held Egypt were no doubt in
part Syrians and Arabs, people with whom the fellahs or labouring class
of Egyptians were closely allied in blood and feelings. Hence arose the
readiness with which the whole country yielded when the Roman forces
were defeated. But hence also arose the weakness of the Persians, and
their speedy loss of this conquest when the Arabs rebelled. Their rule,
however, in Egypt was not quite unmarked in the history of these dark
ages.

At this time Thomas, a Syrian bishop, came to Alexandria to correct the
Syriac version of the New Testament, which had been made about a century
before by Philoxenus. He compared the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles with
the Greek manuscripts in the monastery of St. Anthony in the capital;
and we still possess the fruits of his learned labour, in which he
altered the ancient text to make it agree with the newer Alexandrian
manuscripts. From his copy the Philoxenian version is now printed. A
Syriac manuscript of the New Testament written by Alexandrian penmen
in the sixth year of Heraclius, is now to be seen in the library of the
Augustan friars in Rome. At the same time another Syrian scholar, Paul
of Tela, in Mesopotamia, was busy in the Alexandrian monastery of
St. Zacchaeus in translating the Old Testament into Syriac, from the
Septuagint Greek; and he closes his labours with begging the reader to
pray for the soul of his friend Thomas. Such was now the reputation of
the Alexandrian edition of the Bible, that these scholars preferred it
both to the original Hebrew of the Old and to the earlier manuscripts
of the New Testament. Among other works of this time were the medical
writings of Aaron the physician of Alexandria, formerly written in
Syriac, and afterwards much valued by the Arabs. The Syrian monks in
numbers settled in the monastery of Mount Nitria; and in that secluded
spot there remained a colony of these monks for several centuries,
kept up by the occasional arrival of newcomers from the churches on the
eastern side of the Euphrates.

For ten years the Egyptians were governed by the Persians, and had
a patriarch of their own religion and of their own choice; and the
building of the Persian palace in Alexandria proves how quietly they
lived under their new masters. But Heraclius was not idle under his
misfortunes. The Persians had been weakened by the great revolt of the
Arabs, who had formed their chief strength on the side of Constantinople
and Egypt; and H