characteristic of this literature
is that in it the Jewish race has registered each step of its
development. "All things learned, gathered, obtained, on its journeyings
hither and thither--Greek philosophy and Arabic, as well as Latin
scholasticism--all deposited themselves in layers about the Bible, so
stamping later Jewish literature with an individuality that gave it an
unique place among the literatures of the world."

The travellers, however, must be mentioned by name. Their itineraries
were wholly dedicated to the interests of their co-religionists. The
first of the line is Eldad, the narrator of a sort of Hebrew Odyssey.
Benjamin of Tudela and Petachya of Ratisbon are deserving of more
confidence as veracious chroniclers, and their descriptions, together
with Charisi's, complete the Jewish library of travels of those early
days, unless, with Steinschneider, we consider, as we truly may, the
majority of Jewish authors under this head. For Jewish writers a hard,
necessitous lot has ever been a storm wind, tossing them hither and
thither, and blowing the seeds of knowledge over all lands. Withal
learning proved an enveloping, protecting cloak to these mendicant and
pilgrim authors. The dispersion of the Jews, their international
commerce, and the desire to maintain their academies, stimulated a love
for travel, made frequent journeyings a necessity, indeed. In this way
only can we account for the extraordinarily rapid spread of Jewish
literature in the middle ages. The student of those times often chances
across a rabbi, who this day teaches, lectures, writes in Candia,
to-morrow in Rome, next year in Prague or Cracow, and so Jewish
literature is the "wandering Jew" among the world's literatures.

The fourth period, the Augustan age of our literature, closes with a
jarring discord--the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, their second
home, in which they had seen ministers, princes, professors, and poets
rise from their ranks. The scene of literary activity changes: France,
Italy, but chiefly the Slavonic East, are pushed into the foreground. It
is not a salutary change; it ushers in three centuries of decay and
stagnation in literary endeavor. The sum of the efforts is indicated by
the name of the period, the Rabbinical, for its chief work was the
development and fixation of Rabbinism.

Decadence did not set in immediately. Certain beneficent forces, either
continuing in action from the former period, or arising ou