[4] Eul., l.l.

    [5] Stigmata.

[6] Alvar, “Ind.  Lum.,” sec. 6, “Derisioni et contemptui inhiantes capita moventes infanda iterando congeminant.”  He adds:  “Daily and nightly from their minarets they revile the Lord by their invocation of Allah and Mohammed!” Eul., “Lib.  Ap.,” sec. 19, confesses that hearing their call to prayer always moved him to quote Psalm xcvi. 7:  “Confounded be all they that worship carved images”—­a very irrelevant malediction, as applied to the Moslems.

    [7] Alvar, l.l., “Fidei signum opprobrioso elogio decolorant.”

    [8] “Spurcitiarum fimo.”—­Ibid.

    [9] “Mortiferum.”—­“Ind.  Lum.,” sec. 3.

[10] Alvar, “Ind.  Lum.,” sec. 31, gives us a very savage picture of the Moslem character:  “Sunt in superbia tumidi, in tumore cordis elati, in delectatione carnalium operum fluidi, in comestione superflui ... sine misericordia crudeles, sine iustitia invasores, sine honore absque veritate, benignitatis nescientes affectum ... humilitatem velut insaniam deridentes, castitatem velut spurcitiam respuentes.”

That there was a certain amount of social ill-treatment, and that the lower classes of Moslems did not take any pains to conceal their dislike and scorn of such Christian beliefs and rites as were at variance with their own creed, and moreover regarded priests and monks with especial aversion, there can be no doubt.  But, on the other hand, there is no want of evidence to show that the condition of the Christians was by no means so bad as the apologists would have us suppose.  Petty annoyances could not fail to exist anywhere under such circumstances, as were actually to be found in Spain at this time, and we may be sure that the Christian priests in particular did not bear themselves with that humility which might have ensured a mitigation of the annoyances.  Organised opposition to Christianity, unless the Moslem rule can itself be called such, there was none, till it was called into being by the action of the fanatics themselves.  But apart from all the other facts which point to this conclusion, we can call the apologists themselves in evidence that there was no real persecution going on at the time of the first martyrdoms.

Eulogius[1] admits that the Christians were not let or hindered in the free exercise of their religion by saying that this state of things[2] was not due to the forbearance (forsooth!) of the Moslems, but to the Divine mercy.  Alvar, too, in a passage which seems to contradict the whole position which he is trying to defend, says[3]:—­“Though many were the victims of persecution, very many others—­and you cannot deny it—­offered themselves a voluntary sacrifice to the Lord.  Is it not clear that it was not the Arabs who began persecuting, but we who began preaching?  Read the story of the martyrs, and you will see that they rushed voluntarily on their fate, not waiting the bidding of persecutors, nor the snares of informers; aye, and—­what is made so strong a charge against them—­that they tired out the forbearance of their rulers and princes by insult upon insult."[4]