Council
Elvira
about 305–306 · Elvira (Illiberis)
Disputed. An early Spanish council is accepted. The date and the integrity of the canon collection are not.
Convened by. Spanish bishops, including Ossius of Corduba in later memory
Issues. Discipline after a generation of uneven persecution: clergy and sex, apostasy, relations with pagans and Jews, and the use of images.
Outcomes. A large set of strict canons survives. Historians disagree about whether they all come from one meeting or were collected later.
Canons or creeds. A canon forbidding pictures in churches is often cited, but its original context is narrow and its text may have been revised.
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