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 GEOSS TEEATMENT OF ST. SOPHIA 367 hope that his story of its defilement and of the scenes of open profligacy is exaggerated. 1 The other churches were plundered in like manner. They furnished a plentiful harvest. The richly embroidered robes, chasubles woven with gold and ornamented with pearls and precious stones, and church furniture, were greedily seized, the ornaments being torn from many of the objects and the rest thrown aside. A crucifix was carried in mock solemnity in procession surmounted by a Janissary's cap. While we can understand the indignation of the devout believers at the contemptuous destruction of sacred relics for the sake of the caskets in which they were contained, we can hardly regret the disappearance of the so-called sacred objects themselves. But it is otherwise with the destruction Wanton of books. The professors of Islam, whatever may have been of books, their conduct in regard to particular libraries, have usually held the all-sufficiency of the Koran. That which contradicts its teaching ought to be destroyed ; that which is in accord- ance with it is superfluous. The libraries of the churches, whatever Mahomet himself may have believed, were to the ignorant fanatical masses which followed him anti-Islamic. The only value of books was the amount for which they could be sold. Critobulus says that not only the holy and religious books, but also those treating of profane sciences and of philosophy, were either thrown into the fire or trampled irreverently under foot, but that the greater part were sold — not for the sake of the price but in mockery — for two or three pence or even farthings. 2 The ships of the Turkish fleet had among their cargo, says Ducas, an innumerable quantity of books. 3 In the booty collected by the Turks they were so plentiful and cheap, that for a nummus — probably worth sixpence — ten volumes were sold containing the works of Plato and Aristotle, treatises on theology and other sciences. 1 ov €(ro9ev riav aStirwv Kal Hvwdev ruv OvaiaffTypicav Kal rpairefav t<tQiov Kal ttcivov Kal ras a<reye?s yv&fias Kal op4£eis avTwv fiera yvvaiKuv Kal irapQivwv Kal TraiScov eirdpwdev iiroiovp Kal eirparrov. Phrantzes, p. 290. 2 Crit. xlii. 3 Ducas, xlii. : j8t/3Ai'o virep apidfxdv.