Letter 4033: King Theodoric to All the Jews Residing in Genoa.

XXXIII. King Theoderic to all the Jews settled at Genoa. [1] The keeping of the laws is the mark of civilized order, and reverence for former princes likewise bears witness to the example of our devotion. For what is better than that the common people should be willing to live under the precept of justice, so that the assembly of many men may be a uniting of well-ordered wills? For this is what gathered peoples out of a wild life into the rule of human society. This principle separated them from savagery, lest those whom the divine powers wished to be governed by counsel should wander at the whim of chance. [2] And so, by the petition you have submitted, you demand that there be preserved to you the privileges which the foresighted antiquity of the laws decreed for Jewish observances: which we gladly grant, since we desire that the rights of the ancients be kept in reverence by us. And therefore by the present authority we decree that whatever the statutes of the laws have ordained shall be preserved inviolate concerning you, so that what is agreed to have been devised for the use of civilized order may be held with perpetual devotion.

XXXIII. UNIVERSIS IUDAEIS GENUA CONSTITUTIS THEODERICUS REX. [1] Custodia legum civilitatis est indicium et reverentia priorum principum nostrae quoque testatur devotionis exemplum. quid enim melius quam plebem sub praecepto degere velle iustitiae, ut conventus multorum disciplinabilium sit adunatio voluntatum? hoc enim populos ab agresti vita in humanae conversationis regulam congregavit. haec ratio a feritate divisit, ne arbitrio casuali vagarentur, quos regi consilio divina voluerunt. [2] Oblata itaque supplicatione deposcitis privilegia vobis debere servari, quae Iudaicis institutis legum provida decrevit antiquitas: quod nos libenter annuimus, qui iura veterum ad nostram cupimus reverentiam custodiri. atque ideo praesenti auctoritate censemus, ut quaecumque legum statuta moverunt, circa vos illibata serventur, quatenus quod ad civilitatis usum constat esse repertum, perpeti devotione teneatur.