stroke of genius. Never before had
such a work been so necessary as then. The Jews were in sight of what
was to them the darkest age, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Though the Shulchan Aruch had an evil effect in stereotyping Jewish
religious thought and in preventing the rapid spread of the critical
spirit, yet it was a rallying point for the disorganized Jews, and saved
them from the disintegration which threatened them. The Shulchan Aruch
was the last great bulwark of the Rabbinical conception of life. Alike
in its form and contents it was a not unworthy close to the series of
codes which began with the Mishnah, and in which life itself was
codified.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Steinschneider.--_Jewish Literature_, p. 213 _seq._

I.H. Weiss.--On _Codes_, _J.Q.R._, I, p. 289.

ASHER BEN YECHIEL.

Graetz.--IV, p. 34 [37].

JACOB ASHERI.

Graetz.--IV, p. 88 [95].

SOLOMON BEN ADERETH.

Graetz.--III, p. 618 [639].

MEIR OF ROTHENBURG.

Graetz.--III, pp. 625, 638 [646].

JUDAH MINZ.

Graetz.--IV, p. 294 [317].

MAHARIL.

S. Schechter.--_Studies in Judaism_, p. 142 [173].

DAVID BEN ABI ZIMRA.

Graetz.--IV, p. 393 [420].

JAIR CHAYIM BACHARACH.

D. Kaufmann, _J.Q.R._, III, p. 292, etc.

JOSEPH KARO.

Graetz.--IV, p. 537 [571].

MOSES ISSERLES.

Graetz.--IV, p. 637 [677].

CHIDDUSHIM.

Graetz.--IV, p. 641 [682].

CHAPTER XXIV

AMSTERDAM IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Manasseh ben Israel.--Baruch Spinoza.--The Drama in
Hebrew.--Moses Zacut, Joseph Felix Penso, Moses Chayim
Luzzatto.

Holland was the centre of Jewish hope in the seventeenth century, and
among its tolerant and cultivated people the Marranos, exiled from Spain
and Portugal, founded a new Jerusalem. Two writers of Marrano origin,
wide as the poles asunder in gifts of mind and character, represented
two aspects of the aspiration of the Jews towards a place in the wider
world. Manasseh ben Israel (1604-1657) was an enthusiast who based his
ambitious hopes on the Messianic prophecies; Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)
lacked enthusiasm, had little belief in the verbal promises of
Scripture, yet developed a system of ethics in which God filled the
world. Manasseh ben Israel regained for the Jews admission to England;
Spinoza reclaimed the right of a Jew to a voice in the philosophy of the
world. Both were political thinkers who maintained the full rights of
the individual conscience, and though the arguments