Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/277

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 255 in Egypt and Palestine, his cruel and wanton persecution made some martyrs and many apostates : the common rights and special privileges of the sectaries were equally disregarded ; and a general interdict was laid on the devotion of strangers and natives. The temple of the Christian world, the church of the sacniegeof Resurrection, was demolished to its foundations ; the luminous 1009 prodigy of Easter was interrupted, and much profane labour was exhausted to destroy the cave in the rock, which properly con- stitutes the holy sepulchre. At the report of this sacrilege, the nations of Europe were astonished and afflicted ; but, instead of arming in the defence of the Holy Land, they contented them- selves with burning or banishing the Jews, as the secret ad- visers of the impious barbarian." Yet the calamities of Jerusalem were in some measure alleviated by the inconstancy or repent- ance of Hakem himself; and the royal mandate was sealed for the restitution of the churches, when the tvrant was assassinated by the emissaries of his sister. The succeeding caliphs resumed the maxims of religion and policy ; a free toleration was again granted ; with the pious aid of the emperor of Constantinople, the holy sepulchre arose from its ruins ; and, after a short ab- stinence, the pilgrims returned with an increase of appetite to the spiritual feast."* In the sea-voyage of Palestine, the dangers were frequent and the opportunities rare : but the conversion of Hungary opened a safe communication between Germany and Greece. The charity of St. Stephen, the apostle of his kingdom, relieved and conducted his itinerant brethren ; '•^ and from Belgrade to Antioch they traversed fifteen hundred miles increase or of a Christian empire. Among the Franks, the zeal of pilgrim- a"d!^w2^ ib. age prevailed beyond the example of former times ; and the roads were covered with multitudes of either sex and of evei-y rank, who professed their contempt of life, so soon as they should years of his reign. His barbarous persecutions and the burning of the church of the Resurrection at Jerusalem belong entirely to that period ; and his assumption of divinity was followed by an edict of toleration to Jews and Christians. The Ma- hometans, whose religion he then treated with hostility and contempt, being far the most numerous, were his most dangerous enemies, and therefore the objects of hismost inveterate hatred" (Milman, note to this passage).] ''"See Glaber, 1. iii. c. 7, and the Annals of Baronius and Pagi, ..D. 1009. ™ Per idem tern pus ex universo orbe tarn innumerabilis multiludo coepit con- fluere ad sepulchrum Salvatoris Hierosolymis, quantum nullus hominum prius sperare poterat. Ordo inferioris plebis . . . mediocres . . . reges et comiies . . . praesules . . . mulieres multa; nobiles cum pauperioribus . . . Pluribus enim erat mentis desiderium mori priusquam ad propria reverterentur (Glaber, 1. iv. c. 6 ; Bouquet, Historians of France, torn. x. p. 50). "'••Glaber, 1. iii. c. i. Katona (Hist. Critic. Rcgum Hungariae, tom. i. p. 304- 311) examines whether St. Stephen founded a monastery at Jerusalem.