THE IMPOSITION OF UNITY 51of these measures must have considerably increased the potential
popularity of Arianism, for few of the laity can really have under-
stood, let alone have been prepared to suffer for, the role of the
Spirit in the Trinity, unlike that of the Son. Likewise, rebaptism was
always a stumbling block in conversion, both as a matter of pride and
because it threatened the status of the dead, for in accepting that
your own baptism had not been a true sacrament you implicitly con-
demned that of departed friends and relatives, which in a post-Augus-
tinian theological age was effectively to believe in their damnation.
Thus a serious intellectual offensive was being mounted by the Arians
in the 580s, which may well, with active royal support, have led to a
disturbing number of defections from the Catholic ranks. It certainly
prompted a Catholic counter-offensive, with Bishops Severus of
Malaga and Leander of Seville writing polemical anti-Arian treatises
in the course of that same decade, particularly to parry the attacks of
their apostate colleague Vincent of Zaragoza.^44 Unfortunately, none
of these doubtless bitter exchanges has survived.
It is easy, on such a basis, to categorise Leovigild just as a persecu-
tor of Catholics, but a closer look at the methods he is found employ-
ing may modifY this view. Only in one city; in the pages of the Lives
of the Fathers of Merida, can we get a glimpse of the Arian-Catholic
conflict of this period at a local level. On his failure to win the sup-
port of Bishop Masona by threats or bribes, the king turned instead
to building up the power and standing of the practising Arians in the
city. A bishop called Sunna was sent to them. Whether there had
been an Arian episcopate previously in Merida or whether Sunna was
its first incumbent is not made clear, but with that bishop's arrival,
and by royal command, the Arians were able to take over some of the
basilicas in the city, formerly in the hands of the Catholics. With that
the struggle to control the cult of the city's patron saint, Eulalia, and
with it effective dominance of the religious life of the city and its
province, really began. Whichever side could control the basilica where
the saint's body was buried, and could possess the more mobile relic
of the martyr's tunic, would be able to monopolise access to the
patron saint and thus acquire spiritual supremacy in the city and
region. Masona resisted royal commands to surrender both basilica
and tunic. In the case of the former, a tribunal was set up to judge
the merits of the Catholic and Arian claims, before which Masona
appears to have emerged triumphant. This is a rare example of the
practical workings of the restrictions of the law on the' arbitrary use