Note on the figure of the judge in the Memoriale sanctorum by Eulogius of Cordoba

Abstract

In his Memoriale sanctorum, Eulogius of Cordoba constantly uses the figure of the judge as a necessary instrument with which to successfully carry out the punishment that must be inflicted on those Christians who sought martyrdom at the hands of pagans. Regardless of the narrative importance that this character plays in accordance with the Andalusi legal-religious context in which these martyrial stories are inserted, it is worth asking whether, in addition to this contextual need, the figure of the judge is not a martyrial topos inherited from Christian literature, which, moreover, has as prototypes the same New Testament texts.