A.C. 630-660.] JEWS UNDER THE CALIPHS.

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salem yielded an easy conquest to the triumphant Omar, and though the Jews might behold with secret dissatisfaction the magnificent mosque of the conqueror usurp the sacred hill on which the Temple of Solomon stood, yet still they would find consolation in the degradation of the Christians, and the obscurity into which the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was thrown; and even, perhaps, might cherish the enthusiastic hope that the new Temple might be destined for a holier use. Some Christian writers accuse the Jews of a deep-laid conspiracy to advance the triumph of Mahometanism; but probably this conspiracy was no more than their united prayers and vows, that their oppressors might fall before a power which ruled them on the easy terms of tribute, the same which they exacted from all their conquered provinces. This union of their hearts was natural; they might well rejoice in the annihilation of the throne of Persia, for Izdigerd, the last of her kings, had commenced fierce persecution of the Jews in his dominions; and the Christians could lay little claim to their faithful attachment as subjects. No doubt as the tide of Moslemite conquest spread along the shores of Africa, the Jews exulted rather than deplored the change of masters; 40,000 of their race were found by Amrou in Alexandria, at the conquest of that city, and suffered no further oppression than the payment of tribute. In one country alone, it is probable, that they took a more active interest, than their secret prayers and thanksgivings, in the triumph of the Crescent. Spain had already taken the lead in Jewish persecution, Spain maintained its odious distinction, and

Spain had without doubt reason to rue the measures which set a great part of its most industrious population in justifiable hostility to its laws and government, and made them ready to hail the foreign conqueror as a deliverer and benefactor. The lust of Roderick, and his violation of the daughter of Count Julian, led not more directly to the subjugation of his country, than the barbarous intolerance of his ancestors towards the Jews. Their wrongs, in the violence done to their consciences, were not less deep than that suffered by the innocent Caava; their vengeance was less guilty than that of the renegade Julian.

For a century their wrongs had been accumulating. As early as the reign of Recared, the first Catholic king of the Goths, they had attained unexampled prosperity in the Peninsula. They were to a great extent the cultivators of the soil, which rewarded their patient industry with the most ample return; and often the administrators of the finances, for which they were well qualified by their knowledge of trade. Bigotry, envy, and avarice, conspired to point them out as objects of persecution. Laws were passed, of which the spirit may be comprehended from the preamble and the titles. "Laws concerning the promulgation and ratification of statutes against Jewish wickedness, and for the general extirpation of Jewish errors. That the Jews may not celebrate the Passover according to their usage; that the Jews may not contract marriage according to their own customs; that the Jews may not practise circumcision; that the Jews make no distinction of meats; that the Jews bring no action against Christians; that

A. C. 620.] LAws of sisebut, king of spaIN. 255

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Jews be not permitted to bear witness against Christians of the time when their converted descendants are admissible as witnesses: of the penalties attached to the transgressions of these statutes by the Jews: against the circumcision of slaves by the Jews.' These laws, however, do not at first seem to have come into operation. It is suspected, from a passage in a letter of Pope Gregory, that the Israelites paid a large sum of money for their suspension. A statute of Recared's successor, Sisebut, complained of the neglect of his predecessor's law, which forbade Jews from having Christian slaves, and declared all such slaves free. Sisebut was excited, it is said, by the Emperor Heraclius, who had found out that his empire was threatened with danger from the circumcised, and ignorant of the secret growth of Mahometanism, determined to extirpate the dangerous race throughout the world. Among the smouldering ruins of the Christian churches, and the vestiges of recent Christian massacre in Jerusalem, Heraclius might unhappily have found stronger reasons for the persecution of the Jews; but as we have no satisfactory evidence of his having wreaked his vengeance in his own dominions, it may be doubted whether his jealous vigilance extended so far as to the extremity of the West. Sisebut must bear alone the shame, he probably thought, alone inherit the glory of his oppressive measures. The Jews were commanded, at once, either to abandon their religion, or to leave the dominions of the Goths. According to their own account, they assembled with tears and groans in the court of the palace, obtained an audience, and

held a singular theological debate with their royal antagonist. The king declared that he was constrained by his conscience to force them to receive baptism. They adduced the example of Joshua, who did not, they said, compel the Canaanites to accept the law of Moses, but allowed them peace on condition of their observing the seven Noachic precepts. The king, perplexed by this daring historical argument, replied that he recognised no authority superior to his own; that it was his bounden duty to enforce his law, because all who were not regenerate in baptism must perish everlastingly. The Jews replied, that as the Israelites, who despised the Holy Land, were sufficiently punished by being excluded from its blessings, so they would pay an adequate penalty, by being excluded from eternal life. Sisebut rejoined, that men might be left to themselves to accept or refuse temporal advantages, but that they must be forced to receive spiritual blessings, as a child is forced to learn his lessons. But the king's orders were more effective than his arguments. The Jews were thrown into prison, and treated with the utmost rigour. Some fled into France or Africa, others abandoned their religion, 90,000 are reported to have submitted to baptism: but how far their hearts renounced their creed, or how speedily they relapsed, must remain uncertain. In the next reign but one, that of Sisenand, the Jews obtained a relaxation of the oppressive statutes, probably from an unexpected quarter. The rare example was displayed of a synod of clergy in that age, of Spanish clergy, openly asserting the tenets of reason and Christian charity. The fourth Council of

A.C.-633-653.] .COUNCILS OF TOLEDO.

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Toledo enacted, "that men ought not be compelled to believe, because God will have mercy on those on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. As man fell by his own free will in listening to the wiles of the serpent, so man can only be converted by his free acceptance of the Christian faith." Yet, with remarkable inconsistency, the Council likewise decreed, "that all who had embraced the faith must be constrained to adhere to it, and to remain within the Church. For as they had received the blessed sacrament, the holy name of God would be blasphemed, and the faith disgraced by their falling off." The gleam of light and mercy was but transient. The sixth Council of Toledo (it is probable that the wise and good Isidore of Seville had died in the interval) indignantly disclaimed the tolerant spirit of the former synod. It praised Suintila the Second for his violent proceedings against the Jews, and blessed God that they possessed a prince so full of ardour for the faith. They enacted that every king on his accession should take an oath to execute these laws, and passed an anathema on that sovereign who should neglect this indispensable part of his royal duty. Under Recescuinth, the eighth Council of Toledo, A. C. 653, re-enforced the obligation of the king to execute the laws against the Jews with the utmost severity. To this Council a curious petition was presented. The undersigned Jews expressed their readiness to submit to the law; the only indulgence they requested was an exemption from being constrained to eat pork, a food to which they could not habituate themselves, however disguised by cookery.

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