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

1 6 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
the enemies of the Byzantine
Court as deliverers."
1
The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint
:
such might almost be the language applied to Chris
tendom at this time. The Emperor Heraclius, but
lately the conqueror of Chosroes, the deliverer from
the Persian yoke of Syria and Egypt, was wasting
away through sickness, and constrained to look on
and see these provinces again lost to the empire.
Among his subjects there was the spectacle
of "sect
opposed to sect, clergy wrangling with clergy, upon
the most abstruse and metaphysical points of
doctrine."
Beyond this, there was all the advantage, on one
side, of the enthusiasm which novelty alone will some
times inspire. The religion of Mahomet was a new
thing upon the earth. And there was the far more
potent and enduring enthusiasm which is born of
conviction the decision of action arising from fresh
"
and sharply-cut impressions. The soldier who saw
hell with its fires blazing behind him if he fled, para
dise opening before him if he fell,"
2
would be hard to
beat. And indeed it was not till Christendom had
learnt this lesson, and the counter-enthusiasm of the
Crusades was aroused, that the tide of Mahometan
conquest was seriously checked.
What has been said may lessen the surprise that
any reader might feel at observing, for the first time,
the suddenness of the growth of Islam. Within
thirteen years from the Hegira, within three years
1
Robertson, p. 41. See also Milman, "Latin Christianity,"
1854, ii., p. 46.
*
Milman, ib., p. 38.