Córdoba’s own Christians resented the martyrs as fanatics

Evidence

The martyrs were clearly unpopular with Córdoba’s Christians: indeed much of Eulogius’s and Alvarus’s energy is directed at convincing their fellow Christians of the sanctity of the martyrs and the evilness of the Muslim authorities. It was, as Kenneth Wolf notes, “clear to everyone, even Eulogius, that the martyrs of Córdoba were not martyrs of the ancient Roman cast”: they deliberately sought out death; they had been free to practice Christianity; they produced no miracles, as even their devotees admitted. The apologists were fighting an uphill battle, as most Cordovan Christians resented the trouble wrought by the martyrs, whom they deemed fanatics; were they not “killed by men who venerated both God and a law”? This, for Eulogius and Alvarus, is fuzzy theological thinking; there can be no truth (or half-truth) outside of Christianity. If Christian Cordovans entertain such dangerous errors, the fault lies with the bishops who fail to guide their flock. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 514

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to studies of martyrdom as social disruption — the Spanish Civil War executions in Eighteen Seventy resonance aside, this is closer to the logic in Things Fall Apart where zealots alienate their own community.