When Heraclius entered the Holy City he was met by the vehement demand of the monks and the Patriarch Modestus for the extirpation of all the Jews of Palestine, at once a measure of revenge for their past treatment of the Christians, and a safeguard against the recurrence of the outrage if similar incursions should happen. The emperor protested, however, that he had solemnly and in writing promised immunity from punishment to the Jews, and to violate this pledge would make him a sinner before God and a traitor before men. The fanatical monks replied that the assassination of the Jews, far from being a crime, was, on the contrary, an offering acceptable to God. They offered to take the entire responsibility for the sin upon their own shoulders, and to appoint a special week of fasting by way of atonement. This argument convinced the bigoted emperor and sufficed to quiet his conscience; he instituted a persecution of the Jews throughout Palestine, and massacred all that failed to conceal themselves in the mountains or escape to Egypt. There still existed Jewish congregations in Egypt, even in Alexandria itself, whence the Jews had been expelled by the fanatic Cyril in the beginning of the fifth century. A certain Jew of Alexandria, Urbib by name, celebrated for his wealth and generosity, during a pestilential famine charitably fed the needy without distinction of religion. The Jews of Alexandria, moved by warm sympathy for their suffering co-religionists, fraternally welcomed the unhappy fugitives from Judæa, the victims of monkish fanaticism. Heraclius seized upon this occasion to renew the edicts of Hadrian and Constantine, by which the Jews were forbidden to enter Jerusalem or its precincts (628). CHAPTER II. THE JEWS IN EUROPE. Growth of the Jews in Europe--The Communities in Constantinople and Italy--Theodoric--Isidore of Seville-- Pope Gregory I.--The Jews of France--Chilperic and Dagobert --Avitus--The Jews in Spain--Controversies between Jews and Christians. 510-640 C. E.