as, at seventy-eight years of age, the first royal pilgrim to
the holy places. After the Pagan revival, vainly attempted by the
Emperor Julian, the number and zeal of the Christian visitors to
Jerusalem were redoubled. At the beginning of the fifth century, St.
Jerome wrote, from his retreat at Bethlehem, that Judea overflowed with
pilgrims, and that, round about the Holy Sepulchre, were heard sung, in
divers tongues, the praises of the Lord. He, however, gave but scant
encouragement to his friends to make the trip. "The court of heaven," he
wrote to St. Paulinus, "is as open in Britain as at Jerusalem;" and the
disorder which sometimes accompanied the numerous assemblages of pilgrims
became such that several of the most illustrious fathers of the Church,
and amongst others St. Augustine and St. Gregory of Nyssa, exerted
themselves to dissuade the faithful. "Take no thought," said Augustine,
"for long voyages; go where your faith is; it is not by ship, but by
love, that we go to Him who is everywhere."

Events soon rendered the pilgrimage to Jerusalem difficult, and for some
time impossible. At the commencement of the seventh century, the Greek
empire was at war with the sovereigns of Persia, successors of Cyrus and
chiefs of the religion of Zoroaster. One of them, Khosroes II., invaded
Judea, took Jerusalem, led away captive the inhabitants, together with
their patriarch, Zacharias, and even carried off to Persia the precious
relic which was regarded as the wood of the true cross, and which had
been discovered, nearly three centuries before, by the Empress Helena,
whilst excavations were making on Calvary for the erection of the church
of the Holy Sepulchre. But fourteen years later, after several victories
over the Persians, the Greek emperor, Heraclius, retook Jerusalem, and
re-entered Constantinople in triumph with the coffer containing the
sacred relic. He next year (in 629) carried it back to Jerusalem, and
bore it upon his own shoulders to the top of Calvary; and on this
occasion was instituted the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
Great was the joy in Christendom; and the pilgrimages to Jerusalem
resumed their course.

But precisely at this epoch there appeared an enemy far more formidable
for the Christians than the sectaries of Zoroaster. In 622 Mahomet
founded Islamism; and some years after his death, in 638, the second of
the khalifs, his successors, Omar, sent two of his generals, Khaled