Towards the end of the seventh century the Greeks invaded Armenia, devastated twenty-five provinces and carried away eight thousand families into captivity. Not very long after this event the Saracens invaded the country again and secured the entire subjugation of the people. The news of this event enraged the Greek emperor Justinius II again, who with an immense army attacked the Armenians and captured the prelate Isaac and five other bishops. After receiving a sufficient number of hostages, he left the prelates alone and returned to Constantinople. It was only a few weeks after this that the Saracens, under the leadership of Abdullah, returned to Armenia and fell upon the people and plundered the churches and monasteries, and desecrated the sacred edifices and the unfortunate prelate Isaac was carried to Damascus in chains, where he ended his eventful life of martyrdom while a prisoner. Isaac was succeeded by Elias, the archbishop of Armenia, and Gashim was appointed by the Caliph governor of the country. Gashim was by no means inferior in cruelty to the previous Arab generals. In fact, all the followers of Mohammed, from the beginning well learned the behest of their lord, “To do aught good never will be your task, but to do evil ever your sole delight.” Gashim gathered all the leading men into the church of Nachichavan, on pretense of making a treaty of peace with them; he then set the church on fire and burned them alive. The orthodoxy of the Armenian church would not have been questioned by some of the Western writers had they not drawn their information from the Greek and Latin sources only. This could not have been avoided in the early years of the middle ages on account of the scarcity of the Armenian scholars among the Western nations. Even now the Armenian language is studied by very few. Yet a careful and happy writer, like the following, is apt to avoid mistakes: “In points of doctrine and ritual the Armenian church is extremely conservative, and has been wise or fortunate enough to avoid defining her faith with the particularity which had produced so many schisms farther west. Her formulas do not commit her to Monophysite views, although, chiefly owing to a national jealousy of Constantinople, she has refused to accept the decrees of Chalcedon.... She has avoided the use of any word corresponding to the term Transubstantiation....”[60] The following, from “the History of the Holy Apostolic Church of Armenia,” by Vartabed M. Muradian, of St. James’ Monastery, at Jerusalem, may show the orthodoxy of the Armenian Church: “It is sweet and comforting to discourse on the revealed truths of the Bible which is the only foundation of undefiled doctrine, to which always have the holy church-fathers trusted for the defense of faith.