t influence at Paris to have one of their number elected
bishop and to gain possession of all ecclesiastical offices. Gregory of
Tours tells how King Gontrand, on entering the city of Orleans {109} in
585, was received by a crowd praising him "in the language of the Latins,
the Jews and the Syrians."[14] The merchant colonies existed until the
Saracen corsairs destroyed the commerce of the Mediterranean.

Those establishments exercised a strong influence upon the economic and
material life of the Latin provinces, especially in Gaul. As bankers the
Syrians concentrated a large share of the money business in their hands and
monopolized the importing of the valuable Levantine commodities as well as
of the articles of luxury; they sold wines, spices, glassware, silks and
purple fabrics, also objects wrought by goldsmiths, to be used as patterns
by the native artisans. Their moral and religious influence was not less
considerable: for instance, it has been shown that they furthered the
development of monastic life during the Christian period, and that the
devotion to the crucifix[15] that grew up in opposition to the
monophysites, was introduced into the Occident by them. During the first
five centuries Christians felt an unconquerable repugnance to the
representation of the Saviour of the world nailed to an instrument of
punishment more infamous than the guillotine of to-day. The Syrians were
the first to substitute reality in all its pathetic horror for a vague
symbolism.

In pagan times the religious ascendency of that immigrant population was no
less remarkable. The merchants always took an interest in the affairs of
heaven as well as in those of earth. At all times Syria was a land of
ardent devotion, and in the first century its children were as fervid in
propagating their barbarian gods in the Occident as after their conversion
they were enthusiastic in spreading Christianity as far {110} as Turkestan
and China. As soon as the merchants had established their places of
business in the islands of the Archipelago during the Alexandrian period,
and in the Latin period under the empire, they founded chapels in which
they practised their exotic rites.

It was easy for the divinities of the Phoenician coast to cross the seas.
Among them were Adonis, whom the women of Byblos mourned; Balmarcodes, "the
Lord of the dances," who came from Beirut; Marna, the master of rain,
worshiped at Gaza; and Maiuma,[16] whose nautical holid