Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/160

136 136 EXPULSION OF THE JEWS. PART maintained a pertinacious attachment to ancient errors. Fomented Under these circumstances, the popular odium, c)ergy. inflamed bj the discontent of the clergy at the re- sistance which they encountered in the work of proselytism, gradually grew stronger and stronger against the unhappy Israelites. Old traditions, as old indeed as the thirteenth and fourteenth centu- ries, were revived, and charged on the present generation, with all the details of place and action. Christian children were said to be kidnapped, in order to be crucified in derision of the Saviour ; the host, it was rumored, was exposed to the grossest indignities ; and physicians and apothecaries, whose science was particularly cultivated by the Jews in the middle ages, were accused of poisoning their Christian patients. No rumor was too absurd for the easy credulity of the people. The Israelites were charged with the more probable offence of attempting to convert to their own faith the ancient Christians, as well as to reclaim such of their own race as had recently embraced Christianity. A great scandal was occasioned also by the intermar- riages, which still occasionally took place between Jews and Christians ; the latter condescending to repair their dilapidated fortunes by these wealthy 1 It is a proof of the high con- tyr's, among many similar ones by sideration in which such Israelites contemporaries, affords the true key as were willing to embrace Christ- to the popular odium against the ianity were held, that three of that Jews. " Cum namque viderent, number, Alvarez, Avila, and Pul- Judaeorum tabido commercio, qui gar were private secretaries of the hac hora sunt in Hispania inmime- queen. (Mem. de la Acad, de ri Chrisiianis ditiores, plurimorum Hist., tom. vi. Ihist. 18.) nnimos corrumpi ac seduoi," etc. An incidental expression of Mar- Opus Epist., epist. 92.