remain a Christian, but when once he had become a Mohammedan he came under the stern rule of Islam, which exacts the death penalty on all who forsake the creed of the Prophet. The miserable waverer not only yielded to the threat of death, but he even lodged with the government information of treasure which he said the monastery that had given him an asylum contained. Very little was found there, and that little was returned when the whole story was known.
The later Crusades had hardly any more effect on the Church in Egypt than had been the case with the earlier expeditions from Europe for the recovery of the Holy Land. The siege of Damietta (a.d. 1218) and the ill-fated expedition of St. Louis (a.d. 1248–1250) were wholly affairs of the Latin Church with which the Copts had no concern. Had these wars been successful in the end, they would have been free from the yoke of Islam only to face the demand of submission to Rome. Meanwhile the Saracen rule of Egypt was more just and enlightened than any form of government that the Copts had ever known before. There was therefore little temptation for them to give much material aid to the Crusaders. Unhappily their own internal history at this time does not furnish us with an edifying record. Quarrels on the election of patriarchs, and charges of simony against patriarchs when in power, are the chief items that break the monotony of the narrative. The Sultan Kamel refused an offer of heavy bribes to favour the election of a candidate for the patriarchate. He was so pleased with a visit he paid to the monastery of St. Macarius that he richly endowed it and granted its monks several privileges. On the other hand, the patriarch Cyril, who was appointed during his reign and very affably received by the sultan, turned out to be a cause of great trouble in the Church. He was guilty of outrageous simony—the typical offence of the Eygptian patriarchs of which we hear again and again in successive ages. There had been a gap in the patriarchate which had resulted in many vacancies in the
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