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 even as late as the end of the sixth century,[3]
but that there were any large numbers of them as late as the eighth
century is improbable.

Dr Dunham, who has given a clear and concise account of the Gothic
government in Spain, calls it the "most accursed that ever existed in
Europe."[4] This is too sweeping a statement, though it must be allowed
that the haughty exclusiveness of the Gothic nobles rendered their yoke
peculiarly galling, while the position of their slaves was wretched
beyond all example. However, it is not to their civil administration
that we wish now to draw attention, but rather to the relations of
Church and State under a Gothic administration which was at first Arian