Though there were some cases of martyrdom of this character, where the sufferers truly earned their title of martyrs,--and we may believe that all such cases have not been recorded--yet the vast majority of those which followed in the years 851-860 were of a different type. They were due to an outbreak of fanatical zeal on the part of a certain section of the Christians such as to overpower the spirit of toleration, which the Moslem authorities had so far shown in dealing with their Christian subjects, and to raise a corresponding tide of bigotry in the less enlightened, and therefore more intolerant, masses of the Mohammedans. The sudden mania for martyrdom which manifested itself at this time is certainly the most remarkable phenomenon of the kind that has been recorded in the annals of the Christian Church. There had been occasional instances before of Christians voluntarily offering themselves to undergo the penalty of the laws for the crime of being Christians. One such instance in the case of a Phrygian, named Quintus, had caused grave scandal to the Church of Smyrna; for, having gone before the proconsul and professed himself ready to die for the faith, when the reality of the death, which he courted, had been brought home to him by the sight of the wild beasts ready to rend him, the courage of the Phrygian had failed, and he had offered incense to the gods. Africa also had had her self-accused martyrs. But the Spanish confessors have an interest over and above these, both by reason of their number and the constancy which they displayed in their self-imposed task. Not a single instance is recorded, though there may have been some such, where the would-be martyr from fear or any other cause forwent his crown. Moreover these martyrdoms, by dividing the Church on the question of their merit, whether, that is, the victims were to be ranked as true martyrs or not, and, giving rise to a written controversy on the subject, has supplied us with ample, if rather one-sided, materials for estimating the provocation given, and received, on either side.