104 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xxxvii thousand Jews were compelled to receive the sacrament of baptism ; the fortunes of the obstinate infidels were confiscated, their bodies were tortured ; and it seems doubtful whether they were permitted to abandon their native country. The excessive zeal of the Catholic king was moderated, even by the clergy of Spain, who solemnly pronounced an inconsistent sentence : that the sacraments should not be forcibly imposed ; but that the Jews who had been baptized should be constrained, for the honour of the church, to persevere in the external practice of a religion which they disbelieved and detested. Their frequent relapses provoked one of the successors of Sisebut to banish the whole nation from his dominions ; and a council of Toledo published a decree that every Gothic king should swear to maintain this salutary edict. But the tyrants were unwilling to dismiss the victims, whom they delighted to torture, or to deprive themselves of the industrious slaves, over whom they might exercise a lucrative oppression. The Jews still continued in Spain, under the weight of the civil and ecclesiastical laws, which in the same country have been faithfully transcribed in the Code of the Inquisition. The Gothic kings and bishops at length discovered that injuries will produce hatred and that hatred will find the opportunity of revenge. A nation, the secret or professed enemies of Christianity, still multiplied in servitude and distress ; and the intrigues of the Jews promoted the rapid success of the Arabian conquerors. 143 conclusion As soon as the Barbarians withdrew their powerful support, the unpopular heresy of Arius sunk into contempt and oblivion. But the Greeks still retained their subtle and loquacious dispo- sition ; the establishment of an obscure doctrine suggested new questions and new disputes ; and it was always in the power of an ambitious prelate, or a fanatic monk, to violate the peace of the church, and, perhaps, of the empire. The historian of the empire may overlook those disputes which were confined to the obscurity of schools and synods. The Manichseans, who laboured to reconcile the religions of Christ and of Zoroaster, had secretly the quotation (Historians of France, torn. iii. p. 127 [p. 110]). [The passage in Aimoin concerns the persecution in Gaul, not in Spain.] 143 Basnage (torn. viii. c. 13, p. 388-400) faithfully represents the state of the Jews ; but he might have added from the canons of the Spanish councils and the laws of the Visigoths many curious circumstances, essential to his subject, though they are foreign to mine.
