Baring-Gould Sabine
Lost and Hostile Gospels
It is remarkable that Jeschu should be made to quote two passages in the Psalms as prophecies of himself, both of which are used in this manner in the New Testament: Ps. ii. 7, in Acts xiii. 33, and again Heb. i. 5, and v. 5; and Ps. cx. 1, in St. Matthew xxii. 44, and the corresponding passages in St. Mark and St. Luke; also in Acts ii. 34, in 1 Cor. xv. 25, and Heb. i. 13.
The scene of the struggle in the air is taken from the contest of St. Peter with Simon Magus, and reminds one of the contest in the Arabian Nights between the Queen of Beauty and the Jin in the story of the Second Calender.
The putting forth from land on a millstone on the occasion of the miraculous draught of fishes is probably a perversion of the incident of Jesus entering into the boat of Peter – the stone – before the miracle was performed, according to St. Luke, v. 1-8. In the Toledoth Jeschu there are two millstones which our Lord sets afloat, and he mounts one, and then the fishes are caught; in St. Luke's Gospel there are two boats.
“He saw two ships standing by the lake… And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people out of the ship. Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.”
It was standing on the swimming-stone, according to the Huldrich version, that Jeschu preached to the people, and declared to them his divine mission.
The story goes on. The Sanhedrim, fearing to allow Jeschu to remain at liberty, send Judas after him to Jordan. Judas pronounces a great incantation, which obliges the Angel of Sleep to seal the eyes of Jeschu and his disciples. Then, whilst they sleep, he comes and cuts from the arm of Jeschu a scrap of parchment on which the Name of Jehovah is written, and which was concealed under the flesh. Jeschu awakes, and a spirit appears to him and vexes him sore. Then he feels that his power is gone, and he announces to his disciples that his hour is come when he must be taken by his enemies.
The disciples, amongst whom is Judas, who unobserved, has mingled with them, are sorely grieved; but Jeschu encourages them, and bids them believe in him, and they will obtain thrones in heaven. Then he goes with them to the Paschal Feast, in hopes of again being able to penetrate into the Holy of Holies, and reading again the incommunicable Name, and of thus recovering his power. But Judas forewarns the elders, and as Jeschu enters the Temple he is attacked by armed men. The Jewish servants do not know Jeschu from his disciples. Accordingly Judas flings himself down before him, and thus indicates whom they are to take. Some of the disciples offer resistance, but are speedily overcome, and take to flight to the mountains, where they are caught and executed.
“But the elders of Jerusalem led Jeschu in chains into the city, and bound him to a marble pillar, and scourged him, and said, Where are now all the miracles thou hast wrought? And they plaited a crown of thorns and set it on his head. Then the Fatherless was in anguish through thirst, and he cried, saying, Give me water to drink! So they gave him acid vinegar; and after he had drunk thereof he cried, Of me did my father David prophesy, They gave me gall to eat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.113 But they answered, If thou wert God, why didst thou not know it was vinegar before tasting of it? Now thou art at the brink of the grave, and changest not. But Jeschu wept and said, My God, my God! why hast thou forsaken me? And the elders said, If thou be God, save thyself from our hands. But Jeschu answered, saying, My blood is shed for the redemption of the world, for Isaiah prophesied of me, He was wounded for our transgression and bruised for our iniquities; our chastisement lies upon him that we may have peace, and by his wounds we are healed.114 Then they led Jeschu forth before the greater and the lesser Sanhedrim, and he was sentenced to be stoned, and then to be hung on a tree. And it was the eve of the Passover and of the Sabbath. And they led him forth to the place where the punishment of stoning was wont to be executed, and they stoned him there till he was dead. And after that, the wise men hung him on the tree; but no tree would bear him; each brake and yielded. And when even was come the wise men said, We may not, on account of the Fatherless, break the letter of the law (which forbids that one who is hung should remain all night on the tree). Though he may have set at naught the law, yet will not we. Therefore they buried the Fatherless in the place where he was stoned. And when, midnight was come, the disciples came and seated themselves on the grave, and wept and lamented him. Now when Judas saw this, he took the body away and buried it in his garden under a brook. He diverted the water of the brook elsewhere; but when the body was laid in its bed, he brought its waters back again into their former channel.
“Now on the morrow, when the disciples had assembled and had seated themselves weeping, Judas came to them and said, Why weep you? Seek him who was buried. And they dug and sought, and found him not, and all the company cried, He is not in the grave; he is risen and ascended into heaven, for, when he was yet alive, he said, He would raise him up, Selah!”
When the Queen heard that the elders had slain Jeschu and had buried him, and that he was risen again, she ordered them within three days to produce the body or forfeit their lives. In sore alarm, the elders seek the body, but cannot find it. They therefore proclaim a fast.
“Now there was amongst them an elder whose name was Tanchuma; and he went forth in sore distress, and wandered in the fields, and he saw Judas sitting in his garden eating. Then Tanchuma drew near to him, and said to him, What doest thou, Judas, that thou eatest meat, when all the Jews fast and are in grievous distress?
“Then Judas was astonished, and asked the occasion of the fast. And the Rabbi Tanchuma answered him, Jeschu the Fatherless is the occasion, for he was hung up and buried on the spot where he was stoned; but now is he taken away, and we know not where he is gone. And his worthless disciples cry out that he is ascended into heaven. Now the Queen has condemned us Israelites to death unless we find him.
“Judas asked, And if the Fatherless One were found, would it be the salvation of Israel? The Rabbi Tanchuma answered that it would be even so.
“Then spake Judas, Come, and I will show you the man whom ye seek; for it was I who took the Fatherless from his grave. For I feared lest his disciples should steal him away, and I have hidden him in my garden and led a water-brook over the place.
“Then the Rabbi Tanchuma hasted to the elders of Israel, and told them all. And they came together, and drew him forth, attached to the tail of a horse, and brought him before the Queen, and said, See! this is the man who, they say, has ascended into heaven!
“Now when the Queen saw this, she was filled with shame, and answered not a word.
“Now it fell out, that in dragging the body to the place, the hair was torn off the head; and this is the reason why monks shave their heads. It is done in remembrance of what befel Jeschu.
“And after this, in consequence thereof, there grew to be strife between the Nazarenes and the Jews, so that they parted asunder; and when a Nazarene saw a Jew he slew him. And from day to day the distress grew greater, during thirty years. And the Nazarenes assembled in thousands and tens of thousands, and hindered the Israelites from going up to the festivals at Jerusalem. And then there was great distress, such as when the golden calf was set up, so that they knew not what to do.
“And the belief of the opposition grew more and more, and spread on all sides. Also twelve godless runagates separated and traversed the twelve realms, and everywhere in the assemblies of the people uttered false prophecies.
“Also many Israelites adhered to them, and these were men of high renown, and they strengthened the faith in Jeschu. And because they gave themselves out to be messengers of him who was hung, a great number followed them from among the Israelites.
“Now when the wise men saw the desperate condition of affairs, one said to another, Woe is unto us! for we have deserved it through our sins. And they sat in great distress, and wept, and looked up to heaven and prayed.
“And when they had ended their prayer, there rose up a very aged man of the elders, by name Simon Cephas, who understood prophecy, and he said to the others, Hearken to me, my brethren! and if ye will consent unto my advice, I will separate these wicked ones from the company of the Israelites, that they may have neither part nor lot with Israel. But the sin do ye take upon you.
“Then answered they all and said, The sin be on us; declare unto us thy counsel, and fulfil thy purpose.
“Therefore Simon, son of Cephas, went into the Holiest Place and wrote the incommunicable Name, and cut into his flesh and hid the parchment therein. And when he came forth out of the Temple he took forth the writing, and when he had learned the Name he betook himself to the chief city of the Nazarenes,115 and he cried there with a loud voice, Let all who believe in Jeschu come unto me, for I am sent by him to you!
“Then there came to him multitudes as the sand on the sea-shore, and they said to him, Show us a sign that thou art sent! And he said, What sign? They answered him, Even the signs that Jeschu wrought when he was alive.”
Accordingly he heals a leper and restores a dead man to life. And when the people saw this, they submitted to him, as one sent to them by Jeschu.
Then said Simon Cephas to them, Yea, verily, Jeschu did send me to you, and now swear unto me that ye will obey me in all things that I command you.
“And they swore to him, We will do all things that thou commandest.
“Then Simon Cephas said, Ye know that he who hung on the tree was an enemy to the Israelites and the Law, because of the prophecy of Isaiah, Your new moons and festivals my soul hateth.116 And that he had no pleasure in the Israelites, according to the saying of Hosea, Ye are not my people.117Now, although it is in his power to blot them in the twinkling of an eye from off the face of the earth, yet will he not root them out, but will keep them ever in the midst of you as a witness to his stoning and hanging on the tree. He endured these pains and the punishment of death, to redeem your souls from hell. And now he warns and commands you to do no harm to any Jew. Yea, even should a Jew say to a Nazarene, Go with me a mile, he shall go with him twain; or should a Nazarene be smitten by a Jew on one cheek, let him turn to him the other also, that the Jews may enjoy in this world their good things, for in the world to come they must suffer their punishment in hell. If ye do these things, then shall ye merit to sit with them (i. e. the apostles) on their thrones.118
“And this also doth he require of you, that ye do not celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but that ye keep holy the day on which he died. And in place of the Feast of Pentecost, that ye keep the fortieth day after his stoning, on which he went up into heaven. And in place of the Feast of Tabernacles, that ye keep the day of his Nativity, and eight days after that ye shall celebrate his Circumcision.”
The Christians promised to do as Cephas commanded them, but they desired him to reside in the midst of them in their great city.
To this he consented. “I will dwell with you,” said he, “if ye will promise to permit me to abstain from all food, and to eat only the bread of poverty and drink the water of affliction. Ye must also build me a tower in the midst of the city, wherein I may spend the rest of my days.”
This was done. The tower was built and called “Peter,” and in this Cephas dwelt till his death six years after. “In truth, he served the God of our fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and composed many beautiful hymns, which he dispersed among the Jews, that they might serve as a perpetual memorial of him; and he divided all his hymns among the Rabbis of Israel.”
On his death he was buried in the tower.
After his death, a man named Elias assumed the place of messenger of Jeschu, and he declared that Simon Cephas had deceived the Christians, and that he, Elias, was an apostle of Jeschu, rather than Cephas, and that the Christians should follow him. The Christians asked for a sign.
Elias said “What sign do ye ask?” Then a stone fell from the tower Peter, and smote him that he died. “Thus,” concludes this first version of the Toledoth Jeschu, “may all Thine enemies perish, O Lord; but may those that love Thee be as the sun when it shineth in its strength!”
Thus ends this wonderful composition, which carries its own condemnation with it.
The two captures and sentences of Jeschu are apparently two forms of Jewish legend concerning Christ's death, which the anonymous writer has clumsily combined.
The scene in Gethsemane is laid on the other side of Jordan. It is manifestly imitated from the Gospels, but not directly, probably from some mediaeval sculptured representation of the Agony in the Garden, common outside every large church.119 In place of an angel appearing to comfort Christ, an evil spirit vexes him. The kiss of Judas is transformed into a genuflexion or prostration before him, and takes place, not in the Garden but in the Temple. The resistance of the disciples is mentioned. Jeschu is bound to a marble pillar and scourged. Of this the Gospels say nothing; but the pillar is an invariable feature in artistic representations of the scourging. Two of the sayings on the Cross are correctly given. In agreement with the account in the Talmud, Jeschu is stoned, and then, to identify the son of Panthera with the son of Mary, is hung on a tree. The tree breaks, and he falls to the ground. The visitor to Oberammergau Passion Play will remember the scene of Judas hanging himself, and the tree snapping. The Toledoth Jeschu does not say that Jeschu was crucified, but that he was hung. The suicide of Judas was identified with the death of Jesus. If the author of the anti-evangel saw the scene of the breaking bough in a miracle-play, he would perhaps naturally transfer it to Christ.
The women seated late at night by the sepulchre, or coming early with spices, a feature in miracle-plays of the Passion, are transformed into the disciples weeping above the grave. The angel who addresses them, in the Toledoth Jeschu, becomes Judas.
In miracle-plays, Claudia Procula, the wife of Pilate, assumes a prominence she does not occupy in the Gospels; she may have originated the idea in the mind of the author of Wagenseil's Toledoth, of the Queen Helena. That he confounded the Queen of King Jannaeus with the mother of Constantine is not wonderful. The latter was the only historical princess who showed sympathy with the Christians at Jerusalem, and of whose existence the anonymous author was aware, probably through the popular mediaeval romance of Helena, “La belle Helène.” He therefore fell without a struggle into the gross anachronism of making the Empress Helena the wife of Jannaeus, and contemporary with Christ.
In the Toledoth Jeschu of Wagenseil, Simon Peter is represented as a Jew ruling the Christians in favour of the Jews. The Papacy must have been fully organized when this anti-evangel was written, and the Jews must have felt the protection accorded them by the Popes against their persecutors. St. Gregory the Great wrote letters, in 591 and 598, in behalf of the Jews who were maltreated in Italy and Sicily. Alexander II., in 1068, wrote a letter to the Bishops of Gaul exhorting them to protect the Jews against the violence of the Crusaders, who massacred them on their way to the East. He gave as his reason for their protection the very one put into Simon Cephas' mouth in the Toledoth Jeschu, that God had preserved them and scattered them in all countries as witnesses to the truth of the Gospel. In the cruel confiscation of their goods, and expulsion from France by Philip Augustus, and the simultaneous persecution they underwent in England, Innocent III. took their side, and insisted, in 1199, on their being protected from violence. Gregory IX. defended them when maltreated in Spain and in France by the Crusaders in 1236, on their appeal to him for protection. In 1246, the Jews of Germany appealed to the Pope, Innocent IV., against the ecclesiastical and secular princes who pillaged them on false charges. Innocent wrote, in 1247, ordering those who had wronged them to indemnify them for their losses.
In 1417, the Jews of Constance came to meet Martin V., as their protector, on his coronation, with hymns and torches, and presented him with the Pentateuch, which he had the discourtesy to refuse, saying that they might have the Law, but they did not understand it.
The claim made in the Toledoth Jeschu that the Papacy was a government in the interest of the Jews against the violence of the Christians, points to the thirteenth century as the date of the composition of this book, a century when the Jews suffered more from Christian brutality than at any other period, when their exasperation against everything Christian was wrought to its highest pitch, and when they found the Chair of Peter their only protection against extermination by the disciples of Christ.
Some dim reference may be made to the anti-pope of Jewish blood, Peter Leonis, who took the name of Anacletus II., and who survives in modern Jewish legend as the Pope Elchanan. Anacletus II. (A.D. 1130-1138) maintained his authority in Rome against Innocent II., and from his refuge in the tower of St. Angelo, defied the Emperor Lothair, who had marched to Rome to install Innocent. Anacletus was accused of showing favour to the Jews, whose blood he inherited – his father was a Jewish usurer. When Christians shrank from robbing the churches of their silver and golden ornaments, required by Anacletus to pay his mercenaries and bribe the venal Romans, he is said to have entrusted the odious task to the Jews.
Jewish legend has converted the Jewish anti-pope into the son of the Rabbi Simeon Ben Isaac, of Mainz, who died A.D. 1096. According to the story, the child Elchanan was stolen from his father and mother by a Christian nurse, was taken charge of by monks, grew up to be ordained priest, and finally was elected Pope.
As a child he had been wont to play chess with his father, and had learned from him a favourite move whereby to check-mate his adversary.
The Jews of Germany suffered from oppression, and appointed the Rabbi Simeon to bear their complaints to the Pope. The old Jew went to Rome and was introduced to the presence of the Holy Father. Elchanan recognized him at once, and sent forth all his attendants, then proposed a game of chess with the Rabbi. When the Pope played the favourite move of the old Jew, Simeon Ben Isaac sprang up, smote his brow, and cried out, “I thought none knew this move save I and my long-lost child.” “I am that child,” answered the Pope, and he flung himself into the arms of the aged Jew.120
That the Wagenseil Toledoth Jeschu was written in the eleventh, twelfth or thirteenth century appears probable from the fact stated, that it was in these centuries that the Jews were more subjected to persecution, spoliation and massacre than in any other; and the Toledoth Jeschu is the cry of rage of a tortured people, – a curse hurled at the Founder of that religion which oppressed them.
In the eleventh century the Jews in the great Rhine cities were massacred by the ferocious hosts of Crusaders under Ernico, Count of Leiningen, and the priests Folkmar and Goteschalk. At the voice of their leaders (A.D. 1096), the furious multitude of red-crossed pilgrims spread through the cities of the Rhine and the Moselle, massacring pitilessly all the Jews that they met with in their passage. In their despair, a great number preferred being their own destroyers to awaiting certain death at the hands of their enemies. Several shut themselves up in their houses, and perished amidst flames their own hands had kindled; some attached heavy stones to their garments, and precipitated themselves and their treasures into the Rhine or Moselle. Mothers stifled their children at the breast, saying that they preferred sending them to the bosom of Abraham to seeing them torn away to be nurtured in a religion which bred tigers.
Some of the ecclesiastics behaved with Christian humanity. The Bishops of Worms and Spires ran some risk in saving as many as they could of this defenceless people. The Archbishop of Treves, less generous, gave refuge to such only as would consent to receive baptism, and coldly consigned the rest to the knives and halters of the Christian fanatics. The Archbishop of Mainz was more than suspected of participation in the plunder of his Jewish subjects. The Emperor took on himself the protection and redress of the wrongs endured by the Jews, and it was apparently at this time that the Jews were formally taken under feudal protection by the Emperor. They became his men, owing to him special allegiance, and with full right therefore to his protection.
The Toledoth Jeschu of Wagenseil was composed by a German Jew; that is apparent from its mention of the letter of the synagogue of Worms to the Sanhedrim. Had it been written in the eleventh century, it would not have represented the Pope as the refuge of the persecuted Jews, for it was the Emperor who redressed their wrongs.
But it was in the thirteenth century that the Popes stood forth as the special protectors of the Jews. On May 1, 1291, the Jewish bankers throughout France were seized and imprisoned by order of Philip the Fair, and forced to pay enormous mulcts. Some died under torture, most yielded, and then fled the inhospitable realm. Five years after, in one day, all the Jews in France were taken, their property confiscated to the Crown, the race expelled the realm.
In 1320, the Jews of the South of France, notwithstanding persecution and expulsion, were again in numbers and perilous prosperity. On them burst the fury of the Pastoureaux. Five hundred took refuge in the royal castle of Verdun on the Garonne. The royal officers refused to defend them. The shepherds set fire to the lower stories of a lofty tower; the Jews slew each other, having thrown their children to the mercy of their assailants. Everywhere, even in the great cities, Auch, Toulouse, Castel Sarrazen, the Jews were left to be remorselessly massacred and their property pillaged. The Pope himself might have seen the smoke of the fires that consumed them darkening the horizon from the walls of Avignon. But John XXII., cold, arrogant, rapacious, stood by unmoved. He launched his excommunication, not against the murderers of the inoffensive Jews, but against all who presumed to take the Cross without warrant of the Holy See. Even that same year he published violent bulls against the poor persecuted Hebrews, and commanded the Bishops to destroy their Talmud, the source of their detestable blasphemies; but he bade those who should submit to baptism to be protected from pillage and massacre.
The Toledoth Jeschu, therefore, cannot have been written at the beginning of the fourteenth century, when the Jews had such experience of the indifference of a Pope to their wrongs. We are consequently forced to look to the thirteenth century as its date. And the thirteenth century will provide us with instances of persecution of the Jews in Germany, and Popes exerting themselves to protect them.
In 1236, the Jews were the subject of an outburst of popular fury throughout Europe, but especially in Spain, where a fearful carnage took place. In France, the Crusaders of Guienne, Poitou, Anjou and Brittany killed them, without sparing the women and children. Women with child were ripped up. The unfortunate Jews were thrown down, and trodden under the feet of horses. Their houses were ransacked, their books burned, their treasures carried off. Those who refused baptism were tortured or killed. The unhappy people sent to Rome, and implored the Pope to extend his protection to them. Gregory IX. wrote at once to the Archbishop of Bordeaux, the Bishops of Saintes, Angoulême and Poictiers, forbidding constraint to be exercised on the Jews to force them to receive baptism; and a letter to the King entreating him to exert his authority to repress the fury of the Crusaders against the Jews.
In 1240, the Jews were expelled from Brittany by the Duke John, at the request of the Bishops of Brittany.
In 1246, the persecution reached its height in Germany. Bishops and nobles vied with each other in despoiling and harassing the unfortunate Hebrews. They were charged with killing Christian children and devouring their hearts at their Passover. Whenever a dead body was found, the Jews were accused of the murder. Hosts were dabbled in blood, and thrown down at their doors, and the ignorant mob rose against such profanation of the sacred mysteries. They were stripped of their goods, thrown into prison, starved, racked, condemned to the stake or to the gallows. From the German towns miserable trains of yellow-girdled and capped exiles issued, seeking some more hospitable homes. If they left behind them their wealth, they carried with them their industry.
A deputation of German Rabbis visited the Pope, Innocent IV., at Lyons, and laid the complaints of the Jews before him. Innocent at once took up their cause. He wrote to all the bishops of Germany, on July 5th, 1247, ordering them to favour the Jews, and insist on the redress of the wrongs to which they had been subjected, whether at the hands of ecclesiastics or nobles. A similar letter was then forwarded by him to all the bishops of France.
At this period it was in vain for the Jews to appeal to the Emperor. Frederick II. was excommunicated, and Germany in revolt, fanned by the Pope, against him. A new Emperor had been proposed at a meeting at Budweis to the electors of Austria, Bohemia and Bavaria, but the proposition had been rejected. Henry of Thuringia, however, set up by Innocent, and supported by the ecclesiastical princes of Germany, had been crowned at Hochem. A crusade was preached against the Emperor Frederick; Henry of Thuringia was defeated and died. The indefatigable Innocent, clinging to the cherished policy of the Papal See to ruin the unity of Germany by stirring up intestine strife, found another candidate in William of Holland. He was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle, October 3, 1247. From this time till his death, four years after, the cause of Frederick declined. Frederick was mostly engaged in wars in Italy, and had not leisure, if he had the power, to attend to and right the wrongs of his Jewish vassals.
It was at this period that I think we may conclude the Toledoth Jeschu of Wagenseil was written.
Another consideration tends to confirm this view. The Wagenseil Toledoth Jeschu speaks of Elias rising up after the death of Simon Cephas, and denouncing him as having led the Christians away.
Was there any Elias at the close of the thirteenth century who did thus preach against the Pope? There was. Elias of Cortona, second General of the Franciscan Order, the leader of a strong reactionary party opposed to the Spirituals or Caesarians, those who maintained the rule in all its rigour, had been deposed, then carried back into the Generalship by a recoil of the party wave, then appealed against to the Pope, deposed once more, and finally excommunicated. Elias joined the Emperor Frederick, the deadly foe of Innocent IV., and, sheltered under his wing, denounced the venality, the avarice, the extortion of the Papacy. As a close attendant on the German Emperor, his adviser, as one who encouraged him in his opposition to a Pope who protected the Jews, the German Jews must have heard of him. But the stone of excommunication firing at him struck him down, and he died in 1253, making a death-bed reconciliation with Rome.
But though it is thus possible to give an historical explanation of the curious circumstance that the Toledoth Jeschu ranges the Pope among the friends of Judaism and the enemies of Christianity, and provide for the identification of Elias with the fallen General of the Minorites, – the story points perhaps to a dim recollection of Simon Peter being at the head of the Judaizing Church at Jerusalem and Rome, which made common cause with the Jews, and of Paul, here designated Elias, in opposition to him.
