If tradition as an authority had not long ceased to be recognised on this side the Pyrenees, the historian would have little difficulty in fixing the period of the introduction of the Christian faith into Spain. Its uninterrupted voice has named St. James the Elder as the first herald of the Gospel to the idolatrous people of that country. That the apostle traversed the peninsula, from Lusitania and Galicia to the heart of Aragon; that while at Saragossa he was honoured by a visit from the Virgin, and that by her express command he erected on the spot a church in her honour; that after his martyrdom at Jerusalem his body was brought by his disciples from Syria to Iria Flavia (now El Padron), in Galicia, and thence transferred to Compostella, to be venerated by the faithful as long as the world shall endure, no orthodox Spaniard ever doubted. With equal assurance of faith it is believed that St. Paul, in person, continued the work of his martyred fellow-disciple, and sowed the seeds of the new doctrine in Catalonia, Aragon, Valencia, and, above all, in Andalusia. Certain it is that Spain can adduce her martyrs as early as the second century—perhaps even in the first.
It was during the reign of the fierce Diocletian that the fires of persecution blazed with the greatest fury throughout the peninsula. It must not, however, be concealed that the crown of martyrdom was sometimes pursued with an eagerness that evidenced rather the intemperance of a mistaken zeal, than the soberness of a rational principle. The fury of persecution cooled after the death of Diocletian. During the civil wars which ravaged the empire under Maximian and Constantius Chlorus, the Christians began to breathe: Constantine followed; and, after his conversion, the church had peace from without; but within, the partisans of Athanasius and Arius clouded the horizon of her tranquillity.
[305-400 A.D.]
Of the three national councils held during the first four centuries, the first is that of Illiberis or Eliberis, a town once seated near modern Granada. It may also be termed the most interesting, as it was probably held before the conversion of Constantine, and, therefore, some years anterior to that of Nicæa: if so, it is the most ancient council, not merely of Spain, but of the Christian world, the acts of which have descended to us. That of Cæsar-Augusta (Saragossa, 380 A.D.), which was also national, consisted of only twelve bishops, and was convened for the sole purpose of condemning the heresy of Priscillian. The third, which was the first council of Toledo (400 A.D.), was attended by nineteen bishops, with a corresponding number of inferior ecclesiastics. Its first act was to admit the canons of Nicæa; especially those which relate to the ordination of priests; but it is chiefly remarkable for its symbol of faith, in which that great Catholic doctrine, the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son [filioque], is expressly asserted; a doctrine, as is well known, not formally received by the universal church before the fourth Lateran council in 1215. Its twenty canons relate to holy orders, to the chastity of virgins devoted to God, and to the continency of ecclesiastics and their widows. From these councils it does not appear that the Spanish church had yet received the dignity of primates, archbishops, or metropolitans. The bishops seem to have been equal in power, and independent of one another, the only superiority admitted arising from priority of consecration; neither is there any reason for concluding that appeals were of necessity carried to Rome, though the superior veneration attached to that see, and the superior characters of those who filled it, rendered such appeals by no means uncommon. The bishops and the clergy were elected by the people. Baptism was administered by the bishop or the presbyter, or, in their absence, by the deacon. In cases of urgent necessity, it could also be administered by a layman, provided he had not contracted a second marriage.
Ceremonial penance was a public satisfaction given to the church where the crime was more than usually scandalous; the penitent, in this case, occupied a place separated from the rest during a period proportioned to the heinousness of the offence. A penance of one year was inflicted on the player of dice, because the heathen deities were necessarily invoked in this ancient game; of two years on the subdeacon who married a third time, and on the ecclesiastic who wore a crown in imitation of the pagan priests; of three years on him who lent his apparel for the use of pagan processions; on the deacon who confessed a mortal sin before ordination, and on the parents who broke the betrothals of their children; of five years on him who married his daughter-in-law or sister-in-law, on the widow who sinned and married her accomplice; on backbiters, in however trivial an affair, of husbands or wives guilty of adultery, on single women guilty with different men, on deacons proved guilty of any capital crime previous to ordination; and on housewives who by stripes occasioned, involuntarily, the death of their slaves (if voluntarily, the penance was seven years); of ten years on the apostate or heretic on returning to the faith, on the Christian whom curiosity led to the heathen sacrifices, on all prostitutes, and on all consecrated virgins who broke their vow; of the whole life on the widow of a bishop, presbyter, or deacon, who remarried, on those who frequently violated their conjugal fidelity, and on the gentile priests who, after conversion and baptism, sacrificed to idols. Besides these regulations, the bishop had power to suspend from all intercourse with the faithful the man who sat at the table of a Jew, him who distributed satirical or libellous compositions, and him whose scandals deserved public censure.
There was one means by which the offenders just mentioned could obtain their restoration to the privileges of communion, even before the expiration of the time of penance decreed by the canons. This was, by soliciting peace from the confessors; that is, from such as had sustained persecutions and torments for the faith of Christ. The confessor gave his peace to the penitent in an instrument which he called literæ confessoriæ or pacificæ. This the penitent presented to the bishop, who immediately absolved him; and in token of his readmission to the rights of communion, gave him another instrument, literæ communicatoriæ, which secured him access to the sacramental table in whatever church he appeared. This superstitious custom was founded on the opinion that, from the abundance of their merits, the confessors could well afford a portion to such penitents as had none of their own. What a fruitful train of abuses indulgences occasioned at a much subsequent period, and how repugnant they appeared to the common sense and common justice of mankind, is well known.
Gallo-Roman Sword and Horn
On the matrimony and continency of the Spanish clergy, there has been much acrimonious disputation: one party contending that strict celibacy was obligatory on them from the apostolic times; the other, that marriage was permitted to them, under certain restrictions, no less than to laymen. One of the most singular characteristics of the early councils of Spain is the permission granted to bishops and other ecclesiastics to follow any honourable branch of commerce, but in their own districts.
Persons consecrated to God were acknowledged and protected by the early church; but monasteries were not introduced into Spain during the first four centuries. The women who took, in the hands of the bishop and before the altar, the vows of virginity; and the men who, in the same manner, subjected themselves to the obligations of continence and religious contemplation, passed their lives sometimes in their own houses, but generally in communities of two or three in the abodes of aged ecclesiastics. The former assumed the veil from their first profession, as a public sign of their calling. But lest war should be sworn before the strength of the enemy was known, the council of Saragossa decreed that no woman should utter the irrevocable vow, or assume the veil, before the age of forty years, though previous to that period chastity was strongly recommended, and its observance consecrated. Some of the provisions, especially of the first council, will appear unreasonably severe. We must, however, take into consideration the prevalence of idolatry at the beginning of the fourth century, and the anxiety of the fathers of Illiberis to preserve their flocks from the infection of paganism. The canons which regard the remarriage of the widows of ecclesiastics are sufficiently absurd. The sixty-seventh, which prohibited Christian women from keeping long-haired slaves, requires explanation. These slaves were males, generally of Gaul or Germany, and their ostensible business was to dress the hair of the rich ladies; their real one—such was the depravation of manners produced by paganism—was to gratify the licentious desires of their mistresses. But the gradual decline of heathenism, no less than the increasing influence of Christianity, purified the female mind.