subject to excommunication all who, even in cases of charity or under circumstances of the most urgent necessity, shared their food with a Jew. The passive submission of the entire race to the barbarian invader procured, however, for its members, in many instances, a degree of consideration not enjoyed by their Christian neighbors. With their natural talents for business, their capacity for intrigue, and, above all, their superior knowledge of mankind, they were not long in securing the confidence of the conquerors. Under the Arian sovereigns, their religious opinions remained for generations unquestioned, and their worship unmolested. But hardly had the nation renounced its ancient communion, before the disturbing spirit of the new hierarchy began to assert itself. The edict of Sisebut, in 612, published the decrees of the Third Council of Toledo which had been drawn up for the pious purpose of “eradicating the perfidy of the Jews,” whose general prosperity and political power had aroused the apprehensions of the priesthood. From this era until the accession of Roderick in 709, the legislation of the councils relating to the Jews presents the extremes of brutal harshness and occasional liberal indulgence. In all these enactments, however, the offensive qualities of injustice and malevolence largely preponderated. The aggressiveness of Catholicism demanded instant and uncompromising submission to its creed. What was at first attempted by the imposition of civil disabilities was soon after exacted by degrading insults, by torture, by slavery, and by death. Such was the unrelenting ferocity of this persecution that it awakened at times the indignation even of a semi-barbarous and fanatical age. But despite continuous and systematic repression, this maligned and down-trodden race prospered; the forbearance of royal and ecclesiastical inquisitors was purchased, and the clamors of furious zealots were silenced by opportune contributions to the monastic orders; for the services of the most capable diplomatists and financiers of the time could not be dispensed with in a society where even a large portion of those who devised measures for their oppression could neither read nor write. The superiority of the Jews was also indicated by the prices they commanded when their liberty had been forfeited by law. While slaves of other nationalities ranked as “bestias de cuatro pies,” and were purchasable upon the same terms as a horse or an ox, the Jew was worth a thousand crowns. The great possessions of the Gothic nobles, which the universal illiteracy of the latter made them incompetent to manage, rendered the shrewd and accomplished Hebrew a necessary steward. He enjoyed the confidence of the monarch. He administered the royal revenues, always with discernment and in most instances with fidelity. His advice was eagerly solicited in exigencies of national importance, and in the crooked arts of diplomacy he proved more than a match for the ablest negotiators