Christianity and Islam in Spain, A.D. 756-1031 Part 6

Hitherto the aider and abettor of these martyrdoms had himself contrived to escape the penalty, which he had urged others to brave. Whether this was due to any unworthy fear of death on his part is not clear, but it may have been owing to the respect in which he was held by the Moslem authorities. To these he was well known as a man of irreproachable character and unaffected piety, and several Arabs of high rank, who were his personal friends, shewed themselves anxious to screen him from the effects of his folly. Eulogius[4] was descended from a Senatorial family of Cordova, and was educated at the Church of St Zoilus, where he devoted himself to ecclesiastical studies, and soon surpa.s.sed his contemporaries in learning. With his friend Alvar he sat at the feet of Speraindeo, an eminent abbot in the province of Baetica. Besides a sister Anulo, Eulogius had two brothers engaged in trade, and another brother, Joseph, who seems to have been in government employ.[5]

[1] Eulog., "Lib. Apol.," sec. 21 ff.

[2] So the Inquisitors in Spain used to pretend that their victims had abjured their errors before being burnt.

[3] Eul., "Lib. Apol.," sec. 27.

[4] Life by Alvar, c. i. sec. 2.

[5] Eul. ad Wiliesindum, sec. 8, "Joseph, quem saeva tyranni indignatio eo tempore a princ.i.p.atu dejecerat:" unless this is a metaphorical allusion to Joseph in Egypt.

Eulogius became early noted for his practice of asceticism, and his desire for the life of a monk,[1] and for the glory of martyrdom. When strong measures were taken by the authorities, in concert with Reccafredus, Bishop of Seville, to stamp out the mania for martyrdom by threats, stripes, and imprisonment, though many were frightened into submission, Eulogius, Alvar tells us,[2] remained firm, in spite of his being singled out as an "incentor martyrum" by a certain Gomez, who was a temporising Christian in the king's service.[3]

[1] Life by Alvar, sec. 3, "Ne virtus animi curis Saecularibus enervaretur, quotidie ad caelestia cupiens volare corporea sarcina gravabatur."

[2] "Hic inadibilis (=firm) nunquam vacillare vel tenui est visus susurro."--Life by Alvar, sec. 5.

[3] This man, says Alvar, sec. 6, by a divine judgment, lost his hold on the Christian faith, which he thus scrupled not to attack. See below, p. 72.

There is no doubt that Eulogius did all he could to interfere with and check that amalgamation of the Christians and Arabs which he saw going on round him. Believing that such close relations between the peoples tended to the spiritual degradation of Christianity, he set himself deliberately to embitter those relations, and, as far as he could, to make a good understanding impossible. To discourage the learning of Arabic by the Christians, he brought back with him from a journey to Pampluna the cla.s.sical writings of Virgil, Horace (Satires), Juvenal, and Augustine's "De Civitate Dei."

At the time when these martyrdoms took place, Eulogius was a priest, but for some reason he tried to abstain from officiating at the ma.s.s on the ground that he was himself a great sinner.[1] However, his ecclesiastical superior[2] (? Saul, Bishop of Cordova), soon made him take a different view of the question by threatening him with anathema if he neglected his duty any longer. Coming forward as a prominent champion of the extreme party in the Church, he was imprisoned in 851, where he wrote treatises in favour of the martyrs, and was released, as we have seen, by the intercession of Flora and Maria on November 29th of that year.

[1] He pleads his "delicti onera," ch. i. sec. 7. Perhaps he was infected with one of the "Migetian errors" of the previous century, which was that "priests must be saints." Saul, Bishop of Cordova (850-861), in a letter to another bishop (Florez, xi. 156-163), refers with disapproval to those (? Eulogius) who held that "sacramenta tunc esse solum modo sancta, c.u.m sanctorum fuerint manibus praelibata;" and he quotes Augustine and Isidore against the error.

[2] Pontifex proprius.

In 858,[1] on the death of Wistremirus, he was chosen by the votes of the people[2] to succeed him as Bishop of Toledo; but from some cause, perhaps by the intervention of the Moslems, he was prevented from occupying his see. The people then determined to have no bishop, if they might not have him.[3] Yet, adds the pious Alvar, he got his bishopric after all, for "all holy men are bishops, though not all bishops holy men."

[1] "Life of Eul.," Alvar, ii. sec. 10.

[2] "Communis electio."

[3] Fleury, v. 547, says another bishop was elected in Eulogius' lifetime; but Alvar's words are "Alium sibi eo vivente interdixerunt eligere."

In the following year he was again imprisoned as being a disturber of the public peace, but as on a former occasion he had been allowed to support and encourage Flora and Maria, so now was he permitted to finish in prison a book in defence of the martyrs,[1] which had the direct tendency of inciting others to go and do likewise. The occasion of Eulogius' second imprisonment was as follows:--Leocritia, a maiden of Arab extraction and of n.o.ble birth,[2] had been secretly baptised by Liliosa, the wife of Felix. Her parents, learning her apostasy, cruelly ill-treated, and even beat her, in order to make her renounce Christ.

She naturally turned to Eulogius and his sister Anulo for advice in her afflictions, expressing a wish to escape to a part of Spain where the Christian wors.h.i.+p was free. As a first step to this, she leaves her parents under pretence of going to a wedding, and takes refuge with Eulogius. Her parents, furious at her escape, get all sorts of people imprisoned on the charge of aiding her; and she is at last betrayed and surprised at the house of her protector. They are both dragged before the Kadi, who asks Eulogius angrily why he persists in defying the laws in this way.[3] The bishop defends himself by pleading that Christian clergy are bound to impart a knowledge of their religion, if asked, as he had been by Leocritia.[4] The judge then threatens to have him scourged, but Eulogius, preferring death to so painful and degrading a punishment, repeats the lesson which he had taught to so many others, and reviles Mohammed. Even so the judge shows a disposition to treat him with leniency, and he is remanded to prison with Leocritia.

When brought up again before the royal Council,[5] an influential friend makes a last effort to save him, saying: "Fools and idiots rush on their own destruction, but what induces you, a man of approved wisdom and blameless character, in defiance of all natural instincts, to throw away your life in this manner?" He urges Eulogius to say but one word of concession in the hour of peril, promising that he should afterwards be free to exercise his religion as he pleased, without let or hindrance.

But the bishop could hardly turn back now, and he rejected all such offers with the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, "If they only knew the joy that awaits us on high!"

[1] See Eulog., Letter to Alvar, Florez, xi. 295.

[2] Alvar, Life of Eulog., i. sec. 13.

[3] Alvar, "Life of Eulog.," i. secs. 14, 15.

[4] This kind of proselytism was not held to be a capital crime by the Moslems. See Dozy, ii. 171.

[5] Alvar, "Life of Eul.," v. sec. 15. Fleury v. 548.

On his way to execution, when struck by one of the bystanders on one cheek, he turned the other meekly to the striker. He was beheaded on March 11, 859, and Leocritia four days later. Miraculous appearances honoured the body of the martyred bishop, which was buried in the Church of St Genesius, whence it was translated in the next year to his own church of St Zoilus, and in 883 was given up, together with that of Leocritia, to Alphonso III. (866-910) by express stipulation.

CHAPTER V.

CONTROVERSY CONCERNING THE MARTYRS.

With the death of Eulogius the series of voluntary martyrdoms comes to an end, and it will be convenient at this point to consider the whole question of the relation of the Church to the civil power, and how far those "confessors," who were put to death under the circ.u.mstances already related, were ent.i.tled to the name of martyrs. Unfortunately the evidence we have on the subject is drawn almost entirely from the apologists of their doings, and therefore may fairly be suspected of some bias. Yet even from them can be shown conclusively enough that no real persecution was raging in Mohammedan Spain at this time, such as to justify the extreme measures adopted by the party of zealots.

If we except the cases of John and Adulphus, and of Nunilo and Alodia, the date of which is doubtful, there is not a single recorded instance of a Christian being put to death for his religion by the Arabs in Spain before the middle of the ninth century. The Muzarabes,[1] as the Christians living under the Arabs were called, enjoyed a remarkable degree of freedom in the exercise of their religion--the services and rites of the Church being conducted as heretofore.[2] In Cordova alone we find mention of the following churches:[3] the Church of St Acislus, a former martyr of Cordova; of St Zoilus; of the Three Martyrs--Faustus, Januarius, Martialis; of St Cyprian; of SS. Genesius and Eulalia; and of the Virgin Mary.

[1] De Gayangos on Al Makk., i. p. 420, says the word means "those who try to imitate the Arabs in manners and language."

[2] Eulog. Letter to Alvar. After the death of Flora he says he spent the ninth hour in prayer, then "auctis tripucliis, vespertinum, matutinum, missale sacrificium consequenter ad honorem (Dei) et gloriam nostrarum virginum celebravimus."

[3] Florez, x. 245.

Of the last of these there is an interesting account in an Arab writer, who died in 1034.[1] "I once entered at night," he says, "into the princ.i.p.al Christian Church. I found it all strewed with green branches of myrtle, and planted with cypress trees. The noise of the thundering bells resounded in my ears; the glare of the innumerable lamps dazzled my eyes; the priests, decked in rich silken robes of gay and fanciful colours, and girt with girdle cords, advanced to adore Jesus. Everyone of those present had banished mirth from his countenance, and expelled from his mind all agreeable ideas; and if they directed their steps towards the marble font it was merely to take sips of water with the hollow of their hands. The priest then rose and stood among them, and taking the wine cup in his hands prepared to consecrate it: he applied to the liquor his parched lips, lips as dark as the dusky lips of a beautiful maid; the fragrancy of its contents captivated his senses, but when he had tasted the delicious liquor, the sweetness and flavour seemed to overpower him." On leaving the church, the Arab, with true Arabian facility, extemporized some verses to the following effect: "By the Lord of mercy! this mansion of G.o.d is pervaded with the smell of unfermented red liquor, so pleasant to the youth. It was to a girl that their prayers were addressed, it was for her that they put on their gay tunics, instead of humiliating themselves before the Almighty." Ahmed also says: "the priests, wis.h.i.+ng us to stay long among them, began to sing round us with their books in their hands; every wretch presented us the palm of his withered hand (with the holy water), but they were even like the bat, whose safety consists in his hatred for light; offering us every attraction that their drinking of new wine, or their eating of swine's flesh, could afford." This narrative is in many respects very characteristic of an Arab writer, who would not feel the incongruity of an ill.u.s.tration on such a theme drawn from "the lips of a maid," or the irrelevancy of a reference to swine's flesh. But the account merits attention on other grounds, for it shews how little even the more intelligent Moslems understood the ceremonies of the religion which they had conquered, though they might be pardoned for thinking that the Christians wors.h.i.+pped the Virgin Mary, both because Mohammed himself fell into the same error, and because probably the Roman Church and its adherents had already begun to pay her idolatrous wors.h.i.+p.

The chief church in Cordova at the conquest seems to have been the church of St Vincent. On the taking of the town,[2] the Christians had to give up half of it to the Arabs, a curious arrangement, but one enforced elsewhere by the Saracens. In 784 the Christians were induced, or compelled, to sell their half for 100,000 dinars, and it was pulled down to make room for the Great Mosque.[3] In 894 we find that the Cordovans were allowed to build a new church.

[1] Ahmed ibn Abdilmalik ibn Shoheyd, Al Makk., i. 246. I quote De Gayangos' translation.

[2] De Gayangos on Al Makk., i. 368, says the cathedral was at first guaranteed to the Christians. Some time later than 750 they had to surrender half of it; in 784 they were obliged to sell the other half, and in return were allowed to rebuild the destroyed churches. For the "church of the burnt" see above, p.

29, note 1.

[3] This was not finished till 793. The original structure cost 80,000 dinars. Several Khalifs added to it, and Hakem II.

(961-976) alone spent on it 160,000 dinars.

Besides these within the walls, there were ten or twelve monasteries and churches in the immediate neighbourhood of Cordova: among them the monastery of St Christopher, the famous one of Tabanos, suppressed as above mentioned, in 854;[1] those of St Felix at Froniano, of St Martin at Royana, of the Virgin Mary at Cuteclara, of St Salvator at Pegnamellar; and the churches of SS. Justus and Pastor, and of St Sebastian.

We have given the names of these churches and monasteries[2] at or near Cordova, both to shew how numerous they were, and also because from one or other of them came nearly all the self-devoted martyrs, of whom we are about to consider the claims. Except in cases like that above-mentioned, the Christians were not allowed to build new churches,[3] but considering the diminution in the numbers of the Christians owing to the conquest, and the apostasy of a great many, this could not be reckoned a great hards.h.i.+p. Moreover the Christian churches, it was ordained, should be open to Moslems as well as Christians, though during the performance of ma.s.s it seems that they had to be kept closed.

The Mosques were never to be polluted by the step of an infidel.[4]

[1] Dozy, ii. 162.

[2] Monasteries were established in Spain 150 years before the Saracen conquest. They mostly fared badly at the hands of the Arabs, in spite of the injunctions of the Khalif Abubeker (see Conde, i. 37, and Gibbon), but that of Lorban at Coimbra received a favourable charter in 734 (Fleury, v. 89; but Dunham, ii. 154, doubts the authenticity of the charter).

[3] Cp. the stipulation of Omar at the fall of Jerusalem.

[4] See Charter of Coimbra, apud Fleury, v. 89.

The religious ferment, which manifested itself so strongly at Cordova, did not extend to other parts of Spain. For instance, at Elvira, the cradle of Spanish Christianity, it was shortly after the Cordovan martyrdoms (in 864) that the mosque, founded in the year of the conquest, and left unbuilt for 150 years, was finally finished. What we hear about the Christians at Elvira at this time is not to their credit, their bishop, Samuel, being notorious as an evil liver.[1] It is in Cordova that the main interest at this period centres; and to Cordova we will for the present confine our attention.