Anti-Semitism Ism

The intellectual activity of the latter half of the second cen tury seems to have been somewhat artificial. Owing to the rav ages caused by constant wars and revolts, as well as by adverse economic conditions, the importance of Palestine was declining. The great centre of Jewish population lay already outside the country, particularly in Mesopotamia, where the "exile" had continued throughout the days of the second temple. Babylonian students had been accustomed to come to Palestine and sit at the feet of its renowned teachers. By the time of the death of Judah I. the younger settlement had become intellectually self supporting. Abba Arika (q.v.), commonly known as Rab or "Master," who had been a pupil of the great Palestinian patri arch, set up at Sura a famous school of rabbinical learning which retained its prominence until the 11 th century. His younger contemporary, Samuel (famous for his momentous maxim that "the law of the state is Law"), presided at Nehardea over an academy which long rivalled the other. During its temporary suspension owing to the sack of the city by Odenathus (Zeno bia's husband) in 259, there arose in the neighbourhood the school of Pompedita. These three academies co-operated with the dwindling schools in Palestine in maintaining the traditions of Jewish learning, the teachers now being called Arnoraim. The discussions which went on in them, centred in the text of the Mishnah (especially at the biennial Kallah assemblage), were ultimately redacted as the Gemara, the whole body together forming the Talmud. The foundations of the less important compilation made in the decaying academies of Palestine were laid by Rabbi Johanan of Tiberias (died c. 279); but it survives in a fragmentary state, and probably was never finished. Pal estinian, too, was the Midrash—a vast compilation of homiletics, ethics, legend, and folk-lore in the form of a commentary on the Bible. The fuller Talmud of Babylon, which exercised a pre ponderating influence upon Jewish life in later times, reached its final form at the close of the 6th century. It was far from being merely a code of religious practice. It was a whole litera ture, comprising law and theology, science, folk-lore, and every other conceivable branch of intellectual activity, somewhat amor phously grouped about the text of the Mishnah. It was this which remained, after the Bible, the principal guide to life and object of study, and which gave Judaism unity, cohesion, and resilience in the difficult period which lay before it.

The Muslim Conquest.

In spite of the intolerant theory and beginnings of Islam, the Muslim conquest considerably ame liorated the condition of the Jews in the east. The Caliphs, once their original missionary zeal abated, showed themselves willing to accord an almost boundless toleration in return for a slender poll-tax. By this time the political connection of the Jews with Palestine had almost ceased, though the country remained the focus of their prayers and hopes, and the patriarchate had been finally abolished by Theodosius II. on the death of Gamaliel VI. without male heirs (425). In Mesopotamia, however, intellectual activity continued with renewed vigour after the downfall of Zoroastrian intolerance. The secular dignity of Prince of the Cap tivity, or Exilarch (q.v.), which had existed from remote an tiquity, was revived with renewed magnificence. Spiritual au thority, however, resided in the Gaon (q.v.), the head of the

Academy, who continued to expound and develop the principles of the Talmud with an authority which was extended by the conquests of the Crescent. The widening of intellectual horizons which the Muslim influence ultimately brought about was typi fied in the Gaon Saadiah (q.v.) (882-942), who first exemplified the fruitful combination of Helleno-Arabic and Jewish culture. Jewish philology and philosophy both start with him, being neces sitated by the threatening Karaite schism, for the check of which his labours were principally responsible. This double organiza tion, under Gaon and Exilarch, continued until the itth century, by which time the Jewries of the occident were strong enough to stand by themselves.

The Diaspora in the

West.—Already, before the destruction of Jerusalem, the Diaspora had been a familiar phenomenon in Europe. The prisoners captured in innumerable wars and dis tributed through the Empire as slaves had been followed (if not preceded) by merchants and traders. Latin writers from the period of Augustus onwards show the extent to which Jewish practices were spread throughout the civilized world of their day. Paul found them in Greece and Italy, and the infant church consistently advanced where the synagogue had blazed out the way. By the beginning of the 4th century, settlements were to be found as far afield as Spain and the Rhineland. Indeed, it is probable that, before the Roman empire had begun to decay, Jews were present in all of its greater cities. By the constitution of Cara calla (212), they had been admitted to the privileges as well as the burdens of Roman citizenship and henceforward they occu pied a position which was privileged by comparison with that of members of other dissenting religions.

With the christianization of the empire, however, their condi tion was altered. It is true that they were comprised in the tolera tion accorded by the edict of Milan, but their status was imme diately and radically changed. The differentiatory policy of the church was adopted almost in its entirety by the state. From an insignissinia religio, certe licita, Judaism became the secta nefaria or sacrilegi coetus which figure in the edicts of the first Christian emperors. The policy of the church was far from being merely persecutory. Its intention was rather to prevent the inroads of Judaism by keeping its adherents from positions of authority and restricting social intercourse with them. At the same time, it regarded their preservation (if in ignominy) as evidence for the truth of Christianity, and frowned upon the use of force to bring them into the path of conformity. The Papacy, true to the tradition set by Gregory the Great, figured down to modern times alternately as the protector of the Jews from violence and the repressor of their "insolence," departing from this standard most frequently on the side of leniency; and Rome was almost the only city of Europe to preserve its Jewish community undis turbed from remote antiquity down to the present day. The secular rulers, however, did not show the same discrimination; and in the Byzantine empire in particular (especially from Jus tinian, who was the first emperor to interfere with their religious institutions) discrimination degenerated rapidly into oppression. The embodiment of the new principles in the Codex Theodosianus ultimately permeated the whole of western law with the idea of Jewish inferiority.