nued in Babylonia. In this country, in which the Jewish race had heard its cradle song at the dawn of existence, and later on Judaea capta had sat

nd only to the Bible. The intellectual calm that supervened at the beginning of the sixth century and lasted until the end of the eighth century, betrayed itself in the slackening of independent creation, though not in the flagging of intellectual activity in general. In the schools and academies of Pumbeditha, Nahardea, and Sura, scientific work was carried on with the same zest as before, only this work had for its primary object the sifting and exposition o

et for his unconquerable thirst for action, his lust for world-dominion. The victorious religious wars of the followers of Allah ensued. This foreign movement was not without significance for the fate of the Jews. They were surrounded no longer by heathens but by Mohammedans, who believed in the God of the Bible, and through the mouth of their prophet conferred upon the Jews the honorable appellati

t forever within the narrow limits of a sect and consigning it to stagnation. What gave it vogue during the first century of its existence was its negative strength, its violent opposition to the Talmud, which aroused strenuous intellectual activity. For a long time it turned Judaism away from its one-sided Talmudic tendency, and opened up new avenues of work for it. True to their motto: "Search diligently in the Holy Scriptures," the adherents of Karaism applied themselves to the rational study of the Bible, which had c

egesis of the Bible, with philology, poetry, philosophy. The great Gaon Saadiah (892-942) united within himself all strands of thought. Over and above a large number of philological and other writings of scientific purport, he created a momentous religio-philosophic system, with the aim to clarify Judaism and refine religiou

rd in France (sixth to the ninth century) were the prelude to the more systematic and the more bloody cruelties of subsequent days. The insignificant numbers of the European Jews and the insecurity of their condition stood in the way of forming an intellectual centre of their own. They were compelled to acknowledge the spiritual supremacy of their Oriental brethren in faith. With the beginning of the tenth century the situation underwent a change. Arabic civilization, which had penetrated to Spain in previous centuries, brought about a radical transform

n favor of the Rabbis. After centuries of seclusion, the Jewish spirit once more asserted itself, an