de Castro, whose testimony on this point is uncontradicted, the climax came about in connexion with the text:  ’Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise.’  Castro obstinately maintained that Vatable’s interpretation of this passage was an interpretation favoured by the Jews against whom he cherished an incorrigible prejudice.  Luis de Leon is reported to have lost patience at this assertion, and to have said that he would cause Castro’s Commentaria in Essaiam Prophetam to be burnt.  Castro, whatever his faults, was not the man to be cowed by a threat, and he retorted with the remark that, by God’s grace, this should not come to pass, and that if there were any burning it would be applied rather to Luis de Leon and his family.[39] Having fired his bolt, but conscious that he was in a minority on the committee, Castro concluded with the sulky declaration that he did not propose to attend any further meetings of that body.  He would seem to have changed his mind later on this point, modestly alleging that he gave way to the insistence of others who deemed his presence indispensable, on account of his knowledge of languages.[40] Whatever his linguistic accomplishments, they did not produce the desired effect, for Vatable’s version of the Bible was passed as revised by the committee of Salamancan theologians in 1571, though, for some unexplained reason, their revised text was not published till thirteen years later.

The quarrel between Castro and Luis de Leon soon became public property.  Passions were ablaze in a moment.  Parties were formed, and Castro found much support, especially among the body of undergraduates, of whom one at least ingenuously described himself as ’del bando de Jesucristo’.[41] There was almost as much tumult in the University of Salamanca as in Agramante’s camp.  Even if Castro thought that the hour of his triumph was at hand, he was too experienced and too Spanish to be precipitate.  He may well have had an inkling that, if many were repelled by Luis de Leon’s austerity and implacable righteousness, his own reputation as a pedant and reactionary did not mark him out for leadership.  His lack of expository power may also have struck him as a disqualification.[42] Further, on tactical grounds, he may have argued that his notorious hostility to Luis de Leon made it advisable for him not to figure too prominently in the ranks of the attacking party.  Whatever his motive may have been, Castro gave place to a younger and far abler man, the well-known Dominican, Bartolome de Medina, whose relations with Luis de Leon, never cordial, had grown strained, owing to various checks and disappointments.  Medina honestly differed from Luis de Leon’s views as regards Scriptural interpretation; he would have been a good deal more (or less) than human if he had not been galled by a series of small personal mortifications.  He particularly resented, as well he might, being out-argued when he presented himself