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GIVES ROMANI, RELIGIONE JUDAEI 325through the history of Jewish-Christian relationships, wherewe cannot say how far it is the influence of living Jews upontheir Christian contemporaries, and how far that of thewritten word of the Torah upon some enthusiastic readeror hearer. In this case it is perhaps more probable that theaction was due to the influence of living Jews, for we knowof no Judeo-Christian sect in Gaul at this epoch. This isall the more likely in that we know that the Jews weremaking proselytes among various classes of slaves andservants. This question was handled by the followingcouncil of Orleans, which decreed that such a convertbecame free if he was either a foreigner (advena), or a manwho had been converted to Christianity (Christianus foetus),or a Christian concubine. But if he was himself a Christian,and had accepted Judaism on condition that he received hisfreedom if he remained steadfast in his Judaism, then thereverse was to happen. He was to be condemned toperpetual slavery for his desertion of Christianity, presumablyin the service of a Christian master, for his Jewishmaster lost him for the crime of having converted him 1 .In the political situation of the Jews the councils tooklittle interest. The matter did not lie outside their jurisdiction,but either they found Jewish officials tolerable orthere were not enough of them to create a serious problem.References to Jewish officials are extremely rare. In fact,apart from the Jewish mayor in the letter of Severus ofMajorca, there is only the Jewish judge in the mythical actsof Benedicta of Lyons 2 . But that such persons did exist isshown by the canon of Clermont, which repeats the law ofValentinian III issued a century earlier to the Prefects ofthe Two Gauls 3 ., As a council would not be likely to dealwith a non-existent situation, and as, on the other hand, ourinformation is so scanty, and the conciliar prohibition wasnever repeated, we may perhaps conclude that Jewishofficials were relatively rare, and that they were not distinguishedby any unpleasant characteristics which broughtthem into notice, a situation which would agree with thegeneral conditions of the times.1Orleans IV (541), Canon 31; M., IX, p. 118.2 A.S., Oct. 8. The Bollandists themselves class the Acta as ' fabulosa '.3Clermont (535), Canon 9; M., VIII, p. 861. Cf. Const. Sirm., vi t fin.