Gregory the Great was too large-minded to approve of this growing spirit of intolerance and, when some zealots in Naples attempted to prevent the Jews from celebrating their feasts, he intervened with a peremptory prohibition of such interference, arguing that it would not conduce to their conversion and that they should be led by kindness and not by force to embrace the faith, all of which was embodied in the canon law to become conspicuous through its non-observance.[113] In fact, his repeated enunciation of the precept shows how little it was regarded even in his own time.[114] When, moreover, large numbers of Jews were compelled to submit to baptism in southern Gaul he wrote reprovingly to the Bishops Virgil of Arles and Theodore of Marseilles, but this did not prevent St. Avitus of Clermont, about the same time, from baptizing about five hundred, who thus saved their lives from the fanatic fury of the populace.[115] These forced conversions in Gothia were the first fruits of the change of religion of the Wisigoths from Arianism to Catholicism. The Ostrogoths, Theodoric and Theodatus, had expressly declared that they could not interfere with the religion of their subjects, for no one can be forced unwillingly to believe.[116] The Wisigoths, who dominated southern Gaul and Spain, when adapting the Roman law to suit their needs, had contented themselves with punishing by confiscation the Christian who turned Jew, with liberating Christian slaves held by Jews, and with inflicting the death penalty on Jewish masters who should force Christian slaves to conversion, besides preserving the law of Theodosius II prohibiting Jews from holding office or building new synagogues.[117] This was by no means full toleration, but it was merciful in comparison with what followed the conversion of the Goths to Catholicism. The change commenced promptly, though it did not at once reach its full severity. The third council of Toledo, held in May, 589, to condemn the Arian heresy and to settle the details of the conversion, adopted canons which show how free had hitherto been the intercourse between the races. Jews were forbidden to have Christian wives or concubines or servants, and all children sprung from such unions were to be baptized; any Christian slave circumcised or polluted with Jewish rites was to be set free; no Jew was to hold an office in which he could inflict punishment on a Christian, and this action was followed by some further disabilities decreed by the council of Narbonne in December of the same year.[118] That freedom of discussion continued for some time is manifested by the audacity of a Jew named Froganis, not long afterwards, who, as we are told, in the presence of all the nobles of the court, exalted the synagogue and depreciated the Church; it was easier perhaps to close his mouth than to confute him, for Aurasius, Bishop of Toledo, excommunicated him and declared him anathematized by the Father, Son and