ever, they are faid to have one hundred families against forty of Christians. They are not fuffered to fettle at Scamachia, a trading city on the Caspian Sea; but the Tartars, who bring thither boys, girls, and horses, to fell, are obliged to tolerate, and intermix with them for the fake of that commerce. They fpread themselves as far as the foot of mount Cauca fus; and we are told, that the prince of Mingrelia, as well as that of Imiretta, pretend to be defcended from king David. The ancient monarchs of Georgia boafted the fame in Georextract; and the Cham of that country, among his other ti- gia, &c. Etles, takes that of a defcendant from that Jewish king by his fon Solomon. They give indeed no folid proof of it, tho' there is a great mixture of Judaifm among them; and there is the fmall city fituate at the foot of Caucafus called Alakzike, in which they had formerly a fynagogue built by the Georgians; but which the Turks have fince taken from them. This is the ftate of the Jews in Perfia, Media, Armenia, and other provinces of this large part of the Eaft. They Trade, have their fynagogues, and are very numerous, fince they are found in all the trading cities from Baffora and the Indies, quite to Mingrelia, Georgia, &c. But their tribes have longfince been fo confounded and blended, that they are no longer diftinguished. What is ftill worse, they are very poor and Poverty. ignorant; and, for the most part, get a miferable living by the lowest and meaneft fervices in life; they have neither commerce nor correfpondence with their brethren in the Weft, and hardly know any thing of them. But it is now time to see how they fare in other provinces of the East. AND here one would naturally expect, that Judea, their Why fo once delightful country, fhould have a greater number of few in Juthem than either Syria, Egypt, &c.; but, as all its noble dea. ftreams of milk and honey have been long-fince dried up, their love for it hath cooled in proportion. It is indeed frequently vifited by their devotees, who go thither in pilgri mage, as well as the Chriftians; but few of either fort care to fettle in it, fince they find it fo difficult not only to grow rich, but even to get a tolerable fubfiftence in it. SAPHETA, or, as the Jews commonly call it, Sephet, The acaasor rather Tzepheth, a city in Galilee, is the most populous and my of Sa the most noted that the Jews have in this province. It en- pheta, joys feveral advantages above the reft (O); and they are used with 'CHARDIN'S Voyage into Perfia, p. 107, & feq. Ibid. p. 168. (0) It is fituate in the tribe of Naphthali, about nine miles from Bethsaidah, and built on and with greater mildness than in any other part of the Ottoman empire ". A traveller of the last century affirms, that nonę but Jews were in it; but he was misinformed, having only rode by the foot of it ; for it hath about one-third Mohammedans, and the rest all Jews. It hath an academy which is Learned ftill famous, and much reforted to, and hath had fome learned profeffors in it; and, though the Jewish nation have for a good while loft their relish for learning, yet they fend their children to be inftructed in the Hebrew tongue; for it is their notion, that it can be no-where taught in its purity fo well as there; and Sapheta is now become what Tiberias was once. The reader may fee in the margin an account of Rabbies. their most celebrated rabbies and profeffors (P). All that we need men. FULLER'S Pifgah fight, p. 111. the Levant, p. 342. (P) It is plain, from Benja- W STOCHOVE'S Voy. of cludes the four different fenfes of the Old Teftament; the P is the literal, R the mystical, D the enigmatical, and S the hidden or concealed (34). The next was Dominic of Je rufalem, who taught fome time, and had been dubbed Rav, or doctor, in it after he had finish. ed his ftudies and lectures on the thalmud. But he was ftill more famed for his skill in phy fic; for which he was fent for to Conftantinople, and became the Sultan's phyfician. He lived till the beginning of the last cen tury; and, having embraced Christianity, tranflated the New Teftament into Hebrew, and answered fome objections which the Jewish rabbies made against the martyrdom of St. Stephen. Murfius feems to mention two of the fame name, both Jews by birth, both phyficians to the Sultan, and both new converts to Christianity; but, in all (33) See Canticles, chap. iv. ver. 13. (34) Bartoloc, ubi fup. tom. iv. p. 230, tom. ii. p. 282. like. they have fubfifted fo long, fo much credit and fafety. printing-house for Hebrew need add, is, that there is not a city in Palestine, where and even to this day, and with They had likewise set up here a books, as they had likewife at Theffa likelihood, they have been split into two without any reafon (35). But those who have done most credit to this academy, were the learned Mofes Trani and Jofeph Karo, who prefided in it about the middle of the 16th century. The former was a native of Trani, a city in Puglia, and taught here with fuch fuccefs, that he was ftiled, The Light of Ifrael, the Sinaite of Mount Sinai, and the Rooter up of Mountains; because he takes off all the difficulties that occur in the law. His work is not a fet of fermon, as Buxtorf hath imagined; for the title of it fhews it to be a body of few if laws, wherein that author goes back to their fountainhead, and diftinguishes between thofe penned by Mofes, thofe which have been tranfmitted by oral tradition, and thofe which are only founded on the decifions of their Jewish doctors (35). Jofeph Karo was a native of Spain, whence he retired into Galilee, where he died, an. 1575. He wrote fo well on the rights of the Jewish nation, that he was called, The Prodigy of the World (37). Befides thofe doctors which were ftrangers, Sapheta was not without fome others that were bred up in her bofom. Mofes Alfheh was a native of it, and diftinguished himself in the seventeenth century, not only by his eloquent fermons, but by his learned commentaries upon fome part of the law. All the titles of his works are metaphorical. One is called, The Eye of Moses; another, The Rofe of Sharon; a 3d, The Lily of the Valley; 4th, Good Words; 5th, Comforting Words; 6th, The Portion of the Lawgiver; 7th, Hundred Gates; 8th, Mofes's Burden; 9th, The Warrior's Looking glass; 10th, The Voice of the Weepers; 11th, The Lar of Mofes; and fome others of. the like nature. He is much admired for aiming ftill at fome thing new in his expofitions of Scripture, and for his fondness for ancient writers above the moderns; and fairly relates their fentiments, even when they favour the Chriftians. He doth not, for instance, disguise that the Meffiah was to be a man of forrows, &c. (38). On the contrary, he proves it, by the threefold diftinction which the ancients have made of thofe af. flictions, viz. 1 Of those which related to the patriarchs: 2. Thofe that related to the people of God and 3. Those that related to the Meffiah. But he is not fo exact and uniform in the application of these prophecies; feeing fome of them, he abfurdly refers back quite (35) Nic. Murf. Relatione della citta de Conftantinopoli, can. Riri, &c. Del. Ottomano Imperio, p. 34 Bifn. ubi fup. c. xxviii. §. 4., (36) Bartol. tom iv. P. 31. (37) Ibid. tom. iii. p. 819." "Vid. Wolf, Bafnag. (38) ffatub liii. pij. MOD. HIST. VOL. XIII. Bb to lem. Theffalonica and Conftantinople, which were afterwards suppreffed by the Porte x. Few Jews THE Jews are ftill in much smaller numbers at Jerufalem, at Jerufa- where there are reckoned only about 100 families, who live moftly upon Mount Sion, and a few of them are employed in the customs, or by the governor as fecretaries and clerks; and all the reft are poor beggars, who live chiefly upon alms fent to them from their richer brethren in the Eaft and Weft (Q). These have hammered out a strange excufe for their * De his vid. MAITTAIR'S Annal. Typogr. ORLANDI ORIG. della Stampa. PALMER'S Hift. of Printing. to Mofes, which plainly belong Chrift (39). R. Samuel Ozida was likewife born at Sapheta, and was a celebrated preacher. He wrote a commentary on the Lamentations of Jeremy, which he ftiles, The Bread of Tears. Mofes Nagaira was another native of Gailce; though fome make him a Portugueze, on account of his name. He likewife taught at Sapheta, and hath left a commentary on the Pentateuch, which is much efteemed by the Jews. The latt we fhall mention was the famed R. Judah Jona, a native of the place, and master of our Bartolocci, and who infpired him with the defign of writing his Bibliotheca Rabbinica, fo often quoted in this chapter. Judah Jona was defcend. ed from a Spanish family, which retired into Tufcany upon the edict of king Ferdinand; and being thence again expelled by pope Pius V. paffed into the East, and some of them at Sapheta, where Jona was born. Here he finished his studies, and took the degree of doctor; and then came to Amfterdam, where he rendered himself famous for the judgment which he passed on the validity of a will in favour of a bastard son, which was afterwards ratified by eigh ty-feven rabbies of Germany and Theffalonica. He was afterwards chofen judge by the Jews of Hamburgh; and foon after paffed into Poland, where he turned Chriftian, and became jeweller to Sigifmund III. He was afterwards fent by him to Conftantinople, under pretence of buying precious ftones, and was there feized as a spy; and would have loft his life, had not the Venetian ambassador redeemed him. He fettled next at Rome, where he taught Bartolocci the Hebrew tongue; and is faid to have had fuch a tena cious memory, that, if the thalmud had been loft, he could have recovered it. He died an. 1668 (40). (Q) Nothing can be a greater proof of their extreme poverty, than the frequent deputations they send to make (39) R. M. Alfheb. In Ifai. ex verf. Conftant. l'Empereur præfat. & 232, 238, 240. Bafnag. ubi fup. §. 6. Wolf. Bibl. Hæbr. N. 1523, p. 808, & feq. (40) Bartoloc, ubi sup, tom, iii. Wolf, Bibl, Hæbr. N. 720. p. 430. collections their want of zeal, and their averfenefs to fettle in that holy Their pre city. They tell us, that it is to be reduced to afhes at the tence for coming of the Meffiah, by a fire from Heaven, which is to it. be immediately followed by a miraculous rain that fhall extinguish it; to the end that the holy place may be purified by fire and water, from the pollutions which the Chriftians. and Mohammedans have committed in it; their fear theretore of being involved in that dreadful conflagration, they tell you, is the motive that keeps them from dwelling near it. They would doubtlefs fpeak more fincerely, if they owned, The true that the little traffic that is carried on there, the heavy im- reafon of pofts laid on them by the Turks, the extreme poverty which it. reigns among them that live in it, and the infults and mortifications they are expofed to from the Mohammedans, who have an equal, if not a greater, veneration for that city, and many Santons living in it, are the real difcouragements that keep them from fettling there. THERE was the famed Rabbi Jaacob in this city at the time R. Jaa that Selim took it, at the beginning of the fixteenth century, cob, A.C who compiled a learned work, called, The eye of Ifrael, which 1517. was a collection of the various expofitions of the law which are found in the thalmud. Several doctors had already compiled all that concerns the queftions of Jewish rights and rites; but Jaacob collected thofe that relate to the law, and are scattered in that large volume. He did not live to finish his design, but left it to his fon Levi, who was no lefs learned than his father; and who completed, published, and prefaced it with lively tokens of forrow for his father's untimely death. And it was on account of this work, that a A rupturē violent rupture happened among the contemplative profeffors among the of Sapheta, which lafted during Levi's whole life. But, af- rabbies of ter his death, the jealoufy which his learning had raised, Sapheta, began to cool, his memory to be revered, and his book, which faved the reading of feveral large volumes, was received with great applause (R). A. C. 1538 |