the cities of Gaul;
but Spain, since the time of Hadrian, was filled with their numerous
colonies. [138] The wealth which they accumulated by trade, and the
management of the finances, invited the pious avarice of their masters;
and they might be oppressed without danger, as they had lost the use,
and even the remembrance, of arms. Sisebut, a Gothic king, who reigned
in the beginning of the seventh century, proceeded at once to the last
extremes of persecution. [139] Ninety 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 honor 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. [140]

[Footnote 136: Quorum fidei et conversioni ita congratulatus esse rex
perhibetur, ut nullum tamen cogeret ad Christianismum.... Didiceret enim
a doctoribus auctoribusque suae salutis, servitium Christi voluntarium
non coactitium esse debere. Bedae Hist. Ecclesiastic. l. i. c. 26, p.
62, edit. Smith.]

[Footnote 137: See the Historians of France, tom. iv. p. 114;
and Wilkins, Leges Anglo-Saxonicae, p. 11, 31. Siquis sacrificium
immolaverit pra