Note 53 — Chapter V · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIANS OF SPAIN.

These zealous efforts for winning converts were rendered the more effective by certain conditions of Christian society itself. Foremost among these was the degraded condition of the Greek Church. Side by side with the civil despotism of the Byzantine empire, had arisen an ecclesiastical despotism which had crushed all energy of intellectual life under the weight of a dogmatism that interdicted all discussion in matters of morals and religion. The only thing that disturbed this lethargy was the fierce controversial war waged against the Latin Church with all the bitterness of theological polemics and race hatred. The religion of the people had degenerated into a scrupulous observance of outward forms, and the intense fervour of their devotion found an outlet in the worship of the Virgin and the saints, of pictures and relics. There were many who turned from a Church whose spiritual life had sunk so low, and weary of interminable discussions on such subtle points of doctrine as the Double Procession of the Holy Spirit, and such trivialities as the use of leavened and unleavened bread in the Blessed Sacrament, gladly accepted the clear and intelligible theistic teaching of Islam. We are told53 of large numbers of persons being converted, not only from among the simple folk, but also learned men of every class, rank and condition; of how the Turks made a better provision for those monks and priests who embraced the Muslim creed, in order that their example might lead others to be converted. While Adrianople was still the Turkish capital (e.g. before 1453) the court was thronged with renegades, and they are said to have formed the majority of the magnates there.54 Byzantine princes and others often passed over to the side of the Muhammadans, and received a ready welcome among them: one of the earliest of such cases dates from 1140 when a nephew of the emperor John Comnenes embraced Islam and married a daughter of Masʻūd, the Sultan of Iconium.55 After the fall of Constantinople, the upper classes of Christian society showed much more readiness to embrace Islam than the mass of the Greeks; among the converts we meet with several bearing the name of the late imperial family of the Palæologi, and the learned George Amiroutzes of Trebizond abandoned Christianity in his declining years, and the names of many other such individuals have found a record.56 The new religion only demanded assent to its simple creed, “There is no god but God: Muḥammad is the apostle of God”; as the above-mentioned writer57 says, “The whole difficulty lies in this profession of faith. For if only a man can persuade himself that he is a worshipper of the One God, the poison of his error easily infects him under the guise of religion. This is the rock of offence on which many have struck and fallen into the snare that has brought perdition on their souls. This is the mill-stone that hung about the necks of many has plunged them into the pit of despair. For when these fools hear the Turks execrate idolatry and express their horror of every image and picture as though it were the fire of hell, and so continually profess and preach the worship of One God, there no longer remains any room for suspicion in their minds.”