The fourth Council of Toledo, assembled in 633, at which St. Isidore, Archbishop of Seville, assisted, was occupied with the Judaic heresy: it was decreed, with the consent of King Sisinand, that they should be at the disposal of the bishops, to be punished, and compelled by fear to return to Christianity a second time: they were to be deprived of their children, and their slaves set at liberty.
In 655, the ninth Council of Toledo decreed, that baptized Jews should be obliged to celebrate the Christian festivals with their bishops, and that those who should refuse to conform to this discipline should be condemned either to the punishment of scourging, or abstinence, according to the age of the offender.
We find that greater severity was shown towards those who returned from Christianity to idolatry. King Récarede I. proposed to the third Council of Toledo, in 589, that the priests and civil judges should be commissioned to extirpate that species of heresy, by punishing the culprits in a degree proportioned to the crime, yet without employing capital punishment.
These rigorous measures did not appear sufficient, and the twelfth Council of Toledo, in 681, at which King Erbigius assisted, decided that, if the offender was noble, he should be subject to excommunication and exile; if he was a slave, he should be scourged and delivered to his master loaded with chains, and if the proprietor could not answer for him, that he should be placed at the disposal of the king.
In 693, the sixteenth Council of Toledo assembled in the presence of King Egica, added, to the measures already established, a law, by which all who opposed the efforts of the bishops and judges to destroy idolatry were condemned, if noble, to be excommunicated and pay a fine of three pounds of gold; and if of a low condition, to receive a hundred strokes of a whip, and have half his property confiscated.
Recesuinte, who reigned from 663 to 672, established a particular law against heretics: it deprived them indiscriminately of the wealth and dignities they might possess, if they were priests, and added to these punishments, perpetual banishment for laymen, if they persisted in heresy.
THIRD EPOCH.—From the Eighth Century to the Pontificate of Gregory VII.
In the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, the ecclesiastics obtained many privileges from the kings and emperors, and the judicial power became, in some cases, a right of the episcopacy. These acquisitions, and the universal ignorance which followed the irruption of the barbarians, were the causes of the influence which the pontiffs of Rome acquired over the Christian people, who were persuaded that the authority of the pope should be without bounds, and that he had supreme power both in ecclesiastical and temporal affairs.
In 726, when the Romans deposed their last duke, Basil, Pope Gregory II. usurped the civil government of Rome, and had recourse to the protection of Charles Martel, mayor of the palace, against the King of Lombardy, who aspired to the command in that capital. His successor, Gregory III., offered the dignity of patrician to Charles Martel, as if he had the right of disposing of it. Zachary, who was elected pope, in 741, acted as the temporal sovereign of Rome, and permitted Pepin, son of Charles Martel, to take the title of King of France, after having deposed Childeric III., who was the legitimate sovereign. Pepin was crowned in France by Stephen II., who became pope in 752.
At last, Leo III. crowned Charlemagne emperor of the west, on Christmas day, in the year 800. In this ceremony, which took place at Rome, Charlemagne was proclaimed the first emperor of the restoration.