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 JEWS

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JEWS

slaves; protected converts from Judaism against the fiery vengeance of their former coreligionists; but never deprived them of their citizenship, and never went beyond constraining them — with the exception of their rabbis — to take upon themselves certain pubUc offices which had become particularly burden- some. These laws were re-enacted and made more severe by his son Constans I (337-350), who attached the death penalty to marriages between Jews and Christians. The severity of these and other laws of Constans was but too fiJly justified by the dreadful e.xcesses of the Jews in Alexandria, and Ijy their tem- porary revolt in Judea. The accession of Julian the Apostate, in 361, made a new diversion in their fa\'our. This emperor decreed the rebuilding of the Temple on Mt. Moria and the full restoration of Jewish worship, apparently with a view to secure the influence of the Mesopotamian Jews in his expedition against the Per- sians. The Jews were triumphant, but their triumph was short-lived; sudden flames burst forth from Mt. Moria and rendered impossible the rebuilding of the Temple; Julian perished in his Persian War, and liis successor, Jovian (363-364), reverted to Constans' policy. The next emperors, Valens and Valentinian, reinstated the Jews in their former rights, except, however, the exemption from the pubhc services. Under Gratian, Theodosius I, and Arcadius, they like- wise enjoyed the protection of the Throne; but under Theodosius II (402—450), emboldened by their long immunity from persecution, they manifested a spirit of intolerance and crime which led to violent tumults between them and the Christians in various parts of the Eastern Roman Empire, and apparently also to the prohibition of building new s^-nagogues and from dis- charging any state emplo\-ment. It was under Theo- dosius II that the patriarchate of the West, then held by Gamaliel VI, came to an end (425). Some time be- fore (c. 375), the Jerusalem Talmud was finished, a work which, however important for Judaism, is less complete, in regard to both its Mishna and its Gemara, than the Babylonian Talmud, the compilation of which was terminated by the heads of the Babylonian schools aljout 499, despite the \'iolent persecutions of the Persian kings, Jezdijird III (440-457) and Firuz (457-484). The immediate result of Firuz's persecu- tion was the emigration of Jewish colonists in the south as far as Arabia, and in the east as far as India where they founded a httle Jewish state on the coast of Malabar which lasted till 1520. Under Qubad I, Firuz's son and successor, the prince of the Captivitj', Mar-Zutra II, managed to maintain for seven years an independent Jewish state in Babylonia; but in 51S, the Byzantine successors of Theodosius II enforced his anti-Jewish laws with great rigour, and, as a result, the intellectual life and former jurisdiction of the Judean Jews became virtually extinct.

In the West the Jews fared decidedly better during the fifth century than in the East. They of course suffered many evils during the invasions of the north- ern barbarians who flooded the Western Empire after its permanent separation in 395 from the Eastern Em- pire of Constantinople. In the midst of the political convulsions naturally entailed by these invasions, the Jews gradually became the masters of the commerce, which the conquerors of the Western Empire, atldicted to the arts of war, had neither time nor inclination to pursue. In the various states which soon arose out of that dismembered empire, the numerous Jewish col- onies do not seem for a long time to have been sulv jected to restrictive measures, except in connexion with their slave trade. The Vandals left them free to exercise their religion. They were justly treated in Italy, by the kings of the Ostrogoths, 'and by the Roman pontiffs; in Gaul, by the early Merovingians generally; and in Spain, bv the \'isigoths down to the conversion of Iving Recaretl to Catholicism (589), or rather down to the accession of Sisebut (612), who,

deploring the fact that Recared's anti-Jewish laws had been little more than a dead letter, resolved at once to enforce them, and in fact added to them first the in- junction that the Jews should release the slaves in their possession, and next, that they should choose between baptism and banishment. Anti-Jewsh legis- lation was framed at a much earlier date in the Frank- ish dominions. Hostility towards the Jews showed itself first in Burgundy, under King Sigismund (517), and thence it spread over the Frankish countries. In 554, Childebert I of Paris forbade them to appear on the street at Eastertide; in 581, Chilperic compelled them to receive baptism; in 613, Clotaire II sanc- tioned new decrees against them; and in 629, Dago- bert bade them choose between baptism and expul- sion. Thus the laws against the Jews both in Spain and in France reached gradually a degree of severity unknown even to such Eastern persecutors of Judaism as Justinian I (527-565) and Heraclius (610-641). Yet, the edicts of these Byzantine emperors were vexatious enough. In fact, Justinian's decrees so ex- asperated the Palestinian Jews that despite the perse- cutions of their Mesopotamian fellow-Jews by the Persian kings, Kusrau I (531-579), Hormizdas TV (579-591), and Kusrau II (.590-628), they seized the first opportunity to avenge themselves by siding with Kusrau II in his war against Heraclius. During the Persian invasion and occupation of Palestine, they committed dreadful excesses against the Christians, which finalh' met with a merited punishment in the persecution which Heraclius, again master of Judea, started against them.

(7) The Mohammedan Ascendancy (62S-103S). — The rise of Mohammedanism, with whose power the Arabian Jews came in contact when it was yet in its infancy, marks the beginning of a new period in Jewish history. Several centuries before Mohammed's birth (c. 570), the Jews had effected important settlements in Arabia, and in the course of time, they hail accjuired a considerable influence upon the heathen population. In fact, it is certain that at one time, there existed in Southern Arabia (Yemen), an Arab- Jewish kingdom which was brought to an end in 530 by a Christian king of .\byssinia. But although they had lost their royal estate, the Arabian Jews were still numerous and powerful, in the Hedjaz. north of Yemen. There was indeed but a small Jewish population in. Mecca, Mo- hammed's birthplace; yet it is probable that contact with the Jews of that city was one of the means by which the founder of Islam became acquainted with Judaism, its beliefs, and its Patriarchs. This acquaint- ance became naturalh' closer after the Ilegira (Flight) of Mohammed (622) to Medina, the chief centre of the Arabian Jews. To win the Israelites to his cause, the

s I\'. Efipha.nes

"prophet" made various conces.sions to their religion and adopted some of their customs. As tliis was use- less, and as the Jews were a constant menace to his cause, he resolved to get rid of their tribes one after another. He first put an end to the Jews in the vi- cinity of Medina, and next (628) subjected those of the district of Khaibar and of Wadi al-Kura to an annual tribute of half the produce of the soil. After Moham- med's death (a. d. 632), Caliph Abu-Bekr tolerated the Jewish remnant in Ivhaibar and al-Kura; but this