II THE ARREST OF ENQUIRY 71 



to the Atlantic. With the conquest of Syria there 

 was achieved one of the greatest and most momentous 

 of triumphs in the capture of Jerusalem, and the 

 seizure of sites sanctified to Christians by association 

 with the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. 

 Only a few years before (614 A.D.), the holy city had 

 been taken by Chosroes ; the sacred buildings raised 

 over the venerated tomb had been burned, and the 

 cross a spurious relic carried off by the Persian 

 king. These places have been, as it were, the cockpit 

 of Christendom from the time of the siege of Jeru- 

 salem under Titus to that of the Crimean War, when 

 blood was spilt like water in a conflict stirred by 

 squabbles between Latin and Greek Christians over 

 possession of the key of the Church of the Nativity 

 at Bethlehem. In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre 

 these sectaries are still kept from flying at one 

 another's throats by the muskets of Mohammedan 

 soldiers. 



The Arabian conquest of Persia followed that of 

 Syria. The turn of Egypt soon came, the city of 

 Alexandria being taken in 640, seven years after 

 the prophet's death. Since the loss of Greek free- 

 dom, and the decay of intellectual life at Athens, 

 that renowned place had become, notably under the 

 Ptolemies, the chief home of science and philosophy. 

 Through the propagandism of Christianity among 

 the Hellenised Jews, of whom, as of Greeks, large 

 numbers had settled there, it was also the birthplace 

 of dogmatic theology, and, therefore, the fountain 

 whence welled the controversies whose logomachies 

 were the gossip of the streets of Constantinople and 

 the cause of bloody persecution. After a few years 



