Chapter, and had joined in making representations the upshot of which was that the culprit was publicly and ignominiously punished.[120] It is well-nigh incredible that the Zuniga who championed Copernicus, and displays vigilant self-restraint in his writings, should have been guilty of such flightiness as is brought home to his namesake; it is by no means inconceivable that the Zuniga who deposed against Luis de Leon should have been guilty of occasional lapses.  He is said to have been impetuous as well as vindictive;[121] he had the dangerous gift of pulpit eloquence[122] and may have acquired the trick of saying rather more than he meant.  His evidence against Luis de Leon, though fluent and clear, is not what we should expect from a man of talent, who recognized the gravity of the charges against the prisoner.  His testimony, such as it is, has less intellectual substance than the testimony of Castro and Medina; it turns mainly on petty personal questions or on points of morbid scrupulousness.  The more closely his evidence is scrutinized, the more difficult is it to avoid the suspicion that Zuniga was not a perfectly trustworthy witness.  For instance, according to his sworn statement he was thirty-six years old when he deposed at Toledo on November 4, 1572.[123] The declaration is made positively without any of the qualifying phrases—­’about’, ‘nearly’, ’more or less’—­so frequent on the part of witnesses.  Nevertheless, it seems possible that this assertion is erroneous.  Zuniga refers to a discussion respecting Arias Montano which he had with Luis de Leon in the latter’s cell some thirteen years previously.  At this time Zuniga would, on his own showing, be but twenty-three.  From what we know of Luis de Leon, it seems improbable that he would admit to his confidential intimacy a man so much his junior.  No doubt Zuniga (or Rodriguez) was young at the time—­hardly old enough, by his own reckoning, to be an ordained priest—­a mancebo, as he seemed to Luis de Leon’s retrospicient eyes.[124] Yet it is very hard to believe that Zuniga was no more than twenty-three when he took it upon himself to cast doubts on the orthodoxy of Benito Arias Montano;[125] nor is it likely that Luis de Leon would discuss so delicate a topic with the most brilliant of youths.  Let it not be said that the question of Zuniga’s accuracy in stating his age is relatively unimportant.  It is highly relevant; for, if Zuniga were capable of making a mistake on such a point, he was manifestly more liable to error when dealing with other matters on which he necessarily knew less.  However, Zuniga’s evidence is not weighty enough to call for detailed examination.  He may be left to bear the burden of Luis de Leon’s scorn.  I am more concerned here to suggest that, on the facts before us, we are not compelled to identify the Zuniga who deposed against Luis de Leon with a namesake of a higher intellectual type.  To us who read the testimony in cold blood, more than three centuries after it was given, it seems that Luis de Leon deals as impartially with his brethren as with members of other religious orders.  This was not his intention, at any rate.  He knew his fellow-Augustinians better than he could know the rest, and he himself tells us not obscurely that, out of consideration for his gown, he was silent on various matters which, if proclaimed aloud, would not make for edification.[126]