[A] They were, therefore, nearly the original colonists of the
country, and regarded it with almost as much attachment as they had
felt towards Judea. When persecution began to work, "90,000 Jews were
compelled to receive the sacrament of baptism," the bodies of the
more obstinate tortured, and their fortunes confiscated; and yet--a
remarkable instance of inconsistency--_they were not permitted to
leave Spain_; and this species of persecution continued from 600
downwards. Once or twice edicts of expulsion were issued, but speedily
recalled; the tyrants being unwilling to dismiss victims whom they
delighted to torture, or deprive themselves of industrious slaves over
whom they might exercise a lucrative oppression; and a statute was
enacted, "that the Jews who had been baptized should be _constrained_,
for the honor of the church, to persevere in the _external practice_
of a religion which they _inwardly_ disbelieved and detested."[B]
[Footnote A: Basnage asserts that the Jews were introduced into Spain
by the fleet of Soloman, and the arms of Nebuchadnezzar, and that
Hadrian transported _forty thousand_ families of the tribe of Judah,
and ten thousand of the tribe of Benjamin, etc.]
[Footnote B: "Gibbon's Decline and Fall," vol. 6, chap. xxxvii,
from which all the previous sentences in inverted commas have been
extracted.
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