St. Eulogius of Córdoba | 11th March. Atmadarshan Tv The Life of Eulogius [51] Of the two men who witnessed and wrote about the martyrdoms, Eulogius is by far the more important source. Though Alvarus …More
St. Eulogius of Córdoba | 11th March.
Atmadarshan Tv The Life of Eulogius [51] Of the two men who witnessed and wrote about the martyrdoms, Eulogius is by far the more important source. Though Alvarus' works occupy somewhat more of the corpus muzarabicorum, he devoted no more than a single treatise to the martyrs. In sharp contrast, everything that Eulogius wrote dealt directly with some aspect of the martyrdoms.
Eulogius is also the more historically accessible of the two. We have no biography of Alvarus. Aside from the references to his social status and educational achievements to be found in the introductions of letters addressed to him, we are left with nothing more than Alvarus' own writings which reveal little about their author. Alvarus did, on the other hand, have something to say about his childhood friend and lifetime correspondent. His Vita Eulogii, together with the bits and pieces of information that we can extract from the works of Eulogius, provide the necessary biographical framework for determining Eulogius' exact role in the events of the 850s.
Still, the information that we have is of rather inconsistent quality. Our knowledge of Eulogius' birth and ancestry is a case in point. According to Alvarus, Eulogius was of aristocratic stock, "born into a line of senators in the noble city of Córdoba."(1) But the biographer noted neither the date of this birth nor the exact significance of "senator" in ninth-century Córdoba. We also know that Eulogius' mother was named Elizabeth and that he had at least five siblings,libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm but there is no mention of his father. On the other hand we know that he had a grandfather named Eulogius who used to cover his ears and murmur a psalm whenever he heard the muezzin's call to prayer.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm It is possible that Eulogius had some Arab blood in his veins. One of the three confessors to whom Eulogius [52] claimed some sort of family tie was Christophorus, whom Alvarus separately described as Harabs genere. But Eulogius admits no mixed blood, nor does Alvarus ever ascribe such an ancestry to him, suggesting that the relative that Eulogius and Christophorus shared was a Latin Christian one.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm
Eulogius' parents dedicated him to the church of St. Zoylus, where he came under the highly formative influence of Abbot Speraindeo.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm We know very little about Speraindeo outside of what can be distilled from the praise heaped upon him by his pupils. The only one of his works that has survived in anything but a fragmentary state is a brief response to one of Alvarus' letters describing a local Trinitarian heresy.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm But all indications point to his example and instruction as seminal in the formation of Eulogius' later attitudes.
Under the tutelage of this man, who was "enriching all of Baetica with the rivers of his wisdom," Eulogius learned the responsibilities of the priesthood and studied the patristic authors available in Córdoba at that time. But Speraindeo's program of instruction also included lessons in the doctrinal differences that separated Christianity from Islam, lessons designed to prepare an Andalusian clergyman for the peculiar demands of a religiously pluralistic environment. By chance a portion of what was probably one of Eulogius' "textbooks" has survived in one of his later polemical assaults on the Islamic conception of the afterlife. Quoting from the sixth chapter of one of Speraindeo's works, Eulogius wrote:
"In the next life," they say, "all the fortunate shall be born into paradise. There God will give us beautiful women, more comely than usual, and ready to serve our pleasure." Response: By no means will they obtain the state of blessedness in paradise if both sexes partake freely in the flow of desire. This is not paradise but a brothel, a most obscene place. The Lord, responding to the Pharisees who had asked whose wife the woman would be upon resurrection who had married seven brothers so that, according to the Mosaic law, she might raise up the seed of the next of kin, said: "You err, not knowing the scripture, nor the power of God. The children of this world marry and are given in marriage. But they who shall be as angels of God in heaven shall neither marry nor be given in marriage upon resurrection."libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm
This excerpt indicates that Speraindeo had composed a lengthy point-by-point rebuttal of Islamic doctrine. As we shall see later, [53] Eulogius himself frequently resorted to such scripturally-based diatribes against Islam in his attempts to justify the martyrs' actions.
It was in the company of Speraindeo that Eulogius first met Paulus Alvarus, at the time a fellow student. Years later Alvarus would recall his and Eulogius' reckless habit of debating doctrinal issues which they were not yet qualified to discuss, and composing self-congratulatory verse in honor of their naive erudition.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm As it turned out, neither ever outgrew his love for poetry or his willingness to leave accepted authority behind for the sake of winning an argument.
Although the language of instruction at St. Zoylus' was no doubt Latin, we can be fairly certain that Eulogius could speak some Arabic. Many of the confessors relied upon a speaking knowledge of Arabic to kindle the anger of the magistrates, and it is doubtful that Eulogius was any less exposed to the language than they. At one point the priest even transliterated and translated, for the benefit of his Latin readers, an Arabic prayer used by the Muslims who arrested Perfectus.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm
When Eulogius achieved juventus, he was promoted first to the diaconate, then to the priesthood.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm Later he became a magister, apparently serving in the same capacity as Speraindeo, responsible for the training of young clerics.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm The only details that we have of this pre-martyrial phase of his priestly life are those relating to two long journeys, neither of which he was able to complete. As Alvarus tells us, Eulogius had always dreamed of making a pilgrimage to Rome, but his responsibilities at home proved far too pressing.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm He did, however, find time to undertake an expedition north, one which took him to Christian Spain. In a letter of thanks to one of his hosts, Bishop Wiliesindus of Pamplona, Eulogius revealed that his original intention had been to locate two of his brothers who, for some unrecorded reason, had been detained in Bavaria.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm Upon reaching the Pyrenees, the priest found his route blocked by bandits and the military machinations of one William who, in alliance with cAbd ar-Rahmân II, was fighting Charles the Bald. Carolingian chronicles permit the identification of William as the son of Count Bernard of the Spanish March who had been executed in 844 for supporting Charles' rival Pepin. Following closely in his father's [54] footsteps, William managed, in 848 or 849, to appropriate Barcelona, which he held until succumbing to forces sympathetic to Charles early in the year 850.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm
Hoping to find a safer passage to the west, Eulogius made his way to Pamplona only to encounter more political instability. This time it centered around Count Sancius Sancio, whom Eulogius also described as a rebel against Charles' authority in that region.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm Despairing of ever connecting with his brother, Eulogius decided to make the most of his Navarrese detour by visiting the great monasteries of the region. He also took the opportunity to collect some books that were apparently hard to find in Córdoba. Not surprisingly, given his love of poetry, the titles included many works by Virgil, Horace, and Juvenal. Far more remarkable a deficiency of the Cordoban library, however, was that which Eulogius remedied with his acquisition of Augustine's City of God. Historians of Muslim Spain have almost unanimously pointed to the absence of this patristic standard as symptomatic of the slipping hold that Andalusian Christians had on Latin Christian culture.
The letter to bishop Wiliesindus, particularly valuable as a source for students of Spanish monastic history, poses a slight problem for anyone interested in the precise chronology of Eulogius' life. Based on the correspondence between the priest's references to William's civil war and the dated chronicle entries, Elie Lambert and Léonce Auzias picked 848 and 849 respectively as the most likely years of Eulogius' expedition.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm But Colbert has rightly argued that the year 850, which witnessed the reconquest of Barcelona by Caroline forces, would fit equally well.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm It might even fit better, since the chroniclers both note that William took Barcelona "through trickery," but lost it in battle, making 850 appear more war torn in the Barcelona area than either of the two previous years.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm The determination of the exact year of the journey is, as Colbert has indicated, important for figuring out where Eulogius was at the time of the first martyr's death on April 18, 850. If the priest's problems crossing the Pyrenees were the result of Charles' efforts to regain control of the Spanish March then Eulogius was not present when Perfectus was executed.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm
If Eulogius missed the execution of Perfectus, he seems to have been back in time to witness Isaac's. He reported to Wiliesindus that, upon arriving in Córdoba, he "found all things safe and [55] sound," except that his youngest brother had been removed, for some unknown reason, from the principatus by cAbd ar-Rahmân II. But between the time of his return and mid-November 851, when he composed his letter, the situation had changed quite radically:
We want you, dear father, to be aware of our tribulation, which we suffer…
Atmadarshan Tv The Life of Eulogius [51] Of the two men who witnessed and wrote about the martyrdoms, Eulogius is by far the more important source. Though Alvarus' works occupy somewhat more of the corpus muzarabicorum, he devoted no more than a single treatise to the martyrs. In sharp contrast, everything that Eulogius wrote dealt directly with some aspect of the martyrdoms.
Eulogius is also the more historically accessible of the two. We have no biography of Alvarus. Aside from the references to his social status and educational achievements to be found in the introductions of letters addressed to him, we are left with nothing more than Alvarus' own writings which reveal little about their author. Alvarus did, on the other hand, have something to say about his childhood friend and lifetime correspondent. His Vita Eulogii, together with the bits and pieces of information that we can extract from the works of Eulogius, provide the necessary biographical framework for determining Eulogius' exact role in the events of the 850s.
Still, the information that we have is of rather inconsistent quality. Our knowledge of Eulogius' birth and ancestry is a case in point. According to Alvarus, Eulogius was of aristocratic stock, "born into a line of senators in the noble city of Córdoba."(1) But the biographer noted neither the date of this birth nor the exact significance of "senator" in ninth-century Córdoba. We also know that Eulogius' mother was named Elizabeth and that he had at least five siblings,libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm but there is no mention of his father. On the other hand we know that he had a grandfather named Eulogius who used to cover his ears and murmur a psalm whenever he heard the muezzin's call to prayer.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm It is possible that Eulogius had some Arab blood in his veins. One of the three confessors to whom Eulogius [52] claimed some sort of family tie was Christophorus, whom Alvarus separately described as Harabs genere. But Eulogius admits no mixed blood, nor does Alvarus ever ascribe such an ancestry to him, suggesting that the relative that Eulogius and Christophorus shared was a Latin Christian one.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm
Eulogius' parents dedicated him to the church of St. Zoylus, where he came under the highly formative influence of Abbot Speraindeo.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm We know very little about Speraindeo outside of what can be distilled from the praise heaped upon him by his pupils. The only one of his works that has survived in anything but a fragmentary state is a brief response to one of Alvarus' letters describing a local Trinitarian heresy.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm But all indications point to his example and instruction as seminal in the formation of Eulogius' later attitudes.
Under the tutelage of this man, who was "enriching all of Baetica with the rivers of his wisdom," Eulogius learned the responsibilities of the priesthood and studied the patristic authors available in Córdoba at that time. But Speraindeo's program of instruction also included lessons in the doctrinal differences that separated Christianity from Islam, lessons designed to prepare an Andalusian clergyman for the peculiar demands of a religiously pluralistic environment. By chance a portion of what was probably one of Eulogius' "textbooks" has survived in one of his later polemical assaults on the Islamic conception of the afterlife. Quoting from the sixth chapter of one of Speraindeo's works, Eulogius wrote:
"In the next life," they say, "all the fortunate shall be born into paradise. There God will give us beautiful women, more comely than usual, and ready to serve our pleasure." Response: By no means will they obtain the state of blessedness in paradise if both sexes partake freely in the flow of desire. This is not paradise but a brothel, a most obscene place. The Lord, responding to the Pharisees who had asked whose wife the woman would be upon resurrection who had married seven brothers so that, according to the Mosaic law, she might raise up the seed of the next of kin, said: "You err, not knowing the scripture, nor the power of God. The children of this world marry and are given in marriage. But they who shall be as angels of God in heaven shall neither marry nor be given in marriage upon resurrection."libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm
This excerpt indicates that Speraindeo had composed a lengthy point-by-point rebuttal of Islamic doctrine. As we shall see later, [53] Eulogius himself frequently resorted to such scripturally-based diatribes against Islam in his attempts to justify the martyrs' actions.
It was in the company of Speraindeo that Eulogius first met Paulus Alvarus, at the time a fellow student. Years later Alvarus would recall his and Eulogius' reckless habit of debating doctrinal issues which they were not yet qualified to discuss, and composing self-congratulatory verse in honor of their naive erudition.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm As it turned out, neither ever outgrew his love for poetry or his willingness to leave accepted authority behind for the sake of winning an argument.
Although the language of instruction at St. Zoylus' was no doubt Latin, we can be fairly certain that Eulogius could speak some Arabic. Many of the confessors relied upon a speaking knowledge of Arabic to kindle the anger of the magistrates, and it is doubtful that Eulogius was any less exposed to the language than they. At one point the priest even transliterated and translated, for the benefit of his Latin readers, an Arabic prayer used by the Muslims who arrested Perfectus.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm
When Eulogius achieved juventus, he was promoted first to the diaconate, then to the priesthood.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm Later he became a magister, apparently serving in the same capacity as Speraindeo, responsible for the training of young clerics.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm The only details that we have of this pre-martyrial phase of his priestly life are those relating to two long journeys, neither of which he was able to complete. As Alvarus tells us, Eulogius had always dreamed of making a pilgrimage to Rome, but his responsibilities at home proved far too pressing.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm He did, however, find time to undertake an expedition north, one which took him to Christian Spain. In a letter of thanks to one of his hosts, Bishop Wiliesindus of Pamplona, Eulogius revealed that his original intention had been to locate two of his brothers who, for some unrecorded reason, had been detained in Bavaria.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm Upon reaching the Pyrenees, the priest found his route blocked by bandits and the military machinations of one William who, in alliance with cAbd ar-Rahmân II, was fighting Charles the Bald. Carolingian chronicles permit the identification of William as the son of Count Bernard of the Spanish March who had been executed in 844 for supporting Charles' rival Pepin. Following closely in his father's [54] footsteps, William managed, in 848 or 849, to appropriate Barcelona, which he held until succumbing to forces sympathetic to Charles early in the year 850.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm
Hoping to find a safer passage to the west, Eulogius made his way to Pamplona only to encounter more political instability. This time it centered around Count Sancius Sancio, whom Eulogius also described as a rebel against Charles' authority in that region.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm Despairing of ever connecting with his brother, Eulogius decided to make the most of his Navarrese detour by visiting the great monasteries of the region. He also took the opportunity to collect some books that were apparently hard to find in Córdoba. Not surprisingly, given his love of poetry, the titles included many works by Virgil, Horace, and Juvenal. Far more remarkable a deficiency of the Cordoban library, however, was that which Eulogius remedied with his acquisition of Augustine's City of God. Historians of Muslim Spain have almost unanimously pointed to the absence of this patristic standard as symptomatic of the slipping hold that Andalusian Christians had on Latin Christian culture.
The letter to bishop Wiliesindus, particularly valuable as a source for students of Spanish monastic history, poses a slight problem for anyone interested in the precise chronology of Eulogius' life. Based on the correspondence between the priest's references to William's civil war and the dated chronicle entries, Elie Lambert and Léonce Auzias picked 848 and 849 respectively as the most likely years of Eulogius' expedition.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm But Colbert has rightly argued that the year 850, which witnessed the reconquest of Barcelona by Caroline forces, would fit equally well.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm It might even fit better, since the chroniclers both note that William took Barcelona "through trickery," but lost it in battle, making 850 appear more war torn in the Barcelona area than either of the two previous years.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm The determination of the exact year of the journey is, as Colbert has indicated, important for figuring out where Eulogius was at the time of the first martyr's death on April 18, 850. If the priest's problems crossing the Pyrenees were the result of Charles' efforts to regain control of the Spanish March then Eulogius was not present when Perfectus was executed.libro.uca.edu/martyrs/cm4.htm
If Eulogius missed the execution of Perfectus, he seems to have been back in time to witness Isaac's. He reported to Wiliesindus that, upon arriving in Córdoba, he "found all things safe and [55] sound," except that his youngest brother had been removed, for some unknown reason, from the principatus by cAbd ar-Rahmân II. But between the time of his return and mid-November 851, when he composed his letter, the situation had changed quite radically:
We want you, dear father, to be aware of our tribulation, which we suffer…