Chapter VI (1)

JEWISH APOSTATES AND THE DISPUTATION AT TORTOSA.

The Marranos--The Satirists--Pero Ferrus of Alcala, Diego
de Valencia, and Villasandino--Astruc Raimuch and Solomon
Bonfed--Paul de Santa Maria and his Zealous Campaign against
the Jews--Joshua Ibn-Vives--Profiat Duran (Efodi)--Meïr
Alguades--The Philosophy of Crescas--Death of Henry III of
Castile and Unfavorable Change in the Position of the Jews--
Messianic Dreams of the Kabbalists--Jews seek an Asylum in
Northern Africa--Simon Duran--Geronimo de Santa Fé, Vincent
Ferrer and Benedict XIII--Anti-Jewish Edict of Juan II--
Special Jewish Costume--Conversion of Jews owing to Ferrer's
Violent Efforts--Disputation at Tortosa--The Jewish Spokesmen
at the Conference--Incidents of the Meeting--Geronimo
instigates the Publication of a Bull for the Burning of the
Talmud--Pope Martin V befriends the Jews.

1391-1420 C.E.

The baptized Jews who had abandoned their faith during the terrible persecution of 1391 became a source of considerable trouble to their Spanish brethren. They had embraced the cross only to save their lives, or the lives of those dear to them; for, surely, they had found no convincing demonstration of the truth of the Christian religion in the violence of its missionaries, or in the death agonies of their brethren in race who had perished rather than apostatize. Dazed and broken-hearted, these forced converts (Anusim) to Christianity felt more intense antipathy to their new religion than when they had been openly opposed to it. It was natural for them to resolve to take the first opportunity of casting away their disguise, and returning to Judaism with increased zeal. Many of these new Christians emigrated to the neighboring Moorish countries; to Granada or across the straits to Morocco, Tunis, or Fez, where the people, wiser and more tolerant than Christian Europe, gladly opened their doors to a wealthy and industrious race. The majority, unable to leave Spanish territory, yet averse to wholly discarding their ancient faith, joined in Jewish ceremonies and celebrations whilst outwardly appearing Christians. The kings of Castile, Aragon and Majorca, who had disapproved of conversions by mob violence, allowed the Jews to do as they pleased. The authorities either did not or would not see their relapse into Judaism, and the Inquisition had not yet been established in Spain. These forced converts gradually formed themselves into a peculiar class, outwardly Christians, at heart Jews. By the populace, who nicknamed them Marranos, or "The Damned," they were regarded with more distrust and hatred than the openly observant Jews, not because of their secret fidelity to Judaism, but on account of their descent and inborn intelligence, energy, and skill. Baptized Jews, who had been glad to disencumber themselves of their Judaism, shared in these feelings of aversion. They were the worldlings who valued wealth, rank, and luxury above religion, or the over-educated whose philosophy had led them to skepticism, and whose selfishness induced them to welcome a change which brought them out of the narrow confines of a small community, and opened up a wider world to them. Their hearts had never been with Judaism, and they had adhered to it only out of respect or a certain compunction. To them, forced baptism was a relief from chafing fetters, a welcome coercion to overcome scruples which had always sat lightly upon them. For their own advantage they simulated devotion to Christianity, but were on that account neither better nor more religious men. The unscrupulous among them found special pleasure in the persecution of their former religion and its followers. To gratify their malice, they brought charges against rabbis and other representative Jews, or any member of the community, thus endangering the existence of the whole body of Jews in the country. It was bad enough that the latter had been robbed of so many able and learned men --physicians, authors, poets--and that the church had been enriched by their wealth and intelligence; but these very forces were used to inflict further mischief on the Jews that had remained steadfast. Knowing the faults of their former brethren, the converts could easily attack them. Don Pero Ferrus, a baptized Jew, made the community and rabbis of Alcala the target for his ridicule. In a poem he represents himself exhausted from want of sleep finding repose at last in the synagogue of this town, when suddenly he is disturbed, and scared away without mercy by "Jews with long beards and slovenly garments come thither for early morning prayer." A sharp rejoinder to this effort of Ferrus' "buffoon tongue" was put forth by a Jewish poet in the name of the Alcala community. Spanish poetry reaped considerable advantage from these passages at arms. Verse, up to that period starched, solemn, and stately as the punctilious ceremonial of the Madrid court, in the hands of Judæo-Christian satirists acquired the flexibility, wit and merriment of neo-Hebraic poetry at its best. This tone and style were gradually adopted by Christian poets, who borrowed expressions from Jewish writers to give point to their epigrams. Not only the apostate, the monk, Diego de Valencia, used Hebrew words in lampoons on the Jews, but the same practice was adopted with surprising dexterity by the Christian satirist, Alfonso Alvarez de Villasandino, the "poet prince" of his day. A malicious critic might have been inclined to say that Spanish poetry was in process of being Judaized.

A few of the new-Christians showed as active a zeal in the propagation of Christianity as if they had been born Dominicans, or as if they felt isolated in their new faith among the old Christians, and yearned for the companionship of their former friends. A newly-baptized physician, Astruc Raimuch, of Fraga, who, as a Jew, had been a pillar of orthodoxy, exerted himself to make converts, taking to himself the name of Francisco God-flesh (Dios-Carne). He spread his snares particularly with a view to entrapping one of his young friends. A fluent writer of Hebrew, Astruc-Francisco drew up a letter in that language, dwelling on the decline of Judaism and enthusiastically propounding the dogmas of Christianity. His applications of Biblical texts to the doctrines of the Trinity, Original Sin, Redemption, and the Lord's Supper, appear almost droll in Hebrew. His friend's answer was meek and evasive, every word carefully weighed to avoid offending the delicate sensibilities of the church and its zealous servants. More spirited was the reply of the satirical poet, Solomon ben Reuben Bonfed, who in rhymed prose set himself to confute Astruc-Francisco's arguments with unsparing incisiveness. Apologizing in his introduction for interfering between two friends, he proceeded to point out that as a Jew the questions discussed concerned him nearly, whilst the misstatements made rendered it impossible for him to remain silent. Solomon Bonfed examined somewhat minutely the dogmas of the Incarnation, Original Sin, and Transubstantiation, showing them to be irrational and untenable. He justly said: "You twist and distort the Bible text to establish the Trinity. Had you a Quaternity, you would demonstrate it quite as strikingly and convincingly from the books of the Old Testament."

Of all the Jews baptized in 1391, however, none inflicted so much injury on his former brethren as Rabbi Solomon Levi of Burgos (born 1351-1352, died 1435), who as a Christian rose to very important ecclesiastical and political dignities under the name of Paul Burgensis, or de Santa Maria. Previous to his change of creed he had been a rabbi, and he was well versed in Biblical, Talmudical, and Rabbinical literature. As a Jew he was extremely orthodox and punctilious, passing in his own circle for a pillar of the faith. His nature was, however, shrewd and calculating. Ambitious and vain to the last degree, he soon began to regard as too narrow his sphere of action within the walls of the college, which during a long period counted him amongst its students and teachers. He longed for a life of bustling activity. To obtain a state appointment, he sought access to court, and began to live like a grandee, with equipage and horses and numerous retinue. It was his ambition to become a Jewish Almoxarif or even to obtain a higher appointment. His occupations bringing him into daily contact with Christians, and frequently involving him in religious controversies, he devoted some attention to church literature, in order to be able to make a display of learning. The massacres of 1391 dissipated his last hope of obtaining high preferment as a Jew, and he consequently resolved, in his fortieth year, to be baptized. To derive the best advantage from his conversion, the new Christian, Paul de Santa Maria, caused it to be understood that he had embraced Christianity willingly, as a result of the convincing arguments put forth in the theological writings of the schoolman Thomas Aquinas. The Jews received such protestations with distrust. Knowing him well, they did not scruple to ascribe his conversion to a craving for rank and power. After his change of creed, his family, wife and sons, renounced him.

For a commoner, the only road to high office lay through the church. Solomon-Paul knew this well, and at once proceeded to Paris and attended the University, where he pursued theology. His knowledge of Hebrew gave him a great advantage, and helped him to distinguish himself. It was not long before the quondam rabbi became a duly ordained Catholic priest. Then he betook himself to the papal court at Avignon, where the haughty, obstinate, and proselytizing cardinal, Pedro de Luna, reigned as anti-pope under the title of Benedict XIII. Here, during the stormy church schism, favorable opportunities for intrigue and personal advancement presented themselves. Paul won the pope's favor by his shrewdness, zeal, and eloquence. He was appointed archdeacon of Trevinjo and canon of Seville, his first steps on the ladder of the Catholic hierarchy. He abandoned himself to the most ambitious dreams: he might become a bishop, a cardinal, and why not the pope? The times were propitious. He boasted that he was descended from the most ancient and the noblest branch of the Hebrew race, the tribe of Levi, the same that had given birth to Mary, the mother of Jesus. He was not an ordinary priest sprung from the people, but had ancestors bound to be acknowledged and distinguished by the church. On the recommendation of the pope, he was later on overwhelmed with honors and favors by the king of Castile, Don Henry III, and his ambition was satisfied.

The apostasy of so respected a rabbi as Solomon Burgensis not only created the greatest astonishment among Jews, but filled them with anxiety. Would this example not find imitators in a time of so much trouble and temptation? Would it not bias waverers, or at least encourage pretending Christians to persevere in the course begun? The prevailing disquietude was increased when it was found that after his own conversion Paul considered it his duty to convert his former co-religionists. To this end he left no stone unturned. With voice and pen he assailed Judaism, seeking his weapons in Jewish literature itself. Not long after his conversion he addressed a letter to his former acquaintance, Joseph (José) Orabuena, physician in ordinary to King Charles III of Navarre, and chief rabbi of the Navarrese communities, in which he stated that he acknowledged and honored Jesus as the Messiah whose advent had been foretold by the prophets, and invited Orabuena to follow his example. To another chief rabbi, Don Meïr Alguades, physician in ordinary to the Castilian king, Don Henry III, Paul de Santa Maria addressed a Hebrew satire in prose and verse, in which he ridiculed the innocent celebration of the Jewish feast of Purim. As if grudging the Jews the moderate pleasures in which they indulged during this festival, he exaggerated their love of drink, and boasted of his own sobriety. Paul evinces in this satire considerable skill in handling the new-Hebrew language, but, notwithstanding his opportunities, he exhibits little wit.

As soon as he had acquired a position at the papal court at Avignon, he devoted himself to calumniating the Jews with a view to bringing about new persecutions. His purpose became so obvious that the cardinal of Pampeluna himself, and other ecclesiastics, ordered him to desist. It is true the Jews had to pay dearly for his silence. He also intrigued against Chasdaï Crescas. So far did this apostate carry his enmity to Judaism that he advised the king, Don Henry III, to abstain from employing both Jews and new-Christians in state offices. Did he wish to render impossible the rivalry of some fellow-Hebrew, his superior in adroitness? In his writings Paul de Santa Maria exhibited as much hatred of Judaism as of Jews. While the Franciscan monk, Nicholas de Lyra, a born Christian, held up the works of Jewish commentators like Rashi as models of simple exegesis, the former rabbi found every observation of a Rabbinical writer insipid, nonsensical, and scandalous. On the other hand, the most ridiculous commentary of a church writer was to him a lofty, unsurpassable work.

Thoughtful Jews were not slow to recognize their bitterest foe in this new-Christian, and they prepared for a severe struggle with him, notwithstanding that their choice of weapons was limited. Christians were not only free to say what they pleased in demonstration and defense of their doctrines, but could appeal to the summary authority of the sword and the dungeon. Jews were forced to all kinds of circumlocution and ambiguity to avoid provoking the violence of their adversaries. The gallant stand of a mere handful of Jews against power and arrogance should excite the admiration of all whose sympathies are not with victorious tyranny, but with struggling right.

The campaign against Paul de Santa Maria was opened by a young man, Joshua ben Joseph Ibn-Vives of Lorca (Allorqui), a physician and an Arabic scholar, who had formerly sat at the feet of the renegade rabbi. In an humble epistle, as though a docile pupil were addressing an illustrious master, Joshua Allorqui administered many a delicate reproof to his apostate teacher, and at the same time, by his naïve doubts, dealt destructive blows at the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. He observes in his introduction that the conversion of his beloved teacher had to him more than to others been a source of astonishment and reflection, as his example had been a main support of his own religious belief. He was at a loss to conceive the motives of the sudden change. He could not think that he had been led away by desire for worldly distinction, "for I well remember," he says, "how, surrounded by riches and attendants, thou didst yearn for thy former humble state with its life of retirement and study, and how it was thy wont to speak of thy high position as empty mockery of happiness." Nor could he suppose that Paul's Jewish convictions had been disturbed by philosophic doubt, as up to the moment of his baptism he had conscientiously observed all the ceremonial laws, and had known how to discriminate between the kernel of philosophic truth which harmonizes with religion and the pernicious shell which so often passes for the real teaching. Could it be that the sanguinary persecution of the Jews had led him to doubt the possibility of the enduring power of Judaism? But even this theory was untenable, for Paul could not be unaware of the fact that only a minority of Jews live under Christian rule, that the larger numbers sojourn in Asia, and enjoy a certain degree of independence; so that if it pleased God to allow the communities in Christian lands to be extirpated, the Jewish race would not by any means disappear from the face of the earth. There remained, continued Joshua Vives of Lorca, the assumption that Paul had carefully studied Christianity, and had come to the conclusion that its dogmas were well founded. He begged him, therefore, to impart to him the convictions at which he had arrived, and thus dissipate the doubts which he (Joshua) still entertained as to the truth of Christianity. Allorqui then detailed the nature of his doubts, covertly but forcibly attacking the Christian system. Every sentence in this epistle was calculated to cut the Jew-hating new-Christian to the quick. The evasive and embarrassed reply, which Paul indited later on, clearly indicated how he had winced under this attack.

The philosopher, Chasdaï Crescas, also came forward in gallant defense of the religion of his fathers. He composed (1396) a polemical treatise (Tratado), in which he tested philosophically the Christian articles of faith, and demonstrated their untenableness. This work was addressed to Christians more than to Jews, and was particularly intended for the perusal of Spaniards of high rank whose friendship Chasdaï Crescas enjoyed. Hence it was written not in Hebrew but in Spanish, which the author employed with ease, and its tone was calm and moderate. Chasdaï Crescas set forth the unintelligibility of the doctrines of the Fall, the Redemption, the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Immaculate Conception, and Transubstantiation, and examined the value of baptism, the coming of Jesus, and the relation of the New Testament to the Old, with dispassionate deliberation, as if he did not know that he was dealing with questions which might at any moment light the fires of an auto-da-fé.

At about the same time an accomplished Marrano, who had relapsed into Judaism, published a pungent attack on Christianity and the new-Christians. In the entire history of Judæo-Christian controversy no such stinging satire had been produced on the Jewish side as that now issued by the physician, astronomer, historical student, and grammarian Profiat Duran. During the bloody persecution of 1391 in Catalonia, Profiat Duran, otherwise Isaac ben Moses, or, as he called himself in his works, Efodi (Ephodæus), had been forced to simulate conversion to Christianity. He was joined by his friend David Bonet Buen-Giorno. Both resolved at a convenient opportunity to abandon their hated mask and emigrate to Palestine, where they could freely acknowledge Judaism. Their affairs being arranged, Profiat Duran traveled to a seaport town in the south of France, and there awaited his friend. The latter, in the meantime, was sought out by or came across the Jew-hating apostate, Solomon Paul de Santa Maria, and was prevailed upon to remain a Christian. What was Profiat Duran's astonishment when he received a letter announcing, with much exultant vaporing, the definite acknowledgment of Christianity by En Bonet, who exhorted him also to remain in the pale of his adopted faith. The letter contained an enthusiastic panegyric of Paul de Santa Maria, who had been taken into the favor of the king of Castile. Profiat Duran could not remain silent. In reply, he inflicted punishment on his friend, and more particularly on the proselytizing Paul, in an epistle characterized by the keenest irony, which has not yet lost its sting. It pretends to assent to everything advanced by Bonet, and to confirm him in his resolve to remain a Christian. "Be not ye like your fathers" (Altehi ka-Abothecha) is the refrain throughout, and so artfully is this admonition employed that Christians used it (under the title Alteca Boteca) as an apology for Christianity. Whilst thus pretending to criticise the errors of the older faith, Profiat Duran dwells on the Christian dogmas, naïvely describing them in their most reprehensible form. He concentrates on the weaknesses of Christianity the full light of reason, Scriptural teaching and philosophic deduction, apparently with no desire to change his friend's intention. A portion of the satire is directed against the Jew-hater Paul de Santa Maria, upon whom Bonet had bestowed unstinted praise. "Thou art of opinion that he may succeed in becoming pope, but thou dost not inform me whether he will go to Rome, or remain at Avignon"--a cutting reference to the papal schism distracting the church. "Thou extollest him for having made efforts to free Jewish women and children from the obligation of wearing the Jew badge. Take the glad tidings to the women and children. For myself, I have been told that he preached mischief against the Jews, and that the cardinal of Pampeluna was compelled to order him to be silent. Thou art of opinion that he, thy teacher, will soon receive the miter or a cardinal's hat. Rejoice, for then thou also must acquire honors, and wilt become a priest or a Levite." Towards the end Profiat Duran changes irony into a tone of seriousness: he prays his former friend not to bear as a Christian the name of his respected father who, had he been alive, would sooner have had no son than one faithless to his religion. As it is, his soul in Paradise will bewail the faithlessness of his son. This satirical epistle was circulated as a pamphlet. Its author sent copies not only to his former friend, but also to the physician of the king of Castile, the chief rabbi, Don Meïr Alguades. So telling was the effect produced, that the clergy, as soon as they discovered its satirical character, made it the subject of judicial inquiry, and committed it to the flames. At the request of Chasdaï Crescas, Profiat Duran wrote another anti-Christian work, not, however, a satire, but in the grave language of historical investigation. In this essay he showed, from his intimate acquaintance with the New Testament and the literature of the church, how in course of time Christianity had degenerated.

Favored and promoted by the anti-pope, Benedict XIII, of Avignon, Paul of Burgos rose higher and higher; he became bishop of Carthagena, chancellor of Castile and privy counselor to the king, Don Henry III. His malice did not succeed in prejudicing the king against the Jews, or inducing him to bar them from state employment. Don Henry had two Jewish physicians, in whom he reposed especial confidence. One, Don Meïr Alguades, an astronomer and philosopher, he appointed, perhaps in imitation of Portugal, to the chief rabbinate of the various Castilian communities. He was always in the king's train, and it is probable that to some extent he influenced him favorably towards his co-religionists. The other was Don Moses Zarzel (Çarçal), who celebrated in rich Spanish verse the long wished for birth of an heir to the Castilian throne, borrowing the beauties of the neo-Hebraic poetry to do honor to the newly-born prince, in whose hands, he prophesied, the various states of the Pyrenean Peninsula would be united. The calm, as between two storms, which the Spanish Jews enjoyed during the reign of Don Henry was favorable to the production of a few literary fruits, almost the last of any importance brought forth in Spain. None of these works was epoch-making; they were useful, however, in keeping alive the spirit of better times, and in preventing the treasures of Jewish literature from being forgotten. Profiat Duran managed to make people forget his baptism and to settle down quietly in Spain or Perpignan, where he commentated Maimuni's philosophy, and some of Ibn-Ezra's works. He also composed a mathematical and calendarial essay (Chesheb-Efod) and an historical account of the persecutions to which his race had been subjected since the dispersion. His best work is a Hebrew grammar ("Maasé Efod," written about 1403), in which he summarizes the results of older writers, rectifies their errors, and even attempts to formulate the principles of Hebrew syntax.

A production of more than common merit was written by Chasdaï Crescas, now on the brink of the grave, his spirits shattered by persecution. He was a profound, comprehensive thinker, whose mind never lost itself in details, but was forever striving to comprehend the totality of things. His scheme for a work treating, in the manner of Maimuni, of all phases and aspects of Judaism, investigating the ideas and laws out of which Jewish teaching had gradually developed, and reharmonizing the details with the whole where the connection had ceased to be apparent, bears witness to the extraordinary range of his learning and the perspicacity of his mind. The work was to be at once a guide to Talmudical study and a practical handbook. Death appears to have prevented the accomplishment of this gigantic enterprise, only the philosophic portion, or introduction, being completed. In this introduction Chasdaï Crescas deals, on the one hand, with the principles of universal religion, the existence of God, His omniscience and providence, human free-will, the design of the universe, and, on the other, with the fundamental truths of Judaism, the doctrines of the creation, immortality, and the Messiah.

Crescas was less dominated by the Aristotelian bias of mediæval philosophy than his predecessors. It had lost its halo for him; he perceived its weaknesses more clearly than others, and probed them more deeply. With bold hands he tore down the supports of the vast edifice of theory constructed by Maimuni on Aristotelian grounds to demonstrate the existence of God and His relation to the universe, and, conversant with the whole method of scholastic philosophy, he combated it with destructive force.

While the philosophy of his day appeared to him thus vague and illusory, he considered the foundations of Judaism unassailable, and set himself to show the futility of the criticisms of the former. The acknowledgment of Divine omniscience led him to the daring statement that man in his actions is not quite free, that everything is the necessary result of a preceding occurrence, and that every cause, back to the very first, is bound to determine the character of the final action. The human will does not follow blind choice, but is controlled by a chain of antecedent circumstances and causes. To what extent can the doctrine of reward and punishment be admitted, if the will is not free? Chasdaï Crescas' answer to this is that reward and punishment wait on intentions, not on actions. He who, in purity of heart, wishes to accomplish good--which must, of course, necessarily follow-- deserves to be rewarded, as the man who willingly promotes evil, deserves punishment. The highest good to which man can aspire, and the end of all creation, is spiritual perfection, or bliss everlasting, not to be obtained, as the philosophers imagine, by filling the mind with metaphysical theories, but only through the active love of God. This is the substance of all religion and particularly of Judaism. From this point of view it may with justice be said that "the world was created for the sake of the Torah," for the aim of the Law is to lead to immortality by means of ideas and commandments and the guidance of thoughts and actions.

Chasdaï Crescas, the first to distinguish between universal religion and specific forms, such as Judaism and Christianity, propounded, deviating from Maimuni's system, only eight peculiarly Jewish tenets. His just objection to Maimuni's thirteen articles of faith was that they were either too many or too few, inasmuch as they blended indiscriminately fundamental truths common to all religions, and teachings peculiar to Judaism.

Together with Profiat Duran and Chasdaï Crescas, Don Meïr Alguades, the Castilian chief rabbi, appeared, in the brief interval between two bloody persecutions in Spain, as a writer of philosophic works. He was not an independent inquirer; he merely translated the ethics of Aristotle (1405, in collaboration with Benveniste Ibn-Labi) into Hebrew, making the work accessible to Jews, who, in practical life, lived up to its principles better than the Greeks, who produced them, or the Christians, who, in the pride of faith and church doctrine, considered themselves above the necessity of conforming to the requirements of morality.

Throughout the reign of Don Henry III of Castile the life of the Jews was tolerable. The young but vigorous monarch severely punished Fernan Martinez, the prime mover in the massacres of 1391, as a warning against further excesses. He permitted the Jews to acquire land, renewed the law of his ancestor, Alfonso XI, and relieved his Jewish tax-farmers and finance administrators from restrictions. As soon as he died (the end of 1406) the affairs of the Jews again took an unfavorable turn, foreshadowing unhappy times. The heir to the crown, Juan II, was a child, barely two years old. The regency devolved on the queen-mother, Catalina (Catherine) of Lancaster, a capricious, arrogant and bigoted young woman, who imagined that she ruled, while she was herself ruled by her various favorites. The co-regent, Don Ferdinand, later king of Aragon, who was intelligent and kind, allowed himself to be guided by the clergy. By his side in the council of state sat the apostate rabbi, Solomon _alias_ Paul de Santa Maria, another and more mischievous Elisha-Acher, in whose eyes Judaism was an abomination, and every Jew a stumbling-block. The deceased king, Don Henry III, had appointed him executor of his will and tutor to his heir; he consequently had an influential voice in the council of the regency. What a prospect for the Jews of Castile! It was not long before they were made to feel the hostile spirit of the court. First it exhibited itself in attempts to humiliate the more notable Jews who had intercourse with the court circle and the grandees of the kingdom, and occupied positions of distinction. The intention was to dismiss them from these positions with the reminder that they belonged to a despised caste.

An edict was issued (October 25th, 1408), in the name of the infant king, reviving the anti-Jewish statutes of the code of Alfonso the Wise. "Whereas the exercise of authority by Jews may conduce to the prejudice of the Christian faith," their occupation of posts in which they might possess such authority was forbidden for all future time. Every Jew permitting himself to be invested with official functions, either by a nobleman or a municipality, was to be fined twice the amount of the revenue of such post, and, if his fortune did not suffice to make up the required amount, it would be confiscated, and the delinquent become liable to a punishment of fifty lashes. A Christian appointing a Jew to a post of influence would also be punished with a fine. To insure the working of the edict, it was enacted that the informer and the court of law concerned in a case should secure each one-third of the confiscated estates. Officials were charged to make the edict known everywhere, and carefully to watch that its injunctions were carried out. It is impossible not to suspect the hand of Paul de Santa Maria in this decree. No one knew better than he the strong and the weak points in the character of the Spanish Jews, and he doubtless calculated that Jewish notables, in danger of losing their official employment and high social position, would go over to Christianity, while the faithful, excluded from intercourse with Christian society and from participation in the public life of the country, would suffer a decline similar to that of the German Jews.

At the same time he vented his hate on Meïr Alguades, the physician of the dead king. The queen-regent had no cause to injure this Jewish notable; only Paul could desire his ruin, because he was the mainstay of his opponents and the leader of those who held him up to contempt. With the object of procuring his downfall, a vindictive accusation was trumped up against him. While the queen-mother, with the infant king, was staying at Segovia, some priests charged a Jew of the town with having bought a consecrated host from the sacristan, in order to blaspheme it. They further stated that the holy wafer had worked such terrible wonders while in the possession of the Jew, that in fear and trembling he had delivered it up to the prior of a monastery. Whether this story was fabricated, or whether there was a grain of truth in a bushel of fiction, it is impossible to say; it sufficed, however, to attract the serious attention of the bishop, Velasquez de Tordesillas, who caused a number of Jews to be arrested as accomplices in the crime, among them Don Meïr Alguades. Criminal proceedings were formally commenced by order of the queen-regent, and Alguades and his fellow-prisoners were subjected to torture, and confessed their guilt. It is stated that in his agony Meïr Alguades made a confession of another kind--that the king, Henry III, had come by his death at his hands. Although everybody knew that the king had been ailing from his youth, Don Mëir--who must have been specially interrogated while under torture as to whether he had poisoned the king--was put to death in the most inhuman manner. He was torn limb from limb. The same fate befell the other prisoners. Still not satisfied, the bishop of Segovia accused some Jews of having bribed his cook to poison his food, and they also were put to death. At about this time one of the synagogues in Segovia was transformed into a church.

The troubled times, projecting shadows of a still more unhappy future, produced the melancholy phenomenon of another Messianic frenzy. Again it arose in the minds of mystics. The Zohar having adroitly been raised to the dignity of an approved authority, the Kabbala daily acquired more influence, although it was not studied in proportion to the zeal with which its authority was advocated. Three Kabbalists were particularly active in exciting the emotions and turning the heads of the people--Abraham of Granada, Shem Tob ben Joseph, and Moses Botarel. The first composed (between 1391 and 1409) a Kabbalistic work, a farrago of strange names of the Deity and the angels, of transposed letters, and jugglery with vowels and accents. Abraham of Granada had the hardihood to teach that those who could not apprehend God by Kabbalistic methods belonged to the weak in faith, were ignorant sinners, and like the depraved and the apostate were overlooked by God, and not found worthy of His special providence. He thought that the relinquishment of their religion by cultured Jews was explained by their fatal application to scientific study, and their contempt for the Kabbala. On the other hand, he professed to see in the persecutions of 1391, and in the conversion of so many prominent Jews to Christianity, the tokens of the Messianic age, the suffering that must precede it, and the approach of the redemption. Shem Tob ben Joseph Ibn-Shem Tob (died 1430) accused the Jewish philosophers, Maimuni, Gersonides, and others, of seducing the people to heresy and infidelity, and with being the real cause of apostasy in troubled times. In a work entitled "Emunoth" he made violent attacks on Jewish thinkers and philosophic studies generally, and taught that the salvation of Israel lies in the Kabbala, the oldest Jewish tradition, and the genuine, pure truth. The entire book is composed of grave charges against the more enlightened school of Jewish thinkers, and panegyrics of Kabbalistic nonsense.

These two men, Abraham of Granada and Shem Tob, though narrow-minded, were sincere, differing in this respect from Moses Botarel (or Botarelo), also a Spaniard, from Cisneros, in Castile, who pursued his course with fraudulent intent. He gave out that he was a thaumaturge and prophet; he announced himself even as the Messiah. He prophesied that in the spring month of 1393 the Messianic age would be ushered in by extraordinary marvels. Later on he wrote a work full of lies and delusions. In his pride and boastfulness, he addressed a circular letter to all the rabbis of Israel, declaring that he was in a position to solve all doubts, and throw light on all mysteries, that he was the chief of the great Synhedrin, and a great deal more in the same charlatanic strain.

As in the days of the oppression by the Visigothic kings, an asylum for persecuted Jews was formed on that portion of the African coast facing Spain. Many of the north African towns, such as Algiers, Miliana, Constantine, Buja, Oran, Tenes, and Tlemçen, were filled with Jews fleeing from the massacres of 1391, and with new-Christians anxious to get rid of the Christianity which they had been forced to embrace, but which they hated cordially. Almost daily there came fresh troops of refugees from all parts of Spain and Majorca. They transplanted to their new fatherland their intelligence, wealth, industry, and commercial enterprise. The Mahometan Berber princes, then more tolerant and humane than the Christians, received them without imposing a poll tax. At first the Mahometan population grumbled a little at so sudden and considerable an increase in the number of inhabitants, fearing that the price of provisions would be raised. When, however, the narrow-mindedness and selfishness of their complaints were pointed out to them by an intelligent kadi they were satisfied, and the Jews were allowed to settle in their midst in peace. The small Berber communities formed since the cessation of the Almohade persecution a century before, acquired greater importance through this immigration. The new-comers preponderated in numbers over the native Jews, so that the latter, to a certain extent, were forced to adopt the Spanish communal organization and the Sephardic ritual. The Spaniards, in fact, became the leading element in the old African communities.

The distinguished rabbi, Isaac ben Sheshet-Barfat, who had escaped from Spain and settled in Algiers, was recognized by the king of Tlemçen as chief rabbi and judge of all the communities. This he owed to the influence of one of his admirers, Saul Astruc Cohen, a popular physician and an accomplished man, who not only practiced his art gratuitously, but spent his fortune in relieving both Mahometan and Jewish poor. In the name of the king the local rabbis were forbidden to assume clerical or judicial functions without the authority of the chief rabbi, Isaac ben Sheshet. This in no way detracted from the esteem in which Ben Sheshet was held, and applications for the decision of difficult questions continued to pour in upon him. In Algiers he continued to oppose wrong-doing with the conscientiousness and impartiality that had always characterized him. Among the members of his community was a mischievous personage (Isaac Bonastruc?), who had considerable influence with the Algerian authorities. Actuated by self-interest he was desirous of stopping the daily increasing immigration of Marranos, and to this end persuaded the kadi to impose a tax of one doubloon on every immigrant. Finding that troops of fugitives continued to arrive, he set himself to work upon the selfishness of the community, so that they might oppose any further influx of their brethren. Fifty-five new-Christians, who had recanted, from Valencia, Barcelona, and Majorca, were waiting to land in the harbor of Algiers, but were refused permission by Jews. This was tantamount to throwing them on the mercy of Christian executioners. Such selfishness and injustice the chief rabbi, Isaac ben Sheshet, could not tolerate, and he laid the ban on the heartless Jews, who tried to escape the punishment. So determined was his attitude that, with the assistance of Astruc Cohen and his brother, the Marranos were ultimately brought safe to land. In Africa Ben Sheshet-Barfat worked for nearly twenty years, promoting the welfare of his co-religionists and the interests of religion and morality. His declining years were embittered by the persistent attacks of a young rabbi, Simon ben Zemach Duran, an able Talmudist, who had emigrated from Majorca.

Ben Sheshet was succeeded on his death by Simon Duran (born 1361, died 1444). The community of Algiers elected him on condition that he did not seek a ratification of his appointment from the king, probably because the authority derived by his predecessor from the royal confirmation had been too uncontrolled. Simon Duran, an accomplished mathematician and physician, was the first Spanish-Jewish rabbi to take pay. He publicly excused himself for doing so, on the ground of his necessitous circumstances. During the persecutions in Majorca a portion of his large fortune had been lost, and the remainder had been sacrificed in bribing the informers who threatened to deliver him as a Judaizing Christian to the Dominican Moloch. He had arrived in Algiers almost a beggar, and the healing art, by which he had hoped to earn a subsistence, had brought him nothing, physicians enjoying but little consideration among the Berbers. Subsequently Simon Duran justified the payment of rabbis from the Talmud. Were the abbots, bishops, and princes of the church equally conscientious?

As if the Jews of Spain had not had enough enemies in the poor, indolent burghers and nobles, who regarded their opulence with so much jealousy, in the clergy, who cloaked their immorality with zeal for the propaganda of the faith, or in the upstart converts, who sought to disguise their Jewish origin by a show of hatred of their former brethren, there arose at about the beginning of the fifteenth century three new Jew-haters of the bitterest, most implacable type. One was a baptized Jew, another a Dominican friar, and the third an abandoned anti-pope. On these three men, Joshua Lorqui, Fra Vincent Ferrer, and Pedro de Luna, or Benedict XIII, the responsibility must rest for the events which directly conduced to the most terrible tragedy in the history of the Jews of Spain. Joshua Lorqui of Lorca assumed on his baptism the name Geronimo de Santa Fé, became physician in ordinary to the Avignon pope, Benedict, and, like his teacher, Solomon-Paul de Santa Maria, considered it his mission in life to draw his former brethren over to Christianity by every possible means. Vincent Ferrer, afterwards canonized, was one of those gloomy natures to whom the world appears a vale of tears, and who would wish to make it one. In saint-like virtue, indeed, he stood alone among the clergy and monks of his day. The pleasures of life had no charm for him; for gold and worldly distinction he thirsted not; he was penetrated with true humility, and entered on his work with earnestness. Unfortunately, the degeneracy and foulness of society had impressed him with the fantastic idea that the end of the world was at hand, and that mankind could be saved only by adopting the Christian faith and a monastic mode of life. Vincent Ferrer consequently revived flagellation. He marched through the land with a troop of fanatics who scourged their naked bodies with knotted cords, and incited the masses to adopt the same form of penance, believing that it would bring about the salvation of the world. Gifted with a sympathetic voice, an agreeable manner, and considerable eloquence, this Dominican friar soon obtained ascendancy over the public mind. When amid sobs he recalled the sufferings of Jesus, and depicted the approaching end of the world, the emotions of his auditors became violently agitated, and he could lead them to good or to evil. He had given up a high position at the papal court to lead the life of a flagellant and barefooted friar. This helped to increase the number of his admirers and disciples, for renunciation of position and wealth on the part of an ecclesiastic was without parallel. Ferrer, however, abused his power by the promotion of sanguinary deeds. He directed his fanatical denunciations not only against Jews and heretics, but even against friends who had helped to raise him from the dust. The terrible demoralization of the church is illustrated in this monk. The wrangling of three contemporary popes, each declaring himself to be the vicegerent of God, one of whom, John XXIII (1410-1415), had exhausted the catalogue of vices and deadly sins, a pirate, a trafficker in indulgences, an assassin, and a debauchee--all this did not so strikingly indicate the prevailing degeneracy as the fanatical excesses of one really pure, moral nature like Vincent Ferrer. The dove had become transformed into a venomous snake, the lamb into a rapacious beast. So much viciousness cannot be spontaneous in human character, in the adherents of Christianity; it must have been derived from the Christian teaching itself.

Unlike Wycliffe and other reformers, Ferrer did not raise his voice against the shortcomings of the church, but devoted himself to Jews and heretics, whom he hated as adversaries of Christianity and opponents of the infallibility of the pope. With pen and voice he opened a crusade against Jews, which he sustained for several years. His most vehement invective was aimed at the Spanish new-Christians, who during the massacres of 1391 had gone over to the church, but still largely conformed to Judaism. Partly from fear of incurring the severe punishment attaching to apostasy, partly won over by the fiery eloquence of the preacher, the Marranos made a contrite confession of faith, which Ferrer regarded as a great victory for the church, a triumph for the truths of Christianity, leading him to hope that the conversion of the entire body of Jews might be vouchsafed to him. By his influence with the people, who honored him as a saint, he was very useful to the kings of Spain in putting down popular risings during the civil wars without bloodshed. Encouraged by the consideration of the Castilian royal family, Ferrer craved permission not only to preach in the synagogues and mosques, but to force Jews and Mahometans to listen to his addresses. A crucifix in one arm, the Torah in the other, escorted by flagellants and spearmen, he called upon the Jews, "with a terrible voice," to enrol themselves under the cross.

Seraphic as he was, Vincent Ferrer was not averse to the employment of force. He represented to the Spanish rulers that the Jews should be strictly isolated, as their intercourse with the Christian population was calculated to injure the true faith. His suggestions met with too ready a response. Through him and the other two conversionists, unspeakable sorrows were brought upon the Spanish Jews; indeed, the years from 1412 to 1415 may be reckoned among the saddest in the sorrowful history of the Jewish people. Shortly after Ferrer's appearance at the most Christian court, the regent Donna Catalina, the Infante Don Ferdinand, and the apostate Paul Burgensis de Santa Maria, in the name of the child-king, Juan II, issued an edict of twenty-four articles (January 12th, 1412), the aim of which was to impoverish and humiliate the Jews, and reduce them to the lowest grade in the social scale. It ordered that they should live in special Jew-quarters (Juderias), provided with not more than one gate each, under pain of confiscation of fortune and personal chastisement. No handicraft was to be exercised by them; they were not to practice the healing art, nor transact business with Christians. It goes without saying that they were forbidden to hire Christian servants and fill public offices. Their judicial autonomy was abolished, not only in criminal cases, in which they had long ceased to exercise it, but also in civil disputes. The edict prescribed a special costume for the Jews. Both men and women were to wear long garments, in the case of males, of coarse stuffs. Whoever dressed in the national costume, or in fine materials, became liable to a heavy fine; on a repetition of the offense, to corporal punishment and confiscation of property. The wearing of the red Jew badge was, of course, insisted upon. Males were prohibited from shaving the beard or cutting the hair under pain of one hundred lashes. No Jew was to be addressed, either in conversation or in writing, by the title "Don," to the infringement of which a heavy fine was also attached. They were interdicted from carrying weapons, and might no longer move from town to town, but were to be fixed to one place of abode. The Jew detected in an evasion of the latter restriction was to lose his entire property, and be made a bondman of the king. Grandees and burghers were sternly enjoined to afford not the slightest protection to Jews.

It is not unwarrantable to assume the influence of the apostate Paul de Santa Maria in the details of these Jew-hating laws. They singled out the most sensitive features of the Jewish character, pride and sense of honor. Wealthy Jews, in the habit of appearing in magnificent attire and with smoothly-shaven chins, were now to don a disfiguring costume, and go about with stubbly, ragged beards. The cultivated, who as physicians and advisers of the grandees had enjoyed unrestricted intercourse with the highest ranks, were to confine themselves to their Jew quarter, or be baptized, baptism being the hoped-for result of all these cruel restrictions, enforced with merciless vigor. A contemporary writer (Solomon Alami) describes the misery caused by the edict: "Inmates of palaces were driven into wretched nooks, and dark, low huts. Instead of rustling apparel we were obliged to wear miserable clothes, which drew contempt upon us. Prohibited from shaving the beard, we had to appear like mourners. The rich tax-farmers sank into want, for they knew no trade by which they could gain a livelihood, and the handicraftsmen found no custom. Starvation stared everyone in the face. Children died on their mothers' knees from hunger and exposure."

Amid this tribulation the Dominican Ferrer invaded the synagogues, crucifix in hand, preached Christianity in a voice of thunder, offering his hearers enjoyment of life and opportunities of preferment, or threatening damnation here and hereafter. The Christian populace, inflamed by the passionate eloquence of the preacher, emphasized his teaching by violent assaults on the Jews. The trial was greater than the unhappy Castilian Jews could bear. Flight was out of the question, for the law forbade it under a terrible penalty. It is not surprising, then, that the weak and lukewarm among them, the comfort-loving and worldly-minded, succumbed to the temptation, and saved themselves by baptism. Many Jews in the communities of Valladolid, Zamora, Salamanca, Toro, Segovia, Avila, Benavente, Leon, Valencia, Burgos, Astorga, and other small towns, in fact, wherever Vincent Ferrer preached, went over to Christianity. Several synagogues were turned into churches by Ferrer. In the course of his four months' sojourn (December, 1412-March, 1413) in the kingdom of Castile, this proselyte-monger inflicted wounds upon the Jews from which they bled to death.

When, however, he repaired to the kingdom of Aragon--summoned thither to advise on the rival claims of several pretenders to the throne-- and when through his exertion the Castilian Infante, Don Ferdinand, was awarded the Aragonese crown (June, 1414), a trifling improvement took place in the condition of the Castilian Jews. The regent, Donna Catalina, issued a new edict in the name of her son (17th July). In this document the Jews were still interdicted the exercise of handicrafts, but were allowed, under a multitude of conditions, to visit markets with their merchandise. The prohibition to hire Christian or Mahometan domestics was confirmed; but, on the other hand, the employment of day-laborers and gardeners for the fields and vineyards of Jews, and shepherds for their flocks, was permitted. The new law triflingly allowed Jews to trim their hair and to clip with shears, but not entirely remove, their beards; a fringe of hair was ordered to be left on the chin, and shaving with the razor was forbidden, as though the queen-regent and her sage counselors were anxious that Jewish orthodoxy should not be wronged. The new decree conceded the wearing of dress materials of a value of sixty maravedis (under the former edict the value had been fixed at half this sum), but imposed a funnel-shaped head-covering, to which it was forbidden to attach tassels. The vehemence with which the edict declaimed against the ostentation of Jewish women disclosed its female authorship. Under this decree, freedom of domicile was once more accorded to Jews. It is noteworthy that the new edict applied only to Jews, whereas its predecessor restricted Mahometans as well.

With the transfer of the fanatical Ferrer to Aragon, the communities of that kingdom began to experience trials and misfortunes. The newly-elected king, Don Ferdinand, owed his crown to Ferrer, for as arbitrator between the rival pretenders he had warmly espoused his cause, proclaimed him king, and united the populace in his favor. Ferdinand consequently paid exceptional veneration to his saintliness, appointed him his father-confessor and spiritual adviser, and granted him his every wish. Foremost among Ferrer's aspirations was the conversion of the Jews, and to advance it the king commanded the Jews of Aragon to give every attention to his discourses. The zealous proselytizer made a tour of the kingdom, vehemently denouncing the Jews in every town he visited. His intimidations succeeded in converting a large number, particularly in Saragossa, Daroca, Tortosa, Valencia, and Majorca. Altogether Ferrer's mission to the Jews of Castile and Aragon is said to have resulted in not less than 20,500 forced baptisms.

This, however, did not end the woes of Spanish Jews. Pope Benedict XIII had still worse troubles in store for them, employing as his instrument his newly-baptized Jewish physician, Joshua Lorqui, otherwise Geronimo de Santa Fé. This pope, deposed by the council of Pisa as schismatic, heretic and forsworn, deprived of his spiritual functions and put under the ban, projected the conversion of the entire body of Jews in Spain to the church, at that time the object of universal opprobrium. On the Pyrenean peninsula he was still regarded as the legitimate pope, and from this base of operations he used every effort to procure a general acknowledgment of his authority. He was not slow to perceive that the general conversion of the Jews would powerfully assist his design. If it were vouchsafed to him to overcome at last the obstinacy, blindness and infidelity of Israel, and to bring it under the sovereignty of the cross--would it not be the greatest triumph for the church and for himself? Would it not put all his enemies to shame? Would not the faithful range themselves under the pope who had so glorified the church? What better proof could he give that he was the only true pontiff?