The contagion of example spread fast through the Christian community of Cordova. No distinction was now so honorable as to stand in the foremost rank of the blasphemers of the Prophet. In this pious and meritorious performance, the secular clergy were, however, not conspicuous. Their lives were entirely too precious to be endangered so long as members of their flocks were eager to demonstrate their willingness to die for a perverted religious principle, involving an unprovoked breach of the contract from which they derived security of worship, life, and property. In secret, they promoted the increasing madness by prayer and vehement exhortation. The impulse to the spirit of spontaneous martyrdom was not a little stimulated by the honors paid to the victims. Independent of both Roman and Asturian influence, the Andalusian hierarchy conferred without delay the distinction of canonization upon each aspirant for celestial glory. Their remains were conveyed to the churches, where they at once began to disclose their supernatural powers by response to prayer, by the cure of disease, by the working of portentous and astonishing miracles. The Moslem authorities were appalled by the strange conduct of their tributaries, insensible alike to the inducement of clemency or the dread of punishment. In the hope of abating the evil by summary measures, Abd-al-Rahman II. authorized, by public edict, any one to kill on the instant a Christian who was guilty of blasphemy. This decree, while not fully accomplishing its object, lessened the number of applicants for martyrdom and produced a great increase of apostates and fugitives. But the mania which impelled the most fanatical to self-sacrifice was far from infecting the entire Christian population of the capital. There were many who looked with disapproval upon a course which must eventually result in the oppression of their sect, in the increase of its burdens, in the curtailment of its privileges. They foresaw that the acts of a few irresponsible individuals would ere long be regarded by the Moslem government as the authorized policy of the Church. Many Christians held office under the administration. It was only a question of time, if these disturbances continued, when they would be dismissed from their employments. The khalifate was then at the height of its power. If an uprising provoked by the clergy should occur, as seemed not improbable, the entire tributary sect might be exterminated; and, indeed, this measure had already been vehemently urged by the intolerant African marabouts. In any event, there would be arbitrary taxation, confiscation, violence, exile. In their extremity, the more sober-minded of the Christians petitioned the Khalif to summon a council, whose decision might be authoritative and final in determining the duty of the people in the present emergency.