Peter's Rock in Mohammed's Flood, from St. Gregory the Great to St. Leo III

Thus the southern wandering of the nations came upon the northern. When it came, three hundred years of such times as St. Jerome saw and described had already spread over the earth, sufferings too great for words, changes, as he says, such as neither Thucydides nor Sallust could express. But the southern wandering was much more rapid in time, and in effect far more complete. The ten years of Omar's chalifate had changed the whole aspect of the world, had shifted the centre of political power. It had been at Constantinople: it was shifted to Medina. From Constantine to Heraclius the empire had taken and enrolled in its armies unnumbered men of Teuton race. Alaric had been a Roman general: Stilicho and Aetius, saviours of Rome. This race had also fed the Church with converts of more stalwart nature than the enfeebled races who needed the infusion of northern blood even to till their fields, as well as to guard their frontiers, or to guide their polity. But the southern wandering gave no soldiers to the empire, and no converts to the Church. There would be no greater contrast than the two races from which these two great movements came. The northern barbarian, with all his wildness, could take the impress of the Church. He had in his woods and marshes, in his transmigrations and encampments, kept, in no small degree, the original tradition of the human race. Already Tacitus had noted his regard for woman as the companion of his life, for the sanctity of marriage, for monogamy, in the practical guarding of which he put to shame the degenerate Roman, and still more corrupted Greek. The heroic courage, natural to him, was an omen of the point which, as Christian martyr, he might reach. The self-government shown in the original habits of the tribe was a soil whereon princes and bishops might sit in council to form governments in which “liberty and empire,” unknown to Byzantine, might dwell together. These qualities were elements of the social, the political, even the ecclesiastical life. Far otherwise was the Saracen type. Savage, rude and ignorant, with no tincture of art or learning: with habits of unlimited polygamy: with leanings to unmitigated despotism: with no regard to human life. In courage only was the southern a match for the northern barbarian. The outcome of his whole character as to the rest was different: and the religion invented for him was but the barest development of his natural temperament.

At the death of Chalif Omar, this new antichristian power had taken from the empire of Heraclius every yard of land formerly under its dominion from Tarsus to Tripoli: and stood in most threatening attitude over against all which remained to it: indeed, to the whole Christian name. Mohammed was its watchword against Christ. The northern wandering had no such counter watchword. It respected Roman laws and customs when it seized on Roman lands. It had understanding enough, not only as shown in its princes, Ataulph and Theodorich, but in a race of officers surpassing not only Roman courage, but Roman fidelity in the civil and military administration, to venerate as unapproachable by any wisdom of its own, the political fabric of which, in so many lands, it confiscated the resources.

But Omar's treatment of Greek learning in the library of Alexandria was the expression of his whole mind towards Christian civilisation. And Omar's powerful hand had not only maimed Byzantium, but absorbed Persia. All this had been done since Heraclius carried back the Cross in triumph to Jerusalem. The Persian had kept it in its shrine during its captivity with the seals untouched. The Saracen scorned all which it represented. The contest of those whom Heraclius would leave in his place was to be with the Saracens, Omar, Osman, and Ali.

After the Chalif Omar was mortally wounded in the mosque at Medina, he at first named Abd Errahman for his successor, who declined the chalifate. Whereupon Omar named six of Mohammed's companions, together with the same Abd Errahman to choose a new chalif. They were engaged during three days in heated contest, since each of the six wished to become the chalif, and were at last induced with great difficulty by Abd Errahman to accept one of their number named by him. Thus Osman, at the age of seventy, was chosen as successor of Omar. His chalifate lasted from November, 644, to June, 656: during the whole of which, eleven years and a-half, the Saracen realm was disturbed by internal struggles. Yet external wars continued. Governors, appointed by Osman, were decried, but they did many successful deeds of arms. In North Africa, the boundaries of the realm were extended on from Tripolis as far as Kairawan. In Persia, a governor, afterwards removed, gained a province. The whole of Persia, which had been overrun rather than subdued under Omar, was finally conquered under Osman. An attempt of the Greeks to recover Alexandria and Egypt succeeded for a moment, but was frustrated by the aid given to the Moslim by the Monophysite Copts. Parts of Armenia and Asia Minor were taken, and the island of Cyprus. The Moslim carried their conquering arms to the Oxus, and slew, in his retreat from a lost battle, the last heir of the kings of Persia.

In 656, the discontents produced by Osman's favour of his own family culminated in an insurrection at Medina, in which the dwelling of the chalif, after a siege of several weeks, was at last broken open, and the third Commander of the Faithful, also, like Ali, a son-in-law of Mohammed, was slain by the eldest son of Abu Bekr, the first chalif. A week after his death, the third chalif, Osman, was succeeded by Ali, the fourth, widower of Mohammed's favourite daughter, Fatima. But the six and a-half years of Ali's chalifate were occupied with a violent struggle between him and Muawiah, cousin of Osman, and governor of Syria. There had ever been enmity between the family of Haschim, from which Mohammed descended, and the family of Abd Schems, from which Osman and Muawiah descended. In the course of the struggle Egypt fell away from Ali to Muawiah; and, in 660, Medina and Mecca paid him homage. Ali's power, then, was seated only in Irak and Persia. Civil war pressed so heavily on Islam that three men resolved to rid it in one day of Ali, Muawiah, and Amrou, as the causers of all the trouble. Ali was to be assassinated in the mosque of Kufa; Muawiah in that of Damascus; Amrou in that of Fostat, to terminate a war carried on, not only in the field, but by mutual imprecations from the pulpit. But of the three, Ali alone was mortally wounded, Muawiah escaped with a light wound, and Amrou's representative was killed instead of him. Ali died, three days after, on the 24th January, 661. He is said to have surpassed not only Muawiah, but Abu Bekr and Omar in abhorrence of all falsehood, in love of justice, in valour and eloquence. In simplicity of life and generosity, Ali resembled his two predecessors: but, like them also, the severity which he practised by no means included moral restraint. He died at sixty-three; after Fatima's death, and, therefore, in the latter half of his life, he contracted six or eight marriages, besides maintaining nineteen slave women, with whom also, after the custom of that time, he lived.

So the second, third, and fourth chalifs – Omar, Osman, and Ali – perished by assassination within seventeen years of each other, in 644, 656, and 661. Let us turn to see what has been doing at Constantinople in these seventeen years. We have already seen how Omar, in his ten years, had built up an empire from the spoils of Byzantium and Persia, which, during the civil wars of his two successors, was yet increased. The seat of its sovereign power was transferred from Medina to Damascus as soon as Muawiah was acknowledged as chalif, in the year 661. But during the four chalifs, from the death of Mohammed in 632 to 660, the immense Mohammedan realm was governed from Medina.

When Heraclius died in 641, he was covered with defeat, and the chief provinces of his empire were, day by day, falling away. He left a son, Constantine, twenty-eight years old, who had been named emperor from his birth: and, by his second marriage with his niece, Martina, a son, Heracleonas, nineteen years old, who had been named emperor two years before, and two younger sons, David and Marinus, named Cæsars, besides two daughters, who, like their mother, had been named expresses. In his will he directed his two sons, Constantine and Heracleonas, to reign together with equal power, and to acknowledge Martina as empress-mother. Constantine III. was not Monothelite, but orthodox. At his accession he received a letter from Pope John IV., maintaining the true doctrine, and also that his predecessor, Honorius, answering a question put to him by the patriarch Sergius, “taught concerning the mystery of the Incarnation, that there were not in Christ, as in us sinners, opposing wills of the mind and the flesh: and for this, certain persons, trusting to their own meaning, threw out the suspicion that he had taught there to be the only one will of the Godhead and the Manhood, which is altogether contrary to the truth”. This the Pope proceeds to prove at length. And he ends by saying that he finds a certain document, contrary to Pope Leo, of blessed memory, and the Council of Chalcedon, has been issued, to which bishops are compelled to subscribe. This was the Ecthesis of Heraclius. And he entreats the new emperor, as guardian of the Christian faith, to command this document to be torn down, and, as a first sacrifice to God, to scatter from His Church every cloud of novelty. So, if he regard the things of God, may the Lord, whose faith is preserved in purity, preserve his empire from the nations trusting in their ferocity.

But the emperor, Constantine III., died 103 days after his father, poisoned, as eastern historians say, by his step-mother, the empress Martina: with which crime they also inculpate the patriarch Pyrrhus. She then reigned with her son, Heracleonas; but not for long. An insurrection deposed her: both she and Heracleonas were maimed and banished, and Constans II., son of Constantine III., and grandson of Heraclius, at twelve years old became emperor, under tutelage of the council. The answer given to the letter of Pope John IV. was that the Ecthesis affixed to the door of churches should be removed.

But the empire was torn to pieces by the strife of the various heresies contending for mastery. The patriarch Pyrrhus, who had succeeded Sergius in the see of Constantinople, and in the patronage of his heresy, found it expedient on the deposition of Martina to leave his see. He appeared in Africa, and had a great controversy with Maximus in the presence of the African episcopate in 645. He acknowledged himself to be defeated: and went to Pope Theodorus at Rome, where he renounced the Monothelite heresy, and was received by the Pope as bishop of the capital. But he returned presently, at the instance of the exarch of Ravenna, to the errors which he had renounced.

In due time the emperor, Constans II., produced the Typus to take the place of his grandfather's Ecthesis. And, when Pope St. Martin held his great Council at Rome in 649, Constans burst into fury, and, as above recorded, afterwards caused the Pope to be kidnapped, to be tried at Constantinople, and to be condemned for high treason; finally, to perish of want in the Crimea.

With Pope St. Martin, Maximus had been the great defender of the faith. It is time to give some record of his life, his labours, and his reward.

Maximus sprung about the year 580 at Constantinople from an old and noble family. There were few of rank superior to his relations. He had great abilities, received an excellent education, and became one of the most learned men in his time, and the ablest theologian. The emperor Heraclius drew him against his wishes to the court, and made him one of his chief secretaries. But, in the year 630, his love for solitude, as well as his observance of the wrong bias which the mind of Heraclius was taking, led him to withdraw from court. He resigned the brilliant position which he occupied, became a monk in the monastery of Chrysopolis, that is, Scutari, and, on the death of its abbot, was chosen unanimously to succeed him. Henceforth to the end of his life, at the age of eighty-two, he became, by word and deed, a champion of the Catholic faith against the Monothelite heresy. In 633, he went with Sophronius, then a simple monk, to Alexandria, and joined him in entreating the patriarch, Cyrus, to desist from promulgating the new heresy. Against this, Sophronius, having become patriarch of Jerusalem, published his synodical letter quoted above. Maximus went on to the west, visiting Rome and Carthage, and rousing the African bishops against the heresy. He showed his great dialectical skill in a contest with Pyrrhus, then the deposed successor of the patriarch Sergius. Pyrrhus even accompanied him to Rome, and renounced the heresy before Pope Theodorus.

Maximus continued at Rome to use all his efforts against the heresy, and counselled Pope Martin to call the Lateran Synod, and formally condemn it. As the Ecthesis of Sergius had been composed against Sophronius, and then the Typus – drawn up by the patriarch Paul, and imposed by the will of the emperor Constans II. – had been substituted for it at Constantinople, the Council of the Lateran which in 649 condemned both, excited the bitterest wrath of the emperor. Three men had especially in his mind counter-worked all his endeavours to impose his will as the standard of faith upon the Romans and the bishops. These three men were Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, who had died shortly after the surrender of his city to Omar, Pope Martin, and the Abbot Maximus. How he avenged himself on the Pope St. Martin has been already described.

About the same time at which the Pope was carried off to Byzantium, in 653, Maximus also was seized, with his two disciples, both named Anastasius, one a monk, the other a Roman priest, who had been a nuncio. They were carried also to Byzantium, and thrown into prison. After the Pope had been judged by the senate, and condemned to death for high treason, Maximus and his disciples were also brought to trial.

Maximus had distinguished himself by a great number of writings. He is considered the greatest theologian of the seventh century. He has kept a very high rank through all the centuries which have followed him. After the death of Sophronius, the intellectual combat against the Monothelite heresy rested mainly upon him. The very high rank which he had held as a minister of Heraclius, conjoined with his scientific defence of the truth, made him the most conspicuous person in the Church after the martyrdom of Pope Martin, whose friend, counsellor, and supporter he had been, and his unbending constancy under the severest tortures has given him among the Greeks the name of “the Confessor.”

Part of a letter is extant from him to a certain Peter, a man of high rank, who had entreated him to meet and resist the patriarch Pyrrhus in the African conference. With regard to him Maximus says: “if Pyrrhus will neither be heretical, nor be so-called, let him not satisfy this or that individual. That is superfluous and unreasonable; for just as when one is scandalised in him all are scandalised, so when one is satisfied all surely will be satisfied. Let him then hasten to satisfy before all the Roman See. When this is satisfied all men everywhere will accept his religion and orthodoxy. In vain he speaks who would gain me and suchlike as me: and does not satisfy and implore the most blessed Pope of the holy Roman Church, that is, the Apostolic See, which has received and holds the government, the authority, and the power of binding and loosing over all the holy Churches of God in the whole earth in all persons and matters from the Incarnate Word of God Himself, and likewise from all holy Councils according to the sacred canons. For with him the Word who rules the celestial virtues, binds and looses in heaven. For if he thinks that others must be satisfied, and does not implore the most Blessed Pope of Rome, he is like the man who is accused of homicide, or any other crime, and maintains his innocence not to him who by law is appointed to judge him, but without any use or gain strives to clear himself to other private men who have no power to absolve him.”

Yet more remarkable, if possible, is another testimony which this great martyr, born and bred at Constantinople, and up to the age of fifty a minister of the eastern emperor, who bears the greatest name among the theologians of the seventh century, has left behind him. It was apparently written at Rome after the completion of the Lateran Council in 649, which he mentions in it, and numbers with the five preceding ecumenical Councils. It runs thus: —

“All the ends of the world, and all therein confessing the Lord with pure and upright faith, gaze stedfastly upon the most holy Church of the Romans, its confession and faith, as upon the sun of eternal light. They expect the brightness which ever lightens from it, in the doctrine of Fathers and Saints, as, guided by a divine wisdom and piety the six Councils have set it forth, drawing out with greater distinctness the Symbol of the Faith. For from the beginning when the Incarnate Word of God descended to us, all churches of Christians everywhere possess and hold as the only basis and foundation that greatest of churches, as against which, according to the promise of the Saviour, the gates of hell never prevail: as which possesses the keys of the right faith and confession of Him: as which discloses the real and only religion to those who approach it religiously, while it shuts up and stops every heretical mouth loudly speaking iniquity. For they are seeking without labour and apart from suffering, O wonderful patience of God which endures it! by two words to pull down what has been established and built up by the Creator and Ruler of all things, our Lord Jesus Christ, by His disciples and apostles, by all the sequence of holy Fathers, Teachers, and Martyrs, who offered themselves up by their words and deeds, their struggles and labours, their toil and blood-sheddings, and lastly, by wondrous deaths, for that Catholic and Apostolic Church of us who believe in Him. They would annul that mystery of right Christian worship with all its greatness, its brightness, and its renown.”

Pope Martin, who held this great Council, at which Maximus was present, supporting the Pope with all his learning, had been seized, as we have seen, in his own city and church, in the year 653, four years after it. At the same time, Maximus, being about 73 years old, was seized at the same place, and deported to Constantinople, and upon his arrival was taken straight from the ship, naked and without sandals, together with his two disciples and companions, and they were put into different prisons by five officers and their attendants. Later, when the proceeding against the Pope had been; closed, Maximus was brought into the palace before the whole senate and a great crowd. He was placed in the middle of the hall, and the fiscal angrily addressed him with the words, “Art thou a Christian?” Maximus replied, “By the grace of God I am”. “That is not true.” “Thou mayest say so, but God knows that I am a Christian.” “And if thou art a Christian, how canst thou hate the emperor?” asked the judge. “But,” replied Maximus, “how is this known to thee? Hatred, like love, is a secret affection of the spirit.” “It is become plain by thy deeds that thou hatest the emperor and his realm, for it is only thou who hast delivered Egypt and Alexandria and the Pentapolis, Tripolis and Africa into the hands of the Saracens.”

These accusations fell to the ground, as the false witnesses brought could not maintain them. But the end of this trial was to condemn Maximus and his two companions to a separate and severe exile.

The Pyrrhus whom Maximus had so far prevailed over in the famous conference held in Africa in 645, that he had renounced his heresy to Pope Theodorus, and been received by him in St. Peter's, who had then fallen back through the influence of the exarch, and been excommunicated, had succeeded in regaining the see of Constantinople, upon the death of Paulus, the author of Typus. After a few months, he had died in the summer of 655. He was followed by Peter, whose synodal letter, sent to Rome to Pope Eugenius, is said to have been so dark on the subject of heresy that the clergy and people would not suffer the Pope to celebrate Mass in the Church of St. Mary until he had promised not to accept this letter.

Later in the summer, Maximus was again brought into the judgement hall of the palace, where the two Monothelite patriarchs – Peter of Constantinople and Macedonius of Antioch, then living in the capital – were present. “Speak the truth,” said Troilus to him, “and the emperor will have mercy on thee, for if one of the accusations be proved juridically against thee, thou wilt be guilty of death.” Maximus declared they were all false; that he had submitted the Typus to anathema, not the emperor. The Lateran Council was asserted to have no force for he who held it has been deposed, “Deposed he was not,” said Maximus, “but expelled.” Maximus and his companion, Anastasius, were sent to different banishments.

A year later, a fresh attempt was made to break down his resolution. Paul and Theodosius, two men of consular rank, and Theodosius, Bishop of Cæsarea, the latter as commissary of the patriarch, Peter, the former two of the emperor, reached the imprisoned confessor on the 24th August, 656. Every effort was made to induce Maximus to accept the Typus, and enter into communion with the see of Constantinople.

The terms which Maximus required were reported to the emperor, and fresh commissaries, the patricians, Troilus and Epiphanius, and the same bishop, Theodosius, sent again to Maximus. “The Lord of the world sends us to thee,” said Troilus, “to inform thee what it pleases him to require. Wilt thou obey his command or not?” Maximus requested that he might hear the command. They required that he should first answer the question. Maximus said, “Before God and Angels, and you all, I promise, what the emperor commands me, in respect of earthly things, I will do”. At length Epiphanius said, “The emperor by us informs thee: since all the West and all the perverse-minded in the East look to thee and make contention because of thee, since they will not submit to us in faith, the emperor wills to move thee that thou enter into communion with us on the basis of the Typus issued by us. We will then personally go out to Chalce, and embrace thee, and offer thee our hand and, lead thee to the cathedral with all honour and pomp, and place thee by our side where the emperors are wont to sit, and we will then partake of the life-giving Body and Blood of Christ, and declare thee again for our father: and there will be great joy not only in our own residence, but in all the world. For we are well assured that if thou enterest into communion with this holy see, all who have divided themselves from our communion on thy account will unite themselves to us again.”

Then Maximus turned to the bishop and said to him with tears: – “My good lord, we are all awaiting the Day of Judgment. You know what we drew out, and agreed upon respecting the holy Gospels, the life-giving Cross, the image of our God and Saviour, and the all-holy ever-virgin Mother who bore Him.” The bishop cast down his eyes, and said to him, in a lower voice: – “What can I do, since the emperor has chosen something else?” Maximus said, “Why did you and those with you touch the holy gospels, when you could not bring about the promised issue? Indeed, the whole power of heaven would not persuade me to do this. For what answer shall I give, I say not to God, but to my own conscience, that for the glory of men, which has in it no substance, I have forsworn the faith which saves those who cling to it.”

At this word they all arose, their fury overmastering them: they pushed and scratched and tore him; they covered him with spittle from his head downwards, so that his clothes reeked, until they were washed. And the bishop, rising, said, this ought not to be done, but his answer only should be heard, and then be reported to our lord. For religious matters are done in different fashion from this. The bishop could scarcely induce them to desist. They took their seats again, and reviled him with indescribable insults, and imprecations. Epiphanius said furiously, “Malefactor and cannibal, speakest thou thus, treating us and our city and our emperor as heretics? We are more Christian and orthodox than thou art. We confess that our Lord and God has both a divine will and a human will, and an intellectual soul, and that every intellectual nature has by nature, Will, and Operation, since motion belongs to life, and will to mind: and we know Him to have the capacity of Will not only in the Godhead, but also in the Manhood. Nor do we deny His Two Wills and Two Operations.”

The abbot, Maximus, answered: – “If you so believe, as the intellectual Natures and the Church of God, why are you compelling me to communicate on the terms of the Typus, which merely destroys those things?” “That,” said Epiphanius, “has been done for accommodation, that the people may not be injured by these subtleties.” Maximus said: – “On the contrary, every man is sanctified by accurate confession of the faith, not by its destruction, as put in the Typus”. “I told thee in the palace,” said Troilus, “that it did not destroy, but bade silence be kept that we may all live in peace.” Maximus answered: – “What is covered in silence is destroyed. The Holy Spirit says by the prophet: – ‘There are no speeches nor languages, where their voices are not heard’: a word not spoken is no word at all.” Troilus said: “Keep in thy heart what thou wilt; no one prevents thee”. Maximus answered, “But God did not limit salvation to the heart when he said: – ‘He that confesseth Me before men, I will confess him before My Father in heaven,’ and the Apostle, ‘With the heart we believe unto justice, but with the mouth confession is made to salvation’. If then God, and God's prophets and apostles bid the great and terrible mystery which saves all the world to be confessed by holy voices, there is no need that the voice which proclaims it be in any way silenced, in order that the salvation of those who are silent be not impaired.”

Then Epiphanius, speaking most harshly, said, “Didst thou sign the writing?” he meant the Lateran Council. Abbot Maximus said, “Yes, I signed”. “And how didst thou dare to sign, and anathematise those who confess and believe as the intellectual Natures and the Catholic Church? In my judgment thou shalt be taken into the city, and be put in chains in the forum, and the actors and actresses, and the women that stand for hire, and all the people shall be brought, that every man and woman may slap thee, and spit in thy face.” Abbot Maximus replied: – “Be it as thou hast said, if we have anathematised those who confess Two Natures of which the Lord is, and the two natural Wills and Operations corresponding to Him who is both God and Man. Read, my Lord, the acts and decree, and if what you have said is found, do all your will. For I, and my fellow-servants, who have subscribed, have anathematised those who, according to Arius and Apollinarius, maintain one Will and Operation, and who do not confess our Lord and God to be intellectual in each of those Natures of which, in which, and which He is: and, therefore, in both of them having Will and Operation of our salvation.”

They said, “If we go on treating with this man, we shall neither eat nor drink. Let us go, and take food, and report what we have heard. For this man has sold himself to the devil. They went in and dined, and made their report, it being the eve of the Exaltation of the life-giving Cross in the year 656.”

The next day, Theodosius, the Consul, came out early to the aforesaid Abbot Maximus, and took away all that he had, and said, in the emperor's name: – “Since thou wilt not have honour, it shall be far from thee. Go to the place thou hast thought thyself worthy of, suffering the judgment of thy disciples, him at Mesembria, and him at Perberi.” The patricians Troilus and Epiphanius had said: – “We will bring the two disciples, him at Mesembria, and him at Perberi, and put them, too, to the proof, and see the result. But learn, Sir Abbot, that, when we get a little relief from this rout of heathens (that is, the Saracens), by the Holy Trinity, we will bring you to terms, and your Pope, who is now lifted up, and all the talkers there, and the rest of your disciples: and we will cook you all, each in his own place, as Martin has been cooked”. And the Consul Theodosius took him and committed him to soldiers, and they took him to Perberis. It is not known how long what is called the second exile of St. Maximus lasted, which ensued after he had thus resisted the offers of the emperor.

At a later time, he was brought from Perberis, with his disciple, Anastasius, back to Constantinople. A Synod, there held, excommunicated them both, as well as Pope St. Martin, St. Sophronius, and all the orthodox. The second Anastasius, who had been a Nuncio, was also brought, and the Synod passed on all three the sentence: – “As the Synod has passed against you its canonical sentence, it only remains that you be subject to the severity of the civil laws for your impiety. And though no punishment could be proportionate to your crimes, we, leaving you to the just Judge in respect of the greater punishment, grant you the indulgence of the present life, modifying the strict severity of the laws. We order that you be delivered to the prefect, and by him taken to the guard: that you be then scourged; that in you, Maximus and Anastasius, and Anastasius, the instrument of your iniquity, the blaspheming tongue be cut out to the roots, and then your right hand, which has served your blaspheming mind, be cut off: that thus deprived of these execrable members, you be carried through the twelve quarters of this imperial city, and then be delivered to perpetual banishment and prison, to lament for the remainder of your errors.”

This sentence was carried out by the prefect. St. Maximus was then transported to Lazika, in Colchis: the other two to different castles. As Maximus, from weakness, could neither ride nor bear a carriage, he was borne on a sort of bed made of branches to the Castle of Schemarum. St. Maximus foretold the day of his death, which took place on the 13th August, 662, when he was eighty-two years old. At that moment the chalif Muawiah had about completed the first year in which he had fixed the seat of the Saracenic empire at Damascus: and the “rout of heathen” from which the Byzantine Consul had anticipated deliverance, held in peril during the whole of Muawiah's reign to 680 the imperial city on the Bosphorous, where “the lord of the world” usually resided.

Chapter IV. Christendom And Islam

We are now come to the greatest of contrasts and oppositions in human history – to the Church of Christ, the foundress of nations, and to Islam, her counterfeit and opponent; to the law which went forth from Jerusalem and struck its perpetual root in Rome, and to the force which went forth from Mecca, tarried for a while in Damascus and Bagdad, and then encamped in the city of Constantine. Two reigns which never have ceased and never can cease to counterwork each other, the reign of the Word and the reign of the Sword.

In the twenty-eight years which run from a. d. 632 to 661 of the four chalifs, Abu Bekr, Omar, Osman, and Ali, the sword has severed from the throne of Constantine its fairest provinces, and conquered besides a territory, the whole mass of which exceeded the Roman empire at its greatest extension. The sword of Mohammed's successors in doing this has inflicted deadly wounds on the Christian patriarchates and dioceses subjected to the new dominion. It has also reduced the unsubdued portion of the eastern empire to tremble for its future existence: it has made the whole West, already in possession of the Teuton family of races, gather itself together, and prepare for a death struggle with the advancing enemy.

It is necessary to consider in his personal life the man who gives name to this immense movement, who raised the banner which flouted the Cross and wrote upon that banner the symbol of human enjoyment against that of divine abasement. The facts of his life which I wish to note are especially those which are reproduced in his religion. They pass beyond the sphere of the individual because they reappear incessantly in the history of twelve hundred and fifty years, and affect nations of the south and east which dwell from the Atlantic Ocean to the extremities of China.

Mohammed was born in April, 571, in the city of Mecca, of a family possessing spiritual rank in that home of ancient pilgrimages for the Arabian tribes. But the branch to which he belonged was poor. His father, Abdallah, died about the time of his birth. His mother, Aminah, born in Medina, was so poor that she could scarcely support a nurse for him. His mother died when he was six years old. His grandfather then took care of him, but died also after two years. From that time his uncle, Abu Talib, provided for him, but was so poor likewise that the orphan child was presently reduced to tend sheep, whereas the rich class at Mecca was largely engaged in traffic with their caravans, which visited Abyssinia, Southern Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and Persia. Mohammed is said in his youth to have twice visited Syria, probably as a camel driver. But it is said with greater certainty that at twenty-five he entered the service of a rich widow, Chadidja, and journeyed for her in South Arabia. He afterwards married her, and then for the first time became sufficiently rich to turn the thoughts which slumbered within him to higher subjects than procuring his daily bread.

His marriage with Chadidja lasted till he was fifty years of age, when he lost her and at the same time his uncle Abu Talib. During the whole period of his marriage with Chadidja, who was much older than himself, he lived in close union with her – what seems to have been, at least in regard to this relationship – a virtuous and religious life. Mohammed's education had been much neglected. His country at the time was in a most uncivilised condition, destitute of science, arts, and letters. Bardship alone was in repute, and for this Mohammed had no gift, though he had a great gift of oratory. The art of writing was little diffused; it is doubtful whether Mohammed even in his later years possessed it. He was acquainted with Jewish and Christian doctrines only by oral information. The great authority of St. John of Damascus says that he lighted upon the Old and New Testaments by conferences with an Arian monk, and thus drew up his own religion. He was about forty years of age when he began to carry out a design to restore what he thought the religion of Abraham, and to destroy the idolatry into which his countrymen had fallen. He met with small success and much opposition in this attempt until in the eleventh year of the mission which he claimed as prophet, and the fifty-first of his life, a most marked change in his personal conduct and in the conditions of his life took place.

The chief men at Mecca had generally refused to receive him as a prophet and to accept the reformation of religion which he proposed to them. In his first years he had confined his revelations to his nearest relations and friends. He had gained Abu Bekr and his young cousin Ali, an uncle Hamza, named for his valour “the Lion of God,” and above all, Omar, at first his opponent, but when converted the most energetic character among all the companions of the prophet, and the strongest support of Islam. On the whole, however, things had gone so far against him that he retired secretly, together with Abu Bekr, from Mecca to Medina. This event, termed The Flight, took place in September, 622, from which year his followers count their time. It may be taken as indeed the time in which his full character as prophet came forth to light. Henceforth he appeared rather as the preacher of a new religion than as the restorer of what he called the religion of Abraham.

The most important principle laid down by him from the time of his migration from Mecca to Medina was that he then first permitted in the name of God war against unbelievers. He afterwards made this a holy duty. It was considered the first of virtues to fight the enemies of Islam. To those who fell in such a battle he promised the highest joys of paradise; to those who rejected him he threatened a shameful death by the disposition of God.

Upon his first settlement in Medina, which afterwards changed its original name of Jathripp into this new name, signifying the city, he built a mosque and arranged worship, in which a short prayer was offered five times a day. He sought at first to gain over the Jews residing there, and marked Jerusalem as the Kiblah, that is, the point to which the face should be turned in prayer, and the tenth day of the first month as a fast day, and allowed Jewish converts to keep the Sabbath. But when he found that the Jews would receive a Messias only of the race of David he became their bitterest enemy. Later he appointed Mecca instead of Jerusalem as the Kiblah, the month Ramadhan as fasting time, and Friday as the day of rest.

His first campaigns, when he could scarcely bring a few hundred men into the field, for the inhabitants of Medina had not yet joined him, but had only granted him protection, were but predatory attacks on the caravans of Mecca, which came near Medina. But when the Meccans grew prudent, and either defended their caravans with a strong escort, or sent them round by bye-paths to Syria, Mohammed planned a plundering attack in one of the holy months, when every Arab deemed himself secure. This is the beginning of a number of actions which, though he was not endued with a delicate moral sense, he must have known to be bad, and only ordered, or at least approved, for the sake of the end aimed at, chastisement of the heathen, and breaking in upon their commerce. What Mohammed did was to call his follower Abdallah, to give him a sealed packet, and instruct him to go to South Arabia with twelve companions. He was not to open the packet before the third day, and then fulfil the order it contained. Abdallah obeyed, broke the seal on the third day, and found only the words: Go with thy companions to the valley of Nachlah (south-east of Mecca), and there wait for the caravans of Mecca. Words which Abdallah interpreted to mean that he should fall upon these caravans. This he accomplished without difficulty. Two men were taken prisoners, one killed, and the whole lading carried as plunder to Medina. Mohammed had plainly used this short and sealed packet to cut off all explanation with Abdallah respecting an act of rapine in the sacred months, so as to be able to put away the responsibility from himself, as might be needed. Even the Moslim at Medina had but one cry of reprobation over this desecration of the sacred months. Mohammed at first disavowed Abdallah as having gone beyond his command, for he had not told him to attack the caravans in the sacred months. But when he found himself considered no less the author of this deed, and as he did not mean for the future to secure to Mecca four tranquil mouths for its commerce, Koran verses were published in which war against unbelievers was excused at every time, because they committed the much greater sin of driving the prophet out of his country.

The attempt to exculpate Mohammed from the guilt of the blood murderously shed in falling upon this caravan is made the more difficult because his biographers speak of many other murders ordered by him even in the case of women, and extol him for such things. It may be noted that in the last time before his flight he was no longer true and sincere. Thus he recorded the whole history of the Old and New Testament prophets, adorned with many Jewish and Christian legends, which he maintained, as was his wont, to have been revealed to him by the angel Gabriel. This did not impose upon the inhabitants of Mecca, who were right in ascribing his knowledge of these things to intercourse with foreign informants less illiterate than himself.

The first proper fight between Mohammed and the Meccans took place in the second year of the Hegira at Bedr, a station between Medina and Mecca. Mohammed had gone out with somewhat more than 300 men to surprise and plunder certain rich caravans on their return from Syria. Abu Sofian, the head of the Omeiad line, led these caravans, and had notice of Mohammed's purpose. He sent an express to Mecca inviting his townsmen to despatch an armed escort to defend their property. Before these, 900 strong, arrived, Abu Sofian, knowing that Mohammed lay in wait for him at Bedr, succeeded in passing round this place by directing his caravans in security along the coast road. When news that their goods were safe reached the Meccan camp, a portion of the escort, which had taken arms only through fear of losing their property, wished to return. The rest, bitter enemies of Mohammed, and also fighting men, preferred to advance upon Bedr. This was resolved upon, but many in the force persisted in returning to Mecca. The same hesitation prevailed in the prophet's camp: which had come out intending to plunder, not for a fight with an enemy still continuing to be in number. But yet greater was the fear of showing cowardice, and so striking the new faith with the hardest blow. So they came to a bloody conflict, in which the disciplined Medinese prevailed over the Meccans whom their commercial habits had partly enfeebled. They carried off rich plunder. Mohammed did not himself fight: he was praying in a hut until he sank exhausted, and when he recovered consciousness, announced a victory to his friends obtained by the aid of celestial warriors. This first deed of arms laid the basis for a rapid increase of Mohammedanism. It gave the poor community spoil in arms, in horses, and in camels, and in no little ransom for the prisoners taken. It strengthened their confidence, increased their following, and encouraged them to further enterprise. The Jewish tribe Keinuka was their first prey. It was compelled to unconditional surrender, and would probably have been entirely massacred if a free retreat had not been obtained for it by Abd Allah, the head of an Arabian clan dwelling in Medina, with whom these Jews had been in former alliance. But all their goods went to the Moslem. At this time occur many slayings of particularly hated or dangerous enemies of Islam. So Mohammed inflicted a great terror which reduced to silence individual opponents, and carried waverers into the bosom of Islam, which promised them security.

But, in the meantime, the Meccans were not idle. Both interest and honour required them to avenge the defeat at Bedr. Abu Sofian, in the year 625, the third of the Hegira, appeared at the head of 3000 men, and occupied a camp to the east of Medina. Mohammed wished to confine himself to the defence of the city, but his more fanatic followers denounced this conduct as cowardice, and he was compelled to march out with about a thousand men, of whom nearly a third were commanded by Abd Allah: This man, a secret enemy of Mohammed, returned back into the city. The Moslim, however, in spite of their small number, fought with effect at Mount Ohod, north of Medina, until the bowmen, who were ranged against the enemy's horsemen, deserted their post, and the impetuous Chalid fell upon their retreat. A panic seized the believers, so that they sought safety in flight. Mohammed himself was wounded, and sank to the ground, so that a report of his death was spread, which added to the discomfiture of his host. But a faithful henchman recognised him by the eyes alone, in spite of mail-coat, helmet, and visor, and brought him to safety, while the Meccans, believing his death, cared not to pursue the other fugitives, and were retiring. Only after the battle was ended, Abu Sofian learnt that he was still alive. Mohammed, the day after the battle, in which he lost 70 men, pursued the enemy for some distance, only to show that he was not discouraged. The defeat at Ohod lessened Mohammed's reputation as much as the victory at Bedr had raised it. The only considerable gain which Mohammed, in the fourth year of the Hegira, could offer to his believers to make up for the losses suffered, was the expulsion of the Jews of the clan Nadir, who had lands and many strong castles near Medina. They surrendered these, and as there had been no battle, Mohammed confiscated their property, and bestowed it on his party of fugitives from Mecca. At the end of this year he appeared near Bedr with a larger force, to show that he was not afraid to defy Abu Sofian, who had threatened a fresh attack after the battle at Ohod. But the Meccans were not ready, and, moreover, would not fight on a bad year. Towards the end of the fifth year, in 627, they appeared again under Abu Sofian, about ten thousand strong, with their allies, out of various Bedouin clans before Medina. The Medinese could hardly set 3000 men against them, and were, in general, down-hearted, fearing an attack besides from the Jewish clan, Kureiza. This time Mohammed maintained his plan not to meet the enemy in the open field, but only to defend the town. By the advice of a Persian he drew a broad trench about it. Slight as this defence was, it sufficed, in the Arab ignorance of the art of siege, to keep the enemy from an attack in force. Bad weather ensued, and Mohammed succeeded in sowing distrust of each other among the confederates, so that they retired after doing nothing. But, though the siege of Medina had cost Mohammed little material loss, his reputation as warrior and as prophet had suffered greatly, as at Ohod. Instead of following the Arabian custom, to offer battle, he had cowered behind walls and trenches. Again he turned first against the Jews, who had entered into negotiations with the Meccans. After a few weeks, he compelled them to surrender. These were of the clan Kureiza, formerly confederates with the second large Arabian clan domiciled in Medina. They hoped, through the mediation of this clan, to get as good conditions as the clan Keinuka had obtained through Abd Allah. But the head of this clan had been wounded during the siege of the city, and when Mohammed appealed to his judgment, he condemned to death the men whose number ran from 600 to 900, and their wives and children to slavery. Mohammed had this hard sentence executed immediately in the marketplace of Medina. This expedition was followed by others against hostile Bedouin clans. Thus the bad impression left by the siege was gradually effaced. So at the end of the sixth year of the Hegira, 628, Mohammed was able to resolve, at the head of his friends, as well believers as heathen Arabs in alliance with him, on a pilgrimage to Mecca. He issued a solemn invitation to join this pilgrimage. It met with small acceptance. He had issued it in the name of God, and so was obliged to carry it out, though it was attended by an inconsiderable number, as to which the accounts vary between 700 and 1400 men. He had to trust to the Arab reluctance to shed blood in the sacred months, though he had himself violated one sacred month by murder and robbery. Finding the Meccans resolute to forbid him entrance into their city, he had to halt on the border of the holy territory. After long treating, agreement was made that he should retire for that year, but should be allowed in the following year to pass three days in Mecca on pilgrimage. The Meccans, for the sake of their commerce, were as anxious for peace as Mohammed, and so a truce for ten years was struck, which yet had this favourable condition for them, that, while their fugitives were to be given up, those of Mohammed might be secure in Mecca.

This repulse of the prophet and his companions from the holy city and its temple was deeply felt, yet there were advantages obtained by this seemingly dishonouring truce. Mohammed appeared at least to be recognised by the proud city as an equal power. Now he might send out his missionaries into every part of Arabia, make proselytes and conclude alliances, and the right to enter Mecca the next year with those who believed in him was something gained which perceptibly advanced his claim among the Arabians. To increase his strength, enrich his followers, and so enlarge their numbers and efface by a new victory the bad impression which the failure of the pilgrimage had caused, he attacked the Jews of Cheiber, who had lands and several castles four or five days' journey north-east of Medina. These were successively stormed and sacked, and all that the rest could do was to surrender to the conqueror on condition that they should serve him for the future as tenants who should give him half the produce of the land. So by the conquest of other Jews he was able to increase the number of his troops.

In the year 628-629 which passed between the failure of the pilgrimage to Mecca, and the subsequent pilgrimage carried out according to the treaty, several attacks on the Bedouins took place. The number of his believers and allies increased, and the thought was more and more developed in Mohammed that Islam must by degrees be accepted as the only true religion not only by all Arabians but by all the nations of the earth. Even before he had obtained possession of Mecca he sent messengers to the neighbouring princes of Persia, Byzantium, and Abyssinia, as well as to the Christian governor of Egypt, and to several Arabian chiefs subject to Byzantine or Persian sovereignty, inviting them to be converted to his faith. These embassies had no result, and were rejected with more or less harshness. Only the Greek governor of Egypt gave them a friendly reception, and without being converted to Islam sent the prophet costly presents, among them two slave women, of whom one, Mariam, so greatly charmed Mohammed that for her company he neglected his wives.

For the man who had been faithful to his old wife Chadidja until her death, when he was past fifty years of age, had from the time that he came forward, not merely as the restorer of a primitive religion which had suffered corruptions, but as the herald of a new religion, say from the date of the Hegira itself, espoused about a dozen wives, some for love and some for policy, to make alliance with families of repute. Among these was Aischa, daughter of Abu Bekr, whom he took when scarcely out of her childhood, a daughter of Omar, and a sister of Abd Allah, who had been disgraced by the violation of a sacred month. The Koran limits the number of lawful wives to four, but Mohammed himself was to be an exception. At the time polygamy in Arabia had no restriction, and as public opinion was not shocked, his wives had to submit. But when Mariam, the Abyssinian slave, assumed the position of a dangerous rival, they complained to their families, and showed their contempt to the faithless husband. He promised to quit the favoured slave, but he dwelt with her for a month apart from his wives and then produced verses of the Koran, dispensing him from his promise respecting Mariam, and threatening his wives that if they continued in their disobedience he would take instead of them more submissive wives and virgins.

But a more important incident in the domestic life of Mohammed was to occur, which showed how entirely he was led away by sensual passion. He had fallen in love with Zeineb, the wife of Zeid, formerly his slave, then his adopted son, and one of the most attached among his followers. Zeid perceived this and was willing to cede her to the man who was not only his prophet but his benefactor. The prophet took her, and added her to the number of his wives. But the Arabians, though they practised unlimited polygamy, did not allow to marry the wife of an adopted son, whom they considered in the light of a real son. Mohammed felt the scandal, and produced a passage from the Koran. In it he declared in the name of God the custom hitherto entertained of treating adopted children as really children to be foolish, and for the future even sinful. Then he spread the belief that Zeid's divorce from his wife had taken place against his own advice; he makes God remind him in a following verse how notwithstanding his own love for her he had counselled Zeid to keep her; and how even after the divorce, he had shrunk, through fear of men, from espousing her until God had expressly commanded it, and this for two reasons, first, to shew that he who acts after the will of God should not heed the tattle of men; and secondly to give by his own example the more force to the newly-enacted law in regard of adopted sons; a law, he added, which earlier prophets, whom he takes care not to name, had promulgated.

But this marriage also led to further revelations in the Koran, which entirely severed the wives of Mohammed from the male world: and also separated the other believing women by a thick veil from the eyes of strangers. Mohammed's jealousy stretched even beyond the grave, and he forbade second marriage to his wives even after his death. The object was to restrict them from all life in public to their own homes, and even there, to intercourse with their own sex, or only their nearest male relations. In spite of their polygamy, the wife had hitherto among the Arabians been the companion of their life: Mohammed reduced her to be a house-slave. She became in Islam a holy thing, indeed: but a holy thing kept under veil and bolt, and guarded not by her own virtue, but by eunuchs, from desecration.