That the positions of honor held out to the Jews of Babylonia filled the mote prominent among them with ambition goes without saying. Anan ben David (761) expected to be pro moted to the Exilarchate, but was disappointed. Incensed by his disappointment, and later im prisoned for having himself proclaimed anti Exilarch, he, as soon as released, assumed the aggressive toward the prevailing Jewish thought current of Babylonia, instituttng a movement called (See article THE KARAITES in-this section). In justice it must be confessed that the movement was beneficial as well as detrimental to the Jews of those times, for it helped to check their imagination which had often run riot in their understanding of tures. Rabbinism was recast, and in its recast form found an ardent champion in Saadia ben Joseph (892-942) who, though a native of Fayum in upper Egypt, attained to the Gaonate of Sora, because of his Biblical, Talmudical, and grammatical knowledge and his religio philosophical genuis. As long as his school of Sora had at its head a man like Saadia, the wrangles between the Jewish scholars of Baby lonia and the growing Mohammedan antago nism to Jews and Judiaism, both disintegrating influences of the Babylonian academic life, did not make themselves markedly felt; but when once Sandia no more, the decline of the schools of the East was inevitable. To prevent the closing of the schools, four scholars (948), Shemarya ben Elchanon, Chushiel, Nathan ben Isaac Cohen and Moses ben Chanoch, were de spatched to scattered Jewry, to collect funds for the maintenance of Sora. They embarked on the same vessel, which was captured by a Spanish-Arabic admiral, and thus became sep arated forever ; Shemarya going to Alexandria, Chushiel to Cyrene, Nathan to Narbonne and Moses to Cordova. Thus was the last hope of Babylonian Jewry defeated and the Jews began to make history in European countries.
IV. From Close of Oriental Schools to Close of 16th Century.- Although Jewish his tory now takes us into European countries, Jews lived in Europe long before the middle of the 10th century. Already in the earliest cen turies of the Common Era, Jews, who soon grew into fair-sized communities; contributing to the prosperity of the various governments, were found in all countries, in consequence of the Jewish dispersion. Welcomed upon their arrival wheresoever they settled, they did not anywhere continue to live long in the enjoy ment of peace. Europe made suffering the badge of all their race. They were misunder stood and misrepresented; they were regarded unbelievers and infidels. Not only during the Crusades did they suffer, as for instance in Rouen, Treves, Speyer, Worms, Cologne, Ratis bon, Prague (1096), in South Germany and France (1147), in Toledo (1212), in'Anjou and Poiton (1236), but also in times and amid con ditions which held out peace to others. Time and time again edicts restricting them were unjustly promulgated, as, for example, by Pope Gregory VII (1078), by the government of France (1198), by the Council of Avignon (1209), by Pope Innocent HI, instituting the .t(Jew Dad e' (1215), by the Council of Za mora (1313), by Juan II (1412), by the Council of Basle (1434), by Eugenius IV (1442), by Paul IV (1555), and in Russia in 1881 and still later. Time and again they were crowded into
Ghettos, as for example in Rome, Prague. Frankfort and the Russian Pale. Time and again their literature, especially the Talmud. because not understood, was either unjustly burned, as for instance in Paris (1242), in Cre mona (1559), or publicly attacked, as by the Dominicans (1507), or forbidden to be studied, as by Pope Benedict XIII (1415). Time and again the Jews were unjustly accused of the use of Christian blood for ritualistic purposes, as in Blois (1171), all over Germany (1283), in South Germany (1431), in the case of Simon of Trent (1475), which brought a Jewish persecution in its train in Ratisbon, in Damascus (1840) and in Tiszla Eszla, Hungary (1882). Time and again they were unjustly imprisoned, as in En land by King John (1210), and again in 1278. Time and time again they were unjustly banished from their homes, as from Granada (1066), from France (1254), from England (1290), a second time from France (1306), and a third time(1394), from Cologne (1426), from Spain (1492), from Portugal (1497), from Prague (1561), from the Papal States (1569), from Italian principalities (1597) and from Worms (1615). Time and again they were unjustly persecuted and massacred by the thou sands, as in London (1189), in Germany all the way from the Rhine to Vienna (1190) and again in Germany in 1298 and frequently thereafter in France (1321), all over Europe on account of the "Black Death' (1348), in Spain (from 1391 to 1492), in Silesia and Poland (1453), in Por tugal (1530), again in Poland (1648), and in Germany, Austria and Russia as late as our times, on account of anti-Semitic agitations.
That all of this suffering stunted the Jews physically is self-evident, and that it, to a cer tain extent, prevented the broadest spiritual un folding, in accordance with the brighter light of their religious genius, is therefore not surpris ing. The spiritual offspring of persecution was that mysticism known as the Cabala (see article THE CABALA in this section), and the belief in such pseudo-Messiahs as Serene (720), David Alroy (1160), Abraham Abulafia (1279), Asher Lemmlein (1502), David Reubeni and Solo mon Molko (1558), Isaac Luria (1569), Sab batai Zevi (1665) and others. However, bar ring these vagaries, the Jews developed a phe nomenal intellectual activity, not merely along religious, but along all lines of thought.
With the arrival of Moses ben Chanoch in Cordova (945) the Jews took an active part in the development of far-famed Andalusia. Apart from the celebrated Spanish seats of learning they helped to create, they also add. vated a many-sided specific Jewish literature. Versed as the Spanish Jews became in Arabic lore, and acquainted as they were with the work done by the Moors in Arabic philology, they soon began to apply the science of philology to Hebrew grammar and lexicography. Biblical criticism found in them champions. Philosophy and poetry were cultivated among them by fa mous men. Simultaneous with the Jews in Spain, those of France also were intellectually active. The Jews of Italy, too, were bound to grow likewise. In Germany and Poland, the specific literature produced by the Jews cov ered, for the most part, the ritual, Biblical in terpretation and legal codes.