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Books: History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science

J >> John William Draper >> History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science




INVASION OF EGYPT. I have not space, nor indeed does it comport
with the intention of this work, to relate, in such detail as I
have given to the fall of Jerusalem, other conquests of the
Saracens--conquests which eventually established a Mohammedan
empire far exceeding in geographical extent that of Alexander,
and even that of Rome. But, devoting a few words to this subject,
it may be said that Magianism received a worse blow than that
which had been inflicted on Christianity; The fate of Persia was
settled at the battle of Cadesia. At the sack of Ctesiphon, the
treasury, the royal arms, and an unlimited spoil, fell into the
hands of the Saracens. Not without reason do they call the battle
of Nehavend the victory of victories." In one direction they
advanced to the Caspian, in the other southward along the Tigris
to Persepolis. The Persian king fled for his life over the great
Salt Desert, from the columns and statues of that city which had
lain in ruins since the night of the riotous banquet of
Alexander. One division of the Arabian army forced the Persian
monarch over the Oxus. He was assassinated by the Turks. His son
was driven into China, and became a captain in the Chinese
emperor's guards. The country beyond the Oxus was reduced. It
paid a tribute of two million pieces of gold. While the emperor
at Peking was demanding the friendship of the khalif at Medina,
the standard of the Prophet was displayed on the banks of the
Indus.

Among the generals who had greatly distinguished themselves in
the Syrian wars was Amrou, destined to be the conqueror of Egypt;
for the khalifs, not content with their victories on the North
and East, now turned their eyes to the West, and prepared for the
annexation of Africa. As in the former cases, so in this,
sectarian treason assisted them. The Saracen army was hailed as
the deliverer of the Jacobite Church; the Monophysite Christians
of Egypt, that is, they who, in the language of the Athanasian
Creed, confounded the substance of the Son, proclaimed, through
their leader, Mokaukas, that they desired no communion with the
Greeks, either in this world or the next, that they abjured
forever the Byzantine tyrant and his synod of Chalcedon. They
hastened to pay tribute to the khalif, to repair the roads and
bridges, and to supply provisions and intelligence to the
invading army.

FALL OF ALEXANDRIA. Memphis, one of the old Pharaonic capitals,
soon fell, and Alexandria was invested. The open sea behind gave
opportunity to Heraclius to reenforce the garrison continually.
On his part, Omar, who was now khalif sent to the succor of the
besieging army the veteran troops of Syria. There were many
assaults and many sallies. In one Amrou himself was taken
prisoner by the besieged, but, through the dexterity of a slave,
made his escape. After a siege of fourteen months, and a loss of
twenty-three thousand men, the Saracens captured the city. In his
dispatch to the Khalif, Amrou enumerated the splendors of the
great city of the West "its four thousand palaces, four thousand
baths, four hundred theatres, twelve thousand shops for the sale
of vegetable food, and forty thousand tributary Jews."

So fell the second great city of Christendom--the fate of
Jerusalem had fallen on Alexandria, the city of Athanasius, and
Arius, and Cyril; the city that had imposed Trinitarian ideas and
Mariolatry on the Church. In his palace at Constantinople
Heraclius received the fatal tidings. He was overwhelmed with
grief. It seemed as if his reign was to be disgraced by the
downfall of Christianity. He lived scarcely a month after the
loss of the town.

But if Alexandria had been essential to Constantinople in the
supply of orthodox faith, she was also essential in the supply of
daily food. Egypt was the granary of the Byzantines. For this
reason two attempts were made by powerful fleets and armies for
the recovery of the place, and twice had Amrou to renew his
conquest. He saw with what facility these attacks could be made,
the place being open to the sea; he saw that there was but one
and that a fatal remedy. "By the living God, if this thing be
repeated a third time I will make Alexandria as open to anybody
as is the house of a prostitute!" He was better than his word,
for he forthwith dismantled its fortifications, and made it an
untenable place.

FALL OF CARTHAGE. It was not the intention of the khalifs to
limit their conquest to Egypt. Othman contemplated the annexation
of the entire North-African coast. His general, Abdallah, set out
from Memphis with forty thousand men, passed through the desert
of Barca, and besieged Tripoli. But, the plague breaking out in
his army, he was compelled to retreat to Egypt.

All attempts were now suspended for more than twenty years. Then
Akbah forced his way from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean. In
front of the Canary Islands he rode his horse into the sea,
exclaiming: "Great God! if my course were not stopped by this
sea, I would still go on to the unknown kingdoms of the West,
preaching the unity of thy holy name, and putting to the sword
the rebellious nations who worship any other gods than thee."

These Saracen expeditions had been through the interior of the
country, for the Byzantine emperors, controlling for the time the
Mediterranean, had retained possession of the cities on the
coast. The Khalif Abdalmalek at length resolved on the reduction
of Carthage, the most important of those cities, and indeed the
capital of North Africa. His general, Hassan, carried it by
escalade; but reenforcements from Constantinople, aided by some
Sicilian and Gothic troops, compelled him to retreat. The relief
was, however, only temporary. Hassan, in the course of a few
months renewed his attack. It proved successful, and he delivered
Carthage to the flames.

Jerusalem, Alexandria, Carthage, three out of the five great
Christian capitals, were lost. The fall of Constantinople was
only a question of time. After its fall, Rome alone remained.

In the development of Christianity, Carthage had played no
insignificant part. It had given to Europe its Latin form of
faith, and some of its greatest theologians. It was the home of
St. Augustine.

Never in the history of the world had there been so rapid and
extensive a propagation of any religion as Mohammedanism. It was
now dominating from the Altai Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean,
from the centre of Asia to the western verge of Africa.

CONQUEST OF SPAIN. The Khalif Alwalid next authorized the
invasion of Europe, the conquest of Andalusia, or the Region of
the Evening. Musa, his general, found, as had so often been the
case elsewhere, two effective allies sectarianism and
treason--the Archbishop of Toledo and Count Julian the Gothic
general. Under their lead, in the very crisis of the battle of
Xeres, a large portion of the army went over to the invaders; the
Spanish king was compelled to flee from the field, and in the
pursuit he was drowned in the waters of the Guadalquivir.

With great rapidity Tarik, the lieutenant of Musa, pushed forward
from the battle-field to Toledo, and thence northward. On the
arrival of Musa the reduction of the Spanish peninsula was
completed, and the wreck of the Gothic army driven beyond the
Pyrenees into France. Considering the conquest of Spain as only
the first step in his victories, he announced his intention of
forcing his way into Italy, and preaching the unity of God in the
Vatican. Thence he would march to Constantinople, and, having put
all end to the Roman Empire and Christianity, would pass into
Asia and lay his victorious sword on the footstool of the khalif
at Damascus.

But this was not to be. Musa, envious of his lieutenant, Tarik,
had treated him with great indignity. The friends of Tarik at the
court of the khalif found means of retaliation. An envoy from
Damascus arrested Musa in his camp; he was carried before his
sovereign, disgraced by a public whipping, and died of a broken
heart.

INVASION OF FRANCE. Under other leaders, however, the Saracen
conquest of France was attempted. In a preliminary campaign the
country from the mouth of the Garonne to that of the Loire was
secured. Then Abderahman, the Saracen commander, dividing his
forces into two columns, with one on the east passed the Rhone,
and laid siege to Arles. A Christian army, attempting the relief
of the place, was defeated with heavy loss. His western column,
equally successful, passed the Dordogne, defeated another
Christian army, inflicting on it such dreadful loss that,
according to its own fugitives, "God alone could number the
slain." All Central France was now overrun; the banks of the
Loire were reached; the churches and monasteries were despoiled
of their treasures; and the tutelar saints, who had worked so
many miracles when there was no necessity, were found to want the
requisite power when it was so greatly needed.

The progress of the invaders was at length stopped by Charles
Martel (A.D. 732). Between Tours and Poictiers, a great battle,
which lasted seven days, was fought. Abderahman was killed, the
Saracens retreated, and soon afterward were compelled to recross
the Pyrenees.

The banks of the Loire, therefore, mark the boundary of the
Mohammedan advance in Western Europe. Gibbon, in his narrative of
these great events, makes this remark: "A victorious line of
march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of
Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire--a repetition of an equal
space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland
and the Highlands of Scotland."

INSULT TO ROME. It is not necessary for me to add to this sketch
of the military diffusion of Mohammedanism, the operations of the
Saracens on the Mediterranean Sea, their conquest of Crete and
Sicily, their insult to Rome. It will be found, however, that
their presence in Sicily and the south of Italy exerted a marked
influence on the intellectual development of Europe.

Their insult to Rome! What could be more humiliating than the
circumstances under which it took place (A.D. 846)? An
insignificant Saracen expedition entered the Tiber and appeared
before the walls of the city. Too weak to force an entrance, it
insulted and plundered the precincts, sacrilegiously violating
the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul. Had the city itself been
sacked, the moral effect could not have been greater. From the
church of St. Peter its altar of silver was torn away and sent to
Africa--St. Peter's altar, the very emblem of Roman Christianity!

Constantinople had already been besieged by the Saracens more
than once; its fall was predestined, and only postponed. Rome had
received the direst insult, the greatest loss that could be
inflicted upon it; the venerable churches of Asia Minor had
passed out of existence; no Christian could set his foot in
Jerusalem without permission; the Mosque of Omar stood on the
site of the Temple of Solomon. Among the ruins of Alexandria the
Mosque of Mercy marked the spot where a Saracen general, satiated
with massacre, had, in contemptuous compassion, spared the
fugitive relics of the enemies of Mohammed; nothing remained of
Carthage but her blackened ruins. The most powerful religious
empire that the world had ever seen had suddenly come into
existence. It stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Chinese
Wall, from the shores of the Caspian to those of the Indian
Ocean, and yet, in one sense, it had not reached its culmination.
The day was to come when it was to expel the successors of the
Caesars from their capital, and hold the peninsula of Greece in
subjection, to dispute with Christianity the empire of Europe in
the very centre of that continent, and in Africa to extend its
dogmas and faith across burning deserts and through pestilential
forests from the Mediterranean to regions southward far beyond
the equinoetial line.

DISSENSIONS OF THE ARABS. But, though Mohammedanism had not
reached its culmination, the dominion of the khalifs had. Not the
sword of Charles Martel, but the internal dissension of the vast
Arabian Empire, was the salvation of Europe. Though the Ommiade
Khalifs were popular in Syria, elsewhere they were looked upon as
intruders or usurpers; the kindred of the apostle was considered
to be the rightful representative of his faith. Three parties,
distinguished by their colors, tore the khalifate asunder with
their disputes, and disgraced it by their atrocities. The color
of the Ommiades was white, that of the Fatimites green, that of
the Abassides black; the last represented the party of Abbas, the
uncle of Mohammed. The result of these discords was a tripartite
division of the Mohammedan Empire in the tenth century into the
khalifates of Bagdad, of Cairoan, and of Cordova. Unity in
Mohammedan political action was at an end, and Christendom found
its safeguard, not in supernatural help, but in the quarrels of
the rival potentates. To internal animosities foreign pressures
were eventually added and Arabism, which had done so much for the
intellectual advancement of the world, came to an end when the
Turks and the Berbers attained to power.

The Saracens had become totally regardless of European
opposition--they were wholly taken up with their domestic
quarrels. Ockley says with truth, in his history: "The Saracens
had scarce a deputy lieutenant or general that would not have
thought it the greatest affront, and such as ought to stigmatize
him with indelible disgrace, if he should have suffered himself
to have been insulted by the united forces of all Europe. And if
any one asks why the Greeks did not exert themselves more, in
order to the extirpation of these insolent invaders, it is a
sufficient answer to any person that is acquainted with the
characters of those men to say that Amrou kept his residence at
Alexandria, and Moawyah at Damascus."

As to their contempt, this instance may suffice: Nicephorus, the
Roman emperor, had sent to the Khalif Haroun-al-Raschid a
threatening letter, and this was the reply: "In the name of the
most merciful God, Haroun-al-Raschid, commander of the faithful,
to Nicephorus, the Roman dog! I have read thy letter, O thou son
of an unbelieving mother. Thou shalt not hear, thou shalt behold
my reply!" It was written in letters of blood and fire on the
plains of Phrygia.

POLITICAL EFFECT OF POLYGAMY. A nation may recover the
confiscation of its provinces, the confiscation of its wealth; it
may survive the imposition of enormous war-fines; but it never
can recover from that most frightful of all war-acts, the
confiscation of its women. When Abou Obeidah sent to Omar news of
his capture of Antioch, Omar gently upbraided him that he had not
let the troops have the women. "If they want to marry in Syria,
let them; and let them have as many female slaves as they have
occasion for." It was the institution of polygamy, based upon the
confiscation of the women in the vanquished countries, that
secured forever the Mohammedan rule. the children of these unions
gloried in their descent from their conquering fathers. No better
proof can be given of the efficacy of this policy than that which
is furnished by North Africa. The irresistible effect of polygamy
in consolidating the new order of things was very striking. In
little more than a single generation, the Khalif was informed by
his officers that the tribute must cease, for all the children
born in that region were Mohammedans, and all spoke Arabic.

MOHAMMEDANISM. Mohammedanism, as left by its founder, was an
anthropomorphic religion. Its God was only a gigantic man, its
heaven a mansion of carnal pleasures. From these imperfect ideas
its more intelligent classes very soon freed themselves,
substituting for them others more philosophical, more correct.
Eventually they attained to an accordance with those that have
been pronounced in our own times by the Vatican Council as
orthodox. Thus Al-Gazzali says: "A knowledge of God cannot be
obtained by means of the knowledge a man has of himself, or of
his own soul. The attributes of God cannot be determined from the
attributes of man. His sovereignty and government can neither be
compared nor measured."



CHAPTER IV.

THE RESTORATION OF SCIENCE IN THE SOUTH.

By the influence of the Nestorians and Jews, the Arabians are
turned to the cultivation of Science. --They modify their views
as to the destiny of man, and obtain true conceptions respecting
the structure of the world.--They ascertain the size of the
earth, and determine its shape. --Their khalifs collect great
libraries, patronize every department of science and literature,
establish astronomical observatories.--They develop the
mathematical sciences, invent algebra, and improve geometry and
trigonometry.--They collect and translate the old Greek
mathematical and astronomical works, and adopt the inductive
method of Aristotle.--They establish many colleges, and, with the
aid of the Nestorians, organize a public-school system.--They
introduce the Arabic numerals and arithmetic, and catalogue and
give names to the stars.--They lay the foundation of modern
astronomy, chemistry, and physics, and introduce great
improvements in agriculture and manufactures.


"IN the course of my long life," said the Khalif Ali, "I have
often observed that men are more like the times they live in than
they are like their fathers." This profoundly philosophical
remark of the son-in-law of Mohammed is strictly true; for,
though the personal, the bodily lineaments of a man may indicate
his parentage, the constitution of his mind, and therefore the
direction of his thoughts, is determined by the environment in
which he lives.

When Amrou, the lieutenant of the Khalif Omar, conquered Egypt,
and annexed it to the Saracenic Empire, he found in Alexandria a
Greek grammarian, John surnamed Philoponus, or the Labor-lover.
Presuming on the friendship which had arisen between them, the
Greek solicited as a gift the remnant of the great library-- a
remnant which war and time and bigotry had spared. Amrou,
therefore, sent to the khalif to ascertain his pleasure. "If,"
replied the khalif, "the books agree with the Koran, the Word of
God, they are useless, and need not be preserved; if they
disagree with it, they are pernicious. Let them be destroyed."
Accordingly, they were distributed among the baths of Alexandria,
and it is said that six months were barely sufficient to consume
them.

Although the fact has been denied, there can be little doubt that
Omar gave this order. The khalif was an illiterate man; his
environment was an environment of fanaticism and ignorance.
Omar's act was an illustration of Ali's remark.

THE ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY BURNT. But it must not be supposed that
the books which John the Labor-lover coveted were those which
constituted the great library of the Ptolemies, and that of
Eumenes, King of Pergamus. Nearly a thousand years had elapsed
since Philadelphus began his collection. Julius Caesar had burnt
more than half; the Patriarchs of Alexandria had not only
permitted but superintended the dispersion of almost all the
rest. Orosius expressly states that he saw the empty cases or
shelves of the library twenty years after Theophilus, the uncle
of St. Cyril, had procured from the Emperor Theodosius a rescript
for its destruction. Even had this once noble collection never
endured such acts of violence, the mere wear and tear, and
perhaps, I may add, the pilfering of a thousand years, would have
diminished it sadly. Though John, as the surname he received
indicates, might rejoice in a superfluity of occupation, we may
be certain that the care of a library of half a million books
would transcend even his well-tried powers; and the cost of
preserving and supporting it, that had demanded the ample
resources of the Ptolemies and the Caesars, was beyond the means
of a grammarian. Nor is the time required for its combustion or
destruction any indication of the extent of the collection. Of
all articles of fuel, parchment is, perhaps, the most wretched.
Paper and papyrus do excellently well as kindling-materials, but
we may be sure that the bath-men of Alexandria did not resort to
parchment so long as they could find any thing else, and of
parchment a very large portion of these books was composed.

There can, then, be no more doubt that Omar did order the
destruction of this library, under an impression of its
uselessness or its irreligious tendency, than that the Crusaders
burnt the library of Tripoli, fancifully said to have consisted
of three million volumes. The first apartment entered being found
to contain nothing but the Koran, all the other books were
supposed to be the works of the Arabian impostor, and were
consequently committed to the flames. In both cases the story
contains some truth and much exaggeration. Bigotry, however, has
often distinguished itself by such exploits. The Spaniards burnt
in Mexico vast piles of American picture-writings, an
irretrievable loss; and Cardinal Ximenes delivered to the flames,
in the squares of Granada, eighty thousand Arabic manuscripts,
many of them translations of classical authors.

We have seen how engineering talent, stimulated by Alexander's
Persian campaign, led to a wonderful development of pure science
under the Ptolemies; a similar effect may be noted as the result
of the Saracenic military operations.

The friendship contracted by Amrou, the conqueror of Egypt, with
John the Grammarian, indicates how much the Arabian mind was
predisposed to liberal ideas. Its step from the idolatry of the
Caaba to the monotheism of Mohammed prepared it to expatiate in
the wide and pleasing fields of literature and philosophy. There
were two influences to which it was continually exposed. They
conspired in determining its path. These were--1. That of the
Nestorians in Syria; 2. That of the Jews in Egypt.

INFLUENCE OF THE NESTORIANS AND JEWS. In the last chapter I have
briefly related the persecution of Nestor and his disciples. They
bore testimony to the oneness of God, through many sufferings and
martyrdoms. They utterly repudiated an Olympus filled with gods
and goddesses. "Away from us a queen of heaven!"

Such being their special views, the Nestorians found no
difficulty in affiliating with their Saracen conquerors, by whom
they were treated not only with the highest respect, but
intrusted with some of the most important offices of the state.
Mohammed, in the strongest manner, prohibited his followers from
committing any injuries against them. Jesuiabbas, their pontiff,
concluded treaties both with the Prophet and with Omar, and
subsequently the Khalif Haroun-al-Raschid placed all his public
schools under the superintendence of John Masue, a Nestorian.

To the influence of the Nestorians that of the Jews was added.
When Christianity displayed a tendency to unite itself with
paganism, the conversion of the Jews was arrested; it totally
ceased when Trinitarian ideas were introduced. The cities of
Syria and Egypt were full of Jews. In Alexandria alone, at the
time of its capture by Amrou, there were forty thousand who paid
tribute. Centuries of misfortune and persecution had served only
to confirm them in their monotheism, and to strengthen that
implacable hatred of idolatry which they had cherished ever since
the Babylonian captivity. Associated with the Nestorians, they
translated into Syriac many Greek and Latin philosophical works,
which were retranslated into Arabic. While the Nestorian was
occupied with the education of the children of the great
Mohammedan families, the Jew found his way into them in the
character of a physician.

FATALISM OF THE ARABIANS. Under these influences the ferocious
fanaticism of the Saracens abated, their manners were polished,
their thoughts elevated. They overran the realms of Philosophy
and Science as quickly as they had overrun the provinces of the
Roman Empire. They abandoned the fallacies of vulgar
Mohammedanism, accepting in their stead scientific truth.

In a world devoted to idolatry, the sword of the Saracen had
vindicated the majesty of God. The doctrine of fatalism,
inculcated by the Koran, had powerfully contributed to that
result. "No man can anticipate or postpone his predetermined end.
Death will overtake us even in lofty towers. From the beginning
God hath settled the place in which each man shall die." In his
figurative language the Arab said: "No man can by flight escape
his fate. The Destinies ride their horses by night. . . . Whether
asleep in bed or in the storm of battle, the angel of death will
find thee." "I am convinced," said Ali, to whose wisdom we have
already referred--"I am convinced that the affairs of men go by
divine decree, and not by our administration." The Mussulmen are
those who submissively resign themselves to the will of God. They
reconciled fate and free-will by saying, "The outline is given
us, we color the picture of life as we will." They said that, if
we would overcome the laws of Nature, we must not resist, we must
balance them against each other.