The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) π
The Egyptians were islanders, cut off from the rest of the world by sand and sea. They were rooted in their valley; they lived entirely upon its fruits, and happily these fruits sometimes failed. Had they always been able to obtain enough to eat, they would have remained always in the semi-savage state.
It may appear strange that Egypt should have suffered from famine, for there was no country in the ancient world where food was so abundant and so cheap. Not only did the land produce enormous crops of corn; the ditches and hollows which were filled by the overflowing Nile supplied a harvest of wholesome and nourishing aquatic plants, and on the borders of the des
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was convened at Nicaea to consult the Holy Ghost. The chair was taken
by a man who wore a wig of many colours and a silken robe embroidered
with golden thread. This was Constantine the great, patron of
Christianity, Nero of the Bosphorus, murderer of his wife and son. The
discussion was noisy and abusive, and the Arians lost the day. Yet the
matter did not end there. Constantius took up the Arian side. Arian
missionaries converted the Vandals and the Goths. Other emperors took
up the Catholics, and they converted the Franks. The court was divided
by spiritual eunuchs and theological intrigues: the provinces were laid
waste by theological wars which lasted three hundred years. What a
world of woe and desolation, what a deluge of blood, because the Greeks
had a taste for metaphysics!
The Arian difference did not stand alone; every province had its own
schism. Caste sympathy induced the emperors to protect the pagan
aristocracy from the fury of the bishops, but the heretics belonged chiefly
to the subject nationalities. The Nestorians were men of the Semitic race,
the Jacobites were Egyptians, the Donatists were Berbers. Of such a
nature was the treatment which these people received that they were
ready at any time to join the enemies of the empire, whoever they might
be. Difference of nationality occasioned difference in mode of thought.
Difference in mode of thought occasioned difference in religious creed.
Difference in religious creed occasioned controversy, riots and
persecution. Persecution intensified distinctions of nationality. Such
then was the state of religion in the Grecian world. In the West the
Church, overwhelmed by the barbarians, was displaying virtues in
adversity, and was laying the foundations of a majestic kingdom. But as
for the East, Christianity had lived in vain. In Constantinople and in
Greece it had done no good. In Asia, Barbary, and Egypt it had done
harm. Its peace was apathy: its activity was war. Instead of healing the
old wounds of conquest it opened them afresh. It was not enough that the
peasants of the ancient race, once masters of the soil, should be crushed
with taxes; a new instrument of torture was invented; their priests were
taken from them; their altars were overthrown. But the day of vengeance
was at hand. Soon they would enjoy, under rulers of a different religion
but of the same race, that freedom of conscience which a Christian
government refused.
The Byzantine empire in the seventh century included Greece and the
islands, with a part of Italy. In Asia and Africa its possessions were those
of the Turkish Empire before the cession of Algiers. There was a Greek
viceroy of Egypt: there were Greek governors in Egypt and Asia Minor,
Carthage, and Cyrene. The capital was fed with Egyptian corn and
enriched by silken manufacturesβfor two Nestorian monks had brought
the eggs of the silkworm from China in hollow canes. These eggs had
been hatched under lukewarm dung, and the culture of the cocoon had
been established for the first time on European soil. The eastern
boundary of the empire was sometimes the Tigris, sometimes the
Euphrates; the land of Mesopotamia, which lay between the rivers, was
the subject of continual war between the Byzantines and the Persians.
Alexander the Great had not been long dead before the Parthians, a race
of hardy mountaineers, occupied the lands to the east of the Euphrates,
made themselves famous in their wars with Rome, and established a wide
empire. In the third century it was broken up into petty principalities, and
a private citizen who claimed to be heir-at-law of the old Persian kings
headed a party, seized the crown, restored the Zoroastrian religion, and
raised the empire to a state of power and magnificence scarcely inferior to
that of the Great Kings. But the Greeks were still in Asia Minor and
Egypt, and it became the hereditary ambition of the Persians to drive
them back into their own country. In the seventh century Chosroes the
Second accomplished this idea, and restored the frontiers of Cambyses
and the first Darius. He conquered Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. He
carried his arms to Cryene, and extinguished the last glimmer of culture
in that ancient colony. Heraclius, the Byzantine emperor, was in despair.
While the Persians overran his provinces in Asia a horde or Cossacks
threatened him in Europe. Constantinople, he feared, would soon be
surrounded, and it already suffered famine from the loss of Egypt, as
Rome had formerly suffered when the Vandals plundered it of Africa. He
determined to migrate to Carthage, and had already prepared to depart
when the Patriarch persuaded him to change his mind. He obtained peace
from Persia by sending earth and water in the old style, and by promising
to pay as tribute a thousand talents of gold, a thousand talents of silver, a
thousand silk robes, a thousand horses, and a thousand virgins. But
instead of collecting these commodities he collected an army, and
suddenly dashed into the heart of Persia. Chosroes recalled his troops
from the newly conquered lands, but was defeated by the Greeks, and was
in his turn compelled to sue for ignominious peace. In the midst of the
triumphs which Heraclius celebrated at Constantinople and Jerusalem, an
obscure town on the confines of Syria was pillaged by a band of Arab
horsemen, who cut in pieces some troops which advanced to its relief.
This appeared a trifling event, but it was the beginning of a mighty
revolution. In the last eight years of his reign Heraclius lost to the
Saracens the provinces which he had recovered from the Persians.
The peninsula of Arabia is almost as large as Hindustan, but does not
contain a single navigable river. It is for the most part a sterile tableland
furrowed by channels which in winter roar with violent and muddy
streams, and which in summer are completely dry. In these stream-beds
at a little depth below the surface there is sometimes a stratum of water
which, breaking out here and there into springs, creates a habitable island
in the waste. Such a fruitful wadi or oasis is sometimes extensive enough
to form a town, and each town is in itself a kingdom. This stony, green-spotted land was divided into Arabia Petraea on the north and Arabia
Deserta on the south. The north supplied Constantinople, and the south
supplied Persia, with mercenary troops; the leaders, on receiving their
pay, established courts at home, and rendered homage to their imperial
masters. The princes of Arabia Deserta ruled in the name of the
Chosroes. The princes of Arabia Petraea were proud to be called the
lieutenants of the Caesars.
In the south-west corner of the peninsula there is a range of hills
sufficiently high to intercept the passing clouds and rain them down as
streams to the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. This was the land of
Yemen or Sabaea, renowned for its groves of frankincense and for the
wealth of its merchant kings. Its forests in ancient times were inhabited
by squalid negro tribes who lived on platforms in the trees, and whose
savage stupor was ascribed to the drowsy influence of the scented air.
The country was afterwards colonised by men of the Arab race who built
ships and established factories on the east coast of Africa, on the coast of
Malabar, and in the island of Ceylon. They did not navigate the Red Sea,
but dispatched the Indian goods, the African ivory and gold dust, and
their own fragrant produce by camel caravan to Egypt or to Petra, a great
market city in the north.
The Pharaohs and the Persian kings did not interfere with the merchant
princes of Yemen. In the days of the Ptolemies a few Greek ships made
the Indian voyage, but could not compete with the Arabs who had so long
been established in the trade. But the Roman occupation of Alexandria
ruined them completely. The just and moderate government of Augustus,
and the demand for Oriental luxuries at Rome, excited the enterprise of
the Alexandrine traders, and a Greek named Hippalus made a remarkable
discovery. He observed that the winds or monsoons of the Indian Ocean
regularly blew during six months from east to west and during six months
from west to east. He was bold enough to do what the Phoenicians
themselves had never done. He left the land and sailed right across the
ocean to the Indian shore with one monsoon, returning with the next to
the mouth of the Red Sea. By means of this ocean route the India voyage
could be made in half the time. The goods were thereby cheapened, the
demand was thereby increased, the Indian Ocean was covered with Greek
vessels, a commercial revolution was created, the coasting and caravan
trade of the Arabs came to an end, the Romans destroyed Aden, and
Yemen withered up and remained independent only because it was
obscure.
Arabia had always been a land of refuge, for in its terrible deserts security
might always be found. To Arabia had fled the Priests of the Sun after
the victories of Alexander and the restoration of Babylonian idolatry. To
Arabia had fled thousands of Jews after the second destruction of
Jerusalem. To Arabia had fled thousands of Christians who had been
persecuted by pagan and still more by Christian emperors. The land was
divided among independent princes-βmany of them were Christians and
many of them were Jews. There is nothing more conducive to an
enlightened scepticism, and its attendant spirit toleration, than the
spectacle of various religious creeds each maintained by intelligent and
pious men. A king of Arabia Felix in the fourth century received an
embassy from the Byzantine emperor, with a request that Christians
might be allowed to settle in his kingdom, and also that he would make
Christianity the religion of the state. He assented to the first proposition.
With reference to the second he replied βI reign over menΒ΄s bodies, not
over their opinions. I exact from my subjects obedience to the
government; as to their religious doctrine, the judge of that is the great
Creator.β
But it came to pass that a king of the Jewish persuasion succeeded to the
throne: he persecuted his Christian subjects and made war on Christian
kings, burning houses, men, and gospels wherever he could find them. A
Christian Arab made his escape, travelled to Constantinople, and, holding
up a charred Testament before the throne, demanded help in the name of
the Redeemer. The emperor at once prepared for war, and dispatched an
envoy to his faithful ally the Negus of Abyssinia.
The old kingdom of Ethiopia had escaped Cambyses and Alexander, and
had lost its independence to the Ptolemies only for a time. The Romans
made an Abyssinian expedition with complete success, but withdrew
from the savage country in disdain. Ethiopia was left to its own devices,
which soon became of an Africanising nature. The priests kept the king
shut up in his palace and when it suited their convenience sent him word,
in the African style, that he must be tired and that it would be good for
him to sleep; upon which he migrated to the lower world with his
favourite wives and slaves. But there was once a king named Ergamenes
who had improved his mind by the study of Greek philosophy, and who,
when he received the message of the priests, soon gave them a proof that
they were quite mistaken, and that so far from being sleepy he was wide
awake. He ordered them to collect in the Golden Chapel, and then,
marching in with his guards, he put them all to death. From that time
Abyssinia became a military kingdom. As the princes of Numidia had
used elephants after the destruction of the Carthaginian republic, so the
Abyssinians
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