the cut of its hair, there were earnest people among the subjects of
the Sultan, in Cordova itself, who were absorbed by much deeper
thoughts. It was not the external enemy that thus endangered the peace
of the Moorish kingdom. Many a time, indeed, did Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n II., who
was not wanting in personal courage and love of military glory, lead his
armies with success against the Christians of the north, who, aided by
Louis the Debonnaire, were continually making some expedition or foray
over the frontiers. These petty campaigns were not yet serious enough to
shake the stability of the Moslem rule. The trouble in these early days
always came from within. In the present instance it arose from the too
exalted spirit of a small number of Christians at Cordova. Most of the
Christians, indeed, were by no means anxious to emphasize their creed;
they found themselves well treated, free to worship as they pleased,
with no hindrance from their rulers; and also free to trade and get
rich, as well as their Moslem neighbours. What more could be desired,
unless the recovery of their ancient kingdom? And as that was impossible
just then, they were content to let well alone, and make the best of
their mild and tolerant governors.
This temper was very general in Andalusia, but there were here and there
ambitious or enthusiastic spirits that chafed against such compliance
with the rule of the "infidel." They remembered the former power and
prosperity of their church, and the priests especially could no longer
restrain their hatred of the Moslems who had taken away from them their
authority and substituted a false creed for the religion of Christ. The
very tolerance of the Moors only exasperated such fervent souls; they
preferred to be persecuted, like the saints of old; they longed to be
martyrs, and they were indignant with the Moslems, because they would
not "persecute them for righteousness' sake" and ensure them the kingdom
of heaven. Especially hateful to these earnest people was the open
gaiety and sensuous refinement of the Moors; their enjoyment of life and
all its pleasure, their music and singing, their very learning and
science, were abhorrent to these ascetics. Life, to the true believer,
meant only scourges and fasts, penances and confessions, purification
through suffering, the mortifying of the flesh and sanctifying of the
spirit. What happened was, in truth, nothing but the manifestation of
the ascetic or monastic form of Christianity among the subject
populations. A sudden and violent enthusiasm took the place of the
indifference that had hitherto been the prevailing characteristic of
Spanish Christianity, and a race for martyrdom began.
It was a grievous pity to see good people throwing away their lives, and
the lives of others, for a dream. The suicides of Andalusia were really
no whit more reasonable or truly religious than the sufferings of the
priests of Baal who cut themselves with knives, or of the Indian
ascetics who let their nails grow through the palms of their hands. The
fact that the Spanish "martyrs" were mad in a better cause does not make
them less insane. Christianity does not teach its disciples to fling
away their lives wantonly, out of mere joy in being tortured and killed.
It was not as if the Christians were persecuted or hindered in the
exercise of their faith; it was not as if the Moors were ignorant of
Christianity and needed to be preached to. They knew more of the
Scriptures than many of the Christians themselves, and they never spoke
the name of Jesus Christ without adding, "May God bless him."
Mohammedanism recognizes the inspired nature of Christ, and inculcates
profound reverence towards him. The Moslems were not ignorant of
Christianity, but they preferred their own creed; and while they let the
Christians hold to theirs, there was no excuse for the latter posing in
the heroic character of persecuted believers. Indeed there was no
rational way of getting martyred; since Christians were allowed free
exercise of their religious rites, might preach and teach without let or
hindrance, they could not find a legal ground for being persecuted
unless they left the paths of the Gospel and set aside the great lesson
of Christ, "Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, and pray
for them that despitefully use you and persecute you." They were not
despitefully used or persecuted; the mass of the Christians were
entirely unmolested and though the priests were sometimes subjected to
some public ridicule by the street boys and common people, the better
class of Moslems never joined in this; yet so far were the poor
Christians from attempting to love these mild adversaries that they went
out of their way to curse them and blaspheme their religion, with the
simple intention of being martyred for their pains. Now it is a
well-known law in Moslem countries that he who blasphemes the Prophet
Mohammed or his religion must die. It is a stern and barbarous law, but
the world has seen as bad principles carried into effect over the
faggots of Smithfield and Oxford in later ages than that of which we are
writing. Wilfully to stir up religious strife and injuriously to abuse
another faith are no deeds for Christians; voluntarily to transgress a
law which carries with it capital punishment is not martyrdom, but
suicide; and the pity we cannot help feeling for the "martyrs" of
Cordova is the same that one entertains for many less exalted forms of
hysterical disorder. The victims were, indeed, martyrs to disease, and
their fate is as pitiable as though they had really been martyrs for the
faith.
The leading spirit of these suicides was Eulogius,[14] a priest who
belonged to an old family of Cordova, always noted for its Christian
zeal. Eulogius had spent years in prayer and fasting, in bitter penance
and self-mortification, and had reduced himself to the ecstatic
condition which leads to acts of misguided but heroic devotion. There
was nothing worldly left in him, no thought for himself or personal
ambition; to cover the false faith of the Moors with contumely, and to
awaken a spirit of exalted devotion among his co-religionists, such were
his aims. In these he had throughout the cordial support of a wealthy
young man of Cordova, Alvaro by name, and of a small but fervid body of
priests, monks, and women, with a few laymen. Among those who found a
close affinity to the devoted young priest, was a beautiful girl named
Flora. She was the child of a mixed marriage, and her Christian mother
had brought her up secretly in her own faith. For many years Flora was
to all outward appearance a Mohammedan; but at length, moved by the same
spirit of sacrifice and enthusiasm which had stirred Eulogius, and
excited by such passages in the Bible as, "Whoso shall deny Me before
men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven," she fled
from her brother's house--her father was dead--and took refuge among the
Christians. The brother, a Mohammedan, searched for her in vain; many
priests were thrown into prison on the charge of being accomplices in
the abduction; and Flora, unwilling that others should suffer through
her fault, returned to her home and confessed herself a Christian. Her
brother tried the sternest means at his disposal to compel her to
recant, and at last, in a rage at her obstinacy, brought her before the
K[=a]dy, or Mohammedan judge, and accused her of apostacy. The child of a
Moslem, even though the mother be a Christian, is held in Mohammedan law
to be born a Moslem, and apostacy has always been punishable by death.
Even now in Turkey the law holds good, though there has been a tacit
understanding for the last forty years that it shall not be enforced;
and a thousand years ago we must expect to find less tenderness towards
renegades. Yet the judge before whom Flora was thus arraigned displayed
some compunction towards the unhappy girl. He did not condemn her to
death--as he was in law bound to do--or even to imprisonment; he had her
severely beaten, and told her brother to take her home and instruct her
in the Mohammedan religion. She escaped, however, again, and took refuge
with some Christian friends, and here for the first time she met
Eulogius, who conceived for the beautiful and unfortunate young devotee
a pure and tender love such as angels might feel for one another. Her
mystical exaltation, devout piety, and unconquerable courage, gave her
the aspect of a saint in his eyes, and he had not forgotten a detail of
this first interview six years later when he wrote to her these words:
"Thou didst deign, holy sister, to show me thy neck torn by the scourge,
and shorn of the beautiful locks that once hung over it. It was because
thou didst regard me as thy spiritual father, and believe me to be pure
and chaste as thyself. Softly did I lay my hand on thy wounds; I had it
in me to seek to heal them with my lips, had I dared.... When I parted
from thee I was as one that walketh in a dream, and I sighed without
ceasing." Flora and a sister who shared her enthusiasm were removed to a
safe place of concealment, and Eulogius did not see her again for some
time.
Meanwhile the zeal of the Cordovan Christians was bearing fruit. A
foolish priest, Perfectus, had been led into cursing the dominant
religion, and had been executed on a great Mohammedan feast-day, when
all the world was rejoicing at the termination of the rigorous fast of
Ramadan, which had lasted a whole month. The Moslems, men and women,
made this feast a special occasion of merry-making, and the execution of
the offending priest added a new subject of excitement to the crowds
that thronged the streets and sailed on the river and frolicked on the
great plain outside the city. The poor priest died bravely, cursing
Mohammed and his religion with his last breath, surrounded by a vast
crowd of scoffing and pitiless Moslems. The Bishop of Cordova, followed
by an army of priests and devotees, took down his body, buried him with
the holy relics of St. Acisclus, a martyr of Diocletian's persecution,
in whose church he had officiated, and forthwith had him made a saint.
The same evening two Moslems were drowned, and this was at once accepted
as the judgment of God on the murderers of Perfectus. The black slave,
Nasr, who had superintended the execution, died within the year, and the
Christians triumphantly declared that Perfectus had predicted his
decease: "It was another judgment!"
Soon a monk named Isaac sought an interview with the K[=a]dy, on the
pretext of wishing to be converted to the Mohammedan religion; but no
sooner had the learned judge explained the doctrines of Islam than the
would-be convert turned round, and began to heap maledictions upon the
creed which he had asked to be taught. It was no marvel that the
astonished K[=a]dy gave him a cuff. "Do you know," said he, "that our law
condemns people to death for daring to speak as you have spoken?" "I
do," answered the monk; "condemn me to death; I desire it; for I know
that the Lord said, 'Blessed are they who are persecuted for
righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'" The K[=a]dy was
sorry for the man, and begged the Sultan to overlook his crime, but in
vain. Isaac was decapitated, and thereupon became a saint, and it was
proved conclusively that he had worked many miracles, not only ever
since his childhood, but even before he came into the world.
Presently one of the Sultan's guards, Sancho, a pupil of Eulogius,
blasphemed Mohammed, and lost his head. Next Sunday six monks rushed
before the K[=a]dy and shouted, "We, too, say what our holy brothers Isaac
and Sancho said," and forthwith fell to blaspheming Mohammed, and to
crying, "Avenge your accursed Prophet! Treat us with all your
barbarity!" Their heads were cut off. Three more priests or monks,
infected with the fever of suicide, rushed excitedly to present their
necks to the headsman. Eleven thus fell in less than two months during
the summer of 851.
The great body of the Christians were dismayed at the indiscreet zeal of
their brethren. It must not be forgotten that the Spaniards had not so
far been remarkable for religious fervour. Their creed sat lightly upon
them, and so many of them had been converted to Islam, that the two
creeds and the two peoples had become to a considerable extent mixed
together in friendly intercourse. The Christians had come to despise
their old Latin language and literature; they learned Arabic, and soon
were able to write it as well as the Arabs themselves. Eulogius himself
deplores this change. The Christians, he says, delight in the Arabic
poems and romances instead of the Holy Scriptures and the works of the
Fathers. The younger generations know only Arabic; they read the
Moslems' books with ardour, form great libraries of them, and find them
admirable; while they will not glance at a Christian book. They are
forgetting their own language, he adds, and hardly one in a thousand can
write a decent Latin letter; yet they indite excellent Arabic verse. The
Christians, in fact, found Arab romances and poetry much more
entertaining than the writings of the Fathers of the Church. They were
growing more and more Arab; more civilized, more refined, and also more
indifferent to distinctions of faith. They were grateful to the Moors
for treating them well, and the sudden animosity displayed by their
excited brethren amazed and shocked them. They endeavoured to avert the
threatening storm by showing their brethren the futility of their
conduct. They argued with them; reminded them how tolerant the Moslems
had always been to the Christians; recalled to them the peaceful
teaching of the gospel, and the words of the apostle, that "Slanderers
shall not enter the kingdom of heaven;" and told them how the Moslems
regarded these deaths with no disquietude, for they argued, "If your
religion were true, God would have avenged His martyrs."
These worthy Christians of the common kind, who knew not the force of
spiritual exaltation for good and for evil, and only did their duty to
their neighbours and said their prayers in the simple, old-fashioned
manner, tried in vain to restrain the zealots. They perceived that these
continued insults and swift-following punishments must at last end in
real persecution. Eulogius, on the contrary, who set himself to answer
their objections with texts out of the Bible and the Lives of the
Saints, coveted such a result, and the zealots desired nothing better
than the fire of persecution. The ecclesiastical authorities, worked
upon by the moderate party, and also by the Moorish government, could
not permit the spirit of revolt to continue much longer unreproved; the
bishops met in council under the presidentship of the Metropolitan of
Seville, and though they could not precisely repudiate the former
"martyrdoms," since the Church had already canonized the sufferers, yet
they ordained that no more exhibitions of the kind should be made, and
in furtherance of this decision the leaders of the zealots were thrown
into prison. Here Eulogius met Flora again. She had been praying
earnestly one day in a church, when she saw beside her a
fellow-enthusiast, a sister of that monk Isaac who had been one of the
earliest "martyrs." Mary wanted to join her brother in the kingdom of
heaven, and Flora resolved to accompany her. They went before the K[=a]dy
and did their best to excite his anger by blaspheming the name of
Mohammed and his religion. Two young and beautiful girls, professing
most sincerely the religion of "peace on earth and goodwill towards
men," stood before the magistrate with lips full of cursing and
bitterness, reviling his faith as "the work of the devil." But the good
judge was not to be roused so easily. He was weary of all this
hysterical mania, and had many a time pretended to be deaf when people
thrust themselves upon death; he thought it was a pity of these two
girls, and wished they would not be so foolish. He would try to induce
them to retract, or make as though he had not heard. But they persisted
in their heroic purpose, and he had to put them in prison.
Here, in the long confinement, the maidens were daunted, and almost
inclined to waver in their sacrificial ardour, when Eulogius came to
strengthen and destroy them. His task was the hardest in the world: to
encourage the woman whom he loved with all his soul to go to the
scaffold; yet, in spite of every natural and human feeling, this man of
iron nerved himself to fan the flame of enthusiasm to the point of
martyrdom. It was a daily agony to the unhappy priest, but he never
relaxed his efforts in what he believed to be the good cause. He even
wrote an entire treatise to convince Flora--who needed it but little--of
the supreme beauty and glory of martyrdom for the faith. He spent his
days and nights in reading and writing, to banish from his heart those
feelings of compunction and love which threatened to shake his
resolution. But it was only too firm. Flora and Mary remained constant
and undismayed in spite of the anxious efforts of the K[=a]dy to help them
to save themselves; and after the final interview, when sentence of
death was pronounced, Eulogius saw Flora:--"She seemed to me an angel,"
he wrote afterwards, glorying in the spiritual triumph. "A celestial
illumination surrounded her; her face lightened with happiness; she
seemed already to be tasting the joys of the heavenly home.... When I
heard the words of her sweet mouth, I sought to stablish her in her
resolve by showing her the crown that awaited her. I worshipped her; I
fell down before this angel, and besought her to remember me in her
prayers; and strengthened by her speech, I returned less sad to my
sombre cell." Flora and her companion Mary were executed at last, 24th
November, 851, and Eulogius wrote a paean of joy to celebrate what he
deemed a great victory of the Church.
Soon after this, Eulogius and the other priests were released from
prison, and the next year Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n II. died, and was succeeded by
his son Mohammed, a rigid, cold-hearted egotist, who screwed savings out
of the salaries of his ministers, and was universally detested for his
meanness and unworthiness. The theologians alone liked him, for he
seemed likely to avenge to the full the insults which the excited
Christians had poured upon the Mohammedan religion. Churches were
demolished, and such severe persecutions were set on foot, that though
many Christians had become Moslems when the bishops had officially
condemned suicidal martyrdom, many more now followed their example;
indeed, according to Eulogius and Alvaro, the majority recanted. The
wise and kindly policy of Abd-er-Rahm[=a]n and his ministers, who shut
their eyes when the Christians were wantonly committing themselves, was
now exchanged for a policy of cruel repression, and it is no wonder that
apostacy was the rule.
Still, the influence of the little band of zealots was powerful, and had
already extended far beyond the limits of Cordova. Toledo made Eulogius
its bishop, and when the Sultan refused his consent, the primacy was
kept vacant until the zealot should be permitted to occupy it. Two
French monks came to Cordova to beg some relics of the holy martyrs, and
went back to St. Germain-des-Pres with a handsome bag of bones, which
were presently displayed to the faithful at Paris. But a heavy blow was
about to fall upon the enthusiasts. Another girl deserted her parents to
follow Eulogius; and this time she and her teacher were brought before
the K[=a]dy. Eulogius was guilty only of proselytizing, and his legal
punishment was but a scourging. But the priest was not made of the stuff
that endures the whip. Humble and long-suffering before his God, willing
to inflict any torture on his own body for the sake of the faith, he
could not submit to be flogged by the infidel. "Make sharp thy sword,
judge," he cried; "send my soul to meet my Creator; but think not that I
will suffer my body to be lacerated with whips." And here he burst into
a flood of maledictions against Mohammed and his religion.
The K[=a]dy would not take upon himself the responsibility of executing the
sentence upon so prominent a leader as Eulogius, and the priest was
accordingly brought before the privy council. One of the body
expostulated with him, and asked why a man of sense and education should
voluntarily run his head into peril of death; he could understand fools
and maniacs doing so, he said, but Eulogius was of a different stamp.
"Listen to me," he added, "I entreat you; yield for once to necessity;
retract what you said before the K[=a]dy; say but the word, and you shall
go free." But it was too late. Eulogius, though he preferred the
position of trainer of martyrs to setting the example himself, could not
retreat from his ground with dignity. He must go on to the bitter end.
And refusing to retract anything, he was forthwith led out to execution,
and died with courage and devotion on March 11, 859.[15]
Deprived of their leader, the Christian martyrs lost heart, and we do
not hear of their mad devotion again.
[Illustration]
VI.
THE GREAT KHALIF.
My readers may perhaps be disappointed that so far we have but few
records of noble deeds or great wars, and that instead of individual
heroes we have been chiefly interested in large movements of races and
religions. We had, it is true, a stirring outset with T[=a]rik and his
Berbers, whose brilliant conquests are no more legendary than is the
history of the nineteenth century. We had the great and decisive battle
of Tours, but of this the details, which might have proved of surpassing
interest, are wanting; and the other engagement with the Franks, the
field of Roncesvalles, errs in the opposite direction, for it is
overclouded with myth. Since that day, a hundred years have now passed,
and we have come to the death of Eulogius and the consequent decline of
the Christian martyrs; and in all that century we have been reading of
nothing but the struggle between the different races and creeds that
made up the mixed population of the Spanish peninsula. But after all,
golden deeds are rare, and are too often the invention of poets, whose
spiritual minds clothe with the attributes of ideal chivalry what are
really the ordinary events of war; while the struggle of race with race
and creed with creed is what the world has been incessantly witnessing
ever since man came into existence. We must not allow ourselves to think
that the history of these large movements is uninteresting because it
has not the personal charm of individual acts of heroism. In the
devotion of countless unnoticed men and women during the piteous epoch
of martyrdom at Cordova there was perhaps more real heroism than in the
impetuous deeds of chivalry displayed by rude warriors on the
battle-field. It is much easier to be brave in hot blood than to endure
the alarms and sufferings of long imprisonment, to look forward with
undaunted courage to the day of execution, and keep a firm heart through
it all. The Christian martyrs were misguided, they threw away their
lives without cause; but their courage is as worthy of admiration as
their wisdom is to be pitied. Flora was as real a heroine as if she had
sacrificed herself for a worthy sake. Eulogius, with all his bigotry,
was of the true hero's mould. And in all these great movements of race
or faith there are numberless acts of devotion and fortitude which,
though they may escape the eye of the historian, call for as much
resolution and endurance as the most brilliant exploits of the soldier.
It is often in the little acts of heroism that the hardest duties of
mankind are found; and in the conflicts between large bodies of people
there are endless opportunities for their exercise.