The Age of Faith

by Will Durant

  Every synagogue had a school (Beth ha-midrash— House of Study—the Arabic madrasa); in addition there were private schools and personal tutors; probably there was a higher relative literacy among the medieval Jews than among the Christians,104 though lower than among the Moslems. Teachers were paid by the community or the parents, but all were under communal supervision. Boys went off to school at an early hour—in winter before dawn; some hours later they returned home for breakfast; then they went back to school till eleven, then home for lunch, back to school at noon, a respite between two and three, then more schooling till evening; then at last they were released to their homes for supper, prayers, and bed. Life was a serious matter for the Jewish boy.105

  Hebrew and the Pentateuch were the primary studies. At the age of ten the student took up the Mishna, at thirteen the major tractates of the Talmud; those who were to be scholars continued the study of Mishna and Gemara from thirteen to twenty or later. Through the diversity of subjects in the Talmud the student received a smattering of a dozen sciences, but almost nothing of non-Jewish history.106 There was much learning by repetition; the chorus of recitation was so vigorous that some localities excluded schools.107 Higher education was given in the Yeshibah or academy. The graduate of such an academy was called talmid hakam— scholar of the Law; he was usually freed from community taxes; and though he was not necessarily a rabbi, all nonscholars were expected to rise on his coming or going.108

  The rabbi was teacher, jurist, and priest. He was required to marry. He was paid little or nothing for his religious functions; usually he earned a living in the secular world. He seldom preached; this was left to itinerant preachers (maggidim) schooled in sonorous and frightening eloquence. Any member of the congregation might lead it in prayer, read the Scriptures, or preach; usually, however, this honor was granted to some prominent or philanthropic Jew. Prayer was a complex ceremony for the orthodox Hebrew. To be properly performed it required that he should cover his head as a sign of reverence, strap upon his arms and his forehead small cases containing passages from Exodus (xiii, 1-16) and Deuteronomy (vi, 4-9; xi, 13-21), and wear on the borders of his garments fringes inscribed with the basic commandments of the Lord. The rabbis explained these formalities as necessary reminders of the unity, presence, and laws of God; simple Jews came to look upon them as magical amulets possessed of miraculous powers. The culmination of the religious service was a reading from the scroll of the Law, contained in a little ark above the altar.

  The Jews of the Dispersion at first frowned upon music in religion as hardly suited to a mood of grief for their lost home. But music and religion are as intimately related as poetry and love; the deepest emotions require for their civilized expression the most emotional of the arts. Music returned to the synagogue through poetry. In the sixth century the paitanim or “Neo-Hebraic” poets began to write religious verse, confused with acrostic and alliterative artificialities, but uplifted with the resounding splendor of Hebrew, and filled with that religious ardor which in the Jew now served for both patriotism and piety. The crude but powerful hymns of Eleazar ben Kalir (eighth century) still find a place in some synagogue rituals. Similar poetry appeared among the Jews of Spain, Italy, France, and Germany. One such hymn is sung by many Jews on the Day of Atonement:

  With the coming of Thy Kingdom

  The hills shall break into song,

  And the islands laugh exultant

  That they to God belong.

  And all their congregations

  So loud Thy praise shall sing

  That the farthest peoples, hearing,

  Shall hail Thee crowned King.109

  When such piutim or sacred poems were introduced into the synagogue service they were sung by a precentor, and music re-entered the ritual. Furthermore the scriptural readings and the prayers were in many synagogues chanted by a cantor or by the congregation in a “cantillation” whose musical tones were largely improvised, but occasionally followed patterns set in the plain song of the Christian chant.110 From the singing school of the monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland, at some time before the eleventh century, came the complex chant for the famous Hebrew song Kol Nidre— “All Vows.”111

  The synagogue never fully replaced the Temple in the heart of the Jew, The hope that he might some day offer sacrifice to Yahveh before the Holy of Holies on Zion’s hill inflamed his imagination, and left him open to repeated deception by false messiahs. About 720 Serene, a Syrian, announced himself to be the expected redeemer, and organized a campaign to recapture Palestine from the Moslems. Jews from Babylonia and Spain abandoned their homes to join his adventure. He was taken prisoner, exposed as a charlatan by the Caliph Yezid II, and was put to death. Some thirty years later Obadiah Abu Isa ben Ishaq of Isfahan led a similar revolt; 10,000 Jews took up the sword and fought bravely under his lead; they were defeated, AbuIsa was slain in battle, and the Isfahan Jews suffered indiscriminate punishment. When the First Crusade excited Europe, Jewish communities dreamed that the Christians, if victorious, would restore Palestine to the Jews;112 they awoke from this fantasy to a succession of pogroms. In 1160 David Alrui aroused the Jews of Mesopotamia with the announcement that he was the Messiah, and would restore them to Jerusalem and liberty; his father-in-law, fearing disaster for the Jews from such an insurrection, slew him in his sleep. About 1225 another Messiah appeared in southern Arabia, and stirred the Jews to mass hysteria; Maimonides, in a famous “Letter to the South,” exposed the impostor’s claims, and reminded the Arabian Jews of the death and destruction that had followed such reckless attempts in the past.112a Nevertheless he accepted the Messianic hope as an indispensable support to the Jewish spirit in the Dispersion, and made it one of the thirteen principal tenets of the Jewish faith.113

  IV. ANTI-SEMITISM: 500–1306

  What were the sources of the hostility between non-Jew and Jew?

  The main sources have ever been economic, but religious differences have given edge and cover to economic rivalries. The Moslems, living by Mohammed, resented the Jewish rejection of their prophet; the Christians, accepting the divinity of Christ, were shocked to find that His own people would not acknowledge that divinity. Good Christians saw nothing unchristian or inhuman in holding an entire people, through many centuries, responsible for the actions of a tiny minority of Jerusalem Jews in the last days of Christ. The Gospel of Luke told how “throngs” of Jews welcomed Christ into Jerusalem (xix, 37); how, when He carried His cross to Golgotha, “there followed Him a great company of people, and of women, who also bewailed and lamented Him” (xxiii, 27); and how, after the crucifixion, “all the people that came together to that sight… smote their breasts” (xxiii, 48). But these evidences of Jewish sympathy for Jesus were forgotten when, in every Holy Week, the bitter story of the Passion was related from a thousand pulpits; resentment flared in Christian hearts; and on those days the Israelites shut themselves up in their own quarter and in their homes, fearful that the passions of simple souls might be stirred to a pogrom.114

  Around that central misunderstanding rose a thousand suspicions and animosities. Jewish bankers bore the brunt of the hostility aroused by interest rates that reflected the insecurity of loans. As the economy of Christendom developed, and Christian merchants and bankers invaded fields once dominated by Jews, economic competition fomented hate; and some Christian moneylenders actively promoted anti-Semitism.115 Jews in official positions, especially in the finance department of governments, were a natural target for those who disliked both taxes and Jews. Given such economic and religious enmity, everything Jewish became distasteful to some Christians, and everything Christian to some Jews. The Christian reproached the Jew for clannish exclusiveness, and did not excuse it as a reaction to discrimination and occasional physical assault. Jewish features, language, manners, diet, ritual all seemed to the Christian eye offensively bizarre. The Jews ate when Christians fasted, fasted when Christians ate; their Sabbath of rest and prayer had remained Saturday as of old, while
that of the Christians had been changed to Sunday; the Jews celebrated their happy deliverance from Egypt in a Passover feast that came too close to the Friday on which Christians mourned the death of Christ. Jews were not allowed by their Law to eat food cooked, to drink wine pressed, or to use dishes or utensils that had been touched, by a non-Jew,116 or to marry any but a Jew;117 the Christian interpreted these ancient laws—formulated long before Christianity—as meaning that to a Jew everything Christian was unclean; and he retorted that the Israelite himself was not usually distinguished by cleanliness of person or neatness of dress. Mutual isolation begot absurd and tragic legends on both sides. Romans had accused Christians of murdering pagan children to offer their blood in secret sacrifice to the Christian God; Christians of the twelfth century accused Jews of kidnaping Christian children to sacrifice them to Yahveh, or to use their blood as medicine or in the making of unleavened bread for the Passover feast. Jews were charged with poisoning the wells from which Christians drank, and with stealing consecrated wafers to pierce them and draw from them the blood of Christ.118 When a few Jewish merchants flaunted their opulence in costly raiment the Jews as a people were accused of draining the wealth of Christendom into Jewish hands. Jewish women were suspected as sorceresses; many Jews, it was thought, were in league with the Devil.119 The Jews retaliated with like legends about Christians, and insulting stories about the birth and youth of Christ. The Talmud counseled the extension of Jewish charity to non-Jews;120 Bahya praised Christian monasticism; Maimonides wrote that “the teachings of Christ and Mohammed tend to lead mankind toward perfection”;121 but the average Jew could not understand these courtesies of philosophy, and returned all the hatred that he received.

  There were some lucid intervals in this madness. Ignoring state and Church laws that forbade it, Christians and Jews often mingled in friendship, sometimes in marriage, above all in Spain and southern France. Christian and Jewish scholars collaborated—Michael Scot with Anatoli, Dante with Immanuel.122 Christians made gifts to synagogues; and in Worms a Jewish park was maintained through a legacy from a Christian woman.123 In Lyons the market day was changed from Saturday to Sunday for the convenience of the Jews. Secular governments, finding the Jews an asset in commerce and finance, gave them a vacillating protection; and in several cases where a state restricted the public movements of Jews, or expelled them from its territory, it was because it could no longer safeguard them from intolerance and violence.124

  The attitude of the Church in these matters varied with place and time. In Italy she protected the Jews as “guardians of the Law” of the Old Testament, and as living witnesses to the historicity of the Scriptures and to “the wrath of God.” But periodically Church councils, often with excellent intentions, and seldom with general authority, added to the tribulations of Jewish life. The Theodosian Code (439), the Council of Clermont (535), and the Council of Toledo (589) forbade the appointment of Jews to positions in which they could impose penalties upon Christians. The Council of Orléans (538) ordered Jews to stay indoors in Holy Week, probably for their protection, and prohibited their employment in any public office. The Third Council of the Lateran (1179) forbade Christian midwives or nurses to minister to Jews; and the Council of Béziers (1246) condemned the employment of Jewish physicians by Christians. The Council of Avignon (1209) retaliated Jewish laws of cleanliness by enjoining “Jews and harlots” from touching bread or fruit exposed for sale; it renewed Church laws against the hiring of Christian servants by Jews; and it warned the faithful not to exchange services with Jews, but to avoid them as a pollution.125 Several councils declared null the marriage of a Christian with a Jew. In 1222 a deacon was burned at the stake for accepting conversion to Judaism and marrying a Jewess.126 In 1234 a Jewish widow was refused her dower on the ground that her husband had been converted to Christianity, thereby voiding their marriage.127 The Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215), arguing that “at times through error Christians have relations with the women of Jews or Saracens, and Jews or Saracens with Christian women,” ruled “that Jews and Saracens of both sexes in every Christian province and at all times shall be marked off in the eyes of the public from other people through the character of their dress”: after their twelfth year they were to wear a distinctive color—the men on their hats or mantles, the women on their veils. This was in part a retaliation against older and similar laws of Moslems against Christians and Jews. The character of the badge was determined locally by state governments or provincial Church councils; ordinarily it was a wheel or circle of yellow cloth, some three inches in diameter, sewn prominently upon the clothing. The decree was enforced in England in 1218, in France in 1219, in Hungary in 1279; it was only sporadically carried out in Spain, Italy, and Germany before the fifteenth century, when Nicholas of Cusa and San Giovanni da Capistrano campaigned for its full observance. In 1219 the Jews of Castile threatened to leave the country en masse if the decree should be enforced, and the ecclesiastical authorities consented to its revocation. Jewish physicians, scholars, financiers, and travelers were often exempted from the decree. Its observance declined after the sixteenth century, and ended with the French Revolution.

  By and large, the popes were the most tolerant prelates in Christendom. Gregory I, though so zealous for the spread of the faith, forbade the compulsory conversion of Jews, and maintained their rights of Roman citizenship in lands under his rule.128 When bishops in Terracina and Palermo appropriated synagogues for Christian use, Gregory compelled them to make full restitution.129 To the bishop of Naples he wrote: “Do not allow the Jews to be molested in the performance of their services. Let them have full liberty to observe and keep all their festivals and holydays, as both they and their fathers have done for so long.”130 Gregory VII urged Christian rulers to obey conciliar decrees against the appointment of Jews. When Eugenius III came to Paris in 1145, and went in pomp to the cathedral, which was then in the Jewish quarter, the Jews sent a delegation to present him with the Torah, or scroll of the Law; he blessed them, they went home happy, and the Pope ate a paschal lamb with the king.131 Alexander III was friendly to Jews, and employed one to manage his finances.132 Innocent III led the Fourth Lateran Council in its demand for a Jewish badge, and laid down the principle that all Jews were doomed to perpetual servitude because they had crucified Jesus.133 In a softer mood he reiterated papal injunctions against forcible conversions, and added: “No Christian shall do the Jews any personal injury … or deprive them of their possessions … or disturb them during the celebration of their festivals … or extort money from them by threatening to exhume their dead,”134 Gregory IX, founder of the Inquisition, exempted the Jews from its operation or jurisdiction except when they tried to Judaize Christians, or attacked Christianity, or reverted to Judaism after conversion to Christianity;135 and in 1235 he issued a bull denouncing mob violence against Jews.136 Innocent IV (1247) repudiated the legend of the ritual murder of Christian children by Jews:

  Certain of the clergy and princes, nobles and great lords… have falsely devised godless plans against the Jews, unjustly depriving them of their property by force, and appropriating it to themselves; they falsely charge them with dividing among them on the Passover the heart of a murdered boy…. In fact, in their malice, they ascribe to Jews every murder, wherever it chance to occur. And on the ground of these and other fabrications, they are filled with rage against them, rob them… oppress them by starvation, imprisonment, torture, and other sufferings, sometimes even condemning them to death; so that the Jews, though living under Christian princes, are in worse plight than were their ancestors under the Pharaohs. They are driven to leave in despair the land in which their fathers have dwelt since the memory of man. Since it is our pleasure that they shall not be distressed, we ordain that you behave toward them in a friendly and kind manner. Whenever any unjust attacks upon them come under your notice, redress their injuries, and do not suffer them to be visited in the future by similar tribulations.137

  This nobl
e appeal was widely ignored. In 1272 Gregory X had to repeat its denunciation of the ritual murder legend; and to give his words force he ruled that thereafter the testimony of a Christian against a Jew should not be accepted unless confirmed by a Jew.138 The issuance of similar bulls by later popes till 1763 attests both the humanity of the popes and the persistence of the evil. That the popes were sincere is indicated by the comparative security of the Jews, and their relative freedom from persecution, in the Papal States. Expelled from so many countries at one time or another, they were never expelled from Rome or from papal Avignon. “Had it not been for the Catholic Church,” writes a learned Jewish historian, “the Jews would not have survived the Middle Ages in Christian Europe.”139

  Before the Crusades the active persecution of Jews in medieval Europe was sporadic. The Byzantine emperors continued for two centuries the oppressive policies of Justinian toward the Jews. Heraclius (628) banished them from Jerusalem in retaliation for their aid to Persia, and did all he could to exterminate them. Leo the Isaurian sought to disprove the rumor that he was Jewish by a decree (723) giving Byzantine Jews a choice between Christianity or banishment. Some submitted; some burned themselves to death in their synagogues rather than yield.140 Basil I (867-86) resumed the campaign to enforce baptism upon the Jews; and Constantine VII (912-59) required from Jews in Christian courts a humiliating form of oath—more Judaico—which continued in use in Europe till the nineteenth century.141