[1] Eul., “Mem.  Sanct.,” i., sec. 18, “Quos nulla praesidalis violentia fidem suam negare compulit, nec a cultu sanctae piaeque religionis amovit:”  sec. 23, “Quos liberalitas regis suum incolere iusserat Christianismum.”

[2] Quoting such texts as Matt. v. 44, “Bless them that curse you, and pray for them that despitefully use you:”  Pet. ii. 23, “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake.”

    [3] Eusebius iv. 15.  See Neander, i. p. 150. (A.D. 167.)

    [4] Martyred 258.

    [5] See Long’s “M.  Aurelius Antoninus,” Introd., p. 21.

    [6] Burton’s “History of the Christian Church,” p. 336.

    [7] 1740-1748:  in his “De Servorum Dei beatificatione et
    beatorum canonizatione,” Bk. iii. 16, sec. 7.  Fleury, v. 541.

The charges against the zealots were twofold, that there had been no persecution worthy of the name, such as to justify their doings, and that those doings themselves were contrary to the teaching and spirit of Christianity.  The latter part of the charge has already been dealt with, and may be considered sustained.  As to the other part, the apologists, it must be confessed, answer with a very uncertain sound.  Sometimes, indeed, they deny it point-blank:[1] “as if,” says Eulogius, “the destruction of our churches,[2] the insults heaped upon our clergy, the monthly tax[3] which we pay, the perils of a hard life, lived on sufferance, are nothing.”  These insults and affronts are continually referred to.  “No one,” says the same author,[4] “can go out or come in amongst us in security, no one pass a knot of Moslems in the street without being treated with contumely.  They mock at the marks[5] of our order.  They hoot at us and call us fools and vain.  The very children jeer at us, and even throw stones and potsherds at the priests.  The sound of the church-going bell[6] never fails to evoke from Moslem hearers the foulest and most blasphemous language.  They even deem it a pollution to touch a Christian’s garment.”  Alvar adds that the Moslems would fall to cursing when they saw the cross;[7] and when they witnessed a burial according to Christian rites, would say aloud, “Shew them no mercy, O God,” throwing stones withal at the Lord’s people, and defiling their ears with the filthiest abuse.[8] “Yet,” he indignantly exclaims, “you say that this is not a time of persecution; nor is it, I answer, a time of apostles.  But I affirm that it is a deadly time[9] ... are we not bowed beneath the yoke of slavery, burdened with intolerable taxes, spoiled of our goods, lashed with the scourges of their abuse, made a byword and a proverb, aye, a spectacle to all nations?"[10]

    [1] Eul., “Mem.  Sanct.,” i. sec. 21:  Alvar, “Ind.  Lum.,” sec.
    3.

    [2] Ibid.; and Alvar, “Ind.  Lum.,” sec. 7.

    [3] Leovigild, “De habitu Clericorum.”  “Migne,” 121, p. 565.