=2. Close of the Schools: some Scholars.=――The schools did some good work, and produced some good scholars, before the end came. Towards the middle of the ninth century we hear of a complete dictionary of the Bible being compiled by a certain Rabbi Menahem ben Saruk. The book is still in existence. Then there was a celebrated Gaon called Saadia ben Joseph (892‒942), who translated the Bible into Arabic, which language was now becoming a second mother-tongue among the Eastern Jews. Another of the more celebrated of the Gaonim was named Sherira, and he has left us quite a detailed chronicle of these Babylonian schools. Sherira was very nearly the last of the Gaonim. He upheld the office worthily for thirty years (967‒997), and towards the end of his patriarchate he associated his son Hai with him in the dignity. The ruling kaliph cast a jealous eye on the old man’s wealth and honours. On a trumped-up charge, both father and son were cast into prison, and their riches confiscated. Hai escaped, and a little later, another attempt at this dangerous dignity was made by a certain Hezekiah. It failed, and this last Gaon was executed (1036) by order of the kaliph. All the Eastern schools were now closed, and the scholars were once more scattered. Palestine and the whole of the Byzantine Empire became almost deserted by Jews, and the interest shifts to the Western division of the world. =3. Jews in the West.=――In Italy, during the Middle Ages, we hear but very little of the Jews. The Lombards and Florentines were the chief merchants and money dealers, and the Popes, who were paramount in Italy, neither patronised nor persecuted the Jews. As a source of revenue the Popes did not need the Jews. From all quarters, and under all kinds of pretences, streams of money were continually flowing into the Papal treasury. Absolutions, indulgences, dispensations, had each a price, and a heavy one. Rich sinners were even more numerous than rich Jews, and quite as profitable. The Popes were for the most part too busy, and often, it may be said, too religiously indifferent, to turn persecutors for conscience sake. They lived in great state, and were intent on extending their political as well as their spiritual sovereignty. In these superstitious Middle Ages, which recognised in the Pope the actual ‘infallible’ agent of God, the most effectual weapon in the Popish arsenal would have been powerless against Jews. Jews would have cared nothing for that most dreaded of all punishments in Catholic countries, the Papal malediction. Thus, their money and their souls alike insignificant in the sight of the Popes, the Jews throughout the Papal dominions were mostly let alone. In the northern parts of Europe, where the influence of Mahomedanism had hardly penetrated, the Jews were subject to the old Roman law. They might not enter military service, and had to pay largely for local ‘protection’ from the lords of the soil. In our own England, Jews up to this period have