Outlines of Jewish History from B.C. 586 to C.E. 1885 by Magnus Katie Lady M. (Michael) Friedländer

Author:Magnus, Katie, Lady, M. (Michael) Friedländer, [Magnus, Katie, Lady, M. (Michael) Friedländer,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Jewish
ISBN: 4064066246945
Google: l-Gkz7sqAh0C
Publisher: Good Press
Published: 2019-12-05T05:00:00+00:00

is an instance of the kind. But it was probably just this sure sense that God never would desert His people that saved them from utter degradation. And so, if the Piyutim occasionally insist a little strongly on God’s especial and peculiar love for Israel, under Israel’s especial and peculiar need for it in those days, the slight exclusiveness of their religious aspirations may well be forgiven to them.

4. A Specimen Planet.—Astronomers, before they begin to study the orbit of any particular star, like to be familiar with the general aspect of the heavens; and students of history, who wish to learn about any special period or personage, have to follow much the same course, in order that they may be able to fill in for themselves the background to any prominent figure. The general condition of the Jewish people in the chief countries of Europe during the Middle Ages is now, perhaps, sufficiently familiar to us for this plan to be possible, and, as each star peeps out from its own particular corner of the dark sky, we can picture somewhat accurately the nature of the surrounding darkness which it illumined. Thus, the end of the ninth century, and the country Egypt, recalls to memory the tempestuous close of a long period of literary activity. The labours of the Gaonim were becoming, by that date, intermittent and interrupted, and Jehuda the Blind, one of the most active of them all, was already nearly a hundred years dead, when in 849 the Sultan Mutavakel33 imposed those intolerant and degrading disabilities on the Jews of the East which were the beginning of the end. Oppressed from without, and divided by jealousies from within, the schools of Babylon gradually closed, one after the other, and the scholars migrated to Egypt and to Spain. In 892, to one of these settlers in Upper Egypt there was born a child who grew up and grew famous under the name and title of Gaon Saadia.34 He became head of the college at Sora, and was a great authority on all theological matters. He translated the Bible into Arabic, which language was growing to be a second mother-tongue to the transplanted Eastern Jews. Saadia fought a good fight against Karaism and its principles, which seemed so wide and were so narrow.35 His arguments in many forms were directed against the plausible and impracticable doctrines which, about the middle of the eighth century, Anan ben David had done his best to spread. But Saadia’s chief original work was called ‏אֱמוּנָה וְדֵעוֹת‎, Faith and Morals. This book battles against unbelief, and sums up the arguments in favour of holding by ‘tradition’ under seven excellent and pithy heads. It shows that there is ignorant denial quite as often as ignorant belief, and that doubting comes more often from knowing too little than from knowing too much. But Saadia was no bigot. He taught that religion has no cause to fear research, and that if research is only carried far enough it confirms revelation.

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