SYRIA

First and most important for our purpose was the Church in Syria, including Palestine. This had from very early days been one of the chief centres of Christianity, and from its first foundation in Jerusalem, Damascus, and Antioch, the Church had spread eastwards to the confines of the Arabian desert. Before the end of the third century we hear of bishoprics in Bostra beyond the Jordan, and in Palmyra, almost midway between Syria and Mesopotamia. Within the bounds of the Roman Empire in Syria we may assume that in the course of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries Christianity had become fairly general, and must have extended to the more or less settled Arabs who dwelt under the protection of Roman power. It is only natural to suppose that the religion of the great Byzantine Empire would exercise by its glamour considerable attraction and influence on the tribes of the wilderness itself. These tribes often had their kin settled within the bounds of the Empire. Dussaud 1 has shown that for ages there was a constant infusion of nomads into the settled country. When pasture grew scarce in the desert they retired with their flocks to the more cultivated land, and with the return of spring, when the rains caused the desert to cover itself with vegetation, they led them out to their nomad pasturages again. Thus there was what we may call a semi-nomad population, many of whom ultimately settled down to agricultural or even town life. The

population of Syria was therefore always largely Arab in character, and there was always close intercourse along the border between the desert and the sown. It was probably from this more or less settled Arab population that the bearers of the Arab names which appear occasionally in the lists of bishops present at various councils and synods were mostly drawn.

The wild country east of the Jordan, like the deserts of Upper Egypt, became the residence of many Christian hermits and monks. Many monasteries are mentioned along the border of the Roman Empire in that quarter. As we shall see, the monk in his cell was one of the things that attracted the attention of the Arabs, and we may assume that some of these hermits found their way even into the desert and took up their abode there. St. Simeon Stylites was an Arab by race, and though the scene of his spectacular asceticism was the neighbourhood of Antioch, we are told crowds of the desert Arabs flocked to see the wonderful sight of the saint on his pillar, and heard him proclaim the gospel from its top. We can well believe that these pillar saints, of whom Simeon was not the only example, did arouse the curiosity of the primitive-minded people of the desert, that they came to see and that they carried back with them some report of what they had seen and heard. In all these ways, from the settled land of Syria, growing ever more Christian, the knowledge of Christianity must have been continually percolating to the inhabitants of the desert.

Unfortunately the internal history of the