The imperial prefect was bribed to give up Hermenigild, who took refuge in a church, whence he was tempted by the promises of his father and brother. Leovigild embraced and pardoned him within the church, but as soon as he was drawn thence is reported to have ordered him to be despoiled of his royal dress and of his servants (Hist. Franc. vi. 43). He was conveyed to Toledo, and thence exiled to Valencia (a.d. 584) (Joh. Bicl. p. 383), and in 586 met his death at Tarraco at the hands of Sisebert. Upon this brilliant success followed the final incorporation of the Suevi with the Gothic state in 585.
Persecution of the Catholics.—Leovigild had crushed the Catholic and Byzantine conspiracy of which Hermenigild had been the instrument, and there followed an outbreak of that savage and fanatical temper so characteristic of the Visigothic race. The persecuting temper of the Arian kings, however, had always some political justification. The Catholic church was the natural foe of her Arian rulers, and when her attempts to shake them off failed, it was inevitable that the penalty should fall heavily on her and on her bishops. Leander of Seville was banished, Fronimius of Agde was obliged to fly into Merovingian territory (Hist. Franc. ix. 24), an Arian bishop was sent to Merida, and Masona, after ineffectual attempts by the kin to win him over to Arianism, was imprisoned (Paulus Emerit. Esp. Sagr. xiii. p. 369). >From the signatures at the conversion council it is evident that in many sees, especially within the newly annexed Suevian territory, a large but indefinite number of Catholic bishops were replaced by Arians. (On the general subject of the persecution, cf. Greg. Tur. v. 39, and for various doubtful details of it, see Greg. Tur. Glor. Conf. xii.; Glor. Mart. Ixxxii.; and de Vit. et Mir. Patr. Emerit. c. xi.)
Leovigild died in Apr. or May, 586, at Toledo, according to some reports constant to the beliefs in which he had lived, according to others—less trustworthy—a repentant convert to Catholicism, mourning over the unrighteous death of his first-born son.
"Leovigild's reign," says Dahn, "represents the last attempt to maintain the Gothic state in its traditional aspects and character by the strenuous use of all possible weapons against its traditional dangers—war with Catholicism, chastisement of the nobility, reinvigoration of the monarchy, and defence of it against its hostile neighbours" (v. 150). An Arian monarchy, strong in all directions—towards its own pillars and supporters, the Gothic nobles, towards foreign outsiders, and towards its natural enemy Catholicism—this appears to have been Leovigild's ideal. To its influence may be traced most of the actions of his government, the association of his sons, his treatment of the rebellious and murderous nobles, his attitude towards the Catholic bishops, and, above all, certain alterations in the outer aspects of Gothic kingship which mark his reign and shew him prepared to accept just so much of Roman custom as would further his ends.
The conversations which Gregory of Tours reports between himself and Leovigild's Arian envoys on their way through Tours to Soissons or Paris (H. F. v. 44; vi. 40) throw much light upon the every-day social relations between Arianism and Catholicism at the time.
Sources.—Joannes Biclarensis, abbat of Biclaro and bp. of Gerona, a contemporary of Leovigild, his Chronicon, apud Florez. Esp. Sagr. vi.; Isidore of Seville, writing c. 630, Hist. Goth. ib.; Paulus Diaconus Emeritensis, fl. 650, de Vit. et Mir. Patr. Emeritensium Esp. Sagr. xiii. Dahn's Könige der Germanen remains the best account of the reign in point of insight and treatment; an exhaustive discussion of all the moot points is that by Prof. F. Görres, "Kritische Untersuchungen über den Aufstand and das Martyrium des westgothischen Königssohnes Hermenigild," in Zeitschrift für hist. Theol. (1873).
[M.A.W.]
Leucius (1), the reputed author of large apocryphal additions to the N.T. history, which originated in heretical circles, and which, though now lost, were much current in early times. The fullest account is that given by Photius (Cod. 114), who describes a book, called The Circuits of the Apostles, which contained the Acts of Peter, John, Andrew, Thomas, and Paul, and purported to have been written by Leucius Charinus. This second name Charinus is peculiar to Photius, earlier writers calling the author simply Leucius, a name variously altered by transcribers. Photius characterizes the book as in style utterly unlike the genuine N.T. writings, and full of folly, self-contradiction, falsehood, and impiety. It taught the existence of two gods—an evil one, the God of the Jews, having Simon Magus as his minister, and a good one, from Whom Christ came. It confounded the Father and the Son; denied the reality of Christ's Incarnation, and gave a Docetic account of His life on earth and especially of His crucifixion. It condemned marriage and regarded all generation as the work of the evil principle; denied that demons were created by God; related childish stories of miraculous restoration to life, of both men and cattle; and in the Acts of John used language which the Iconoclasts regarded as favouring them. From this description we can identify as the same work a collection of Apostolic Acts, from which extracts were read at the 2nd council of Nicaea (Actio v., Mansi, xiii. 167), the story of Lycomedes (see D. C. B. 4-vol. ed.) being that made use of by the Iconoclasts, and the Docetic tales being from this work. In the council was next read a citation from Amphilochius of Iconium, denouncing certain heretical Acts of the Apostles, and in particular arguing against the truth of a story, evidently that to which we have just referred, because it represented St. John as on the Mount of Olives during the crucifixion, and so contradicted the gospel, which relates that he was close to the Cross. With this evidence that the work read by Photius was in existence before the end of the 4th cent., we may probably refer to the same source a statement of Epiphanius (Haer. 51, p. 427) that Leucius was a disciple of John and joined his master in opposing the Ebionites. Church writers frequently reject the doctrine of heretical apocrypha and yet accept stories told in such documents as true, provided there were no
