1017 



JEWS. 



JEWS. 



1C is 



son Archelaus was appointed ethnarch of Judaea Proper, Idumaea, and 

 Samaria ; his brother Herod Antipas had Galilee and Persea ; to Herod 

 Philip were given the provinces of Trachonitis, Batauaea, and Gaulonitis, 

 east of the Jordan ; and another Philip had Ituraea. Thus the domi- 

 nions of Herod were dismembered between four of his sons, who are 

 accordingly styled Tetrarchs in the New Testament. Archelaus was 

 summoned to Rome after a reign of nine years, to answer certain 

 charges brought against him by his subjects, and was banished by 

 Augustus to Vienne in Gaul. Judaea thus became a Roman province, 

 or rather a district dependent on the great province or prefecture of 

 Syria, though administered by a special governor, a man usually of the 

 Equestrian order. This is the state to which Judaea was reduced in 

 the time of Our Saviour. The Jews, however, continued to enjoy the 

 exercise of their religious and municipal liberties. 



Under the-reign of Claudius, Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the 

 Great, who had been already appointed by Caligula ethnarch of Galilee, 

 was appointed king of Judaea and all the former dominions of his 

 grandfather ; but he died three years after, at Caesarea in Palestine, 

 A.D. 44. This is the Herod mentioned in chapter xii. of the Acts. Has 

 son, called likewise Herod Agrippa, was then a minor, and Judaea 

 relapsed into a Roman province. In A.D. 53 Claudius gave to Agrippa 

 the provinces east of Jordan, which had belonged to Philip the 

 Tetrarch, and Nero added to them part of Galilee. But Judaea and 

 Samaria continued to be administered by Roman procurators. Herod, 

 however, was entrusted by the emperor with the superintendence of 

 the Temple and the right of appointing and deposing the high-priest at 

 Jerusalem, and he occasionally resided in that city, while the Roman 

 governor generally resided at Caesarea. This second Herod Agrippa is 

 the one mentioned in Acts, xxv., xxvi., there styled King Agrippa, 

 whom St. Paul addressed in so impressive a manner in his defence. 

 Agrippa was present at the final catastrophe of Jerusalem. 



A succession of more than usually rapacious Roman governors 

 Felix, Albinus, and Floruit had driven the Jews to the verge of 

 despair. A revolt took place, beginning at Cscsarea, which was only 

 terminated by the taking of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Still the Jewish 

 population was by no means extirpated from the country, and we find 

 them rising in vast numbers in the reign of Hadrian, and again 

 engaging the Roman legions commanded by Severus. They were how- 

 ever overpowered with immense slaughter, and the second desolation 

 of Judaea took place. 



The dispersion of the Jews over the world, which is commonly dated 

 from the destruction of Jerusalem, had in reality begun long before. 

 The Ptolemies had transplanted large colonies of them into Egypt, 

 Cyrene, and Cyprus ; and Antiochus the Great settled great numbers 

 in the towns of Asia. In the time of Cicero (' Pro Flacco ') there was 

 a wealthy Jewish community in Italy. A passage of Philo, in his 

 letter of Agrippa, enumerates the countries in which the Jews were 

 settled in the time of Caligula : Egypt, Syria, Pamphylia, Cilicia, the 

 greatest part of Asia Minor as far as Bithyuia, the shores of the Euxiue, 

 Macedonia, Thessaly, ./Etoha, Attica, the Peloponnesus, Cyprus, and 

 Crete, besides the countries beyond the Euphrates ; for at the end of 

 the Babylonish captivity many Jews voluntarily remained in Mesopo- 

 tamia, where they continued to form for several centuries a considerable 

 community, alternately under the Parthian and Roman dominion. 



Ascribing their continued misfortunes to the non-observance of the 

 Mosaical laws, the Jews now established schools for the stricter incul- 

 cation and study of them ; and that of Tiberias was particularly cele- 

 brated. From these schools issued the Mishna and the Gemara ; the 

 first by Rabbi Jehuda, the second by Rabbi Ascha and his disciples ; 

 the whole forming the Babylonian Talmud. Many learned Rabbis 

 distinguished themselves as opponents of the constantly increasing 

 Christian faith. When the Eastern Empire had adopted Christianity, 

 the Jews, who had hitherto lived undisturbed, were placed under many 

 restrictions. They were forbidden by Constantino to receive Christian 

 converts, or to possess Christian slaves. Under Constantius, his suc- 

 cessor, a tumult in Alexandria, in which they were implicated, led to 

 fresh enactments against them, and to additional taxation ; and sub- 

 sequently Tiberias was burnt, and the school destroyed. Under Julian 

 thuy were favoured, and he proposed to restore the temple, a project 

 never completed. His successors renewed the severities against them, 

 and in A.D. 415, after a tumult, 100,000 Jews were expelled from 

 Alexandria. 



Theodoric and the other Gothic kings of Italy protected the Jews. 

 During the frequent wars and invasions of that period, the Jews had 

 tne slave-trade of Europe in a great measure in their hands; and 

 Pope Gregory I. and several councils interfered to prevent their abusing 

 the power which they had thus acquired over the persons of Christiana. 

 That wise and humane pope, in his pastoral letters, bewails and de- 

 nounces this traffic, which was carried on in Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, and 

 France ; ho directs the bishops to interfere so as to prevent Jews from 

 retaining Christian slaves when a proper price was offered for them. 

 On another occasion he directs that those Christian slaves who had 

 been long in possession of Jewish landed proprietors should be con- 

 sidered as villains attached to the soil, and should not be transplanted 

 or sold away ; he also entreated the Frankish kings to banish the traffic 

 in slaves from their dominions. 



Justinian was one of the first who enacted really oppressive and 

 intolerant laws against the Jews. One of these laws declared that all 



unbelievers, heathens, Jews, and Samaritans could neither be judges, 

 nor prefects, nor fill any other dignity in the state ; and another 

 enacted that in mixed marriages between Jews and Christians the 

 chief authority over the children should rest with the Christian parent. 

 The Longobards in Italy maintained the severities that Justinian had 

 imposed upon the Jews ; and by the West Goths in Spain they were 

 forbidden to hold their sabbath or celebrate their Passover according 

 to the Mosaical law. 



The Jews however were too numerous and strong to be annihilated 

 by imperial edicts : they had even the power of revenge. When 

 Chosroes II. invaded Syria, the Jews of Palestine rose to join the 

 Persians, with whom they entered Jerusalem, then a Christian city, 

 and perpetrated a dreadful slaughter of the Christian inhabitants. 

 They are said to have purchased at a cheap price the captives of their 

 allies the Persians, for the sake of murdering them. The victories of 

 Heracliua however put an end to their momentary triumph. 



The rise of Mohammedanism brought an unfavourable change to the 

 Eastern Jews. For a short period a Jewish dynasty was seated on the 

 throne of Yemen in Arabia, but it was dispossessed by a king of 

 Ethiopia, about the beginning of the 6th century. Jews however still 

 continued numerous in Arabia; Mohammed endeavoured'at first to win 

 them over, but though at first they gave him some support against the 

 pagans, they would not acknowledge a descendant of Hagar the bond- 

 woman as the greatest of prophets, and Mohammed treated them with- 

 out mercy. Under the Caliphs his successors they were protected on 

 the easy terms of paying tribute, and as they made no resistance, they 

 experienced not only protection but even encouragement from their 

 new masters, whom they followed through their tide of conquest along 

 the coast of Northern Africa. They also contributed materially to the 

 triumph of the Crescent hi the Spanish Peninsula. About the middle 

 of the 8th century, a sect of Jews separated themselves from the main 

 body, who were called Karastes. Their founder was Anan, who lived 

 in Babylonia. This sect, which disclaimed the traditions of the Rabbis, 

 and rejected the Talmud, spread itself widely through Palestine, 

 Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, and for many years had an acknowledged 

 chief, who dwelt at Cairo. 



The intolerance the Jews had experienced in the Spanish Peninsxila 

 from the Gothic kings had driven large numbers to the opposite shores 

 of Africa, whence many returned with the Saracen invaders ; and the 

 munificence of the Mohammedan princes towards them indicates that 

 by their knowledge of the country the Jews had been highly instru- 

 mental in advancing the conquest. In Moorish Spain the Jews had 

 really a golden age, which lasted for centuries. There they cultivated 

 science and learning ; and the names of Benjamin of Tudela, Isaac of 

 Cordova, Hasdai, the confidant of Abderrahman, and a host of others, 

 attest their proficiency. Rodriguez de Castro (' Bibliotheca EspaQola ') 

 and Vicente Ximeno (' Escri tores del Reyuo de Valencia ') give notices 

 of the writings of the Spanish Jews. At the same time they were 

 thriving in the East under the caliphs of Bagdad, whose favour they 

 enjoyed, at least till towards the end of the 10th century; and in 

 Egypt, where they were protected by the Sultan Saladin, who em- 

 ployed the celebrated Maimonides as his physician. 



Although at first partially employed by the Christian princes of 

 Spain on account of their financial and scientific abilities, the position 

 of the Jews became gradually more irksome as the Moorish power 

 declined. In 1391 an archbishop of Sevilla excited the populace 

 against them, and it is stated that of 7000 families, one half were slain, 

 while 200,000 were enumerated as real or pretended converts to 

 Christianity. Even these were not left in peace. The regular Inquisi- 

 tion established under Ferdinand and Isabella undertook the task of 

 punishing all relapsed converts. As for the unconverted Jews, the 

 edict of 1492, made at the instigation k of the Inquisitor Torquemada, 

 banished them all from the kingdom. The number of Jews thus 

 expelled from Spain has been vaguely estimated at half a million, and 

 even 800,000. They were allowed to carry away or sell only their 

 moveables. Few of them consented to embrace Christianity in order 

 to remain. Soon afterwards they were driven away from Portugal 

 also with circumstances of still greater barbarity. Many perished, and 

 others took refuge on the African coast. The expulsion of the Jews 

 and that of the Moors or Moriscoes drained Spain of its most useful 

 subjects. It was not till 1837 that even a slight amount of toleration 

 was granted to them ; but the numbers in the Peninsula even now are 

 so few that they are not given in the general estimate of the total 

 number of Jews ; which for Europe may be about 3,500,000, as the 

 ' Almanach de Gotha ' for 1860, gives details amounting to 3,136,499, 

 and does not include Great Britain, Bavaria, Belgium, Electoral Hesse, 

 or Wurtemberg. 



Charlemagne protected the Jews like his other subjects : they filled 

 municipal offices ; they were physicians and bankers ; and Isaac, a 

 Jew, was chosen by that emperor as his ambassador to Harun al Rashid, 

 caliph of Bagdad, a mission which was considered of the greatest 

 importance at the time. The Jews enjoyed the same or even greater 

 influence under Louis le Debonnaire and Charles the Bald, but 

 towards the end of the latter reign the clergy began afresh to show 

 their hostility. The Council of Meaux re-enacted the exclusion of the 

 Jews from all civil offices; but it was under the third or Capet 

 dynasty that the Jews suffered actual persecution in France. Philippe 

 Auguste, pressed by the wants of an empty exchequer, and perhaps 



