One very profitable, but somewhat odious, branch of commerce seems to have fallen almost entirely into their hands. After one of the great victories of the Goths or Huns, when large numbers of captives became the property of the barbarian conquerors, their native ferocity often induced them to put their vanquished enemies to the sword; and possibly they might always have done so, had it not been that avarice, stimulated by the offer of money in exchange for them, proved the more potent passion of the two. The Jew knew what would be the value of an able-bodied slave in the markets of Alexandria or Constantinople, and was willing to pay, it might be, the sixth part of that price to the Goth or the Hun, for the prisoner whom he had at his disposal. None but the Jews, as has been observed, pursued this particular traffic; and the consequence was, that large numbers of Christian slaves passed into the possession of Hebrew masters, who in every city exposed them publicly for sale. It would not have been human nature if the Jews, despised and rejected as they were by their Christian fellow-citizens, had not experienced a sense of triumph, at finding themselves in this manner the undisputed owners and masters of those who had long held them in contempt. It is even less wonder that the spectacle should have roused the greatest indignation among the Christians themselves. By the ancient law it was illegal, nay, a capital offence, for a Jew to keep a Christian in bondage. But either this law was treated from the first as a nullity, or it had been repealed by one of Constantine’s successors; for the edict of Honorius, while it forbids Jews to proselytize their Christian slaves, allows the full right of ownership over them. Now, however, the Jews had become the masters, not of a few Christian bondsmen, but of large numbers of them, many being persons belonging to a higher station, and reduced to their present state of degradation by having been conquered in battle with the barbarians. This appeared an intolerable scandal; and it is not unlikely that the old law of Constantine would have been re-enacted, if it had not been for the pretty certain fact that, in that case, all prisoners taken in battle would thenceforth be massacred. Therefore, though many efforts were made, and especially by the Church, to mitigate the evil, it was never proposed to prohibit the purchase of slaves by Hebrew masters. The Council of Macon, A.D. 582, distinctly lays down that ‘the conditions upon which a Christian—whether as a captive in war or by purchase—has become the slave of a Jew, must be respected.’ All that is stipulated for by that, or any other of the many Councils which deal with the subject, is, that the slaves shall have the right of purchasing their own freedom, or that others shall have the right of purchasing it for them. The Councils, further, continually exhort the clergy, indeed, all Christians, to shelter any slaves who may take refuge with them