version of the Suevi. They had been recently united by Leovigild to
the Gothic monarchy of Spain.]

[Footnote 133: This addition to the Nicene, or rather the
Constantinopolitan creed, was first made in the eighth council of
Toledo, A.D. 653; but it was expressive of the popular doctrine, (Gerard
Vossius, tom. vi. p. 527, de tribus Symbolis.)]

[Footnote 134: See Gregor. Magn. l. vii. epist. 126, apud Baronium,
Annal. Eccles. A.D. 559, No. 25, 26.]

The same Gregory, the spiritual conqueror of Britain, encouraged the
pious Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, to propagate the Nicene faith
among the victorious savages, whose recent Christianity was polluted by
the Arian heresy. Her devout labors still left room for the industry
and success of future missionaries; and many cities of Italy were still
disputed by hostile bishops. But the cause of Arianism was gradually
suppressed by the weight of truth, of interest, and of example; and
the controversy, which Egypt had derived from the Platonic school, was
terminated, after a war of three hundred years, by the final conversion
of the Lombards of Italy. [135]

[Footnote 135: Paul Warnefrid (de Gestis Langobard. l. iv. c. 44, p.
153, edit Grot.) allows that Arianism still prevailed under the reign of
Rotharis, (A.D. 636-652.) The pious deacon does not attempt to mark the
precise era of the national conversion, which was accomplished, however,
before the end of the seventh century.]

The first missionaries who preached the gospel to the Barbarians,
appealed to the evidence of reason, and claimed the benefit of
toleration. [136] But no sooner had they established their spiritual
dominion, than they exhorted the Christian kings to extirpate, without
mercy, the remains of Roman or Barbaric superstition. The successors
of Clovis inflicted one hundred lashes on the peasants who refused to
destroy their idols; the crime of sacrificing to the demons was punished
by the Anglo-Saxon laws with the heavier penalties of imprisonment and
confiscation; and even the wise Alfred adopted, as an indispensable
duty, the extreme rigor of the Mosaic institutions. [137] But the
punishment and the crime were gradually abolished among a Christian
people; the theological disputes of the schools were suspended by
propitious ignorance; and the intolerant spirit which could find neither
idolaters nor heretics, was reduced to the persecution of the Jews. That
exiled nation had founded some synagogues in