Thus, for the third time, the Jewish race was divided into two hostile camps. Like Israel and Judah, during the first period, and the Pharisees and Sadducees in the time of the Second Temple, the Rabbanites and Karaites were now in opposition to each other. Jerusalem, the holy mother, who had witnessed so many wars between her sons, again became the scene of a fratricidal struggle. The Karaite community, which had withdrawn from the general union, acknowledged Anan as the legitimate Prince of the Captivity, and conferred this honorable title on him and his descendants. Both parties exerted themselves as much as possible to widen the breach.
After Anan's death, his followers, out of reverence, introduced memorial prayers for him into the Sabbath service. They prayed for him thus: "May God be merciful to the Prince Anan, the man of God, who opened the way to the Torah, and opened the eyes of the Karaites; who redeemed many from sin, and showed us the way to righteousness. May God grant him a good place among the seven classes who enter into Paradise." This service, in memory of Anan, is still in use with the Karaites of the present day.
It is impossible, however, for impartial judgment to endorse this encomium, for it is impossible to discern in Anan any greatness of mind. He was not a profound thinker, and was entirely devoid of philosophical knowledge. He had so mean a conception of the soul that, in painful adherence to the letter of the Bible, he designated the blood as its seat. But he was also inconsistent in his opposition to Talmudical Judaism, for he allowed not a few religious laws to continue in force that could no more be traced to a Biblical origin than the institutions which he rejected.
After Anan's death the Karaite community conferred the leadership on his son, Saul. Anan's disciples, who called themselves Ananites, differed on various points with their master, especially with regard to the prescribed mode of killing birds. Thus, immediately after Anan's death, the enduring character which he had desired to impart to religious life was destroyed, and there arose divisions which increased with every generation. This schism caused the Karaites to study the Bible more closely, and to support and strengthen their position against one another, and against the Rabbanites, from Holy Writ. It was for this reason that the study of the Bible was carried on by the Karaites with great ardor. With this study went hand in hand the knowledge of Hebrew grammar and of the Massora, the determination of the manner of reading the Holy Scripture. There sprang up many commentators on the Bible, and altogether a luxuriant literature was produced, as each party, thinking it had discovered something new in the Bible, desired to have its authority generally acknowledged.
While the Karaites thus were extremely active, the Rabbanites were most unfruitful in literary productions. A single work is all that is known to have appeared in those times. Judah, the blind Gaon of Sora, who has already been mentioned, and who had done much to oppose Anan's claim, composed a Talmudical Compendium, under the title "Short and Established Practice" (Halachoth Ketuoth). In this work Judah collected and arranged, in an orderly manner, the subjects which were scattered through the Talmud, and indicated briefly, omitting all discussions, what still held good in practice. To judge from a few fragments, Judah's Halachoth were written in Hebrew, by which means he rendered the Talmud popular and intelligible. For this reason the work penetrated to the most distant Jewish communities, and became the model for later compositions of a similar description.
The Karaite disturbances also contributed to lessen the authority of the Exilarch. Until the time of Anan the academies and their colleges had been subordinate to the Prince of the Captivity, and to the principals of the schools chosen or confirmed by him; at the same time, however, they had no direct influence over the appointment to this office when it became vacant. But having once succeeded in dispossessing Anan of the Exilarchate, the Gaons determined that this power should not be wrested from their hands, and accordingly from this time exercised it on the ground that they could not allow princes of Karaite opinions to be at the head of the Jewish commonwealth. The Exilarchate, which had been hereditary since the time of Bostanaï, became elective after Anan, and the presidents of the academies directed the election. On the death of Chananya (Achunaï), and hardly ten years after Anan's defection from Rabbanism, a struggle for the Exilarchate broke out afresh between two pretenders, Zaccaï ben Achunaï and Natronaï ben Chabibaï. The latter was a member of the college under Judah. The two heads of the schools at this period, Malka bar Acha, of Pumbeditha (771–773), and Chaninaï Kahana ben Huna, of Sora (765–775), united to bring about the overthrow of Natronaï, and succeeded in procuring, through the Caliph's attendants, his banishment from Babylonia. He emigrated to Maghreb (Kairuan), in which city there had existed ever since its foundation a numerous Jewish population. Zaccaï was confirmed in the office of Exilarch. The Exilarchate continued to become more and more dependent on the Gaonate, which often deposed obnoxious princes, and not infrequently banished them. But as the Exilarchs, when they arrived at power, attempted to free themselves from this state of dependence, there occurred collisions which exerted an evil influence on the Babylonian commonwealth.
At about the same time as Karaism sprang into existence, an event occurred which only slightly affected the development of Jewish history, but which roused the spirits of the scattered race and restored their courage. The heathen king of a barbarian people, living in the north, together with all his court, adopted the Jewish religion. The Chazars, or Khozars, a nation of Finnish origin, related to the Bulgars, Avars, Ugurs or Hungarians, had settled, after the dissolution of the empire of the Huns, on the frontier between Europe and Asia. They had founded a kingdom on the Volga (which they called the Itil or Atel) at the place near which it runs into the Caspian Sea, in the neighborhood of Astrakhan, now the home of the Kalmucks. Their kings, who bore the title of Chakan or Chagan, had led these warlike sons of the steppe from victory to victory. The Chazars inspired the Persians with so great a dread that Chosroes, one of their kings, found no other way of protecting his dominions against their violent invasions than by building a strong wall which blocked up the passes between the Caucasus and the sea. But this "gate of gates" (Bab al abwab, near Derbend) did not long serve as a barrier against the warlike courage of the Chazars. After the fall of the Persian empire, they crossed the Caucasus, invaded Armenia, and conquered the Crimean peninsula, which bore the name Chazaria for some time. The Byzantine emperors trembled at the name of the Chazars, flattered them, and paid them a tribute, in order to restrain their lust after the booty of Constantinople. The Bulgarians, and other tribes, were the vassals of the Chazars, and the people of Kiev (Russians) on the Dnieper were obliged to pay them as an annual tax a sword and a fine skin for every household. With the Arabs, whose near neighbors they gradually became, they carried on terrible wars.
Like their neighbors, the Bulgarians and the Russians, the Chazars professed a coarse religion, which was combined with sensuality and lewdness. The Chazars became acquainted with Islam and Christianity through the Arabs and Greeks, who came to the capital, Balanyiar, on matters of business, in order to exchange the products of their countries for fine furs. There were also Jews in the land of the Chazars; they were some of the fugitives that had escaped (723) from the mania for conversion which possessed the Byzantine Emperor Leo. It was through these Greek Jews that the Chazars became acquainted with Judaism. As interpreters or merchants, physicians or counselors, the Jews were known and beloved by the Chazar court, and they inspired the warlike king Bulan with a love of Judaism.
In subsequent times, however, the Chazars had but a vague knowledge of the motive which induced their forefathers to embrace Judaism. One of their later Chagans gives the following account of their conversion: The king Bulan conceived a horror of the foul idolatry of his ancestors, and prohibited its exercise within his dominions, without, however, adopting any other form of religion. He was encouraged by a dream in his endeavors to discover the proper manner of worshiping God. Having gained a great victory over the Arabs, and conquered the Armenian fortress of Ardebil, Bulan determined to adopt the Jewish religion openly. The Caliph and the Byzantine emperor desired, however, to induce the king of the Chazars to embrace their respective religions, and with this intention sent to Bulan deputations with letters and valuable presents, and men well versed in religious matters. The king thereupon arranged for a religious discussion to take place before him between a Byzantine ecclesiastic, a Mahometan sage, and a learned Jew. The champions of the three religions disputed the whole question, however, without being able to convince one another or the king of the superior excellence of their respective religions as compared with the other two. But as Bulan had remarked that the representatives of the religion of Christ and of Islam both referred to Judaism as the foundation and point of departure of their faiths, he declared to the ambassadors of the Caliph and the Emperor that, as he had heard from the opponents of Judaism themselves an impartial avowal of the excellence of that religion, he would carry out his intention of professing Judaism as his religion. He thereupon immediately offered himself for circumcision. The Jewish sage who was the means of obtaining Bulan's conversion is supposed to have been Isaac Sanjari or Sinjari.
It is possible that the circumstances under which the Chazars embraced Judaism have been embellished by legend, but the fact itself is too definitely proved on all sides to allow any doubt as to its reality. Besides Bulan, the nobles of his kingdom, numbering nearly four thousand, adopted the Jewish religion. Little by little it made its way among the people, so that most of the inhabitants of the towns of the Chazar kingdom were Jews; the army, however, was composed of Mahometan mercenaries. At first the Judaism of the Chazars must have been rather superficial, and could have had but little influence on their mind and manners. A successor of Bulan, who bore the Hebrew name of Obadiah, was the first to make serious efforts to further the Jewish religion. He invited Jewish sages to settle in his dominions, rewarded them royally, founded synagogues and schools, caused instruction to be given to himself and his people in the Bible and the Talmud, and introduced a divine service modeled on that of the ancient communities. So great was the influence which Judaism exercised on the character of this uncivilized race, that while the Chazars that remained heathens, without a twinge of conscience sold their children as slaves, those of them that had become Jews abandoned this barbarous custom. After Obadiah came a long series of Jewish Chagans, for according to a fundamental law of the state only Jewish rulers were permitted to ascend the throne. Neither Obadiah nor his successors showed any intolerance towards the non-Jewish population of the country; on the contrary, the non-Jews were placed on a footing of complete equality with the other inhabitants. There was a supreme court of justice, composed of seven judges, of whom two were Jews for the Jewish population, two Mahometans and two Christians for those who were of these religions, and one heathen for the Russians and Bulgarians. For some time the Jews of other countries had no knowledge of the conversion of this powerful kingdom to Judaism, and when at last a vague rumor to this effect reached them, they were of opinion that Chazaria was peopled by the remnant of the former ten tribes. The legend runs thus: Far, far beyond the gloomy mountains, beyond the Cimmerian darkness of the Caucasus, there live true worshipers of God, holy men, descendants of Abraham, of the tribes of Simeon and the half-tribe of Manasseh, who are so powerful that five-and-twenty nations pay them tribute.
At about this time – in the second half of the eighth century – the Jews of Europe also emerged a little from the darkness which had covered them for centuries. Favored by the rulers, or at least neither ill-treated nor persecuted by them, they raised themselves to a certain degree of culture. Charlemagne, the founder of the empire of the Franks, to whom Europe owes its regeneration and partial emancipation from barbarism, also contributed to the spiritual and social advancement of the Jews in France and Germany. By the creation of the German-Frankish empire – which extended from the ocean to the further side of the Elbe, and from the Mediterranean to the North Sea – Charlemagne transferred the focus of history to Western Europe, whereas hitherto it had been at Constantinople, on the borderland between Eastern Europe and Asia. Although Charlemagne was a protector of the Church, and helped to found the supremacy of the papacy, and Hadrian, the contemporary Pope, was anything but friendly to the Jews, and repeatedly exhorted the Spanish bishops to prevent the Christians from associating with Jews and heathens (Arabs), Charlemagne was too far-seeing to share the prejudices of the clergy with respect to the Jews. In opposition to all the precepts of the Church and decisions of the councils, the first Frankish emperor favored the Jews of his empire, and turned to account the knowledge of a learned man of this race, who journeyed to Syria for him, and brought back to France the products of the East. While other monarchs punished the Jews for purchasing Church vessels or taking them as pledges from the clergy or the servants of the Church, Charlemagne adopted the opposite course; he inflicted heavy punishment on the sacrilegious ecclesiastics, and absolved the Jews from all penalties.
The Jews were at this period the principal representatives of the commerce of the world. While the nobles devoted themselves to the business of war, the commoners to trades, and the peasants and serfs to agriculture, the Jews, who were not liable to be called upon to perform military service, and possessed no feudal lands, turned their attention to the exportation and importation of goods and slaves, so that the favor extended to them by Charlemagne was, to a certain extent, a privilege accorded to a commercial company. They experienced only the restraint put upon all merchants in the corn and wine trade; the Emperor considered it dishonest to make a profit on the necessaries of life. This somewhat materialistic value set upon the Jews marks, however, great progress from the narrow-mindedness of the Merovingian monarchs, the Gunthrams and the Dagoberts, who saw nothing in the Jews but murderers of God. But Charlemagne also manifested deep interest in the spiritual advancement of the Jewish inhabitants of his empire. In the same way as he had cared for the education of the Germans and the French by inviting learned men from Italy, so also he earnestly desired to place a higher culture within the reach of the German and the French Jews. With this intention he removed a learned family, consisting of Kalonymos, his son Moses, and his nephew, from Lucca to Mayence (787), hoping besides to make the Jews independent of the academies of the Levant.
Charlemagne's embassy to the powerful Caliph Haroun Alrashid, to which was attached a Jew named Isaac, is familiar to every student of history (797). Although at first probably Isaac accompanied the two nobles, Landfried and Sigismund, only in the character of interpreter, he was nevertheless admitted into Charlemagne's diplomatic secrets. Thus, when the two principal ambassadors died on the journey, the Caliph's reply and the valuable presents which he had forwarded, fell into Isaac's sole charge, and he was received in solemn audience by the Emperor at Aix. The Emperor is also said to have requested the Caliph, through his embassy, to send him from Babylonia a learned Jew for his country, and Haroun is reported to have sent him a man answering his requirements. This man was a certain Machir, whom Charlemagne placed at the head of the Jewish congregation of Narbonne. Machir, who, like Kalonymos of Lucca, became the ancestor of a learned posterity, founded a Talmudical school at Narbonne.
Owing to their favorable position in the Frankish-German Empire, in which they held land, the Jews were permitted to undertake voyages and carry on business, and were harassed neither by the people nor by the really religious German ecclesiastics; they were also enabled to abandon themselves to their inclination for travel, and thus spread through many of the provinces of Germany. In the ninth century, numbers of them dwelt in the towns of Magdeburg, Merseburg, and Ratisbon. From these points, they penetrated further and further into the countries inhabited by the Slavonians on the further side of the Oder as far as Bohemia and Poland. Meanwhile, in spite of the favor which Charlemagne extended to them, he, like the best men of the Middle Ages, found it difficult to treat them on an entirely equal footing with the Christians. The chasm, which the Fathers of the Church had placed between Christianity and Judaism, and which had been widened by individual ecclesiastics and the synods, was far too deep to be overleapt by an emperor who was devotedly attached to the Church. Charlemagne himself maintained, on one point, a difference between Jew and Christian, and perpetuated it in the peculiar form of the oath which was imposed on the Jews who were witnesses against, or accusers of, a Christian. They were required, in taking an oath against a Christian, to surround themselves with thorns, to take the Torah in their right hand, and to call down upon themselves Naaman's leprosy and the punishment of Korah's faction in witness of the truth of their statement. If there was not a Hebrew copy of the Torah at hand, a Latin Bible was held to be sufficient. It is impossible not to admit, however, that to allow the Jews to testify against a Christian was in itself a deviation from the ordinances of the Church.
In the East, at the beginning of the ninth century, the Jews were also reminded, in a disagreeable manner, that they had to expect scorn and oppression even from the best rulers. The reigns of the Abassid Caliphs, Haroun Alrashid and his sons, are regarded as the most flourishing period of the Caliphate of the East, but it is at this very time that Jewish complaints of oppression rise loudest. It is possible that in re-enacting Omar's law against the Christians (807), Haroun also made it applicable to the Jews; for they were compelled to wear a distinctive badge of yellow on their dress, in the same way as the Christians were obliged to wear blue, and they had to use a rope instead of a girdle. When, after his death (809), his two sons, Mahomet Alemin and Abdallah Almamun, for whom their father had divided the Caliphate into two parts, engaged in a destructive civil war, throughout the whole extent of the great empire, the Jews, especially those in Palestine, experienced severe persecution. The Christians, however, were their companions in misfortune. During the four years (809–813) of this fratricidal struggle, robbery and massacre seem to have been the order of the day. The sufferings were so terrible, it seems, that a preacher of those times declared them to be a sign of the speedy coming of the Messiah. "Israel can only be redeemed by means of penitence, and true penitence can only be evoked by suffering, affliction, wandering, and want," declared this orator by way of consolation of his afflicted congregation. In the civil war raging between the two Caliphs, he fancied he saw the approaching destruction of the Ishmaelite rule and the approach of the Messianic empire. "Two brothers will finally rule over the Ishmaelites (Mahometans); there will then arise a descendant of David, and in the days of this king the Lord of Heaven will found a kingdom which shall never perish." "God will exterminate the sons of Esau (Byzantium), Israel's enemies, and also the sons of Ishmael, its adversaries." But these, like many others, were delusive hopes. The civil war, indeed, shook the Caliphate to its foundations, but did not destroy it. Alemin was killed, and Almamun became the sole ruler of this extensive empire.
It was during Almamun's reign (813–833) that the Caliphate of the East flourished most luxuriantly. As he was imbued with tolerance, it was possible for the sciences and a certain form of philosophy to develop. Bagdad, Kairuan in northern Africa, and Merv in Khorasan, became the centers of science, such as Europe did not possess until many centuries later. The genius of the Greeks celebrated its resurrection in Arabic garb. Statesmen competed with men of leisure for the palm of erudition. The Jews did not remain unaffected by this enthusiasm for science. Investigation and subtle inquiry are indeed part of their innermost nature. They took earnest interest in these intellectual activities, and many of their achievements gained the approbation of the Arabs. The history of Arab civilization has several Jewish names recorded in its annals. Sahal, surnamed Rabban (the Rabbanite, the authority on the Talmud), of Taberistan on the Caspian Sea (about the year 800), was celebrated as a physician and a mathematician. He translated into Arabic the Almagest of the Greek astronomer Ptolemy, the text-book of astronomy during the Middle Ages, and was the first to note the refraction of light. His son Abu-Sahal Ali (835–853) is placed among those that advanced the study of medicine, and was the teacher of two Arabic medical authorities, Razi and Anzarbi.
With even more ardor than that with which they had applied themselves to medicine, mathematics and astronomy, the Mussulmans prosecuted the study of the science of religion, a sort of philosophy of religion (Kalâm). It was invested with as much importance as the affairs of state, and exercised a certain influence on politics. The expounders of the Koran, in trying to explain away the grossly sensual references to God, and to reconcile the contradictions contained in that work, developed ideas which projected far beyond the restricted horizon of Islam. Many commentators, by reason of their rationalistic explanations, came into conflict with the champions of the text, and were branded by them as heretics. The Mutazilists (heretics) laid great stress upon the unity of God, and desired that no definite attributes should be ascribed to him; for thereby the essence of God appeared to them to be divided into parts, and several beings to be included in the idea of God, whose unity was thus negatived. They further asserted the freedom of the human will, because the unconditional predetermination by God, which the Oriental mind believes, and the Koran confirms, was incompatible with divine justice, which rewards the good and punishes the bad. They believed, however, that they still stood on the same ground as the Koran, although, of course, going far beyond it, and in order to bring their doctrine into harmony with the blunt sayings of their religious book, they employed the same method as the Alexandrian-Jewish philosophers of religion had used to reconcile the Bible with Greek philosophy; they adopted an allegorical interpretation of the text. This interpretation was employed for the purpose of bridging over the gulf existing between the rationalistic idea of God and the irrational idea as taught by the Koran. The rationalistic Mutazilist theology of the Mahometans, although denounced at first as heretical, steadily gained ascendancy; the schools of Bagdad and Bassora rang with its doctrines. The Caliph Almamun exalted it into the theology of the court, and condemned the old simple views of religion.
The adherents of orthodoxy were horrified by this license of interpretation, for the text of the Koran, in an underhand way, was forced into conveying an opposite meaning, and simple faith lost all support. They, therefore, adhered strictly to the letter and to the natural meaning of the text. Some of them went still further. They took, in their literal meaning, all the expressions concerning God, however gross they might be, which occurred in the Koran, or were used by tradition, and constructed a most vile theology. Mahomet expressed a revelation thus: "My Lord came to meet me, gave me his hand in greeting, looked into my face, laid his hand between my shoulders, so that I felt his cold finger-tips," and the orthodox school accepted all this in revolting literalness. This school (Anthropomorphists) did not hesitate to declare that God was a body possessed of members and a definite form; that he was seven spans high, measured by his own span; that he was in a particular spot – upon his throne; that it was permissible to affirm of him that he moves, mounts his throne and descends from it, stops and rests. These and still more blasphemous descriptions of the Supreme Being, in the same grossly materialistic strain, were given by the orthodox Mahometan teachers of religion, in order to show their adherence to the letter of the Koran in contradistinction to the Rationalists.
The Jews of the East lived in so close a connection with the Mussulmans that they could not fail to be affected by these tendencies. The same phenomena were repeated, therefore, in Jewish circles, and the variance between Karaites and Rabbanites assisted in transferring the Islamic controversies to Judaism. The official supporters of Judaism, however, the colleges of Sora and Pumbeditha, held aloof from them. Entirely absorbed in the Talmud, and its exposition, they either took no notice at first of the violent agitation of mind prevailing, or else refused to yield to it. But outside of the colleges men were actively interested in these new methods, and Judaism was pushed through another process of purification.
The faint ray of philosophy which fell into this world of simple blind faith, ignorant of its own beliefs, produced a dazzling illumination. The Karaites for the most part were of Mutazilist (rationalistic) tendency, while the Rabbanites, on the contrary, having to defend the strange Agadic statements concerning God, were antagonistic to science. But as the religious edifice of Karaism was not finished, there arose new sects within its pale, with peculiar theories and varying religious practices.
The first person known to have imparted the Mutazilist tendency of Islamic theology to Judaism was Judah Judghan, the Persian, of the town of Hamadan (about 800). His adversaries relate of him that he was originally a camel-herd. He himself pretended to be the herald of the Messiah, and when he had gained adherents, unfolded to them a peculiar doctrine, which he asserted had been made known to him in a vision.
In opposition to the ancient traditional views, in accordance with which the Biblical account of God's deeds and thoughts must be taken literally, Judah Judghan asserted that we ought not to represent God with material attributes or anthropomorphically, for he is elevated above all created things. The expressions which the Torah employs in this connection are to be taken in a wholly metaphorical sense. Nor may we take for granted that, by virtue of His omnipotence and omniscience, God predetermines the acts of man. Much rather ought we to proceed from God's justice, and assume that man is master of his actions, and possessed of free will, and that reward and punishment are meted out to us according to our merit. While Judah of Hamadan was possessed of liberal views concerning theoretical questions, he recommended the severest asceticism in practice. His adherents abstained from meat and wine, fasted and prayed frequently, but were less strict with respect to the festivals. His followers, who long maintained themselves as a peculiar sect under the name of Judghanites, believed so firmly in him that they asserted that he was not dead, but would appear again, in order to bring a new doctrine with him, as the Shiites believed of Ali. One of his disciples, named Mushka, was desirous of imposing the doctrine of his master on the Jews by force. He marched out of Hamadan with a troop of comrades of similar sentiments, but, together with nineteen of his followers, was killed, in the neighborhood of Koom (east of Hamadan, southwest of Teheran), most probably by the Mussulmans.
Judah Judghan attached more importance to an ascetic mode of living than to the establishing of the philosophical basis of Judaism, and was therefore rather the founder of a sect than a religious philosopher. A contemporary Karaite, Benjamin ben Moses of Nahavend (about 800–820), spread the Mutazilist philosophy among the Karaites. Benjamin Nahavendi is regarded by his fellow-Karaites as an authority, and is honored by them as greatly as Anan, their founder, although he differed from the latter on many points. Benjamin was entirely permeated with the conceptions of the Mutazilists. He was scandalized, not only by the physical and human characteristics of God contained in the Scripture, but also by the revelation and the creation. He could not rest satisfied with the idea that the spiritual Being had created this earthly world, had come into contact with it, had circumscribed himself in space for the purpose of the revelation on Sinai, and uttered articulate sounds. In order not to abandon his elevated idea of God, and at the same time to preserve the revelation of the Torah, he adopted the following notion, as others had done before him: God had himself created only the spiritual world and the angels; the terrestrial universe, on the other hand, had been created by the angels, so that God ought to be regarded only as the mediate creator of the world. In the same way the revelation, the giving of the Law on Sinai, and the inspiration of the prophets were all the work of an angel only. Certain disciples adopted Benjamin's views, and formed a peculiar sect, called (it is not known for what reason) the Makariyites or Maghariyites.