The messengers were intercepted. The Christians in Tyre put the leading Jews in prison and barred the gates. Then the insurgents appeared outside and began to burn and waste the suburbs. For every Christian church burned, the Christians beheaded a hundred prisoners, and threw their heads over the wall. The Jews burned twenty churches, and two thousand heads were thrown over.[26] Then came the news that Chosroes was marching on Jerusalem, and all the Jews flocked with eager anticipations to follow him. The city, feebly defended, if at all, by its priestly inhabitants, was taken at once: ninety thousand Christians are reported as having been slaughtered; it matters little now whether the number is correct or not—so large a number means nothing more definite than the indication of a great massacre—the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, _i.e._, what Eusebius calls, speaking of it as a whole, the Temple, the Basilica with its porticoes and pillars, and the decorations of the Sepulchre, were all destroyed: the churches built by Helena on the Mount of Olives shared the same fate: the sacred vessels were carried off by the conquerors: the wood of the true Cross was part of the booty, and the Patriarch Zacharias was made prisoner, and carried away with it. But the wife of Chosroes was a Christian. By her intercession, Zacharias was well treated and the wood of the Cross preserved. And immediately after the retreat of the Persians, one Modestus, aided by gifts from John Eleemon of Alexandria, began to repair and rebuild, as best he might, the ruined churches. Fifteen years later Heraclius reconquered the provinces of Syria and Egypt, regained the wood of the Cross, and in great triumph, though clad in mean and humble dress, and as a pilgrim, entered Jerusalem (Sept. 14, A.D. 629) bearing the wood upon his shoulder. The restoration of the Cross was accompanied also by revenge taken upon the Jews. Henceforth in the annals of Christendom every revival of religious zeal is to be marked by the murdering and massacring of Jews. Footnote 26: Milman, iii. 238.