Onofre Micó and Pagan Reminiscence in Islam: In lege Mahomettana, largus hilarat Venus, et Bacchus (1678)

Abstract Since its founding, the redemption of Christian prisoners was the main mission of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Captives. This institution appeared as a response to the strife and conflicts that occurred between Christianity and the Islamic community. Thus, from the 16th century onwards, the Trinitarians would devote much effort to the city of Algiers, where, as a result of the incursions of the Barbarossa brothers into the western Mediterranean, a cosmopolitan and prosperous kingdom, plagued by slaves, had blossomed. At the end of the 17th century, in order to console the Christians imprisoned in the North African territory and consequently avoid the enormous tide of apostasy, Micó wrote the Lex euangelica contra Alcoranum , a vast manual at the service of the Trinitarians that refutes Islam and ratifies the truth of Catholicism. Among the various arguments used by the Valencian to discredit Islamic doctrine, this article focuses on the analysis of argument LII , “In lege Mahomettana, largus hilarat Venus, et Bacchus”. Reviving the medieval Christian topos of Islam as a lustful faith (product of its founder’s unbridled covetousness), the author links some of the characteristically defining precepts of Muslim doctrine to the pagan gods Venus and Bacchus. In so doing, the Christian polemicist underscores how Qurʾanic law sacralizes the enjoyment of immoderation and worldly pleasures without any form of restraint or control, in order to contrast this with the rejection of the temptations of the flesh and the submission of the body to the soul as practiced by the Christian faithful.