rmarriages
had become frequent among them;[1] and these proved the fruitful cause
of religious dissensions. Accordingly we find that the religious
troubles in the reigns of Abdurrahman II. (822-852) and Mohammed I.
(852-886) began with the execution of two children of mixed parents.
Nunilo and Alodia were the children of a Moslem father and a Christian
mother. Their father was a tolerant man, and, apparently, while he
lived, permitted his children to profess the faith of their mother. On
his death, the mother married again, and the new husband, being a
bigoted Mohammedan, and actuated, as we may suppose, by the _odio
vitrici_, immediately set about reclaiming his step-children to the true
faith of Islam, his efforts in this direction leading him to ill-treat,
even to torture,[2] the young confessors. His utmost endeavour to effect
their conversion failing, he delivered them over to the judge on the
charge of apostasy, and the judge to the executioner, by whom they were
beheaded on Oct. 21, 840.[3]

[1] Due in part no doubt to the marriage of captives. See also
below for "the maiden tribute," pp. 96, 97.

[2] So Miss Yonge.

[3] This date is given by Morales, apud Migne, vol. cxv. p.
886, and by Fleury, v. 487, who accuse Eulogius, "Mem. Sanct.,"
ii. c. 10, of being in error when he assigns the date 851. The
Pseudo-Luitprand gives 951, vouching for this date as an
eye-witness: "Me vivente, in castro Wergeti, id est Castellon,
etc."

Though there were some cases of martyrdom of this character, where the
sufferers truly earned their title of martyrs,--and we may believe that
all such cases have not been recorded--yet the vast majority of those
which followed in the years 851-860 were of a different type. They were
due to an outbreak of fanatical zeal on the part of a certain section of
the Christians such as to overpower the spirit of toleration, which the
Moslem authorities had so far shown in dealing with their Christian
subjects, and to raise a corresponding tide of bigotry in the less
enlightened, and therefore more intolerant, masses of the Mohammedans.
The sudden mania for martyrdom which manifested itself at this time is
certainly the most remarkable phenomenon of the kind that has been
recorded in the annals of the Christian Church. There had been
occasional instances before of Christians voluntarily offering
themselves to undergo the penalty of the laws for the crime of bei