The most eminent poet of the Salamancan school is LUIS PONCE DE LEÓN (1529-91), a native of Belmonte de Cuenca, who joined the Augustinian order in his eighteenth year, and became professor of theology at the University of Salamanca in 1561. He soon found himself in the midst of a theological squabble as to the comparative merits of the Septuagint and the Hebrew MSS. Rivals spread the legend—fatal in Spain—that he was of Jewish descent, and that he conspired with the Hebrew professors, Martínez de Cantalapiedra and Grajal, in interpreting Scripture according to Jewish traditions. His chief opponent was León de Castro, who held the Greek chair. Public discussions were the fashion, and debates waxed acrimonious, after the custom of professors at large. On one occasion Luis de León went so far as to threaten Castro with the public burning of the latter's treatise on Isaiah. Castro was not the man to flinch, and anticipated his enemy by denouncing Fray Luis to the Inquisition. The matter would doubtless have ended here, had it not been discovered that Fray Luis had translated the _Song of Solomon_ into Castilian: a grave offence in the eyes of the Holy Office, which, rejecting the Lutheran formula of "every man his own pope," forbade the circulation of Bibles in the vernacular. In March 1572 Luis de León was arrested, and was kept a prisoner by the local authorities for four and a half years, during which he was baited with questions calculated to convict him of heresy and to involve his friend Benito Arias Montano. Notwithstanding the efforts of Bartolomé Medina and his brother-Dominicans, Fray Luis was acquitted on December 7, 1576. Judged by modern standards, he was harshly treated; but toleration is a modern birth, begotten by indifference and fear. In the sixteenth century men believed what they professed, and acted on their beliefs—the Spaniards by imprisoning their own countryman, Luis de León; Calvin by burning Harvey's forerunner, the Spaniard Miguel Servet. Fray Luis was the last of men to whine and whimper: he was judged by the tribunal of his own choosing, the tribunal with which he had menaced Castro: and the result vindicated his choice.[10] _Ex forti dulcedo_. The indomitable nobility of his character is visible in the first words he uttered on his return to the chair which Salamanca had kept for him:—"Gentlemen, as we were saying the other day." In 1591 he was elected Vicar-General of Castile, was chosen Provincial of his order, and was then commanded, against his will, to publish all his writings. He died ten days later.