THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. 345 



valid at all, as it afterward became, according to the Jewish code. 

 Thus Josephus, speaking of the Jews at Antioch, mentions that they 

 made many converts, receiving them into their community. An ex- 

 traordinary number of conversions to Judaism undoubtedly took 

 place during the second century after Christ. As to the extent of in- 

 termarriage which ensued during the middle ages discussion is still 

 rife. Renan, Neubauer, and others interpret the various rigid pro- 

 hibitions against intermarriage of Jews with Christians- — as, for ex- 

 ample, at the church councils of 538, 589, at Toledo, and of 743 at 

 Rome — to mean the prevalent danger of such practices becoming gen- 

 eral; while Jacobs, Andree, and others are inclined to place a lower 

 estimate upon their importance. Two wholesale conversions are 

 known to have taken place : the classical one of the Khozars, in South 

 Russia, during the reign of Charlemagne, and that of the Falashas, 

 who were neighboring Arab tribes in Yemen. Jacobs has ably 

 shown, however, the relatively slight importance of these. It is 

 probable that the greatest amount of infusion of Christian blood 

 must have taken place, in any event, not so much through such strik- 

 ing conversions, as insidiously through clandestine or irregular mar- 

 riages. 



We find, for example, much prohibitive legislation against the 

 employment of Christian servants by Jews. This was directed 

 against the danger of conversion to Judaism, by the master, with con- 

 sequent intermarriage. It is not likely that these prohibitions were of 

 much avail, for, despite stringent laws in Hungary, for example, 

 we find the archbishop of that country reporting in 1229 that many 

 Jews were illegally living with Christian wives, and that conversions 

 by thousands were taking place. In any case, no protection for slaves 

 was ever afforded. The confinement of the Jews strictly to the 

 Ghettos during the later centuries would naturally discourage such 

 intermixture of blood, as also the increasing popular hatred between 

 Jew and Chrisian ; but, on the other hand, the greater degree of toler- 

 ance enjoyed by the Israelites even during this present century would 

 be competent speedily to produce great results. Jacobs has strenu- 

 ously, although perhaps somewhat inconclusively, argued in favor of 

 a substantial purity of the Jews by means of a number of other 

 data — such as, for example, by a study of the relative frequency 

 of Jewish names, by the supposed relative infecundity of mixed mar- 

 riages, and the like. Experience and the facts of everyday observa- 

 tion, on the other hand, tend to confirm us in the belief that racially 

 no purity of descent is to be supposed for an instant. Consider the 

 evidence of names, for example. We may admit a considerable 

 purity, perhaps, to the Cohns and Cohens, legitimate descendants of 

 the Cohanim, the sons of Aaron, early priests of the temple. Their 



TOL. LIV. — 25 



