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Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain
Kenneth Baxter Wolf

Introduction

[1] The city of Córdoba was the setting for an unusual historical drama that unfolded between the years 850 and 859, when forty-eight Christians were decapitated for religious offenses against Islam. More striking than the number of executions were the peculiar circumstances surrounding them. For one thing, as the sources unambiguously demonstrate, the majority of the victims deliberately invoked capital punishment by publicly blaspheming Muhammad and disparaging Islam. Moreover, though some Cordoban Christians applauded the executed Christians as martyrs, others regarded them as self-immolators whose unwarranted outbursts served only to expose the community as a whole to the emirs suspicions.

Our information about this historical anomaly comes almost entirely from the works of two men who lived in Córdoba during the time of the martyrdoms. Eulogius, a priest, and Paulus Alvarus, an educated layman, reacted to the scorn that the martyrs elicited by composing apologetic treatises on their behalf, extolling their fortitude and defending their memories from the attacks of unsympathetic Christians. Eulogius even went a step further, composing a martyrology through which he transformed the executed Christians into holy martyrs worthy of cultic veneration. His treatises and martyrology, combined with a few letters, make Eulogius the key source of information for what has come to be known as the "Cordoban martyrs movement."

Previous treatments of the martyrdoms have attempted to lay bare the motives of the participants themselves. Since the martyrs never expressed themselves in writing, such reconstructions have relied almost entirely on Eulogius' depiction of the events, under the assumption that his involvement in the movement was [2] intimate. But to conflate the motives of any hagiographer with those of his protagonists can be very misleading. Writing a book about a saint is not the same as being a saint. In Eulogius' case, though he, too, ultimately suffered the same kind of death, he never in his life actively sought execution in the manner of the martyrs he praised. As useful as Eulogius works are for recreating the events of the 850s, then, they can really only provide direct information about the thoughts and perceptions of one person: Eulogius.

Our intention is to approach Eulogius' writings more critically and thus more narrowly, using them to answer questions about Eulogius himself. In the first place, we will seek to determine what prompted a priest like Eulogius to lend his literary support to something as unusual and controversial as a series of unprovoked martyrdoms. Rather than assume that he and the martyrs were inspired by the same visions and moved by the same forces, we will be treating Eulogius in isolation, reconstructing his biography and gleaning from it the most likely reasons for his support of the martyrs.

Once we have determined why Eulogius defended the martyrs, we will turn to the question how. For it was clear to everyone, even Eulogius, that the martyrs of Córdoba were not martyrs of the ancient Roman cast. The inconsistencies between the classical paradigm and the circumstances surrounding the executions in ninth-century Córdoba provided the unsympathetic Christians with a way of justifying their opinion of the confessors. In addressing these specific discrepancies, Eulogius not only probed, in an unusually self-conscious manner, the definition of sanctity, but inadvertently provided a window through which we can observe how some Cordoban Christians justified their conciliatory attitudes toward the Muslim authorities.

Using Eulogius writings to assess his motives and methods not only represents the most reliable use of the sources but it also constitutes the first step toward any accurate understanding of the martyrs. Only when we know who Eulogius was and what he was attempting to do can we begin to extract his influence from his martyrology and proceed, with proper caution, to assess the motives of the Cordoban martyrs themselves.

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Catholic Ping - please freepmail me if you want on/off this list

I have not read the whole thing, but I have severe doubts about the author.

I did look a little further into the man who wrote it, because the intro and part of chapter 1 that I read gave me some mixed feelings about what he was trying to say about these martyrs. As it turns out, he also wrote a hit piece on St. Francis of Assisi [titled: The Poverty of Riches: St. Francis of Assisi Reconsidered], painting his poverty as something less noble. There is a review here: http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives2/2003b/052303/052303t.php

Here is a bit of another review, with some pretty horrible quotes from the author:

This view of Francis as a simple and humble man is not shared by Ken Wolf, a history professor at Pomona College in Claremont. Wolf says for years something about the story of Francis of Assisi bothered him.

"He imitated the poor but never came close to poverty, because renouncing his wealth gave him an incredible amount of power. He became known as the one who gave it all away and that gave him power; people listened to him," says Wolf, author of another new book, "The Poverty of Riches: St. Francis Reconsidered." "No one listened to the regular poor people."

He says that if Francis had really wanted to help the poor "he would have done something with it that would have made a difference in their lives ... like opened a hospital or a hospice."

He also criticizes Francis for begging for his food. "Instead of distributing food to the poor, which he could have done ... he competed against them for food. The wealthy were much more likely to give to him and his cause because they knew him," says Wolf.

I don't think I will spend the time finding out what he has to say about the martyrs in Spain. He seems more like a leftist academic who, unable to ascend to sanctity himself, must tear down those who have. That said, perhaps this book is better than the one on St. Francis, but after seeing his opinions about one of the greatest Saints to walk this Earth, I just can't convince myself to find out.