Besides making new sources available, Graetz gained fresh points of view and surprising information from the old ones. He was particularly successful in restoring to Jewish accounts that had become hazy or sounded incredible a freshly colored background and life-like reality, or at least in laying bare their kernel of fact, by the discovery of hardly recognizable parallel passages and proofs in non-Jewish authors. He sought everywhere, and was more or less successful in finding and inserting in their place, connecting links and complementary pieces. When he approached his bold undertaking with the courage inspired by enthusiasm, Jewish history was a vast field of debris, over which volcanic events had poured out their lava, and the centuries had scattered their dust. Here and there a gigantic ruin, some literary production, towered in solitude over the wide stretches of the pathless, dismal waste, the only guide-posts to direct the wanderer through the labyrinth of ruins and underbrush. The great creators of Jewish science, to be sure, Zunz and Rapoport, whose extraordinary deserts are not yet duly appreciated by their brethren-in-faith, had already given the world their excellent works of fundamental importance; yet the great tracts explored and made arable by them seemed no more than smaller or larger islands in a vast sea of rubbish. They did not afford vantage-ground from which the whole could be overlooked. Rarely leaving the domain of literary history, these scholars did not lead up to the positions that dominated the field. In this respect particularly Graetz proved himself a pioneer. Whatever epoch he may be considering, and however much he may seem to be absorbed in details, he never takes his eye from the grand whole. His purpose always is to clear a path through the rank underbrush, or to trace on the exposed surfaces of shattered remains the lines and veins that indicate the essential character and the trend of the historical process. He was endowed with a number of qualities that enabled him to introduce light, order, system, and classification into the chaos of the historical material at his disposal. With rare energy he plunged into the consideration of vast systems of thought, and almost without an effort assimilated and grouped them. In his learned notes he opposes varying accounts, proofs, and hints to one another, and with an adroit hand and a perspicacious mind grasps the main idea firmly and unravels the knotted thread. Finally, fear of error did not deter him from taking a decided stand towards events and persons and giving frank and vigorous expression to his views upon them. Let the reader examine the essays that serve as introductions to certain parts of his work, as, for instance, those in the fourth, fifth, and seventh volumes, and he will appreciate the unerring eye that espies and never loses from sight the motive ideas and the dominating points of view, which not merely are sketched in a general, comprehensive way, but are applied in detail. His “History” affords numerous illustrations of the way in which Graetz promoted and enriched historical research. For example, Saadiah Gaon had been discovered, as it were, by Rapoport, and Geiger had made valuable contributions to our knowledge of him, but the chapter about him in the “History”[55] first fully revealed his epoch-making importance and his rich literary activity. Graetz was the first to recognize and appreciate the notable influence exerted by Chasdaï Crescas[56] upon philosophy and social conditions. The great Disputation of Tortosa, of which we have a trustworthy Jewish account, was nevertheless not understood in its historical bearing and political effect until Graetz ingeniously confronted the Jewish source with Christian reports.[57] The cloud of legend enveloping the enthusiasts David Reubeni and Solomon Molcho,[58] whom students were inclined to regard as no more than hallucinations or phantasmagoria, he resolved into the reality of their fantastic adventures. In short, coupled with rare sagacity in perceiving the true meaning of a mutilated text and emending it accordingly, he had a remarkable instinct for piercing to the reality of facts, no matter how grotesque they might appear.