The Origins of the 28 Jew Laws of Erwig
Whenever I have mentioned the famous - well at least among Jewish Studies geeks like me - '28 Jew Laws of Erwig' I have always faced a wall of silence from the people I was talking to only occasionally punctuated by someone asking the somewhat rhetorical question of: 'The 28 Jew Laws of who?'
I thought that as they aren't very well known that I would reprint them here and give the reader some detailed background and contextual information about them as well as suggesting some points in regard to their interpretation. Now Erwig was the Christian king of Visigothic Spain from 680 to 687 A.D. On ascending the throne - after the retirement of his predecessor Wamba to a monastery (as well as his subsequent probable poisoning) - Erwig began re-strengthening the anti-jewish laws of his kingdom, which had been let slide under Wamba's rule.
Erwig based his '28 Jew Laws' on and as a compliment to the laws of Sisebut (from 612 A.D.) and the laws of Recceswinth (from 652 A.D.), which targeted the jews as an alien entity in Spain on very specific grounds. For example, the laws of Sisebut are summarised by the internet history source book of Fordham University as follows:
'12.2.13. Christian slaves of Jews to be freed; converts to Christianity to inherit; other legislation affecting slaves.
12.2.14. Liberation of Christian slaves; mixed marriages; irrevocability of this law.' (1)
What is important to note in the above is the focus of these laws on the issue of Christians being deliberately enslaved by jews and that Sisebut felt this to be so intolerable a situation that he enacted specific laws to prohibit it and thus - in his mind - give his official sanction for his officials to crack down on the jewish-dominated early white slave trade that was plaguing Visigothic Spain at the time.
Now many pro-jewish writers and intellectuals have spilt a great deal of ink charging that these laws - against jewish slave merchants in the first millennium A.D. - were political documents that have little to no basis in fact, but rather were meant to appease the militant Christian Church of the time in its attempts to convert the jews.
There is a kernel of truth to this argument - as we shall see later in relation to the jew laws of Erwig - but what is interesting to note here is that the jew laws enacted by Sisebut are not in a separate section, but rather part of a comprehensive series on the slave trade. Now had they had been a political document to appease a militant Christianity - as some authors are desperate to maintain - then they should have been part of a wider series of laws or a separate section of laws comprehensively attacking the jews. That they are not strongly suggests that they are actually merely laws passed to quite literally attempt to stamp out the jewish domination of the white slave trade (as there is little to point passing laws against non-phenomena).
I have summarised and translated some of the documentary evidence from Islamic as well as Christian sources on the white slave trade elsewhere in order to demonstrate that the jews did indeed dominate the white slave trade at this time. (2) Indeed, several Islamic sources mention that jews were particularly active in using Erwig's subjects as human cattle to be sold on the open world market to the (usually Islamic) highest bidder! (3)
Acknowledging this is important as it shows us the link between the evolution of Christian legalisation in Europe and the activities of the jews in so far as anti-Semitic sentiment and policy-making is not infrequently charged with bearing no relation to the activities of the jews themselves and is thus - according to this theory - based in fantasy not fact.
However, once we acknowledge that jewish behaviour at least partly drives anti-Semitic sentiment and policymaking then we can quickly begin to make sense of why for instance the jews were targeted by Christian legislators as major figures in and benefactors from the white slave trade and not as, for example, serial rapists of Christian women.
The major flaw in the theory that there is little to no connection between anti-Semitic sentiment and policy-making and the activities of the jews is very simply that anti-Semitic sentiment and policy-making has not to my knowledge ever - or at the very least not frequently - charged that the jews conduct every lurid crime under the sun, but rather that the activities the jews do conduct are very specific activities that often have to have a basis in fact or otherwise they would neither be believable or relevant to both the high and low classes of European polity.
Think about it a moment: you often hear jews and their supporters making a lot of noise about the historical charges of ritual murder, host desecration, engaging in the slave trade, being usurious moneylenders and so on. However, do you hear them moaning about jews being routinely being historically accused of murder, rape, pillage, banditry, child molestation and so on? (4)
No: you don't.
Indeed, our sources are rather silent on this issue in spite of the fact that it must have happened, but the reason for this is very simply: while it happened, it wasn't a major issue for historical legislators. (5)
Think about this further and you will note that jews and their supporters routinely take the position - per the common Zionist intellectual myth - that the jews were inoffensive and subservient subjects of gentile rulers throughout their history. The problem with this is that it uses the non-mention of the jews as committing these common-place crimes to assert that this must quite reasonably mean that the jews were not a significant part of those who were committing these crimes (i.e., the sources are reliable).
Now as soon as the sources move on to charges such as complicity in the white slave trade, ritual murder, host desecration and the like: then suddenly the jews and their supporters will come out screeching that these are false charges, debunked lies and the stuff of anti-Semitic fancy and fantasy (i.e., these same sources are unreliable).
This is rather absurd, isn't it?
Of course: it is.
However, it hasn't stopped the jews doing it and in doing so they have - as Horowitz has noted - (6) put themselves in a position whereby no blame is attached to the jews as a people whatsoever, but this position has also had the side-effect of making intellectual retreat from this vulnerable position all but impossible for the jews. As to concede the possibility that anti-Semitic ideas and legislation could be based on jewish behaviour is to open up a proverbial Pandora’s box in the modern era (i.e., all they have argued would be inevitably suspect).
Essentially the jews by advancing an extraordinary hypothesis - that jewish behaviour does not drive anti-jewish behaviour (although some of said theorists believe it does work the other way around) - have got themselves stuck in an intellectual blind alley and this forces them to find ever new and increasingly strained ways to defend their intellectual position.
To get back to our subject: the idea that the jew laws of Erwig were a political move to appease a militant Christianity - as represented by the Bishop of Toledo who was a jew named Julian who had been raised by his jewish parents as a Christian - (7) does not hold up to serious scrutiny as although the jew laws of Erwig are in some cases highly political ones: they do however reflect both the laws of Sisebut and Recceswinth on the jews, but crucially also remove the death penalty from the equation. (8)
This is important as what Erwig was trying to achieve - as Murphy argues - (9) was a return to the laws of Sisebut and Recceswinth as to prevent harmful jewish activities such as their participation and domination of the white slave trade and their use of their wealth as international bankers and merchants (acting as they did as middlemen between the warring Christian and Islamic worlds) (10) to their political, religious, cultural and social advantage. (11)
Now in spite of this it is clear that there is a kernel of truth in the argument that the jews laws of Erwig were inspired by a militant Christianity in Spain, which we can see by putting Fordham University's summaries of the laws together in historical order.
To wit:
The Laws of Sisebut (612 A.D.)
'12.2.13. Christian slaves of Jews to be freed; converts to Christianity to inherit; other legislation affecting slaves.
12.2.14. Liberation of Christian slaves; mixed marriages; irrevocability of this law.' (12)
The Laws of Recceswinth (652 A.D.)
'12.2.2. Christian doctrine not to be criticised.
12.2.3. Laws are to be considered irrevocable and strictly enforced.
12.2.4. Apostasy not to be permitted.
12.2.5. Passover and Jewish feasts not to be observed.
12.2.6. Marriage only by Christian tables of affinity.
12.2.7. Circumcision prohibited.
12.2.8. Distinctions of foods prohibited.
12.2.9. Actions or evidence against Christians prohibited.
12.2.10. Evidence against Christians prohibited.
12.2.11. Lawbreakers to be stoned or enslaved.
12.2.15. Jews on no account to be protected by clergy.' (13)
The Laws of Erwig (680 A.D.)
'12.3.1 Owing to Jewish evasions all laws to be re-enacted, except those concerning manumission and capital punishment.
12.3.2. Blasphemy against Christian doctrine to be punished.
12.3.3. All Jews to submit to baptism.
12.3.4. Practice of Jewish customs to be punished.
12.3.5. Celebration of Jewish feasts to be punished.
12.3.6. Work on Sunday to be punished, and special feasts to be observed.
12.3.7. Distinctions of meats prohibited, except for those physically unable to eat pork.
12.3.8. Marriage to be according to Christian customs.
12.3.9. Blasphemers and apostates to be punished.
12.3.10. Jewish bribes not to be accepted.
12.3.11. Jewish books and teaching to be suppressed.
12.3.12. Jews not to own Christian slaves.
12.3.13. Jews to sell their Christian slaves or prove their own orthodoxy.
12.3.16. Treatment of apostate slaves.
12.3.17. No Jew to exercise authority over Christians.
12.3.18. Slaves desiring to become Christians to be free to do so.
12.3.19. No Jew to be appointed bailiff of Christian property.
12.3.20. Regulations affecting Jewish travellers.
12.3.21. Feast days to be spent in presence of bishop, or suitable Christian.
12.3.22. Jewish employees to be obliged to obey regulations.
13.3.23. Clergy to see to carrying out of these laws.
12.3.24. Penalties for corruption or laxity.
12.3.25. Lay judges not to act without ecclesiastical supervision.
12.3.26. Local religious authorities responsible for strict enforcement.
12.3.27. Limitation of royal prerogative of pardon.
12.3.28. Method of publication of this legislation.' (14)
Now we can see from the above that the original laws of Sisebut regarding the jews are heavily focused on the slave trade and talk about the emancipation of Christian slaves who are owned by jews and further that jews are explicitly forbidden from owning Christian slaves.
This is important because it indicates - as previously discussed - that Sisebut was addressing a real phenomenon that was occurring in his kingdom and the only way he could phrase his legislation in regards to the slave trade was to forbid the jews (the major players in that trade) from owning Christian (i.e., gentile) slaves, which in turn would remove the jews as major figures in the slave trade in Spain because the jews were not allowed by Judaism to enslave other jews. (15) This would then force the jewish slave merchants to look outside of Spain for their supply of new slaves and thus kill two birds with one stone by getting rid of exploitative and ruthless jewish merchants and slave traders (thereby freeing up economic room for Spanish merchants to better compete) and also preventing the enslavement of Sisebut's subjects to those same traders.
Further we can see that there is a militant Christian angle to some of this legislation in that it makes favourable terms for jewish conversion (i.e., they can inherit property and goods) and also makes it desirable for a jew who is a slave to become a Christian, because by becoming a Christian they can then be liberated by the law and they can also gain the economic advantages that are offered by no longer being religious and cultural outcasts.
When we come onto the laws of Recceswinth we can see that they contain legislation, which obviously has to have come from a militant Christian world view as these pieces of legislation do not seem to combat social and/or economic evils per se, but rather are punitive measures to make the practice and adherence to Judaism as difficult as possible without directly outlawing it. (16)
That this is a political document is certainly true, but then if we just looked at the laws of Recceswinth as such: we would miss a crucial angle to the legislation. In so far as it focuses heavily on jewish missionary activities among Christians, public disputations attacking Christian doctrine and that jews are bringing numerous court cases against Christians (presumably for social, criminal and/or economic reasons). We can see that this was having a real effect on the Recceswinth's people in that apostasy (i.e., conversion from Christianity to Judaism) is also explicitly outlawed so it must have occurred on numerous or high-profile occasions to suggest such a policy.
Further there is a hint in the idea that actions are being taken against Christians propagating their faith and the implication that priests were protecting the jews to suggest that the jews were involved in widespread and probably religious activities attacking gentiles and/or Christianity.
Horowitz cites numerous instances of jewish religious fanatics attacking Christian processions, whipping crosses, desecrating churches and so forth that not unreasonably lead to mobs of enraged Christians physically assaulting the jewish quarter in response with the jews then demanding that authorities protect them from the enraged Christian mobs. (17) That priests would protect the jews is also not unsurprising given that some Christians have historically viewed it as part of their faith to be 'living stones' protecting the jews so that the jews will then convert to Christianity because of the charity that they have been shown.
Now when we put the light of this context onto the laws of Recceswinth then it is clear that the situation is much more complex than the overly simplistic explanation of trying to ascribe it wholly to a political document of a militant Christianity active in Spain at the time. Clearly the jews - or even a significant segment of the jewish community - were engaging in highly controversial activities in seeking to engage Christianity head on and trying to convince Christians that they really should become jews. By any measure this was always going to be an activity fraught with large amounts of risk for a religious minority among an aggressive warlike people like the Visigoths.
In fact I think we could even label the jewish behaviour on this score as a kind of group suicide driven by fanaticism and quite probably a large dose of arrogance in that we can see that they would provoke the Christian population to the point when mobs of Christians would begin pogromatic violence against the jews only for the jews to them demand that they be sheltered by the Christian priesthood and that those in authority should deal harshly with those causing the disturbance and disruption in trade.
In essence the jews were engaging in the age-old tactic of 'bait and switch' in so far as they baited the Christians and waited for them to take that bait only for the jews to declare themselves the victim of unjustified persecution and demand that those responsible (i.e., the enemies of the jews) be rounded up and punished. This activity is not without an unhealthy precedent in jewish history, and the Book of Esther even contains a biblical foundation for jews doing just this as well as a justification for such activities in Judaism itself. (18)
The authorities then - to the surprise of the jews - took action against the instigators of the mob violence (i.e., it’s supposed victims: the jews) driven to it by a combination of an angry Church hierarchy (who were worried about apostasy as well as eager to convert the jews) and an angry Christian population (who wanted an end to the provocations and court cases by being allowed to simply kill the jews).
In order to keep both the Church and the Christian population happy Recceswinth decided to take the middle ground in that he didn't declare the jews outlaws (as the Christian population wished) but rather outlawed all the practices that the jews had been using to attack both the Christian population and the Church. Going further Recceswinth decided that to be rid of the problem once and for all he would outlaw all the jewish religious practices and festivals such as circumcision, Pesach/Passover, kashrus and so on.
In doing so Recceswinth hoped to force the jews to convert to Christianity in order to remove the onerous restrictions placed upon them, but this - as history tells us - was not successful in part because jews found ways around these restrictions (as the laws of Erwig suggest by talking of jews bribing officials to look the other way).
Before we move onto the laws of Erwig we should however note that the prohibition of circumcision was quite possibly aimed at two separate jewish practices. In so far as the obvious point of such a restriction may be found in preventing the Bar Mitzvah of young male jews from occurring. Meaning that jews from then on could not ritually evolve into jewish men meaning that over time the ritually adult male population would dwindle to the point where the minyan required for jewish religious services would not be met leading to the destruction of jewish religious observance.
The other point of such a restriction is less obvious but is again tied into the jewish dominance of the white slave trade and its strident activities in Spain at this time. Whereby jews castrated enslaved Spaniards (19) and then may have circumcised some or all of them dependent on the individual jewish merchant. (20)
This then clearly indicates to us that the legislation of the laws of Recceswinth need to be understood on two levels: firstly, as a document based on militant Christian convictions on what should be done with the jews (i.e., conversion as opposed to expulsion or genocide) and secondly as a series of legislative moves designed to put a stop to various different social, religious and economic evils perpetuated primarily by the jews.
Now understanding the context and content of the laws of Sisebut and the laws of Recceswinth in relation to the Visigothic experience with and policies on the jews. We are finally in a position to look at the laws of Erwig, which - as I have stated above - was largely envisioned by their namesake as a return and compliment to the laws of Sisebut and Recceswinth.
Now the additional context of the laws of Erwig is important precisely because Julian the Bishop of Toledo - who was himself a converted jew - is generally held to be have been the inspiration behind them and a major champion for their enforcement once formally put into law. (21)
Now Julian appears to have been something of a general rebel in so far as he was not a popular figure within Visigothic clergy and nor was he a friend of the Roman pontiff as during his term in office he picked numerous political and theological fights in and around the mission of the Church and its doctrine. This was bound to cause controversy and it did: indeed, perhaps Julian is today best known for his 686 work 'De Comprobatione Aetatis Sextae Contra Judaeos', which specifically deals with the relationship between the Old Testament prophecies and their fulfilment in the arrival, ministry and death of Jesus. This work was effectively a manual and intellectual crib for the lesser clergy and literate laymen who wanted to argue with and possibly convert the jews to Christianity via the Aristotelian medium of eliciting the truth through logical debate.
What concerns us here is Julian's jewish origin and his upbringing by what we may presume to have been converted jews, which lead to Julian's rather unorthodox take on many different Christian doctrines. As although he would have been educated as a Christian: it is not unreasonable to suppose that Julian's parents retained much of their jewish opinions and interpretations of the Torah and Tanakh, which seem to be the root of his controversial views on the Trinity for example. This would certainly have significantly influenced the young Julian to look at Christian teaching rather differently than his gentile tutors and fellow Christians would have done.
Indeed, Julian seems to have had two personality traits which we today commonly associate with jews. In so far as he was completely egoistic (albeit expressed through a Christian intellectual and social persona of overbearing and almost boastful humility) in the pursuit of his career in the Church and further that he had a very legalistic and disputatious turn of mind, which focused far more on the technicalities of doctrines and ideas in order to attack the whole (i.e., claiming that debunking sub-points destroys the whole fabric of an argument) than on the whole doctrines themselves.
Further Julian seems to have been rather a political Machiavellian dark horse in that he managed to get himself appointed as the Bishop of Toledo in spite of the fact that his candidacy was stridently rejected by most of the priests of his Bishopric. Further there is some evidence to suggest that Julian's fanatical career aspirations lead him to be complicit in the poisoning of Wamba - the former Visigothic king - as Julian significantly benefited from Wamba's removal from power and death. Collins however thinks this improbable as he judges that Julian wasn't very Machiavellian: (22) however I would disagree based on my own analysis of his rise to prominence and the fact that he did gain a lot out of such complicity.
Now to understand Julian's role in the laws of Erwig - which Gerber wrongly styles as being 'wanting to exterminate the jews' - (23) we need to bear in mind two separate factors.
Firstly, that Julian was a jewish convert to Christianity, and he also truly believed in it as the fulfilment of the Messianic prophecies of the Written Torah and Tanakh. This means we are dealing with an individual who is a true believer and quite frankly a Christian version of a first century jewish zealot. Who originally comes from a community of religious and cultural outcasts who have for a long time - per my above analysis of the laws of Sisebut and Recceswinth - made it their business to not only reject the fulfilment of the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament in Jesus, but also are fighting back and trying to convert the Visigothic flock from Christianity to Judaism by suggesting that Jesus was not the fulfilment of those prophecies.
Secondly that Julian was an egoistic careerist who - in order to advance himself - would stop at little and sniff at nothing if it could get him higher in the church hierarchy. This means we are dealing with someone who wants to get to the top: no matter what it takes.
These two factors might seem at odds with each other at first, but we can quickly reconcile them by pointing out that what unified them in Julian's mind was his sense of mission in so far as he felt that he was called by God to do his work by achieving a position of responsibility in the Church in order to bring God's word to the unbelievers. In his ruthless politicking and careerism Julian sought to fulfil that sense of mission and by constantly seeking out that which he believed would garner him positive recognition from the Church hierarchy.
In doing so Julian rode roughshod over doctrines like the Trinity in part because his self-belief and egotism had been nurtured to such an extent that they allowed him to believe that what he believed and wrote was effectively inspired by God. This meant that Julian couldn't in reality rise further than he had, but the important thing to understand is that Julian himself believed he deserved to and as such he didn't stop striving to further advance his career.
If we combine both of these factors at work in Julian and transpose them onto Julian's fanatical attempts to convert the jews to Christianity - of which the laws of Erwig were but one expression - we can see Julian ferociously attacking his own people because he believed that they were wrong and he was right. That the jews categorically rejected Julian's idea that Christianity was the only logical consequence of Judaism goes without saying, but it cannot have been pleasant for Julian to see his own vaunted arguments and reasoning rejected, which would have in turn challenged his self-belief leading to a tendency for more radical ideas on the conversion of the jews.
This in turn led to Julian's preference for more direct measures to ensure the conversion of the jews reasoning that the harder he made it for the jews to practice Judaism: the more they would be inclined to listen to the truth of his arguments for their conversion to Christianity. We can see the evidence for this in the fact that Julian only put together his manual for the conversion of the jews six years after he had helped put in the place the laws of Erwig, which in turn made the important clarification that the death sentence was to be abolished for jews committing these crimes. (24)
That the death sentence was removed from consideration is important, because it clearly indicates that the laws of Recceswinth had had a significant impact and that breaking them had resulted in many executions of jews as well as the inevitable emigrations and defections to the lands of Islam that this brought. (25) As Julian wanted to convert his people to Christianity rather than kill them for trying to continue to practice Judaism it was essential to make such a modification as how could he Julian get the credit for converting the jews if there were no jews left to convert?
Now that we understand the impact that the converted jew Julian had on the adoption of the laws of Erwig: we can look at them to see what they tell us about what was going on in Erwig's kingdom at the time they were enacted.
We can see that several of the laws are clearly just restatements of the laws of Sisebut and the laws of Recceswinth in that jews are not to own Christian slaves, that jewish customs such as kashrus not be observed, that jewish slaves converting to Christianity are to be rewarded and that the Christian Sabbath is to be observed (Sunday) as opposed to the jewish one (Saturday).
However, the first part of the legislation is worthy of notice in that it clearly states that due to jewish evasions of the laws of Sisebut and the laws of Recceswinth: there is a need to restate these laws and make sure they are enforced. When we combine with this with the fact that the laws of Erwig seeks to make bribing Christians illegal, add additional penalties for corruption and laxity and further place lay judges under the supervision of religious ones.
We get a picture of wealthy jewish merchants and moneylenders bribing their way out of the restrictions placed upon them by the laws of Sisebut and the laws of Recceswinth and in doing so corrupting the Visigothic kingdom's lay officials. This would naturally have also meant that once bribed the officials would stay bribed to look the other way if other laws were violated - such as those about owning Christian slaves - by these wealthy jews.
We may reasonably suggest that those jews who were executed by the Visigothic authorities for following jewish rituals and proselytising were either too poor to make a sufficient bribe and/or fanatics who intended to speed their way to Gan Eden by engaging in the jewish practice of Kiddush Hashem. (26)
Indeed, we see such a situation in evidence when we look to the other laws of Erwig in that local clerical authorities were to be held responsible for enacting the laws and further that these same authorities are responsible for making these laws known to all those who reside in their jurisdiction.
This - along with the renewed call for priests to stop protecting the jews - necessarily suggests to us that the enactment of the laws of Sisebut and the laws of Recceswinth had been dependent on the attitude of the local clerical and secular authorities. So, where there were positive attitudes towards some or all of the local jews then the laws were not paid heed to or selectively enacted, but where there were negative attitudes towards most or all of the local jews then the laws were enforced more stringently.
Further where the laws of Sisebut and Recceswinth had been enforced the jews then proceeded to pester and harass the local clergy until either the clergy rejected them en bloc or tried to protect them by offering them succour and sanctuary. This means in effect that the jews were - by their constant use of bait and switch tactics in addition to promptly seeking succour and support from more liberal elements among the secular and clerical establishment once a proverbial pogrom had broken out - essentially acting as a subversive revolutionary element inside Visigothic society, which had led to a procession of Visigothic monarchs enforcing more and more radical perceived solutions to the jewish question in their territories.
The lack of effect this had on the situation is in part due to the weakness of any ordinarily conceived authoritarian government in that the enforcement of such stringent policies required both an efficient and an effective government in all the locales of its territory that could be unambiguously communicated to, was willing to enforce central dictates on the jews and could be closely monitored by the central authority.
Further we should note that in the laws of Erwig explicit mention is made of the power of the monarch to liberally use his pardon for the benefit of the jews, which suggests that the - by comparison - rather liberal Wamba had frequently used his legislative power to pardon the jews and thus prevent the enactment of the death sentences prescribed for those transgressing the laws of Sisebut and Recceswinth in his kingdom.
It is clear that in practice in the Visigothic kingdom that power was quite decentralized in that the monarch had to rely heavily on semi-autonomous local administrators who were on the whole evidentially far more interested in lining their own pockets with the wealth of the jews than dealing with subversive elements in their jurisdiction.
Indeed this lack of impact and the self-radicalization of the jews (via strident anti-gentile religious sentiment) (27) were the vectors for the further radicalization of Visigothic policy on the jews, which ultimately lead to the; obviously religiously-grounded, laws of Erwig and their demand that the jews undergo baptism en bloc (which was a legal manoeuvre to prevent the charge of conducting 'forced baptisms' being levelled at Erwig and Julian [which was contrary to Church teaching]), (28) or be declared outlaws and be subject to punishment.
This legal manoeuvre is what lies at the heart of the demands for legal conversion that we see in the laws of Erwig. In so far as Julian wished to make sure that he could argue the case that the jews of Visigothic Spain had come forward to be baptised on their own accord (i.e., in relation not to Church policy but rather secular policy) and thus could claim that he had personally had a hand in the mass conversion of the jews of his diocese to Christianity. After all we must remember that to Julian: it was his fellow jews that were in error in so far as they had not recognised the long-awaiting Messiah in Jesus as he had so they must accordingly be shown the error of their ways.
You could in essence call Julian's attitude to his former co-religionists a kind of 'tough love' in that he had tried to convert them by his preaching and the force of his reason, but as this consistently failed, he had to put them in a deteriorating material condition as to force them to see the painful light of their error whether they would like to or not.
This played into Julian's egoistic careerism as well as his jewishness as it allowed him to win favour among anti-jewish elite and the many supporters of such policies among the ordinary Visigothic people. This Julian felt would allow him to garner enough support from these elements for his campaign to convert rather than kill his former co-religionists as the jews wouldn't be useful for him - either for his career aspirations or as proof to himself that he had correctly recognised the Messiah in Jesus - if they were all dead and in some measure it was successful.
The Laws of Erwig's essentially ramped up the ante in the conflict between the Visigothic state and its principle subversive element in the jews. I have already indicated that the reason that the jews were seen by the Visigothic authorities - and were themselves so subversive - was a combination of two factors: the fact they were a significant section of the kingdom's mercantile elite (29) and were also closely connected - via family, religious and trade ties - to the jews of the Persian Empire who were close allies of the Persian government and had been directly responsible for numerous anti-Christian atrocities in Palestine, Persia and Anatolia in the first half of the seventh century A.D. (30)
These ties lead to the formation of a jewish conspiracy - not unlike that mentioned by Cassius Dio whereby the jews of the whole of North Africa and the Middle East were to rise and slaughter the gentiles as they slept which was itself in imitation of the jews who had gleefully helped Mithradates slaughter tens of thousands of Romans in one night in 88 B.C. - (31) that was uncovered in 694 A.D. (seven years after Erwig's death) only after some of the jewish conspirators became more interested in gaining great wealth and royal favour than becoming jewish martyrs informed the authorities about it. (32)
With the proverbial snake in the grass exposed the response of the Visigothic authorities was still somewhat restrained and even ironic - given the jewish domination of the trade in Visigothic slaves to the Islamic world - in that they enacted their own final solution for the jewish question. In so far as a royal edict declared that every jew in the kingdom was subject to immediate enslavement and the nationalization of all their possessions. (33) This in turn led the jews of Visigothic Spain to throw off any pretence of being for the Christian West and declare for the new world of Islam.
In summary then we can see that the laws of Erwig were conceived of in response to jewish activities and were merely the restatement of previous policy - marked by some additional leniency towards the subject's physical well-being - regarding the jews in addition to stamping out attempts by the jews and those liberally inclined towards supporting them to bribe themselves out trouble even while parts of the jewish community were continually assaulted Christianity and Christians across Spain.
If anything, Visigothic Spain is a in lesson in how a fairly rudimentary state has significant legal, domestic and international issues in coping with an organised, well-financed and internationally-connected group of subversives. It is a lesson that should not be ignored let alone forgotten as the consequences for Spain in the jewish fifth column in its territory during the Islamic invasion were disastrous.
References
(1) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/300-800-laws-jews.asp
(2) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jews-and-the-early-white-slave-trade
(3) Ibid.
(4) The jews however have frequently acted as facilitators for criminal activities and have acted as allies and supporters of criminal elements. For example, see Eric Hobsbawm, 1969, 'Bandits', 1st Edition, Weidenfeld and Nicholson: London, pp. 31-32; Betty Nagar, 1992, 'Jewish Pedlars and Hawkers 1740-1940', 1st Edition, Porphyrogenitus: Camberley, pp. 95-116
(5) For example see Louis Hyman, 1972, 'The Jews of Ireland: From Earliest Times to the Year 1910', 1st Edition, Israel Universities Press: Jerusalem, pp. 163-164; Michael Toch, 1995, 'Local Credit in an Agrarian Economy: The Case of Bavaria, 14th to 15th Centuries', pp. 801-802 in Michael Toch (Ed.), 2003, 'Peasants and Jews in Medieval Germany', 1st Edition, Ashgate: Burlington for cases of anti-Semitic legislation and ideas being driven by jewish behaviour.
(6) Elliot Horowitz, 2007, 'Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence', 1st Edition, Princeton University Press: Princeton, pp. 170; 227; 258; 275-276
(7) Roger Collins, 1992, 'Julian of Toledo and the Education of Kings in Late Seventh Century Spain', p. 8 in Roger Collins (Ed.), 1992, 'Law, Culture, and Regionalism in Early Medieval Spain', 1st Edition, Ashgate: Burlington
(8) Francis Murphy, 1952, 'Julian of Toledo and the Fall of the Visigothic Kingdom in Spain', Speculum, Vol. 27, No. 1, p. 8
(9) Ibid.
(10) For example: Robert Chazan, 2006, 'The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom 1000-1500', 1st Edition, Cambridge University Press: New York, pp. 24-27; 90-97
(11) Ibid., p. 222
(12) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/300-800-laws-jews.asp
(13) Ibid.
(14) Ibid.
(15) Mordecai Katz, 1966, 'Protection of the Weak in the Talmud', 1st Edition, AMS Press: New York, pp. 39-45
(16) This interpretation is for example held by Eliyahu Ashtor, 1973, 'The Jews of Moslem Spain', Vol. 1, 1st Edition, Jewish Publication Society of America: Philadelphia, p. 12
(17) Horowitz, Op. Cit., pp. 151-157; 163-169; 173-181; 197; 265
(18) Ibid., pp. 2-4; 35-36; 81-90; 272
(19) Ibn Hauqal, 2001, 'La Configuration de la Terre: Kitab Surat al-Ard', Vol. 1, 2nd Edition, Maisonneuve Larose: Paris, pp. 109-110
(20) Jonathan Schorsch, 2002, 'Portmanteau Jews: Sephardim and Race in the Early Modern Atlantic World', p. 66 in David Cesarini (Ed.), 'Port Jews: Jewish Communities in Cosmopolitan Maritime Trading Centres, 1550-1950', 1st Editon, Frank Cass: London; I base my position on the point that the destination of these enslaved Spaniards would have likely been the Islamic world where circumcision was the norm and as such slaves would be expected to be circumcised.
(21) Roger Collins, 2008, 'Visigothic Spain 409-711', 3rd Edition, John Wiley: London, pp. 235-238
(22) Roger Collins, 1995, 'Early Medieval Spain: Unity in Diversity, 400-1000', 2nd Edition, St. Martin's Press: New York, pp. 77-78
(23) Jane Gerber, 1994, 'The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience', 1st Edition, The Free Press: New York, pp. 13-14
(24) Murphy, Op. Cit., p. 8
(25) Gerber, Op. Cit., p. 16; Ashtor; Op. Cit., Vol. 1, p. 14
(26) Lit. 'Sanctifying the Name' or in other words: Judaism's concept of martyrdom.
(27) As Gerber, Op. Cit., pp. 14-15 points out the jews of Spain and the Visigothic authorities were aware that the jews of the East were close allies of the Persian empire and were responsible for numerous anti-Christian atrocities in Palestine, Persia and Anatolia.
(28) Ibid., p. 13
(29) Implied in Ibid., p. 14
(30) Ibid., pp. 14-15
(31) Adrienne Mayor, 2010, 'The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates Rome's Deadliest Enemy', 1st Edition, Princeton University Press: Princeton, p. 19
(32) Ashtor, Vol. I, Op. Cit., p. 16
(33) Gerber, Op. Cit., pp. 14-15