RELATION OF THE JEWS TO CHRISTIANITY.

71

offer up his life in the promulgation of the faith. Having spoken, in one of his works, of natural death, which he ascribed to the diminution of animal warmth, says he, "Thy servant would choose, if it please thee, not to die such a death; he would prefer that his life should end in the glow of love, as thou didst, in love, offer up thy life for us." "Thy servant," says he, "is ready to offer up himself, and to pour out his blood for thee. May it please thee, therefore, ere he comes to die, so to unite him to thyself that he by meditation and love may never be separated from thee." On the 14th of August, 1314, he crossed over, once more, to Africa. Proceeding to Bugia, he labored there, at first, secretly, in the small circle of those whom, during his last visit to that place, he had won over to Christianity. He sought to confirm their faith, and to advance them still farther in Christian knowledge. In this way, he might no doubt have continued to labor quietly for some time; but he could not resist the longing after martyrdom. He stood forth publicly, and declared that he was the same person whom they had once banished from the country; and exhorted the people, threatening them with divine judgments if they refused, to abjure Mohammedanism. He was fallen upon by the Saracens, with the utmost fury. After having been severely handled, he was dragged out of the city, and, by the orders of the king, stoned to death. Merchants, from Majorca, obtained permission to extricate the body of their countryman from the heaps of stones under which it lay buried, and they conveyed it back, by ship, to their native land. The 30th of June, 1315, was the day of his martyrdom.2

We must now cast a glance at the relation of the dispersed Jews to the Christian church.

As it regards the Jews, who were scattered in great numbers in the West, it is to be remarked, that the frequent oppressions, injuries, and persecutions, which they had to suffer from the fanaticism and cupidity of so-called Christians, were not well calculated to open their minds to the preaching of the gospel; though, through fear, and to escape the sufferings or the death with which they were threatened, they might be induced to submit to the form of baptism, and to put on the profession of Christianity.3 Hermann, a monk of the twelfth century, from the monastery of Kappenberg, in Westphalia, who himself had been converted from Judaism to Christianity, speaking in the history which he has given of his own conversion, of the praiseworthy con

1 The words of Raymund, in his work de Contemplatione, c. cxxx, Distinct. 27, f. 299: "Homines morientes prae senectute moriuntur per defectum caloris naturalis et per excessum frigoris et ideo tuus servus et tuus subditus, si tibi placeret, non vellet mori tali morte, imo vellet mori prae amoris ardore, quia tu voluisti mori tali morte."

We cannot in this place go back to the reports of contemporaries, but in the later accounts are to be found differences. According to one of them, he met his death in Tunis; according to another, he first

went to Tunis, and afterwards proceeded to Bugia. If we may believe one account, the merchants, after having uncovered him from the heap of stones, found a spark of life still remaining; they succeeded in fanning this slumbering spark to the point of reanimation, but he died on board ship, when in sight of his native land.

In the first crusade, the Jews in Rouen were, without distinction of sex or age, barred up in a church, and all who refused to receive baptism, murdered. See Guibert. Novigentens. de vita sua, l. ii, c. v.

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SPREAD OF FALSE REPORTS ABOUT THE JEWS.

duct of an ecclesiastic, from whom, when a Jew, he had met with kindly treatment, goes on to say: Let those who read my account, imitate this illustrious example of love; and instead of despising and abhorring the Jews, as some are wont to do, let them, like genuine Christians, that is, followers of him who prayed for those that crucified him, go forth and meet them with brotherly love. For since, as our Saviour. says, 'salvation cometh of the Jews,' (John 4: 22,) and as the apostle Paul testifies, through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles,' (Romans 11: 11,) it is a worthy return and well-pleasing to God, when Christians labor, so far as it lies in their power, for the salvation of those from whom they have received the author of their salvation, Jesus Christ. And if they are bound to extend their love even to those from whom they suffer wrong, how much more bound are they to show it to those through whom the greatest of all blessings has been derived to them? Let them, therefore, so far as they can, cherish their love for this people, helping them in their distresses, and setting them an example of all well-doing, so as to win by their example those whom they cannot persuade by their words; for example is really more effectual than words in producing conviction. Let them, also, send up fervent prayers to the Father of mercies, if peradventure God may one day give that people repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, 2 Timothy 2: 25." By means of the only business allowed to them, in their state of oppression, traffic and usury, they acquired great wealth; thereby, sometimes, attaining to great influence, even with monarchs; but this wealth, also, excited the cupidity of the great, and exposed them to be still more hated and persecuted. The fanaticism awakened by the crusades was often directed against the Jews, as the domestic enemies of the Cross; and hundreds, nay thousands, fell victims to such animosity. Rumors became current against the Jews, of the same description as have prevailed, at all times, against religious sects persecuted by popular hatred; as, for example, against the first Christians, who were charged with such crimes as flattered the credulous fanaticism of the populace. It was said that they stole Christian children for their passover festival, and, after having crucified them with all imaginable tortures, used their entrails for magical purposes. If a boy, especially near the time of the feast of Passover, was missed by his friends, or if the corpse of a boy, concerning whose death nothing certain was known, happened to be found, suspicion lighted at once upon the Jews of the district where the accident had occurred. Men could easily discover what they were intent on finding,-marks of the tortures which had been inflicted on the sufferers. It might doubtless happen,

The Jew introduced in Abelard's dialogue concerning the supreme good, inter philosophum, Judaeum et Christianum, observes, in drawing a lively picture of the wretched situation of the Jews: "Unde nobis praecipue superest lucrum, ut alienigenis foenerantes, hinc miseram sustentemus vitam, quod nos quidem maxime ipsis

efficit invidiosos, qui se in hoc plurimum arbitrantur gravatos." See this tract, published by Prof. Rheinwald, p. 11.

2 In the historical work of Matthew, of Paris, are to be found many stories relating to persecutions of the Jews, which had been provoked by the circulation of such fables.

THE JEWS DEFENDED BY BERNARD.

73

too, that enemies of the Jews, or those who gloated on their wealth, would disfigure the discovered bodies, in order to lend the more plausibility to the accusations brought against Jews. Hence a boy so found might sometimes be honored by the people as a martyr, and become the hero of a wonderful story. The most extravagant of such tales might find credence in the existing tone of public sentiment, and seem to be confirmed by an investigation begun with prejudice, and conducted in a tumultuary manner. If, at the commencement of such movements, wealthy Jews betook themselves to flight, when they foresaw, as they must have foreseen, the disastrous issue to themselves, this passed for evidence of their guilt and of the truth of the rumors. If twenty-five knights affirmed, on their oath, that the arrested Jews were guilty of the abominable crime, this sufficed to set the matter beyond all doubt, and to authorize the sentence of death.3 Whoever interceded in behalf of the unfortunate victims, exposed himself by so doing to the popular hatred, which looked upon all such pity as suspicious. Thus, in the year 1256, pious Franciscans in England, who were not to be deterred by the force of the prevailing delusion, ventured to take the part of certain Jews, accused of some such abominable crime, that were languishing in prison; and they succeeded in procuring their release, and saving their lives. But now these monks, who had acted in the spirit of Christian benevolence, were accused of having allowed themselves to be bribed by money. Thus they lost the good opinion of the lower class of people, who ever after refused to give them alms.5

These pious monks, and also the most influential men of the church protested against such unchristian fanaticism. When the abbot Bernard of Clairvaux was rousing up the spirit of the nations to embark in the second crusade, and issued for this purpose, in the year 1146, his letter to the Germans (East-Franks), he at the same time warned them against the influence of those enthusiasts, who called themselves messengers of the Lord, and strove to inflame the fanaticism of the people. He called upon the Germans to follow the direction of the apostle Paul, and not believe every spirit. He declaimed against the false zeal, without knowledge, which impelled them to murder the Jews, a people who ought not even to be banished from the country. He acknowledges their zeal for the cause of God; but requires that it should ever be accompanied with correct knowledge." "The Jews," says he, are scattered among all nations as living memorials of Christ's passion, and of the divine judgment. But there is a promise

66

74

RUDOLPH'S FANATICISM PUT DOWN BY BERNARD.

of their future universal restoration, Rom. 11: 26. Even where no Jews are to be found, usurious Christians, if such men deserve to be called Christians, and not rather baptized Jews, are a worse kind of Jews. How could the promise concerning the future conversion of the Jews ever be fulfilled, if they were utterly exterminated?" The same reasons, we must allow, ought to have persuaded men rather to send missionaries to the Mohammedan nations than to attack them with the sword. And, perhaps, it may have occurred to Bernard himself, that this principle might be applied to the very crusade which he preached. To guard against any such application, he adds, "If the same thing could be expected also of other infidels, we ought certainly to bear with them, rather than to persecute them with the sword. But as they were the first to begin the work of violence, so it becomes those who, not without cause, have taken up the sword, to repel force with force. But at the same time it befits Christian piety, while it strikes down the proud, to spare the humble (debellare superbos, parcere victis)." Such representations were especially needed in this excitable period; but these words written in the Latin language could never reach the overheated popular mind. In these times there had started up, in the districts on the Rhine, a ferocious enthusiast, the monk Radulf (Rudolph), who, representing himself as a called prophet of the Lord, preached, along with the Cross, death to the Jews. Thousands from Cologne, Mentz, Worms, Speiers, Strasburg, who had collected together for the crusades, turned their swords, in the first place, against the defenceless Jews, and a great deal of blood was shed. Rudolph would not be held back from obeying his imagined divine call by any authority of his ecclesiastical superior. The archbishop Henry of Mentz, who could do nothing himself to counteract the influence of the enthusiast, applied for help to the French abbot, whose wonderful power over the minds of men was not unknown to him. Bernard, in his answer,3 took very decided grounds against that monk. He found fault with his conduct in three respects; that he had taken it upon him to preach without being called, that he set at naught the authority of the bishops, and that he justified murder. This he called a doctrine of devils. "Does not the church," said he, "obtain a richer victory over the Jews, by daily bringing them over from their errors and converting them, than if by the sword she destroyed them all at a blow?" He appeals to the prayer of the universal church for the conversion of the Jews, with which such proceedings stood directly at variance. But it was not till Bernard went himself to Germany, and used his personal influence, which was

The sufferings of the Jews have been depicted, after the account of a German Jew, who, being then a lad of thirteen, was a witness of this bloody massacre of his countrymen and fellow-believers, in a Jewish chronicle, in the Hebrew language, by Jehoschua Ben Meir, of the sixteenth century. See Wilken's Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, dritter Theil, erste Abtheil, Beilage i. In this account, too, Bernard is honorably

mentioned as deliverer of the Jews, without whose interposition not one in these districts would have escaped; and he says in his praise," he took no ransom-money from the Jews; for he from his heart spoke good concerning Israel."

See Otto Frising. hist. Frederic the First, 1. ii, c. 37.

3

Ep. 365.

RELATION OF THE POPES TO THE JEWS.

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irresistible, that he could succeed in quelling the spirit of fanaticism. The people attached themselves to that enthusiast with so blind a devotion, that nothing but the veneration in which Bernard was held could restrain them from disturbances, when that leader was taken away from them. At Mentz, Bernard had a meeting with the monk Rudolph, and produced such an effect on him-which was indeed a marvel-by his expostulations, that the man acknowledged he had done wrong, and promised for the future to confine himself obediently to his convent. The celebrated abbot Peter of Cluny, who was distinguished for a mildness of disposition springing out of the spirit of Christian love, even beyond Bernard himself, who showed so liberal and so kindly a spirit in judging the different spiritual tendencies among Christians, - even he can only look upon the Jews as a race descended from the murderers of Christ, and filled with hatred to him. "If the Saracens, who in respect to the faith in Christ have so much in common with us, are still to be abominated," he writes in his letter to king Louis the Seventh of France," how much more should we detest the Jews, who blaspheme and ridicule Christ, and the whole Christian faith." It is true, he declares himself opposed to the practice of massacring the Jews: "we should let them live, like the fratricide Cain, to their greater shame and torment," says he; but he calls upon the king to deprive them of their wealth, which they had acquired unrighteously and at the expense of Christians,2 and to devote the money justly extorted from them to the service of the holy cause which they hated.

In particular, it was a ruling principle with the popes, after the example of their predecessor, Gregory the Great,3 to protect the Jews in the rights which had been conceded to them. When the banished popes of the twelfth century returned to Rome, the Jews in their holiday garments went forth with the rest in procession, to meet them, bearing before them the thora; and Innocent the Second, on an occasion of this sort, prayed for them, that God would remove the veil from their hearts. Pope Innocent the Third, in the year 1199, published an ordinance, taking the Jews under his own protection against oppressions. "Much as the unbelief of the Jews is to be censured," he wrote, " yet, inasmuch as the Christian faith is really confirmed by them, they must suffer no hard oppression from the faithful." He appeals here to the example of his predecessors, which he followed: "No one should compel them by force to submit to baptism; but in case a Jew makes it known, that of his own free choice he has become a Christian, then no hindrances whatsoever shall be thrown in his way to prevent him from receiving baptism; for he who comes to the ordinance of Christian baptism through constraint, cannot be a true believer. No one should molest them in the possession of their

1 Lib. iv, c. 36.

Non enim de simplici agricultura, non de legali militia, non de quolibet honesto et utili officio horrea sua frugibus, cellaria vino, marsupia nummis, arcas auro sive ar

gento cumulant, quantum de his, quae Christicolis dolose subtrahunt, de his quae furtim a furibus empta, vili pretio res carissimas comparant.

3

Sce vol. iii, p. 13.