Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/461

 JEWS


 * 597

JEWS

estants l^ecarae even more Ijitter against Jews than Catholics had been. The leaders of Catholicism de- manded absolute submission to canonical law; but on that condition granted them permission to remain in Catholic countries; Luther, on the other hand, re- quired their absolute expulsion. ... It was reserved for him to place Jews on a level with Gypsies. . . . He was the cause of their being expelled by Protestant princes" (Gratz). In general, the emperors of the period acted with equity towards their Jewish subjects. At times, however, they expelletl them from their crown lands, or connived at their banishment from other places. Durins the Thirtv Years' War, Ferdi- nand IT Id, It;:;s) trratcd tlic .r.'us with L'rcat ronsid-

period just sketched, Christian scholars began to culti- vate Hebrew under the guidance of Jewish gramma- rians; Hebrew studies were introduced into German and French universities; and Richard Simon made the learned world acquainted with rabbinical literature.

(11) Recent Times (since 1700). — In dealing with this last period, it mil be convenient to narrate briefly the events relative, first to the Jews of the Old World, and next to those of the New. The internal condition of the ,Iews in the Old World during the first half of the eighteentli century was that of a general demoraliza- tion which made them appear all the more disreputable because the recent works of Christian scholars, such, fnr instance, as the history of the Jews by Basnage,

Detail showing seven eration, and required his generals to spare them from the hardships of the war. Under him and under his son, the Jewish community of Vienna was particu- larly flourishing; but this prosperity ended abruptly under Leopold I (1657-1705), and although about 1685 some Jews succeeded in stealing into Vienna, Leo- pold's decree of exclusion was formally repealed only much later. The chief place of refuge for the Askena- zim of Germany, Austria, and Bohemia was at this time the Kingdom of Poland, where the Jewish popula- tion was remarkably free and prosperous up to the middle of the seventeenth century. In 1648, the Pol- ish Jews began themselves to be persecuted by the Cos- sacks of the Ukraine who invaded Poland and were victorious in three successive campaigns. They were next subjected to the disastrous invasions of the Rus- sians and the Swedes. It is estimated that within ten years (1648-1658), more than 200,000 Jews were slaughtered in the Polish dominions. In consequence, the surviving Jews of Poland were reduced to a condi- tion of e-xtreme poverty and abjection from which the Polish kings of the second part of the seventeenth cen- tury earnestly strove to extricate them. During the

F TiTU.S

branched candlestick had forcibly directed the attention of the learned world towards them. They were not indeed subjected to the wholesale massacres of former days, but they re- mained in the eyes of all a despised race liable to all kinds of disabihties. In Sweden, they were allowed (1718) to enter the kingdom under unfavourable con- ditions; in France, new restrictions were imposed on their settlements (1718) at Metz and Bordeaux; in Prussia, the laws of Frederick William I (1714, 1730) breathed a spirit of gi'eat intolerance against them; at Naples, the concessions made to the Jews by Charles III, in 1740, were soon revoked; in .\ustria, charges that they were in league with the country's enemies during the War of the Austrian Succession were readily be- lieved, led to bloody riots against them, wellnigh en- tailed (1745) under Maria Theresa their perpetual ex- pulsion from Bohemia and Moravia, and caused the Jews of Prague to be placed under the most severe re- strictions; in Rus.sia, Catherine I (17'27) took active measures against the Ukraine Jews and banished the Jewish population from Russia, ;\iuui Ivanowa (17.39) decreed their expulsion from Little Russia, and Ehza- beth (1741-1762) harshly enforced ant i- Jewish meas-