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 306 DESTEUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIEE the Greeks. Indeed Critobulus almost stands alone as the representative of the larger party in the Orthodox Church. When, however, we get the account of an independent "Western soldier, as in the case of Tetaldi, the charges against the Greek population disappear. In the whole of his clear and concise narrative, as well as in his estimate of how Europe might defeat the Turks, he has not a word to say against the conduct of the besieged. While praising the courage of the Turks highly as that of men who in the perils and hazards of war attach hardly any value to their lives, he yet judges that the Greeks with European help could defeat them. 1 These and other facts are at least sufficient to cause us to re- gard with suspicion attacks upon the loyalty towards the city and the emperor of the members of the Orthodox Church. Gibbon, influenced by the writers of the Latin Church — the only ones available to him — remarks * that the Greeks were animated only by the spirit of religion, and that spirit was productive only of animosity and discord.' The observation or charge would hardly have been made if he had remembered the ex 'parte character of all the evidence before him. While there is truth in the statement that the spirit of religion produced animosity and discord, it is far from true either that it was the only spirit which actuated the Greeks or that it was productive only of animosity and dis- cord. The Greeks were actuated by their own worldly interest, by their desire to preserve their own lives and property, their own city and their own government. Nor in admitting that they were even deeply animated with the religious spirit, can it successfully be maintained that this spirit only produced animosity. It was the religious spirit which animated Greeks as well as Italians to fight for the honour of God and the benefit of Christianity and thus tended to suppress discord and animosity. Even theological differences did not make the Greeks less eager to prevent a Moslem from taking the place of a Christian emperor. The Greeks differed from and even quarrelled with the Italians and their Romanised fellow citizens, but they regarded 1 Tetaldi, pp. 32-35.