arose the patriarchs: Cyrillus the first patriarch; Johannes, Prailius, Juvenalis,[1] Zacharias, in whose time came Cosdroe[2] king of Persia to Jerusalem, and destroyed the churches of Judea and Jerusalem, and slew with his army six and thirty thousand of the Christians: Modestus, who was appointed patriarch by the emperor Heraclius, when he returned victorious from Persia: Sophronius, in whose time the Saracens came and thrust out all the Christians from Jerusalem, except the patriarch, whom they suffered to remain out of reverence to his sanctity: this was the period when the Saracens overran the whole of Egypt, and Africa, and Judea, and even Spain, and the Balearic Isles. Part of Spain was wrested from them by Charles the Great, but the remainder, together with the countries I have enumerated, they have possessed for nearly five hundred years, down to the present day: Theodorus,[3] Ilia, Georgius, Thomas, Basilius, Sergius, Salomontes, Theodosius, whom Bernard relates to have been an abbat, and that he was torn from his monastery, which was fifteen miles distant from Jerusalem, and made patriarch of that city: then too they say that Michael was patriarch in Babylon over Egypt, the patriarchate of Alexandria being removed thither: Ilia, Sergius, Leonthos, Athanasius, Christodolus, Thomas, Joseph, Orestes; in his time came Sultan Achim, the nephew of the patriarch Orestes, from Babylon, who sent his army to Jerusalem, destroyed all the churches, that is to say, four thousand, and caused his uncle, the patriarch, to be conveyed to Babylon and there slain: Theophilus, Nicephorus: he built the present church of the Holy Sepulchre, by the favour of Sultan Achim: Sophronius; in his time the Turks, coming to Jerusalem, fought with the Saracens, killed them all, and possessed the city; but the Christians continued there under the dominion of the Turks: Cuthimus, Simeon; in whose time came the Franks and laid
- ↑ Some MSS. insert the name of another John after Juvenalis, but no patriarch of this name is known to have lived at that period. Malmesbury has, moreover, omitted the names of eleven patriarchs, between Juvenal, who died a.d. 458, and Zacharias who died a.d. 609.
- ↑ Cosroes, or Chosroes the Second, king of Persia.
- ↑ "The church of Jerusalem was vacant after the death of Sophronius, a.d. 644, until the year 705, when John V succeeded, whom Theodorus followed, a.d. 754."—Hardy.
