196 CHARACTER, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS 



Nejeran, Dhafar, and Aden ; and it is probable that 

 Sanaa, Daniar, and other towns under the Abyssinian 

 kings, enjoyed a similar distinction. About the time 

 of Dunowas we find Gregantius, bishop of Dhafar, 

 celebrated as a controversialist ; though his exploits 

 in converting the Hamyaric Jews must be rejected 

 as an extravagant fable.* 



As Arabia had been a kind of sanctuary for the 

 proscribed and persecuted exiles of all sects and 

 denominations, we may naturally suppose that its 

 churches were overrun with the prevailing errors 

 and corruptions which unhappily were soon grafted 

 on the pure and simple doctrines of the apostles. 

 The facility with which the Arabs embraced the 

 absurdities of paganism seems to have disposed them 

 to a like readiness in falling in with the Christian 

 heresies. The principles of the Ebionites and Na- 

 zarenes, who denied the divinity of Christ, — of the 

 Nestorians, who taught that he had not only two 

 natures, but two persons,— and of the Collyridians, 

 who paid divine honours to the Virgin Mary, were 

 widely propagated among them. The latter were 

 extremely popular among the female sex, who 

 judged it necessary to appease the anger or court the 

 favour and protection of their "blessed goddess," by 

 libations, sacrifices, and oblations of cakes (colly- 



ridae).+ ^ , 



At that period the endless schisms and heresies 

 that rent asunder the entire fabric of Christianity 

 may be said to have been in their zenith. The Mil- 

 lenarian, with his thousand years of celestial fehcity 



* Sale, Prelim. Diss. sect. i. p. 30. Pococke, p. 136. ^ 

 + " Ferax hereseon Arabia" is the expression of bt. Au- 

 gustine. Hottinger. Hist. Orient, p. 212-231. Olaus Celsius, 

 Hist Lin"-. Arab. Roderic Ximenes (Archbishop of Toiedo), 

 Hist Arab c i. The sins of the Eastern countries, and chiefly 

 their damnable heresies, hastened God's judgments upon them. 

 In these western parts, heresies, lilie an angle, caught single 

 persons, which in Asia, like a drag-net, took whole provinces.— 

 Frdler's Holy Warre, b. i. c. C. Epiphan. de Hares, llh, HI. 

 Eutydi. Annal. 



