Peter's Rock in Mohammed's Flood, from St. Gregory the Great to St. Leo III. Allies Thomas William

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СКАЧАТЬ of Byzantine despotism and the ambition of the bishop of the capital, who bought every accession to his own power and influence by acting in ecclesiastical matters as the instrument of the imperial will. This fall was complete before the events which mark the last ten years of the reign of Heraclius as a time of unequalled and irretrievable disaster both to the Church and to the State.

      Yet something must still be added to portray that civil condition of the State which led on to this disaster. In all this time the city of the emperor's residence had been exhausting of their wealth – by the terrible severity of the imperial taxation – the provinces subject to it. Egypt and Syria lived under a perpetual oppression no less than Italy and Rome. Every distinction, every favour, which Antioch, when Queen of the east, may have brought to Syria, had long migrated to the banks of the Bosphorus. All the national feeling of Egypt was aggrieved by the ruler who treated the dower of Cleopatra – the imperial gem of Augustus – as a storehouse to be plundered at pleasure. And the national spirit was intensified to fever heat by the hatred of Byzantium on the part of the Eutychean population, forming the vast majority in the whole country.

      Thus the wide eastern empire instead of worshipping in union of heart and gladness of spirit that transcendent mystery in which is throned the grandeur and the mercy of the Christian dispensation, instead of falling in prostrate adoration before that vision of condescending love which the angels desire to look into, broke itself into endless conflicts in disputing about it, until the mystery of grace became a rancorous jarring of ambitious rivals. During more than 200 years this suicidal conflict was engaged in ruining the resources of a vast dominion, which in the hands of a Constantine or a Theodosius, with the spirit of a St. Leo to guide them, would have been impregnable to every enemy. Had emperor and people been faithful to the Council of Chalcedon, and to the authority which they admitted to be based on a divine promise made to St. Peter, neither the disunited hordes of the North, nor the far inferior savages of the South, nor even the impact of the great Sassanide empire would have availed to overcome the Roman power. This last and greatest enemy Heraclius had subdued. He went forth in the name of the Crucified One whom Chosroes had called upon him to disavow, and won the fight. Yet even as he was carrying back the Cross and entering the Holy City in triumph, Heraclius had become a traitor to him whom he was professing to honour. He had already conceived, under an evil influence and by the inspiration of the patriarch at his right hand, a compromise of doctrine which he thought would induce the rebellious Egyptian people to return to his allegiance. He hoped also that the same compromise would exorcise the Nestorian spirit at Antioch. They who did not agree were to be drawn into an appearance of agreement by an ambiguous formula. And the See of the Apostle Peter, last and greatest witness of the true doctrine, was to be forced into accepting the deceit, and ratifying it for the old truth by submitting to an imperial decree, which, independent of the heresy contained in it, was a violation of the Church's liberty.

      The fifty years which run from 628 to 678 contain the various acts of one prolonged attempt by the Byzantine emperors to enforce their religious despotism on the Pope in the shape of the Monothelite heresy. The two standard-bearers of the heresy are two patriarchs, Sergius at Constantinople, and Cyrus at Alexandria. Precisely at this time the Mohammedan power appears upon the scene. While Heraclius is brooding over the compromise of Sergius for reuniting an empire dislocated by heresy, Mohammed is purposing the foundation of an empire resting on material force. While Heraclius is assuming the right to define the doctrine of the Church in virtue of his imperial power, Mohammed is constructing a claim to prophetic rank from which imperial power itself shall emanate. The Mohammedan claim is the exact antithesis of the Byzantine usurpation: the rise of a false prophet punishes the attempt among Christians to rule the spiritual by the civil power.

      Upon the death of Mohammed in 632, his companions took counsel together and elected Abu Bekr to carry on the dominion based upon religion which Mohammed had invented. They gave him the title of “Chalif of God's Apostle”. As the vicar of the new prophet, he was to exert the absolute power which belonged to the prophet's office, and of which the civil sovereignty was an offshoot. This power was rooted in the belief that Mohammed had been sent by God. The quality therefore of every act exercised by the first chalif, and by every successor, depended on the truth of such a mission.

      By the choice of Abu Bekr, father of Aischa, the favourite wife of Mohammed, it was resolved that the succession to the chalifate should be elective, not hereditary. The most stirring principle of the new power was that everyone who died for its extension, which was called the Holy War, should pass at once to paradise. Paradise had been drawn by Mohammed after his own sensual imagination to suit the taste of a most sensual people. The empire sought by Mohammed and his followers was to be imposed by force. Abu Bekr stirred up the sons of the desert to this Holy War, proclaiming that he who fought for God's cause should have 700 good works counted for each step, 700 honours allotted to him, and 700 sins forgiven.

      Abu Bekr held the chalifate but two years, dying in 634 at the age of 63 years. But at the very time of his death the pearl of Syria, Damascus, fell into the hands of his generals, Amrou and Khaled. From Medina the city of the prophet, and the seat of the chalif, he had sent forth three armies. Moseilama, a prophet who competed with Mohammed, was destroyed, the discontented tribes in Arabia itself were reduced to obedience. The Persian provinces on the Euphrates were attacked. The Roman empire itself was summoned to accept the new religion, or to become tributary.

      Upon the death of Abu Bekr, the chief associates of Mohammed around him proclaimed Omar as chalif, and entitled him Chalif, and Prince of the Faithful. In the ten years of his chalifate, from 634 to 644, Omar made the Mohammedan empire. He had exerted great influence over Mohammed himself; he had been most powerful with Abu Bekr, who pointed him out for a successor. The man who had been of violent temper and bloody battles, now sedulously practised the administration of justice. He gave much, and used little for himself. He wore a patched dress, and fed on barley bread and water; he prayed and preached, and ate and slept upon the steps of the mosque among the pilgrims. There he received the messengers of kings. The severe chalif, a sworn foe to all effeminacy, strove to train a rude host to war. Arts he proscribed, even those of house and ship-building. When the great city of Modain, or Ctesiphon, was taken, he commanded the library of the Persian kings to be thrown into the Tigris. When some of his soldiers had put on silken garments which they had looted in Syria, he rubbed their faces in the mud and tore their garments in pieces. Such was the man under whom half-armed nomad tribes broke the armies of Heraclius, and took one after another the cities of Syria.

      But on the side of the emperor were divided counsels, distrust, rankling enmities; Nestorian and Eutychean heretics hating each other, and still more the sovereign under whom they should have fought as well for a common country as for a common faith. The fate of Syria was decided in a terrible battle on the banks of the Hieromax, or Yarmuk. There, the Saracen generals, Obeidah and Khaled, “The sword of God,” utterly defeated the Greek army of 80,000 men. Obeidah wrote to the chalif Omar: “In the name of the most merciful God, I must make thee to know that I encamped on the Yarmuk, and Manuel was near us with a force such as the Moslem never had a greater. But God struck down that host, and gave us the victory out of His overflowing grace and goodness. God has given to 4030 Moslim the honour of martyrdom. All that fled into the desert and mountains we have put down; have beset all roads and passes; God has made us lords of their lands and riches and children. Written after the victory from Damaskus where I am, and await thy command for the division of the booty. Farewell, and the blessing and grace of God be over thee and all Moslim.”

      After this, city upon city surrendered in affright. In the winter of 636, Obeidah lay before Jerusalem, from which Heraclius took away the Holy Cross with himself to Constantinople. At Antioch, in his dismay, he asked the question why those miserable half naked barbarians, the Arabs, not to be compared with the Romans in armour, or art of war, beat them in the field. A veteran answered him that the wrath of God was on the Romans, who despised His commands, were guilty of every excess, allowed themselves intolerable oppression and violence.

      We do not read that Heraclius made an attempt to relieve Jerusalem, which yet was besieged during a year. Obeidah wrote to the patriarch and the inhabitants: “Salutation СКАЧАТЬ