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The wild zeal of the Christians naturally exasperated the Moslems. Public outrages against Christians increased; any one who showed himself in the street was insulted, pelted with filth, or stoned the Mahometans shrank from touching the very garments of Christians, as if it were pollution. The sound of church-bells excited them to a tempest of cursing and blasphemies; and at funerals of Christians the populace followed the corpse with outcries, begging that God would have no mercy on the deceased."

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Abderrahman now enacted new laws, of increased severity. The bodies of those who were executed were to be burnt, lest their brethren should convert them into relics. Yet the caliph, wishing, if possible, to quell the excitement by peaceable means, requested the co-operation of the primate Recanfrid, archbishop of Toledo, who issued an order that no Christian should present himself before a Mahometan judge unless he were cited to do so. This order was received with indignation and defiance by the more zealous party, headed by Saul, bishop of Cordova; and Recanfrid, in pursuance of his policy, proceeded to imprison some refractory ecclesiastics among them a monk and priest of Toledo named Eulogius, who had been very conspicuous in his opposition. From prison Eulogius wrote letters, intended to animate the resolution of his friends with the fervour of a Tertullian he exhorts all who have any worldly ties to cast them aside and boldly confess the faith, in the assurance of rejoining their martyred brethren in bliss. A council was held under the archbishops of Toledo and Seville, and determined that no one ought voluntarily to provoke death by his religion. By those who agreed with the spirit of this council the evils which had happened were charged on Eulogius and his associates. They ascribed the conduct of the sufferers to pride, and questioned their right to the name of martyrs-citing against them texts of Scripture, with the canons and practice of the early church. Some went so far as to declare that there was no opportunity of martyrdom at the hands of the Arabs, since these were not idolaters, but worshipped the one true God and acknowledged his laws."

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A.D. 852.

Eulogius and Peter Alvar were the leading spirits of their party."

Eulog. col. 249, d.

n Alvar. 6.

Alvar. Vita Eulogii, 4-7 (Patrol. cxv.); Eulog. ad Floram et Mariam (ib. 821, seqq.); Neand. v. 468-9.

P Hard. v. 37-8, who calls it conciliabulum. Baronius is loud against it. 852.

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They both (and more especially Alvar, who was an ecclesiastic of Cordova) write in an exalted strain of enthusiasm. Eulogius sets aside the distinction which had been drawn between heathens and Mahometans by saying that the Mahometans deny the Son of God and persecute the faithful. Alvar argues from the prophecies that Mahomet is the forerunner of Antichrist." The sufferings of the Christians, he says, had not been drawn down on them by the violence of zealots-for the first victims had done nothing to provoke their fate-but by the sins of the whole community. He will allow no compliance with circumstances, no forbearance to force the Christian profession on the notice of the infidels. He maintains that our Lord's charge to His disciples, "when persecuted in one city to flee into another," is inapplicable in the present case, since the object of the charge was that the disciples should spread the Gospel more widely-not that they should hide it." He would have Christians to press the truth on the Moslems for the purpose of rendering them "debtors to the faith "-not (as it would seem) out of love for them, but in order to render their unbelief inexcusable.a

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Abderrahman was succeeded in 852 by his son Mohammed, who carried the proceedings against the Christians further. the first day of his reign the new king dismissed all who held any offices about the court or in the public service. He ordered that all churches which had been lately built should be destroyed, and prohibited all display in the ritual or in the furniture of the older churches which were allowed to stand. The persecution continued for

many years. Eulogius himself, who had been elected to the see of Toledo, was arrested in 859 in consequence of having aided a young female convert, named Leocritia, to escape from her parents, who were bigoted Mahometans; and, after having firmly resisted the importunities of some Arabs who, out of respect for his sanctity and learning, endeavoured to persuade him to save his life by slight concessions, he was put to death."

During this long persecution many of the more lukewarm Christians openly apostatised to the religion of Islam." The heats on both sides at length died away, and the old relations of the

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parties were restored. A German abbot, who went on an embassy to Cordova in 954, represents the Christians as living peaceably with their masters, and as thankful for the toleration which they enjoyed; nay, if the information which he received may be trusted, it would appear that they had carried their compliance so far as to submit to the rite of circumcision.h

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II. England, like France, was harassed and desolated by the ravages of the Northmen. Their first appearance on the coasts was in the year 767; the first descent which was severely felt was in 832; and from that time their invasions were incessant. Devon and Wales felt their fury as well as the eastern coasts; when the attention of the English was concentrated on one point, a fresh band of enemies appeared in an opposite quarter; and they penetrated into the very heart of the country. And here, as in France, the wealth and the defencelessness of the monasteries pointed these out as the chief objects of attack. The chronicles of the time abound in frightful details of their wasting with fire and sword the sanctuaries of Croyland, Medeshamstede (Peterborough), Bardsey, and Ely; of Repton and Coldingham; of Lindisfarne, from which a little band of monks carried off the relics of St. Cuthbert over the mountains of Northumbria, in continual fear of the ravagers by whom they were surrounded on every side." At length, in 878, after the victory gained by Alfred over Guthrun at Ethandune, a large territory in the east of England, north of the Thames, was ceded to the Danes, on condition of their professing Christianity, and living under equal laws with the native inhabitants; but the peace thus obtained was only for a time.

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Of the lustre of Alfred's reign it is needless to speak to readers who may be presumed to know in any degree the history of their country. Alfred succeeded his father in 871, at the age of twentytwo, and his reign lasted thirty years. His character may have been idealised in some respects, that it might fulfil the conception of a perfect sovereign; and institutions have been ascribed to him which are in truth derived from other sources. Yet historical reality exhibits to us this "darling of the English "—" Alfred the Truth

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teller "—as the deliverer, the lawgiver, and the wise ruler of his country, as a hero, and as a saint. It sets before us his efforts to revive the public spirit which had become all but extinct during the long calamities of the Danish invasions; his zealous and successful labours to repair in mature years the defects of his early education;t his exertions for the restoration of learning among the clergy, which had fallen into melancholy decay, and for the general instruction of the people;" his encouragement of learned men, whether natives, -as his biographer Asser, Plegmund, Werfrith, and Neot, or foreigners whom he invited to impart to the English a culture which was not to be found at home-as Grimbald of Rheims, and John of Old Saxony; his care to enrich the vernacular literature by executing or encouraging versions and paraphrases of religious and instructive works-portions of Scripture, writings of Boëthius, Gregory the Great, Orosius, and Bede." It shows us that these labours were carried on under the continual tortures of disease, and amidst the necessities of providing for the national defence; it dwells on his habits of devotion, and on the comprehensive interest in the affairs of Christendom which induced him even to send a mission to the shrine of St. Thomas in India." Small as his kingdom was, he raised it to a high place among the nations; and among great sovereigns no character shines brighter or purer than his. Alfred died in 900 or 901.c

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III. The conversion of Bulgaria, which has been related in the history of the dissensions between the Greek and Latin churches, led to that of the Slavonic inhabitants of Greece and of the Mainotes.d The Croats were evangelised by missionaries from Rome; while the victories of Basil, about the year 870, were followed by the labours of Greek missionaries in Servia.

Christianity had been introduced into Moravia by the arms of Charlemagne, who, in 801, according to his usual system, compelled the king to receive baptism.

Asser (?) in Mon. Hist. Brit. 498. • Asser, passim. t Ib. 474, 486. " Ib. 485-6, &c.; Turner, Hist. AngloSax. ii. 144.

Since that time, attempts had been

Asser, 487. Against some doubts which have been raised as to Asser, see Lingard, A. S. C. ii. 420; Pauli, König Aelfred, 4-14; Hardy, Pref. to Mon. Hist. Brit. 80-1.

y Asser, 486-7, 493. This John has been confounded by many writers with John Scotus. See above, p. 314.

See Milman, ii. 368. For his addi

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made to extend the knowledge of the Gospel among the Moravians under the auspices of the archbishops of Salzburg and the bishops of Passau, who employed a regionary bishop for the purpose. But these attempts had little effect; the princes of the country had relapsed into heathenism, the Christians were few, and their religion was very rude. A new and more effectual movement arose out of an embassy which Radislav, king of Moravia, sent into Bulgaria, for the purpose of obtaining aid against Louis of Germany. His nephew Swatopluk or Zwentibold, who was employed on this mission, became a convert to the new faith of the Bulgarians; and on his return he was joined by the queen, who was herself a Christian, in urging it on her husband's attention. An application. for Christian teachers was made to the emperor Michael; and two missionaries, Constantine and his brother Methodius—perhaps the same whose skill as an artist had produced so great an effect at the Bulgarian court —were sent from Constantinople into Moravia.m

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Constantine-better known under the name of Cyril, which he is said to have assumed towards the end of his life, in obedience to a vision "was a priest and monk, and is designated as a philosopher. He was a native of Thessalonica, and, from the mixture of the Greek and Slave populations in his own country, had probably been acquainted from his early years with a dialect of the Slavonic. He had preached among the Chazars of the Ukraine and the Crimea, who in 843 had applied for instructors from Constantinople, on the ground that they were distracted between the rival pretensions of Judaism, Mahometanism, and Christianity ❞—a mixture of religions which was found in the same regions by a Mussulman traveller seventy years later. The success of his labours among the Chazars is described as complete, and the impression of them was strengthened by his refusal of all recompense except the release

Ginzel, 31. See a letter of Eugenius II., A.D. 826 (Patrol. cv. 641). Jaffe includes this among the genuine epistles, and Rettberg (ii. 56) quotes it without suspicion; but Palacky (i. 108) and Ginzel (31) regard it as spurious.

Döllinger, i. 330-2; Giesel. II. i. 350-1; Gfrörer, Karol. i. 449. i Schröckh, xxi. 409.

See p. 366; Neand. v. 423. Transl. S. Clementis, c. 7, in Ginzel's Supplement. (Ginzel's History of Cyril and Methodius is valuable for the industry with which the materials have

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