ood, restored the patriarch Zacharias to Jerusalem, and returned
in triumph to the imperial city. In 629 he went on a pilgrimage to the
Holy City, and on September 14th--still observed as the feast of the
Exaltation of the Holy Cross--he restored the Rood to the Church of the
Resurrection.

[Sidenote: Conquest by the Muhammadans.]

In the year 610 Muhammad began his career as a prophet. It is no part
of Church history to trace the origin of his opinions or his power, to
tell how he learnt from Jews and Nestorians, or how he established a
marvellous organisation on a basis of theocratic militarism. The
migration from Meccah to Medinah in 622 was the beginning of his active
ministry, of religious teaching carried forward by sword and fire. The
capture of Meccah, the submission of Arabia, the extinction of the
Christian (Monophysite) communities in the peninsula, were followed
before long by the invasion of Syria and the capture of Jerusalem by
the Khalif Omar in 637. The year before, Heraclius {102} had taken
away the Holy Rood and the treasures of the churches to Constantinople.
Two years later the Muhammadans seized Egypt, from which the Persians
had not so long been driven out by the armies of the Empire. The fatal
policy of the Monothelite emperors had opened the way to the triumph of
Islam. Of this we shall see more, in Africa and in Southern Europe, in
later days.

[1] See _The Church of the Fathers_ (vol. ii. of the present series),
chapter xxix., for the earlier history.

[2] Bury, _History of the Later Roman Empire_, i. 441.

[3] _Aedif._, iii. 6.

[4] Joannes Biclarensis, p. 853.

[5] I quote from the admirable summary in the Reports of the
Archbishop's Mission to the Assyrian Christians.

[6] See an interesting account in Williams's _Middle Kingdom_.

[7] His name was Ung; his title Khan; Ung Khan was Syriacised into
Yukhanan, i.e. John.

[8] The _Christian Topography_ was written between 535 and 537.
Beazley, _Dawn of Modern Geography_, p. 279.

[9] Assemani, _Bibl. Orient_, iii. i. 130, 131.

[10] See Waddell, _Buddhism in Tibet_, pp. 421, 422.

[11] Beazley, _Dawn of Modern Geography_, p. 211.

[12] Cf. Budge, _The Book of Governors_, i. cxvi., and Labourt, _Le
Christianisme dans l'empire perse_, 303.

[13] Cf. Procopius, _Aedif._; and John Moschus, _Pratum Spirituale_
(Migne, Patr. Groec., lxxxvii. [3]).

[14] Procopius, _Aedif._, v. 8.

{103}

CHAPTER IX

THE CHUR