To the slave, these considerations appealed with peculiar force. Tens of thousands of this oppressed and degraded caste had been transferred, at a single stroke by the fortunes of war, from the hands of one master to those of another. A host of captives had been taken in battle. In the minds of but few of these unfortunates the obligations of religion were deeply founded. While emancipation did not invariably follow the profession of the faith of Islam, it usually did; and the condition of the slave was always greatly improved by this concession to the prejudices of him who regulated his conduct and controlled his destiny. In view of these facts, there is little wonder that multitudes of slaves embraced the Mussulman doctrines.
The religious freedom of the Christians under Moslem rule was mainly dependent on the prejudices of their own clergy, the character of the dominant faction, and the temper of the sovereign. The provisions of the treaties which guaranteed their privileges were at first strictly observed. The general influx of fanatical foreigners, in time, however, created a strong public sentiment against the proscribed tributaries. They were sometimes deprived of their houses of worship. Arbitrary contributions were frequently exacted from them. On one occasion, the Christians of Cordova were compelled to pay into the treasury the sum of a hundred thousand pieces of gold, nearly a million and a quarter dollars. The revenues of the Church were so impaired by these grievous impositions, that ecclesiastics were often forced to engage in commercial pursuits to provide for the pressing necessities of their order. Some carried the manufactures of Cordova to Germany. Others journeyed as peddlers through France. The trading priest of Moorish Spain was well known in the markets of Genoa and Constantinople. Persons in clerical garb were no longer safe in public places. In the time of the Almoravides, when a Christian passed through the streets, the crowd shrank from contact with him as from one stricken with the plague. Religious processions were pelted by mobs of hooting children, and those who took part in them were fortunate if they escaped without serious personal injury. The ringing of the church-bells provoked the loud threats and curses of intemperate zealots. The breaking up of a congregation during Holy Week was often the signal for a riot. The vengeance of Allah upon the idolater was invoked by the scoffing bystanders when the corpse of a Christian was consigned to the grave.
The clergy, against whom these insults were principally aimed, were naturally exasperated by the indignity suffered by their creed and their profession. Their ignorance, in spite of the example and the benefits of Moslem civilization ever before their eyes, was not less dense than that of their brethren of Catholic Europe. With every opportunity to familiarize themselves with the tenets of Islam, and thoroughly conversant with Arabic, they steadfastly declined to honor the alleged revelations of the Prophet with their attention or perusal. Their opinions on this subject they obtained from the writings of fanatical monks, fully as ignorant as, and even more bigoted than, themselves. The sage conclusion which they arrived at from these researches was that the doctrines of the most uncompromising of monotheists and image-breakers were Pagan and idolatrous.
Apprehensive of violence if they ventured to show themselves in public, they remained almost constantly in the seclusion of their dwellings. Even the sacred calls of duty remained unanswered. Often, for weeks, mass was not celebrated. The pulpit and the confessional were deserted. The dying passed away unshriven. Maddened by rage and terror, they were scarcely accessible even to their sympathizing parishioners, who themselves incurred the risk of ill-treatment from the populace in their visits to the episcopal palace and the parsonage. Brooding over their wrongs, encouraged by the promises and exhortations of the Fathers of the Church, wresting the texts of Scripture to their purpose, fasting many consecutive days, praying for hours at a time, exhausted by penance, their enthusiasm became wrought up to the highest pitch. From such a condition the progress to martyrdom is easy.
The persecution of the Christians of Spain was inflicted, for the most part, under the reigns of Abd-al-Rahman II. and Mohammed. The annoyances to which they were subjected were by no means so serious as they subsequently became, when the influence of the Africans preponderated. The word persecution, implying as it does the tyrannical abuse of superior power, is not applicable to the circumstances under which the Mozarabes were sent to the scaffold. They were rather criminals than martyrs. They voluntarily offered themselves for the sacrifice. They denounced the religion of Islam as false and idolatrous. They reviled the name of the Prophet. They rushed into the mosques. When the voice of the muezzin resounded from the minaret, they crossed themselves, and cried out, “Save us, O Lord, from the call of the Evil One, both now and in eternity!” In their eagerness to court destruction, they pushed their way into the tribunals, and, in the presence of the judge, gave utterance to their blasphemies. Even the majesty of the throne was not respected by these frantic enthusiasts. St. Pelayus called the Khalif a dog to his face. St. Isaac, not content with heaping abuse on Mohammed, grossly insulted the Grand Kadi of Cordova. Such offences were capital under the law, and admitted of neither extenuation nor pardon.
At first, the magistrates, moved by astonishment and compassion, refused to condemn persons whose actions seemed attributable only to intoxication or insanity. But the deluded wretches would accept no indulgence. Thrown into prison, they continued their revilings. Their spurious zeal, mistaken constancy, and self-inflicted tortures produced many imitators. Their cells became places of pilgrimage. From them each day went forth new candidates for pious consideration, fresh victims for the executioner. Some were hanged, others beheaded. Not a few were burned at the stake and their ashes cast into the river. The bitter feelings engendered by religious controversy were not confined to Mohammedans. The ties of blood seemed for a time forgotten or ignored. The hiding-places of the accused were revealed by their own kindred. Brothers and sisters denounced each other for the sake of the property they might inherit. But the punishment only aggravated the evil. The number of martyrs constantly multiplied. A great many of these came from the laity. Youths of tender age excited the wonder and admiration of the devout by the boldness of their utterances and the unflinching courage with which they met their fate. Delicate women walked barefoot for leagues, nominally to share the glory of dying for the Faith, in reality to solicit the infliction of the extreme penalty of violated law.
The contagion of example spread fast through the Christian community of Cordova. No distinction was now so honorable as to stand in the foremost rank of the blasphemers of the Prophet. In this pious and meritorious performance, the secular clergy were, however, not conspicuous. Their lives were entirely too precious to be endangered so long as members of their flocks were eager to demonstrate their willingness to die for a perverted religious principle, involving an unprovoked breach of the contract from which they derived security of worship, life, and property. In secret, they promoted the increasing madness by prayer and vehement exhortation. The impulse to the spirit of spontaneous martyrdom was not a little stimulated by the honors paid to the victims. Independent of both Roman and Asturian influence, the Andalusian hierarchy conferred without delay the distinction of canonization upon each aspirant for celestial glory. Their remains were conveyed to the churches, where they at once began to disclose their supernatural powers by response to prayer, by the cure of disease, by the working of portentous and astonishing miracles.
The Moslem authorities were appalled by the strange conduct of their tributaries, insensible alike to the inducement of clemency or the dread of punishment. In the hope of abating the evil by summary measures, Abd-al-Rahman II. authorized, by public edict, any one to kill on the instant a Christian who was guilty of blasphemy. This decree, while not fully accomplishing its object, lessened the number of applicants for martyrdom and produced a great increase of apostates and fugitives.
But the mania which impelled the most fanatical to self-sacrifice was far from infecting the entire Christian population of the capital. There were many who looked with disapproval upon a course which must eventually result in the oppression of their sect, in the increase of its burdens, in the curtailment of its privileges. They foresaw that the acts of a few irresponsible individuals would ere long be regarded by the Moslem government as the authorized policy of the Church. Many Christians held office under the administration. It was only a question of time, if these disturbances continued, when they would be dismissed from their employments. The khalifate was then at the height of its power. If an uprising provoked by the clergy should occur, as seemed not improbable, the entire tributary sect might be exterminated; and, indeed, this measure had already been vehemently urged by the intolerant African marabouts. In any event, there would be arbitrary taxation, confiscation, violence, exile. In their extremity, the more sober-minded of the Christians petitioned the Khalif to summon a council, whose decision might be authoritative and final in determining the duty of the people in the present emergency.
All the prelates in the jurisdiction of the khalifate were accordingly convoked. Abd-al-Rahman appointed as his representative an official named Gomez, prominent in the administration, nominally attached to the Christian communion, but of suspicious morals and of more than suspicious orthodoxy. He was a man of fine education, conspicuous talents, polished manners, insufferable pride, and enormous wealth. The head of the faction which had, in vain, endeavored to check the increasing disposition to martyrdom which menaced the destruction of his sect, he had incurred the unmeasured hatred of the clergy. Realizing fully the fatal consequences of the insane acts of his co-religionists if unrestrained, his interest concurred with his inclination to repress the dangerous manifestations of their intemperate zeal before it became too late.