CONDUCT OF THE POPES TOWARD THE JEWS.

"PERSECUTED and plundered in England, France, Spain, Germany, and every other European state, the Jews (you say)* were uniformly protected by the Popes." Not uniformly, Sir. Generally, however, they were to a certain degree protected in the papal states. We will examine what the Popes have done in favour of this unhappy people, and what they have left undone. If ever there was a case in which the sin of omission was as deadly as that of commission; . . in which men became answerable before God for the crimes which they might and ought to have prevented, but did not prevent, it is here. I doubt not, Sir, but that already apprehend the course of my argument.

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The protection, such as it was, which the Popes, in their own States, contrary to their otherwise uniform intolerance, afforded this people, is remarkable: but Basnage, who notices, has at the same time satisfactorily explained it. There was nothing in Judaism either to alarm or irritate the Roman Pontiffs. It was an old religion, fallen and humbled and oppressed. The

* Page 97.

Jews had the privilege of antiquity to plead for their disbelief in the Christian dispensation; and as they did not specifically reject the Pope, they were innocent of what at Rome was accounted the great offence. Moreover they were an industrious and useful people; and the Papal Court, which has seldom been wanting in worldly wisdom, was the last place in Christendom to be influenced in its conduct by sincere bigotry, or to partake a popular superstition by which its. own interest was not promoted.

When the Bishops of Rome began to assert that authority which, if they had always exerted it for useful purposes, and in a Christian spirit, they might still have retained, the Jews throughout Christendom were every where odious among the people, but frequently favoured by the sovereigns. Till that time the Popes are in no degree answerable for the outrages committed upon this most outraged and persecuted race; and after that time there are some honourable instances of interference on the part of Rome in their behalf. St. Gregory the Great censured those Bishops who molested them in the enjoyment of their privileges, and he forbade the Jewish converts to display their zeal by insulting the religion* which they had forsaken;

* Basnage, t. iv. 1403-7. M. Univ. Hist, vol. v. 519.

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but by an injurious edict he decreed that the slaves of a Jew should obtain their freedom if they fled to a church and chose to be baptized. Alexander II. prevented the first King Ferdinand of Castille from extirpating the Jews in his dominions as a means of propitiating Heaven in his war against the Moors; and Innocent II. protected them as far as he could against the crusaders, by exhorting and aiding him to which good work St. Bernard made some atonement for the intolerance† which he breathed at other times. Gregory IX. pursued at first a different course. At a time when he was on no friendly terms with the Emperor, he wrote to tell that Prince that he would do well in delivering over unbelieving Jews to the secular arm; but afterwards he had good sense enough to perceive that he had erred, and in several instances interfered to save them from popular persecution. King St. Louis, whose bigoted, cruel, and canonized superstition has tended in no slight degree to produce some of the greatest errors and worst crimes of his descendants, was checked by the same Pontiff in

* Basnage, t. iv. 1403-7. M. Univ. Hist. vol. v. 534. + Ib. 545.

Basnage, t. v. 1795.

§ Ib. 1796. 1810.

his career of intolerance* against the Jews; and Alexander IV. endeavoured, though without effect, to render them a like protection in Naples. John XXII. fell in for a while with the spirit of the age, and banished them from the Papal States, at the instigation, it is said, of a sister, who, being however more rapacious than fanatical, received an hundred thousand florins from them,‡ and induced him to revoke

* About 2500 are said to have been put to death before the Pope interfered, because they would not abjure their religion. (Basnage, v. 1810.) Well did King St. Louis deserve the panegyric pronounced upon him from the pulpit in Paris by the famous Boucher, and published by command of the Cardinal Legate, in his sermons upon the simulated conversion of Herri IV. After relating what had been the conduct of King St. Louis to the Count of Thoulouse, he proceeds thus: "Et que direz vous, Messieurs, qui nous alleguez S. Loys, le juge des heretiques, le censeur des heretiques, le correcteur des heretiques, l'ennemy des heretiques, le persecuteur des heretiques, l'execrateur des heretiques, le dompteur des heretiques, la congnée des heretiques, le fleau des heretiques, le maillet des heretiques, le foudre des heretiques, la gresle et tempeste des heretiques, le contrepoison des heretiques, l'humiliateur des heretiques, le rangeur, le chappitreur, le raba-joye et chastieur, bref l'ange exterminateur des heretiques, et de tous fauteurs d'heretiques, de croyans et receleurs d'heretiques: qui alleguez dy-je, en faveur d'un heretique, et heretique des le ventre, et d'un ventre plus que heretique, et d'un relaps heretique, et d'un chef des heretiques?"-p. 525.

the unwise edict. They had a friend also in Clement VI.: that Pontiff, fiercely as he pursued the remnant of the Albigenses, interposed in behalf of the Jews, when they were persecuted on the absurd charge of poisoning the waters,* and gave them an asylum in his dominions. Martin V. published so equitable and tolerant a bull in their favour, that it was annulled by his successor,† upon a pretext that the Jews abused the liberty allowed them. Nicolas V. remonstrated against the measures which were pursued in Spain for converting them by force; and Alexander VI. not only gave them an asylum when they fled from that country, but compelled the Roman Jews to assist their brethren with the means of establishing themselves in his states:.. it is the white speck in his character. And when it is added that Innocent XI. in the latter part of the 17th century, interfered with the Venetians in behalf of some oppressed Jews, the account in favour of the Popes will be closed.

The set off, Sir, is a heavy one; and I must remind you that the kindness, such as it was,

* Un. Hist. v. 565. Basnage, 2018.

+ Lenfant, C. de Basle, i. 223.

Ib. 2020. Univ. Hist. 577.

§ Ib. 600.