IRON AGE OF JUDAISM.

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A. c. 980.] his son and successor, Enoch, enjoyed the protection of Hasdai, the son of Isaac, the minister of the caliph; and though the learned pre-eminence of this family was disturbed by the rivalry of R. Joseph, to whom the task of translating the Talmud had been committed, yet such was the popularity of his grandson, Nathan, and such the wealth of his compatriots, that as often as the head of the Jewish community went forth to enjoy the delicious refreshment of the groves and gardens near Cordova, he was attended by his admiring disciples in immense numbers, and in most sumptuous apparel-it is said that 700 chariots swelled his pomp.

The long line of learned descendants, which formed the great school of Arabico-Jewish learning, belongs to the history of their literature, for which our work has no space. This line stretched away to the end of the twelfth century, when it produced its greatest ornament-the wise Maimonides, the first who, instead of gazing with blind adoration and unintelligent wonder at the great fabric of the Mosaic Law, dared to survey it with the searching eye of reason, and was rewarded by discovering the indelible marks of the divine wisdom and goodness. Maimonides was beyond his age and country; he retreated to the court of the sultan of Egypt in Cairo, where he lived in the highest estimation as the royal physician; he was anathematized by the more superstitious of his brethren, but in later ages, the more enlightened the race of Israel, the higher has stood the fame of him whom his ardent admirers proclaimed a second Moses.

We revert to a sadder spectacle-the rapid progress of the Iron Age of Judaism, which, in the East and in the West, gradually spread over the Jewish communities, till they sank again to their bitter, and, it might almost seem, indefeasible inheritance of hatred and contempt: they had risen but to be trampled down by the fiercer and more unre

lenting tread of oppression and persecution. The world, which before seemed to have made a sort of tacit agreement to allow them time to regain wealth that might be plundered, and blood that might be poured forth like water, now seems to have entered into a conspiracy as extensive to drain the treasures and the blood of this devoted race.

Kingdom after kingdom, and people after people, followed the dreadful example, and strove to peal the knell of this devoted race; till at length, what we blush to call Christianity, with the Inquisition in its train, cleared the fair and smiling provinces of Spain of this industrious part of its population, and self-inflicted a curse of barrenness upon the benighted land.

BOOK XXIV.

IRON AGE OF JUDAISM.

Persecutions in the East-Extinction of the Princes of the Captivity— Jews in Palestine-In the Byzantine Empire--Feudal System-Chivalry-Power of the Church-Usury-Persecutions in Spain--Massacres by the Crusaders-Persecutions in France-Philip Augustus -Saint Louis-Spain-France-Philip the Fair-War of the Shepherds-Pestilence-Poisoning of the Fountains-Charles the Fourth -Charles the Fifth--Charles the Sixth-Final expulsion from France -Germany-The Flagellants-Miracle of the Host at Brussels.

OUR Iron Age commences in the East, where it witnessed the extinction of the Princes of the Captivity, by the ignominious death of the last sovereign, the downfall of the schools, and the dispersion of the community, who from that period remained an abject and degraded part of the population.Pride and civil dissension, as well as the tyranny of a feeble despot, led to their fall. About the

middle of the ninth century, both the Jews and Christians suffered some persecution under the sultan Motavakel, A. C. 847. An edict was issued prohibiting their riding on lordly horses, they were to aspire no higher than humble asses and mules; they were forbidden to have an iron stirrup, and commanded to wear a leather girdle. They were to be distinguished from the faithful by a brand-mark, and their houses were defaced by figures of swine, devils, or apes: the latter addition throws some improbability on the story. About this time, Saccai was Prince of the Captivity; towards the middle of the tenth century (934), David Ben Saccai held that high office. It has been conjectured that the interval was filled by a line of hereditary princes. The learned aristocracy, the Heads of the Schools, seem likewise to have been hereditary. The race of that

of Sura expired, and the Resch-Glutha, Davil Ben Saccai, took upon himself to name an obscure successor called Om. Tob. His incompetency became apparent, and R. Saadiah was summoned from Egypt. Saadiah was a great opponent of the doctrine of the transmigration of the soul, a received article of the Jewish creed. Perpetual feuds distracted this singular state. The tribunals of the Resch-Glutha, and the Masters of the School, the civil and spiritual powers, were in perpetual collision. David, the prince, laid his ban on Saadiah; Saadiah hurled back the ban upon the prince, and transferred the sovereignty to his brother. For seven years this strife lasted; till at length peace was restored, and the whole community beheld, with the utmost satisfaction, the Prince of the Captivity, who, on the death of his brother, regained his uncontested authority, entering the house of the Master of the School to celebrate together the joyful feast of Purim. The peace remained unbroken till the death of the Prince of the Captivity and that of his Saadiah became the guardian of his grandSaadiah was a man noted for the strictest justice, and his literary works were esteemed of the highest value. Both the great dignities seem to have been united in the person of Scherira, who ruled and taught with universal admiration in the school of Pherutz Schabur. At the end of thirty years, Scherira felt the approach of age, and associated his son Hai in the supremacy. But the term of this high office drew near. A violent and rapacious sovereign filled the throne of the caliphs.-He cast a jealous look upon the powers and wealth of this vassal sovereign. Sherira, now 100 years old, and his son Hai, were seized, either with or without pretext, their riches confiscated, and the old man hung up by the hand. Hai escaped to resume his office, and to transmit its honours and its dangers to Hezekiah, who was elected Chief of the

son. son.

THE LAST PRINCE OF THE CAPTIVITY. 239

Captivity. But after a reign of two years, Hezekiah was arrested with his whole family by the order of the caliph. The schools were closed-many of the learned fled to Egypt or Spain, all were dispersed; among the rest two sons of the unfortunate Prince of the Captivity effected their escape to Spain, while the last of the house of David, (for of that lineage they fondly boasted,) who reigned over the Jews of the dispersion in Babylonia, perished on an ignominious scaffold.

The Jewish communities in Palestine suffered a slower but more complete dissolution. If credit is to be given to any of the facts in that extravagant compilation, the Travels of Benjamin of Tudela, which bears the date of the following century, from A. C. 1160 to 1173,* we may safely select his humiliating account of the few brethren who still clung, in poverty and meanness, to their native land. There is an air of sad truth about the statement, which seems to indicate some better information on this subject than on others. In Tyre, Benjamin is said to have found 400 Jews, glass-blowers. The Samaritans still occupied Sichem, but in Jerusalem there were only 200 descendants of Abraham, almost all dyers of wool, who had bought a monopoly of that trade. Ascalon contained 153 Jews; Tiberias, the seat of learning and of the kingly patriarchate, but 50. This account of Benjamin is confirmed by the unfrequent mention of the Jews in the histories of the later Crusades in the Holy Land, and may, perhaps, be ascribed in great measure to the devastations committed in the first of these depopulating expeditions. It is curious, after surveying this almost total desertion of Palestine, to read the indications of fond attachment to its very air and soil, scattered about in the Jewish writings;

*The object of this author seems to have been not unlike that of the celebrated Sir John Mandeville, to throw together all he had ever heard or read of the strange and unvisited regions of the East.