history, since these are the very proceedings of the Castellian monarchs to heretics in later centuries. One wonders at the censorious use of the ominous word “inquisition” from a Spanish pen. “Tell me, young lady,” Dacian suavely enough addresses Leocadia summoned before him, “for such is the exceeding beauty of thy face that nobody born has ever beheld one more fair, and being well-born and of pure and noble lineage, how is it thou canst so lightly be deceived by such vanities, despising thus the ancient ceremonies and worship of our gods and preferring to follow the new sect of the Crucified.” Methinks, so might some urbane cardinal have addressed a pretty heretic some centuries later as much a martyr, albeit uncanonised, as Leocadia. And such a desperate wrath would the maiden’s answer have provoked as that which sent Leocadia to imprisonment and death. Certainly the early Christians were not courteous to the Pagans they defied. The gods Leocadia contemptuously called “miserable,” and the polite and flattering Dacian came in for a share of her impassioned vituperation with the consequences she naturally desired.

At so early a period dawns the celebrated hieratic fame of Toledo, which for centuries made it less subject to the sovereign than to the archbishop. Melancius was raised to the bishopric in the year 283, and after him, under the domination of Rome, may be said to have reigned over the Celtic citizens, ten important bishops, whose portraits can be studied in the Sala Capitular of the Cathedral. Gothic rule in Toledo is little else but the story and development of Gothic Christianity. More than on kings and their battles and doings does the town’s early fame rest upon those councils of the church in its midst. They send the name of Toledo as far as Rome in a warning note of independence and power. This primitive church had its own rite, its own customs, its emphatically racial way of viewing matters, and for centuries no high-handed effort of Rome could smooth the angles of its stubborn individuality, or Latinise the tone of its worship and faith. It remained for France and French influence to accomplish what Rome had vainly striven to achieve, and it is to be deplored that France should have succeeded in the defacing task.

The first of these councils took place in the year 396, and the second in 400, to consider the election of Dictinius to the bishopric of Astorga, one of the sect of Priscilianists. This deliberate battle waged by Toledo against the Priscilianists took place in September, and its minutes are preserved intact in the Toledan Collection. Nineteen bishops assisted at it, and the Bishop of Merida, Patriuno, presided over it, as the oldest present. The meeting took place in the church of Toledo, the bishops seated, and the deacons and congregation admitted, standing. In a long address the president exposed the scandals and vicissitudes of the times, and then discussed in ten different points various details connected with the church. Woman seems to have been the victim of austere episcopal reprobation. She must not presume to chaunt antiphones whether nun or widow, in the absence of the bishop, neither with her confessor nor his attendant. Such communion of the sexes under the banner of religion the Council held as pernicious and a snare. It fulminated against the frail sex, but for whose existence man were a sage and a saint. What a pity the Almighty did not consult the Fathers before casting this fatal and corrupting instrument of misfortune upon the world! However, woman must not complain. To quote one of the delightful and ironical sayings of Renan, the Fathers of the Church increased her power by making her a sin. As a mere woman she is only a human being, like her feeble and fugitive mate. But as a combustible engine requiring the reunion of hoary Fathers from time to time to drown and extinguish her beneath the founts of holy water set to play upon her wickedness and peril, she really becomes something diabolical and magnificent, a creature to inspire alarm and excite curiosity. It is not improbable that the saintly sages and modest deacons, as they issued from the church into the rocky and tortuous streets of Toledo, on the September day of the council in the year 400, gazed in a fresh instinct of fearful wonder and shuddering attraction at the first skirted fiend that crossed their path. However plain or beautiful she might be, they would be greatly more preoccupied with the thought of her sex than her looks. Yet the clergy still might marry, and they had full rights over their wife except death. They could beat her, tie and lock her up, give her all “salutary” punishment that was not mortal, deprive her of food, and forbid her to sit at table. Never mind, she had her revenge. She felt her power be sure, and was conscious that she was a sin.

Before the Council of Nice, Toledo adopted the belief that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and Son, which doctrine only became universal several centuries later. This is the Toledan Credo of the fifth century: “We believe in one sole and true God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, maker of all things visible and invisible, by whom were created all things in heaven and on earth; that this sole God and this sole Trinity are of divine substance; that the Father is not the same as the Son, but has a Son who is not the Father; that, the Son is not the Father, but is the Son of God from the nature of the Father; that the Spirit is the Paraclete, and is neither the Father nor the Son, but proceeds from both. The Father was not engendered but the Son, but not the Paraclete which proceeds from the Father and Son. The Father is He who was heard from the heavens, crying: This is My Son in whom I am well pleased. Hearken to Him. The Son is He who said: I left the Father and came from God to this world; and the Paraclete it is of whom the Son said: If I went not to the Father, the Paraclete would not come to you. That this Trinity is distinct in three persons, and is a substance united by virtue and indivisible by power and majesty, beyond this we do not believe there is any divine nature, nor of angel, nor of spirit, nor of any virtue that believes itself God. This Son of God, born of God the Father, before all beginning, sanctified the womb of the Virgin Mary, and became real man in her, sine virili generatum semine; uniting both natures, that is divine and fleshly, in one sole person, who is our Lord, Jesus Christ; neither was His body imaginary or any phantasm, but solid and real; He ate, was thirsty, endured pain, wept and suffered the injuries of the body; ultimately was crucified by the Jews, and buried, rose again the third day; spoke afterwards with His disciples, and the day of quadragesimo, after the resurrection ascended to heaven. This Son of Man also called Himself Son of God, and the Son of God also called Himself God, Son of Man. We believe in the future resurrection of human flesh, and maintain that the soul of man is not a divine substance, or part of God, but a creature formed by divine will.”

Among the singular subjects of excommunication of this Toledan Council are three worthy of notice: Vegetarians are excommunicated, it being decided by the Fathers that birds and beasts were intended to be eaten by man. Mathematicians are excommunicated, unfortunately we are not told why. Those who execrate marriage are excommunicated. Surely this last sentence is inconsistent with the Fathers’ professed execration of the “frail sex”!

But the triumphs and severities of the Fathers were soon interrupted by the invasion of the terrible north barbarians. The Goths were pouring across the Pyrenees, soon to make Toledo their capital and “Royal city.” Fire, ruin, pillage,