76

PAPAL BRIEFS IN FAVOR OF THE JEWS.

property, or in the observance of their customs. In the celebration of their festivals, they should not be disturbed by tumultuary proceedings."1 This pope was at much pains to provide for the maintenance of Jews who embraced Christianity, and who by so doing lost the means of living which they before enjoyed. It might doubtless happen, however, that the pope, when applied to for relief by converted Jews from distant parts, would sometimes be deceived by false reports, stories of miracles by which these persons pretended to have been converted. Still, he did not lend implicit confidence to such reports, but caused more exact inquiries to be made respecting their truth in the countries where such events were said to have occurred.3

When the Jews in France, in the year 1236, saw themselves abandoned to the ferocious cruelty of the crusaders, they, too, applied for help to the pope, then Gregory the Ninth. He in consequence sent a letter to France, expressing in the most emphatic language his indignation at such barbarity. "The crusaders, instead of arming themselves, body and soul, for a war which was to be carried on in the name of the Lord, instead of manifesting in their behavior so much the more fear of God, and love to God, as they were to fight in the cause of the Lord, had executed godless counsels against the Jews. But, in so doing, they had not considered that Christians must derive the evidences of their faith from the archives of the Jews, and that the Lord would not reject his people forever, but a remnant of them should be saved. Not considering this, they had acted as if they meant to exterminate them from the earth, and with unheard of cruelty had butchered two thousand and five hundred persons of all ages and sexes. And in extenuation of this atrocious crime, they affirmed they had done so, and threatened to do worse, because the Jews would not be baptized. "They did not consider," writes the pope, "that while

Christ excludes no nation and no race from the salvation which he came to bring to all mankind; still, as everything depends on the inward operation of divine grace, as the Lord has mercy on whom he will have mercy, no man should be forced to receive baptism; for as man fell by his own freewill, yielding to the temptation to sin, so with his own freewill he must follow the call of divine grace, in order to be recovered from his fall."4 Pope Innocent the Fourth, to whom the Jews of Germany complained, on account of the oppressions and persecutions, which they had to suffer from secular and spiritual lords, issued a brief, in the year 1248, for their protection. In this brief, he declared the story about the Christian boy murdered for the cele

1 Lib. ii, ep. 302.

E. g. l. ii, ep. 234. Attenta est sollicitudine providendum, ne inter alios Christi fideles incdia deprimantur, cum plerique horum pro indigentia necessariarum rerum post receptum baptismum in confusionem non modicam inducantur, ita ut plerumque faciente illorum avaritia, qui cum ipsi abundent, Christum pauperem respicere dedignantur, retro cogantur abire.

3 Like that extravagant tale of a Jew,

who found in a chest of gold, in which a stolen consecrated host had been deposited, the gold pieces converted into holy wafers. The pope directed the bishop in the place where this Jew lived, at the same time that he recommended him and his family to his care, to make a full and careful examination with regard to the truth of that story, and return him a faithful report. Innocent. 1. xvi, ep. 84.

See Raynaldi Annales ad A. 1236, § 48.

POINTS OF DISPUTATION WITH THE JEWS.

77

bration of the Jewish passover, a pure fiction, invented solely for the purpose of hiding cupidity and cruelty, and of getting Jews condemned without the formality of a trial. Wherever a dead body happened to be found, it was maliciously made use of as a means of criminating the Jews.1

Again, the Jews would unavoidably be shocked and repelled by those peculiarities in the shaping of the church at this time, which, though grounded in an original Christian feeling, yet in their extravagance bordered upon the pagan; as, for example, the worship of saints and images. Pious ecclesiastics and monks were always ready to enter into controversial discussions with Jews, in the hope of convincing them by arguments; although laymen, in the zeal for their religious creed, were dissatisfied with a mode of procedure, which allowed the Jews so peacefully to state all their objections to the Christian faith, and required others so patiently to listen to them. They, on the contrary, were for deciding the matter at once, and punishing the unbelief of the Jews with the sword. In such disputes, the Jews levelled their objections not only against the fundamental position of the Christian system in itself considered, which to the fleshly Jewish mode of thought clinging to the letter of the Old Testament, and to sensual expectations, must at all times be alike offensive; but also against those excrescent growths so foreign to primitive Christianity. And although Christian theologians, in the confidence and in the light of Christian faith, could say many excellent things about the relation of the Old and New Testaments, and of their different comparative positions, still, they were no match for the Jews in the interpretation of the Old Testament; and their arbitrary allegorizing explications could not remove any of the difficulties, by which the Jews were stumbled in comparing the Old Testament with the New, nor lead

1 Scriptura divina inter alia mandata legis dicente: non occides, ac prohibente illos in sollennitate paschali quicquam mortici num contingere, falsa imponunt iisdem, quod in ipsa sollennitate se corde pueri communicant interfecti, credendo id ipsam legem praecipere, cum sit legi contrarium manifeste, ac eis malitiose objiciunt hominis cadaver mortui, si contigerit illud alicubi reperiri. Et per hoc et alia quamplurima figmenta saevientes in ipsis eos super his non accusatos, nec convictos spoliant contra Deum et justitiam omnibus suis, etc. Raynaldi Annales ad A. 1248, § 84.

2 Joinville narrates, in the Memoirs of Louis the Ninth: Once a great controversial discussion started up in the monastery of Cluny, between the ecclesiastics and Jews, when an old knight rose up and demanded that the most distinguished among the ecclesiastics and the most learned among the Jews should come forward. Then he asked the Jew, whether he believed that Christ was born of the virgin? When the Jew replied in the negative, said the knight to him, you behave, then, very foolishly and

So

presumptuously, in daring to come into a house consecrated to Mary-the convent. He dealt the Jew so violent a blow, that he sunk to the ground, and the rest fled for their lives. The abbot of Cluny now said to the knight: "Vous avez fait folie, de ce que vous avez ainsi frappé." The knight, however, would not acknowledge this, but rejoined: "Vous avez fait encore plus grande folie, d'avoir ainsi assemblé les Juifs et souffert telles disputations d'erreurs" for many good Christians had thereby been misled into infidelity. thought, too, king Louis the Ninth of France. None but learned theologians should dispute with the Jews; nor should the laity ever listen to such blasphemies, but punish them at once with the sword. "Que nul, si n'est grand clerc et théologien parfait, ne doit disputer aux Juifs. Mais doit l'homme lay, quant il oy mesdire la foi chrétienne, défendre la chose non pas seulement des paroles, mais á bonne épée tranchante et en frapper les mesdisans à travers du corps, tant qu'elle y pourra entrer."

78

REPLY TO JEWISH OBJECTIONS.

them away from the letter to the spirit. A narrow slavery to the letter, and an arbitrary spiritualization, here stood confronted. We hear a Jew, for example, appealing to the eternal validity of the law. "A curse is pronounced upon every man, that observes not the whole law," says he; "what right or authority have you Christians to make here an arbitrary distinction, to explain that some things are to be observed, while others are done away with? How is this to be reconciled with the immutability of God's word ?" He finds in the Old Testament the prediction of a Messiah, but nothing concerning a Godman. The doctrine concerning such a being appeared to him a disparagement of God's glory. The promises relating to the times of the Messiah seem to him not yet fulfilled. "If it be true that the Messiah

is already come, how are we to reconcile it with the fact that, nowhere except among the poor people of the Jews, is it said, ' Come, let us go up to the house of the God of Jacob?' Some of you say, let us go to the house of Peter; others, let us go to the house of Martin. Where is it that swords are turned into pruning-hooks? Smiths enough can hardly be found to convert steel into weapons of war. One nation oppresses, cuts in pieces another; and every boy is trained up to the use of weapons." The Christian theologian, abbot Gislebert, replies to the last objection: "Neither to Peter nor Paul do we build a house; but in honor and in memory of Peter or Paul we build a house to God. Nor can any bishop, in dedicating a church, say, To thee, Peter or Paul, we dedicate this house or this altar;' but only, to thee, O God, we dedicate this house or this altar for the glory of God."" Next, he insists on it that those promises concerning the times of the Messiah have been spiritually fulfilled. "The law pronounces sentence of condemnation on every man who kills, or rather, as Christ has added, on every man who is angry with his brother. He, then, who is transported with the passions of anger and hatred, cannot lawfully use the sword and lance. Far easier is it to turn the sword into a ploughshare, the spear into a pruning-hook, than to turn from a proud man into an humble one, from a freeman to a servant; to give up wife, children, house and court, arms, all earthly goods, and very self. This, however, is a thing that you may often see done; for many, who once lived in the world, proud and mighty men, constantly buckled for war, greedy after other men's possessions, have for God's sake renounced all worldly glory, go in voluntary poverty on pilgrimages to different holy places, seek the intercession of the saints, or immure themselves in a convent. And, in such a community of the servants of God, is fulfilled that which God promised by the prophets concerning the peaceful living together of the lion and the lamb, etc.; for, to the shepherd of such a flock, obedience is alike paid by high and low, by the mighty and the powerful, the strong and the weak." An example, showing how the powers of Christianity was still present, even amid the foreign rubbish with which it was encumbered,

In the Disputatio Judaei cum Christiano de fide Christiana by the abbot Gislebert (Gilbert) of Westminster, in the begin

ning of the twelfth century, which is found ed on a dispute actually held with a Jew,— in Anselmi Cant. opp. ed. Gerberon, f. 512.

CHRISTIAN IMPRESSIONS MADE UPON HERMANN.

79

and could make itself be felt in the minds of the Jews, is seen in the remarkable case of Hermann, afterwards a Premonstratensian monk, whose conversion, which he has given an account of himself, was brought about by a singular train of providential occurrences.

He was born at Cologne, and strictly educated as a Jew. When a young man he made a journey to Mentz, on commercial business. It happened at the same time that Egbert, bishop of Münster, who had himself at some earlier period been dean of the cathedral at Cologne, was there with the emperor's court-camp. Being in want of money, the bishop negotiated a loan with this Jew. But the latter took no security from him, which was quite contrary to the practice of his people, who were accustomed to require a pledge to the amount of double the sum lent. When he returned home, his friends reproached him for such folly, and urged him to seek another interview with the bishop. Fearing, however, the influence of the Christians on the young man, they commissioned an old Jew, Baruch, to act as his overseer. Thus he travelled back to Münster; and here, as the bishop could not immediately refund the money, he was obliged to tarry five months. The young man, having no particular business on his hands, could not resist the curiosity he felt to visit the churches, which he had hitherto detested as temples of idols. He here heard the bishop preach. Many things in the discourse attracted him, and he repeated his visits. Thus he received his first Christian impressions. Christians, observing how attentively he listened, asked him, how he liked. what he heard; he replied, " Many things pleased him, others not." They spoke to him kindly: "Our Jesus," said they," is full of compassion, and, as he himself declares, No man that cometh unto him shall be cast out."'" They held up to him the example of the apostle Paul, who from a violent persecutor of Christianity became a zealous preacher of it. But the Jew saw pictures of Christ in the churches, and as this appeared to him like idolatry, he was filled with abhorrence. Thus different impressions struggled together in his soul. It so happened, that the universally revered abbot Rupert of Deutz (Rupertus Tuitiensis, the author of a tract against the Jews) came to Münster, and to him Hermann ventured to disclose his doubts. The abbot received him in a friendly manner, and sought to convince him, that the Christians were very far from paying an idolatrous worship to images." Images," said he," are designed solely to supply the place of Scripture for the rude people."

The bishop employed as the steward of his house a pious ecclesiastic named Richmar, a man of strictly ascetic habits, who by his kindly manners had won his way to the young man's heart. Once the bishop sent a choice dish from his own table to this churchman: but he immediately gave it to the young Hermann who sat by his side, while he himself took nothing but bread and water. This made a great impression on the youth. As this pious man, in many conversations

Published by Carpzov, after Raymund 2 Bishop of Münster from 1127 to 1132. Martini's Pugio fidei.

80

HERMANN'S STRIVINGS AFTER CHRISTIAN FAITH.

with Hermann, had sought in vain to convince him of the truth of Christianity, he finally conceived the hope that by the evidence of some miracle, a judgment of God, the ordeal of the red-hot iron,1 he might be able to conquer the unbelief of the sign-seeking Jew. But the bishop, his superior in Christian knowledge and wisdom, would allow of no such experiment. Said he to his steward, "True, thy zeal is praiseworthy, but it is not accompanied with knowledge. We should not presume to tempt God in this way; but we should pray to him, that he, who wills that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, would be pleased, in his own time and way, by his grace, to break the fetters of unbelief in which this young man is bound captive, and set him free. But it was not proper to require God to work a miracle for this purpose, nor even to be particularly anxious that he would; since it was perfectly easy for the Almighty even without a miracle by the secret operation of his grace, to convert whomsoever he pleased; and since, too, the outward miracle would be unavailing, unless he wrought after an invisible manner by his grace in the heart of the man. Many had been converted without miracles; multitudes had remained unbelievers even after miracles had been wrought before their eyes. The faith induced by miracles had little or no merit in the sight of God; but the faith which came from a simple pious sense had the greatest," which he sought to prove by examples from gospel history and from the words of Christ himself.

When Hermann afterwards had an opportunity of visiting the newly founded Premonstratensian convent at Kappenberg in Westphalia, and here saw men of the highest and lowest ranks unite together in practising the same self-denials, it appeared to him a very strange sight; as yet he knew not what to make of it. Thus he was tossed one way and another by his feelings, till his mind became completely unsettled. He prayed to God, with warm tears, that if the Christian faith came from him, he would either by inward inspiration, or by vision, or— which then appeared to him the most effective means by some visible miraculous sign, convince him of it. He who was said to have led a Paul, even when he proudly resisted, to the faith, would assuredly, if this were true, hear him, so humble a supplicant!

After his return home he spent three days, strictly fasting, in prayer to the Almighty, and waiting in expectation of a vision for the clearing up of his doubts; when, exhausted by fasting and by his inward conflicts, he retired to rest; but the vision which he sought, was not vouchsafed to him. He applied to book-learned churchmen, and disputed with them; yet to all the arguments which they could bring, his doubts were invincible; although many of the remarks which fell from them left a sting behind in his heart.

Meanwhile the Jews had long eyed him with suspicion; and they employed every means to deter him from embracing Christianity. They prevailed upon him to marry; and by the wedding-feast and the dissipations connected with his new relation, he was, in fact, diverted

'See vol. iii, pp. 130, 449.