at last the Mohammedans followed the example of the Christians.

The system of oath-breaking against the infidels was continued after the crusades were practically over. Every war against the Turks was called a crusade. King Wladislaus of Hungary and Poland had made peace with the Sultan Murad in July 1444, for ten years. The king confirmed it by an oath on the Gospels, the Sultan by an oath on the Koran. Trusting in the newly concluded peace, the Sultan set out for Asia with his army. Thereupon, the Pope Eugene sent word to the king Wladislaus, through his legate the cardinal Julian Cesarini, that the peace concluded without his consent was null and void, and that he released him from his oath. Thus it was determined to break one oath, and, strangely enough, another was sworn instead. "Not ten days," says Hammer-Purgstall, "had passed after the conclusion of the peace, confirmed by an oath on the Gospels, when the pontificial legate, cardinal Julian Cesarini, caused the king and his counsellors to swear by the name of the Holy Trinity, of the glorious Holy Virgin, of St. Stephen and St. Ladislaus, that the peace was broken, and that he would set out for Orsova with his army on the first of September."

There was a man in the Hungarian Council, Johann Hunyady, who pleaded for postponement and got it. Did he do this from. conscientiousness? By no means - only to take possession of the Serbian fortresses which the Turks had ceded during the peace and surrendered at once, "in loyal observance of the treaty". As soon as the Sultan Murad heard of the oath-breaking of the Christians and of their army invading his empire, he, being by that time with his army on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus, came back in haste to Europe and in forced marches went to meet the enemy. Near Varna, the two armies met. As Bonfinius. relates in his History of Hungary, the Sultan had the document of peace stuck on a lance and carried before him, and called out: "Look here, Jesus Christ, this is the document of the peace which the Christians made with me and confirmed by oath in Thy holy name. If Thou art a god, avenge the insult done to thee and to myself."

And the insult was avenged. The Christian army was disastrously defeated, and soon, the head of king Wladislaus was to be seen on a second lance. The cardinal Cesarini and two bishops also met with their death. Hunyady took to flight and thus saved himself. (Hammer-Purgstall, History of the Osmanic Empire, II. Book, vol. I, p. 353 ff. See also Katona, Historia critica regum Hung. vol. XIII; Fleury, Histoire eccles. Livre CIX, ch. 72-87.)

It is characteristic of the view held of the oath in the Middle Ages that when the inhabitants of La Rochelle, subjects of the king of England, rebelled against him and yielded to the king of France, they stipulated among other things that they should be released by the Pope from their oath sworn to England, at the cost of the king of France, lest it should trouble their conscience. (Les Chroniques de Sir Jean Froissart, a. 1372, livre I, part II, ch. 355.)

Don Gonsalve of Cordova, the commander in chief of king Ferdinand the Catholic of Spain, was a very devout Catholic. At the capitulation of the town of Tarent to which he had laid siege, he solemnly took an oath on the Host to grant safe retreat to the Duke of Calabria. Hardly had the town been surrendered to him, when he had the duke seized and brought to Spain as a prisoner. Before he did so, devout and conscientious man that he was, he was convinced by theologians who were just as devout as he himself, that he need not keep the oath which he had sworn on behalf of his king, and the king need not keep it either since he himself had not sworn it. Thus the duke had time, during a captivity of more than fifty years, to ponder over the merits of Spanish oaths (Sismondi, Histoire des Republiques Italiennes, vol. XIII, 127. Cf. also Muratori, Annali d'Italia a, 1501; Paulus Jovius, Vita Magni Consalvi Lib. I).

The viceroy of Spain, Don Ferrante Gonzaga, could only put an end to a mutiny of soldiers (A. D. 1538) by promising them general pardon, which he confirmed by a solemn oath before the altar. Hardly had the mutineers laid down their arms, when the viceroy had all their leaders and many other soldiers seized and executed. (Barbaremente, contro la fede data e conculcata la

religione d'essi giuramenti fece impiccare. Cf. also Muratori, I. c. anno 1538.)

The great Theodoric, "Dietrich von Bern", the much-belauded hero of German legends, was no better than Gonsalvo of Cordova. After he had besieged Ravenna for three years, king Odoacer surrendered the town to him upon his promise by oath to let Odoacer have not only his life and his property, but also royal honours and, as some will recall, a share in the government. (A. D. 403.) A few days after his entrance into the town, Theodoric invited Odoacer to a banquet, and upon the pretext that the latter had conspired against him, killed him with his own hands. Theodoric then had all of Odoacer's family and as many of his people whom he could lay hand on slaughtered, so that nobody was spared who might have taken revenge for this massacre. (A. Thierry, Récits de l'histoire romaine, vol. III, 4, 2-5; cf. also Anonymus Valsianus, ed. Mommsen in Monumenta germ. hist. T. IX, p. 320; Muratori, Annali a. 493.)

"Meurtre barbare que les auteurs favorables a Théodorich tâchent d'excuser en disant qu'il avait découvert un complot formé contre sa vie. Mais des écrivains qu'on ne peut soupçonner de partialité, traitent ce forfait d'assassinat commis contre la foi des serments." (Le Beaux, Histoire du Bas-Empire L. 37, ch. 15.)

The cases in point could be multiplied at pleasure, but those given above will be sufficient to justify our asking whether our dear enemies, who so meticulously scrutinize the Talmud and the Shulchan Aruch in regard to the sanctity of the oath, do not think it proper, for the sake of arriving at a fair judgment, to compare the morals and practices of the Christian peoples with those of the Jews.

CHAPTER XI.

SEXUAL MORALITY.

I. Charge of Incontinence.

Dinter (Sin against the Blood, p. 380) says:

It is impossible to reproduce here all the shamelessness of the Talmud which justifies adultery with a Christian woman. The reader will find details in the 7th chapter of Rohling's Talmudic Jews (new edition by Carl Paasch, Leipzig, Hammer-Verlag, price I mark). But even these few proofs will make it clear that all the Jewish youths and married men, who seduce thousands of German girls and women every year, act according to the Jewish religious precepts.

It has been shown over and over again that, according to the investigation of the sworn experts Professor Theodor Nöldeke and Dr. August Wünsche, all of Rohling's quotations are absolute humbug. But Rohling was perfectly aware of the untruth of his accusation, for he involved in his accusations against the Talmud the passages in which, with reference to the chapter of the Bible, relating the murder of the Israelitic prince Zimri by Phinehas, it is expressly stated that a Jew who offends with a non-Jewess and is caught in the act may be killed immediately. If every Jew who offends with a nonJewess may be killed at once, as Rohling himself asserts as a charge against the Talmud, this is contradicted by his second assertion, that a Jew may offend with a non-Jewess with impunity. On the subject of carnal sins, however, the Talmud is draconic in its rigor on the one hand, and meticulous in its warnings on the other. Thus in Kiddushin 80b a Jew is forbidden to be alone with a woman (unless it be his mother or sister) whether

a Jewess or a non-Jewess, with the discourteous reason that women are light-minded.

A man ought not to be alone (in a room) with two women, but a woman may be alone with two men. Rabbi Simon says, A man may also be alone with two women if his wife is with him, and he may sleep with two women in a shelter if his wife watches over him. A man may be alone with his mother and with his daughter (it is, of course, understood, that a man must not be alone with one woman who is a stranger to him). Gemara: What is the reason (of his not being permitted to be alone with two women)? The school of Eliahu said, Because women are light-minded. Kiddushim 80b; N. and W. 229. Aboda Zara 36b extends this prohibition expressly to being alone with a non-Jewess. The text is very long, and, at the end of their translation, Nöldeke and Wünsche sum up (230):

Here it is expounded at great length that the prohibitions in regard to meeting with women ought to be rendered more severe in the course of time; the objection, that this and that has long been forbidden by laws of the Pentateuch, is being refuted, and it is shown that the next prohibition was always more particular than the former one...

The court of justice of Noah's son, Shem, already forbade lust; the Mosaic law forbade marriage with the women of the seven peoples, marriage of an Israelite woman with a Goy, being alone with a married woman, public offence with a Goya; the court of justice of David forbade being alone with any Israelitic woman; the court of justice of the Hasmonaeans (Maccabees) forbade secret offence with a Goya; the rabbis forbade marriage with a Goya, and being alone with a Goya. According to Shulchan Aruch (Eben Haezer 16, 1; 2; N. and W. 231) a Jew having intercourse with a non-Jewess is liable to the punishment of 39 stripes;1 if he did it without having in view marriage or a lasting relation the punishment is doubled; if he lives with her in concubinage it is trebled. Besides, the offender is reminded of the Divine punishment, viz. that he will die without offspring.

According to Sanhedrin 82b, the ravisher of a non-Jewess is liable to the curse of God.

(1) In Baba Bathra 57a it is related that when once Rabbi Shila sentenced a Jew to this punishment for such an offense, the one punishend complained against him to the Roman authorities because he (the Rabbi) had assumed such judicial functions without the permission of the State.

19 Bloch, Israel and the Nations.