THE SEVENTH-CENTURY KINGDOM 139What really did lie behind the ill-treatment of the Jews in Visigothic
Spain, when allowance is made both for the probable gulf between
theory and practice, and the intellectual threat that Judaism pre-
sented to the teachings of Christianity? The canonical and civil leg-
islation of the first half of the seventh century did little more than
perpetuate the regulations of the later Roman Empire as far as the Jews
were concerned, although Sisebut's venture into mass-conversion
indicates that some individuals, at least, wished to go further. But
although the level of rhetoric rose, the principal concern still lay with
the legal standing of the Jews, and there may well have been an
acceptance of the belief expressed by Isidore that the Jews could not
be converted to Christianity before the end of the world. Indeed
their conversion was to be a sign of the imminence of that event.
However, such relative restraint ended in the 650s, and thenceforth,
on paper at least, a concerted effort was made to extirpate Judaism
as a religion in the kingdom.
In part this was a question of ideology: only a realm fully united in
the practice of the Catholic faith would be acceptable in the eyes of
God, and in this respect the continued existence of Judaism within its
frontiers threatened the peace and material prosperity of the king-
dom. The fragility of the Visigothic state, that became increasingly
apparent from the 630s on, made this a consideration of growing
significance. The rise in repression directed against the Jews is also
paralleled by the development of penitential litanies, and the more
sombre features of the liturgy, through which the Christian populace
were urged to atone for their own sinfulness.^89 The survival of the
Jews became, as much as the prevalence of conspiracy and usurpa-
tion, a sign of the spiritual unhealthiness of the realm.
It would be unwise to suggest that opprobrium was directed against
the Jews as a means of distracting attention away from the real
weaknesses of the kingdom or the strength of regional loyalties. For
one thing, there is no evidence of any deep-felt popular hostility
towards the Jews, or attacks on their communities by force, as oc-
curred in Spain on many occasions in the later Middle Ages. The
complaints against the support and protection afforded to the Jews
suggest there was little popular malevolence towards them. Opposi-
tion to them was conceived and expressed in terms of theory and
came principally from the Church, speaking through the councils. In
these Bishops Ildefonsus and Julian of Toledo appear most active
and their pontificates coincided with the two most intense periods of
legislation.