Saint Roderick of Córdoba

Roderick and Solomon died in Córdoba in 857, and their story has to be told with its context attached, or it can’t be understood. Córdoba was the capital of al-Andalus and was living through its most splendid century. The Muslims did not persecute the Christians: they asked them not to profess their faith in public and to pay a tribute, and otherwise left them alone. But that condition — which some have called a kind of religious hibernation — was so confining for some of the Mozarabic Christians that they could no longer bear it. Roderick was a priest. According to the account, a Muslim brother of his passed him off as a convert to Islam: and since under the law of the time anyone who turned back from that conversion faced death, he found himself trapped in an accusation he couldn’t disprove. In prison he met Solomon, who was in the same situation. They were killed together. The best known of that group — whom history calls the Martyrs of Córdoba — was Eulogius, also a priest, who spoke out openly against the Qur’an and collected the stories of his companions in a book. Imprisoned a first time, he was released in 851; in prison he had met Flora and Mary, who were beheaded shortly afterward. If your name is Roderick, today is your name day.