[1] We give the account as Fleury, v. 88 (Bk. 42), gives it, but with great doubts as to its genuineness, no other writer that we have seen mentioning it.
[2] Florez, x. 358: Fleury, v. 487. They were buried in St Cyprian's Church, Cordova. See "De translatione martyrum Georgii etc.," sec. 7.
This is the first definite indication we have that the toleration shown by the Moslems was beginning to be abused by their Christian subjects; and there can be no reasonable doubt that this ill-advised conduct on the part of the latter was the main cause of the so-called persecution which followed. But besides this fanaticism on the part of a small section of the subject Christians, there were other causes at work calculated to produce friction between the two peoples. During the century which had elapsed since the conquest, the Christians and Mohammedans, living side by side under the same government, and one which, considering the times in which it arose, was remarkable no less for its equity and moderation than for its external splendour and magnificence, had gradually been drawn closer together. Intermarriages had become frequent among them;[1] and these proved the fruitful cause of religious dissensions. Accordingly we find that the religious troubles in the reigns of Abdurrahman II. (822-852) and Mohammed I. (852-886) began with the execution of two children of mixed parents. Nunilo and Alodia were the children of a Moslem father and a Christian mother. Their father was a tolerant man, and, apparently, while he lived, permitted his children to profess the faith of their mother. On his death, the mother married again, and the new husband, being a bigoted Mohammedan, and actuated, as we may suppose, by the odio vitrici, immediately set about reclaiming his step-children to the true faith of Islam, his efforts in this direction leading him to ill-treat, even to torture,[2] the young confessors. His utmost endeavour to effect their conversion failing, he delivered them over to the judge on the charge of apostasy, and the judge to the executioner, by whom they were beheaded on Oct. 21, 840.[3]
[1] Due in part no doubt to the marriage of captives. See also below for "the maiden tribute," pp. 96, 97.
[2] So Miss Yonge.
[3] This date is given by Morales, apud Migne, vol. cxv. p. 886, and by Fleury, v. 487, who accuse Eulogius, "Mem. Sanct.," ii. c. 10, of being in error when he assigns the date 851. The Pseudo-Luitprand gives 951, vouching for this date as an eye-witness: "Me vivente, in castro Wergeti, id est Castellon, etc."
Though there were some cases of martyrdom of this character, where the sufferers truly earned their title of martyrs,—and we may believe that all such cases have not been recorded—yet the vast majority of those which followed in the years 851-860 were of a different type. They were due to an outbreak of fanatical zeal on the part of a certain section of the Christians such as to overpower the spirit of toleration, which the Moslem authorities had so far shown in dealing with their Christian subjects, and to raise a corresponding tide of bigotry in the less enlightened, and therefore more intolerant, masses of the Mohammedans. The sudden mania for martyrdom which manifested itself at this time is certainly the most remarkable phenomenon of the kind that has been recorded in the annals of the Christian Church. There had been occasional instances before of Christians voluntarily offering themselves to undergo the penalty of the laws for the crime of being Christians. One such instance in the case of a Phrygian, named Quintus, had caused grave scandal to the Church of Smyrna; for, having gone before the proconsul and professed himself ready to die for the faith, when the reality of the death, which he courted, had been brought home to him by the sight of the wild beasts ready to rend him, the courage of the Phrygian had failed, and he had offered incense to the gods. Africa also had had her self-accused martyrs.
But the Spanish confessors have an interest over and above these, both by reason of their number and the constancy which they displayed in their self-imposed task. Not a single instance is recorded, though there may have been some such, where the would-be martyr from fear or any other cause forwent his crown. Moreover these martyrdoms, by dividing the Church on the question of their merit, whether, that is, the victims were to be ranked as true martyrs or not, and, giving rise to a written controversy on the subject, has supplied us with ample, if rather one-sided, materials for estimating the provocation given, and received, on either side.
As time went on, and the Christians and Moslems mingled more closely together in political and social life, the Church no doubt suffered some deterioration. Every interested motive was enlisted in favour of dropping as far as possible out of sight[1] those distinctive features of Christianity which might be calculated to give offence to the Moslems; of conforming to all those Mohammedan customs, which are not in the Bible expressly forbidden to a Christian;[2] and, generally, of emphasizing the points on which Christianity agrees with Mohammedanism, and ignoring those (far more important ones) in which they differ. The Moslems had no such reason for dissembling their convictions, or modifying their tenets. Consequently a spiritual paralysis was creeping upon the Church, which threatened in the course of time, if not checked, to destroy the very life of Christianity throughout the peninsula. The case of Africa, from which Islam had extirpated Christianity, showed that this was no imaginary danger. But Spain had this advantage over Africa: it contained a free Christian community which had never passed under the Moslem yoke, where the fire of Christianity, in danger of being swept away by the devouring flames of Mohammedanism, might be nursed and cherished, till it could again blaze forth with its former brilliancy.
[1] See below, p. 72, note 5.