Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/193

Rh nuns, and priests were slaughtered. Fire followed pillage. The church of the Holy Sepulchre and other churches were partially or wholly wrecked. From Palestine the victor advanced to Egypt, and seized Alexandria amid similar scenes of slaughter and outrage ( 618).

At length Sergius the patriarch of Constantinople roused the Emperor Heraclius to a tremendous effort for the recovery of his lost territory and Jerusalem in particular. The tide now turned. Victory after victory attended the Byzantine arms. A great point was made of the fact that the Cross in its reliquary was recovered and restored to the altar at the Holy Sepulchre. Thus this was in a way a war for religion, a crusade of the Eastern Empire. But no sooner was the great feat of his life achieved than Heraclius began to live at ease, till he sank into enervating self-indulgence among the lavish luxuries of life at Constantinople.

The Roman emperor's success in the Persian war led him to underrate the new danger already looming on the southern horizon. Besides, when the conflict with Islam began in deadly earnest the imperial troops were divided among themselves, half-hearted, and so reluctant to fight —if we may credit the Arab chronicler—that in some cases they were dragged forward chained together. Such an army had little chance against the hardy desert veterans, dashing into battle aflame with fanaticism. Modern science has armed the civilised nations with weapons that are practically irresistible by barbarous races. But before the invention of gunpowder, civilisation and barbarism were more on a level in military resources.

Chaldæa and Southern Syria were in close touch with Arabia, and naturally these were the first districts to be overrun by the advancing tide. At Hira the Arabs came upon a monastery outside the city walls, and the defenceless monks, exposed to the full fury of their attack, and seeing no alternative to submission, acted as intermediaries and arranged terms of surrender between the invaders and the besieged inhabitants ( 633). The Christians in this city retained their faith and were found to be true to it