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(Concluded from p. 424.)
Tulga (640-641),
Chinthila’s son, made no alterations, because he
could sustain himself but one year on the throne in
the war which he had to wage against his opponent,
Chindeswinth, who became his successor.
Chindeswinth (641-650).
Under this king, who resisted both the nobles and
clergy, the Jews had rest, because he had to direct
his severity against more important enemies than
the Jews were, that is to say, against the clergy,
who formerly governed the ostensible occupants of
the throne. The synod, therefore, held at Toledo in
646, had other contests to settle.
Reckeswinth (650-672),
the son of the preceding, and who was co-regent as
early as 649, was nominated by his father himself to
be his successor. The Jews had now again to suffer
from the power of the clergy. So long as the old
Chindeswinth lived, and before the clergy regained
their power, at the eighth synod at Toledo (653),
they were not thought of to the same degree as
formerly, although a canon law was passed at that
time* that each newly-elected king should swear that
he would protect the Church against the perfidy of
the Jews. Nevertheless the severe resolves of the
Council of Toledo, under Sisebut, were confirmed.†
The oppression must have been fearful at a later
period, and even the baptized Jews seem to have
endured a hard fate; since among the documents of
the eighth synod, there is a petition of the
baptized Jews to King Reckeswinth,‡ in which they
solemnly promise to be in future Christians in
earnest, to renounce Jewish customs and
institutions, and they bind themselves to stone or
burn every one of their number who should again
relapse into Judaism. It must have been a terrible
persecution which could have called forth this cry
of anguish.
Wamba (672-680). This
king reorganized the Spanish Church, repressed the
undue power of the clergy, and Jews had rest. His
eight-years’ reign was devoted to active measures of
another kind, and under him the bloody laws of the
councils fell into oblivion.
Erwig (680-087). This
king, who became Wamba’s successor through an act of
treachery, called together a general synod as early
<<509>>as 681, at which all the bloody decrees of
the councils, which had ever been hitherto passed
against the Jews, were again placed in full force.*
Under the government of this king, the highest
dignity in the Church was possessed by Julian,
Archbishop of Toledo, through whose instrumentality Erwig (Erviga) was made king, and he was at the same
time the most important man of his age in Spain.
Julian was the son of parents who had been compelled
to embrace Christianity, as is proved by Isidore, of
Badajoz (Colonia Pacensis), in the middle of the
eighth century. He was also an author of
ecclesiastical works. This Julian, the soul of the
government of Erwig, a descendant from Jews as he
was, was compelled, probably against his will, to
compose a work against the Jews. Notwithstanding the
forcible conversions, the Jews had the courage to
make objections against the Messiahship of Jesus.
They offered many reasons why Jesus could not have
been the Messiah, and among these was also one which
maintained that according to Scripture the Messiah
should not come before the sixth millennium; and as
it was then only from 4440 to ’47, they argued that
Jesus could not be the Messiah. The Jewish reasons
must at that time have appeared quite cogent, since,
according to Julian’s work, many believing
Christians had been induced thereby to renounce
their faith. The king, Erwig, summoned his
favourite, the archbishop Julian, to refute the
points insisted on by the Jews, which he also did
in a work called, “Proof of the sixth era of the
world, and of the advent of Christ, against the
Jews.Ӡ
In the first book he proves
that this mode of computation was first carried into
the Scriptures by the Rabbins, and then follow the
usual Christian arguments. In the second book the
proofs from the New Testament are drawn forth. In
the third book Julian labours hard to become in
contradiction with himself, in attempting to prove
that Christ should actually have been born in the
sixth millennium. In this book he maintains, that
the Jews had falsified the Hebrew text of the Bible,
that the Septuagint alone could be relied on as the
true source of biblical chronology, whence then he
laboriously educes the six eras, and asserts that
Jesus was born about the year 5200 after the
creation of the world. By degrees Julian became a
persecutor of the Jews.‡
<<510>>
Egiza (687-701). This
king was originally not inimical to the Jews; and he
had likewise to contend against a conspiracy of the
clergy, immediately after Julian’s death (690). At
the sixteenth general synod, held in 693, the first
canon passed* ordains that Jews who join the church
shall enjoy exemption from taxation, and shall be
participants in the rights of the nobility. This at
least lets us conclude that a milder sentiment was
prevalent. But the Jews had been so much subjected
to cruelty and maltreatment for a period of more
than a hundred wars, that a passing ray of kindness
was not able to reconcile them. The Jews at last
came to the resolution, encouraged by the frequent
insurrections which had taken place in latter years,
to shake off the yoke of the Visigothic tyrants with
weapons in their hands; and they therefore entered
into a correspondence with the Arabs in Africa, who
were to cross over the straits of Gibraltar and lend
them a helping hand. Although the plan was shrouded
in the deepest mystery, the king was nevertheless
notified of it before its execution could be
accomplished, and he summoned a general diet hastily
in November, 694. Excited as he was to anger, the
most terrible resolves were determined on. All the
adults were to be made slaves, to he deprived of
their property, and distributed among the Christian
population, that in future all opposition should be
impossible. All children over seven years old were
to be snatched from their Jewish parents and
transferred to Christians for their education. As
soon as they were fit to be married, then should
Jewish youth be married to Christian girls, and in
the reverse, also, Jewish girls should be given to
Christian young men in marriage, in order that the
Jews might cease to be.† Fortunately this bloody law
was not literally enforced; and the irruption of the
Arabs was frustrated by Theodemir, the captain of
the. Gothic fleet, through the discovery of the
Jewish conspiracy.
Wittiza (701-710). The
son of Egiza, already co-regent in 698, was
compelled to contend already in the beginning of his
reign against the conspiracy of both clergy and
nobles, which induced him to humble them in the most
signal manner. He had at first no time to devote to
the Jews, and then he employed them as his
confederates against the clergy. At the eighteenth
synod of Toledo, he carried a decree through that
all the laws promulgated against the Jews should be
repealed, and that those who had already emigrated
should be permitted to return to Spain. In the year
710, Wittiza was driven from the throne by Roderic,
and he died.
Roderic (710-711) who
was now king, had to maintain a fear<<511>>ful war
with Eba and Sisebut, the sons of Wittiza. The civil
war raged violently, and Count Julian, an adherent
of Wittiza’s sons, entered into negotiations with
the Saracens, against Roderic. Taric, who was
at that time the bravest general of the African
governor Musa, under the Calif Walid
I., landed and pitched his camp on a high rock on
the European side of the straits; this elevation has
been called Gebl el Tarik (Gibraltar), and Jews in
masses hastened to his standard. Near Xerez de la
Frontera, and not far from Cadiz, a derisive battle
was fought on the 19th of July, 711, which lasted
till the 27th. The king, and the flower of the
Gothic nobility and people were left dead on the
field, and the Visigothic kingdom was at an end.
* * * * *
Fortunately the bloody laws of
the councils and the kings were not always put into
execution. The counts and dukes who were to see them
carried into effect, were often content to let the
Jews escape with a mere heavy fine and forced
contribution, through which they were often enabled
to maintain undiminished their power of resistance.
In the same spirit we are told by Luke,
Bishop of Tay (in the thirteenth century), in
his chronicle, which is derived from old sources,*
that Hilderic, Count of Nismes, who was a
rebel against Wamba, had favoured the Jews in
opposition to the laws of the kingdom.
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