s--the Syriac, the
Chaldean, and especially the Greek. The Rabbis, however, instructed in
the religion, still learned the Hebrew, explained it, and commented on
the Scripture.[43] Thus the Jewish religion was preserved, and,
thanks to it, the Jewish people. It made converts even among the
Gentiles; there were in the empire proselytes, that is, people who
practised the religion of Jehovah without being of the Jewish race.

The Christian Church, powerful since the fourth century, commenced to
persecute the Jews. This persecution has endured to this day in all
Christian countries. Usually the Jews were tolerated on account of
their wealth and because they transacted all banking operations; but
they were kept apart, not being permitted to hold any office. In the
majority of cities they were compelled to wear a special costume, to
live in a special quarter,[44] gloomy, filthy, unhealthy, and
sometimes at Easter time to send one of their number to suffer insult.
The people suspected them of poisoning fountains, of killing children,
of profaning the consecrated host; often the people rose against them,
massacred them, and pillaged their houses. Judges under the least
pretext had them imprisoned, tortured, and burned. Sometimes the
church tried to convert them by force; sometimes the government exiled
them _en masse_ from the country and confiscated their goods. The Jews
at last disappeared from France,[45] from Spain, England, and Italy.
In Portugal, Germany, and Poland, and in the Mohammedan lands they
maintained themselves. From these countries after the cessation of
persecution they returned to the rest of Europe.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] Exodus iii, 1-10.

[42] There is much uncertainty regarding the chronology of this
period.--ED.

[43] The Talmud is the accumulation of these commentaries.

[44] The Jewish Quarter at Rome was called the Ghetto. This name has
since been applied to all Jewish quarters.

[45] Except at Avignon, on the domains of the Pope, and in
Alsace-Lorraine.

CHAPTER IX

GREECE AND THE GREEKS

=The Country.=--Greece is a very little country (about 20,000 square
miles), hardly larger than Switzerland; but it is a country of great
variety, bristling with mountains, indented with gulfs--a country
originally constituted to influence mightily the character of the men
who inhabited it.

A central chain, the Pindus, traverses Greece through the centre and
covers it with its rocky system. Towa