258 A History of Judaism
communities clustered around churches. The prohibition of bigamy by
rabbis in Germany in the tenth century must reflect the surrounding
Christian culture, since the rabbis made no attempt to ban polygamy
for Jews living in Islamic lands where polygamy was common. Some-
where between imitation and competition lies the adoption by Jews of
martyrologies similar to those which proved so powerful in the prov-
ision of narratives about saints to inspire early Christians, which in turn
were modelled on the martyr narratives of the Maccabees (see Chapter
8). For the rabbis, Akiva’s death became an archetypical story of noble
suffering ‘to sanctify the name of God’:
When R. Akiba was taken out for execution, it was the hour for the recital
of the Shema, and while they combed his flesh with iron combs, he was
accepting upon himself the kingship of heaven. His disciples said to him,
‘Our teacher, even to this point?’ He said to them, ‘All my days I have been
troubled by this verse, “with all your soul”, [which I interpret,] “even if
He takes thy soul”. I said, “When shall I have the opportunity of fulfilling
this?” Now that I have the opportunity shall I not fulfil it?’ He prolonged the
word ‘one ’ [the last word of the Shema] until he expired while saying it.^25
The vogue for such stories of martyrdom increased greatly in Ger-
many during the time of the Crusades, as in the Chronicles of Solomon
bar Simson of the self- sacrifice of martyrs in Mainz in 1096:
When the people of the Sacred Covenant saw that the Heavenly decree had
been issued and that the enemy had defeated them and were entering the court-
yard, they all cried out together – old and young, maidens and children,
menservants and maids – to their Father in Heaven. They wept for themselves
and for their lives and proclaimed the justness of the Heavenly judgement, and
they said to one another: ‘Let us be of good courage and bear the yoke of the
Holy Creed, for now the enemy can only slay us by the sword, and death by
the sword is the lightest of the four deaths. We shall then merit eternal life, and
our souls will abide in the Garden of Eden in the presence of the great lumi-
nous speculum forever.’ ... Then in a great voice they all cried out as one, ‘We
need tarry no longer, for the enemy is already upon us. Let us hasten and offer
ourselves as a sacrifice before God. Anyone possessing a knife should examine
it to see that it is not defective, and let him then proceed to slaughter us in
sanctification of the Unique and Eternal One, then slaying himself – either cut-
ting his throat or thrusting the knife into his stomach.’^26
The influence of Islam on Judaism was to be very different, and hard
to overestimate. Rabbinic theology, poetry, law and even biblical