st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul

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4 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
magnificence. At present the street, instead of the
lordly proportions which once called forth the
stranger s admiration, has been contracted by suc
cessive encroachments into a narrow passage, more
resembling a by-lane than the principal avenue of a
1
noble city."
From the time of St. Paul onwards it continued
under the dominion of Rome till its capture by the
Saracens in A.D. 634. The incidents of that capture
may be more properly noticed when we come to
speak of the Mahometan rule in Syria. Its sub
after the seat of Mahometan rule
sequent fortunes,
had been transferred to Bagdad, in 763, may be very
briefly related. After being unsuccessfully besieged
by the Crusaders in 1148, it was taken by Tamerlane
in 1400, and destroyed by
fire the following year. In
1516 it fell into the hands of the Turks, who retained
possession of it till 1832, when it was captured by
Ibrahim Pacha. 2 The greater indulgence shown to
Christians from that date excited the bitter animosity
of the Mahometan population, who have the reputa
tion of being the greatest fanatics in the East. The
steady advance of the Christian community in wealth
and numbers during the last thirty years," says a
writer in i868, 3 "has tended to excite their bitter
1
Lewin s "Life and Epistles of St. Paul (1875), i., p. 69,
where a view of Damascus, looking south-east, is given, taken
from a photograph.
Art. "Damascus" in McCulloch s "Geographical Dic
tionary."
3
In the
Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature," by McClintock
and Strong, New York, 1868, vol. i. A striking account