[5] The Vita Antiquissima (S. Gall. MS.), by a monk of Whitby, does not represent them as slaves (pp. 13, 14), ed. Gasquet.
[6] S. Greg., Epp., v. 18. The term sacerdos is commonly used for bishop at this date. Thus Gregory of Tours calls a bishop sacerdos during this life, antistes after his death. S. Gregory must not, however, be understood as disclaiming a papal supremacy.
[7] The letter is Epp. Greg. (Jaffé), 1497; cf. letter to Syagrius, Bishop of Autun.
[8] It does not seem, from Bede i. 39, that, as has been asserted, it was always necessary to apply for it.
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CHAPTER VI
CONTROVERSY AND THE CATHOLICISM OF SPAIN
[Sidenote: Pelagian controversy of sixth century.]
Controversies which belong to this period are those connected with semi-Pelagianism and with Adoptianism. Faustus, Bishop of Riez, who died almost at the end of the fifth century, held views which were opposed to those of S. Augustine as well as to those of Pelagius. His writings were attacked by many, among them by Caesarius, Bishop of Arles from 501 to 542, who caused a synod at Orange in 529 to condemn semi-Pelagian opinions, in a statement which declared that sufficient grace is given to all the baptized (an expression which had an important history centuries later). The writings of Faustus were the subject of much discussion also at Constantinople, and they were condemned by several of the popes.
Of a wholly different kind was the heresy originating in the East, and probably revived through the controversy of the Three Chapters, which came into prominence in the eighth century in Spain. It has been thought that the exigencies of anti-Muhammadan controversy had something to do with the importance which the question now assumed. The Spanish Church had a long record, in the Councils of Toledo, of orthodox and {73} strenuous adherence to the Christian faith; but it showed also a strongly nationalistic spirit, and it was natural that much should be developed, through antagonism to Muhammadanism and Arian influences, which would fall into danger of extreme reaction on the one side or of unwise concession on the other. "Spanish Christianity," it has been said in a phrase which has become classical, "was a perpetual crusade." In Spain the Christian contest against sin and unbelief became more often, or more constantly, than elsewhere an actual physical struggle against those who distorted or denied the faith of the Church and those who trampled it under foot. This is, of course, most true of the ages which followed the Moorish invasions, of the long strife between Christians and Moors, of the times and the thoughts which gave birth to the immortal literature of the peninsula, to Calderon and Cervantes, to Lope de Vega and S. Teresa of Jesus. But it is also true, though in a less degree, of the earlier times—of those which extended from the introduction of Christianity—from the missionary visit, it may be, of S. Paul himself—down to the destruction of the monarchy of the Wisigoths in 711. Spain was in 589 won to Catholicism by the conversion of its king Reccared. But this was the end of a long and critical period, for from the acceptance of Arianism by Remismond in 466 the country was under the rule of princes who were pledged to that error.