[6] “Lib.  Apol.,” sec 7.

    [7] “Lib.  Apol.,” sec. 10.

    [8] Cp.  “Mem.  Sanct.,” i. sec. 13.

    [9] “Mem.  Sanct.,” Pref., sec. 4.

The third objection is a curious one, that the martyrs were not put to death by idolaters, but by men worshipping God and acknowledging a divine law,[1] and therefore were not true martyrs.  Eulogius misses the true answer, which is obvious enough, and scornfully exclaims:—­“As if they could be said to believe in God, who persecute His Church, and deem it hateful to believe in a Christ who was very God and very man."[2]

Fourthly, the martyrs died a quick and easy death.  But, as Eulogius points out,[3] pain and torture give no additional claim to the martyr’s crown.

Lastly, it was objected that the bodies of these martyrs, as indeed was to be expected, corrupted, and were even, in some cases, devoured by dogs.  “What matter,” says Eulogius,[4] “since their souls are borne away to celestial mansions.”

    [1] Eul.  “Lib.  Apol.,” sec. 3.

    [2] Ibid., sec. 12.

    [3] Ibid., sec. 5.

    [4] “Mem.  Sanct.,” i. sec. 17.

But it was not objections brought by fellow-Christians only that Eulogius took upon himself to answer, but also the taunts and scoffs of the Moslems.  “Why,” said they, “if your God is the true God, does He not strike terror into the executioners of his saints by some great prodigy? and why do not the martyrs themselves flash forth into miracles while the crowd is round them?  You rush upon your own destruction, and yet you work no wonders that might induce us to change our opinion of your creed, thereby doing your own side no good, and ours no harm."[1]

Yet the constancy of the martyrs affected the Moslems more than they cared to confess, as we may infer from the taunts levelled at the Christians, when, in Mohammed’s reign, some Christians, from fear of death, even apostatized.  “Whither,” they triumphantly asked,[2] “has that bravery of your martyrs vanished?  What has become of the rash frenzy with which they courted death?” Yet though they affected to consider the martyrs as fools or madmen, they could not be blind to the effect that their constancy was likely to produce on those who beheld their death, and to the reverence with which their relics were regarded by the Christians.  They therefore expressly forbade the bodies of martyrs to be preserved[3] and worshipped, and did their best to make this in certain cases impossible by burning the corpses and scattering the ashes on the river, though sometimes they contented themselves with throwing the bodies, unburnt, into the stream.

    [1] “Mem.  Sanct.,” i. sec. 12.

    [2] Eulog., “Mem.  Sanct.,” iii. sec. 6.