Another doctrine combated by Elipandus was the unscriptural one, that it was unlawful to eat with unbelievers, or even to take food touched by them. It was easy for him to quote texts such as: "Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth the man; but that which proceedeth out of the mouth, this defileth the man;" [4] or "to the pure all things are pure;"[5] and to point out that Christ ate with publicans and sinners.
But the assumption which Elipandus, like his fellow-countrymen, Claudius of Turin, later, especially attacked, was that which regarded the Roman See as alone constituting the Catholic Church and the power of God.[6] This he very properly calls a heresy; and indignantly denies that Christ's words, "Thou art Peter," &c., apply to the Church of Rome alone, affirming that they were spoken of the whole Church. "How," he adds, "can the Roman Church be, as you say it is, the very power of God without spot or blemish, when we know that at least one bishop of Rome (Liberius) has been branded as a heretic by the common voice of Christendom."
[1] Epilandus, Letter to Migetius. Migne, xcviii. p. 859. See Neander, v. 216 ff. n. Enhueber, "Dissert," secs. 29, 33, apud Migne, vol. ci.
[2] See Adrian's Letter to Egila.
[3] Acts xv. 19, 29. See, however, Epist. to Timothy, i. 3.
[4] St Matt. xv. 11.
[5] Titus i. 15.
[6] See also letter to Alcuin, and Felix's answer to Alcuin's first book, where he gives us his idea of a Catholic church founded on our Lord Christ (and not on the pope), ... which Catholic church may even consist of few members. Neander, v. 230.
Had the Arab domination embraced the whole of Spain, and continued to be established over it, Spain could never have become the priest-ridden country which it now is; but the gradual advance of the Christian arms in the North brought in its train a more and more complete subserviency to the pope.
As the kings of Castile and Leon gradually won back towns and provinces from the Arabs, some difference was observed to exist between the religious usages of the newly freed Christians and of those who had set them free. This was specially apparent in the old Gothic liturgy, which the Muzarabic Christians had used all along, and were still using, whereas the Christians of Leon and the Asturias had imported a newer recension from Rome.