Читать книгу A Jewish Journey - Sheldon Cohen - Страница 5

Unknown to humankind in the fourteenth century was that the disease was caused by bacteria. It would take five centuries until Louis Pasteur would develop his germ theory of disease. Until this groundbreaking discovery, superstition and fear ruled as the etiologic mechanisms for all diseases and catastrophic events that befell humankind.

The Plague had different names depending on the way the disease manifested itself.

The physicians of the day were helpless and many met the same fate as the victims they attempted to treat.

Bacteria carrying rats were the cause. Fleas fed on the rat’s blood and the bacteria multiplied in the intestinal tract of the fleas. They would then bite man and regurgitate the bacteria into the victim’s blood stream. Within days, large swollen lymph glands known as bubos would appear. Secondary manifestations could then include pneumonia and/or septicemia (blood poisoning). Death would result from respiratory failure due to the pneumonia, or massive internal bleeding as a hemorrhagic complication of the septicemia.

As the fleas bit more and more victims, and as these victims met their relatives and friends, the infection disseminated and the disease became a raging, uncontrollable epidemic.

In the minds of the populace, the causes varied from earthquakes to comets to astrological forces to Jews. Of these four etiologies, Jews were the only controllable choice, so their inquisitors tortured them. Under such duress, some confessed to anything and the word went out that the Jews had poisoned the wells.

It became local government policy to rid the area of the Jews. The townspeople divided all the Jew’s money and other possessions. The local populace drowned or burned the Jews to death. Thus did most of them perish. Many who managed to escape this punishment committed suicide by cremating themselves in their own homes.

Pope Clement VI lost seven cardinals as well as eleven thousand of his subjects in the city of Avignon. He refused to accept his advisors suggestion that the plague resulted from a conjunction of stars and planets, so he ordered autopsies in an attempt to determine the cause. This was one of the first pioneering efforts in the field of pathologic anatomy. He also refused to accept the suggestion that Jews were the cause since he observed that Jews were dying as fast as were their Christian neighbors. However, his efforts were not enough and by the time the plague had passed, very few Jews remained alive in Western Europe. In Oberammergau, in 1633, the panicky townspeople gathered in a little parish church and vowed to produce the drama of the Suffering and Death of Jesus every ten years if only the plague would disappear.

God answered their prayers. The plague abated and soon, with the help of monks from a neighboring monastery, the villagers fulfilled their promise.

From the 1670’s on, every decade beheld an ever-enlarging spectacle portrayed with fervor and devotion by the townspeople. The reputation of the Passion Play spread throughout Europe, and increasing numbers of the faithful came for religious renewal.

In the 1840s, the Passion Play committee consisted of twenty-four Oberammergau citizens. Their responsibility was to organize and market the coming play, and choose the principle actors from the many Oberammergau citizens clamoring to participate. This selection process took place six months in advance of the play and the townspeople held their collective breaths waiting to see if they received a part. The only ones eligible were town citizens and at least half of them participated.

The people of the town felt responsible for this important task. To them the play was their sacred tradition handed down from generation to generation. For the six months prior to the opening of the play, the citizens stopped all town amusements and concentrated on rehearsals.

The Passion Play from medieval times to the 1840s remained unchanged. The villains, the deicidal Jews, find Jesus guilty of “blasphemy” and they turn him over to the Romans for sentencing. A Jewish mob led by Caiphus demands punishment for Jesus, and the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate, agrees to their demands by condemning him to the cross.

The story line rotated around the battle between absolute goodness (Jesus) and absolute evil (the Jews) that collaborated with devils to kill Jesus. In the eighteenth c century, the Jews were clad with prominent double horned hats. The point needed emphasis; the Jews assumed the role of the devil.

Caiaphas, portrayed as leading the Jews against Jesus, was a member of the Sadducee sect, all descended from aristocrats and priests. They accepted the authority of the written Torah and viewed the priests as the only experts on Jewish law. Their primary form of worship was the cult of sacrifice. They did not believe in the concept of an immortal soul. They did not accept a divine afterlife with its punishment or rewards. They denied the existence of angels. A minority of Jews, influenced by the Roman culture supported the Sadducees. This relationship assured that the Romans would always appoint a Sadducee as High Priest.

The majority of Jews were Pharisees. They accepted the written Torah and believed that at Mount Sinai, God handed down an oral Jewish law tradition that they were responsible for interpreting. They also believed in the immortality of the soul, and thus a divine reward/punishment system in an afterlife. The Pharisees taught and encouraged study and prayer as the proper form of Jewish worship. Many Pharisees thought of Jesus as an important Rabbi and teacher.