Recurring now to the Jews under the rule of the Eastern emperors, we cannot fail to be struck by the difference of the demeanour exhibited by these latter towards them from what has been recorded of the Moslem conquerors. Mahomet, it is true, would permit the existence of but one faith in Arabia; but outside the bounds of that sacred land, all who would acknowledge the dominion of the Caliph were secure from insult or wrong. But the Christian emperors of Constantinople—such of them, that is to say, as felt themselves strong enough to invade the rights of any portion of their subjects—made it a matter of conscience to endeavour to require the acceptance of Christianity by the Jews, though at this period they did not proceed to inflict penalties in case of refusal. Even Phocas, whose zeal for the faith could not have been very keen, had sent the Prefect Georgius to Jerusalem, requiring the principal Jews there, on their allegiance, to receive baptism. Heraclius attempted the same, using, it is said, violent and cruel measures to accomplish his purpose, but with very partial success. This emperor had two special causes of dislike to them, one of which appealed to the nobler, the other to the weaker side of his character. The first was the recollection of the barbarities practised by them at the capture of Jerusalem by the Persian troops; the second, the prediction delivered to him by a soothsayer in whom he trusted, that the Roman empire should be overthrown by a circumcised people.[78] Ignorant altogether of the storm which was gathering in the mountains of Arabia, he naturally presumed the people in question to be the Jews, and therefore sought to avert the evil by converting these to the Gospel. He is said to have been so far influenced by his alarm as to despatch letters to the Kings of Spain and France, urging them to unite with him in the extirpation of the dangerous race.

Whether any of the many feeble successors to the purple who intervened between him and the Isaurian Leo pursued the same policy, we are not informed. But it is unlikely that they would attempt it. The existence of a circumcised and warlike race different from that of the Jews, would in their time have become matter of notoriety; and alarm would have been directed to a different quarter. Nor would it have been either safe or politic to attack the Jews. Their wealth and intelligence rendered them useful instruments in carrying out the imperial policy, and their numbers and turbulent spirits discouraged interference with them. In the numerous riots which took place between the Orthodox Christians and their adversaries, the Jews were wont to interfere and give the preponderance to the latter.[79] Unless they provoked interference of the authorities by actual sedition, it is likely that they would be left to themselves.

But when a powerful ruler in the person of Leo again grasped the sceptre, A.D. 716, the case became different. It was said, indeed, that this emperor had been promised the purple, on condition of his employing the power thus committed to him in the destruction of images in Christian churches; but the tale rests on no trustworthy evidence, and is disproved by his acts at the very outset of his reign; for he was no sooner seated on his throne than he required that all his Jewish and Montanist subjects should submit to baptism. The Jews seem to have consented to the ceremony, though they continued the exercise of their own faith without change. What part they took in the subsequent destruction of images,[80] and wrecking of Christian churches, may readily be surmised from what has been already told.

Passing to Spain, we find the Jews, during this century, occupying a different position, and subjected to far heavier penalties. In this country they had long been settled, certainly previously to the Christian era, and, as it would appear, lived in peace and security. Previously to the Council of Elvira, no law is recorded to have been made which restrained their liberty. But it was then decreed that no marriages should take place between Christians and Jews, nor should they sit down to table together. This was the first note, as it were, of the bigotry and intolerance which afterward rang with such hideous discord throughout the length and breadth of Spain. The outburst was checked for a while by the incursion of the Visigoths, who, though Christians, professed the Arian creed. With them, as has been already remarked, the Jews always lived on terms of amity. But towards the end of the sixth century Reccared abjured Arianism, embracing the Catholic faith; and a new condition of things was soon the result.[81] By the decree of the Council of Toledo, held in the fourth year of his reign, Jews were not allowed to have Christian slaves, or to hold public offices, or marry Christian wives, or sing psalms when carrying their dead to the grave.

These decrees were soon followed up by much severer measures. Sisebut, who succeeded to the Gothic kingdom A.D. 612, is supposed to have received an urgent entreaty from the Emperor Heraclius, as has already been intimated, to put down Judaism throughout his dominions. Whether the report be true or not, he certainly acted as though such was his intention. He issued the command that all Jews should offer themselves for baptism, imprisoning many, and putting to death many more, who would not obey his order. Large numbers abandoned their whole possessions, and migrated to various parts of Gaul. Yet the Spanish historians affirm that as many as 90,000 were baptized, not because of any change in their convictions, but through dread of the consequences of refusal. After the death of Sisebut there seems to have been a short lull in the storm of persecution, and many of the pseudo-converts thereupon returned to the profession of their ancient faith.

The fourth Council of Toledo, held A.D. 633, under the presidency of Isidore of Seville, enacted that ‘men ought not to be forced into believing, but believe of their own free will.’ But although Isidore—to whom in all likelihood this single ray of light in the midst of surrounding darkness must be attributed—could thus give expression to the language of charity and truth, he was not wise enough, or perhaps influential enough, to be consistent; for the decree adds, immediately afterwards, that all who had received baptism—whether willingly or unwillingly—must be compelled to abide by it, ‘because otherwise the Holy Name of God would be blasphemed, and the faith disgraced;’ as though there was not worse blasphemy and deeper disgrace in a false profession than in an honest renunciation!

The same Council adds decrees against which Isidore’s large and charitable nature must have rebelled. The 60th canon requires ‘that the sons and daughters of Jews should be separated from their parents, lest they be involved in their errors;’ the 63rd, that ‘Jews who have Christian wives, if they wish to live with them, must become Christians; and if they refuse to obey, they are to be separated;’ the 64th, that ‘Jews who were formerly Christians are not to be admitted as witnesses;’ the 65th, that ‘Jews and their descendants are not to hold public offices, and any one who obtains such office shall be publicly scourged.’ A still more monstrous decree enacts that any Christian convert who so much as speaks to a Jew shall become a slave, and the Jew he spoke to be publicly scourged!

The twelfth Council of Toledo, in 681, repeats these merciless severities, which (it is no wonder to find) could not be carried into effect, except by direct State interference, and adds others of a like character. ‘The Jews,’ it is ordered, ‘are to offer themselves, their children, and their servants for baptism:’ they ‘shall not celebrate the Passover, or practise circumcision:’ they ‘shall not presume to observe the Sabbath or any Jewish festival:’ they ‘shall not dare to defend their religion to the disparagement of the Christian faith:’ and ‘they shall not read books abhorred by the Christian faith.’ The penalties for breach of these and the like statutes had hitherto been death. But the extreme severity of such a sentence, it is argued, had acted as a preventive to its being enforced. Therefore new orders were issued, by which the rigour of the punishments was abated. Henceforth, if a Jew profaned the name of Christ or of the Holy Trinity, or rejected the Sacraments, or kept the Jewish feasts, or worked on the Sunday, he was only to receive one hundred lashes on his naked body, and afterwards be put into chains and banished from the country, his whole property being confiscated to the State! If a man circumcised his child, he was to suffer mutilation, or if it were a woman who so offended, she was to lose her nose. If a Jew presumed to take a public office under a noble, he was to forfeit half his property, and suffer scourging; but if it was under an ecclesiastical superior that he undertook a situation of trust, he was to lose his whole estate, or be burned alive! The reader will surely call to mind Solomon’s saying, respecting the ‘tender mercies of the wicked,’ as he reads these ordinances.

But the avenger was at hand. For some years past the tide of Saracen conquest had been rolling along the northern coast of Africa, until it had reached the kingdom of Morocco; when it must turn southward into the barren wastes of the Sahara, or northwards, into the populous and fertile land of Spain. There could be little doubt which of the two they would prefer; and Wamba, one of the wisest and ablest of the Gothic sovereigns of Spain, in anticipation of such a catastrophe, collected a fleet, with which he encountered the Saracens, A.D. 675, and inflicted on them a disastrous defeat, which deferred the invasion of Spain for nearly forty years. But in the reign of Egica, and still more in that of his successor, Witiza, the imminent danger of the Spanish monarchy became so evident, and the fear that the Jews would co-operate in and accelerate the Mussulman invasion so alarming, that measures were taken to prevent it which indicate at once terror, haste, and self-reproach.

At first attempts were made to intimidate the Jews. Egica declared that he had learned, by their open avowal, that the Jews had plotted with enemies beyond the sea to effect the ruin of Christendom. Therefore, to counteract their efforts, all Jewish children upwards of seven years old were to be taken from their parents, the males married to Christian girls, and the girls to Christian men, and the children in all instances brought up in the Christian belief, so that in the next generation the Jews might cease altogether to exist as a separate people. This seems to have had no other effect than that of causing a general flight of Jews from Spain, the very thing of all others likely to bring about the mischief that was dreaded. Witiza endeavoured to repair the mistake. He issued a proclamation permitting all Jews to return to Spain, and enjoy there the full rights of freedom and citizenship. But the step was taken too late. If the Jews had concerted with Muza the invasion of Spain, as their enemies affirmed, their intrigues could not be annulled. In the year 711, two years after the accession of a new sovereign, Roderic,[82] to the throne, the Moors crossed into Spain; a decisive battle was fought on the banks of the Guadelete, in which the Moslems were victorious, and the Gothic kingdom of Spain ceased to exist.

Once more the miseries of fire and sword, which laid waste the whole of the Spanish peninsula, inflicted no suffering on the Jews residing within it. Whether any of the accusations with which the Christians have assailed them—of leaguing with the Moslem, furnishing them with secret information, opening the gates of beleaguered cities to them and the like—contain any admixture of truth, it would be difficult to say. In some instances the charges are manifestly false; in others the decision is very doubtful. But even allowing them to be true, it cannot be matter of wonder that men so persistently wronged and slandered should turn on their oppressors, when the opportunity was given them. The settlement of the Moors in Spain was followed by a long period of prosperity and peace, during which the Jews became famous throughout Europe for their wealth, their intelligence, and their learning. A famous Hebrew school was founded at Cordova, to which students from all parts of Europe are said to have resorted.

In France, during this century, something of the same spirit seems to have prevailed, by which the Catholic kings of Spain were actuated. Chilperic, as has been already recorded, towards the end of the previous century had insisted on the compulsory baptism of his Jewish subjects.

Early in the seventh century Clotaire II. issued a decree forbidding Jews to hold any military or civil office. Dagobert, who reigned from 628 to 638, enacted still more sternly, that the whole of his Jewish subjects should forswear their faith or depart from his dominions. It is said that he too acted under the influence of the Emperor Heraclius.[83] But of this there is no evidence, and it has been urged that the royal order, if issued, was but little observed, since the Jews, in the southern parts of his kingdom at least, continued to be a numerous and wealthy body throughout his reign. Wamba, the Gothic king of Languedoc, however, certainly took the step in question, and banished them from his kingdom.