Chapter VII · THE AGE OF LUZZATTO, EIBESCHÜTZ, AND FRANK.

Poetical Works of Moses Chayim Luzzatto—Luzzatto ensnared in the Kabbala—His Contest with Rabbinical Authorities—Luzzatto's last Drama—Jonathan Eibeschütz—Character and Education of Eibeschütz—His Relations with the Jesuits in Prague—The Austrian War of Succession—Expulsion of the Jews from Prague—Eibeschütz becomes Rabbi of Altona—Jacob Emden—Eibeschütz charged with Heresy—The Controversy between Emden and Eibeschütz—The Amulets—Party Strife—Interference by Christians and the Civil Authorities—Revival of Sabbatianism—Jacob Frank Lejbowicz and the Frankists—The Doctrine of the Trinity—Excesses of the Frankists.

1727–1760 C. E.

The disgrace and disappointment caused by visionaries and impostors during almost a whole century, the lamentable effects of the careers of Sabbataï Zevi and his band of prophets—Cardoso, Mordecai of Eisenstadt, Querido, Judah Chassid, Chayim Malach, Chayon, and others—failed to suppress Kabbalistic and Messianic extravagances. As yet these impostors only invited fresh imitators, who found a credulous circle ready to believe in them, and thus new disorders were begotten. The unhealthy humors which, during the lapse of ages, had been introduced into the organism of Judaism appeared as hideous eruptions on the surface, but this might be considered the sign of convalescence. Corruption had seized even the most delicate organs. A gifted youth, endowed with splendid talents, who in ordinary circumstances would have become an ornament to Judaism, was tainted by the general degradation, and under the spell of mysticism misapplied his excellent gifts, and contributed to error. It is impossible to resist a feeling of sorrow at finding this amiable man with his ideal character falling into errors which bring him down to the level of such impure spirits as Chayon and Löbele Prosnitz—a many-colored sunbeam extinguished in a swamp. If we denounce the Kabbala, which has begotten such unspeakable misconceptions of Judaism, and are justly wrathful against its authors and propagators, we feel specially indignant when we find two noble young men of high endowments and purity of life, Solomon Molcho and Luzzatto, following its chimeras, and thereby precipitating themselves into the abyss. Both literally sacrificed their lives for dreams, the confused imagery of which was suggested by the dazing medley of the Kabbala. Although Luzzatto did not meet with a tragic end like the Portuguese Marrano who shared his convictions, yet he, too, was a martyr, none the less because his wounds had been inflicted by himself under the influence of excitement.

Moses Chayim Luzzatto (born 1707, died 1747) was the son of very wealthy parents, natives of Padua. His father, who carried on an extensive silk business, spared no expense in educating him. The two ancient languages, Hebrew and Latin, which in Italy were in a measure a literary necessity, the one among Jews, the other among Christians, Luzzatto acquired in early youth; but they had an influence on his mind altogether different from that which they obtained over his contemporaries. Both enriched his genius, and promoted its higher development. Latin opened for him the realm of the beautiful, Hebrew the gates of the sublime. Luzzatto had a poet's delicately-strung soul, an Æolian harp, which responded to every breath with harmonious, tuneful vibrations. His poetic gift displayed at once power and sweetness, wealth of fancy and richness of imagery, combined with due sense of proportion. A believer in the transmigration of souls might have said that the soul of the Hebrew-Castilian singer, Jehuda Halevi, had been born again in Luzzatto, but had become more perfect, more matured, more tender, and endowed with a more delicate sense of harmony, encompassed as he was by the musical atmosphere of his Italian fatherland. Even in early boyhood every event, joyful or sad, was to him a complete picture, a little work of art, wherein color and euphony were revealed together. A youth of seventeen, he discerned with such remarkable clearness the hidden charm of language, the laws of harmony, deducible from the higher forms of eloquence as from poetry, and the grace of rhythm and cadence, that he composed a work on the subject, and illustrated it by beautiful examples from sacred poetry. He contemplated introducing a new meter into modern Hebrew poetry, in order to obtain greater variety in the succession of long and short syllables, and thus produce a musical cadence. The Hebrew language is usually classified among the dead tongues. To Luzzatto, however, it was full of life, vigor, youth, clearness, and euphony. He used Hebrew as a pliant instrument, and drew from it sweet notes and caressing melodies; he renewed its youth, invested it with a peculiar charm, in short, lived in it as though his ear had absorbed the rich tones of Isaiah's eloquence. Incomparably more gifted than Joseph Penso de la Vega, Luzzatto, likewise in his seventeenth year, composed a drama on the biblical theme of Samson and the Philistines. This early work gives promise of the future master. The versification is faultless, the thoughts original, and the language free from bombast and redundancy. His Hebrew prose, too, is an agreeable contrast to the insipid, ornate, and laboriously witty style of his Jewish contemporaries; it has much of the simplicity, polish, and vivacity of the biblical narrative. Before his twentieth year Luzzatto had composed one hundred and fifty hymns, which are only an imitation of the old psalter, but the language of which is marked by fervor and purity. It was perhaps during the same period that he composed his second Hebrew drama, in four acts—"The High Tower, or The Innocence of the Virtuous"—beautiful in versification, melodious in language, but poor in thought. The young poet had not yet seen life in its fullness, nor keenly studied its contrasts and struggles. He was acquainted only with idyllic family life and academic peace. Even virtue and vice, love and selfishness, which he desired to represent in his drama, were known to him but by hearsay. His muse becomes eloquent only when she sings of God's sublimity. Isolated verses are faultless, but the work as a whole is that of a schoolboy. He was too dependent on Italian models—still walked on stilts.

This facility and versatility in clothing both platitudes and original thoughts in new as well as borrowed forms, and the over-abundance of half-matured ideas, which, if he could have perfected them, might have proved a blessing to Judaism and to himself, were transformed into a curse. One day (Sivan, 1727) he was seized with the desire to imitate the mystic language of the Zohar, and he succeeded as well as in the case of the psalms. His sentences and expressions were deceptively similar to those of his model, just as high-sounding, apparently full of meaning, in reality meaningless. This success turned his head, and led him astray. Instead of perceiving that if the Kabbalistic style of the Zohar is capable of imitation, that book must be the work of a clever human author, Luzzatto inferred that his own creative faculty did not proceed from natural endowments, but, as in the case of the Zohar, was the product of a higher inspiration. In other words, he shared the mistaken view of his age with respect to the origin and value of the Kabbala. Isaiah Bassan, of Padua—who instructed Luzzatto in his early years—had infused mystical poison into his healthy blood. However, any other teacher would also have led him into the errors of the Kabbala, from which there was no escape. The air of the Ghettos was impregnated with Kabbala. From his youth upwards Luzzatto heard daily that great adepts in mysticism possessed special tutelar spirits (Maggid), who every day gave them manifestations from above. Why should not he, too, be vouchsafed this divine gift of grace? Some of the mystical writings of Lurya, at that time still a rarity, fell into his hands. He learnt them by heart, became entirely absorbed in them, and thus completed his derangement. Luzzatto was possessed by a peculiar delusion. His naturally clear and methodical intellect, his fine sense of the simplicity and beauty of the poetry of the Bible, and his æsthetic conceptions with regard to Italian and Latin literature urged him to seek clearness and common sense even in the chaos of the Kabbala, the divine origin of which was accepted by him as a fact. He in no way resembled the wild visionaries Moses Zacut and Mordecai of Eisenstadt; he did not content himself with empty formulas and flourishes, but sought for sound sense. This he found rather in his own mind than in the Zohar or in the writings of Lurya. Nevertheless, he lived under the delusion that a divine spirit had vouchsafed him deep insight into the Kabbala, solved its riddles, and disentangled its meshes. Self-deception was the cause of his errors, and religious fervor, instead of protecting, only plunged him in more deeply. His errors were fostered by the conviction that existing Judaism with its excrescences would be unintelligible without the Kabbala, the theories of which could alone explain the phenomena, the strife, and the contradictions in the world, and the tragical history of the Jewish people. Israel—God's people—the noblest portion of creation, stands enfeebled and abased on the lowest rung of the ladder of nations; its religion misjudged, its struggles fruitless. To account for this bewildering fact, Luzzatto constructed a system of cobwebs.

It flattered the vanity of this young man of twenty to gain this insight into the relations of the upper and the lower worlds, to explain them in the mystical language of the Zohar, and thus become an important member in the series of created beings. Having firmly convinced himself of the truth of the fundamental idea of the Kabbala, he accepted all its excrescences—transmigration of souls, anagrams, and necromancy. He wrote reams of Kabbalistic chimeras, and composed a second Zohar (Zohar Tinyana) with appropriate introductions (Tikkunim) and appendices. The more facility he acquired, the stronger became his delusion that he, too, was inspired by a great spirit, and was a second, perhaps more perfect Simon bar Yochaï. Little by little there crept over him in his solitude the fantastic conviction that he was the pre-ordained Messiah, called to redeem, by means of the second Zohar, the souls of Israel and the whole world.

Luzzatto could not long bear to hide his light under a bushel. He began operations by disclosing to Israel Marini and Israel Treves, two young men of the same way of thinking as himself, that his guardian spirit had bidden him grant them knowledge of his new Zohar. His disciples in the Kabbala were dazzled and delighted, and could not keep the secret. The result was that Venetian Kabbalists sought out the young and wealthy prodigy at his home in Padua, and thus confirmed him in his fanaticism. A vivacious, energetic, impetuous Pole, Yekutiel (Kussiel) of Wilna, who had come to Padua to study medicine, joined Luzzatto's circle. To hear of the latter, join him, abandon his former studies, and devote himself to mysticism was for the Pole a rapid, easy resolution. It was far harder for him to keep the secret. No sooner had he been initiated by Luzzatto than he blazoned forth this new miracle to the world. Kussiel circulated extravagant letters on the subject, which came into the hands of Moses Chages in Altona. The latter, who had stoutly opposed and effectually silenced Chayon and the other Sabbatian visionaries, was, so to speak, the recognized official zealot, whose utterances were decisive on matters of faith; and the rabbi of the so-called "three communities" of Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbeck, Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen, who had excommunicated Moses Meïr Kamenker and his confederates, was subservient to him. Chages therefore requested the Venetian community to suppress the newly-born brood of heretics before the poison of their doctrine could spread further.

The Venetian community, however, was not disposed to denounce Luzzatto as a heretic, but treated him with great forbearance, probably out of consideration for his youth, talents, and the wealth of his family, and merely ordered him to justify himself. The enthusiastic youth rebelled against this demand, proudly gave Chages to understand that he did not recognize his authority, repudiated the suspicion of Sabbatian heresy, and insisted that he had been vouchsafed revelations from Heaven. He referred him to his instructor Bassan, who would never refuse to testify that his orthodoxy was above suspicion. In this Luzzatto was perfectly right. Bassan was so infatuated with his pupil that he would have palliated his most scandalous faults, and encouraged rather than checked his extravagances. In vain Chages and Katzenellenbogen threatened him and the Paduan community with the severest form of excommunication, if he did not abandon his pretensions to second sight and mystical powers. Luzzatto remained unmoved: God had chosen him, like many before, to reveal to him His mysteries. The other Italian rabbis showed themselves as lukewarm in the matter as those of Padua and Venice. Moses Chages called on three rabbis to form a tribunal, but all three declined to interfere. He exerted himself so zealously, however, that he persuaded several German rabbis (June, 1730) to excommunicate all who should compose works in the language of the Zohar in the name of angels or saints. This threat proved effectual. Isaiah Bassan was obliged to repair to Padua and obtain a promise from his favorite disciple to discontinue his mystical writings and his instruction of young Kabbalists, or emigrate to the Holy Land. At last the Venetian rabbinate was stirred up to intervene, and sent three representatives to Padua—Jacob Belillos, Moses Menachem Merari, and Nehemiah Vital Cohen,—in whose presence Luzzatto was obliged to repeat his promise under oath. He was compelled to deliver his Kabbalistic writings to his teacher Bassan, and they were placed under seal. Thus the storm which had threatened him was averted.

Luzzatto appears to have been sobered by these events. He occupied himself with his business, wrote more poetry, and resolved to marry. He was a happy father, lived in concord with his parents and brothers and sisters, and was highly respected. The evil spirit, however, to whom he had sold himself would not release him, and led him back to his youthful follies. A quarrel in the family and business misfortunes in connection with his father's house, in which he was a partner, appear to have been the cause of this renewal of his former studies. Disquieted and troubled in the present he sought to learn the future by means of Kabbalistic arts. He began once more to write down his mystical fancies, and ventured to show them to Bassan, from whom he obtained permission to publish them. It was whispered that Luzzatto performed incantations by means of magic, and that his teacher had handed him for publication some of the sealed writings in his custody. The Venetian council of rabbis, owing to certain reports, was especially excited and prejudiced against him. Luzzatto had written a sharp reply to Leon Modena's forcible work against the Kabbala; and as the latter was a Venetian rabbi, though of doubtful sincerity, the members of the Venetian council, Samuel Aboab and his five colleagues, considered any attack upon him an insult to their own honor. Their esprit de corps roused them to greater activity than had zeal for their faith, when seemingly in peril. True Venetians, they had in their service a spy, Salman of Lemberg, who watched and reported Luzzatto's movements to them. As long as he was prosperous and surrounded by friends the Venetian rabbis had treated him with remarkable indulgence, and bestowed on him a title of honor; but after his family fell into misfortune, when he was on the verge of ruin, and deserted by his friends and flatterers, their regard for him ceased, and they could not find enough stones to throw at him. They believed one of their number who asserted that he had found implements of magic in Luzzatto's house. Absurdly enough, too, they reproached Luzzatto with having learnt Latin; to a man who had studied this language of Satan no angel, they said, could appear! The members of the Venetian council of rabbis believed, or pretended to believe that Luzzatto had boasted that in the Messianic age his psalms would take the place of David's psalter. They now showed themselves as active as they had previously been negligent in the persecution of the unfortunate author. They sent three inquisitors to Padua to examine him, search his house for writings, and make him declare on oath that he would publish nothing without first submitting it to the censorship of the Venetian council of rabbis. The poet, deeply mortified, haughtily answered that this council had no authority whatever over him, a member of the community of Padua. The Venetian rabbis then excommunicated him, and condemned his writings to the flames (December, 1734), taking care to give notice of their proceedings to all the communities in Germany, particularly to the "big drum," Chages. The Paduan community also abandoned the unfortunate Luzzatto. To the honor of his teacher Isaiah Bassan be it said, that he adhered to him as staunchly in misfortune as in prosperity. The rabbi Katzenellenbogen, or rather his crier Chages, on this occasion made the sensible suggestion that the study of the Kabbala be altogether forbidden to young men, to prevent their falling into deplorable errors, as had hitherto been the case; but the proposition failed to meet with the approbation of other rabbis. Twenty years later the evils produced by the Kabbala became so patent, that the synod of Polish Jews enacted a decree to the above effect without encountering opposition.

The unfortunate, excommunicated dreamer was obliged to leave his parents, his wife and child, and go forth a wanderer; but what grieved him even more was separation from his fellow Kabbalists and his mystic conventicle. He cherished the hope of being able to print his Kabbalistic writings in Amsterdam. Alas for his want of experience! Who would help him after fortune had turned her back! At Frankfort-on-the-Main he was rudely awakened from his pleasant dream. As soon as the rabbi, Jacob Kahana, heard of his arrival, he insisted that he should promise on oath to abandon his Kabbalistic illusions, and to refrain from writing on or instructing any one in the doctrines of the Zohar (January 12, 1735). One liberty, however, Luzzatto reserved for himself: to pursue his favorite studies at the age of forty in the Holy Land. Many rabbis of Germany, Poland, Holland, and Denmark, who were informed of Luzzatto's concessions, agreed in advance to his excommunication in case he should break his word. The name of Chages was of course upon the list.

Deeply humiliated and disappointed, Luzzatto repaired to Amsterdam. Here a gleam of sunlight smiled on him again. The Portuguese community received him kindly, as though desirous of atoning for the injustice he had experienced at the hands of the Germans and Poles. They granted him a pension; and he found a hospitable home in the house of Moses de Chaves, a wealthy Portuguese, and became instructor to his son. To be independent, he applied himself, like Spinoza, to the polishing of lenses, and this led him to study physics and mathematics. He found himself so comfortably settled that he induced not only his wife, but also his parents to come to Amsterdam, and they were well received by the Portuguese community. This favorable turn in his fortunes encouraged him to resume his chimerical theories. He repeatedly exhorted his disciples in Padua to remain true to their Kabbalistic studies; whereupon the council of rabbis at Venice, which had received intelligence of his proceedings, pronounced sentence of excommunication in the synagogues and in the Ghetto against all who possessed Kabbalistic writings or psalms of Luzzatto, and failed to deliver them to the council.

In addition to his various occupations, with the Kabbala for his spiritual wants and the polishing of lenses for his temporal needs, Luzzatto published a masterpiece second to none in Hebrew poetry; a drama, perfect in form, language, and thought; a memorial of his gifts calculated to immortalize him and the language in which it is composed. Under the unpretentious form of an occasional poem in honor of the wedding of his disciple, Jacob de Chaves, with the high-born maiden Rachel de Vega Enriques, he published his drama, "Glory to the Virtuous" (La-Yesharim Tehilla). It differs materially from his earlier works. The poet had in the interval enjoyed various opportunities of gaining pleasant and painful experiences, and of enriching his mental powers. His muse, grown more mature, had become acquainted with the intricacies of life. Luzzatto had learnt to know the vulgar herd well enough to see that it resembles a reed swaying to and fro in the water, and is kept by the fetters of Deceit in a state of ignorance and infirmity against which Wisdom herself is powerless. He had been taught by experience how Folly yoked with Ignorance makes merry over those born of the Spirit, and mocks at their labors, when they measure the paths of the stars, observe the life of the vegetable world, behold God's works, and account them of more value than Mammon. Superficiality sees in all the events of life and of nature, however powerfully they may appeal to the heart, only the sport of Chance or the inflexible laws of heartless Necessity. Luzzatto had proved in his own case that Craft and Pride closely united can deprive Merit of its crown, and place it on their own heads. None the less he cherished the conviction that Merit, though misjudged and calumniated, at last wins the day, and that its acknowledgment (Fame) will fall to its share like a bride, if only it allows itself to be led by Reason and her handmaid Patience, averting its gaze from ignoble strife, and becoming absorbed in the wonders of Creation. "Could we, with undimmed eyes, for a moment see the world as it is, divested of pretense, we should see Pride and Folly, which speak so scornfully of Virtue and Knowledge, deeply humbled." Through an extraordinary occurrence, a kind of miracle, Truth is revealed, Deceit unmasked, Pride becomes a laughing-stock, and the fickle mob is led to recognize true Merit.

Luzzatto in his dramatic parable clothes and vivifies this train of ideas, and enunciates them in monologues and dialogues through the mouth of acting, or, more correctly, speaking characters. Luzzatto's masterpiece is indeed not a drama in the strict sense of the word. The characters represented are not of flesh and blood, but mere abstractions: Reason and Folly, Merit and Deceit, are placed on the stage. The dramatic action is slight. It is in truth a beautiful wreath of fragrant flowers of poesy, a series of delightful monologues and dialogues. In it Luzzatto embodies deep thoughts, difficult to quicken into life or to paint in poetical colors; but he succeeded. The wonderful evolution of the vegetable world, the extraordinary phenomena of light, are treated in dramatic verse by Luzzatto with the same facility as the appropriate subjects for poetry, and this too in the Hebrew language, not readily lending itself to new forms of thought, and with the self-imposed fetters of a meter never sinned against. His style is dignified, and he employed a diction quite his own, replete with youthful charms, beauty, and harmony. Thereby he supplied a new impulse for the coming age. When the mists of error passed away, the general chaos of thought was reduced to some sort of order, and a happier period opened, young poets derived inspiration from the soft warm rays diffused by the genius of Luzzatto. A modern Hebrew poet who helped to accomplish the transition from the old to the new period, David Franco Mendes, owes his inspiration to Luzzatto.

What might not Luzzatto have accomplished if he could have liberated his mind from the extravagant follies of the Kabbala! But it held him captive, and drew him not long after the completion of his drama (about 1744) to Palestine. Here he hoped to be able to follow unmolested the inspirations of his excited fancy, or play the rôle of a Messiah. From Safet, too, he continued his communications with his band of disciples; but before he could commence operations he fell a victim to the plague, in the fortieth year of his age. His body was buried in Tiberias. The two greatest modern Hebrew poets, Luzzatto and Jehuda Halevi, were to rest in Hebrew soil. Even the tongues of the slanderous Jews of Palestine, to whom Luzzatto, with his peculiarities, must have seemed an enigma, could only speak well of him after his death. Nevertheless he sowed bad seed. His Italian followers reintroduced the Kabbala into Italy. His Polish disciple, Yekutiel of Wilna, whose buffooneries had first got him into trouble, is said to have led an adventurer's life in Poland and Holland, playing scandalous tricks under the mask of mysticism. Another Pole, Elijah Olianow, who belonged to Luzzatto's following, and proclaimed him as Messiah and himself as his Elijah, did not enjoy the best of reputations. This man took part in the disgraceful disorders which broke out in Altona after Luzzatto's death, and which, again stirring up the Sabbatian mire, divided the Jews of Europe into two hostile camps.

The foul pool which for centuries, since the prohibition of free inquiry and the triumph of its enemy the Kabbala, had been in process of formation in Judaism was, with perverse stupidity, being continually stirred up, defiling the pure and the impure. The irrational excitement roused by the vain, false Messiah of Smyrna was not suppressed by the proscription of Chayon and the Polish Sabbatians, but showed a still more ill-favored aspect, forcing its way into circles hitherto closed against it. The rabbis, occupied with the practical and dialectical interpretation of the Talmud, had hitherto refused admission to the Kabbala on equal terms, and only here and there had surreptitiously introduced something from it. They had opposed the Sabbatian heresy, and pronounced an anathema against it. But one influential rabbi espoused its cause, invested it with importance, and so precipitated a conflict which undermined discipline and order, and blunted still more the sense of dignity and self-respect, of truth and rectitude. The occasion of the conflict was the petty jealousy of two rabbis. Its true origin lay deeper, in intellectual perversity and the secret dislike on the one hand to the excess of ritualistic observances, and on the other to the extravagances of the Kabbala. The authors of this far-reaching schism—two Polish rabbis of Altona—each unconsciously had taken a step across the threshold of orthodoxy. Diametrically opposed to each other in faculties and temperament, they were suited by their characters to be pitted against each other. Both Jonathan Eibeschütz and Jacob Emden had taken part in the foregoing conflicts, and eventually gave these quarrels a more extended influence.

Jonathan Eibeschütz, or Eibeschützer (born at Cracow 1690, died 1764), was descended from a Polish family of Kabbalists. His father, Nathan Nata, was for a short time rabbi of the small Moravian town of Eibenschitz, from which his son derived his surname. Endowed with a remarkably acute intellect and a retentive memory, the youthful Jonathan, early left an orphan, received the irregular education, or rather bewildering instruction of the age, which supplied him with only two subjects on which to exercise his brains—the far-reaching sphere of the Talmud, with its labyrinthine mazes, and the ensnaring Kabbala, with its shallows full of hidden rocks. The one offered abundant food for his hungry reason, the other for his ill-regulated fancy. With his hair-splitting ingenuity he might have made an adroit, pettifogging attorney, qualified to make out a brilliant and successful justification for the worst case; or, had he had access to the higher mathematics of Newton and Leibnitz, he might have accomplished much in this field as a discoverer. Eibeschütz had some taste for branches of learning beyond the sphere of the Talmud, and also a certain vanity that made him desire to excel in them; but this he could not satisfy. The perverted spirit of the Polish and German Jews of the time closed to every aspiring youth the gates of the sciences based on truth and keen observation, and drove him into the mazes of Rabbinical and Talmudic literature. From lack of more wholesome food for his active intellect, young Eibeschütz filled his brain with pernicious matter, and want of method forced him into the crooked paths of sophistry. He imagined indeed, or wished it to be supposed, that he had acquired every variety of knowledge, but his writings on subjects not connected with the Talmud, so far as it is possible to judge of them, his sermons, his Kabbalistic compositions, and a mass of occasional papers, reveal nothing that can be described as wisdom or solid learning. Eibeschütz was not even familiar with the Jewish philosophers who wrote in Hebrew; he was at home only in the Talmud. This he could manipulate like soft clay, give it any form he desired, and he could unravel the most intricately entangled skeins. He surpassed all his contemporaries and predecessors not only in his knowledge of the Talmud, but also in ready wit.

But Eibeschütz did not derive complete satisfaction from his scholarship; it only served to sharpen his wits, afford him amusement, and dazzle others. His restless nature and fiery temperament could not content themselves with this, but aspired to a higher goal. This goal, however, was unknown even to himself, or was only dimly shadowed before his mind. Hence his life and conduct appear enigmatical and full of contradictions. Had he lived in the age of the struggle for reform, for the loosening of the bands of authority, he would have been among the assailants, and would have employed his Talmudical learning and aggressive wit as levers to upheave the edifice of Rabbinical Judaism, and oppose the Talmud with the weapons it had supplied. For he was easy-going, and disliked the gloomy piety of the German and Polish Jews; and though impressed by it, he lacked fervor to yield to its influence. He therefore found mysticism as interpreted by the followers of Sabbataï very comforting: the Law was to be abolished by the commencement of the Messianic era, or the spirit of the Kabbala demanded no over-scrupulousness with regard to trifles. Nehemiah Chayon appears to have made a great impression on young Eibeschütz in Prague or Hamburg. With the Sabbatian Löbele Prosnitz, he was in constant, though secret intercourse. He studied thoroughly the works of Abraham Michael Cardoso, though they had been publicly condemned and branded as heretical. Eibeschütz had adopted the blasphemous tenets of these and other Sabbatians—namely, that there is no relation of any kind between the Most High God, the First Cause, and the Universe, but that a second person in the Godhead, the God of Israel, the image and prototype of the former, created the world, gave the Law, chose Israel, in short governs the Finite. He appears to have embraced also the conclusions deduced from this heretical theory, that Sabbataï Zevi was the true Messiah, that the second person of the Godhead was incorporated in him, and that by his appearance the Torah had ceased to have any importance.

But Eibeschütz had not sufficient strength of character or determination to act in conformity with his convictions. It would have been contrary to his nature to break openly with Rabbinical Judaism, and by proclaiming himself an anti-Talmudist, as had been done by several Sabbatians, to wage war against the whole of Judaism. He was too practical and loved ease too well to expose himself to the disagreeable consequences of such a rupture. Should he, like Chayon, wander forth a fugitive through Asia and Europe, and back again? Besides, he loved the Talmud and Rabbinical literature as food for his wit, and could not do without them. The contradictions in his career and the disorders which he originated may be traced to want of harmony between his intellect and his temperament. Rabbinical Judaism did not altogether suit him, but the sources from which it was derived were indispensable to him, and had they not been in existence he would have created them. Fettered by this contradiction he deceived not only the world, but also himself; he could not arrive at any clear understanding with himself, and was a hypocrite without intending it.

At one-and-twenty Eibeschütz directed a school in Prague, and a band of subtlety-loving Talmud students gathered round him, hung on his lips, and admired his stimulating method, and playful way of dealing with difficulties. He captivated and inspired his pupils by his genial, one might almost say student-like, manners, by his sparkling wit, and scintillating sallies, not always within the bounds of propriety. His manner towards his pupils was altogether different from that of rabbis of the ordinary type. He did not slink along gloomily, like a penitent, and with bowed head, and he imposed no such restraints on them, but allowed them great freedom. Social life and lively, interesting conversation were necessities to him. For these reasons the number of Eibeschütz's disciples yearly increased, and counted by thousands. At thirty he was regarded not alone in Prague, but far and wide as an authority.

It has been stated that the council of rabbis of Frankfort-on-the-Main had clear proofs of Eibeschütz's connection with Löbele Prosnitz and the Podolian Sabbatians. Only his extensive influence and the great number of his disciples protected him from being included in the sentence of excommunication pronounced against the others. He had the hardihood to meet the suspicions against himself by excommunicating the Sabbatians (1725). Moses Chages, the man without "respect of persons," the "watchman of Zion" of that age, predicted that forbearance would prove hurtful. In fact, Eibeschütz was at that time deeply committed to the Sabbatian heresies, confessed the fact to Meïr Eisenstadt, the teacher of his youth, who knew his erring ways, and, apparently ashamed and repentant, promised amendment. Thanks to this clemency Eibeschütz maintained his reputation, increased by his erudition, his ever-growing body of disciples, and his activity. The suspicion of heresy was by degrees forgotten, and the community of Prague, in recognition of his merits, appointed him preacher (1728).

In another matter Eibeschütz left the beaten path, and placed himself in a somewhat ambiguous light. Either from vanity or calculation, he entered into intimate relations with the Jesuits in Prague. He carried on discussions with them, displaying a certain sort of liberality, as though he did not share the prejudices of the Jews. He associated, for instance, with that spiritual tyrant, Hasselbauer, the Jesuit bishop of Prague, who frequently made domiciliary visits among Jews, to search for and confiscate Hebrew books that had escaped the vigilance of the censor. Through this intimacy Eibeschütz obtained from the bishop the privilege to print the Talmud, so often proscribed by the Church of Rome. Did he act thus from self-interest, with the view of compelling the Bohemian Jews to use only copies of the Talmud printed by him, and in this way create a remunerative business, the profits to be shared with the Jesuits? This was most positively asserted in many Jewish circles. Eibeschütz obtained permission to print from the episcopal board of censors, on condition that every expression, every word in the Talmud which, in howsoever small a degree, appeared to be antagonistic to Christianity be expunged. He was willing to perpetrate this process of mutilation (1728–1739). Such obsequious pliability to the Jesuits excited the displeasure of many Jews. The community of Frankfort-on-the-Main spent a considerable sum—Moses Chages and perhaps David Oppenheim being at the bottom of the movement—in their efforts to obtain from the emperor a prohibition against the publication of the Prague edition. Eibeschütz, on the other hand, used his connection with Christian circles to avert perils impending over the Bohemian Jews.

Eibeschütz's early heretical leanings were not absolutely forgotten. When the post of rabbi at Metz became vacant, he applied for it. When the council were occupied with the election, the gray-haired widow of the late rabbi appeared at the meeting, and warned them not to insult the memory of her dead husband and the pious rabbis who had preceded him, by appointing a heretic, perhaps worse (a Mumar), their successor. This solemn admonition from the venerable matron who was related to the wife of Eibeschütz so impressed the council that his election fell through. Jacob Joshua Falk was appointed at Metz. He remained there only a few years, and, on his removal to Frankfort-on-the-Main, Eibeschütz was chosen in his place. Before he entered on his duties, the Austrian War of Succession broke out, a struggle between youthful, aspiring Prussia, under Frederick the Great, and decrepit Austria, under Maria Theresa. A French army, in conjunction with Prussia and the anti-emperor Charles VII, occupied Prague. The systematically brutalized population of Bohemia and Moravia conceived the false notion that the Jews were treacherously taking part with the enemy. It was said that Frederick the Great, the Protestant heretic, was an especial patron of the Jews. In Moravia, whither the Prussians had not yet penetrated, occurred passionate outbursts of fury against the Jews. An Austrian field-marshal in Moravia, under the delusion of the Jews' treachery, issued a decree that the communities, within six days, should "pay down in cash 50,000 Rhenish gulden at Brünn, failing which, they would all be delivered over to pillage and the sword." Through the devoted exertions of Baron de Aguilar and the wealthy rabbi, Issachar Berush Eskeles—two members of the Vienna community—this decree was revoked by the empress, Maria Theresa (March 21). These men had another opportunity to avert a crushing disaster from their brethren.

Jonathan Eibeschütz, having been appointed rabbi of Metz, either from self-conceit or in order to secure for himself the post of rabbi in French Lorraine, imprudently fraternized with the French soldiery who occupied the town. He obtained from the French commandant a safe-conduct enabling him to travel unmolested to France, and thereby aroused in the Bohemian population the suspicion that he had a treasonable understanding with the enemy. After the departure of the French (end of 1742), the Austrian authorities held an inquiry into his conduct; and all his property, which had not been seized by the Croats, was sequestered. Eventually all the Moravian and Bohemian Jews were suspected of treason. The most Catholic empress, who was at once good-natured and hard-hearted, published a decree, December 18, 1744, for Bohemia, January 2, 1745, for Moravia, that all Jews in these royal provinces should, "for several important reasons," within a brief period be banished; and that Jews found in these crown lands after the expiration of this period should be "removed by force of arms." Terrible severity was shown in enforcing this decree. The Jews of Prague, more than 20,630 souls, were obliged in the depth of winter hurriedly to leave the town and suffer in the villages; and the royal cities were forbidden to harbor them even temporarily. The position of the Bohemian and Moravian Jews was pitiable. Whither should they turn? In the eighteenth century Jews were not in request or made welcome on account of their wealth as they had been before. As though Eibeschütz felt himself in a measure to blame for their misfortunes, he took trouble to obtain relief for them. He preached on their behalf in Metz, addressed letters to the communities in the south of France, Bayonne and Bordeaux, asking for aid, and wrote to the Roman community begging them to intercede with the pope on behalf of their unhappy brethren. It was all of but little avail. More efficacious appears to have been the intercession of De Aguilar, Berush Eskeles, and other Jews connected with the court of Vienna. The clergy, too, spoke on their behalf, and the ambassadors of Holland and England interceded warmly and urgently for them. The empress revoked her severe decree, and permitted the Jews in both the royal provinces to remain for an indefinite time (May 15, 1745). In the case of the Prague community alone, which was chiefly under suspicion, the strictness of the decree was not relaxed. Not till some years later, in consequence of a declaration by the states of the empire "that their departure would entail a loss of many millions" was the residence of all Jews prolonged to ten years, but under degrading conditions. They were to be diminished rather than be permitted to increase, their exact number being fixed. Only the eldest son was permitted to found a family. Some 20,000 "Familianten," as they were called, were allowed in Bohemia and 5,100 in Moravia, who were obliged to pay annually to the imperial treasury a sum of about 200,000 gulden. These restrictions were maintained almost up to the Revolution of 1848. Jonathan Eibeschütz rightly or wrongly was declared a traitor to his country, and forbidden ever to set foot on Austrian soil.

If, during the first years passed in Metz, he was so popular that the community would not allow him to accept the post of rabbi at Fürth, offered to him, he must have made himself disagreeable later on, as during his difficulties, he could not find supporters there, nor any witnesses to his innocence. If he committed only a small portion of the mean actions with which he was reproached, his life must have presented a striking contrast to the sermons which he composed. Eibeschütz did not feel at home in Metz; he missed the bustling, argumentative band of young admirers, and the wide platform on which to display his Talmudical erudition. In France there were fewer students of the Talmud. It was therefore pardonable that he strenuously exerted himself to obtain the post of rabbi of the "three communities" (Hamburg, Altona, and Wandsbeck). Thanks to the efforts of his connections and admirers, and his fame as the most distinguished of Talmudists and miracle workers, the choice fell on him. As the Jews of the three towns had their own civil jurisdiction, based on Rabbinical law, they required an acute rabbi, a lawyer, and they could not, from this point of view, have made a better selection.

But an evil spirit seems to have entered Altona with his instalment, which threw into disorder not only the three communities, but also the whole of German and Polish Judaism. Eibeschütz, though not free from blame, must not alone be made answerable. The tendency of the age was culpable, and Jacob Emden, an unattached rabbi, was more especially the prime mover in the strife. He desired to unmask hypocrisy, and in doing so laid bare the nakedness of his Jewish contemporaries.

Jacob Emden Ashkenazi (abbreviated to Jabez; born 1698, died 1776) resembled his father Chacham Zevi, as a branch its parent stem; or rather he made the father whom he admired extravagantly his model in everything. The perverted spirit of the age prevented his following his natural bent and inspirations. A true son of the Talmud, he seriously believed that a Jew ought to occupy himself with other branches of knowledge only during "the hour of twilight," and considered it unlawful to read newspapers on the Sabbath. He, too, was well versed in the Talmud, and set a high value on the Kabbala and the Zohar, of the dangerous extravagances of which he at first knew nothing. Philosophy, although he possessed no knowledge of it, was an abomination to him. In his perverseness he maintained it to be impossible that the philosophical work, "The Guide," could have been composed by the orthodox rabbi, Maimuni. In character he was just, truth-loving, and staunch, herein forming a sharp contrast to Jonathan Eibeschütz. Whatever he considered as truth or false, he did not hesitate forthwith to defend or condemn with incisive acuteness; it was contrary to his nature to conceal, dissimulate, hide his opinions, or play the hypocrite. He differed from Eibeschütz in another respect. The latter was agreeable, pliant, careless, cheerful, and sociable; Emden, on the contrary, was unsociable, unbending, earnest, melancholy, and a lover of solitude. Well-to-do, and maintaining himself by his business, Emden was always disinclined to undertake the office of a rabbi. He was too well aware of his own craving for independence, his awkwardness, and impetuosity. Only once was he induced to accept the office of rabbi, in Emden (from which he derived his surname); but he relinquished it after a few years on account of his dislike to the work and from ill-health, and settled in Altona. He obtained from the king of Denmark the privilege of establishing a printing-press; built a house with a private synagogue, and, with his family and a few friends, formed a community within the community. He indeed visited the exchange, but he lived enwrapped in a dreamworld of his own.

Emden was on the list of candidates for the appointment of rabbi to the "three communities." His few friends worked for him, and urged him to exert himself to try and obtain the post. He, however, resisted all their solicitations, and declared decidedly, that he would not accept the election even if the choice fell on him, but he was none the less aggrieved that he obtained only a few votes, and entertained an unfriendly feeling towards Eibeschütz, because he was preferred. There was another peculiarity in Emden's character: his antipathy to heretics. His father Chacham Zevi had undauntedly pursued Nehemiah Chayon and the other Sabbatians, and had brought himself into painful positions by so doing. Emden desired nothing more ardently than to follow his father, and would not have shunned martyrdom in the cause. Since the return of Moses Chages to Palestine, he considered himself the watchman on behalf of orthodoxy among his fellow-believers. He was a Jewish grand inquisitor, and was in readiness to hurl the thunders of excommunication whenever heresy, particularly the Sabbatian, should show itself. The opportunity of exercising his unpaid office of inquisitor, of proving his zeal for orthodoxy, and even of suffering in its behalf, was granted him by Jonathan Eibeschütz.

At the time when Eibeschütz entered on his duties as rabbi a painful agitation was prevalent among the Jews of the "three communities." Within the year several young women had died in childbirth. Every wife in expectation of becoming a mother awaited the approaching hour with increasing anxiety. The coming of the new rabbi, who should drive away the destroying angel by whom young women had been selected as victims, was awaited with eager longing. At that time a rabbi was regarded as a protector against every species of evil (Megîn), a sort of magician, and the wives of Hamburg and Altona expected still greater things from Jonathan Eibeschütz, who had been heralded by his admirers as the most gifted of rabbis and a worker of miracles. How would he respond to these exaggerated expectations? Even if he had been honest, Eibeschütz would have been forced to resort to some mystification to assert his authority in his new office. Therefore, immediately after his arrival, he prepared talismans—writings for exorcising spirits (Cameos, Kameoth)—for the terrified women, and indulged in other forms of magic to impose upon the credulous. He had distributed similar amulets in Metz, Frankfort-on-the-Main, and other places. From Frankfort a rumor had reached Altona that the talismans of Eibeschütz were of an altogether different nature to what they usually were, and that they were heretical in character. Out of curiosity one of the amulets distributed by the chief rabbi Jonathan Eibeschütz, was opened in Altona, and was found to contain the following invocation:

"O God of Israel, Thou who dwellest in the adornment of Thy might [a Kabbalistic allusion], send through the merit of Thy servant Sabbataï Zevi healing for this woman, whereby Thy name and the name of Thy Messiah, Sabbataï Zevi, may be sanctified in the world."

It is hard to tell which is more surprising—Eibeschütz's stupid belief in and attachment to the impostor of Smyrna, who had apostatized from Judaism, or his imprudence in thus exposing himself. He had indeed altered the words a little, and put certain letters to represent others; but he must have known that the key to his riddle was easy to find. These attempts at deception naturally did not remain a secret. The amulets came into the hands of Emden, who no longer entertained a doubt that Eibeschütz still adhered to the Sabbatian heresy. Though he rejoiced greatly at having found an opportunity to exercise his office of inquisitor, he in a measure recoiled from the consequences of doing so. Was it wise to begin a contest with a man who had an extensive reputation as the most learned Talmudist of his day, as an orthodox rabbi, whose numerous disciples—over 20,000 it was said—were rabbis, officials of communities, and holders of influential posts, who clung to him with admiration, and were ready to form a phalanx round him and exert all their energies in his defense? On the other hand, the matter could not be suppressed, it having been discussed in the Jews' quarter and on exchange. The elders felt obliged to interrogate Eibeschütz on the matter, and he replied by a pitiful evasion. The council, whether believing Eibeschütz or not, was bound to lend him a helping hand in burying the matter. What a disgrace for the highly respected "three communities," which a quarter of a century earlier had condemned and branded the Sabbatians as heretics, that they themselves should have chosen a Sabbatian as their chief rabbi! Jacob Emden, from whose zeal the worst was to be dreaded, was partially beguiled by flatteries, partially intimidated by threats, to refrain from publishing the affair. But these threats against him necessarily led to publicity. Emden solemnly declared in his synagogue that he held the writer of the amulets to be a Sabbatian heretic who deserved to be excommunicated, that he did not charge the chief rabbi with their composition, but that the latter was in duty bound to clear himself from suspicion. This declaration caused a deep sensation in the "three communities," and aroused vehement animosity. The council, and the greater part of the community, regarded it as a gross piece of presumption and as an encroachment upon their jurisdiction. The friends of Eibeschütz, especially his disciples, fanned the flame. Religious hero-worship was so prevalent that some did not hesitate to declare that if their rabbi believed in Sabbataï Zevi, they would share his belief. Without putting Emden on trial the council arbitrarily decreed that no one, under pain of excommunication, should attend his synagogue, which was to be closed, and that he should not publish anything at his printing establishment. And now began a struggle which at first produced abundant evil, but which in the end had a purifying effect. Jonathan Eibeschütz published the affair far and wide among his numerous friends and disciples in Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland, and painted himself as an innocent man unjustly accused, and Jacob Emden as an audacious fellow who had the presumption to brand him as a heretic. He was hurried along from one untruth to another, from violence to violence; but he nevertheless had many partisans to support him. Jacob Emden on the contrary stood well-nigh alone, for the few who adhered to him had not the courage to come forward openly. He however informed his friends, Eibeschütz's enemies, on the same day of what had occurred. The foolish affair of the amulets thus acquired a notoriety which it was impossible to check. Every Jew capable of forming an opinion on the subject took one side or the other; the majority adhered to Eibeschütz. Many indeed could not conceive it possible that so distinguished a Talmudist could be a Sabbatian, and the accusation against him was accounted base slander on the part of the irascible and malignant Emden. Great ignorance prevailed with regard to the character and history of the Sabbatians (or Shäbs, as they were termed), for a quarter of a century had passed since they had been everywhere excommunicated. Public opinion was therefore at first in Eibeschütz's favor.

Eibeschütz thoroughly understood how to win over opponents to his side, and to soothe them with illusions. He convened a meeting in the synagogue, and took a solemn oath that he did not adhere to a single article of the Sabbatian creed; if he did, might fire and brimstone descend on him from heaven! He went on to anathematize this sect with all kinds of maledictions, and excommunicated his adversaries who had slandered him, and originated these elements of strife. This solemn declaration made a deep impression. Who could doubt the innocence of a rabbi of such high standing when he called God to witness respecting it? The council of the "three communities" considered itself fully justified in ordering Emden, as a common slanderer, to leave Altona. As he refused, and referred to the charter granted him by the king, he was cut off from all intercourse with others, pursued by intrigues, and relentlessly persecuted. This treatment only aroused Emden to more strenuous efforts. Letters had meantime been sent from Metz with other amulets (1751), which Eibeschütz had distributed there, and the genuineness of which he had himself admitted, clearly demonstrating that he revered Sabbataï Zevi as the Messiah and saviour. The Metz amulets were in the main of the same character:—

"In the name of the God of Israel ... of the God of his anointed Sabbataï Zevi, through whose wounds healing is come to us, who with the breath of His mouth slays the Evil One, I adjure all spirits and demons not to injure the bearer of this amulet."

A judicial examination of these amulets had been made by the council of rabbis and elders; and all who had any in their possession were commanded to deliver them up under pain of excommunication. A royal procurator confirmed their authenticity; that is to say, they were proved by the evidence of witnesses under oath to be the work of Eibeschütz; who did not find one person of note in Metz to maintain his honor. It was some small satisfaction to Jacob Emden to know that he did not stand alone in his conflict; but concurrence in his views did not profit him much. The members of the "three communities," with the exception of a small minority, adhered to Eibeschütz, and made his cause their own. It was forbidden to speak a slanderous word against the chief rabbi. Elsewhere his enemies made plans—he received notice from all quarters as to what was designed against him—but there was no definite scheme. His disciples, on the other hand, were extraordinarily zealous in his behalf. One of these, Chayim of Lublin, had the courage, in glorification of Eibeschütz and in defamation of his opponents, to excommunicate three of the latter in his synagogue, Jacob Emden, Nehemiah Reischer, and an elder in Metz, Moses Mayo, because they had dared slander "that most perfect man, Jonathan, in whom God glorified Himself." This decree of excommunication was distributed throughout Poland for observance and imitation. The remaining Polish rabbis agreed with it, either being supporters of Eibeschütz, or having been bribed, or being indifferent in the matter. By way of Königsberg and Breslau, for example, large sums were sent to Poland to commend the case of Eibeschütz to the rabbis of that country. Matters did not stop at excommunications and anathemas; in Altona (Iyar 25=May) they culminated in a riot. A hand-to-hand fight took place, and the police had to be called in. In consequence, Jacob Emden, believing his life to be endangered through the fury of Eibeschütz's partisans, fled to Amsterdam on the next day, and was kindly received there. Emden's wife was ordered by the council not to part with any of his property, as an action for damages would be brought against him.

Eibeschütz was acute enough to perceive that the residence of Jacob Emden in Amsterdam might prove dangerous, as he would have full scope, by means of his trenchant pen, to expose the rabbi's past history through the press. To counteract this, Eibeschütz issued to his followers in Germany, Poland, and Italy, an encyclical (Letter of Zeal, Sivan 3, 1751), in which, under the guise of an exhortation to bear testimony to his orthodoxy, he besought them to make his cause their own. He urged them to prosecute his adversary with all their energy and by every possible means: it would be set to their account as a special merit by the Almighty. It greatly resembled the command of a popular general to thousands of his soldiers to attack, and pitilessly ill-treat defenseless men. To complete the delusion, he induced two men, devotedly attached to mysticism, but not to truth—Elijah Olianow and Samuel Essingen—to declare that his amulets contained nothing dangerous or heretical, but a great deal of deep orthodox mysticism intelligible only to the few.

Eibeschütz had not yet just grounds for rejoicing. The excess of insolence of the newly-fledged rabbi of Lublin in excommunicating gray-haired rabbis aroused the leading men in the communities. A cry of horror resounded from Lorraine to Podolia at this arrogance, justly suspected to be due to the instigation of Eibeschütz. Three rabbis at length combined, Joshua Falk, Leb Heschels, and Heilmann, and others joined them. Eibeschütz was challenged to exculpate himself before a meeting of rabbis regarding the amulets ascribed to him, which undeniably were heretical. As was to be anticipated, Eibeschütz declined to justify himself in any way, and the confederates took council as to what further steps to take against him. The scandal continued to increase. The newspapers reported the quarrel amongst the Jews regarding the rabbi of Altona. Christians naturally could not comprehend the nature of the dispute. It was said that a vehement controversy had arisen amongst the Jews as to whether the Messiah had or had not already appeared. The Jews were derided, because they preferred to believe in the impostor Sabbataï Zevi, rather than in Jesus. This reacted on the Jews, and the two parties imputed to each other the offense of this scandal, this "profanation of God's name." An energetic man, Baruch Yavan, of Poland, transferred the schism to that country. He was a disciple of Falk, agent to the notorious Saxon minister Brühl, and enjoyed considerable reputation in Poland. Through his intrigues, a Polish magnate deprived Chayim Lublin of his office as rabbi, and ordered him and his father to be thrown into prison (Elul=September, 1751). In Poland the controversy assumed an ugly character—bribery, information through spies, acts of violence, and treachery being among its leading features. Seceders from each party betrayed the secrets of one to the other. Every fair and every synod were battlefields, where the partisans of Eibeschütz and Falk contended. The proceedings at the synods were more disorderly than those in the Polish Reichstag. When the defenders of either side proved more numerous or more energetic, the weaker party was excommunicated. The supporters of Eibeschütz were in the main more active. Count Brühl made them as many empty promises of protection, as he bestowed on their opponents through Baruch Yavan.

In Germany, naturally, matters were conducted with more moderation. The triumvirate of rabbis published a decision to the effect that the writer of the Sabbatian amulets should be cut off from communion with Israel. Every devout Jew lay under obligation to persecute him to the utmost of his power. No one might study the Talmud under his guidance. All who supported his cause were to be excommunicated. No mention was made of Eibeschütz's name. Many German rabbis concurred in this moderate decision, as also the Venetian rabbis who had excommunicated Luzzatto. The resolution was delivered to Eibeschütz and the council of the "three communities" (February, 1752), and notice was given to Eibeschütz that within two months he must clear himself before a rabbinical court of arbitration of the suspicion that he was the author of heretical amulets, failing which his name would be publicly stigmatized. This sentence of excommunication was to be printed by the Venetian council of rabbis, and published throughout the East and Africa. But Eibeschütz understood how to meet this blow craftily. The Italian rabbis were, for the most part, reluctant to burn their fingers in this violent quarrel, and declined to participate in any way. The council of rabbis at Leghorn, especially Malachi Cohen, the last of the Italian rabbinical authorities, inclined towards the side of Eibeschütz. The Portuguese in Amsterdam and London designedly kept themselves aloof from this domestic squabble among the Germans and Poles. One broker of Amsterdam, David Pinto, alone espoused Eibeschütz's cause, and threatened Emden with his anger if he continued his hostility. The council of rabbis in Constantinople, dazzled by Eibeschütz's illustrious name, or in some way deceived, declared decidedly for him, but would not pronounce a direct sentence of excommunication against his antagonists. What they neglected was done by a so-called envoy from Jerusalem, Abraham Israel, a presumptuous mendicant, who as a representative of the Holy Land and the Jewish nation, imprecated and anathematized all who should utter a slanderous word against Eibeschütz. Thus almost the whole of Israel was excommunicated; on the one side those who showed enmity towards the illustrious chief rabbi of the "three communities," and on the other those who supported that heretic. Thus the effects of excommunication were nullified, or rather it became ridiculous, and with it a phase of rabbinical Judaism disappeared.

A new turn was given this disagreeable controversy when it was transferred from its home to the law courts of the Christians. The fanaticism of Eibeschütz's followers was more to blame than the conduct of their opponents. One of the elders of Altona, who had so far remained true to the cause of the persecutors, in a letter to his brother showed himself somewhat doubtful of its justice. This letter was opened by the followers of Eibeschütz, and the writer was set down as a traitor, expelled from the council, ill-treated, and threatened with banishment from Altona. There remained no alternative for him but to address himself to the government of Holstein, to the king of Denmark, Frederick V, and unsparingly expose all the illegalities, meannesses, and violence of which Eibeschütz and his party had been guilty. The injustice of the council towards Jacob Emden and his wife was discussed in connection with the affair. An authenticated copy of the suspected amulets was translated into German. The trial was conducted with extreme bitterness; both parties spared no expense. The plaintiff and his faction in their anger did not confine themselves to necessary statements, but treacherously stigmatized as a crime much that was of an innocent nature. King Frederick, who loved justice, and his minister Bernstorff, gave judgment against the followers of Eibeschütz (June 3, 1752). The council of Altona was severely censured for its illegal and harsh treatment of Jacob Emden, and punished with a fine of 100 thalers. Emden was not only permitted to return to Altona, but the use of his synagogue and his printing establishment was restored. Eibeschütz was deprived of authority as rabbi of the Hamburg community, and ordered to clear himself with regard to the incriminating amulets, and to answer fifteen questions propounded to him. Events thus took an unfortunate turn for him. Even the well-intentioned letter of a partisan sent from Poland served to show how desperate his case was. Ezekiel Landau (born 1720, died 1793) as a young man had aroused hopes that he would become a second Jonathan Eibeschütz in rabbinical learning and sagacity. His opinion as rabbi of Jampol (Podolia) carried great weight. Landau wrote with youthful simplicity and straightforwardness to Eibeschütz that the amulets which he had seen were without doubt Sabbatian and heretical. He, therefore, could not believe that the honored and devout rabbi of Altona had written them. For that reason he was as much in favor of condemning the amulets, as of upholding Jonathan Eibeschütz and declaring war against his adversaries. He entreated Eibeschütz to condemn the amulets as heretical, and when occasion offered clear himself from the accusation that he was the author of the slanderous writings, full of unworthy expressions about God, and to condemn them leaf by leaf. This was a severe blow from the hand of a friend. As Eibeschütz had acknowledged the amulets to be genuine, and had only sophistically explained away their heresy, he was now in evil case. A follower of Emden's in addition published the correspondence and decisions of Eibeschütz's enemies, which stigmatized his conduct, together with an account of the amulets and their true interpretation ("The Language of Truth," printed August, 1752). Emden himself published the history of the false Messiah, Sabbataï Zevi, and the visionaries and knaves who had succeeded him, down to Chayon and Luzzatto, vividly describing the errors and disorderly excesses of the Sabbatians for his own generation, which was careless with regard to historical events, and had but scanty, confused knowledge on the subject. Thus it was made clear to many that the Sabbatian heresy aimed at nothing less than the dethronement of the God of Israel in favor of a phantom, and the dissolution of Judaism by means of Kabbalistic chimeras. But the worst that befell Eibeschütz was that Emden himself returned unmolested to Altona, and had the prospect of being indemnified for his losses.

The danger in which Eibeschütz found himself of being unmasked as a heretic in the courts of law, and before the eyes of the world, determined him to a step which a rabbi of the old stamp of honest piety, even under peril of death, would not have taken. He associated himself with an apostate baptized Jew, formerly his pupil, in order to obtain assistance from him in his difficulties. Moses Gerson Cohen, of Mitau, who, on his mother's side, was descended from Chayim Vital Calabrese, had studied the Talmud under Eibeschütz in Prague for seven years, then traveled in the East, and, after his return to Europe, had been baptized in Wolfenbüttel under the name Charles Anton. He was appointed by his patron, the duke of Brunswick, Reader in Hebrew in Helmstädt. It was afterwards proved that this convert had become a Christian solely from self-interest.

To him the chief rabbi of the "three communities" secretly repaired in order to induce him to compose a vindication, or rather a panegyric, of his conduct. It is evident on the face of it, even at the present day, that the work was written "to order," and it transpired that Eibeschütz had dictated it to Charles Anton. He is extolled as the most sagacious and upright Jew of his time, as a man versed in philosophy, history, and mathematics, and as a persecuted victim. Jacob Emden, on the other hand, is represented as an incompetent, envious fellow. Anton dedicated this work to the king of Denmark, and commended to him the case of the alleged innocent and persecuted man. This work, with another cunningly chosen expedient, had favorable results for Eibeschütz. He had screened himself not only behind a baptized Jew, but behind a princess. King Frederick V had married, as his second wife, a princess of Brunswick, Maria Juliana, and a Jewish agent—a partisan of Eibeschütz—did business at the court of Brunswick. The latter made the most of his direct and indirect influence with the young Danish princess, and said a good word to her on behalf of the chief rabbi under accusation of heresy. With the comment that the majority of rabbis except some litigious, malevolent individuals sided with Eibeschütz—proof of the justice of his cause—the court suppressed the amulet case. A royal decree, forbidding the continuation of this controversy, was read aloud in the Altona synagogue (February 7, 1753). At the suggestion of the government the vote of the community with regard to Eibeschütz was again taken, and resulted in his favor. He then took the oath of fealty to the king, and his position was more assured than ever. His sagacity had a second time gained the day, but his success was only transitory. The number of his enemies had materially increased even in Altona through the far-reaching dissensions and the better knowledge of his character gleaned little by little. His adversaries did not allow themselves to be silenced by the king's arbitrary decision without making another effort; and the rabbinical triumvirate urged them to petition for a revision of the heresy proceedings against Eibeschütz, and try to convince the king that the assertion that the majority of the rabbis were his partisans was entirely false, that, on the contrary, he was supported only by his relatives and disciples. The three rabbis and the rabbi of Hanover laid before the council a demand to consider Eibeschütz as excommunicated, and forbid him to exercise any rabbinical function until he repented of his heresy, and promised amendment. Hostile writings by Emden and others fed the fire of dissension; they were written in vehement, pitiless language and were full of petty gossip. To calm the public wrath, the Altona council with great difficulty induced Eibeschütz to make a binding declaration that he was prepared of his own free-will to justify himself before an impartial rabbinical court of arbitration, and submit to its decision (beginning of 1753). This only inflamed the strife. Eibeschütz proposed as his judges two rabbis, of Lissa and Glogau, men but little known, who were to add a third to their number. But the opposite party insisted that the court be composed of Joshua Falk and his colleagues. This angered Eibeschütz, who lost the calmness of mind he had hitherto maintained. At one time he desired to submit his cause to the rabbis of Constantinople, at another he proposed the Synod of the Four Polish Countries, to meet in Jaroslav late in the summer of 1753. He appears to have reckoned on obtaining a favorable sentence from this assemblage of many rabbis and influential persons. Relying on this, he believed that he could easily free himself from the compact forced upon him, of submitting to arbitration. He is said to have managed this by giving information at court that the royal prerogative had been encroached upon by this proposed appeal from the judgment of the sovereign to that of the rabbis. Both parties were therefore fined by the magistrates. This only increased his enemies, and several of his warmest supporters, former members of the communal council, renounced him, and proclaimed him, not only a heretic, but an intriguer. These opponents complained once more to the king with regard to the prevalent dissensions in the community, of which he was the cause. They could not, they said, obtain impartial judgment from him in their lawsuits, because he allowed himself to be guided in his decisions by spite and passion. The justice-loving king gave these complaints his attention. He desired to arrive at a definite conclusion with regard to the case, whether Eibeschütz was an arch-heretic, as his opponents maintained, or a persecuted innocent, as he described himself.

With this in view the king ordered certain Christian professors and theologians versed in Hebrew, to give him their opinion with regard to the amulets. Eibeschütz felt uneasy at the turn affairs had taken; he feared that the matter might prove disastrous to him. To place himself in a favorable light he resolved on a course which he had hitherto hesitated to adopt—to dispose public opinion in his favor through the press. As things then stood, there was no other course open to him, and he therefore composed a defense—"The Tables of Testimony," completed Tammuz 18, end of June, 1755, the first production of his pen. As might have been expected from a man of his ability, it is skillfully worked out; and he places his case in a favorable light. But Eibeschütz was unable to convince either his impartial contemporaries or posterity of his innocence. On the contrary, his vindication, and much of the evidence adduced, clearly betray his guilt. Emden and his disciple David Gans did not fail to publish refutations, drawing attention to weak points, and throwing doubt on the testimony in favor of Eibeschütz.

A publication by a professor and pastor, David Frederick Megerlin, early in 1756, made a fresh diversion, apparently in Eibeschütz's favor, with respect to this vexed question. This confused babbler and proselytizer, induced by the order of the Danish king to pronounce an opinion upon the matter, imagined that he had discovered the key to the enigmatical amulets of Eibeschütz, the disputed characters which his opponents explained as referring to Sabbataï Zevi being nothing less than a mystic allusion to Jesus Christ! The chief rabbi of Altona and Hamburg was at heart attached to the Christian faith, Megerlin maintained, but dared not come out openly through fear of the Jews. He himself, it is true, and his disciple, Charles Anton, had explained these amulets in quite another way, not in a Christian sense; but the latter had not comprehended the deeper meaning, and Eibeschütz had composed his vindication only for Polish Jews. In his heart of hearts the chief rabbi was a true believer in Christianity. Megerlin, therefore, called on the king of Denmark to protect Eibeschütz against the persecutions of the Jews, especially against the calumnies of Jacob Emden, who hated and persecuted the Christians, as his father had persecuted Chayon, also a secret Christian. In his folly Megerlin exhorted Eibeschütz most earnestly to throw off his mask, resign the post of rabbi of the "three communities," and allow himself to be baptized. He also addressed a circular letter to the Jews, urging them to arrange a general convention of rabbis and openly glorify Christianity. Had Eibeschütz possessed a spark of honor he would have repudiated, even at the risk of losing the king's favor, his supposed adherence to Christianity. But he did not take the smallest step to answer the charge of hypocrisy; he was content to profit by it. Megerlin's arguments, foolish as they were, convinced King Frederick. He revoked the suspension from office with which Eibeschütz was threatened, and decreed that the Jews of the Altona community should show him obedience. The Hamburg senate, also, again acknowledged him as rabbi of the German community. Eibeschütz exulted, and his admirers prepared a solemn triumph for him (Chanukkah—middle of December, 1756). His disciples, clad as knights, marched through the streets shouting, till they reached the rabbi's house, where they arranged a dancing-party. The six years of strife which had aroused every evil passion among the Jews, from Lorraine to Podolia, and from the Elbe to the Po, ended apparently in a dance. But at the same time Eibeschütz in another direction suffered defeat, which branded him in the eyes of those who had hitherto spoken favorably of him and supported him.

Facts flatly contradicted his assertion, put forward through his mouthpiece, Charles Anton, that "there were no longer any Sabbatians." They raised their serpent heads and shot forth their tongues full of poisonous rage at this very moment. The seed which Chayim Malach had scattered in Poland was by no means checked in growth by the anathemas of the rabbis. They had only forced the Sabbatians to disguise themselves better, and to counterfeit death; but they flourished secretly, and their following increased. Some towns in Podolia and Pakotia were full of Talmudists who, in Sabbatian fashion, scoffed at the Talmud, rejected the law of Judaism, and, under the mask of ascetic discipline, lived impure lives. The disorders to which the dispute regarding Eibeschütz had given rise in Poland encouraged the Polish Sabbatians to venture from their hiding-places and raise their masks a little. The time seemed favorable for an attempt to cast aside odious religious rites, and openly to come forward as anti-Talmudists. They needed a spirited leader to gather the scattered band, give it cohesion, and mark out a line of action. This leader now presented himself, and with his appearance began a new movement which threw the whole Jewish world of Poland into intense agitation and despair. This leader was the notorious Jacob Frank.

Jankiev Lejbovicz (that is, Jacob son of Leb) of Galicia, was one of the worst, most subtle, and most deceitful rascals of the eighteenth century. He could cheat the most sagacious, and veil his frauds so cleverly that after his death many still believed him an admirable man, who bore through life, and carried to the grave, most weighty secrets. He understood the art of deception even in his youth, and boasted how he had duped his own father. As a young man he traveled in Turkey in the service of a Jewish gentleman, and in Salonica entered into relations with the Sabbatians or Jewish Moslems there. If he did not learn from them how to work deceptive and mystifying miracles, he at all events learnt indifference towards all forms of religion. He became a Mahometan, as afterwards a Catholic, for so long as it served his purpose, and changed his religion as one changes one's clothes. From his long sojourn in Turkey he acquired the name of Frank, or Frenk. Ignorant of Talmudical literature, as he himself confessed, he was acquainted with the Zoharist Kabbala, explained it to suit his purpose, and took peculiar pleasure in the doctrine of metempsychosis, by virtue of which the successive Messiahs were not visionaries or impostors, but the embodiment of one and the same Messianic soul. King David, Elijah, Jesus, Mahomet, Sabbataï Zevi, and his imitators, down to Berachya, were one and the same personality, which had assumed different bodily forms. Why should not he himself be another incarnation of the Messiah? Although Jacob Frank, or Lejbovicz, loved money dearly, he accounted it only a lever by which to raise himself; he wished to play a brilliant part and surround himself with a mysterious halo. Circumstances were exceptionally favorable to him. He married in Nicopolis (Turkey) a very beautiful wife, through whom he attracted followers. He collected by degrees a small number of Turkish and Wallachian Jews, who shared his loose principles, and held him to be a superior being—the latest embodiment of the Messiah. He could not, however, carry on his mischievous schemes in Turkey, where he was persecuted.

Frank appears to have obtained intelligence of the schism in Poland caused by the Eibeschütz controversy, and thought that he might utilize the propitious moment to gather round him the Sabbatians of Podolia, and play a part among them, and by means of them. He came suddenly amongst them, visiting many towns of Podolia and the Lemberg district, where secret Sabbatians resided, with whom he may have been in communication previously. They fell, so to speak, into his arms. Frank needed followers, and they were seeking a leader. Now they found one who had come to them with a full purse, of the contents of which he was not sparing. In a trice he won the Sabbatians of Podolia. Frank disclosed himself to them as the successor of Sabbataï, or, what was the same thing, as the new-born soul of the Sabbatian chief Berachya. What this manifestation signified was known to the initiated. They understood by it the blasphemous and at the same time absurd theory of a kind of Trinity, consisting of the Holy and Most Ancient One, the Holy King, and a female person in the Godhead. Frank, like his predecessors, attributed the chief importance to the Holy King, at once the Messiah and God incarnate, and possessed of all power on earth and in heaven. Frank ordered his followers to address him as the Holy Lord. In virtue of his participation in the Godhead, the Messiah was able to do all things, even miracles, and Frank did perform miracles, as his followers maintained. The adherents whom he brought in his train, and whom he gathered round him in Poland, believed so strongly in his divine nature that they addressed to him mystic prayers in the language of the Zohar, with the same formulas that the Donmäh of Salonica were wont to address to Jacob Querido and Berachya. In short, Frank formed a sect from the Sabbatians of Podolia, called by his name, "Frankists." Their founder taught his disciples to acquire riches for themselves, even by fraudulent and dishonest means. Deceit was nothing more than skillful artifice. Their chief task was to undermine rabbinical Judaism, and to oppose and annihilate the Talmud. This task they undertook with a passion which perhaps owed its origin to the constraints imposed upon them through fear of persecution. The Frankists opposed the Zohar to the Talmud, and Simon bar Yochaï, its alleged author, to the other authorities of the Talmud, as though in earlier times the former had combated the latter and accused them of being the falsifiers of Judaism. The true teaching of Moses was said to be contained only in the Zohar, which had declared the whole of rabbinical Judaism to be on a lower level—a fact which blundering Kabbalists had so long overlooked. The Frankists, more clear-sighted, had discovered the half-concealed secret of the Zohar. They rightly called themselves anti-Talmudists as well as Zoharites. With a certain childish frowardness they did exactly those things which rabbinical Judaism strongly prohibited, and neglected those which the latter prescribed, not only in points of ritual, but also with regard to marriage and the laws of chastity. Among these anti-Talmudic Frankists were found rabbis and so-called preachers (Darshanim, Maggidim), Jehuda Leb Krysa, rabbi of Nadvorna, and Rabbi Nachman ben Samuel Levi of Busk. Of especial reputation among Polish Sabbatians was Elisha Schor of Rohatyn, an aged man, descended from distinguished Polish rabbis. He, his sons, his daughter Chaya (who knew the Zohar by heart, and was considered a prophetess), his grandson, and sons-in-law were from an early period thoroughgoing Sabbatians, to whom it was a positive pleasure to deride rabbinical precepts.

During the first months after his return to Poland, Frank held secret conferences with the anti-Talmudists of Podolia, as a public demonstration was attended with danger. One day, he with about twenty of his followers was surprised in Laskorun in a conventicle. The Frankists declared that they had been singing psalms in the Zohar language, while their adversaries asserted that they had been performing an indecent dance around a half-naked woman, and kissing her. Many gathered about the inn to force their way in; others ran to the police to give information that a Turk had stolen into Podolia to pervert the Jews to the Mahometan religion and make them emigrate to Turkey, and that those who had joined him were leading an Adamite, that is to say dissolute, life. The police immediately interposed, broke open the barricaded doors, and expelled the Frankists. Frank was dismissed next day as a foreigner, and repaired to the neighboring Turkish territory; and the Podolian Frankists were kept in custody. The incident made a sensation, and was perhaps intentionally exaggerated. Like wild-fire the news concerning the Sabbatians spread. It can be imagined what this defiance of Rabbinical Judaism meant in those days, especially in Poland, where the most insignificant religious rites were sedulously observed. It was now discovered that, in the midst of the excessive piety which characterized the Poles, a number of persons, brought up in the knowledge of the Talmud, scoffed at the whole system of Rabbinical Judaism. The rabbis and elders forthwith began to employ the usual weapons of excommunication and persecution against the offenders, and the secret heretics were hunted out. Won over by large sums, the Polish authorities energetically supported the persecutors. Those in distress showed signs of repentance, and made public confession of their misdeeds, which, be they accurate or exaggerated, present a sad picture of the deterioration of the Polish Jews. Before the council of rabbis in Satanov, in open court, several men and women stated that they and their friends had not only treated the rites of Judaism with contempt, but had abandoned themselves to fornication, adultery, incest, and other iniquities, and had done so in accordance with Kabbalistic-mystic teachings. The penitents declared that Frank had taught his followers to scoff at chastity.

In consequence of this evidence a solemn sentence of excommunication, during the reading of which tapers were extinguished, was pronounced in Brody against the Frankists: no one might intermarry with them, their sons and daughters were to be treated as bastards, and none who were even suspected could be admitted to the post of rabbi, to any religious office, or to the profession of teacher. Every one was in duty bound to denounce and unmask the secret Sabbatians. This excommunication was repeated in several communities, and finally ratified by a great synod in Konstantinov on the Jewish New Year (September, 1756). The document was printed, distributed, and ordered to be read aloud every month in the synagogues for observance. This sentence of excommunication contained one point of great importance. No one under thirty years of age was to be permitted to study the Kabbala. Necessity at length opened the eyes of the rabbis to the recognition of the impure spring, which since the time of Lurya had poisoned the sap of the tree of Judaism. More than four centuries had passed since philosophical inquiry had been forbidden, and the young Kabbala encouraged. In their blindness, the rabbis had imagined that they were strengthening Judaism in placing folly on the throne of wisdom. This course produced that book of lies, the Zohar, which impudently set itself above the Holy Writings and the Talmud. Finally, the delusions of the Kabbala declared a life and death war against rabbinical Judaism. Such were the fruits of blindness. The members of the synod of Konstantinov turned in their perplexity to Jacob Emden, who, since his controversy with Eibeschütz, was accounted the representative of sound orthodoxy. He, too, enjoyed a triumph, though of an altogether different kind from the one his antagonist was at the same time celebrating in the midst of his noisy admirers. The Polish Jews at last began to be aware that secular knowledge and cultivated eloquence are after all not altogether objectionable, since they can render assistance to Judaism. They were desirous that a cultured Portuguese should come to Poland, endowed with knowledge and readiness of speech, who would represent them before the Polish magistracy and clergy, in order to suppress the dangerous Frankist sect.

Jacob Emden, deeply affected by the despairing appeal of his Polish brethren, came to a conclusion of great importance for succeeding ages. Sabbatians of all shades appealed to the Zohar as a sacred authority, as the Bible of a new revelation, excusing all their blasphemies and indecencies by quotations from it. What if the Zohar should prove not to be genuine, but only a supposititious work? And this was the conclusion to which Emden came. The repulsive incidents in Poland first suggested the inquiry to him, and it became clear to him that at least a portion of the Zohar was the production of an impostor.

To the question whether it would be lawful to persecute the Frankists, Jacob Emden answered emphatically in the affirmative. He held them, according to the accounts received from Poland, to be shameless transgressors of the most sacred laws of decency and chastity, turning vice into virtue by means of mystical jugglery. No persuasion, however, was required from him; when persecution became necessary in Poland the will to inflict it was never wanting. The Frankists were denounced to the magistracy and clergy as a new sect, and handed over to the Catholic Inquisition, and the bishop of Kamieniec, Nicolas Dembowski, in whose diocese they were apprehended, had no objection to erect a stake. Frank was cunning enough to avert from his followers the blow aimed at them and to direct it against their enemies. From Chocim, where after a brief imprisonment he had settled in safety, he counseled them to emphasize two points in their defense: that they believed in a Trinity, and that they rejected the Talmud as a compilation full of error and blasphemy. His counsel meeting with opposition, he secretly assembled some of his followers in a small town in Poland, and reiterated his advice, with the addition that twenty or thirty of them must quickly be baptized to give more emphasis to their assertions that they acknowledged the Trinity and rejected the Talmud. To Frank change of religion was a small matter. The Talmud Jews of the district heard of Frank's secret conference with his confederates, collected a band, attacked them, and after using them roughly placed them in confinement. This proceeding provoked the anti-Talmudists to revenge. They would not, indeed, be baptized, but they declared before the tribunal of Bishop Dembowski that they were almost Christians, that they believed in a Divine Trinity, that the rest of the Jews, who repudiated this doctrine, did not hold the true faith, and persecuted them on account of their superiority. To make their breach with Judaism unmistakable, or to revenge themselves in a very sanguinary way, they made false accusations, namely, that believers in the Talmud make use of the blood of Christians, and that the Talmud inculcates the murder of Christians as a sacred duty. There was no difficulty in trumping up evidence in favor of the accusation. It was only necessary that some Christian child should be missing. Something of the kind must have occurred in Jampol in Podolia (April, 1756), and immediately the most respected Jews of the town were placed in chains, and the other communities menaced. Bishop Dembowski and his chapter, rejoiced at their good luck, favored the Frankists in every way in return for their false evidence, freed them from prison, protected them from persecution, allowed them to settle in the diocese of Kamieniec, permitted them to live as they pleased, and were delighted to foster their hatred of the Talmud Jews. The bishop flattered himself that, through the Frankists, among whom were several rabbis, he would be able to convert many Polish Jews to Catholicism. The new sect passed into the state in which the persecuted becomes the persecutor.

In order to drive their adversaries to desperation, the Frankists (1757) petitioned Bishop Dembowski to arrange a disputation between themselves and the Talmudists, and bound themselves to prove both the doctrine of the Trinity and the harmful nature of the Talmud, from the Scriptures and the Zohar. To this the bishop willingly consented. One of the Frankist rabbis—perhaps old Elisha Schor, of Rohatyn—composed a confession of faith, which, almost unequaled for audacity and untruthfulness, is so artful in its explanation of Sabbatian-Kabbalistic doctrines as to have led the bishop to suppose that they were in consonance with the Catholic faith, and to drive their adversaries into a corner. The Frankist confession of faith contains nine articles. The religion revealed by God to man contains so many deep mysteries, that it must be thoroughly searched out and examined; without higher inspiration, however, it cannot be understood. One of these mysteries is that the Godhead consists of three Persons, equal to one another, at once a Trinity and a Unity. Another mystery is that the Godhead assumes human form to manifest itself visibly to all men. Through the mediation of these deities incarnate, mankind is redeemed and saved—not through the Messiah expected to assemble the Jews and lead them back to Jerusalem. The latter is a false belief: Jerusalem and the Temple will never be rebuilt. The Talmud, indeed, interprets revealed faith otherwise; but its interpretation is baneful, and has led its adherents into error and unbelief. The Talmud contains most revolting statements; such as that Jews are permitted, indeed, obliged, to deceive and slay Christians. The Zohar, which is diametrically opposed to the Talmud, offers the only true and correct interpretation of the Holy Writings. All these absurd statements, the Frankist confession of faith supported by passages from the Bible and the Zohar; and to vilify the Talmud, passages in it were intentionally misrepresented. The creed was printed and published in the Hebrew and the Polish language. The representatives of the Polish community—the Synod of the Four Countries—were painfully sensible, in their desperate situation, of the want of education prevalent among them. They could not produce a single man who could expose the imposture of the Frankists and the hollowness of their creed in well-turned or even tolerable language. The proud leaders of the Synod behaved like children in their anxiety. They helplessly devised extravagant schemes, wished to appeal to the pope, and to incite the Portuguese in Amsterdam and Rome to protect them from the machinations of their vindictive enemies.

Bishop Dembowski consented to the proposition of the Frankists, and issued a command that the Talmudists send deputies to a disputation at Kamieniec, failing which he would punish them and burn the Talmud as a book hostile to Christianity. In vain the Polish Jews referred to their ancient privileges, screened themselves behind great nobles, and spent large sums of money. They were obliged to prepare for the disputation and render account to the enemies they had so greatly despised. Only a few rabbis appeared. What could the representatives of the Talmud, with their profound ignorance and halting speech, effect against the audacious denunciations of the Frankists, particularly as they also acknowledged the Zohar as a sacred book, and this, as a matter of fact, formulates the doctrine of a kind of Trinity! What happened at the disputation of Kamieniec has never transpired. The Talmudists were accounted as vanquished and refuted. Bishop Dembowski publicly declared (October 14, 1757), that, as the anti-Talmudists had set down in writing and proved the chief points of their confession of faith, they were permitted everywhere to hold disputations with the Talmudists. Copies of the Talmud were ordered to be confiscated, brought to Kamieniec, and there publicly burned by the hangman. Dembowski was permitted arbitrarily to favor the one party and condemn the other. The king of Poland and his minister, Count Brühl, troubled themselves but little about internal affairs, still less about the Jews. Hence Dembowski, who at about that time was made archbishop of Lemberg, was allowed with the aid of the clergy, the police, and the Frankists, to search for copies of the Talmud and other rabbinical writings in the towns of his bishopric, collect them at Kamieniec, and drag them through the streets in mockery. Only the Bible and the Zohar were to be spared, as in the time of the Talmud persecution under Popes Julius IV and Pius V. Nearly a thousand copies of the Talmud were thrown into a great pit at Kamieniec and burnt by the hangman. The Talmudists could do nothing, but groan, weep, and proclaim a rigorous fast-day on account of "the burning of the Torah." It was the Kabbala that had kindled the torches for the funeral pile of the Talmud. The clergy, in conjunction with the anti-Talmudists, daily made domiciliary visits into Jewish houses to confiscate copies of the Talmud.

To free themselves and all other Jews from the oft repeated, and as often refuted, accusation of child-murder, which the abject Frankists had confirmed, the Jewish Talmudists sent Eliakim Selig (Selek) to Benedictus XIV, to procure an official exposure of the falsehood of the charge brought against Jews. Eliakim's determination and persistence succeeded in obtaining this authoritative acquittal in Rome at the end of 1757.

Suddenly Bishop Dembowski died (November 17, 1757) a violent death, and this led to a new development in the controversy. Persecution of the Talmudists immediately ceased, and from that time the Frankists were persecuted, imprisoned, and declared outlaws. Their beards were shaved off as a mark of disgrace and to make them easily recognizable. The majority, no longer able to maintain themselves in Kamieniec, fled to the neighboring province of Bessarabia. But they were even more disturbed under Turkish jurisdiction. Their persecutors informed the Jewish community of the arrival of the anti-Talmudists in their district and of their injuriousness to Judaism, and the former had only to notify the Pasha and the Cadi that these supposed Polish Jews were not under the protection of the Chacham Bashi (chief rabbi) of Constantinople in order to invite the Turks to fall upon the newcomers and mercilessly rob and ill-treat them. In despair the Frankists wandered restlessly about the borderlands of Podolia and Bessarabia. At length they addressed the king of Poland, and implored him to confirm the privilege tolerating their worship granted them by Bishop Dembowski. Augustus III, the weakling and martyr of the seven years' war, thereupon issued a decree (June 11, 1758) permitting the Frankists to return unmolested to their homes, and reside in Poland wherever they pleased. The decree was not enforced with sufficient energy, and the Frankists continued to be persecuted by their opponents aided by the nobles. In their trouble some of their body were sent to beg Frank, who had so long forsaken them, to assist them with his advice. While affecting to demur, he willingly obeyed their call and repaired again to Podolia (January, 1759).