Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/140

Il8 CHRISTIAN GREECE AND LIVING GREEK. have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphratus, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised peo- ple the sanctity and truth of the revelations of Mohammed." In 823 the Arabs from Spain conquered Crete, and when one hundred and thirty-eight years afterward it was reconquered by Nikephorus II. (Phokas), that prince found it so thoroughly Mohammedanized that it required a new evan- gelization before the island could be retained for Hellenism and Christianity. " The terrible example of the work wrought by the Arabs," says Bikelas, "in this instance is a sufficient proof of how great was the danger from which not only the Hellenic world of the East in particular, but also Christian Europe in general was saved by the efforts of the Byzan- tine emperors." The power of the caliphs, however, was broken ; they gave way to a new mortal foe of Christianity — that new enemy was the Turk.