History of the Jews, Vol. 5 (of 6)

In this apparently harmless feature lay also the reason that his most powerful and vehemently conducted attacks upon Judaism made no deep impression, and called forth no great commotion in the Jewish world. At the time when Spinoza threw down the challenge to Judaism, a degree of culture and science prevailed in the Jewish-Portuguese circle, unknown either before or after; there reigned in the community of Amsterdam and its colonies a literary activity and fecundity, which might be called classical, if the merit of the literary productions had corresponded with their compass. The authors were chiefly cultivated Marranos, who had escaped from the Spanish or Portuguese prisons of the Inquisition to devote themselves in free Holland to their faith and free inquiry. There were philosophers, physicians, mathematicians, philologists, poets, even poetesses. Many of these Marranos who escaped to Amsterdam had gone through peculiar vicissitudes. A monk of Valencia, Fray Vincent de Rocamora (1601–1684), had been eminent in Catholic theology. He had been made confessor to the Infanta Maria, afterwards empress of Germany and a persecutor of the Jews. One day the confessor fled from Spain, reached Amsterdam, declared himself as Isaac de Rocamora, studied medicine at the age of forty, and became the happy father of a family and president of Jewish benevolent institutions. The quondam monk, afterwards Parnass (president of the community), was also a good poet, and wrote admirable Spanish and Latin verses.

Enrique Enriquez de Paz of Segovia (1600–1660), the Jewish Calderon, had a very different career. Having entered the army while young, he behaved so gallantly that he won the order of San Miguel, and was made captain. Besides the sword, he wielded the pen, with which he described comic figures and situations. Enriquez de Paz, or, as he was styled in his poetical capacity, Antonio Enriquez de Gomez, composed more than two and twenty comedies, some of which were put upon the stage at Madrid, and, being taken for Calderon's productions, were received with much applause. Neither Mars nor the Muses succeeded in protecting him against the Inquisition; he could escape its clutches only by rapid flight. He lived a long time in France. His prolific muse celebrated Louis XIV, the queen of France, the powerful statesman Richelieu, and other high personages of the court. He bewailed in elegies his misfortunes and the loss of his country, which he loved like a son, step-mother though she had been to him. Although blessed by fortune, Enriquez de Paz felt himself unhappy in the rude north, far from the blue mountains and mild air of Spain. He lamented:

"I have won for myself wealth and traveled over many seas, and heaped up ever fresh treasures by thousands; now my hair is bleached, my beard as snowy white as my silver bars, the reward of my labors."

He lived in France, too, as a Christian, but proclaimed his sympathy with Judaism by mourning in elegiac verses the martyrdom of Lope de Vera y Alarcon. Finally he settled down in the asylum of the Marranos, whilst his effigy was burnt on the funeral pile at Seville. There had been again a great auto-da-fé (1660) of sixty Marranos, of whom four were first strangled and then burned, whilst three were burned alive. Effigies of escaped Marranos were borne along in procession, and thrown into the flames – amongst them that of the knight of San Miguel, the writer of comedies. A new-Christian, who was present at this horrible sight, and soon after escaped to Amsterdam, met Gomez in the street, and exclaimed excitedly: "Ah! Señor Gomez! I saw your effigy burn on the funeral pile at Seville!" "Well," he replied, "they are welcome to it." Along with his numerous secular poems, Enriquez Gomez left one of Jewish national interest in celebration of the hero-judge Samson. The laurels which the older Spanish poet Miguel Silveyra, also a Marrano, whom he admired, had won by his epic, "The Maccabee," haunted him until he had brought out a companion piece. To the blind hero who avenged himself on the Philistines by his very death, Gomez assigned verses which expressed his own heart:

"I die for Thy holy word, for Thy religion,For Thy doctrine, Thy hallowed commandments,For the nation adopted by Thy choice,For Thy sublime ordinance I die."

Another point of view is presented by two emigrant Marranos of this period, father and son, the two Pensos, the one rich in possessions and charity, the other in poetical gifts. They probably sprang from Espejo, in the province of Cordova, escaped from the fury of the Inquisition, and at last settled, after many changes of residence, as Jews in Amsterdam. Isaac Penso (died 1683) the elder, a banker, was a father to the poor. He spent a tithe of the income from his property on the poor, and distributed, up to his death, 40,000 gulden. His decease aroused deep regret in the community of Amsterdam. His son (Felice) Joseph Penso, also called De la Vega from his mother's family (1650–1703), was a rich merchant, and turned his attention to poetry. A youth of seventeen, he awoke the long-slumbering echo of neo-Hebraic poesy, and caused it to strike its highest note. Joseph Penso boldly undertook a most difficult task; he composed a Hebrew drama. Since Immanuel Romi had written his witty tales in verse, the neo-Hebraic muse had been stricken with sterility, for which the increasing troubles of the times were not alone to blame. Moses da Rieti and the poetic school of Salonica composed verses, but did not write poetry. Even the greatest of Jewish poets, Gebirol and Jehuda Halevi, had produced only lyric and didactic poetry, and had not thought of the drama. Joseph Penso, inspired by the poetical air of Spain, the land of his birth, where Lope de Vega's and Calderon's melodious verses were heard beside the litany of the monks and the cry of the sacrificial victims, transferred Spanish art forms to neo-Hebraic poetry. Penso happily imitated the various kinds of metre and strophe of European poetry in the language of David and Isaiah.

One may not, indeed, apply a severe standard to Joseph Penso's drama, but should endeavor to forget that long before him Shakespeare had created life-like forms and interests. For, measured by these, Penso's dramatic monologue and dialogue seem puerile. However free from blame his versification is, the invention is poor, the ideas commonplace. A king who takes a serious view of his responsibilities as ruler is led astray, now by his own impulses (Yezer), now by a coquette (Isha), now by Satan. Three other opposing forces endeavor to lead him in the right way – his own judgment (Sechel), divine inspiration (Hashgacha), and an angel. These are the characters in Penso's drama "The Captives of Hope" (Asiré ha-Tikwah). But if one takes into consideration the object which Penso had in view, viz., to hold up a mirror to Marrano youths settled at Amsterdam, who had been used to Spanish licentiousness, and to picture to them the high value of a virtuous life, the performance of the youthful poet is not to be despised. Joseph Penso de la Vega composed a large number of verses in Spanish, occasional poetry, moral and philosophical reflections, and eulogies on princes. His novels, entitled "The Dangerous Courses" (los Rumbos peligrosos), were popular.

Marrano poets of mediocre ability were so numerous at this time in Amsterdam, that one of them, the Spanish resident in the Netherlands, Manuel Belmonte (Isaac Nuñes), appointed count-palatine, founded an academy of poetry. Poetical works were to be handed in, and as judges he appointed the former confessor, De Rocamora, and another Marrano, who composed Latin verses, Isaac Gomez de Sosa. The latter was so much enraptured of Penso's Hebrew drama, that he triumphantly proclaimed, in Latin verse:

"Now is it at length attained! The Hebrew Muse strides along on high-heeled buskin safe and sound. With the measured step of poetry she is conducted auspiciously by Joseph – sprung from that race which still is mostly in captivity. Lo! a clear beam of hope shines afresh, that now even the stage may be opened to sacred song. Yet why do I praise him? The poet is celebrated by his own poetry, and his own work proclaims the praise of the master."

Another of the friends of the Jewish dramatist was Nicolas de Oliver y Fullana (Daniel Jehuda), poet, and colonel in the Spanish service; he was knighted, entered the service of Holland, and was an accurate cartographer and cosmographer. There was also Joseph Szemach (Sameh) Arias, a man of high military rank, who translated into Spanish the work of the historian Josephus against Apion, which controverted the old prejudices and falsehoods against Jews. This polemic was not superfluous even at this time. Of the Jewish Marrano poetesses, it will suffice to name the fair and gifted Isabel Correa (Rebecca), who twined a wreath of various poems, and translated the Italian popular drama, "The True Shepherd" (Pastor Fido, by Guarini) into beautiful Spanish verse. Isabel was the second wife of the poet-warrior, De Oliver y Fullana.

Of a far different stamp was the Marrano Thomas de Pinedo (Isaac, 1614–1679) of Portugal, educated in a Jesuit college at Madrid. He was more at home in classical than in Jewish antiquity, and applied himself to a branch of study little cultivated in Spain in his time, that of ancient geography. He, too, was driven out of Spain by the Inquisition, and deemed himself fortunate to have escaped unhurt. The philologist De Pinedo dwelt later on in Amsterdam, where he printed his comprehensive work. He composed his own epitaph in Latin.

We must not leave unmentioned a personage celebrated at that time perhaps beyond his deserts, Jacob Jehuda Leon (Templo, 1603–1671). If not a Marrano, he was of Marrano descent, and resided first at Middelburg, then at Amsterdam, and was more an artist than a man of science. Leon devoted himself to the reproduction of the first Temple and its vessels, as they are described in the Bible and the Talmud. He executed a model of the Temple on a reduced scale (3 yards square, 1½ in height), and added a concise, clear description in Spanish and Hebrew. Work of so unusual a character attracted extraordinary notice at a time when every kind of antiquarian learning, especially biblical, was highly prized. The government of Holland and Zealand gave the author the copyright privilege. Duke August of Brunswick, and his wife Elizabeth, wished to possess a German translation of Leon's description, and commissioned Professor John Saubert, of Helmstädt, to undertake it. While corresponding with the author so as to ensure thoroughness, he was anticipated by another man who brought out a German translation at Hanover. This circumstance caused great annoyance to Professor Saubert. Templo, as Leon and his posterity were surnamed from his work in connection with the Temple, engaged in controversies with Christian ecclesiastics on Judaism and Christianity, and published a translation of the Psalms in Spanish.

In this cultivated circle of Spinoza's contemporaries were two men who lived alternately at Hamburg and Amsterdam, David Coen de Lara and Dionysius Musaphia, both distinguished as philologists, but not for much besides. With their knowledge of Latin and Greek they explained the dialect of the Talmud, and corrected errors which had crept into the earlier Talmudical lexicons. David de Lara (1610–1674) was also a preacher and writer on morals; but his efforts in that direction are of small value. He associated too much with the Hamburg preacher, Esdras Edzardus, who was bent on the conversion of the Jews. The latter spread the false report that De Lara was almost a Christian before he died. Dionysius (Benjamin) Musaphia (born about 1616, died at Amsterdam, 1676), a physician and student of natural science, was up to the date of the monarch's death in the service of the Danish king Christian IV. He was also a philosopher, and allowed himself to question various things in the Talmud and the Bible. Nevertheless he held the office of rabbi at Amsterdam in his old age.

Much more important than the whole of this circle was Balthasar Orobio de Castro (1620–1687). He also sprang from Marrano parents, who secretly continued to cling to Judaism, in that they abstained from food and drink on the Day of Atonement. In this meager conception of Judaism, Orobio was brought up. Endowed with clear intellect, he studied the decayed and antiquated philosophy still taught in Spanish academies, and became professor of metaphysics in the University of Salamanca. This fossilized philosophy appears neither to have satisfied him nor to have brought him sufficient means of subsistence, for he applied himself in riper years to the study of medicine. In this pursuit Orobio was more successful; he gained a reputation at Seville, was physician to the duke of Medina-Celi, and to a family in high favor with the court, and amassed considerable wealth. He was a happy husband and father, when the Inquisition cast its baleful glance upon him. A servant, whom he had punished for theft, had informed against him. Orobio was seized, accused of Judaism, and thrown into a narrow, gloomy dungeon, where he had not room to move, and where he spent three years (about 1655–1658).

At first he filled up his time with philosophical subtleties, as pursued at the Spanish universities. He undertook to defend a thesis, acting at the same time in imagination as the opponent, who interposes objections, and as the judge, who sums up and sifts the arguments. By degrees his mind grew so perplexed that he often asked himself, "Am I really Don Balthasar Orobio, who went about in the streets of Seville, and lived in comfort with his family?" His past seemed a dream, and he believed that he had been born in prison, and must die there. But the tribunal of the Inquisition brought a change into his empty dream-life. He was ushered into a dark vault, lighted only by a dull lamp. He could hardly distinguish the judge, the secretary, and the executioner, who were about to deal with his case. Having been again admonished to confess his heresy, and having again denied it, the hangman undressed him, bound him with cords, which were fastened to hooks in the wall, brought his body into a swinging movement between the ceiling and the floor, and drew the cords so tight, that the blood spurted from his nails. His feet, moreover, were strongly bound to a small ladder, the steps of which were studded with spikes. Whilst being tortured, he was frequently admonished to make confession, and was threatened, in case he persisted in denial, with the infliction of still more horrible pains, for which, though they caused his death, he would have to thank his own obstinacy, not the tribunal. However, he survived the torture, was taken back to prison to allow his wounds to heal, then condemned to wear the garb of shame (San Benito), and was finally banished from Spain. He betook himself to Toulouse, where he became professor of medicine in the university. Although respected in his new position, Orobio could not long endure the hypocrisy. He went to Amsterdam, publicly professed the Jewish religion, and assumed the name of Isaac (about 1666). No wonder that he became a bitter opponent of Christianity, which he had learnt to know thoroughly. He became an adherent of Judaism from conviction, proved himself a courageous and able champion of the religion of his fathers, and dealt such powerful blows to Christianity as few before him, so that a distinguished Protestant theologian (Van Limborch) felt compelled to reply to Orobio's attacks.

All these cultivated youths and men, the soldier-poets Enriquez Gomez, Nicholas de Oliver y Fullana, and Joseph Arias, and the writers Joseph Penso, Thomas de Pinedo, Jacob Leon, David de Lara, and Dionysius Musaphia, knew of Spinoza's attacks upon Judaism, and undoubtedly read his "Theologico-Political Treatise." Isaac Orobio associated with Spinoza. Yet the blows by which the latter strove to shake Judaism did not cause the former to waver in their convictions. This is the more remarkable, as simultaneously, from another side, Judaism was covered with shame, or, what comes to the same thing, its followers everywhere in the East and West, with few exceptions, became slaves to a delusion which exposed them to the ridicule of the world, and enveloped them for the first time in the darkness of the Middle Ages.

Without suspecting it, Spinoza possessed in the East an ally, diametrically his opposite, who labored to disintegrate Judaism, and succeeded in throwing the whole Jewish race into a turmoil, which long interfered with its progress. Sabbataï Zevi was at once Spinoza's opposite and his ally. He possessed many more admirers than the philosopher of Amsterdam, became for a space the idol of the Jewish race, and has secret adherents even to the present time. Sabbataï Zevi (born Ab 9, 1626, died 1676), of Smyrna, in Asia Minor, was of Spanish descent, and became the originator of a new Messianic frenzy, the founder of a new sect. He owed the attachment which he inspired even as a youth, not to his qualities of mind, but to his external appearance and attractive manner. He was tall, well formed, had fine dark hair, a fine beard, and a pleasant voice, which won hearts by speech and still more by song. But his mind was befogged by reason of the predominance of fancy; he had an enthusiastic temperament and an inclination to what was strange, especially to solitude. In boyhood Sabbataï Zevi avoided the company and games of playmates, sought solitary places, and what usually has charms for the young did not attract him. He was educated by the current method. In early youth he studied the Talmud in the school of the veteran Joseph Eskapha, a staunch Talmudist of Smyrna, but did not attain to great proficiency. The more was he attracted by the confused jumble of the Kabbala. Once introduced into the labyrinth of the Zohar, he felt himself at home therein, guided by Lurya's interpretation. Sabbataï Zevi shared the prevailing opinion that the Kabbala can be acquired only by means of asceticism. He mortified his body, and bathed very frequently in the sea, day and night, winter and summer. Perhaps it was from sea-bathing that his body derived the peculiar fragrance which his worshipers strongly maintained that it possessed. In early manhood he presented a contrast to his companions because he felt no attraction to the female sex. According to custom Sabbataï Zevi married early, but avoided his young, good-looking wife so pertinaciously, that she applied for divorce, which he willingly granted her. The same thing happened with a second wife.

This aversion to marriage, rare in the warm climate of the East, his assiduous study of the Kabbala, and his ascetic life, attracted attention. Disciples sought him, and were introduced by him to the Kabbala. Twenty years old he was the master of a small circle. He attached disciples to himself partly by his earnest and retiring manner, which precluded familiarity, partly by his musical voice, with which he sang in Spanish the Kabbalistic verses composed by Lurya or himself. Another circumstance must be added. When Sultan Ibrahim ascended the throne, a violent war broke out between Turkey and Venice, which made the trade of the Levant unsafe in the capital. Several European, that is, Dutch and English, mercantile houses in consequence transferred their offices to Smyrna. This hitherto insignificant city thereby acquired importance as a mart. The Jews of Smyrna, who had been poor, profited by this commercial development, and amassed great riches, first as agents of large houses, afterwards as independent firms. Mordecai Zevi, Sabbataï's father, from the Morea, originally poor, became the Smyrna agent of an English house, executed its commissions with strict honesty, enjoyed the confidence of the principals, and became a wealthy man. His increasing prosperity was attributed by the blind father to the merit of his Kabbala-loving son, to whom he paid such great reverence, that it was communicated to strangers. Sabbataï was regarded as a young saint. The more discreet, on account of his folly, declared him to be mad. In the house of his English principal, Mordecai Zevi often heard the approach of the millennium discussed, either he himself or some of his people being enthusiastic believers in the apocalypse of the Fifth Monarchy. The year 1666 was designated by these enthusiasts as the Messianic year, which was to bring renewed splendor to the Jews and see their return to Jerusalem. The expectations heard in the English counting house were communicated by Mordecai Zevi to the members of his family, none of whom listened more attentively than Sabbataï, already entangled in the maze of the Luryan Kabbala, and inclined to mistake enthusiastic hopes for prosaic fact. What if he himself were called upon to usher in this time of redemption? Had he not, at an earlier age than any one before, penetrated to the heart of the Kabbala? And who could be more worthy of this call than one deeply immersed in its mysteries?

The central point of the later Kabbala was most intense expectation of the Messiah; Lurya, Vital, and their disciples and followers proclaimed anew, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." A peculiar redemption was to precede and accompany it – the redemption of the scattered elements of the original soul (Nizuzoth) from the fetters of original evil, the demon nature (Kelifoth), which, taking a hold on men through the fall of the angels or divine elements, held them in captivity, impeded their upward flight, and necessitated the perpetual transmigration of souls from body to body. As soon as the evil spirit was either consumed, annihilated, rendered powerless, or at least existed by itself without admixture of the divine, then the Kabbalistic order (Olam ha-Tikkun) would prevail, streams of mercy would pour forth without let or hindrance upon the lower world through the channels of the Sefiroth, and fructify and miraculously quicken it. This work of redemption can be accomplished by every truly pious man (Zaddik), who having an enlightened soul, and being initiated into the Kabbala, stands in close union with the world of spirits, comprehends the connection between the upper and lower world, and fulfills all religious exercises (Kewanoth) with concentrated devotion and with due regard to their influence upon the higher powers. Still more effectually the Messiah, the son of David, will accomplish the annihilation of demoniacal powers and the restoration of lost souls, or rather the collection of the scattered elements of the universal soul of Adam. For to the Messiah, in whom dwells a pure, immaculate soul, are unfolded the mysterious depths of the higher worlds, essences, and divine creation, even the Divine Being Himself. The Messiah of the seed of David would, to a certain extent, be the original man (Adam Kadmon) incarnate, part of the Godhead.

This Luryan mysticism dazzled the bewildered brain of the Smyrna youth, and produced such confusion and giddiness, that he thought he could easily usher in this spiritual redemption, which would be immediately followed by that of the body. In what manner this haughty wish to play the part of a Messiah germinates and breaks forth in enthusiastic minds, is an impenetrable riddle. Sabbataï Zevi was not the first to believe himself able to reverse the whole order of the world, by mystical hocus-pocus, and partly to succeed in the endeavor. Certain it is that the extravagant notions entertained by Jews and Christians with regard to the near approach of the time of grace worked upon Sabbataï's weak brain. That book of falsehoods, the Zohar, declared that in the year of the world 5408 (1648) the era of redemption would dawn, and precisely in that year Sabbataï revealed himself to his train of youthful companions as the Messianic redeemer. It happened in an apparently insignificant manner, but the mode of revelation was of great import to the initiated. Sabbataï Zevi uttered the full four-lettered name of God in Hebrew (Jhwh, the Tetra-grammaton) without hesitation, although this was strictly prohibited in the Talmud and by the usage of ages. The Kabbalists attached all sorts of mystical importance to this prohibition. During the dispersion of Israel, the perfection of God Himself was to a certain extent destroyed, on account of the sinfulness of men and the degradation of the Jewish people, since the Deity could not carry out His moral plan. The higher and lower worlds were divided from each other by a deep gulf; the four letters of God's name were parted asunder. With the Messianic period of redemption the moral order of the world, as God had laid it down in the plan of the universe, and the perfection and unity of God would be restored. When Sabbataï Zevi permitted himself to pronounce the name of God in full, he thereby proclaimed that the time of grace had begun with him.