A schism of purely civic origin was to prove to the world that the German kings were not invariably responsible for ecclesiastical divisions. The wealth and power of the Pierleoni, and still more the great services they had rendered the Church, justified the hope which they cherished of seeing a member of their house on the papal throne. Their distinguished family was of Jewish extraction, and this singular fact induces us to bestow a glance on the synagogue in Rome.

The Jews in Rome

The Hebrew colony, established in Trastevere and round the island bridge since the time of Pompey, survived through all the storms of history. An insignificant company of Jews was here tolerated as a monumental symbol of the manner in which Christianity was rooted in the Old Testament. The Jews were consequently treated with more humanity in Rome than in other cities during the Middle Ages. They transmitted their blood unmixed with the blood of Romans or barbarians from generation to generation; they beheld the republic of ancient Rome, Roman Csesarism, the immense city of marble, and a second Frankish empire fall to dust beside them: more indestructible than monuments of bronze, they survived the frightful Nemesis of the centuries; and to this day they continue to pray to Jehovah, the God of Abraham and Moses, in the same streets beside the Tiber.