destiny outside Spain.18
Hardly by coincidence, Isidore's De fide catholica contra ludaeos, itself a theological encyclopedia of sorts,19 also appeared during the reign of Sisebut. Although the impact of Isidore's anti-Judaism, along with that of his other achievements, extended throughout Latin Christendom for centuries to come, it too demands interpretation against the particular cultural and historical background that spawned it.
ISIDORE ON JEWS AND JUDAISM
Granted that hostility toward the Jews pervades much of the Isidorean corpus, and its avowedly exegetical works in particular, where ought one to commence such an analysis? Discounting several works of doubtful authenticity,20 and noting the highly derivative nature of most of Isidore's biblical commentary, we turn first to the De fide catholica and then to conciliar legislation in which he played a leading role.
“Perhaps the ablest and most logical of all the early attempts to present Christ to the Jews,”21 Isidore's De fide catholica offers nearly two hundred quotations from the Hebrew Bible and Apocrypha in support of essential Christian beliefs. The work, dedicated to Isidore's sister Florentina, a prioress who had apparently requested her brother to instruct her in these matters, opens with a brief statement of purpose:
As to those things which have been foretold on diverse occasions in the books of the Old Testament concerning the birth of our Lord and savior as regards his divinity; his incarnation, passion, and death; his resurrection, and his [ultimate] kingdom and judgment—I thought that a few of the innumerable things should be cited for the benefit of [Christian] men of knowledge, so that the authority of the prophets might strengthen the gift of faith and might demonstrate the ignorance of the unbelieving Jews.22
The first of the treatise's two books addresses matters of Christology: the divinity of Jesus, his incarnation, the Trinity, the milestones of Jesus' earthly career (from his virgin birth in Bethlehem into the house of David to his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension), the authority of his apostles, and his still-awaited second coming. The second book treats the implementation of the divine plan for human salvation over the course of terrestrial history: God's respective calls to the Gentiles and to the Jews, his rejection of the latter and new covenant with the former, the commandments of the law versus the sacraments, and the New Testament's fulfillment of earlier biblical prophecy. As I noted above, Isidore drew extensively from the works of earlier church fathers. Yet the structure and progression of Isidore's anti-Jewish argument are distinctive, and they will presently prove essential to an appreciation of its underlying logic.23
As archbishop of Seville and chief prelate of the Spanish church, Isidore had ample opportunity to apply his doctrine concerning the Jews in formulating ecclesiastical policy and legislation. He presided over the Council of Seville in 624, which called for policing the Jews ordered by Sisebut to baptize their children, lest they substitute Christian children for their own.24 More significantly, Isidore presided over the Fourth Council of Toledo in 633, ten canons of which concerned the Jews. Some of these decrees—forbidding Jewish ownership of Christian slaves, Jewish influence over Christians (whether through bribery or by holding public office), and Judaizing on the part of Jewish converts to Christianity25—echoed or reinforced the legislation of previous church councils and Visigothic rulers. Others, however, may well afford insight into Isidore's own attitudes toward the Jews and thus warrant particular attention. Adumbrating later Visigothic discrimination against “Jews, whether baptized or unbaptized,”26 the council forbade Christians of Jewish origin to hold public office,27 and it underscored the gravity of the issue of proselytizing by force in three separate decrees. Reflecting the reality of Jewish survival in Spain despite Sisebut's edict of conversion, Canon 57 banned the baptism of the Jews against their will, but with several important reservations, implied and explicit:
Concerning the Jews, the holy synod has decreed henceforth to compel no one to accept the faith, because God has compassion for whom he wishes and renders obstinate whom he wishes; for not against their will should such people be saved, but with their consent, so that the semblance of justice be kept intact. Just as man, obeying the serpent of his own free will, was ruined, so a man is saved through believing—owing to the call of God's grace and the conversion of his own mind. Therefore, rather than be subdued they should be urged to convert, not under compulsion but through the power of their free will. Those, however, who were previously coerced to become Christian, as happened at the time of the most pious ruler Sisebut, for it is now a fact that they, having been admitted to the divine sacraments, have received the grace of baptism, have been anointed with chrism, and have partaken of the body and blood of the lord—they should appropriately be forced to retain the faith which they adopted, albeit through compulsion or out of necessity, lest the Lord's name be blasphemed, and the faith which they have adopted be deemed vile and contemptible.28
Principled objections to forced conversion notwithstanding, the decree does not follow Gregory the Great in prescribing penalties for those who baptized Jews against their will, and it emphatically upholds the validity of those forced conversions that resulted from King Sisebut's unprecedented edict. In Canon 60 the council ordered that Jewish children be removed from their parents and raised in a Christian environment: “Lest the sons and daughters of the Jews be further entangled in the error of their parents, we decree that they be separated from their company, having been assigned to monasteries or God-fearing Christian men and women, so that under their care they learn the practice of the faith and, thus better instructed, they may make progress in both their behavior and their belief.”29 And, reaffirming an earlier law of Sisebut,30 Canon 63 demanded not only that children born of mixed marriages between Christians and Jews be raised as Christians but that Jewish husbands of Christian women must themselves convert to Christianity.31
Isidore's anti-Jewish pronouncements have evoked scholarly interest and discussion along various lines. Readers of the De fide catholica have questioned the extent of Isidore's interaction with Spanish Jewry, and they have sought to identify the intended applications of his polemical treatise. Did Isidore write this work for disputing directly with the Jews, keeping converted Jews within the church, providing catechetical instruction for the baptized children of Jews, preaching to the Christian laity, or for enlightening the Catholic clergy?32 Additionally, historians have related Isidore's polemic and legislation to their interpretation of the Visigoths' anti-Jewish policy in general.33 What suddenly triggered such extreme hostility toward the Jews during the last 12.5 years of Visigothic rule in Spain? Did it derive primarily from the kings' personal piety and commitment to the ideals of the church or more from considerations of political expediency? Did secular or ecclesiastical leaders take the initiative in formulating these policies? As in fifteenth-century Spain, might measures against the Jews have aimed primarily to eliminate Judaizing among recent converts to Christianity? Did Visigothic monarchs wish to comply with or to emulate the anti-Jewish policies of Byzantine emperors from Justinian to Heraclius, some of whom eventually called for the baptism or expulsion of all Jews in the empire? Acknowledging the correspondence between Isidore's greatest literary productivity and the reign of King Sisebut, investigators have also debated Isidore's stance on the royal decree that Spanish Jews must convert. For in addition to the conciliar canons discussed above, the archbishop addressed the issue of forced conversion in at least four of his own works. In the Sententiae, Isidore wrote that religious belief should not be imposed by force, although it is possible that this passage antedates Sisebut's decree.34 The Etymologiae and Chronicon record the conversion of Spanish Jewry under Sisebut's rule and, albeit subtly, appear to approve of the royal action.35 The Historia Gothorum first notes that Sisebut converted the Jews unwisely, “for he compelled with force those whom one was supposed to bring to the faith with reason.” Yet the text proceeds immediately to mollify its indictment with reference to Philippians 1:18: “in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed.”36 Weighing this evidence, some scholars have judged Isidore a supporter of Sisebut's decree;37 others have stressed
