There once lived in Spain a King whose name was Leovigild. Although professing the Catholic Faith, he gave ear to heretical teachers, who tried to lead him away from the revealed truths of our holy Faith. Among other things, he embraced the error of those who, although acknowledging the divinity of the Father and the Son, refused to believe in that of the Holy Ghost.
King Leovigild rejects Arianism and embraces the true faith in front of Saint Leander.
St. Gregory of Tours was informed of this by certain deputies whom Chilperic, King of France, had sent to that King, and who, on their return, had paid a visit to that holy Bishop. He, on his part, ever anxious to maintain the teaching of the Church, sent messengers to the King in Spain to ask him this question: “O King, since you refuse to believe in the divinity of the Holy Ghost, and will not acknowledge Him to be one God with the Father and the Son, would you be pleased to inform me how St. Peter could have said with truth to Ananias, ‘Why hath Satan tempted thy heart, that thou shouldst lie to the Holy Ghost? Thou hast not lied to men, but to God.’ ”
Statue of St. Gregory of Tours at the Louvre.
The King, who held the Word of God in the highest esteem, was struck by these words, and after meditating on them for a time, saw how he had been deceived by the fallacies of the teachers to whom he had listened, and instantly professed aloud his adherence to the doctrines contained in the Holy Scriptures, and taught by the living voice of the Church; and not only he himself, but those who had been misled as he had been, joined him in the profession of the Catholic Faith in this mystery.
Rev. D. Chisholm, The Catechism in Examples (London: R & T Washbourne, Ltd., 1919), 221-2.
Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 363
