life to
the position of an exceptor, or scribe,[2] but gave up his appointment
at the age of twenty, in order to enter the monastery of Tabanos, which
his uncle and aunt, Jeremiah and Elizabeth, had founded near Cordova.

[1] Eulog., "Mem. Sanct.," ii. ch. ii. sec. 1, also Pref.,
secs. 2 ff. After his death Isaac was credited with having
performed miracles from his earliest years. He was said to have
spoken three times in his mother's womb (cp. a similar fable
about Jesus in the Koran, c. iii. verse 40), and when a child,
to have embraced, unhurt, a globe of fire from Heaven.

[2] Not, as Florez, a tax-gatherer.

Roused by the tale of Perfectus' death and John's sufferings, he
voluntarily went before the Kadi, and, pretending to be an "enquirer,"
begged him to expound to him the doctrines of Islam. The Kadi,
congratulating himself on the prospect of such a promising convert,
gravely complied; when Isaac, answering him in fluent Arabic, said: "He
has lied unto you--may the curse of Heaven consume him!--who full of all
wickedness has led astray so many men, and doomed them with himself to
the lowest deep of hell. Filled with Satan, and practising Satanic arts,
he hath given his followers a drink of deadly wine, and will without
doubt expiate his guilt with everlasting damnation." Hearing these, and
other like _chaste_[1] utterances, the judge listened in a sort of
stupor of rage and astonishment, feelings which even found vent in
tears; till, his indignation passing all control, he struck the monk in
the face, who then said, "Dost thou strike that which is made in the
image of God?"[2] The assessors of the Kadi also reproached him for
striking a prisoner, their law being that one who is worthy of death
should not suffer other indignities. The Kadi, having now recovered his
self-command, gave his decision, that Isaac, whether drunk or mad, had
committed a crime which, by an express law of Mohammed's, merited
condign punishment. He was accordingly beheaded, and, his body being
burnt, his ashes were cast into the river (June 3, 851). This was done
to prevent the Christians from carrying off his body, and preserving it
for the purpose of working miracles.[3]

Isaac's conduct and fate, Eulogius tells us, electrified the people, who
were amazed at the _newness_ of the thing.[4] It was at this point that
Eulogius himself began to shew his sympathy with these fanatical doings
by encouraging and he