Plot Against the Church: Part 4 - Maurice Pinay |
In the year 694, when Ervigio still ruled, the widely-branched conspiracy of false Christians was discovered, who secretly practised the Jewish religion and who had many aims. On the one side they wished to bring the Church into disorder and conquer the throne, one the other side to betray the country and destroy the Visigoth state.
At that time St. Felix, the archbishop of Toledo, had summoned a new Council, in which participated all prelates of the kingdom and only some from Gallia Narbonensis, since a plague prevented the others from coming. When the Holy Synod was already assembled, it learned about and received proofs of the secret Jewish conspiracy which was instigating a revolution in all classes and was thus so dangerous for Christianity and the Christian state that the Holy Synod condemned it. The Holy Synod had assembled in the Church of Santa Leocadia de la Vega in Toledo, and St. Felix performed the presidency in this terrible struggle and was the new leader of Christianity against the Jews.
The protocols of this Holy Synod are one of the most valuable documents and give details concerning what the Jewish Fifth Column in the bosom of the Church and also in the realm of a Christian or pagan people is capable of doing. We hold this document to be important not only for Catholics, but also for all men of whatever people or whatever religion who have to compete with the threat of Jewish Imperialism.
Most interesting in this Council is Canon 8, in which it is expressly stated:
"Concerning the condemnation of the Jews.—And since it is known that the Jewish people with wickedness, blasphemy, and the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ, in addition through the violation of the oath (because, among other things they had sworn to be true Christians and not to honour Judaism in secret) they are polluted, so that the wickedness has no end, they therefore must weep that they have committed such a serious, horrible sin, who on account of their wickedness wished not only to destroy the Church, but have also attempted with tyrannical bravado to ruin the fatherland and the nation, and had rejoiced because they held their time to have come, and to have caused harm to Catholics. Therefore must this cruel, astonishing arrogance be done penance with a still more cruel punishment. So must judgment against them be all the stricter, and whatever is established of infamy must be everywhere punished. In connection with other affairs we here at this Council have learned of their conspiracy. Thus not only on account of breaking their promise have they polluted, through belonging to their sects, the garb (tunica) of faith with which Holy Church had invested them with holy baptism, but wished also to gain control of the royal throne through the conspiracy.
Since we have learned through their own confessions of this disastrous wickedness, they should be punished with irrevocable censure through the condemnation of our decree. Upon command, namely of our devout religious prince Egica, who serves the Lord zealously and is strong in Holy Faith, should not only the mocking of the cross of Christ but also the planned destruction of his people and country be avenged, against which they proceeded so cruelly. They shall proceed more strictly against them and their property be confiscated, which then falls into the state treasury. In addition they themselves, their women, children and other descendants in all provinces of Spain live in eternal servitude. They must leave their homeland, must be driven apart from one another and must serve whosoever the King so commands. . . Over their children of both sexes we shall dispose, so that, as soon as they are seven years old, they be separated from their parents and no relationship be allowed to them. Their own masters shall give them over to true Christians for education, so that the men marry with Christian women and conversely. As we had already said, it is allowed neither the parents nor the children to celebrate the ceremonies of Jewish superstition or to fall back upon any occasion again into unbelief."
As first commentary to this Holy Canon of the 17th Council we can make the assurance that, if this Synod of the Catholic Church had taken place in our time, both the archbishop St. Felix, who was president, as well as the entire Holy Council would have been condemned as Anti-Semites and Nazi war criminals by those cardinals and bishops who today more serve the Synagogue of Satan than Holy Church. These would impose censures and condemnations against those Catholics who defend the Church and their country against the Jewish threat.
These Church dignitaries cause the real Catholics and patriots to be condemned and disapprove of attacks upon the Jews, which are by far milder than those of the Holy Council which was led by the renowned Saint Felix, the archbishop of Toledo, whom the Church has canonised. On the other hand, through the dangerous conspiracy which the converted Jews and their descendants instigated, it is clear that the false Christians and secret Jews could proceed successfully against the laws directed against them of the preceding Councils and were strong enough in order to organise such an extensive plot.
In the face of the great danger, the Christian state and Church armed itself for defence and seized upon the most extreme measures, to enslave all Jews and to take away from them their seven-year old children, so that separated from their parents they received a Christian education and the possibility was removed from them of being attracted to the organisations of secret Jewry. By this it was wished to avoid that Judaism was passed on by parents to children, even if the parents in secret continued to be bound to Judaism.
Thus it was wished to attain that in the following generations the Fifth Column of the false Christians, who secretly adhered to the Synagogue of Satan would be completely destroyed. The fact that the children of the new generation should marry as grown-ups with good Christians or Christian women, was doubtless intended to give a further guarantee that the third generation of Fifth Column in question would be completely destroyed and the descendants of the Jews would be honest Christians. As we will see later, however, this kind of attempt failed, for the non-identified secret Jews could again and again secretly introduce the Christian children of Jewish origin into Jewish customs.
On the other hand the skilled intrigues of the Jews broke through all plans of the Holy Council and again condemned to failure the strict measures which the Church and the very Christian Visigoth monarchy had seized upon in defence against the Jewish threat.
In the records of this Holy Council we find a very interesting fact, from which emerges already at that time, thus almost 1200 years ago, several Jewish revolts had broken out against the Christian kings. This fact is confirmed to us by King Egica in his letter to the Holy Synod: "On several places of the earth they (the Jews) rebelled against their Christian princes, who killed many of them, according to the just judgment of God."
With these revolts against the princes they had clearly only success, when after hundreds of years experience they understood that they had to make the Christian peoples themselves, even if unconsciously, into their allies. In addition, the Jewish leaders pretended to be Christians and appeared as redeemers of these peoples and organisers of liberal and democratic movements, to give the mass of the people the seductive promise that they would rule themselves and free them from the yoke of the monarchy.
One must bear in mind that the terrible punishments which the 17th Council uttered against the secret Jewish conspirators found application in the entire realm of rule of the Gothic kingdom, with exception of the province of Gallia Narbonensis. This district was
". . . nearly depopulated"—as it is said in a letter from the prince—through a deadly epidemic and for other reasons. Therefore the Jews were to be allowed to live there as earlier "with all their property, under the duke of this land, so that they might be of use to the public income."
It is thus highly possible that the Duke of Gothic Gaul mentioned exerted pressure so that the Jews living in his district remained spared from the punishments imposed against the rest of the Jews in the kingdom by the Holy Council. As a result not only were these false Christians saved, but also many others from the affected districts fled from the threat of slavery and other punishments to Gallia Narbonensis. As a result the percentage of secret Jewish population in South France increased, where a second Judaea arose.
Admittedly they were only tolerated and protected in Gallia Narbonensis under the condition that they became honest Christians and did not secretly practise the Jewish religion. In other cases the severe punishments of the Holy Synod were applied to them. But, as was established in later centuries, these false Christians in no way gave up their Judaism and practised it so secretly that South France was famed in the Middle Ages as the most dangerous secret Jewish nest. The Jews skilfully pretended an apparent honest Christianity and erected in this region the headquarters of the destructive revolutionary heresy which by a hair's breadth would have destroyed the Church and the whole of Christianity in the Middle Ages. From this the catastrophic consequences became clear, which leniency and good-will in the face of such an infamous enemy as Judaism represents brings with it.
The Jewish revolt which Egica energetically repressed, whereby he was supported by the severe penalties of the 17th council of Toledo, had increased in great measure and was close upon destroying the Christian state and replacing it through a Jewish one. In order to understand this, we must investigate some preceding events:
The Catholic writer Ricardo C. Albanes writes concerning the situation of the Jews in the Visigoth monarchy:
"The Jews had increased as astonishingly in Gothic Spain as previously in ancient Egypt and here also gained great importance and wealth, so that they were valuable to the Visigoth conquerors. They particularly devoted themselves to trade, the arts and industry. Almost all doctors were Jews and there were also many Jewish lawyers. They chiefly had a monopoly in trade with the east, whereby their origin and language were very much to their favour. As important owners of businesses they had also many Christian servants, whom they treated badly. But the Jews gained control not only of the Gothic land, but did not cease where they could, from undermining the Christian faith. The fact that they supported the heretics, at first the Arians and later the Priscillians, and the activity of the Jew-Christians, made difficult the conflict between Christianity and Judaism in Spain, which led to both the Councils as well as the Kings themselves very soon seizing upon strict anti-Semitic measures."
Apart from this enormous power which they had gained, the policy of Holy Church and the Christian Kings of heaping with honours the Jews who had honestly been converted to Christianity, giving them valuable positions and even nobility titles, and opening to them the doors to the priestly office and high church posts, while at the same time prosecuting the false converts pitilessly—which, however, did not have the desired result of honestly converting them all,—had not the desired results. For then already they hypocritically pretended to be honestly converted, in order to have advantages and to obtain valuable positions which were given to the honestly converted. Thus they could more and more gain a foothold in the religious and political institutions of Christian society and obtain the highest power.
This position gave them hope of being able to conduct to victory a well prepared revolt, in order to destroy the Christian state and to replace it with a Jewish one. In addition they secured at the right time the military support of powerful Jewish centres in North Africa, which should fall upon the Iberian peninsula, when the general revolt of the false Christians, who practised the Jewish religion in secret, broke out.
The renowned Spanish historian Marcelino Menendez Pelayo declares the following:
"Since they wished to spread Christianity more rapidly and to establish peace between the two races, the 12th and 13th Council of Toledo permitted the Jews really unusual privileges (Plena mentis intentione), elevated them to nobles and freed them from the head tax. However, all was in vain. The Jew-Christians (Christians, who were secret Jews), who were rich and numerous under Egica, plotted against the security of the State. . . Danger threatened. This King and the 17th Council of Toledo took refuge in a last hard resort, confiscated the property of the Jews, declared them to be slaves and took away from them the children, that they might be brought up as Christians."
One can already discern how the Jews for twelve centuries have laughed at the noble efforts of Christians for peace and unity between the different races, in order to utilise this devout striving and to gain valuable positions, which permit them to destroy the Christian society and to subject the people which naively opened to them its frontiers. Today they still successfully utilise the noble wish for unity of the peoples and brotherhood of the races with similar infamous aims.
The renowned Dutch historian Reinhardt Dozy provides interesting details concerning the conspiracy investigated by us, which on the other side are also confirmed by the Jewish-Spanish Encyclopaedia authorised by Jewry. This historian writes about the Jews in the Gothic kingdom:
"Towards 694, seven years before Spain was conquered by the Musulmans, they planned a general revolt together with their brothers in belief on the other side of the Straits of Gibraltar, where several Berber tribes practised the Jewish religion and those expelled from Spain took refuge. Probably it was intended that the revolt should break out in several places at once, when the Jews from Africa had landed on the Spanish coast. But before it came to this the government was given knowledge of the plot. King Egica at once seized upon the necessary measures. Later he called a Council in Toledo and instructed his spiritual and worldly leaders concerning the punishable plans of the Jews and ordered them to punish this accursed race. Some Jews were sent to trial, and it was revealed that through the plot Spain was to be made into a Jewish state. The Bishops foamed with rage and alarm and condemned all Jews to the loss of their property and of their freedom. The king intended to hand them over to the Christians as slaves, indeed even to those who had previously been slaves of the Jews and who were emancipated by the king. . ."
This is a typical example of how the Jewish Fifth Column proceeds against the nations which has accepted them.