[1] “Life of Eul.,” Alvar, ii. sec. 10.

    [2] “Communis electio.”

    [3] Fleury, v. 547, says another bishop was elected in
    Eulogius’ lifetime; but Alvar’s words are “Alium sibi eo
    vivente interdixerunt eligere.”

In the following year he was again imprisoned as being a disturber of the public peace, but as on a former occasion he had been allowed to support and encourage Flora and Maria, so now was he permitted to finish in prison a book in defence of the martyrs,[1] which had the direct tendency of inciting others to go and do likewise.  The occasion of Eulogius’ second imprisonment was as follows:—­Leocritia, a maiden of Arab extraction and of noble birth,[2] had been secretly baptised by Liliosa, the wife of Felix.  Her parents, learning her apostasy, cruelly ill-treated, and even beat her, in order to make her renounce Christ.  She naturally turned to Eulogius and his sister Anulo for advice in her afflictions, expressing a wish to escape to a part of Spain where the Christian worship was free.  As a first step to this, she leaves her parents under pretence of going to a wedding, and takes refuge with Eulogius.  Her parents, furious at her escape, get all sorts of people imprisoned on the charge of aiding her; and she is at last betrayed and surprised at the house of her protector.  They are both dragged before the Kadi, who asks Eulogius angrily why he persists in defying the laws in this way.[3] The bishop defends himself by pleading that Christian clergy are bound to impart a knowledge of their religion, if asked, as he had been by Leocritia.[4] The judge then threatens to have him scourged, but Eulogius, preferring death to so painful and degrading a punishment, repeats the lesson which he had taught to so many others, and reviles Mohammed.  Even so the judge shows a disposition to treat him with leniency, and he is remanded to prison with Leocritia.

When brought up again before the royal Council,[5] an influential friend makes a last effort to save him, saying:  “Fools and idiots rush on their own destruction, but what induces you, a man of approved wisdom and blameless character, in defiance of all natural instincts, to throw away your life in this manner?” He urges Eulogius to say but one word of concession in the hour of peril, promising that he should afterwards be free to exercise his religion as he pleased, without let or hindrance.  But the bishop could hardly turn back now, and he rejected all such offers with the ejaculation, “If they only knew the joy that awaits us on high!”

    [1] See Eulog., Letter to Alvar, Florez, xi. 295.

    [2] Alvar, Life of Eulog., i. sec. 13.

    [3] Alvar, “Life of Eulog.,” i. secs. 14, 15.

    [4] This kind of proselytism was not held to be a capital crime
    by the Moslems.  See Dozy, ii. 171.

    [5] Alvar, “Life of Eul.,” v. sec. 15.  Fleury v. 548.