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 490 THE DECLINE AND FALL expulsion of the Greeks, a lieutenant of Africa informed the caliph that the tribute of the infidels was abolished by their conversion ; ^^^ and, though he sought to disguise his fraud and rebellion, his specious pretence was drawn from the rapid and extensive progress of the Mahometan faith. In the next age an extraordinary mission of five bishops was detached from Alexandria to Cairoan. They were ordained by the Jacobite patriarch to cherish and revive the dying embers of Christian- ity."*" But the interposition of a foreign prelate, a stranger to the Latins, an enemy to the Catholics, supposes the decay and dissolution of the African hierarchy. It was no longer the time when the successor of St. Cyprian, at the head of a numerous synod, could maintain an equal contest with the ambition of the Roman pontiff. In the eleventh century, the unfortunate priest who was seated on the ruins of Carthage, implored the arms and the protection of the Vatican ; and he bitterly complains that his naked body had been scourged by the Saracens, and that his authority was disputed by the four suffragans, the tottering pillars of his throne. Two epistles of Gregory the Seventh -•*! are destined to soothe the distress of the Catholics and the pride of a Moorish prince. The pope assures the sultan that they both worship the same God and may hope to meet in the bosom of Abraham ; but the complaints that three bishops could no longer be found to consecrate a brother, announces the speedy and inevitable ruin of the episcopal order. The Christians of Africa and Spain had long since submitted to the practice of circumcision and the legal abstinence from wine and pork ; and the name of Mozarabes 2*- (adoptive Arabs) was ap- 239 The letter of Abdoulrahman, governor or tyrant of Africa, to the caliph Aboul Abbas, the first of the Abbassides, is dated a.h. 132 (Cardonne, Hist. d'Afrique et de I'Espagne, torn. i. p. 168). 240 Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 66. Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 287, 288. 2^1 Among the Epistles of the Popes, see Leo IX. epist. 3 ; Gregor. VH. 1. i. epist. 22, 23, 1. iii. epist. ig, 20, 21 ; and the criticisms of Pagi (tom. iv. A.D. 1053, No. 14, A.D. 1073, No. 13), who investigates the name and family of the Moorish prince, with whom the proudest of the Roman pontiffs so politely corresponds. 2^- Mozarabes, or Mostarabes [al-Mustariba], adsci/iiii, as it is interpreted in Latin (Pocock, Specimen Hist. Arabum, p. 39, 40. Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 18). The Mozarabic liturgy, the ancient ritual of the church of Toledo, has been attacked by the popes and exposed to the doubtful trials of the sword and of fire (Marian, Hist. Hispan. tom. i. 1. ix. c. 18, p. 378). It was, or rather it is, in the Latin tongue ; yet, in the xith century, it was found necessary (a.^.c. 1687. A.D. 1039) to transcribe an Arabic version of the canons of the councils of Spain (Bibliot. Arab. Hisp. tom. i. p. 547) for the use of the bishops and clergy in the Moorish kingdoms,