HE was a learned Benedictin abbot of a monastery called Agaliense, in a
suburb of Toledo, promoted to the archbishopric of that city after the
death of Eugenius, in December, 657, according to F. Flores; sat nine
years and two months, and died on the 23d of January, 667, according to
the same learned author, in the eighteenth year of king Rescisvintho.
His most celebrated work is a book On the spotless virginity of the
Virgin Mary, against Helvidius, Jovinian, and a certain Jew: he breathes
in it the most tender devotion to her, and confidence in her
intercession with her Son. He had a singular devotion to St. Leocadia,
patroness of Toledo. Certain sermons of St. Ildefonsus on the B.
Virgin Mary, and some letters, are published by Flores.[1] Some of his
letters, which were first given us by D'Achery, were reprinted by
cardinal D'Aguirre.[2] In Spanish this saint is called Ildefonso, and by
the common people Alanso, for Alphonsus, which is an abbreviation of
Ildefonsus. See his short life by St. Julian, bishop of Toledo,
twenty-three years after his death. In Mabillon, saec. 2. Fleury, b. 39,
n. 40. That by Cixila is not authentic. See especially the remarks of
the learned F. Flores on these two lives, &c., in his Spana Sagrada, t.
5, tr. 5, c. 3, n. 31, p. 275, and app. 9, ib. p. 522. F. Flores reckons
St. Ildefonsus the thirty-first bishop of Toledo, from St. Eugenius, the
disciple of St. Dionysius of Paris, whom, with the writers of his
country, he counts the first, in the year 112.
Footnotes:
1. F. Flores. Spana Sagrada, t. 5, append. 7, p. 490.
2. Card. D'Aguirre, Conc. Hispan. t. 2, p. 534.
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