thy wrath be turned aside. Unto thy mercy I will cling, Until thou hearken pitying; Nor will I quit my hold of thee, Until thy blessing light on me. These lines occur in Gebirol's " Royal Crown" (Kethcr MalcJmth), a glorious series of poems on God and the world. In this, the poet pours forth his heart even more unreservedly than in his philosoph- ical treatise, " The Fountain of Life," or in his ethical work, " The Ennoblement of Character," or in his compilation from the wisdom of the past, " The Choice of Pearls " (if, indeed, this last book be his). The " Royal Crown " is a diadem of praises of the greatness of God, praises to utter which make man, with all his insignifi- cance, great. THE SPANISH-JEWISH POETS 1 1 I Wondrous are thy works, O Lord of hosts. And their greatness holds my soul in thrall. Thine the glory is, the power divine, Thine the majesty, the kingdom thine, Thou supreme, exalted over all. Thou art One, the first great cause of all; Thou art One, and none can penetrate, Not even the wise in heart, the mystery Of thy unfathomable Unity; Thou art One, the infinitely great. But man can perceive that the power of God makes him great to pardon. If he see it not now, he will hereafter. Thou art light: pure souls shall thee behold. Save when mists of evil intervene. Thou art light, that, in this world concealed, In the world to come shall be revealed; In the mount of God it shall be seen. And so the poet in one of the final hymns of the " Royal Crown," filled with a sense of his own unworthiness, hopefully aban- dons himself to God : My God, I know that those who plead To thee for grace and mercy need All their good works should go before, And wait for them at heaven's high door. But no good deeds have I to bring, No righteousness for offering. No service for my Lord and King. 112 JE WISH LITER A TURE Yet hide not thou thy face from me, Nor cast me out afar from thee; But when thou bidd'st my Hfe to cease, O may'st thou lead me forth in peace Unto the world to come, to dwell Among thy pious ones, who tell Thy glories inexhaustible. There let my portion be with those Who to eternal life arose; There purify my heart aright. In thy light to behold the light. Raise me from deepest depths to share Heaven's endless joys of praise and prayer, That I may evermore declare: Though thou wast angered, Lord, I will give thanks to thee. For past is now thy wrath, and thou dost comfort me. Ibn Gebirol stood a little outside and a good deal above the circle of the Jewish poets who made this era so brilliant. Many of them are now forgotten; they had their day of popularity in Toledo, Cordova, Se- ville, and Granada, but their poems have not survived. In the very year of Ibn Gebirol's death Moses Ibn Ezra was born. Of his life little is certain, but it is known that he was THE SPANISH-JEWISH POETS i i 3 Still alive in 11 38. He is called the " poet of penitence," and a gloomy turn was given to his thought by an unhappy love attach- ment in his youth. A few stanzas of one of his poems run thus : Sleepless, upon my bed the hours I number, And, rising, seek the house of God, while slumber Lies heavy on men's eyes, and dreams encumber Their souls in visions of the night. In sin and folly passed my early years, Wherefore I am ashamed, and life's arrears Now strive to pay, the while my tears Have been my food by day and night. Short is man's life, and full of care and sorrow, This way and that he turns some ease to borrow. Like to a flower he blooms, and on the morrow Is gone — a vision of the night. How does the weight of sin my soul oppress, Because God's law too often I transgress; I mourn and sigh, with tears of bitterness My bed I water all the night. My youth wanes like a shadow that's cast, Swifter than eagle's wings my years fly fast. And I remember not my gladness past. Either by day or yet by night. 114 JE WISH LITER A TURK Proclaim we then a fast, a holy day, Make pure our hearts from sin, God's will obey, And unto him, with humbled spirit pray Unceasingly, by day and night. May we yet hear his words: " Thou art my own, My grace is thine, the shelter of my throne. For I am thy Redeemer, I alone; Endure but patiently this night! " But his hymns, many of which won a per- manent place in the prayer-book, are not always sad. Often they are warm with hope, and there is a lilt about them which is almost gay. His chief secular poem, '' The Topaz " (TarshisJi), is in ten parts, and contains 1210 lines. It is written on an Arabic model : it contains no rhymes, but is metrical, and the same word, with entirely different meanings, occurs at the end of several lines. It needs a good deal of imagination to appreciate Moses Ibn Ezra, and this is perhaps what Charizi meant when he called him " the poet's poet." Another Ibn Ezra, Abraham, one of the THE SPANISH-JEWISH POETS 1 1 5 greatest Jews of the Middle Ages, was born in Toledo before 1 100. He passed a hard life, but he laughed at his fate. He said of himself : If I sold shrouds. No one would die. If I sold lamps, Then, in the sky. The sun, for spite, Would shine by night. Several of Abraham Ibn Ezra's hymns are instinct with the spirit of resignation. Here is one of them : I hope for the salvation of the Lord, In him I trust, when fears my being thrill, Come life, come death, according to his word. He is my portion still. Hence, doubting heart! I will the Lord extol With gladness, for in him is my desire, Which, as with fatness, satisfies my soul. That doth to heaven aspire. All that is hidden shall mine eyes behold, And the great Lord of all be known to me, Him will I serve, his am I as of old; I ask not to be free. Sweet is ev'n sorrow coming in his name, Nor will I seek its purpose to explore, His praise will I continually proclaim, And bless him evermore. 1 1 6 JE WISH LITER A TURE Ibn Ezra wandered over many lands, and even visited London, where he stayed in 1 1 58. Ibn Ezra was famed, not only for his poetry, but also for his brilliant wit and many-sided learning. As a mathematician, as a poet, as an expounder of Scriptures, he won a high place in Jewish annals. In his commentaries he rejected the current digressive and allegorical methods, and steered a middle course between free re- search on the one hand, and blind adher- ence to tradition on the other. Ibn Ezra was the first to maintain that the Book of Isaiah contains the work of two prophets — a view now almost universal. He never for a moment doubted, however, that the Bible was in every part inspired and in every part the word of God. But he was also the father of the " Higher Criticism." Ibn Ezra's pioneer work in spreading scientific methods of study in France was shared by Joseph Kimchi, who settled in Narbonne in the middle of the twelfth cen- THE SPANISH-JEWISH POETS 1 17 tury. His sons, Moses and David, were afterwards famous as grammarians and in- terpreters of the Scriptures. David Kim- chi (i 160-1235) by his lucidity and thor- oughness established for his grammar, " Perfection " (MicJilol), and his diction- ary, " Book of Roots," complete suprem- acy in the field of exegesis. He was the favorite authority of the Christian students of Hebrew at the time of the Reformation, and the English Authorized Version of 161 1 owed much to him. At this point, however, we must retrace our steps, and cast a glance at Hebrew lit- erature in France at a period earlier than the era of Ibn Ezra. BIBLIOGRAPHY Translations of Spanish-Hebrew Poems: Emma Lazarus. — Poems (Boston, 1889). Mrs. H. Lucas. — The Jezvish Year (New York, 1898), and in Editions of the Prayer-Books. See also (Abrahams) /. Q. R., XI, p. 64. Ibn Gebirol. Graetz.— Ill, 9. 1 1 8 JE WISH LITERA TURE D. Rosin. — The Ethics of Solomon Ibn Gebirol, J. Q. R., Ill, p. 159. Moses Ibn Ezra. Graetz.— Ill, p. 319 [326]. Abraham Ibn Ezra. Graetz.— Ill, p. 366 [375]. Abraham Ibn Ezra's Commentary on Isaiah (tr. by M. Friedlander, 1873). M. Friedlander. — Essays on Ibn Ezra (London, 1877). See also Transactions of the Jezvish His- torical Society of England, Vol. II, p. 47, and J. Jacobs, Jews of Angez'in England, p. 29 seq. KiMCHi Family. Graetz. — III, p. 392 [404]. Spanish-Jewish Exegesis and Poetry. Steinschneider. — Jewish Literature, pp. 141, 146-179 CHAPTER XI ^ Rashi and Alfassi Nathan of Rome. — Alfassi. — Rashi. — Rashbam. Before Hebrew poets, scientists, philos- ophers, and statesmen had made Spain famous in Jewish annals, Rashi and his school were building up a reputation des- tined to associate Jewish learning with France. In France there was none of the width of culture which distinguished Spain. Rashi did not shine as anything but an ex- ponent of traditional Judaism. He pos- sessed no graces of style, created no new literature. But he represented Judaism at its simplest, its warmest, its intensest. Rashi was a great writer because his sub- ject was great, not because he wrote greatly. But it is only a half-truth to assert that Rashi had no graces of style. For, if grace ' be the quality of producing effects with the 1 20 JE WISH LITER A TURE least display of effort, then there was no writer more graceful than Rashi. His famous Commentary on the Talmud is necessarily long and intricate, but there is never a word too much. No commentator on any classic ever surpassed Rashi in the power of saying enough and only enough. He owed this faculty in the first place to his intellectual grasp. He edited the Tal- mud as well as explained it. He restored the original text with the surest of critical instincts. And his conscience was in his work. So thoroughly honest was he that, instead of slurring over difficulties, he frankly said : ''I cannot understand . . . I do not know," in the rare cases in which he was at a loss. Rashi moreover possessed that wondrous sympathy with author and reader which alone qualifies a third mind to interpret author to reader. Probing the depth of the Talmud, Rashi probed the depth of the learned student, and realized the needs of the beginner. Thus the be- RASHI AND ALFASSI 1 2 1 ginner finds Rashi useful, and the specialist turns to him for help. His immediate dis- ciples rarely quote him by name; to them he is ''the Commentator." Rashi was not the first to subject the Talmud to critical analysis. The Gaonim had begun the task, and Nathan, the son of Yechiel of Rome, compiled, in about the year 1000, a dictionary (Aruch) which is still the standard work of reference. But Rashi's nearest predecessor, Alfassi, was not an expounder of the Talmud; he ex- tracted, with much skill, the practical re- sults from the logical mazes in which they were enveloped. Isaac, the son of Jacob Alfassi, derived his name from Fez, where he was born in 1013. He gave his intel- lect entirely to the Talmud, but he acquired from the Moorish culture of his day a sense of order and system. He dealt ex- clusively with the Halachah, or practical contents of the Rabbinic law, and the guide which he compiled to the Talmud soon 122 JE WISH LITER A TURE superseded all previous works of its kind. Solomon, the son of Isaac, best known as i?abbi vS//elomo /zchaki (Rashi), was born in 1040, and died in 1105, in Troyes, in Champagne. From his mother, who came of a family of poets, he inherited his warm humanity, his love for Jndaism. From his father, he drew his Talmudical knowledge, his keen intellect. His youth was a hard one. In accordance with medi- eval custom, he was married as a boy, and then left his home in search of knowledge rather than of bread. Of bread he had little, but, starved and straitened in circum- stances though he was, he became an eager student at the Jewish schools which then were dotted along the Rhine, residing now at Mainz, now at Speyer, now at Worms. In 1064 he settled finally in Troyes. Here he was at once hailed as a new light in Israel. His spotless character and his unique reputation as a teacher attracted a vast number of eager students. RASHI AND ALFASSI 123 Of Rashi's Commentary on the Talmud something has already been said. As to his exposition of the Bible, it soon ac- quired the widest popularity. It was in- ferior to his work on the Talmud, for, as he himself admitted in later life, he had relied too much on the Midrash, and had attended too little to evolving the literal meaning of the text of Scripture. But this is the charm of his book, and it is fortu- nate that he did not actually attempt to recast his commentary. There is a quaint- ness and fascination about it which are lacking in the pedantic sobriety of Ibn Ezra and the grammatical exactness of Kimchi. But he did himself less than jus- tice when he asserted that he had given insufficient heed to the Peshat (literal meaning). Rashi often quotes the gram- matical works of Menachem and Dunash. He often translates the Hebrew into French, showing a very exact knowledge of both languages. Besides, when he cites 124 /^ WISH LITER A TURE the Midrash, he, as it were, constructs a Peshat out of it, and this method, original to himself, found no capable imitators. Through the fame of Rashi, France took the leadership in matters Talmudical. Blessed with a progeny of famous men, Rashi's influence was carried on and in- creased by the work of his sons-in-law and grandsons. Of these, Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam, 1100-1160) was the most re- nowned. The devoted attention to the lit- erature of Judaism in the Rhinelands came in the nick of time. It was a firm rock against the storm which was about to break. The Crusades crushed out from the Jews of France all hope of temporal happiness. When Alfassi died in 1103 and Rashi in 1105, the first Crusade had barely spent its force. The Jewish schools in France were destroyed, the teachers and scholars massacred or exiled. But the spirit lived on. Their literature was life to the Jews, who had no other life. His body RASHI AND ALFASSI 125 bent over Rashi's illuminating expositions of the Talmud and the Bible, the medieval Jew felt his soul raised above the miseries of the present to a world of peace and right- eousness, where the wicked ceased from troubling, and the weary were at rest. BIBLIOGRAPHY Alfassi and Rashi. Graetz.— Ill, p. 285 [292] scq. Alfassi. I. H. Weiss.—/. Q. R., I, p. 290. Rashi. Schiller-Szinessy. — Encycl. Brit., Vol. XX, p. 284. CHAPTER XII The Spanish-Jewish Poets (II) Jehuda Halevi. — Charizi. Turning once more to the brighter con- dition of Jewish literature in Spain, we reach a man upon whom the whole vocabu- lary of praise and afifection has been ex- hausted; a man of magnetic attractiveness, whom contemporaries and successors have agreed to admire and to love. Jehuda Ha- levi was born in Toledo about 1085, the year in which Alfonso VI recaptured the city from the Moors. It was a fit birth-place for the greatest Jewish poet since Bible times. East and West met in Toledo. The science of the East there found Western Christians to cultivate it. Jew, Moor, and Christian displayed there mutual toleration which existed nowhere else. In the midst of this favorable environment Jehuda Halevi grew THE SPANISH-JEWISH POETS 127 to early maturity. As a boy he won more than local fame as a versifier. At all festive occasions his verses were in de- mand. He wrote wedding odes, elegies on great men, eulogies of the living. His love poems, serenades, epigrams of this period, all display taste, elegance, and pas- sion. The second period of Jehuda Halevi's literary career was devoted to serious pur- suits, to thoughts about life, and to practi- cal work. He wrote his far-famed philo- sophical dialogue, the Cnzarl, and earned his living as a physician. He was not an enthusiastic devotee to medicine, however. " Toledo is large," he wrote to a friend, " and my patients are hard masters. I, their slave, spend my days in serving their will, and consume my years in healing their infirmities." Before making up a prescrip- tion, he, like Sir Thomas Browne, used to say a prayer in which he confessed that he had no great faith in the healing powers 128 JE WISH LITER A TURE of his art. Jehnda Halevi was, indeed, dis- satisfied with his Hfe altogether. " My heart is in the East, but I am sunk in the West," he lamented. He was unhappy be- cause his beloved was far from him; his lady-love was beyond the reach of his ear- nest gaze. In Heine's oft-quoted words, She for whom the Rabbi languished Was a woe-begone poor darling, Desolation's very image, And her name — Jerusalem. The eager passion for one sight of Jeru- salem grew on him, and dominated the third portion of his life. At length noth- ing could restrain him; go he would, though he die in the effort. And go he did, and die he did in the effort. The news of his determination spread through Spain, and everywhere hands were held out to re- strain him. But his heart lightened as the day of departure came. His poems writ- ten at this time are hopeful and full of cheery feeling. In Egypt, a determined THE SPANISH-JE WISH POETS 1 29 attempt was made by the Jews to keep him among them. But it was vain. On- ward to Jerusalem: this was his one thought. He tarried in Egypt but a short while, then he passed to Tyre and Damas- cus. At Damascus, in the year 1140 or thereabouts, he wrote the ode to Zion which made his name immortal, an ode in which he gave vent to all the intense pas- sion which filled his soul. The following are some stanzas taken from this address to Jerusalem : The glory of the Lord has been alway Thy sole and perfect light; Thou needest not the sun to shine by day, Nor moon and stars to illumine thee by night. I would that, where God's spirit was of yore Poured out unto thy holy ones, I might There too my soul outpour! The house of kings and throne of God wert thou, How comes it then that now Slaves fill the throne where sat thy kings before? Oh! who will lead me on To seek the spots where, in far distant years. The angels in their glory dawned upon Thy messengers and seers? 1 30 JE WISH LITER A TURE Oh! who will give me wings That I may fly away, And there, at rest from all my wanderings. The ruins of my heart among thy ruins lay? The Lord desires thee for his dwelling-place Eternally, and bless'd Is he whom God has chosen for the grace Within thy courts to rest. Happy is he that watches, drawing near. Until he sees thy glorious lights arise. And over whom thy dawn breaks full and clear Set in the orient skies. But happiest he, who, with exultant eyes. The bliss of thy redeemed ones shall behold, And see thy youth renewed as in the days of old. Soon after writing this Jehucla arrived near the Holy City. He was by her side at last, by the side of his beloved. Then, legend tells ns, through a gate an Arab horseman dashed forth : he raised his spear, and slew the poet, who fell at the threshold of his dear Jerusalem, with a song of Zion on his lips. The new-Hebrew poetry did not survive him. Persecution froze the current of the THE SPA NISH-JE WISH POE TS 131 Jewish soul. Poets, indeed, arose after Je- huda Halevi in Germany as in Spain. Some- times, as in the hymns of the " German " Aleir of Rothenburg, a high level of pas- sionate piety is reached. But it has well been said that " the hymns of the Spanish writers link man's soul to his Maker: the hymns of the Germans link Israel to his God." Only in Spain Hebrew poetry was universal, in the sense in which the Psalms are universal. Even in Spain itself, the death of Jehuda Halevi marked the close of this higher inspiration. The later Spanish poets, Charizi and Zabara (middle and end of the twelfth century), were satirists rather than poets, witty, sparkling, ready with quaint quips, but local and imitative in manner and subject. Zabara must receive some further notice in a later chapter because of his connection with medieval folk-lore. Of Charizi's chief work, the Tachkcmoni, it may be said that it is excellent of its type. The stories which it tells in unmetrical 132 JE WISH LITER A TURE rhyme are told in racy style, and its criti- cisms on men and things are clever and striking. As a literary critic also Charizi ranks high, and there is much skill in the manner in which he links together, round the person of his hero, the various narra- tives which compose the TacJikemoni. The experiences he relates are full of humor and surprises. As a phrase-maker, Charizi was peculiarly happy, his command of He- brew being masterly. But his most conspic- uous claim to high rank lies in his origina- tion of that blending of grim irony with bright wit which became characteristic of all Jewish humorists, and reached its climax in Heine. But Charizi himself felt that his art as a Hebrew poet was decadent. Great poets of Jewish race have risen since, but the songs they have sung have not been songs of Zion, and the language of their muse has not been the language of the Hebrew Bible. THE SPANISH-JE WISH FOE TS 133 BIBLIOGRAPHY Jehuda Halevi. Graetz. — III, 11. J. Jacobs. — Jehuda Halevi, Poet and Pilgrim {Jewish Ideals, New York, 1896, p. 103). Lady Magnus. — Jewish Portraits (Boston, 1889), p. I. Translations of his Poetry by Emma Lazarus and Mrs. Lucas (op.cit.); Editions of the Prayer- Book; also /. Q. R., X, pp. 117, 626; VII, p. 464; Treasurers of Oxford (London, 1850); I. Abra- hams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, chs. 7, 9 and 10. His Philosophy: Specimen of the Cusari, translated by A. Neubauer (Miscellany of the Society of Hebrew Literature, Vol. I). John Owen. — /. Q. R., Ill, p. 199. Charizi. Graetz.— Ill, p. 559 [577]- Karpeles. — Jewish Literature and other Essays, p. 210 seq. M. Sachs. — Hebrew Review, Vol. I. CHAPTER XIII Moses Maimonides Maimon, Rambam := R. Moses, the son of Maimon, Maimonides. — His Yad Hachazaka and Moreh Nebuchim. — Gersonides. — Crescas. — Albo. The greatest Jew of the Middle Ages, Moses, the son of Maimon, was born in Cordova, in 1135, and died in Fostat in 1204. His father Maimon was him- self an accomplished scientist and an enlightened thinker, and the son was trained in the many arts and sciences then included in a liberal education. When Moses was thirteen years old, Cordova fell into the hands of the Almohades, a sect of Mohammedans, whose creed was as pure as their conduct was fanatical. Jews and Christians were forced to choose conver- sion to Islam, exile, or death. Maimon fled with his family, and, after an interval of troubled wanderings and painful priva- MOSES MATMONIDES 135 tions, they settled in Fez, where they found the Almohades equally powerful and equally vindictive. Maimon and his son were compelled to assume the outward garb of Mohammedanism for a period of five years. From Fez the family emi- grated in 1 165 to Palestine, and, after a long period of anxiety, Moses Maimonides settled in Egypt, in Fostat, or Old Cairo. In Egypt, another son of Maimon, David, traded in precious stones, and sup- ported his learned brother. When David was lost at sea, Maimonides earned a liv- ing as a physician. His whole day was occupied in his profession, yet he contrived to work at his books during the greater part of the night. His minor works would alone have brought their author fame. His first great work was completed in 1 168. It was a Commentary on the Mishnah, and was written in Arabic. But Mai- monides' reputation rests mainly on two books, the one written for the many, the 1 36 JE WISH LITER A TURE Other for the few. The former is his " Strong Hand " iYad Hachasaka), the latter his "Guide of the Perplexed " (Moreh Nebuchim). The " Strong Hand " was a gigantic un- dertaking. In its fourteen books Maimon- ides presented a clearly-arranged and clear- ly-worded summary of the Rabbinical Hala- chah, or Law. In one sense it is an encyclo- pedia, but it is an encyclopedia written with style. For its power to grapple with vast materials, this code has few rivals and no superiors in other literatures. Maimonides completed its compilation in 1180, having spent ten years over it. During the whole of that time, he was not only a popular doctor, but also official Rabbi of Cairo. He received no salary from the commu- nity, for he said, " Better one penny earned by the work of one's hands, than all the revenues of the Prince of the Captivity, if derived from fees for teaching or acting as Rabbi." The " Strong Hand," called also MOSES MAIMONIDES 1 37 " Deuteronomy " (Mishnch ToraJi), sealed the reputation of Maimonides for all time. Maimonides was indeed attacked, first, be- cause he asserted that his work was in- tended to make a study of the Talmud less necessary, and secondly, because he gave no authorities for his statements, but de- cided for himself which Talmudical opin- ions to accept, which to reject. But the severest scrutiny found few real blemishes and fewer actual mistakes. " From Moses to Moses there arose none like Moses," was a saying that expressed the general reverence for Maimonides. Copies of the book were made everywhere; the Jewish mind became absorbed in it; his fame and his name " rang from Spain to India, from the sources of the Tigris to South Arabia." Eulogies were showered on him from all parts of the earth. And no praise can say more for this marvellous man than the fact that the incense burned at his shrine did not intoxicate him. His touch became 138 JE WISH LITER A TURE firmer, his step more resolute. But he went on his way as before, Hving simply and laboring incessantly, vmmoved by the thunders of applause, unaffected by the feebler echoes of calumny. He corres- ponded with his brethren far and near, an- swered questions as Rabbi, explained pas- sages in his Commentary on the Mishnah or his other writings, entered heartily into the controversies of the day, discussed the claims of a new aspirant to the dignity of Messiah, encouraged the weaker brethren who fell under disfavor because they had been compelled to become pretended con- verts to Islam, showed common-sense and strong intellectual grasp in every line he wrote, and combined in his dealings with all questions the rarely associated qualities, toleration and devotion to the truth. Yet he felt that his life's work was still incomplete. He loved truth, but truth for him had two aspects: there was truth as revealed by God, there was truth which MOSES MAIMONIDES 1 39 God left man to discover for himself. In the mind of Maimonides, Moses and Aris- totle occupied pedestals side by side. In the " Strong Hand," he had codified and given orderly arrangement to Judaism as revealed in Bible and tradition; he would now exam- ine its relations to reason, would compare its results with the data of philosophy. This he did in his " Guide of the Perplexed " (Moreh NebucJiim). Maimoides here dififered fundamentally from his immediate prede- cessors. Jehuda Halevi, in his Ciizari, was poet more than philosopher. The Cticari was a dialogue based on the three prin- ciples, that God is revealed in history, that Jerusalem is the centre of the world, and that Israel is to the nations as the heart to the limbs. Jehuda Halevi supported these ideas with arguments deduced from the philosophy of his day, he used reason as the handmaid of theology. Maimon- ides, however, like Saadiah, recognized a higher function for reason. He placed rea- 1 40 JE WISH LITER A TURE son on the same level as revelation, and then demonstrated that his faith and his reason taught identical truths. His work, the " Guide of the Perplexed," written in Arabic in about the year 1190, is based, on the one hand, on the Aristotelian system as expounded by Arabian thinkers, and, on the other hand, on a firm belief in Scrip- ture and tradition. With a masterly hand, Maimonides summarized the teachings of Aristotle and the doctrines of Moses and the Rabbis. Between these two independ- ent bodies of truths he found, not contra- diction, but agreement, and he reconciled them in a way that satisfied so many minds that the " Guide " was translated into He- brew twice during his life-time, and was studied by Mohammedans and by Chris- tians such as Thomas Aquinas. With gen- eral readers, the third part was the most popular. In this part Maimonides ofifered rational explanations of the ceremonial and legislative details of the Bible. AfOSES MAIMONIDES 141 For a long time after the death of Mai- monides, which took place in 1204, Jewish thought found in the '' Guide " a strong attraction or a violent repulsion. Com- mentaries on the Morch, or " Guide," mul- tiplied apace. Among the most original of the philosophical successors of Maimon- ides there were few Jews but were greatly influenced by him. Even the famous author of "The Wars of the Lord," Ralbag, Levi, the son of Gershon (Gersonides), who was born in 1288, and died in 1344, was more or less at the same stand-point as Mai- monides. On the other hand, Chasdai Cres- cas, in his " Light of God," written between 1405 and 1410, made a determined attack on Aristotle, and dealt a serious blow at Maimonides. Crescas' work influenced the thought of Spinoza, who was also a close student of Maimonides. A pupil of Crescas, Joseph Albo (1380- 1444) was likewise a critic of Maimonides. Albo's treatise, " The Book of Principles " (Ikkariin), be- 1 42 JE WISH LITER A TURE came a popular text-book. It was impossi- ble that the reconciliation of Aristotle and Moses should continue to satisfy Jewish readers, when Aristotle had been de- throned from his position of dictator in European thought. But the " Guide " of Maimonides was a great achievement for its spirit more than for its contents. If it inevitably became obsolete as a system of theology, it permanently acted as an anti- dote to the mysticism which in the thir- teenth century began to gain a hold on Judaism, and which, but for Maimonides, might have completely undermined the be- liefs of the Synagogue. Maimonides re- mained the exemplar of reasoning faith long after his particular form of reasoning had become unacceptable to the faithful. BIBLIOGRAPHY Maimonides. Graetz. — III, 14. Karpeles. — Jewish Literature and other Essays, p. 145. MOSES MAIMONIDES 143 Steinschneider. — lewisli Literature, pp. 70, 82 seq., 94 seq. Schiller-Szinessy. — Encycl. Brit., Vol. XV, p. 295. His Works: Eight Chapters. — B. Spiers in Threefold Cord (1893). English translation in Hebrew Review, Vols. I and II. Strong Hand, selections translated by Soloweycik (London, 1863). Letter to Jehuda Ibn Tibbon, translated by H. Adler (Miscellany of the Society of Hebrew Literature, Vol. I). Guide of the Perplexed, translated by M. Fried- lander (188s). Critical Essays on Maimonides: I. H. Weiss. — Study of the Talmud in the Thirteenth Century, J. Q. R., I, p. 290. J. Owen.—/. Q. R., Ill, p. 203. S. Schechter. — Studies in Judaism, p. 161 [197], etc. On Maimon (father of Maimonides), see L. M. Simmons, Letter of Consolation of Maimon ben Joseph, J. Q. R., II, p. 62. Crescas. Graetz.— IV, pp. 146 [157]. 191 [206]. Albo. Graetz.— IV, 7. English translation of Jkkarim, Hebrew Review, Vols. I, II, III. CHAPTER XIV The Diffusion of Science Provengal Translators. — The Ibn Tibbons. — Italian Translators. — Jacob Anatoli. — Kalonymos. — Sci- entific Literature. Translators act as mediators between various peoples and ages. They bring the books and ideas of one form of civihzation to the minds and hearts of another. In the Middle Ages translations were of more importance than now, since fewer educated people could read foreign languages. No men of letters were more active than the Jews in this work of diffusion. Dr. Steinschneider fills iioo large pages with an account of the translations made by Jews in the Middle Ages. Jews co-oper- ated with Mohammedans in making trans- lations from the Greek, as later on they THE DIFFUSION OF SCIENCE 145 were associated with Christians in making Latin translations of the masterpieces of Greek hterature. Most of the Jewish trans- lations, however, that influenced Europe were made from the Arabic into the He- brew. But though the language of these translations was mostly Hebrew, they were serviceable to others besides Jews. For the Hebrew versions were often only a stage in a longer journey. Sometimes by Jews directly, sometimes by Christian scholars acting in conjunction with Jews, these Hebrew^ versions were turned into Latin, which most scholars understood, and from the Latin further translations were made into the every-day languages of Europe. The w^orks so translated were chiefly the scientific and philosophical masterpieces of the Greeks and Arabs. Poetry and his- tory were less frequently the subject of translation, but, as will be seen later on, the spread of the fables of Greece and of 10 1 46 JE WISH LITER A TURE the folk-tales of India owed something to Hebrew translators and editors. Provence was a meeting-place for Arab science and Jewish learning in the Middle Ages, and it was there that the translating impulse of the Jews first showed itself strongly. By the beginning of the thir- teenth century, Hebrew translation had be- come an art. True, these Hebrew versions possess no graces of style, but they rank among the best of their class for fidelity to their originals. Jewish patrons encouraged the translators by material and moral sup- port. Thus, Meshullam of Lunel (twelfth century) was both learned and wealthy, and his eager encouragement of Judali Ibn Tibbon, '' the father of Jewish translators," gave a strong impetus to the translating activity of the Jews. Judah Ibn Tibbon (about 11 20-1 190) was of Spanish origin, but he emigrated from Granada to Provence during the same persecution that drove Maimonides from THE DIFFUSION OF SCIENCE 147 his native land. Judah settled in Lunel. and his skill as a physician won him such renown that his medical services were sought by knights and bishops even from across the sea. Judah Ibn Tibbon was a student of science and philosophy. He early qualified himself as a translator by careful attention to philological niceties. Under the inspiration of Meshullam, he spent the years 1161 to 1186 in making a series of translations from Arabic into Hebrew. His translations were difficult and forced in style, but he had no ready- made language at his command. He had to create a new Hebrew. Classical He- brew was naturally destitute of the techni- cal terms of philosophy, and Ibn Tibbon invented expressions modelled on the Greek and the Arabic. He made Hebrew once more a living language by extending its vocabulary and adapting its idioms to the requirements of medieval culture. His son Samuel (i 160-1230) and his 1 48 JE WISH LITER A TURE grandson Moses continued the line of faith- ful but inelegant translators. Judah had turned into Hebrew the works of Bachya, [/ Ibn Gebirol, Jehuda Halevi, Ibn Janach, and Saadiah. Samuel was the translator of Maimonides, and bore a brave part in the defence of his master in the bitter contro- versies which arose as to the lawfulness and profit of studying philosophy. The transla- tions of the Tibbon family were in the first instance intended for Jewish readers only, but later on the Tibbonite versions were turned into Latin by Buxtorf and others. Another Latin translation of Maimonides existed as early as the thirteenth century. Of the successors of the Tibbons, Jacob Anatoli (1238) was the first to translate any l^, portion of Averroes into any language. Averroes was an Arab thinker of supreme importance in the Middle Ages, for through his writings Europe was ac- quainted with Aristotle. Renan asserts that all the early students of Averroes were THE DIFFUSION OF SCIENCE 1 49 Jews. Anatoli, a son-in-law of Samuel Ibn Tibbon, was invited by Emperor Frederick II to leave Provence and settle in Naples. To allow Anatoli full leisure for making translations. Frederick granted him an an- nual income. Anatoli was a friend of the Christian Michael Scot, and the latter made Latin renderings from the former's He- brew translations. In this way Christian Europe was made familiar with Aristotle as interpreted by Averroes (Ibn Roshd). Much later, the Jew Abraham de Balmes (1523) translated Averroes directly from Arabic into Latin. In the early part of the fourteenth century, Kalonymos, the son of Kalonymos, of Aries (born 1287), translated various works into Latin. From the thirteenth century onwards, Jews were industrious translators of all the important masterpieces of scientific and philosophical literature. Their zeal in- cluded the works of the Greek astronomers and mathematicians, Ptolemy, Euclid, 1 5 O JE WISH LITER A TURE Archimedes, and many others. Alfonso X commissioned several Jews to co-operate with the royal secretaries in making new renderings of older Arabic works on as- tronomy. Long before this, in 959, the monk Nicholas joined the Jew Chasdai in translating Dioscorides. Most of the Jew- ish translators were, however, not Spani- ards, but Provencals and Italians. It is to them that we owe the Hebrew translations of Galen and Hippocrates, on which Latin versions were based. The preceding details, mere drops from an ocean of similar facts, show that the Jews were the mediators between Moham- medan and Christian learning in the Mid- dle Ages. According to Lecky, '" the Jews were the chief interpreters to West- ern Europe of Arabian learning." When it is remembered that Arabian learning for a long time included the Greek, it will be seen that Lecky ascribes to Jewish trans- lators a role of the first importance in the THE DIFFUSION OF SCIENCE l 5 I history of science. Roger Bacon (12 14- 1294) had long before said a similar thing: " Michael Scot claimed the merit of nu- merous translations. But it is certain that a Jew labored at them more than he did. And so with the rest." In what precedes, nothing has been said of the original contributions made by Jew- ish authors to scientific literature. Jews were active in original research especially in astronomy, medicine, and mathematics. Many Jewish writers famous as philoso- phers, Talmudists, or poets, were also men of science. There are numerous Jewish works on the calendar, on astronomical in- struments and tables, on mathematics, on medicine, and natural history. Some of their writers share the medieval belief in astrology and magic. But it is noteworthy that Abraham Ibn Ezra doubted the com- mon belief in demons, while Maimonides described astrology as " that error called a science." These subjects, however, are too 152 JE WISH LITER A TURE technical for fuller treatment in the present book. More will be found in the works cited below. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ibn Tibbon Family. Graetz. — III, p. 397 [409]. Jacob Anatoli. Graetz.— Ill, p. 566 [584]. Karpeles. — Sketch of Jewish History (Jewish Pub- lication Society of America, 1897), pp. 49, 57. Jewish Translators. Steinschneider, Jezvish Literature, p. 62 seq. Science and Medicine. Steinschneider. — Ibid., pp. 179 seq., 260 seq. Also, A. Friedenwald. — Jezvish Physicians and the Contributions of the Jezvs to the Science of Medi- cine (Publications of the Gratz College, Vol. I). CHAPTER XV The Diffusion of Folk-Tales Barlaam and Joshaphat. — The Fables of Bidpai. — Abraham Ibn Chisdai. — Berachya ha-Nakdan. — Joseph Zabara. The folk-tales of India were communi- cated to Europe in two ways. First, there was an oral diffusion. In friendly conver- sation round the family hearth, in the con- vivial intercourse of the tavern and divan, the wit and wisdom of the East found a home in the West. Having few opportu- nities of coming into close relations with Christian society, the Jews had only a small share in the oral diffusion of folk-tales. But there was another means of diffusion, namely, by books. By their writings the Jews were able to leave some impress on the popular literature of Europe. This they did by their translations. Sometimes the Jews translated fables and 154 JE WISH LITER A TURK folk-tales solely for their own use, and in such cases the translations did not leave the Hebrew form into which they were cast. A good example of this was Abra- ham Ibn Chisdai's " Prince and Nazirite," compiled in the beginning of the thirteenth century. It was a Hebrew version of the legend of Buddha, known as " Barlaam and Joshaphat." In this the story is told of a prince's conversion to the ascetic life. His father had vainly sought to hold him firm to a life of pleasure by isolating him in a beautiful palace, far from the haunts of man, so that he might never know that such things as evil, misery, and death ex- isted. Of course the plan failed, the prince discovered the things hidden from him, and he became converted to the life of self- denial and renunciation associated with the saintly teaching of Buddha. This story is the frame into which a number of charm- ins; tales are set, which have found their way into the popular literature of all the THE DIFFUSION OF FOLK-TALES 155 world. But in this spread of the Indian stories, the book of Abraham Ibn Chisdai had no part. Far other it was with the Hebrew trans- lation of the famous Fables of Bidpai, known in Hebrew as Kalila vc-Dimna. These fables, like those contained in the " Prince and Nazirite," were Indian, and were in fact birth-stories of Buddha. They were connected by means of a frame, or central plot. A large part of the popular tales of the Middle Ages can be traced to the Fables of Bidpai, and here the Jews exerted important influence. Some au- thorities even hold that these Fables of Bidpai were brought to Spain directly from India by Jews. This is doubtful, but it is certain that the spread of the Fables was due to Jewish activity. A Jew trans- lated them into Hebrew, and this Hebrew was turned into Latin by the Italian John of Capua, a Jew by birth, in the year 1270. Moreover, the Old Spanish version which 156 JE WISH LITER A TURE was made in 1251 probably was also the work of the Jewish school of translators established in Toledo by Alfonso. The Greek version, which was earlier still, and dates from 1080, was equally the work of a Jew. Thus, as Mr. Joseph Jacobs has shown, this curious collection of fables, which influenced Europe more perhaps than any book except the Bible, started as a Buddhistic work, and passed over to the Mohammedans and Christians chiefly through the mediation of Jews. Another interesting collection of fables was made by Berachya ha-Nakdan (the Punctuator, or Grammarian). He lived in England in the twelfth century, or accord- ing to another opinion he dwelt in France a century later. His collection of 107 " Fox Fables " won wide popularity, for their wit and point combined with their apt use of Biblical phrases to please the medieval taste. The fables in this collec- tion are all old, many of them being THE DIFFUSION OF FOLK-TALES 157 ^sop's, but it is very possible that the first knowledge of yEsop gained in England was derived from a Latin translation of Berachya. Of greater poetical merit was Joseph Za- bara's " Book of Delight," written in about the year 1200 in Spain. In this poetical romance a large number of ancient fables and tales are collected, but they are thrown into a frame-work which is partially ori- ginal. One night he, the author, lay at rest after much toil, when a giant appeared before him, and bade him rise. Joseph hastily obeyed, and by the light of the lamp which the giant carried partook of a fine banquet which his visitor spread for him. Enan, for such was the giant's name, of- fered to take Joseph to another land, pleas- ant as a garden, where all men were loving, all men wise. But Joseph refused, and told Enan fable after fable, about leopards, foxes, and lions, all proving that it was best for a man to remain where he was and 158 JE WISH LITER A TURE not travel to foreign places. But Enan coaxes Joseph to go with him, and as they ride on, they tell one another a very long series of excellent tales, and exchange many witty remarks and anecdotes. When at last they reach Enan's city, Joseph dis- covers that his guide is a demon. In the end, Joseph breaks away from him, and returns home to Barcelona. Now, it is very remarkable that this collection of tales, written in exquisite Hebrew, closely resembles the other collections in which Europe delighted later on. It is hard to believe that Zabara's work had no influence in spreading these tales. At all events, Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans, all read and enjoyed the same stories, all laughed at the same jokes. " It is," says Mr. Jacobs, " one of those touches of na- ture which make the whole world kin. These folk-tales form a bond, not alone be- tween the ages, but between many races who think they have nothing in com- THE DIFFUSION OF FOLK-TALES 159 mon. We have the highest authority that * out of the mouths of babes and sucklings has the Lord estabHshed strength,' and surely of all the influences for good in the world, none is comparable to the lily souls of little children. That Jews, by their dif- fusion of folk-tales, have furnished so large an amount of material to the childish ima- gination of the civilized world is, to my mind, no slight thing for Jews to be proud of. It is one of the conceptions that make real to us the idea of the Brotherhood of Man, which, in Jewish minds, is forever associated with the Fatherhood of God." BIBLIOGRAPHY J. Jacobs. — The Diffusion of Folk Talcs (in Jewish Ideals, p. 135); The Fables of Bidpai (London, 1888) and Barlaam and Joshaphat (Introductions). Steinschneider. — Jewish Literature, p. 174. Berachya ha-Nakdan. J. Jacobs. — Jezvs of Angevin England, pp. 165 scq., 27%. A. Neubauer.— /. Q. R., II, p. 520. Zabara. I. Abrahams.—/. Q. R., VI, p. 502 (with English translation of the Book of Delight). CHAPTER XVI Moses Nachmanides French and Spanish Talmudists. — The Tossafists, Asher of Speyer, Tarn, Isaac of Dompaire, Ba- ruch of Ratisbon, Perez of Corbeil. — Nachmani- des' Commentary on the Pentateuch. — Public controversies between Jews and Christians. Nachmanides was one of the earliest writers to effect a reconciliation between the French and the Spanish schools of Jewish litera- ture. On the one side, his Spanish birth and training made him a friend of the widest culture; on the other, he was possessed of the French devotion to the Talmud. Moses, the son of Nachman (Nachmanides, Ram- ban, 1 195-1270), Spaniard though he was, says, " The French Rabbis have won most Jews to their view. They are our masters in Talmud, and to them we must go for in- struction." From the eleventh to the fourteenth century, a French school of MOSES NA CHMANIDES \ 6 1 Talmudists occupied themselves with the elucidation of the Talmud, and from the "Additions" (Tossafoth) which they com- piled they are known as Tossafists. The Tossafists were animated with an alto- gether dififerent spirit from that of the Spanish writers on the Talmud. But though their method is very involved and over-ingenious, they display so much mas- tery of the Talmud, such excellent discrim- ination, and so keen a critical insight, that they w'ell earned the fame they have en- joyed. The earliest Tossafists w^ere the family and pupils of Rashi, but the method spread from Northern France to Provence, and thence to Spain. The most famous Tossafists were Isaac, the son of Asher of Speyer (end of the eleventh century); Tam of Rameru (Rashi's grandson); Isaac the Elder of Dompaire (Tam's nephew); Baruch of Ratisbon; and Perez of Corbeil. Nachmanides' admiration for the French method — a method by no means restricted u 1 62 JE WISH LITER A TURK to the Tossafists — did not blind him to its defects. " They try to force an elephant through the eye of a needle," he sarcasti- cally said of some of the French casuists. Nachmanides thus possessed some of the independence characteristic of the Spanish Jews. He also shared the poetic spirit of Spain, and his hymn for the Day of Atone- ment is one of the finest products of the new-Hebrew muse. The last stanzas run thus: Thine is the love, O God, and thine the grace, That holds the sinner in its mild embrace; Thine the forgiveness, bridging o'er tlie space 'Twixt man's works and the task set by the King. Unheeding all my sins, I cling to thee! I know that mercy shall thy footstool be: Before I call, O do thou answer me, For nothing dare I claim of thee, my King! O thou, who makest guilt to disappear, ]\Iy help, my hope, my rock, I will not fear; Though thou the body hold in dungeon drear. The soul has found the palace of the King! Everything that Nachmanides wrote is warm with tender love. He was an enthu- MOSES NACHMANIDES 163 siast in many directions. His heart went out to the French Talmudists, yet he cher- ished so genuine an affection for Alaimon- ides that he defended him with spirit against his detractors. Gentle by nature, he broke forth into fiery indignation against the French critics of Maimonides. At the same time his tender soul was at- tracted by the emotionalism of the Kab- bala, or mystical view of life, a view equally opposed to the views of Maimonides and of the French school. He tried to act the part of reconciler, but his intellect, strong as it was, was too much at the mercy of his emotions for him to win a commanding place in the controversies of his time. For a moment we may turn aside from his books to the incidents of his life. Like Maimonides, he was a physician by profes- sion and a Rabbi by way of leisure. The most momentous incident in his career in Barcelona was his involuntary participa- tion in a public dispute with a convert 1 64 JE WISH LITER A TURE from the Synagogue. Pablo Christian! burned with the desire to convert the Jews en masse to Christianity, and in 1263 he induced King Jayme I of Aragon to sum- mon Nachmanides to a controversy on the truth of Christianity. Nachmanides com- pHed with the royal command most reluc- tantly. He felt that the process of rousing theological animosity by a public discus- sion could only end in a religious perse- cution. However, he had no alternative but to assent. He stipulated for complete freedom of speech. This was granted, but when Nachmanides pubHshed his version of the discussion, the Dominicans were in- censed. True, the special commission ap- pointed to examine the charge of blas- phemy brought against Nachmanides re- ported that he had merely availed himself of the right of free speech which had been guaranteed to him. He was nevertheless sentenced to exile, and his pamphlet was burnt. Nachmanides was seventy years of MOSES NACHMANIDES 165 age at the time. He settled in Palestine, where he died in about 1270, amid a band of devoted friends and disciples, who did not, however, reconcile him to the separa- tion from his Spanish home. " I left my family," he wrote, " I forsook my house. There, with my sons and daughters, the sweet, dear children whom I brought up on my knees, I left also my soul. My heart and my eyes will dwell with them forever." The Halachic, or Talmudical, works of Nachmanides have already been men- tioned. His homiletical, or exegetical, writings are of more literary importance. In " The Sacred Letter " he contended that man's earthly nature is divine no less than his soul, and he vindicates the " fiesh " from the attacks made on human character by certain forms of Christianity. The body, according to Nachmanides, is, with all its functions, the work of God, and therefore perfect. " It is only sin and neglect that disfigure God's creatures." In another of 1 66 JE WISH LITER A TURE his books, " The Law of Man," Nachma- nides writes of suffering and death. He offers an antidote to pessimism, for he boldly asserts that pain and suffering in themselves are " a service of God, leading man to ponder on his end and reflect about his destiny." Nachmanides believed in the bodily resurrection, but held that the soul was in a special sense a direct emana- tion from God. He was not a philosopher strictly so-called; he was a mystic more than a thinker, one to whom God was an intuition, not a concept of reason. The greatest work of Nachmanides was his " Commentary on the Pentateuch." He reveals his whole character in it. In composing his work he had, he tells us, three motives, an intellectual, a theologi- cal, and an emotional motive. First, he would " satisfy the minds of students, and draw their heart out by a critical examina- tion of the text." His exposition is, in- deed, based on true philology and on deep MOSES NA CHMANIDES i dj and original study of the Bible. His style is peculiarly attractive, and had he been content to offer a plain commentary, his work would have ranked among the best. But he had other desires besides giving a simple explanation of the text. He had, secondly, a theological motive, to justify God and discover in the words of Scripture a hidden meaning. In the Biblical narra- tives, Nachmanides sees types of the his- tory of man. Thus, the account of the six days of creation is turned into a proph- ecy of the events which would occur during the next six thousand years, and the seventh day is a type of the millennium. So, too, Nachmanides finds symbolical senses in Scriptural texts, " for, in the Torah, are hidden every wonder and every mystery, and in her treasures is sealed every beauty of wisdom." Finally, Nach- manides wrote, not only for educational and theological ends, but also for edifica- tion. His third purpose was " to bring 1 68 JE WISH LITER A TURE peace to the minds of students (laboring under persecution and trouble), when they read the portion of the Pentateuch on Sab- baths and festivals, and to attract their hearts by simple explanations and sweet words." His own enthusiastic and loving temperament speaks in this part of his commentary. It is true, as Graetz says, that Nachmanides exercised more influ- ence on his contemporaries and on suc- ceeding ages by his personality than by his writings. But it must be added that the writings of Nachmanides are his person- ality. BIBLIOGRAPHY Nachmanides. I. H. Weiss, Study of the Talmud in the Thirteenth Century, J. Q. R., I, p. 289. S. Schechter. — Studies in Judaism, p. 99 [120]. Graetz.— Ill, 17; also III, p. 598 [617]. Jacob Tam. Graetz.— Ill, p. 375 [385]. TOSSAFISTS. Graetz.— Ill, p. 344 [351], 403 [415]. CHAPTER XVII The Zohar and Later Mysticism Kabbala.— The Bahir.—Abulafia.— Moses of Leon.— The Zohar.— Isaac Lurya.— Isaiah Hurwitz.— Christian Kabbalists.— The Chassidim. Mysticism is the name given to the belief in direct, intuitive communion with God. All true religion has mystical elements, for all true religion holds that man can com- mune with God, soul with soul. In the Psalms, God is the Rock of the heart, the Portion of the cup, the Shepherd and Light, the Fountain of Life, an exceeding Joy. All this is, in a sense, mystical lan- guage. But mysticism has many dangers. It is apt to confuse vague emotionalism and even hysteria with communion with God. A further defect of mysticism is that, in its medieval forms, it tended to the muhiplication of intermediate beings, or 1 70 JE WISH LITER A TURE angels, which it created to supply the means for that communion with God which, in theory, the mystics asserted was direct. Finally, from being a deep-seated, emotional aspect of religion, mysticism de- generated into intellectual sport, a play with words and a juggling with symbols. Jewish mysticism passed through all these stages. Kabbala — as mysticism was called — really means " Tradition," and the name proves that the theory had its roots far back in the past. It has just been said that there is mysticism in the Psalms. So there is in the idea of inspiration, the prophet's receiving a message direct from God with whom he spoke face to face. After the prophetic age, Jewish mysticism displayed itself in intense personal reli- giousness, as well as in love for Apocalyptic, or dream, literature, in which the sleeper could, like Daniel, feel himself lapped to rest in the bosom of God. All the earlier literary forms of mysti- ZOHAR AND LATER MYSTICISM 17 1 cism, or theosophy, made comparatively little impression on Jewish writers. But at the beginning of the thirteenth century a great development took place in the " secret " science of the Kabbala. The very period which produced the rational- ism of Maimonides gave birth to the emo- tionalism of the Kabbala. The Kabbala was at first a protest against too much in- tellectualism and rigidity in rehgion. It reclaimed religion for the heart. A num- ber of writers more or less dallied with the subject, and then the Kabbala took a bolder flight. Ezra, or Azriel, a teacher of Nachmanides, compiled a book called " Brilliancy " (Bahir) in the year 1240. It was at once regarded as a very ancient book. As will be seen, the same pretence of antiquity was made with regard to an- other famous Kabbalistic work of a later generation. Under Todros Abulafia (1234- 1304) and 7\braham Abulafia (i 240-1 291), the mystical movement took a practical 172 JE WISH LITER A TURE shape, and the Jewish masses were much excited by stories of miracles performed and of the appearance of a new Messiah. At this moment Moses of Leon (born in Leon in about 1250, died in Arevalo in 1305) wrote the most famous KabbaHstic book of the Middle Ages. This was named, in imitation of the Bahir, " Splen- dor " (Zohar), and its brilliant success matched its title. Not only did this ex- traordinary book raise the Kabbala to the zenith of its influence, but it gave it a firm and, as it has proved, unassailable basis. Like the Bahir, the Zohar was not of- fered to the public on its own merits, but was announced as the work of Simon, the son of Yochai, who lived in the second cen- tury. The Zohar, it was pretended, had been concealed in a cavern in Galilee for more than a thousand years, and had now been suddenly discovered. The Zohar is, indeed, a work of genius, its spiritual beauty, its fancy, its daring imagery, its ZOHAR AND LATER MYSTICISM 173 depth of devotion, ranking it among the great books of the world. Its hterary style, however, is less meritorious; it is dif^cult and involved. As Chatterton clothed his ideas in a pseudo-archaic Eng- lish, so Moses of Leon used an Aramaic idiom, which he handled clumsily and not as one to the manner born. It v/ould not be so important to insist on the fact that the Zohar was a literary forgery, that it pretended to an antiquity it did not own, were it not that many Jews and Chris- tians still write as though they believe that the book is as old as it was asserted to be. The defects of the Zohar are in keeping with this imposture. Absurd allegories are read into the Bible; the words of Scrip- ture are counters in a game of distortion and combination; God himself is obscured amid a maze of mystic beings, childishly conceived and childishly named. Philo- sophically, the Zohar has no originality. Its doctrines of the Transmigration of the 1 74 JE WISH LITERA TURE Soul, of the Creation as God's self-revela- tion in the world, of the Emanation from the divine essence of semi-human, semi- divine powers, were only commonplaces of medieval theology. Its great original idea was that the revealed Word of God, the Torah, was designed for no other pur- pose than to effect a union between the soul of man and the soul of God. Reinforced by this curious jumble of excellence and nonsense, the Kabbala be- came one of the strongest literary bonds between Jews and Christians. It is hardly to be wondered at, for the Zohar contains some ideas which are more Christian than Jewish. Christians, like Pico di Mirandola (1463- 1 494), under the influence of the Jewish Kabbalist Jochanan Aleman, and Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522), sharer of Pico's spirit and precursor of the improved study of the Scriptures in Europe, made the Zohar the basis of their defence of Jewish literature against the attempts of ZOHAR AND LATER MYSTICISM 175 various ecclesiastical bodies to crush and destroy it. The Kabbala did not, however, retain a high place in the realm of literature. It greatly influenced Jewish religious cere- monies, it produced saintly souls, and from such centres as Safed and Salonica sent forth men like Solomon Molcho and Sab- batai Zevi, who maintained that they were Messiahs, and could perform miracles on the strength of Kabbalistic powers. But from the literary stand-point the Kabbala was a barren inspiration. The later works of Kabbalists are a rehash of the older works. The Zohar was the bible of the Kabbalists, and the later works of the school were commentaries on this bible. The Zohar had absorbed all the earlier Kabbalistic literature, such as the " Book of Creation " {Scjer Yetsirah), the Book Raziel, the Alphabet of Rabbi Akiba, and it was the final literary expression of the Kabbala. 176 JE WISH LITER A TURE It is, therefore, unnecessary to do more than name one or two of the more noted KabbaHsts of post-Zoharistic ages. Isaac Liirya (1534-1572) was a saint, so devoid of self-conceit that he piibHshed nothing, though he flourished at the very time when the printing-press was throwing copies of the Zohar broadcast. We owe our knowl- edge of Lurya's Kabbalistic ideas to the prolific writings of his disciple Chayim Vital Calabrese, who died in Damascus in 1620. Other famous Kabbalists were Isaiah Hur- witz (about 1 570-1630), author of a much admired ethical work, " The Two Tables of the Covenant " {Shcloh^ as it is familiarly called from the initials of its Hebrew title) ; Nehemiah Chayun (about 1650- 1730); and the Hebrew dramatist Moses Chayim Luzzatto ( 1 707-1 747). A more recent Kabbalistic movement, led by the founder of the new saints, or Chassidim, Israel Baalshem (about 1700- 1772), was even less literary than the one ZOHAR AND LATER MYSTICISM 177 just described. But the Kabbalists, medie- val and modern, were meritorious writers in one field of literature. The Kabbalists and the Chassidim were the authors of some of the most exquisite prayers and meditations which the soul of the Jew has poured forth since the Psalms were com- pleted. This redeems the later Kabbal- istic literature from the altogether unfavor- able verdict which would otherwise have to be passed on it. BIBLIOGRAPHY Kabbala. Graetz.— Ill, p. 547 [565] Moses de Leon. Graetz. — IV, i. ZOIIAR. A. Neubauer. — Bahir and Zohar, J. Q. R., IV, p. 357- Steinschneider. — Jewish Literature, p. 104. Isaac Lurya. Graetz.— IV, p. 618 [657]- Sabbatai Zevi. Graetz.— V, p. 118 [125]. Chassidim. Graetz. — V, 9. Schechter. — Studies in Judaism, p. i. 12 CHAPTER XVIII Italian Jewish Poetry Immanuel and Dante. — The Machberoth. — Judah Romano. — Kalonymos. — The Eben Bochan. — Moses Rieti. — Messer Leon. The course of Jewish literature in Italy ran along the same Hnes as in Spain. The Italian group of authors was less brilliant, but the difference was one of degree, not of kind. The Italian aristocracy, Hke the Moorish caliphs and viziers, patronized learning, and encouraged the Jews in their literary ambitions. Yet the fact that the inspiration in Spain came from Islam and in Italy from Chris- tianity produced some consequences. In Spain the Jews followed Arab models of style. In Italy the influence of classical models was felt at the time of the Renais- sance. Most noteworthy of all was the in- ITALIAN JE WISH POE TRY 179 debtedness of the Hebrew poets of Italy to Dante. It is not improbable that Dante was a personal friend of the most noted of these Jewish poets, Immanuel, the son of Solo- mon of Rome. Like the other Jews of Rome, Immanuel stood in the most friendly relations with Christians, for no- where was medieval intolerance less felt than in the very seat of the Pope, the head of the Church. Thus, on the one hand Immanuel was a leading member of the synagogue, and, on the other, he carried on a literary correspondence with learned Christians, with poets, and men of science. He was himself a physician, and his poems breathe a scientific spirit. As happened earlier in Spain, the circle of Immanuel re- garded verse-making as part of the culture of a scholar. Witty verses, in the form of riddles and epigrams, were exchanged at the meetings of the circle. With these poets, among whom Kalonymos was in- 1 80 JE WISH LITER A TURE eluded, the penning of verses was a fashion. On the other hand, music was not so much cultivated by the Italian Hebrews as by the Spanish. Hence, both Immanuel and Ka- lonymos lack the lightness and melody of the best writers of Hebrew verse in Spain. The Italians atoned for this loss by their subject-matter. They are joyous poets, full of the gladness of life. They are secu- lar, not religious poets; the best of the Spanish-Hebrew poetry was devotional, and the best of the Italian so secular that it was condemned by pietists as too frivolous and too much " disfigured by ill-timed lev- ity. Immanuel was born in Rome in about 1270. He rarely mentions his father, but often names his mother Justa as a woman of pious and noble character. As a youth, he had a strong fancy for scientific study, and was nourished on the " Guide " of Maimonides, on the works of the Greeks and Arabs, and on the writings of the ITALIAN JE WISH POETR V 1 8 1 Christian school-men, which he read in Hebrew translations. Besides philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine, Immanuel studied the Bible and the Tal- mud, and became an accomplished scholar. He was not born a poet, but he read deeply the poetical literature of Jews and Chris- tians, and took lessons in rhyme-making. He was wealthy, and his house was a ren- dezvous of wits and scientists. His own position in the Jewish community w^as re- markable. It has already been said that he took an active part in the management of communal affairs, but he did more than this. He preached in the synagogue on the Day of Atonement, and delivered eulo- gistic orations over the remains of departed worthies. Tow'ards the end of his life he suffered losses both in fortune and in friends, but he finally found a new^ home in Fermo, wdiere he was cordially wel- comed in 1328. The date of his death is uncertain, but he died in about 1330. 1 82 JE WISH LITER A TURE His works were versatile rather than profound. He wrote grammatical trea- tises and commentaries, which display learning more than originality. But his poetical writings are of great interest in the history of Jewish literature. He lived in the dawn-flush of the Renaissance in Italy. The Italian language was just evolv- ing itself, under the genius of Dante, from a mere jumble of dialects into a literary lan- guage. Dante did for Italy what Chaucer was soon after to do for England. On the one side influenced by the Renaissance and the birth of the new Italian language, on the other by the Jewish revival of letters in Spain and Provence, the Italian Jews alone combined the Jewish spirit with the spirit of the classical Renaissance. Immanuel was the Incarnation of this complex soul. This may be seen from the form of Im- manuel's MachbcrotJi, or " Collection." The latter portion of it, named separately " Hell and Eden," was imitated from the ITALIAN JE WISH POETR Y 1 8 :> Christian Dante; the poem as a whole was planned on Charizi's TacJikemoni, a He- brew development of the Arabic Divan. The poet is not the hero of his own song, but like the Arabic poets of the divan, con- ceives a personage who fills the centre of the canvas — a personage really identical with the author, yet in a sense other than he. Much quaintness of effect is produced by this double part played by the poet, who, as it were, satirizes his own doings. In Immanuel's MacJibcroth there is much variety of romantic incident. But it is in satire that he reaches his highest level. Love and wine are the frequent burdens of his song, as they are in the Provenqal and Italian poetry of his day. Immanuel was something of a Voltaire in his jocose treat- ment of sacred things, and pietists like Joseph Karo inhibited the study of the MacJibcroth. Others, too, described his songs as sensuous and his satires as blas- phemous. But the devout and earnest 1 84 JE WISH LITER A TURE piety of some of Immaniiers prayers, — some of them to be found in the MacJi- beroth themselves — proves that Immanuel's Hcentiousness and levity were due, not to lack of reverence, but to the attempt to reconcile the ideals of Italian society of the period of the Renaissance with the ideals of Judaism. Immanuel owed his rhymed prose to Charizi, but again he shows his devotion to two masters by writing Hebrew sonnets. The sonnet was new then to Italian verse, and Immanuel's Hebrew specimens thus belong to the earliest sonnets written in any literature. It is, indeed, impossible to convey a just sense of the variety of sub- ject and form in the Machberoth. " Seri- ous and frivolous topics trip each other by the heels; all metrical forms, prayers, ele- gies, passages in unmetrical rhymes, all are mingled together." The last chapter is, however, of a different character, and it has often been printed as a separate work. It ITALIAN JEWISH POETR V 185 is the " Hell and Eden " to which allusion has already been made. The link between Immanuel and his Provengal contemporary Kalonymos was supplied by Judah Romano, the Jewish school-man. All three were in the service of the king of Naples. Kalonymos was the equal of Romano as a philosopher and not much below Immanuel as a satirist. He was a more fertile poet than Immanuel, for, while Immanuel remained the sole rep- resentative of his manner, Kalonymos gave birth to a whole school of imitators. Ka- lonymos wrote many translations, of Galen, Averroes, Aristotle, al-Farabi, Ptolemy, and Archimedes. But it was his keen wit more than his learning that made him pop- ular in Rome, and impelled the Jews of that city, headed by Immanuel, to persuade Kalonymos to settle permanently in Italy. Kalonymos' two satirical poems were called "The Touchstone" (Ebcn BocJian) and " The Purim Tractate." These satir- 1 86 JE WISH LITER A TURE ize the customs and social habits of the Jews of his day in a bright and powerful style. In his Purim Tractate, Kalonymos parodies the style, logic, and phraseology of the Talmud, and his work was the fore- runner of a host of similar parodies. There were many Italian writers of Piyutim, i. e. Synagogue hymns, but these were mediocre in merit. The elegies writ- ten in lament for the burning of the Law and the martyrdoms endured in various parts of Italy were the only meritorious devotional poems composed in Hebrew in that country. Italy remained famous in Hebrew poetry for secular, not for reli- gious compositions. In the fifteenth cen- tury Moses Rieti (born 1389, died later than 1452) imitated Dante once more in his " Lesser Sanctuary " (Mikdash Meat). Here again may be noticed a feature pecu- liar to Italian Hebrew poetry. Rieti uses regular stanzas, Italian forms of verse, in this matter following the example of Im- ITALIAN JEWISH POETR Y 1 87 maniiel. Messer Leon, a physician of Mantua, wrote a treatise on Biblical rhet- oric (1480). Again, the only important writer of dramas in Hebrew was, as we shall see, an Italian Jew, who copied Italian models. Though, therefore, the Hebrew poetry of Italy scarcely reaches the front rank, it is historically of first-rate import- ance. It represents the only effects of the Renaissance on Jewish literature. In other countries, the condition of the Jews was such that they were shut off from external influences. Their literature suffered as their lives did from imprisonment within the Ghettos, which were erected both by the Jews themselves and by the govern- ments of Europe. BIBLIOGRAPHY S. Morals. — Italian Jewish Literature (Publications of the Grats College, Vol. I). Immanuel and Kalonymos. Graetz.— IV, p. 61 [66]. J. Chotzner. — Immanuel di Romi, I. Q. R., IV, p. 64. 1 8 8 JE WISH LITER A TURE G. Sacerdote. — Emanuele da Roma's Ninth Mehabbc- reth, J. Q. R., VII, p. 711. JuDAH (Leone) Romano. Graetz.— IV, p. 68 [73]- Moses Rieti. Graetz. — IV, p. 230 [249]. Messer Leon. Graetz.— IV, p. 289 [311]. CHAPTER XIX Ethical Literature Bachj-a Ibn Pekuda. — Choboth ha-Lebaboth. — Sefer ha-Chassidim. — Rokeach. — Yedaiah Bedaressi's Bechinath Olam. — Isaac Aboab's Menorath ha- Maor. — Ibn Chabib's "Eye of Jacob."— Zevaoth, or Ethical Wills. — Joseph Ibn Caspi. — Solomon Alami. A LARGE proportion of all Hebrew books is ethical. Many of the works already treated here fall under this category. The Talmudical, exegetical, and philosophical writings of Jews were also ethical treatises. In this chapter, however, attention will be restricted to a few books which are in a special sense ethical. Collections of moral proverbs, such as the " Choice of Pearls," attributed to Ibn Gebirol, and the '* Maxims of the Philoso- phers " by Charizi, were great favorites in the Middle Ages. They had a distinct charm, but they were not original. They 1 90 JE WISH LITER A TURE were either compilations from older books or direct translations from the Arabic. It was far otherwise with the ethical work entitled " Heart Duties " (CJwboth ha- Lcbaboth), by Bachya Ibn Pekuda (about 1050-1100). This was as original as it was forcible. Bachya founded his ethical sys- tem on the Talmud and on the philosophi- cal notions current in his day, but he evolved out of these elements an original view of life. The inner duties dictated by conscience were set above all conventional morality. Bachya probed the very heart of religion. His soul was filled with God, and this communion, despite the ascetic feelings to which it gave rise, was to Bachya an exceeding joy. His book thrills the reader with the author's own chastened enthusiasm. The " Heart Duties " of Bachya is the most inspired book written by a Jew in the Middle Ages. In part worthy of a place by the side of Bachya's treatise is an ethical book written ETHICAL LITERATURE 191 in the Rhinelands during the thirteenth century. " The Book of the Pious " {Scfcr Jia-CJiassidiiii) is mystical, and in course of time superstitious elements were interpo- lated. Wrongly attributed to a single writer, Judah Chassid, the " Book of the Pious " was really the combined product of the Jewish spirit in the thirteenth cen- tury. It is a conglomerate of the sublime and the trivial, the purely ethical with the ceremonial. With this popular and re- markable book may be associated other conglomerates of the ritual, the ethical, and the mystical, as the Rokcach by Eleazar of Worms. A simpler but equally popular work was Yedaiah Bedaressi's " Examination of the World " {Bechinath Ohm), written in about the year 13 10. Its style is florid but poetical, and the many quaint turns which it gives to quotations from the Bible remind the reader of Ibn Gebirol. Its ear- nest appeal to man to aim at the higher 192 JE WISH LITER A TURE life, its easily intelligible and commonplace morals, endeared it to the "general reader" of the Middle Ages. Few books have been more often printed, few more often translated. Another favorite class of ethical books consisted of compilations made direct from the Talmud and the Midrash. The oldest and most prized of these was Isaac Aboab's " Lamp of Light " {Menorath ha-Maor). It was an admirably written book, clearly arranged, and full to the brim of ethical gems. Aboab's work was written between 13 10 and 1320. It is arranged according to subjects, differing in this respect from another very popular compilation, Jacob Ibn Chabib's " Eye of Jacob " {En Yaakob), which was completed in the sixteenth cen- tury. In this, the Hagadic passages of the Talmud are extracted without arrange- ment, the order of the Talmud itself being retained. The " Eye of Jacob " was an extremely popular work. ETHICAL LITERATURE 1 93 Of the purely devotional literature of Judaism, it is impossible to speak here. One other ethical book must be here no- ticed, for it has attained wide and deserved popularity. This is the '' Path of the Up- right " (Mcssilafli Ycshanm) by Moses Chayim Luzzatto, of whom more will be said in a later chapter. But a little more space must be here devoted to a species of ethical tract which was peculiar to Jewish moralists. These tracts were what are known as Ethical Wills. These Ethical Wills (Zcraoth) contained the express directions of fathers to their children or of aged teachers to their dis- ciples. They were for the most part writ- ten calmly in old age, but not immediately before the writers' death. Some of them were very carefully composed, and amount to formal ethical treatises. But in the main they are charmingly natural and un- affected. They were intended for the ab-" solutely private use of children and rela- 13 1 94 JE WISH LITER A TURE lives, or of some beloved pupil who held the dearest place in his master's regard. They were not designed for publication, and thus, as the writer had no reason to expect that his words would pass beyond a limited circle, the Ethical Will is a clear revelation of his innermost feelings and ideals. Intellectually some of these Ethical Wills are poor; morally, however, the gen- eral level is very high. Addresses of parents to their children occur in the Bible, the Apocrypha, and the Rabbinical literature. But the earliest ex- tant Ethical Will written as an independent document is that of Eleazar, the son of Isaac of Worms (about 1050), who must not be confused with the author of the Rokeacli. The eleventh and twelfth cen- turies supply few examples of the Ethical Will, but from the thirteenth century on- wards there is a plentiful array of them. '" Think not of evil," says Eleazar of Worms, " for evil thinking leads to evil ETHICAL LITERATURE 195 doing. . . . Purify thy body, the dwelHng- place of thy soul. . . . Give of all thy food a portion to God. Let God's portion be the best, and give it to the poor." The will of the translator Judah Tbn Tibbon (about 1 190) contains at least one passage worthy of Ruskin : " Avoid bad society, make thy books thy companions, let thy book-cases and shelves be thy gardens and pleasure-grounds. Pluck the fruit that grows therein, gather the roses, the spices, and the m}'rrh. If thy soul h^ satiate and weary, change from garden to garden, from furrow to furrow, from sight to sight. Then will thy desire renew itself, and thy soul be satisfied with delight." The will of Nachmanides is an unaffected eulogy of humility. Asher, the son of Yechiel (four- teenth century), called his will " Ways of Life," and it includes 132 maxims, which are often printed in the prayer-book. " Do not obey the Law^ for reward, nor avoid sin from fear of punishment, but serve God 196 JE WISH LITER A TURE from love. Sleep not over-much, but rise with the birds. Be not over-hasty to reply to offensive remarks; raise not thy hand against another, even if he curse thy father or mother in thy presence." Some of these wills, like that of the son of the last mentioned, are written in rhymed prose; some are controversial. Joseph Ibn Caspi writes in 1322: "How can I know God, and that he is one, unless I know what knowing means, and what constitutes unity? Why should these things be left to non-Jewish philosophers? Why should Aristotle retain sole posses- sion of the treasures that he stole from Solomon?" The belief that Aristotle had visited Jerusalem with Alexander the Great, and there obtained possession of Solomon's wisdom, was one of the most curious myths of the Middle Ages. The will of Eleazar the Levite of Mainz (1357) is a simple document, without lit- erary merit, but containing a clear exposi- E THICAL LITER A TURE 1 97 tion of duty. '' Ji-^tlge every man charita- bly, and use your best efforts to find a kindly explanation of conduct, however suspicious. . . . Give in charity an exact tithe of your property. Never turn a poor man away empty-handed. Talk no more than is necessary, and thus avoid slander. Be not as dumb cattle that utter no word of gratitude, but thank God for his boun- ties at the time at which they occur, and in your prayers let the memory of these personal favors warm your hearts, and prompt you to special fervor durini^ the utterance of the communal thanks for com- munal well-being. When words of thanks occur in the liturgy, pause and silently re- flect on the goodness of God to you that day." In striking contrast to the simplicity of the foregoing is the elaborate " Letter of Advice " by Solomon Alami (beginning of the fifteenth century). It is composed in beautiful rhymed prose, and is an import- 1 98 JE WISH LITER A TURE ant historical record. For the author shared the sufferings of the Jews of the Iberian peninsula in 1391, and this gives pathetic point to his counsel : " Flee with- out hesitation when exile is the only means of securing religious freedom; have no re- gard to your worldly career or your prop- erty, but go at once." It is needless to indicate fully the nature of the Ethical Wills of the sixteenth and subsequent centuries. They are closely similar to the foregoing, but they tend to become more learned and less simple. Yet, though as literature they are often quite insignificant, as ethics they rarely sink be- low mediocrity. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ethical Literature. Steinschneider. — Jezvish Literature, pp. 100, 232. B. H. Ascher. — CJioice of Pearls (with English translation, London, 1859). D. Rosin. — Ethics of Solomon Ibn Gebirol, J. Q. R., Ill, p. 159- Bachya. Graetz, III, p. 271. ETHICAL LITERATURE 199 Yedaya Bedaressi. Graetz.— 1\'. p. ^,2 [45]- J. Chotzner.— /. 0. R.. VIII, p. 4i4- T. Goodman. — English translation of Bcchinath Olaiii (London, 1830). Ethical Wills. Edelmann.— T//r Path of Good Men (London, 1852). I. Abrahams, /. Q. R., Ill, p. 436. CHAPTER XX Travellers' Tales Eldad the Danite.— Benjamin of Tudela.— Petachiah of Ratisbon. — Esthori Parchi. — Abraham Faris- sol. — David Reubeni and Molcho. — Antonio de Montesinos and Manasseh ben Israel. — Tobiah Cohen. — Wessely. The voluntary and enforced travels of the Jews produced, from the earliest period after the destruction of the Temple, an ex- tensive, if fragmentary, geographical liter- ature. In the Talmud and later religious books, in the Letters of the Gaonim, in the correspondence of Jewish ambassadors, in the autobiographical narratives inter- spersed in the works of all Jewish scholars of the Middle Ages, in the Anich, or Tal- mudical Lexicon, of Nathan of Rome, in the satirical romances of the poetical globe- trotters, Zabara and Charizi, and, finally, in the Bible commentaries written by Jews, TRAVELLERS' TALES 20I many geographical notes are to be found. But the composition of complete works dedicated to travel and exploration dates only from the twelfth century. Before that time, however, interest in the whereabouts of the Lost Ten Tribes eave rise to a book which has been well called the Arabian Nights of the Jews. The " Diary of Eldad the Danite," written in about the year 880. was a popular ro- mance, to which additions and alterations were made at various periods. This diary tells of mighty Israelite empires, especially of the tribe of IMoses, the peoples of which were all virtuous, all happy, and long-lived. " A river flows round their land for a distance of four days' journey on every side. They dwell in beautiful houses provided with handsome towers, which they have built themselves. There is nothing unclean among them, neither in the case of birds, venison, nor domesticated ani- mals; there are no wild beasts, no flics, no foxes, no vermin, no serpents, no dogs, and, in general, nothing that does harm; they have only sheep and cattle, which bear twice a year. They sow and reap, they have all kinds of gardens with rill kinds 202 JE WISH LITERA TURE of fruits and cereals, beans, melons, gourds, onions, garlic, wheat, and barley, and the seed grows a hundredfold. They have faith; they know the Law, the Mishnah, the Talmud, and the Hagadah. . . . No child, be it son or daughter, dies during the life-time of its parents, but they reach a third and fourth generation. They do all the field-work them- selves, having no male nor female servants. They do not close their houses at night, for there is no thief or evil-doer among them. They have plenty of gold and silver; they sow flax, and cultivate the crimson-worm, and make beautiful garments. . . . The river Sambatyon is two hundred yards broad, about as far as a bow-shot. It is full of sand and stones, but without water; the stones make a great noise, like the waves of the sea and a stormy wind, so that in the night the noise is heard at a distance of half a day's journey. There are fish in it, and all kinds of clean birds fly round it. And this river of stone and sand rolls during the six working-days, and rests on the Sabbath day. As soon as the Sabbath begins, fire surrounds the river, and the flames remain till the next evening, when the Sab- bath ends. Thus no human being can reach the river for a distance of half a mile on either side; the fire consumes all that grows there." With wild rapture the Jews of the ninth century heard of these prosperous and powerful kingdoms. Hopes of a restora- tion to former dignity encouraged them to believe in the mythical narrative of Eldad, TRAVELLERS' TALES 203 It is doubtful whether he was a bona fide traveller. At all events, his book includes much that became the legendary property of all peoples in the Middle Ages, such as the fable of the mighty Christian Emperor of India, Prester John. Some further account of this semi-myth- ical monarch is contained in the first real Jewish traveller's book, the " Itinerary " of Benjamin of Tudela. This Benjamin was a merchant, who, in the year 11 60, started on a long journey, which was prompted partly by commercial, partly by scientific motives. He visited a large part of Europe and Asia, went to Jerusalem and Bagdad, and gives in his " Itinerary " some remark- able geographical facts and some equally remarkable fables. He tells, for instance, the story of the pretended Messiah, David Alroy, whom Disraeli made the hero of one of his romances. Benjamin of Tudela's " Itinerary " was a real contribution to geo- graphy. 204 Jf^ ' ? 'ISH LITER A TURK Soon after Benjamin, another Jew, Pe- tachiah of Ratisbon, set out on a similar but less extended tour, which occupied him during- the years 1179 and 1180. His " Travels " are less informino- than those of his immediate predecessor, but his descrip- tions of the real or reputed sepulchres of ancient worthies and his account of the Jewish College in Bagdad are full of ro- mantic interest, which was not lessened for medieval readers because much of Peta- chiah's narrative was legendary. A far more important work was written by the first Jewish explorer of Palestine, Esthori Parchi, a contemporary of Mande- ville. His family originated in Florenza, in Andalusia, and the family name Parchi (the Flower) was derived from this cir- cumstance. Esthori was himself born in Provence, and was a student of science as well as of the Talmud. When he, together with the rest of the Jews of France, was exiled in 1306, he wandered to Spain and TRAVELLERS' TALES 205 Egypt until the attraction of the Holy Land pro\'ed irresistible. His manner was careful, and his love of accuracy unusual for his day. Hence, he was not content to collect all ancient and contemporary refer- ences to the sites of Palestine. For seven years he devoted himself to a personal ex- ploration of the country, two years being passed in Galilee. In 1322 he completed his work, which he called KapJitor va- PJicrach (Bunch and Flower) in allusion to his own name. Access to the Holy Land became easier for Jews in the fourteenth century. Before that time the city of Jerusalem had for a considerable period been barred to Jewish pilgrims. By the laws of Constantine and of Omar no Jew might enter wathin the precincts of his ancient capital. Even in the centuries subsequent to Omar, such pilgrimages were fraught with danger, but the poems of Jchuda Halevi, the tolerance of Islam, and the reputation of Northern 2o6 JEWISH LITERATURE Syria as a centre of the Kabbala, combined to draw many Jews to Palestine. Many letters and narratives were the results. One characteristic specimen must suffice. In 1488 Obadiah of Bertinoro, author of the most popular commentary on the Mishnah, removed from Italy to Jerusalem, where he was appointed Rabbi. In a letter to his father he gives an intensely moving ac- count of his voyage and of the state of Hebron and Zion. The narrative is full of personal detail, and is marked throughout by deep love for his father, which strug- gles for the mastery with his love for the Holy City. A more ambitious work was the " Itin- era Mundi " of Abraham Farissol, written in the autumn of 1524. This treatise was based upon original researches as well as on the works of Christian and Arabian geographers. He incidentally says a good deal about the condition of the Jews in various parts of the world. Indeed, al- TRAVELLERS' TALES 207 most all the geographical writings of Jews are social histories of their brethren in faith. Somewhat later, David Reubeni published some strange stories as to the Jews. He went to Rome, where he made a considerable sensation, and was received by Pope Clement VII (i 523-1 534). Dwarf- ish in stature and dark in complexion, David Reubeni was wasted by continual fasting, but his manner, though harsh and forbidding, was intrepid and awe-inspiring. His outrageous falsehoods for a time found ready acceptance with Jews and Christians alike, and his fervid Messianism won over to his cause many Alarranos — Jews who had been forced by the Inquisition in Spain to assume the external garb of Christianity. His chief claim on the memory of posterity was his connection with the dramatic career of Solomon Molcho (i 501-1532), a youth noble in mind and body, who at Reubeni's instigation personated the Mes- siah, and in early manhood died a martyr's 2o8 JE WISH LITER A TURE death amid the flames of the Inquisition at Mantua. The geographical Hterature of the Jews did not lose its association with Messianic hopes. Antonio de Montesinos, in 1642, imagined that he had discovered in South America the descendants of the Ten Tribes. He had been led abroad by Inisi- ness considerations and love of travel, and in Brazil came across a mestizo Indian, from whose statements he conceived the firm belief that the Ten Tribes resided and thrived in Brazil. Two years later he vis- ited Amsterdam, and, his imagination aflame with the hopes which had not been stifled by several years' endurance of the prisons and tortures of the Inquisition, per- suaded Manasseh ben Israel to accept his statements. On his death-bed in Brazil, Montesinos reiterated his assertions, and Manasseh ben Israel not only founded thereon his noted book, " The Hope of Israel," but under the inspiration of simi- TRAVELLERS' TALES 209 lar ideas felt impelled to visit London, and win from Cromwell the right of the Jews to resettle in England. Jewish geographical literature grew apace in the eighteenth century. A famous book, the " Work of Tobiah," was written at the beginning of this period by Tobiah Cohen, who was born at Metz in 1652, and died in Jerusalem in 1729. It is a medley of science and fiction, an encyclo- pedia dealing with all branches of knowl- edge. He had studied at the Universities of Frankfort and Padua, had enjoyed the patronage of the Elector of Brandenburg, and his medical knowledge won him many distinguished patients in Constantinople. Thus his work contains many medical chapters of real value, and he gives one of the earliest accounts of recently discovered drugs and medicinal plants. Among other curiosities he maintained that he had dis- covered the Pygmies. From this absorbing but confusing book 14 2 lO JE WISH LITER A TURE our survey must turn finally to N. H. Wes- sely, who in 1782 for the first time main- tained the importance of the study of geo- graphy in Jewish school education. The works of the past, with their consoling legends and hopes, continued to hold a place in the heart of Jewish readers. But from Wessely's time onwards a long series of Jewish explorers and travellers have joined the ranks of those who have opened up for modern times a real knowledge of the globe. BIBLIOGRAPHY Steinschneider. — Jewish Literature, p. 80. A. Neubauer.— Series of Articles entitled Where are the Ten Tribes, J. Q. R., Vol. I. Benjamin of Tudela. A. Asher. — The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela (with English translation and appendix by Zunz. London, 1840- 1). Petachiah of Ratisbon. A. Benisch. — Travels of Petachia of Ratisbon (with English translation. London, 1856). Abraham Farissol. Graetz.— IV, p. 413 [44o]. David Reubeni. Graetz.— IV, p. 491 [523]- H. Wessely. Graetz.— V, p. 366 [388]. CHAPTER XXI Historians and Chroniclers Order of the Tannaim and Ainoraim. — Achimaaz. — Abraham Ihn Daud. — Josippon. — Historical Ele- gies, or Selichoth. — Memorial Books. — Abraham Zacuto. — Elijah Kapsali. — Usque. ^ — Ibn Verga. — Joseph Cohen. — David Gans. — Gedaliah Ibn Yachya. — Azariah di Rossi. The historical books to be found in the Bible, the Apocrypha, and the Hellenistic literature prove that the Hebrew genius was not unfitted for the presentation of the facts of Jewish life. These older works, as well as the writings of Josephus, also show a faculty for placing local records in rela- tion to the wider facts of general history. After the dispersion of the Jews, however, the local was the only history in which the Jews could bear a part. The Jews read history as a mere commentary on their own fate, and hence they were unable to take the wide outlook into the world re- 212 JE WISH L ITER A TURE quired for the compilation of objective his- tories. Thus, in their aim to find religious consolation for their sufferings in the Mid- dle Ages, the Jewish historians sought rather to trace the hand of Providence than to analyze the human causes of the changes in the affairs of mankind. But in another sense the Jews were es- sentially gifted with the historical spirit. The great men of Israel were not local heroes. Just as Plutarch's Lives were part of the history of the world's politics, so Jewish biographies of learned men were part of the history of the world's civiliza- tion. With the " Order of the Tannaim and Amoraim " (written about the year iioo) begins a series of such biographical works, in which more appreciation of sober fact is displayed than might have been ex- pected from the period. In the same way the famous Letter of Sherira Gaon on the compilation of the Rabbinical literature (980) marked great progress in the critical HISTORIANS AND CHRONICLERS 213 examination of liistorical problems. Later A\-orks did not maintain the same level. In the Middle Ages, Jewish histories mostly took the form of uncritical Chroni- cles, which included legends and traditions as well as assured facts. Their interest and importance lie in the personal and communal details with which they abound. Sometimes they are confessedly local. This is the case with the " Chronicle of Achi- maaz," written by him in 1055 in rhymed prose. In an entertaining style, he tells of the early settlements of the Jews in South- ern Italy, and throws much light on the intercommunication between the scattered Jewish congregations of his time. A larger canvas was filled by Abraham Ibn Daiid, tlie j)hysician and [)hilosopher who was born in Toledo in 1 1 10, and met a martyr's end at the age of seventy. His " Book of Tradition " {Scfcr Iia-Kabbalah), written in 1161, was designed to present, in opposition to the Karaites, the chain of 214 J^ WISH LITER A TURE Jewish tradition as a series of unbroken links from the age of Moses to Ibn Baud's own times. Starting with the Creation, his history ends with the anti-Karaitic crusade of Judah Ibn Ezra in Granada (1150). Abraham Ibn Baud shows in this work considerable critical power, but in his two other histories, one dealing with the history of Rome from its foundation to the time of King Reccared in Spain, the other a narrative of the history of the Jews during the Second Temple, the author re- lied entirely on " Josippon." This was a medieval concoction which long passed as the original Josephus. " Josippon " was a romance rather than a history. Culled from all sources, from Strabo, Lucian, and Eusebius, as well as from Josephus, this marvellous book exercised strong influence on the Jewish imagination, and supplied an antidote to the tribulations of the pres- ent by the consolations of the past and the vivid hopes for the future. HISTORIANS AND CHRONICLERS 215 For a long period Abraham Ibn Daiid found no imitators. Jewisli histor\- was written as part of the Jewish reHgion. Yet, incidentally, many historical passages were introduced in the works of Jewish scholars and travellers, and the liturgy was enriched by many beautiful historical Elegies, which were a constant call to heroism and fidelity. These Elegies, or SclicJwth, were com- posed throughout the Middle Ages, and their passionate outpourings of lamenta- tion and trust give them a high place in Jewish poetry. They are also important historically, and fully justify the fine utter- ance with which Zunz introduces them, an utterance which was translated by George Eliot as follows: If there are ranks in suffering, Israel takes pre- cedence of all the nations — if the duration of sor- rows and the patience with which they are borne ennoble, the Jews are among the aristocracy of every land — if a literature is called rich in tlie pos- session of a few classic tragedies, what sliall we say to a National Tragedy lasting for fifteen hundred years, in which the poets and the actors were also the heroes? 2 1 6 JE WISH LITER A TURE The story of the medieval section of this pathetic martyrdom is written in the Seli- cJioth and in the more prosaic records known as " Memorial Books " (in German, McniorbiicJicr), which are lists of martyrs and brief eulogies of their careers. For the next formal history we must pass to Abraham Zacuto. In his old ac;e he employed some years of comparative quiet, after a stormy and unhappy life, in writing a " Book of Genealogies " {Yiichasin). He had been exiled from Spain in 1492, and twelve years later composed his historical work in Tunis. Like Abraham Ibn Baud's book, it opens with the Creation, and ends with the author's own day. Though Za- cuto's work is more celebrated than histor- ical, it nevertheless had an important share in reawaking the dormant interest of Jews in historical research. Thus we find Elijah Kapsali of Candia writing, in 1523, a " His- tory of the Ottoman Empire," and Joseph Cohen, of Avignon, a " History of France HISTORIANS AND CHRONICLERS 217 and Turkey," in 1554, in which he incUided an account of the rebelhon of Fiesco in Genoa, where the author was then residing. Tlie sixteenth century witnessed the pro- duction of several popular Jewish histories. At that epoch the horizon of the world was extending under new geographical and in- tellectual discoveries. Israel, on the other hand, seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper into the slough of despond. Some of the men who had themselves been the victims of persecution saw that the only hope lay in rousing the historical consci- ousness of their brethren. History became the consolation of the exiles from Spain who found themselves pent up within the walls of the Ghettos, which were first built in the sixteenth century. Samuel Usque was a fugitive from the Inquisition, and his dialogues, " Consolations for the Tribu- lations of Israel " (written in Portuguese, in 1553), are a long drawn-out sigh of pain passing into a sigh of relief. Usque opens 2 1 8 JE WISH LITER A TURE with a passionate idyl in which the history of Israel in the near past is told by the shepherd Icabo. To him Numeo and Zi- careo offer consolation, and they pour balm into his wounded heart. The vividness of Usque's style, his historical insight, his sturdy optimism, his poetical force in inter- preting suffering as the means of attaining the highest life in God, raise his book above the other works of its class and age. Usque's poem did not win the same pop- ularity as two other elegiac histories of the same period. These were the " Rod of Judah " {Shchct JehudaJi) and the " Valley of Tears " (Eiiick ha-BacJioIi). The for- mer was the work of three generations of the Ibn Verga family. Judah died before the expulsion from Spain, but his son Solo- mon participated in the final troubles of the Spanish Jews, and was even forced to join the ranks of the Marranos. The grandson, Joseph Ibn Verga, became Rabbi in Adri- anople, and w^as cultured in classical as HISTORIANS AND CHRONICLERS 219 well as Jewish lore. Their composite work, " The Rod of Judah," was completed in 1554. It is a well-written but badly ar- ranged martyrology, and over all its pages might be inscribed the Talmiidical motto, that God's chastisements of Israel are chas- tisements of love. The other work refer- red to is Joseph Cohen's "Valley of Tears," completed in 1575. The author was born in Avignon in 1496, four years after his father had .shared in the exile from Spain. He himself suffered expatriation, for, though a distinguished physician and the private doctor of the Doge Andrea Doria, he was expelled with the rest of the Jews from Genoa in 1550. Settled in the little town of Voltaggio, he devoted himself to writing the annals of European and Jewish history. His style is clear and forcible, and recalls the lucid simplicity of the his- torical books of the Bible. The only other histories that need be critically mentioned here are the " Branch 2 20 JE WISH LITER A TURE of David " {Zciiioch Dai'id), the " Chain of Tradition " (Slialshclcfh ha-KabbalaJi), and the " Light of the Eyes " (Mcur Enayim). Abraham de Porta Leone's " Shields of the Mighty " {Shiltc ha-Gihhorim, printed in Mantua in 1612); Leon da Modena's " Ceremonies and Customs of the Jews," (printed in Paris in 1637); David Conforte's " Call of the Generations " {Korc Jia-Doroth, w^ritten in Palestine in about 1670); Yechiel Heilprin's " Order of Generations " (Seder ha-Doroth, written in Poland in 1725); and Chayim Azulai's " Name of the Great Ones" (written in Leghorn in 1774), can receive only a bare mention. The author of the " Branch of David," David Cans, was born in Westphalia in about 1540. He was the first German Jew of his age to take real interest in the study of history. He was a man of scientific cul- ture, corresponded with Kepler, and was a personal friend of Tycho Brahe. For the latter Gans made a German translation HISTORIANS AND CHRONICLERS 221 of parts of the Hebrew version of the Tables of Alfonso, originally compiled in 1260. Gans wrote works on mathematical and physical geography, and treatises on arithmetic and geometry. His history, " Branch of David," was extremely popu- lar. For a man of his scientific training it shows less critical power than might have been expected, but the German Jews did not begin to apply criticism to history till after the age of ]\Iendelssohn. In one re- spect, however, the " Branch of David " displays the width of the author's culture. Not only does he tell the history of the Jews, but in the second part of his work he gives an account of many lands and cities, especially of Bohemia and Prague, and adds a striking description of the secret courts (Vehmgcrichte) of Westphalia. It is hard to think that the authors of the " Chain of Tradition " and of the " Light of the Eyes " were contemporaries. Azariah di Rossi (15 14-1588), the writer 222 JE WISH LITER A TURE of the last mentioned book, was the founder of historical criticism among the Jews. Elias del Medigo (1463-1498) had led in the direction, but di Rossi's work anticipated the methods, of the German school of " scientific " Jewish writers, who, at the beginning of the present century, applied scientific principles to the study of Jewish traditions. On the other hand, Gedaliah Ibn Yachya (15 15-1587) was so utterly uncritical that his " Chain of Tradition " was nicknamed by Joseph Delmedigo the " Chain of Lies." Geda- liah was a man of wealth, and he expended his means in the acquisition of books and in making journeys in search of sacred and profane knowledge. Yet Gedaliah made up in style for his lack of historical method. The " Chain of Tradition " is a picturesque and enthralling book, it is a warm and cheery retrospect, and even deserves to be called a prose epic. Besides, many of his statements that were wont to be treated as HISTORIANS AND CHRONICLERS 223 altogether unauthentic have been vindi- cated by later research. Azariah di Rossi, on the other hand, is immortalized by his spirit rather than his actual contributions to historical literature. He came of an ancient family said to have been carried to Rome by Titus, and lived in Ferrara, where, in 1574, he produced his " Light of the Eyes." This is divided into three parts, the first devoted to general history, the second to the Letter of Aristeas, the third to the solution of several historical problems, all of which had been neglected by Jews and Christians alike. Azariah di Rossi was the first critic to. open up true lines of research into the Hellenistic liter- ature of the Jews of Alexandria. With him the true historical spirit once more descended on the Jewish genius. BIBLIOGRAPHY Steinschneider. — Jnvish Literature, p. 75, seq., 250 scq. A. Neiibauer. — Introductions to Medieval Jeivish Cliroiiielcs, Vols. I and II (Oxford, 1882, etc.). 224 JE WISH LITERA TURE Selichoth. Zwnz. ^Sufferings of the Iczcs in the Middle Ages (translated by A. Lowy, Miscellany of the Society of Hebrezv Literature, Vol. I). See also /. Q. R., VIII, pp. 78, 4-^6, 611. Abraham Ibn Daud. Graetz.— Ill, p. 363 {2,72\- Abraham Zacuto. Graetz.— IV, pp. 366, 367, 39 1 [3931- Elijah Kapsali. Graetz.— IV, p. 406 [435]- Joseph Cohen, Usque, Ibn Verga. Graetz.— IV, p. 555 [59o]. Chronicle of Joseph ben Joshua the Priest (English translation by Bialoblotzky. London, 1835-6). Elia Delmedigo. Graetz. — IV, p. 290 [31^]- David Gans. Graetz.— IV, p. 63S [679]. Gedaliah Ibn Yachya. Graetz.— IV, p. 609 [655]. Azariah di Rossi. Graetz.— IV, p. 614 [653]. CHAPTER XXII Isaac Abarbanel Abarbanel's Philosophy and Biblical Commentaries. — Elias Lcvita. — Zeena u-Reena. — Moses Al- shech. — The Biur. The career of Don Isaac Abarbanel (born in Lisbon in 1437, died in Venice in 1509) worthily closes the long services which the Jews of Spain rendered to the state and to learning. The earlier part of his life was spent in the service of Alfonso V of Por- tugal. He possessed considerable wealth, and his house, which he himself tells us was built with spacious halls, was the meet- ing-place of scholars, diplomatists, and men of science. Among his other occupa- tions, he busied himself in ransoming Jew- ish slaves, and obtained the co-operation of some Italian Jews in this object. When Alfonso dietl, Abarbanel not only 15 226 JEWISH LITERA TURE lost his post as finance minister, but was compelled to flee for his life. He shared the fall of the Duke of Braganza, whose popularity was hateful to Alfonso's succes- sor. Don Isaac escaped to Castile in 1484, and, amid the friendly smiles of the cul- tured Jews of Toledo, set himself to resume the literary work he had been forced to lay aside while burdened with affairs of state. He began the compilation of commentaries on the historical books of the Bible, but he was not long left to his studies. Ferdi- nand and Isabella, under the very eyes of Torquemada and the Inquisition, entrusted the finances of their kingdom to the Jew Abarbanel during the years 1484 to 1492. In the latter year, Abarbanel was driven from Spain in the general expulsion insti- gated by the Inquisition. He found a tem- porary asylum in Naples, where he also received a state appointment. But he was soon forced to flee again, this time to Corfu. " My wife, my sons, and my books ISAAC ABARBANEL 227 are far from me," he wrote, " and I am left alone, a stranger in a strange land." But his spirit was not crushed by these successive misfortunes. He continued to compile huge works at a very rapid rate. He was not destined, however, to end his life in obscurity. In 1503 he was given a diplomatic post in Venice, and he passed his remaining years in happiness and honor. He ended the splendid roll of famous Spanish Jews with a career pecu- liarly Spanish. He gave a final, striking example of that association of life with lit- erature which of old characterized Jews, but which found its greatest and last home in Spain. As a writer, Abarbanel has many faults. He is very verbose, and his mannerisms are provoking. Thus, he always intro- duces his commentaries with a long string of questions, which he then proceeds to answer. It was jokingly said of him that he made many sceptics, for not one in a 228 JE WISH LITER A TURE score of his readers ever got beyond the questions to the answers. There is this truth in the sarcasm, that Abarbanel, de- spite his essential lucidity, is very hard to read. Though Abarbanel has obvious faults, his good qualities are equally tangi- ble. No predecessor of Abarbanel came so near as he did to the modern ideal of a commentator on the Bible. Ibn Ezra was the father of the " Higher Criticism," i. e. the attempt to explain the evolution of the text of Scripture. The Kimchis developed the strictly grammatical exposition of the Bible. But Abarbanel understood that, to explain the Bible, one must try to repro- duce the atmosphere in which it was writ- ten; one must realize the ideas and the life of the times with which the narrative deals. His own practical state-craft stood him in good stead. He was able to form a con- ception of the politics of ancient Judea. His commentaries are works on the phi- losophy of history. His more formal phi- ISA A C ABARBANEL 2 ^ 229 losophical works, such as his " Deeds of God " {Miphaloth Eloliiiii), are of less vahie, they are borrowed in the main from Alaimonides. In his Tahiiudical writings, notably his " Salvation of his Anointed " (Ycshiiotli Mcshicho), Abarbanel displays a lighter and more original touch than in his philosophical treatises. But his works on the Bible are his greatest literary achievement. Besides the merits already indicated, these books have another im- portant excellence. He was the first Jew to make extensive use of Christian com- mentaries. He must be credited with the discovery that the study of the Bible may be unsectarian, and that all who hold the Bible in honor may join hands in elucidat- ing it. A younger contemporary of Abarbanel was also an apostle of the same view. This was Elias Levita (1469-1549). He was a Grammarian, or Massorite, i. e. a student of the tradition (Massora/t) as to the He- 2 30 JE WISH LITER A TURE brew text of the Bible, and he was an ener- getic teacher of Christians. In the six- teenth century the study of Hebrew made much progress in Europe, but the Jews themselves were only indirectly associated with this advance. Despite Abarbanel, Jewish commentaries remained either homiletic or mystical, or, like the popular works of Moses Alshech, were more or less Midrashic in style. But the Bible was a real delight to the Jews, and it is natural that such books were often compiled for the masses. Mention must be made of the Zc'cna u-Rccna (" Go forth and see "), a work written at the beginning of the eigh- teenth century in Jewish-German for the use of women, a work which is still beloved of the Jewess. But the seeds sown by Abarbanel and others of his school eventu- ally produced an abundant harvest. Men- delssohn's German edition of the Penta- teuch with the Hebrew Commentary (Bitir) was the turning-point in the march ISA A C ABARBANEL 2 3 1 towards the modern exposition of the Bible, which had been inaugurated by the statesman-scholar of Spain. BIBLIOGRAPHY Abarb.\nel. Graetz. — IV, 11. I. S. Meisels. — Don Isaac AharbancI, J. Q. R., II, P- .37- S. Schechter. — Studies in Judaism, p. 173 [211]. F. D. Mocatta. — The Jczvs of Spain and Portugal and the Inquisition (London. 1877). Scliiller-Sziiiessy. — Encycl. Brit., Vol. I, p. 52. Exegesis i6th-i8th Centuries. Steinschncidcr. — Jcunsh Literature, p. 232 seq. BlUR. Specimen of the Binr, translated l)y A. Benisch (MiseeUany of the Society of Hcbrciu Literature, Vol. I). CHAPTER XXIII The Shulchan Aruch Asheri's Arba Turim. — Cliiddushim and Teshuboth. — Solomon ben Aderetli. — Meir of Rothenburg. — Sheshet and Duran. — Moses and Judah Minz. — Jacob Weil, Israel Isserlein, Maharil. — David Abi Zimra. — Joseph Karo. — Jair Bacharach. — Chacham Zevi. — Jacob Emden. — Ezekiel Lan- dau. The religions literature of the Jews, so far as practical life was concerned, cul- minated in the publication of the " Table Prepared" (Sliulchan Anicli), in 1565. The first book of its kind compiled after the invention of printing, the Shulchan Aruch obtained a popularity denied to all previous works designed to present a di- gest of Jewish ethics and ritual obser- vances. It in no sense superseded the " Strong Hand " of Maimonides, but it was so much more practical in its scope, so much clearer as a work of general refer- THE SHUL CHAN AR UCH 233 ence. so much fuller of Minhag, or estab- lished custom, that it speedily became the universal hand-book of Jewish life in many of its phases. It was not accepted in all its parts, and its blemishes were clearly perceived. The author, Joseph Karo, was too tender to the past, and admitted some things which had a historical justification, but which Karo himself would have been the first to reject as principles of con- duct for his own or later times. On the whole, the book was a worthy summary of the fundamental Jewish view, that religion is co-extensive with life, and that every- thing worth doing at all ought to be done in accordance with a general principle of obedience to the divine will. The defects of such a view are the defects of its cjuali- ties. The Shulchan Aruch was the outcome of centuries of scholarship. It was original, yet it was completely based on previous \Vorks. In particular the " Four Rows " 234 JE WISH LITER A TURE (Arbda Turim) of Jacob Asheri (1283- 1340) was one of the main sources of Karo's work. The " Four Rows," again, owed everything to Jacob's father, Asher, the son of Yechiel, who migrated from Germany to Toledo at the very beginning of the fourteenth century. But besides the systematic codes of his predecessors, Karo was able to draw^ on a vast mass of literature on the Talmud and on Jewish Law% accumulated in the course of cen- turies. There w^as, in the first place, a large col- lection of " Novelties " {Cliiddushuu), or Notes on the Talmud, by various authori- ties. More significant, however, were the " Responses "' (TcsJiiiboth), which resem- bled those of the Gaonim referred to in an earlier chapter. The Rabbinical Cor- respondence, in the form of Responses to Questions sent from far and near, covered the whole field of secular and religious knowledge. The style of these " Re- THE SHUL CHAN AR UCH 235 spouses " was at first simple, terse, and full of actuality. The most famous representa- tives of this form of literature after the Gaonim were both of the thirteenth cen- tury, Solomon, the son of Adereth, in Spain, and Aleir of Rothenburg in Germany. Solo- mon, the son of Adereth, of Barcelona, was a man whose moral earnestness, mild yet firm disposition, profound erudition, and tolerant character, won for him a supreme place in Jewish life for half a century. Meir of Rothenburg was a poet and mar- tyr as well as a profound scholar. He passed many years in prison rather than yield to the rapacious demands of the local fjovernment for a ransom, which Meir's friends would willingly have paid. As a specimen of Meir's poetry, the following verses are taken from a dirge composed by him in 1285, when copies of the Penta- teuch were publicly committed to the flames. The " Law " is addressed in the second person : 236 JE WISH LITER A TURE Dismay hath seized upon my soul; how then Can food be sweet to me? When, O thou Law! I have beheld base men Destroying thee? Ah! sweet 'twould be unto mine eyes alway Waters of tears to pour. To sob. and drench thy sacred robes, till they Could hold no more. But lo! my tears are dried, when, fast outpoured. They down my cheeks are shed. Scorched by the fire within, because thy Lord Hath turned and sped. Yea, I am desolate and sore bereft, Lo! a forsaken one, Like a sole beacon on a mountain left, A tower alone. I hear the voice of singers now no more, Silence their song hath bound. For broken are the strings on harps of yore. Viols of sweet sound. I am astonied that the day's fair light Yet shineth brilliantly On all things; but is ever dark as night To me and thee. Even as when thy Rock afflicted thee. He will assuage thy woe, And turn again the tribes' captivity, And raise the low. THE SHULCHAN ARUCH 237 Yet shalt thou wear thy scarlet raiment clioice, And sound the timbrels high. And glad amid the dancers shalt rejoice, With joyful cry. My heart shall be uplifted on the day Thy Rock shall be thy light, When he shall make thy gloom to pass away, Thy darkness bright. This combination of the poetical with the legal mind was parallelled by other combinations in such masters of " Re- sponses " as the Sheshet and Duran fam- ilies in Algiers in the fourteenth and fif- teenth centuries. In these men depth of learning was associated with width of cul- ture. Others, such as Moses and Judah Minz, Jacob Weil, and Israel Isserlein, whose influence was paramount in Ger- many in the fifteenth century, were less cultivated, but their learning was asso- ciated with a geniality and sense of humor that make their " Responses " very human and very entertaining. There is the same homely, affectionate air in the collection 238 JEWISH LITERATURE of Miuhagim, or Customs, known as the MaJiaril, which belongs to the same period. On the other hand, David Abi Zimra, Rabbi of Cairo in the sixteenth century, was as independent as he was learned. It was he, for instance, who abolished the old custom of dating Hebrew documents from the Seleucid era (311 B. C. E.). And, to pass beyond the time of Karo, the writers of " Responses " include the gifted Jair Chayim Bacharach (seventeenth century), a critic as well as a legalist; Chacham Zevi and Jacob Emden in Amsterdam, and Eze- kiel Landau in Prague, the former two of whom opposed the Messianic claims of Sabbatai Zevi, and the last of wdiom was an antagonist to the Germanizing tendency of Moses Mendelssohn. Joseph Karo himself was a man of many parts. He was born in Spain in 1488, and died in Safed, the nest of mysticism, in 1575. Master of the Talmudic writings of his pre- decessors from his youth, Karo devoted THE SHULCHAN ARUCH 239 thirty-two years to the preparation of an exhaustive commentary on the " Four Rows " of Jacob Asheri. This occupied liim from 1522 to 1554. Karo was an en- thusiast as well as a student, and the emo- tional side of the Kabbala had much fasci- nation for him. He believed that he had a familiar, or Moggid, the personification of the Alishnah, who appeared to him in dreams, and held communion with him. He found a congenial home in Safed, where the mystics had their head-quarters in the sixteenth century. Karo's com- panion on his journey to Safed was Solo- mon Alkabets, author of the famous Sab- bath hymn " Come, my Friend " {Lecha Dodi), with the refrain: Come forth, my friend, the Bride to meet, Come, O my friend, the Sabbath greet! The Shulchan Aruch is arranged in four parts, called fancifully, " Path of Life " {Orach Cliayim), ''Teacher of Knowl- 240 JE WISH LITER A TURE edge " (YorcJi Dealt), " Breastplate of Judgment " {Choshcn Jia-Mishpat), and " Stone of Help " {Ebcn ha-Ezcr). The first part is mainly occupied with the sub- ject of prayer, benedictions, the Sabbath, the festivals, and the observances proper to each. The second part deals with food and its preparation, SJiccJiitaJi, or slaughtering of animals for food, the relations between Jews and non-Jews, vows, respect to par- ents, charity, and religious observances connected with agriculture, such as the payment of tithes, and, finally, the rites of mourning. This section of the Shulchan Aruch is the most miscellaneous of the four; in the other three the association of subjects is more logical. The Eben ha- Ezer treats of the laws of marriage and divorce from their civil and religious as- pects. The Choshen ha-Mishpat deals with legal procedure, the laws regulating business transactions and the relations be- tween man and man in the conduct of THE SHULCHAN ARUCH 24 1 worldly affairs. A great number of com- mentaries on Karo's Code were written by and for the Acharonim (= later scholars). It fully deserved this attention, for on its own lines the Shulchan Aruch was a mas- terly production. It brought system into the discordant opinions of the Rabbinical au- thorities of the Middle Ages, and its publi- cation in the sixteenth century was itself a stroke of genius. Never before had such a work been so necessary as then. The Jews were in sight of what was to them the dark- est age, the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies. Thousfh the Shulchan Aruch had an evil effect in stereotyping Jewish reli- gious thought and in preventing the rapid spread of the critical spirit, yet it was a rallying point for the disorganized Jews, and saved them from the disintegration which threatened them. The Shulchan Aruch was the last great bulwark of the Rabbinical concci)tion of life. Alike in its form and contents it was a not unworthy ic 242 JE WISH LITER A TURE close to the series of codes which began with the Mishnah, and in which hfe itself was codified. BIBLIOGRAPHY Steinschneider. — Jezvish Literature, p. 213 seq. I. H. Weiss.— On Codes, J. Q. R., I, p. 289. ASHER BEN YeCHIEL. Graetz.— IV, p. 34 [37]- Jacob Asheri. Graetz.— IV, p. 88 [95]. Solomon ben Adereth. Graetz.— Ill, p. 618 [639]- Meir of Rothenburg. Graetz.— Ill, pp. 625, 638 [646]. JUDAH MiNZ. Graetz.— IV, p. 294 [317]- Maharil. S. Schechter. — Studies in Judaism, p. 142 [173]- David ben Abi Zimra. Graetz.— IV, p. 393 [420]. Jair Ciiayim Bacharach. D. Kaufmann, /. Q. R., Ill, p. 292, etc. Joseph K.\ro. Graetz.— IV, p. 537 [57i]- Moses Isserles. Graetz.— IV, p. 637 [677]. Chiddushim. Graetz.— IV, p. 641 [682]. CHAPTER XXIV Amsterdam in the Seventeenth Centurv Manasseh ben Israel. — Baruch Spinoza. — The Drama in Hebrew. — ]\Ioses Zacut, Joseph Felix Penso, Moses Chayim Luzzatto. Holland was the centre of Jewish hope in the seventeenth century, and among its tol- erant and ciiUivated people the Marranos, exiled from Spain and Portugal, founded a new JerusaleuL Two wTiters of Mar- rano origin, wide as the poles asunder in gifts of mind and character, represented two aspects of the aspiration of the Jews towards a place in the wider world. Ma- nasseh ben Israel (1604-1657) was an enthu- siast who based his ambitious hopes on the Messianic prophecies; Baruch Spinoza (1632- 1 677) lacked enthusiasm, had little belief in the \-crba] promises of Scrii)turc, yet developed a system of ethics in which 244 JEWISH LITERATURE God filled the world. Manasseh ben Israel regained for the Jews admission to England; Spinoza reclaimed the right of a Jew to a voice in the philosophy of the Avorld. Both were political thinkers who maintained the full rights of the individual conscience, and though the arguments used vary considerably, yet Manasseh ben Israel's splendid Vindkicc Judcorum and Spinoza's " Tractate " alike insist on the natural right of men to think freely. They anticipated some of the greatest principles that won acceptance at the end of the eigh- teenth century. Manasseh ben Israel was born in Lisbon of Marrano parents, who emigrated to Am- sterdam a few years after their son's birth. He displayed a youthful talent for oratory, and was a noted preacher in his teens. He started the first Hebrew printing-press es- tablished in Amsterdam, and from it issued many works still remarkable for the ex- cellence of their type and general work- AMSTERDAM 245 manship. Alanasseh was himself, not only a distinguished linguist, but a popularizer of linguistic studies. He wrote well in Hebrew, Latin, English, Spanish, and Por- tuguese, and was the means of instructing many famous Christians of the day in He- brew and Rabbinic. Among his personal friends were Vossius, who translated Ma- nasseh's " Conciliator " from Spanish into Latin. This, the most important of Ma- nasseh's early writings, was as popular with Christians as with Jews, for it attempted to reconcile the discrepancies and contra- dictions apparent in the Bible. Another of his friends was the painter Rembrandt, who, in 1636. etched the portrait of Alanas- seh. Huet and Grotius were also among the friends and disciples who gathered round the iVmsterdam Rabbi. An unexpected result of Manasseh ben Israel's zeal for the promotion of Hebrew studies among his own brethren was the rise of a new form of poetical literature. 246 JEWISH LITERATURE The first dramas in Hebrew belong to this period. Moses Zacut and Joseph FeHx Penso wrote Hebrew dramas in the first half of the seventeenth century in Amsterdam. The " Foundation of the World " by the former and the " Captives of Hope " by the latter possess little poetical merit, but they are interesting signs of the desire of Jews to use Hebrew for all forms of literary art. Hence these dramas were hailed as tokens of Jewish revival. Strangely enough, the only great writer of Hebrew plays, Moses Chayim Luzzatto (1707- 1747), was also resident in Amsterdam. Luzzatto wrote under the influence of the Italian poet Guarini. His metres, his long soliloquies, his lyrics, his dovetailing of rural and urban scenery, are all directly traceable to Guarini. Luzzatto was never- theless an original poet. His mastery of Hebrew was complete, and his rich fancy was expressed in glowing lines. His dramas, " Samson," the " Strong Tower," AMSTERDAM 247 and " Glory to the \'irtiions," show classi- cal refinement and freshness of touch, which have made them the models of all subsequent efforts of Hebrew dramatists. Manasseh ben Israel did not allow him- self to become absorbed in the wider in- terests opened out to him by his intimacy with the greatest Christian scholars of his day. He prepared a Spanish translation of the Pentateuch for the Amsterdam Jews, who were slow to adopt Dutch as their speech, a fact not wonderful when it is re- membered that literary Dutch was only then forming. Manasseh also wrote at this period a Hebrew treatise on immortality. His worldly prosperity was small, and he even thought of emigrating to Brazil. But the friends of the scholar found a post for him in a new college for the studv of He- brew, a college to which it is probable that Spinoza betook himself. In the mean- time the reports of Montesinos as to the presence of the Lost Ten Tribes in Amer- 248 JE WISH LITER A TURE ica turned the current of Manasseh's life. In 1650 he wrote his famous essay, the " Hope of Israel," which he dedicated to the English Parliament. He argued that, as a preliminary to the restoration of Israel, or the millennium, for which the English Puritans were eagerly looking, the disper- sion of Israel must be complete. The hopes of the millennium were doomed to disap- pointment unless the Jews were readmitted to England, " the isle of the Northern Sea." His dedication met with, a friendly reception, Manasseh set out for England in 1655, and obtained from Cromwell a qualified consent to the resettlement of the Jews in the land from which they had been expelled in 1290. The pamphlets which Manasseh pub- lished in England deserve a high place in literature and in the history of modern thought. They are immeasurably supe- rior to his other works, which are eloquent but diffuse, learned but involved. But in AMSTERDAM 249 his Vlndickc Jiidconoii (1656) his style and thought are clear, original, elevated. There are here no mystic irrelevancies. His re- marks are to the point, sweetly reasonable, forcible, moderate. He grapples with the medieval prejudices against the Jews in a manner which places his works among the best political pamphlets ever written. Morally, too, his manner is noteworthy. He pleads for Judaism in a spirit equally removed from arrogance and self-abase- ment. He is dignified in his persuasive- ness. He appeals to a sense of justice rather than mercy, yet he writes as one who knows that justice is the rarest and highest quality of human nature; as one who knows that humlily to express grati- tude for justice received is to do reverence to the noblest faculty of man. Fate rather than disposition tore Manas- seh from his study to plead before the Eng- lish Parliament. Baruch Spinoza was spared such distraction. Into his self- 250 JE WISH LITER A TURE contained life the affairs of the world could effect no entry. It is not quite certain whether Spinoza was born in Amsterdam. He must, at all events, have come there in his early youth. He may have been a pupil of Manasseh, but his mind was nur- tured on the philosophical treatises of Mai- monides and Crescas. His thought be- came sceptical, and though he was " intox- icated with a sense of God," he had no love for any positive religion. He learned Latin, and found new avenues opened to him in the writings of Descartes. His as- sociations with the representatives of the Cartesian philosophy and his own indiffer- ence to ceremonial observances brought him into collision w'ith the Synagogue, and, in 1656, during the absence of Manas- seh in England, Spinoza was excommuni- cated by the Amsterdam Rabbis. Spinoza was too strong to seek the weak revenge of an abjuration of Judaism. He went on quietly earning a living as a maker of AMSTERDAM 25 1 lenses; he refused a professorship, prefer- ring, Hke Mainionicles before him. to rely on other than literary pursuits as a means of livelihood. In 1670 Spinoza finished his " Theolo- gico-Political Tractate," in which some bit- terness against the Synagogue is apparent. His attack on the Bible is crude, but the fundamental principles of modern criticism are here anticipated. The main importance of the " Tractate " lay in the doctrine that the state has full rights over the individual, except in relation to freedom of thought and free expression of thought. These are rights which no human being can alienate to the state. Of Spinoza's greatest work. the " Ethics," it need only be said that it was one of the most stimulating works of modern times. A child of Judaism and of Cartesianism, Spinoza won a front place among the great teachers of mankind. 252 JE WISH LITER A TURE BIBLIOGRAPHY Manasseh ben Israel. Graetz. — V, 2. H. Adler. — Transactions of tlic Jcicisli Historical Society of England, Vol. I, p. 25. Kayserling. — Miscellany of the Society of Hebrexv Literature, Vol. I. Lady Magnus. — Jewish Tortraits, p. 109. English translations of works. ]' indicia: Jiidcoruni. Hope of Israel, The Conciliator (E. H. Lindo, 1841, etc.). Spinoza. Graetz. — V, 4. J. Freudenthal.— History of Spino::ism, J. Q. R., VIII, p. 17. Hebrew Dramas. Karpeles. — Jezvish Literature and other Essays, p. 229. Abrahams. — Je^vish Life in the Uliddle Ages, ch. 14. Graetz.— V, pp. 112 [119]. 234 [247]. CHAPTER XXV Moses Mendelssohn Mendelssohn's German Translation of the Bible. — Ph?cdo.— Jerusalem.— Lessing's " Nathan the Wise." Moses, the son of Mendel, was born in Dessau in 1728. and died in Berlin in 1786. His father was poor, and he himself was oL a weak constitution. But his stunted form was animated by a strenuous spirit. After jM^oyhood passed under conditions which did little to stimulate his dawning aspira- tions, IMendelssohn resolved to follow his teacher Frankel to Berlin. He trudged the whole way on foot, and was all but refused admission into the Prussian capital, where he was destined to produce so profound an impression. In Berlin his struggle with poverty continued, but his condition was 254 JE WISH LITER A TURE improved when he obtained a post, first as private tutor, then as book-keeper in a silk factory. Berlin was at this time the scene of an intellectual and aesthetic revival dominated by Frederick the Great. The latter, a dilettante in culture, was, as Mendelssohn said of him, a man " who made the arts and sciences flourish, and made liberty of thought universal in his realm." The Ger- man Jews were as yet outside this revival. In Italy and Holland the new movements of the seventeenth and the eighteenth cen- tury had found Jews well to the fore. But the " German " Jews — and this term in- cluded the great bulk of the Jews of Eu- rope — were suffering from the efTects of in- tellectual stagnation. The Talmud still ex- ercised the mind and imagination of these Jews, but culture and religion were sepa- rated. Mendelssohn in a hundred places contends that such separation is dangerous and unnatural. It was his service to Juda- MOSES MENDELSSOHN 255 ism that he made the separation once for all obsolete. Mendelssohn effected this by purely lit- erary means. Most reformations have been at least aided by moral and political forces. But the Mendelssohnian revival in Juda- ism was a literary revival, in which moral and religious forces had only an indirect influence. By the aid of greater refine- ment of language, for hitherto the " Ger- man " Jews had not spoken pure German; by a widening of the scope of education in the Jewish schools; by the introduction of all that is known as culture, Mendelssohn changed the whole aspect of Jewish life. And he produced this reformation by books and by books alone. Never playing the part of a religious or moral reformer, Mendelssohn became the Jewish apostle of culture. The great event of his life occurred in 1754, when he made the acquaintance of Lessing. The two young men became 256 JE WISH LITER A TURE constant friends. Lessing, before he knew Mendelssohn, had written a drama, " The Jews," in which, perhaps for the first time, a Jew was represented on the stage as a man of honor. In Mendelssohn, Lessing recognized a new Spinoza; in Lessing, Mendelssohn saw the perfect ideal of cul- ture. The masterpiece of Lessing's art, the drama " Nathan the Wise," was the monument of this friendship. Mendelssohn was the hero of the drama, and the tolera- tion which it breathes is clearly Mendels- sohn's. Mendelssohn held that there was no absolutely best religion any more than there was an absolutely best form of gov- ernment. This was the leading idea of his last work, " Jerusalem "; it is also the cen- tral thought of " Nathan the Wise." The best religion, according to both, is the religion which best brings out the indi- vidual's noblest faculties. As Mendelssohn wrote, there are certain eternal truths which God implants in all men alike, but "Ji-^