Two years later Theodosius the Younger abolished the semi-autonomous jurisdiction of the Jewish Patriarch of Tiberias and appropriated his revenues. He imposed many grievous restrictions on the celebration of Jewish festivals, excluded the Jews from public offices, and prohibited the erection of new synagogues. The harsh laws of Theodosius remained in force under his successors. The Jews were looked upon with contempt and aversion in every part of the Byzantine Empire, their persons and their synagogues, in the towns where such existed, were frequently made the objects of assault, and the riots excited by the rivalry between the Christian factions in the circus often ended in combined attacks upon the Jewish quarter. Meanwhile Palestine, with few exceptions, had become completely Christianized; Greek churches and monasteries occupied the places once held by the synagogues of the Jews, abbots and bishops bore sway over the land of the Pharisees, and Jerusalem from a capital of Judaism became the stronghold and the sanctuary of the Cross. Suffering once more kindled the hope for the Redeemer. Moses of Crete, in the middle of the fifth century, undertook to fulfil the old prophecies and to gratify the expectations of his persecuted brethren. He gained the adherence of all the Jews in the island and confidently promised to them that he would lead them dry-shod to the Holy Land, even as his great namesake had done before him. On the appointed day the Messiah marched to the coast, followed by all the Jewish congregations, and, taking up his station on a rock which jutted out into the sea, he commanded his adherents to cast themselves fearlessly into the deep. Incredible as it may appear to us creatures of commonsense, many obeyed the command, to find the waters unwilling to divide. Several perished through the stubbornness of the element and their own inability to swim; others were rescued from the consequences of excessive faith by Greek sailors. Moses vanished. ♦527–565♦ Justinian aggravated the servitude of the Jews. In his reign the holy vessels of the Temple which had already wandered over the East, been taken to Rome by Titus, and thence transferred to Carthage by Genseric the Vandal, found their way to Constantinople. The Jews of New Rome had the mortification to see these memorials of their departed greatness in the train of Belisarius who, having destroyed the empire of the Vandals, carried into captivity the grandson of Genseric, and with him the sacred vessels, which were finally deposited in a church at Jerusalem. ♦535♦ In the same year the evidence of Jews against Christians was declared inadmissible, and two years later Justinian passed a law burdening the Jews with the expensive duties of magistracy, while denying to them its exemptions and privileges. Soon after the Jews were forbidden by law to observe Passover before the Christian Easter.