eter Deo soli morte moriatur.]

[Footnote 138: The Jews pretend that they were introduced into Spain
by the fleets of Solomon, and the arms of Nebuchadnezzar; that Hadrian
transported forty thousand families of the tribe of Judah, and ten
thousand of the tribe of Benjamin, &c. Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tom.
vii. c. 9, p. 240-256.]

[Footnote 139: Isidore, at that time archbishop of Seville, mentions,
disapproves and congratulates, the zeal of Sisebut (Chron. Goth. p.
728.) Barosins (A.D. 614, No. 41) assigns the number of the evidence of
Almoin, (l. iv. c. 22;) but the evidence is weak, and I have not been
able to verify the quotation, (Historians of France, tom. iii. p. 127.)]

[Footnote 140: Basnage (tom. 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. * Note: Compare Milman, Hist. of Jews iii. 256--M]

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 disposition: 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 Manichaeans, who labored
to reconcile the religions of Christ and of Zoroaster, had secretly
introduced themselves into the provinces: but these foreign sectaries
were involved in the common disgrace of the Gnostics, and the Imperial
laws were executed by the public hatred. The rational opinions of the
Pelagians were propagated from Britain to Rome, Africa, and Palestine,
and silently expired in a superstitious age. But the East was distracted
by the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies; which attempted to explain
the mystery of the incarnation, and hastened the ruin of Christianity in
her native land. These controversies were first agitated under the reign
of the younger Theodosius: but their important consequences extend
far beyond the limits of the present volume. The metaphysical chain of
argument, the contests of ecclesiastical ambition, and their political
influence on the decline