saints, and laymen.  There are references to Simonides, to Sophocles, to Euripides, to Plutarch, to Saint Clement of Alexandria, to Saint Cyprian, to Saint Ambrose, to Garcilasso de la Vega.  It seems likely that La Perfecta Casada was written after De los nombres de Cristo, which was almost certainly begun in prison.  But there is perhaps nothing in the internal evidence of the style which would point to that conclusion.  The style of La Perfecta Casada is vigorous and clear; but it is marred by gusts of rhetoric and by an excess of copulative conjunctions.  These peculiarities produce the effect of relative inexperience, and might easily mislead a too confident critic.

De los nombres de Cristo is cast in the Platonic form of dialogue, and, in the section entitled Pastor, Plato is quoted by name.  But the Hellenic influence, though present, is not dominant.  Already Alonso de Orozco had anticipated Luis de Leon with De los nueve nombres de Cristo,[266] and there are points of contact in the handling as is inevitable from the similarity of the subject.  But it cannot be denied that Luis de Leon’s work is suffused with a warmer, more human interest than Orozco’s brief sketch.  These more intimate personal elements are present on almost every page of De los nombres de Cristo.  Nobody can read far without perceiving that Marcello, hindered by his poca salud y muchas occupaciones, is manifestly a double of Luis de Leon; there are passages which gloss themes developed metrically elsewhere; there are retrospicient glances at the Valladolid trial; the scene of the dialogue is laid within view of La Flecha, and the details of the landscape are reproduced with exact fidelity; Luis de Leon has a freer hand in De los nombres de Cristo than in his other prose works, but here again in his paraphrases of the Biblical passages relating to Christ his interpretation is at one with the interpretation of the prophets.  And this identity of sentiment has in it nothing dramatic.  Those who have alleged that Luis de Leon came of Jewish stock may have been—­apparently were—­mistaken; but their mistake is comprehensible, for more than any contemporary Spanish poet—­more even than Herrera in his odes—­is he saturated with the Jewish spirit.  In all his work Luis de Leon adheres closely to the Bible.  In the De los nombres de Cristo he is also a Platonist within limits:  not so much as regards the manner (which tends to an oratorical pomp more reminiscent of Cicero) as in his conciliatory method.  With the Jewish and Hellenic blend of influence we must rate the Latin influence—­that of Horace and of Virgil.  The influence of Horace on Luis de Leon has been often noted.  It exists no doubt, but has perhaps been exaggerated:  why should we suppose that his love of moderation was learnt from Horace and was not partly, at least, temperamental?  May not the references to Horace be a characteristic