Carthage stood, had persisted in worshipping
the Baal and the Ashtaroth that recreant Israelites in Samaria and Jews
in Jerusalem worshipped for ages; but, while those gods had altars in
Sidon and in Carthage, we do not hear of any altars being raised to
them in "the captivity of Jerusalem, which was in Sepharad," or Spain
(Obadiah, 20); neither do we hear that those Jews betrayed any ambition
to make a hedge to protect God's law, instead of taking care to keep it.
But the first propagators of traditionism in Spain came from the East, on
the breaking up of the great schools of Babylonia by the Persians.

Ancient or Karaite synagogues remained in Spain until the expulsion of
Jews at the close of the fifteenth century, and yet much later in the
provinces that were not annexed to the United Kingdom of Castilla and
Leon under Ferdinand and Isabella. Some of the strongest features of
biblical learning imparted to the literature of the Reformation in its
earlier stages proceeded from the converted Jews of Spain.

About the year 1470, when the persecution of both Jews and Mahometans was
at its height--except in the kingdom of Granada--and when the testimony
quoted from the Old Testament against worship of images must have been
extremely galling to the worshippers, the priests thought it necessary
to enforce the prohibition of vernacular versions of the Bible. Such
versions, we know, were then circulated more freely in France, Spain,
and Portugal. In Spain, one of the chief translators was Rabbi Moses of
Toledo. To put a stop to Bible-reading, an appeal was made to Pope Paul
II, who prohibited the translation of the holy Scriptures "into the
languages of the nations." This authority was quoted in the Council of
Trent by Cardinal Pacheco, in justification of the practice of the Church
of Rome in his day; but another cardinal, Madrucci, arguing against him,
replied with cutting calmness that "Paul, of popes the second," or
any other pope, might be easily deceived in judging of the fitness or
unfitness of a law, but not so Paul the Apostle, who taught that God's
word should never depart from the mouth of the faithful.

During the persecutions of the fifteenth century, while Ferdinand and
Isabella made progress in reconquering the kingdom of Granada from the
Moors, and Mahometanism, like Judaism, was declining, the Moriscoes, a
middle class, resembling the New Christians, and not less dangerous to
Romanism, also challenged the po