Nature: as though of the two, very God and very Man, the weaker were now, as it were, lost and absorbed for ever in the more glorious. In such a sect, therefore, of all others, one would expect the most entire alienation from those who deny Christ's Godhead altogether. But what is the fact? When, about the year 640, the Saracens first invaded Egypt, this very party, the Monophysites, were the most numerous in that country, their priesthood being especially strong. Most unfortunately, a violent political as well as religious feud prevailed between them and the orthodox, or Greek party, commonly called Melchites, or Royalists, from their loyalty to the Constantinopolitan emperor,—so that not even intermarriages were allowed. For various reasons they considered themselves greatly oppressed: but, after all allowance made for considerations of that kind, it must be owned a lamentable indication of the tendency of their doctrine, that they actually received the Mussulmans with open arms. Their Patriarch of Alexandria, a man whose name long stood very high among them for sanctity, came to a regular treaty with the Caliph's lieutenant; in which it appears to have been stipulated that he, the Patriarch, should be restored to the episcopal throne of Alexandria, the whole sect for their part co-operating with the infidel invaders. An account has been preserved of the interchange of compliments between the Saracen leader and the Patriarch, on the return of the latter to the city, from which he had been long exiled. Amrou received him with the remark, that in all the countries which the Caliph had conquered, he had not met with any person of presence more august, and more worthy of a man of God. And he actually intreated, and, as it seems, obtained, his prayers for victory and safety in an expedition which he was just undertaking into West Africa and Pentapolis. The prayers of a Christian Archbishop, presiding over the sect which had separated from the Church on pretence of extraordinary reverence for Christ's Person, were asked, and granted, in behalf of the Mahometan Antichrist, just then on the point of wasting provinces which had been, from the beginning, the pride and glory of the Christian world.
There is, then, nothing extravagant in the supposition that heresy, even in its most attractive form of unusual loyalty to Christ, and jealousy of His honour, may prove but a step towards some God-denying apostasy. Whether or no any move-
