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ard to the late martyrdoms and apostasies, purporting to have been written in 937. [5] Dozy, ii. 47. [6] Alvar, "Ep.," xiii. 3. Samson, "Apol.," ii. cc. ii.-iv. As was to be expected, Arabic soon began to displace Latin throughout the country, and even before the ninth century the Scriptures were translated into the tongue of the conquerors [1] by Odoarius, Bishop of Accita, and John of Seville. Hischem I. (788-796) forbade the use of any language but Arabic, so that his Christian subjects had to use Arabic Gospels;[2] and the Spaniards were soon not even permitted to write in Latin.[3] Even if this statement be doubtful, we know that Latin came gradually to be neglected and forgotten. Alvar utters an eloquent protest against this: "Alas, the Christians are ignorant of their own tongue, and Latins neglect their language, so that in all the College of Christ[4] there is scarcely to be found one who can write an address of welcome to his brother intelligibly in Latin, while numbers can be found competent to mouth the flowery rhetoric of the Chaldeans."[5] In the department of poetry--the peculiar boast of the Arabs--the Christians seem even to have surpassed their masters; and to the rivalry of the two nations in this art we may attribute the excellence and abundance of native ballads of which Spain can boast. We have seen how Eulogius did his best to check this neglect of Latin, by introducing into Spain some of the masterpieces in that language; but it is doubtful whether his efforts had much result. We can see from the remains of the Spanish writers which we possess that the structure of that language had considerably degenerated in Spain.[6] [1] Murphy, "Hist. Mahom. Empire in Spain," p. 309. [2] Yonge, p. 60. [3] Conde, i. 239. [4] "Omni Christi collegio." [5] Alvar, "Ind. Lum.," sec. 35. [6] See Elipandus and Alvar passim. Alcuin, on the other hand, writes wonderfully good Latin. Some sentences are so ungrammatical as to be scarcely intelligible. Moreover, we find Samson[1] directly accusing Hostegesis, Bishop of Malaga, of not being able to write Latin; and similarly Jonas of Orleans (839) accusing Claudius, Bishop of Turin, who was himself a Spaniard, of the same defect. The neglect of Latin was accompanied by an increasing indifference to the doctrinal basis of Christianity, educated Christians being led to devote their time, which might have
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