The practical activity of the Jews, their business interests, and
their consequent wealth did not stifle intellectual ideals. On
the contrary, thanks to the security assured them, they could
devote themselves to study. Their rich literature proves they
could occupy themselves at the same time with mental and material
pursuits. "For a people to produce scholars, it is necessary
that it be composed of something other than hard-hearted usurers
and sordid business men. The literary output is a thorough test
of social conditions."[5] Moreover, the intellectual status of a
people always bears relation to its material and economic
condition, and so, where the Jews enjoyed most liberty and
happiness, their literature has been richest and most brilliant.

From an intellectual point of view the Jews resembled the people
among whom they lived. Like them, they were pious, even extremely
devout; and they counted few unbelievers among their number.
Sometimes it happened that a religious person failed to obey
precepts, but no one contested the foundations of belief. In the
matter of religion, it is true, outward observance was guarded
above everything else. The Jews, settled as they were on foreign
soil, came to attach themselves to ceremonials as the surest
guarantees of their faith. Naturally superstitions prevailed at
an epoch marked by a total lack of scientific spirit. People
believed in the existence of men without shadows, in evil demons,
and so on. The Jews, however, were less inclined to such
conceptions than the Christians, who in every district had places
of pilgrimage at which they adored spurious bones and relics.

It would be altogether unjust not to recognize the ethical