An interval of only a little more than a month elapsed before Gumesindus, a priest of the district called Campania, near Cordova, and Servus Dei, a monk, suffered death in the same way (January 13, 852).[4]

    [1] Eulog. to Alvar, i. sec. 2; “Life of Flora and Maria,” by
    Eulog., sec. 12.

[2] Ibid., sec. 13, and Eulog., “Doc.  Mart.,” sec. 4.  Eulogius tried to lessen the terror of this threat by pointing out that “non polluit mentem aliena corruptio, quam non foedat propria delectatis,”—­a poor consolation, but the only one!  He does not seem to have known—­or surely he would have quoted it—­the express injunction of the Koran (xxiv. verse 35):—­“Compel not your maidservants to prostitute themselves, if they be willing to live chastely ... but, if any shall compel them thereto, verily God will be gracious and merciful unto such women after their compulsion.”

    [3] Eulog., letter to Alvar, Florez, xi. 295.  Fleury, v. 100.

    [4] Eulogius, “Mem.  Sanct.,” ii. c. ix.

There was now a pause for six months in the race for martyrdom, and it seemed as if the Church had come to its right mind upon this subject.  This, however, was far from being the case.  Hitherto the victims had been almost without exception priests, monks, and nuns; but the next martyrs afford us instances of married couples claiming a share in this doubtful honour.  These were Aurelius, son of a Moslem father and a Christian mother, and his wife Sabigotha (or Nathalia), the daughter of Moslem parents, whose father dying, her mother married a Christian and was converted; and Felix and his wife Liliosa.[1] It would seem that with all the harm that was done by this outbreak of fanaticism, some good was also effected in awaking the worldly-minded adherents of Christianity from the spiritual torpor into which they were sinking; for these new martyrs were of the class of hidden[2] Christians, who were now shamed into avowing their real creed.[3] Yet surely it had been far better if they had been content to live like Christians instead of dying like suicides.  In their case, indeed, we find no sudden irresistible impulse driving them to defy the laws, but a slowly-matured conviction that it was their duty, disregarding all human ties, to give themselves up to death.  In this resolution they were fortified by the advice and encouragement of Eulogius and Alvar,[4] the latter of whom prudently warns Aurelius to make sure that his courage is sufficient to stand the trial.[5] Sabigotha is persuaded to accompany her husband in his self-destruction, her natural reluctance to leave her children being overcome by Eulogius,[6] who recommends that they should be given over to the care of a monastery.  A seasonable vision, in which Flora and Maria appear to her, clenches her purpose.

    [1] Ibid., ii. ch. x., secs. 1, 2.

    [2] See below, p. 72.

    [3] Aurelius was roused from his religious dissimulation by
    seeing the sufferings of John.  See Eulog., “Mem.  Sanct.,” ii.
    c. x. sec. 5.