Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/101

THE BYZANTINES. 79 Empire appeared as a political monstrosity in which one incapable emperor succeeded another, each putting out the eyes of his predecessor, an empire in which romantic scenes of bloodshed, barbarous cruelty, and stormy disputes over dogmatic questions were the rule. The hatred toward the Greeks, who, as the out- post of Christendom, have been fighting the battle of civilization against the world of bar- barism, and hav€ succumbed only after a heroic resistance of a thousand years, has its source in religious dissensions, and has been taken up by ignoramuses who took no interest even in ques- tions of religion. The empire of the East fell four hundred years ago and was thereby silenced. The West survived, and until recently has had the talk all its own way. It has used the opportunity in the full spirit of the rancor which already animated it. There is an abundant anti-Hellenic litera- ture by a numerous body of writers who during many years have undertaken to enlighten the European public. National intercourse, which is characteristic of our time, will gradually efface the traditions begotten in ignorance. The impartial decisions of the latest learned and critical Western writers