and Persian.  They also made similar translations of later works, such as those of Pliny.  In connection with the Jews they founded the medical college of Djondesabour.  Their missionaries disseminated the Nestorian form of Christianity to such an extent over Asia, that its worshipers eventually outnumbered all the European Christians of the Greek and Roman Churches combined.  It may be particularly remarked that in Arabia they had a bishop.

The Persian campaign.  The dissensions between Constantinople and Alexandria had thus filled all Western Asia with sectaries, ferocious in their contests with each other, and many of them burning with hatred against the imperial power for the persecutions it had inflicted on them.  A religious revolution, the consequences of which are felt in our own times, was the result.  It affected the whole world.

We shall gain a clear view of this great event, if we consider separately the two acts into which it may be decomposed:  1.  The temporary overthrow of Asiatic Christianity by the Persians; 2.  The decisive and final reformation under the Arabians.

1.  It happened (A.D. 590) that, by one of those revolutions so frequent in Oriental courts, Chosroes, the lawful heir to the Persian throne, was compelled to seek refuge in the Byzantine Empire, and implore the aid of the Emperor Maurice.  That aid was cheerfully given.  A brief and successful campaign restored Chosroes to the throne of his ancestors.

But the glories of this generous campaign could not preserve Maurice himself.  A mutiny broke out in the Roman army, headed by Phocas, a centurion.  The statues of the emperor were overthrown.  The Patriarch of Constantinople, having declared that he had assured himself of the orthodoxy of Phocas, consecrated him emperor.  The unfortunate Maurice was dragged from a sanctuary, in which he had sought refuge; his five sons were beheaded before his eyes, and then he was put to death.  His empress was inveigled from the church of St. Sophia, tortured, and with her three young daughters beheaded.  The adherents of the massacred family were pursued with ferocious vindictiveness; of some the eyes were blinded, of others the tongues were torn out, or the feet and hands cut off, some were whipped to death, others were burnt.

When the news reached Rome, Pope Gregory received it with exultation, praying that the hands of Phocas might be strengthened against all his enemies.  As an equivalent for this subserviency, he was greeted with the title of “Universal Bishop.”  The cause of his action, as well as of that of the Patriarch of Constantinople, was doubtless the fact that Maurice was suspected of Magrian tendencies, into which he had been lured by the Persians.  The mob of Constantinople had hooted after him in the streets, branding him as a Marcionite, a sect which believed in the Magian doctrine of two conflicting principles.

With very different sentiments Chosroes heard of the murder of his friend.  Phocas had sent him the heads of Maurice and his sons.  The Persian king turned from the ghastly spectacle with horror, and at once made ready to avenge the wrongs of his benefactor by war.