The events which attended the introduction of Monophysitism into Syria were almost a repetition of those which occurred on the entrance of this heresy into Egypt. And the causes which led to the introduction of Monophysitism into the two countries and favored its development there were practically the same. For Antioch, the capital of the Seleucids, as well as Alexandria, the capital of the Ptolemies, was a Greek city and each from the disruption of Alexander’s Empire had been a center of Greek civilization and culture. But neither the Syrians nor the Egyptians had ever become reconciled to the intrusion of the Macedonians or other Greek-speaking peoples into their native lands. Nor was their antagonism to foreign domination diminished when their countries became appanages of Rome and Byzantium. They clung as tenaciously as ever to the laws and customs and languages of their fathers and welcomed an opportunity of concealing under the guise of heresy their hatred of Cæsar’s religion as well as their ill-concealed disloyalty to Cæsar’s empire. In spite of the repeated efforts of the Emperors of Constantinople to conciliate their disaffected subjects in Egypt and Syria and to suppress a heresy that was a constant menace to the State, all their endeavors proved abortive. And when the Moslems invaded Syria it was in Monophysitism that its inhabitants found an outlash of their long pent-up national and anti-imperial feelings which made the conquest of Islam as easy in the Levant as it had been in the Delta of the Nile. But the penalty paid by Syria for its disloyalty and schism was no less terrific than that which reduced Egypt from its high estate and degraded it to the rank of a dishonored province in the ever-extending dominion of the Saracens. For just as it was schism that led to the downfall of Alexandria--the seat of the greatest and most celebrated patriarchate in the East--so was it schism that heralded the inglorious collapse of her great rival--Antioch, the third city of the empire--Antioch, where the followers of the Crucified were first called Christians. What has been said of Monophysitism as an outlet of national feeling in Egypt and Syria holds equally true of it in Armenia. Its introduction and rapid diffusion was in great measure due to jealousy of the Orthodox Church and hatred of the Byzantine government. But far more than in the case of other Eastern Churches, Monophysitism is the religious bond that during long centuries of oppression and persecution held the Armenians together as a nation and that, especially during recent times, has won for this long-suffering people the sympathy of the entire civilized world.