ELIPANDUS. — Archbishop of Toledo, father of Spanish adoptionism in the 8th century. According to recent investigations by Rivera, E., born in 717, became a monk while still very young, probably in Córdoba, where he not only became well-versed in theological sciences but also familiarized himself with Arabic literature and philosophy. After directing the monastery school, in 755 (thus well before 780, the date hitherto commonly accepted) he was elevated to the primatial see of Toledo, perhaps with the support of the Muslim authorities, toward whom E. always showed sympathy. E. died around 807, at the time of the general massacre of the Mozarabs.
The doctrine of E. can be inferred from his letters (PL 96, 859–82) and from the polemical treatise by Beatus and Eterius (PL 96, 859–870), in which a kind of symbol attributed to E. is preserved. It seems that the metropolitan of Toledo had already been propagating his Christological ideas since 770 (cf. M. Del Alamo, *Los comentarios de Beato al Apocalipsis y Elipando*, in *Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati*, II, Vatican City 1946, pp. 30–33), but the decisive occasion for him to make his views public arose only in the controversy with an obscure figure named Migetius, whose confused Trinitarian doctrine was condemned by E. in a council held in Seville (probably in 782). Eager to distinguish in Christ the operations proper to each nature, E. further declared that Christ, according to His humanity, is not the natural Son but only the adoptive Son of the Father, and consequently conceived the bonds uniting the humanity of the Word with the heavenly Father as strictly parallel to the grace of adoption that unites every justified soul with God. It is unlikely that this manner of speaking was influenced by Nestorian theology, then vigorously resurgent at the opposite end of the Arab empire; E. himself rather invoked the testimony of the Mozarabic liturgy, which spoke of the adoption of this concrete nature, this man, by the Word (though in an orthodox sense; cf. J. F. Rivera, *La controversia adoperanista del siglo VIII y la ortodoxia de la liturgia mozarabe*, in *Ephemerides Liturgicae*, 47 [1933], pp. 506–306). By declaring that to reject the idea of adoption is to deny the true humanity of Christ, E. remained stubbornly attached to his doctrine, even after the letter of condemnation sent by Pope Hadrian I (cf. Jaffé-Wattenbach, 2479); he remained unyielding in the face of the condemnations issued at Regensburg (293), where his chief collaborator Felix of Urgel was forced to recant, and at Frankfurt am Main (794); nor did he yield to the arguments of Alcuin (*Adversus Elipandum libri IV*: PL 101, 231–300).