Like all theosophists, Kabalists claimed to have a very ancient literature. Their fundamental work was the Zohar, Kabalistic homilies on the Pentateuch, written by Moses of Leon (129o), and ascribed to Simeon ben Johaj (2d cent.) (2) From the Middle Ages to the Present Time. The political condition of the Jews during the latter part of the Middle Ages was very sad, although occasionally some individuals rose to .a higher rank as tax-farmers, financiers, phy sicians, astronomers, astrologists, and authors. The masses were frequently mobbed, not rarely expelled and always outrageously taxed. The German Jews suffered terribly from the crusaders in log6 and 1147. Many were thrown into burn ing houses or hacked to pieces, and thousand§ were killed under the most cruel tortures. A great number were dragged to churches and baptized, but returned to Judaism in spite of the protest of ecclesiastic dignitaries. Most of the latter, especially St. Bernard, although not favorable to the Jews, condemned these perse cutions, but their voices did not prevail with the mob. Shnilar persecutions of a local char acter we find all through the Middle Ages, but it would be impossible to enumerate them. Some times it is the accusation that they murdered a child to use his blood for their Passover cakes; another time that they perforated a consecrated host whicli subsequently performed some miracles that lent a semblance of justice to these acts of mob violence. Legislation sanctioned these outbreaks by establishing such discriminations against the Jews as incited passion against them. The council of the Lateran (1215), which repre sents the highwater mark of papal power under Innocent III, decreed the Jew badge and con firmed all laws tending to degrade the Jews. Un der such conditions which, as the pope declared, were part of the divine economy to show by the •humiliation of the Jews the glory of Christ, it was of no avail, when Innocent IV 0247) in a bull admonished the rulers to protect the life and property of the Jews, and even protested against the accusation that the Jews committed murder for the sake of their religion. It was also of little avail, when some princes, like Frederick II of Austria (1244), promulgated statutes by which the rights of the Jews, who through the exorbitant taxes imposed upon them were a considerable support of the treasury, were established. Other rulers wantonly disregarded these dearly bought privileges, and the mobs ex cited by a Good-Friday sermon on Jesus' suffer ings, never respected them. Of the innumerable persecutions during the twelfth century, I shall only mention the riots at the time of the corona tion of King Richard Cceur de Lion (1 Igo) and the martyrdom of the Jews of Blois i(1 I7I) and of Bray (II91). Hundreds died at the stake, sing: ing hymns; hundreds killed themselves with their children to escape the tortures of infuriated mobs. The great plague (1348-135o) added a new pre text for the slaughter of helpless people, who were accused of poisoning the wells. All over western Europe they were persecuted. In Stras burg alone 1.800 Jews were burned on one pyre.
In the fifteenth century the growth of the mu nicipalities had the effect that the Jews, formerly a welcome object for taxation, began to be con sidered as inconvenient .compotitors. At the same time the economic crisis, produced by the sudden change of economic conditions due to so many discoveries and inventions, produced the spirit of discontent and rectlessness in the masses which always is the prime cause of revolutions and naturally makes the weak suffer first. Legis lation and historical conditions having reduced the Jews to the business of money lending, it was only too natural that popular hatred, fomented by religious motives, saw in the Jew the usurer only, and in the usurer the sole cause of the serious economic crisis. They were expelled front almost all the larger cities in Germany, while France, where they had been expelled and called back numerous times before, expelled them peremptorily in 1394, England having done so in t2go. At the same time the increasing per turbation within the church aroused occasional outbreaks against the Jews. In Spain Ferdinand Martinez 0391) had caused a great uprising against the Jews. and a great number, in order to save their lives, professed conversion to Christianity, but secretly practiced Judaism. They formed the large class of the MarannoS, whom the church considered as apostates and against whom the inquisition was created which, power less in its attempt to make the Marannos real Christians, brought about the expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1492) and front Portugal (1495)• The council of Basle 0431-43) renewed all the ecclesiastic laws against the Jews. John
Capistrano, who failed in his mission to bring the Hussites back into the fold of the Catholic church, triumphed over the Jews. In Breslau he consigned over forty to the stake under the usual allegation of piercing a consecrated host (1454), and from a number of cities they were expelled through his influence. Bernhardin of Feltre, a man of the type which we would call Christian socialists in our days, proved by torture and manipulated testimony that a little boy who was drowned in the Adige had been murdered by the Jews of Trent 0475). A great number were put to death and the rest expelled. As late as 1510 the profaned host caused the death of twenty-nine Jews in Berlin.
The most important event of this epoch was the expulsion of the Jews, about 3oo,000 in num ber, from Spain (1492) and Portugal (1496). The refugees settled mostly in Turkey, in north ern Africa, in Egypt and in Palestine. The many refugees from Germany turned towards Poland, so that from about 15oo the majority of the Jews lived in eastern countries, debarred from the cen ters of civilization. The Reformation had only a slight influence on the Jews. Their general condition was not changed. Luther, who, in the beginning of his career, had been favorably in clined to them, spoke in his later days very se verely against them, recommending the confisca tion of their property and their expulsion. The Renaissance, however, had its influence on the Jews, as it derived some of its impulses from their literature. Johannes Reuchlin (1455-1522), one of the foremost representatives of the Renais sance movement 05to), defended the rabbinical literature against the accusations of John Pfeff erkorn, a converted Jew, and his allies, the Do minicans of Cologne, who, by the confiscation of the Talmud, expected to obtain the same power as inquisitors in Germany which their order pos sessed in Spain. Like many other scholars of that age, Reuchlin had studied Hebrew from Jews. Elijah Levita 0472-1549), a Hebrew teacher of Christians in Italy, came out with the important discovery that the vowel points were a later invention, and that consequently the text of the Hebrew Bible, as we possess it, is of a comparatively late origin. Azariah dei Rossi of Mantua (1511-1578) followed with a series of learned essays in which he proved that the rab binical writings possessed no authority in scien tific matters. a statement which was quite bold in those days and elicited no small amount of op position. Meantime in Poland and in the Orient, which had become the seats of rabbinical learn ing, traditionalism became stronger and stronger. Joseph Karo (1488-1577) lint. SatTed wrote a com pendium of Jewish law, Shulhan Arukh, which with the annotations of Moses Isserls in Cracow (152o-1573), was considered an authoritative guide-book, and thus became instrumental in per petuating scholasticism and traditionalism. A rather Utopian scheme of the Maranno Salomo Molcho and his friend, David Retibeni, who posed as a prince of the lost tribes, to establish the Messianic kingdom failed ignominiously. Moleft° was burned at the stake (1533), and Reubeni died in prison. A more practical scheme of Don Joseph of Naxos, a Maranno, who had obtained a high position at the court of Constanti nople, to establish a Jewish state in the island of Cyprus also failed 0571). The first place where Jews enjoyed full religious freedom was Holland, where after the Netherlands had gained their freedom, Spanish Jews began to settle in considerable numbers. Amsterdam became a mother city for other colonies, which in the course of the seventeenth century settled in England, Sweden, Denmark and America, and were swelled by fugitive Marannos who were fortunate enough to escape from the dungeons of the Inquisition and also by German Jews. At the same time the Jews of Poland were terrible sufferers from the revolution of the Cossacks against their Polish masters 0648). Under their captain Chmelnicki the Cossacks attacked the Jewish settlements, be cause the Jews as tax-farmers had been instru mental in driving the Cossacks to desperation. I lundreds of thousands were killed, and fugitives flocked into all parts of Europe where they could find co-religionists.