=5. Jehudah Halevi (1085‒1140).=――When the cry of _Hep! Hep!_ was ringing in all its first fierce frenzy over Europe, there were just one or two quiet corners in the Continent where the sound was forbidden. Peter of Arragon and Alfonso VI. of Castile were the Caleb and Joshua of their age, who stood steadfast, refusing to join in a ‘false report,’ and follow a multitude to do evil. Within the century that had just closed, France, Italy, Germany, Bohemia, and Greece had each been, at different times, the scene of terrible persecutions of the Jews. In Spain alone, under the mild sway of the Ommeyade kaliphs, Jews found peaceable homes. By the beginning of the twelfth century the Catholic kings were fast winning back Spain from the Moors, but the tolerant policy of the Mahomedans was yet, for a while, maintained. Space and liberty were still accorded to Jewish subjects, and it was on the safe soil of Old Castile, whilst Alfonso VI. reigned, that the poet, Jehudah Halevi, of whom a sober historian[39] gravely writes that the words ‘created in the image of God,’ when applied to him, read like the most simple and literal of descriptions, passed his childhood. As Jehudah grew up he became the very centre and chief of the group of tuneful and unworldly sages who, whilst the world was hurrying after vain shadows, and forgetting all about such beautiful realities as learning and humanity, remind us, by their calm and studious and religious lives, that such things did exist even in the dark ages. The quiet, uneventful histories of such men have been almost covered up from sight in the din and dust raised by recurring crowds of ‘chivalrous’ crusaders. Even in the age in which they lived, these gentle old scholars were not very visible, nor very prominent figures. They seem to stand a little apart, writing their poetry and philosophy, studying among the wise, teaching among the ignorant, and rarely eager for fame, and never for reward. Like the scholars of an older period, these, whom we find behind the scenes of the Middle Ages, used ‘the Law’ neither as a spade to dig with, nor as a crown to shine with. A modest livelihood was contentedly dug out of some handicraft or profession, and as to shining, they never thought about it at all. Jehudah Halevi, physician and poet, was the highest type of this old-fashioned class of authors, and in his lifetime was far wider known as a doctor than as a poet. Even his doctoring was done on old-fashioned lines. As he stands in his laboratory he writes: ‘This draught that I myself combine, What is it? Only Thou dost know If well or ill, if swift or slow, Its parts shall work upon my pain. Ay, of these things, alone is Thine The knowledge. All my faith I place Not in my craft, but in Thy grace.’ His ‘faith’ was perfect; it never failed him.