The declaration of war made by Innocent III. was a terrible calamity for the Jews; but though it affected at once the whole of Christian Europe, still its evil results might have passed away in time. Popes were but men and politicians; and just as Innocent had, by the publication of his wishes and decrees concerning the Jews, set himself in opposition to his predecessors, so might his successors, in their turn, moved by different feelings or taking a different view of the interests and duties of the Church, set themselves in opposition to him, and go back to the old lenient opinions and practice. But within a few years of the death of Innocent, the work of attacking the Jews ceased to be in the hands of any one man, and passed over to a body of men habitually influenced not by personal or political considerations, but only by what they conceived to be the interest of religion, and filled with a hatred of the Jews more fierce and fanatical and steadfast than that of the Popes could ever have been. The Dominican order was formally constituted in 1223, and from the earliest years of its existence devoted itself to the task of rooting out unbelief from the Christian world. The work that its members at first professed to regard as peculiarly their own was that of preaching, but on the Jews their preaching had no effect. With an ingenuity and determination worthy of the order that in a later century was to provide the Inquisition with its chief ministers, the Dominicans devised and carried out another plan of action. Assisted by converted Jews who had joined them, they undertook the study of Hebrew, and their master, Raymundus de Peñaforte, induced the King of Spain to build and endow seminaries for the purpose.[188] Armed with this new knowledge, they were able to attack first, what they represented as the foolish and pernicious contents of such Jewish books as the Talmud, and secondly, the stubbornness of the Jews who refused to accept the doctrines of Christianity, the truth of which the Dominicans professed to be able to demonstrate from the Old Testament. Two incidents which must at the time have been famous throughout Europe illustrate their method of warfare. In 1239 Nicolas Donin, a converted Jew who had become a Dominican friar, laid before Gregory IX. a series of statements concerning the Talmud. Helped, no doubt, by all the influence of his order, he induced the Pope to issue bulls to the Kings of France, England, and Spain, and the bishops in those countries, ordering that all copies of the Talmud should be seized, and that public inquiry should be held concerning the charges brought against the book. In England and Spain nothing seems to have been done, but in Paris the Pope’s instructions were carried out, and, at the instigation of the leading Dominicans, St. Louis ordered that all copies of the Talmud that could be found in France should be confiscated, and that four Rabbis should, on behalf of the Jews, hold a public debate with