mposing itself on
the whole Church,[1] finally under the missionary zeal of Ulphilas found
a new life among the barbarian nations that were pressing in upon all
the northern boundaries of the Empire, ready, like eagles, to swoop down
and feast upon her mighty carcase.

[1] At the Council of Rimini in 360. "Ingemuit totus orbis,"
says Jerome, "et Arianum se esse miratus est."

Most of these barbaric hordes, like the Goths and the Vandals, adopted
the semi-Arian Christianity first preached to them by Ulphilas towards
the close of the fourth century. Consequently the nations that forced
their way into Southern Gaul, and over the Pyrenees into Spain, were,
nominally at least, Christians of the Arian persuasion. The extreme
importance to Spain of the fact of their being Christians at all will be
readily apprehended by contrasting the fate of the Spanish provincials
with that which befell the Christian and Romanized Britons at the hands
of our own Saxon forefathers only half-a-century later.

Meanwhile the Church in Spain, like the Church elsewhere, freed from the
quickening and purifying influences of persecution, had lost much of its
ancient fervour. Gladiatorial shows and lascivious dances on the stage
began to be tolerated even by Christians, though they were denounced by
the more devout as incompatible with the profession of the Christian
faith.

Spain also furnishes us with the first melancholy spectacle of Christian
blood shed by Christian hands. Priscillian, bishop of Avila, was led
into error by his intercourse with an Egyptian gnostic. What his error
exactly was is not very clear, but it seems to have comprised some of
the erroneous doctrines attributed to Manes and Sabellius. In 380, the
new heresy, with which two other bishops besides Priscillian became
infected, was condemned at a council held at Saragoza, and by another
held five years later at Bordeaux. Priscillian himself and six other
persons were executed with tortures at the instigation of Ithacius,[1]
bishop of Sossuba, and Idacius, bishop of Merida, in spite of the
protests of Martin of Tours and others. The heresy itself, however, was
not thus stamped out, and continued in Spain until long after the Gothic
conquest.

There is some reason for supposing that at the time of the Gothic
invasion Spain was still in great part Pagan, and that it continued to
be so during the whole period of Gothic domination.[2] Some Pagans
undoubtedly lingered on