A CHURCH TRIUMPHANT 75us no written works, nor did he receive an entry in the continuations
of On Famous Men. It is conceivable that he is to be identified with the
bishop of Barcelona of the same name (c. 656), and was transferred to
Toledo on the death of his friend and correspondent Ildefonsus. 38
Such an origin might explain his being ignored in the Toledan
tradition epitomised in the On Famous Men and its continuations.
To argue, as some have done, that a fundamental divide and indeed
hostility existed between monastic and clerically derived bishops, and
that the kings might alternate between what were virtually two parties
in their choice of successive bishops, is in fact patently nonsensical.
'Clerical' bishops such as Eugenius II and Julian are recorded as
having deep involvements in monastic life, both having spent long
periods under self-imposed ascetic discipline prior to their being
ordained to the clergy, whilst a 'monastic' bishop, Eugenius I, joined
the ranks of the clergy of the city after passing several years as a
monk. Likewise a 'monastic' bishop, Ildefonsus,could write the entry
in his On Famous Men on Eugenius II, whilst it was a 'clerical' one,
Julian, who did the same in turn for Ildefonsus. There is no serious
indication that the bishops drawn from Agali were the promoters of
a consistent line of policy, let alone that they were antagonistic to
royal authority. What is striking about the Toledan bishops of the
seventh century is their awareness of continuity in the see and their
maintenance of a firm sense of tradition and the importance of the
chain of master-pupil relationships.
Eugenius II's successor Ildefonsus shared his interest in the liturgy,
and despite its anonymity some of his contributions to the develop-
ment of the corpus can be detected by reason of the very distinctive
nature of his literary style. He was peculiarly fond of that synonymous
style first developed by Isidore, and he employed it in his most fa-
mous work, On the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which
begins thus: '0, My Lady, my Queen, my Ruler, Mother of my Lord,
Handmaiden of your Son, Bearer of the Creator of the World, I beg
you, I pray you, I beseech you, that I may have the spirit of your Lord,
that I may have the spirit of your Son, that I may have the spirit of
my Redeemer, that I may truly and worthily know you, that I may
truly and worthily speak about you, that I may truly and worthily say
things about you that ought to be said .... '39 As well as being the first
great outburst of Marian devotion in the Spanish Church, this work
represents the furthest and most extreme development of the synony-
mous style. We know from Julian's Elogium on Ildefonsus that the