his disciples. As to the rule of St. Columban it became by degrees amalgamated with that of St. Benedict, and the two rules together became the rule of all the monks of the West. The Benedictines of France call St. Columban, in their breviary, one of the chief patriarchs of the monastic life.

CHAPTER IV.

MAHOMETANISM AND MONOTHELISM (622-711).

Three Divisions: Mahometanism.-Monothelism.-The Saints.

§ 1-MAHOMETANISM (622).

Mahomet.

AT the time when the barbarian invasions were over in the West, and Christianity had penetrated amongst those nations who were not even within the limits of the Roman Empire, the devil wished to have an empire over which he was to be sole master, and God permitted him to succeed, in order to chastise the Christians who were untrue to their faith. As heresies and schisms had great success in the Eastern Church, so in the West also did God allow him to execute the projects of destruction which he meditated. Mahomet was the instrument whom the spirit of lies made use of, in order to strike religion with the most deadly wound that it had as yet ever received.

The Hegira (622).

This extraordinary man Mahomet was descended from Ismael, son of Abraham; he was born at Mecca, of a pagan father and a jewish mother. He had reached the age of forty years when he began to call himself a pro

phet, and say publicly that he was the messenger of God. His fellow citizens, who knew him for a debauchee, did not believe in his pretended mission, and wished to arrest him. Mahomet fled, and retired to Medina with some partisans, who assisted him to take possession of this town. From the time of this flight, the Mussulman era dates, which is called hegira, or the flight (622). The religion that he preached was a frightful mixture of Judaism, of Christianity, and of paganism. As this imposter did not know how to read or write, he made an apostate monk write out his doctrine, and he gave to the book which contained it the name of Koran, which means the book of books. He was subject to epileptic fits, which he passed off for ecstasies brought on by the visits of the Angel Gabriel. When he was asked for miracles as a proof of his mission, he said that he was not sent to work miracles, but to spread religion with the sword. In fact a troop of fugitive soldiers and thieves joined him, and he began to pillage the caravans; then marching upon Mecca he took it. After that he subjected the different countries of Arabia, forcing the people to embrace his new religion. His successors continued his conquests, and spread themselves like a torrent in Asia and Africa, where they did irreparable evils to Christianity.*

The Emperor Heraclius (612-641).

The emperor who reigned at Constantinople when Mahomet appeared was Heraclius, who had just experienced some bloody defeats in fighting against the King

The history of Mahomet and his successors belongs to universal history; in our "Course of Universal History" these details will be found.

of Persia, Chosroes. The Persians had conquered Syria and Palestine; Jerusalem had been carried by assault: eighty thousand Christians had had their throats cut, and the true Cross had fallen into the power of the infidels, and was transported to Persia in 614. These misfortunes threw the whole of the East into consternation. Heraclius, not being in a condition to resist, sued for peace; but Chosroes, inflated by his victories, wished to exact apostasy from the emperor and his subjects: "I shall not cease," said he, "to make war on the Romans, until, having renounced the crucified, they "adore the sun, my father, the god of the Persians." This last insolence roused Heraclius from his lethargy. In 622 he put himself at the head of his troops, swore to fight until death for the glory of religion and of the empire, and in a succession of campaigns he caused the Persians to suffer all the miseries that they had inflicted on the Greeks. Chosroes, being gradually vanquished, fell sick, and Siroes, his son, whom he wished to disinherit for the benefit of his other children, revolted against him, made him a prisoner, and treated him as Chosroes had treated his own father, Homisdas, whom he had put to death. He shut him up in a dungeon that the tyrant had had made wherein to hide his treasures, and forbade any food to be given to him. "Let "him be nourished," said the parricide, "with the gold "that is piled up all around him." The favourite son of Chosroes, and his brothers, had their throats cut under their father's eyes, who, worn out by hunger, grief, and rage, sighed for death, which was slow in coming. At last Siroes had him shot with arrows, and thus perished this enemy of the Christians, who wished to replace the worship of Jesus Christ by that of the

sun.

The parricide was not in a condition to resist Heraclius; he obtained peace by restoring the true Cross and the

places that had been wrested from the empire, and by giving liberty to the Roman subjects, made prisoners by Chosroes. Heraclius entered Constantinople sitting in his triumphal car, drawn by four elephants, and preceded by the true Cross, which was the most glorious trophy of his victories. He soon tore himself away from the acclamations of his subjects, in order to carry back to Jerusalem the Cross of our Saviour. In his own triumphant hands, and in all the apparel of the imperial majesty, he wished to carry this sacred burden to the summit of Calvary, following the route that the Son of God had traced with his precious blood; but when he arrived at the foot of the sacred mount, an invisible force arrested him, and he could not climb it, until he had put aside his purple and his crown. The Cross still reposed in its rich shrine, the seals of which remained intact. The patriarch of Jerusalem showed it to the people, who shed tears of joy, and the memory of this great event was consecrated in the Church by the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (14th Sept., 629). How happy Heraclius would have been, says an historian, if this journey had only been the last of his reign! but he survived a long time, during which he disturbed the Empire by embracing the errors of the Monothelites, and was witness of new and irreparable disasters.

Progress of Mahometanism.

The successors of Mahomet, under the name of Caliphs, or vicars, soon carried Islamism to distant parts.' Omar II., successor of the false prophet, took possession

Name given to Mahometanism from the word Islam, which means an absolute resignation to the will of God; from this word comes that of Moslims, devoted to God, from which we have taken the word Mussulman, the same as Mahometan.