took part in the Fifth Council in 553. He was followed by the distinguished Anastasius I., and after St. Gregory I. by Anastasius II. The See remained a long time vacant. Those who then followed, Athanasius, Macedonius, and Macarius, were Monothelites. The two latter from the time the Saracens took Antioch, in 637, resided in Constantinople for safety. After George, who is said to have subscribed the Trullan Council in 692, the See was vacant forty years, and the patriarchs had often to endure extortions, ill-treatment, and banishment. How well Alexandria had prepared itself for the Mohammedan captivity may be seen by the following facts. Under the violent Dioscorus the see of St. Mark not only declined from its distinction when ruled by St. Cyril, but threw the whole of Egypt into wild confusion by espousing the Monophysite error. The Catholic patriarch, Proterius, was murdered in 457: and the heretical Timotheus Ailouros set up by his party instead. He, though condemned by the emperor, Leo I., to banishment, maintained himself stubbornly against the Catholic patriarch, Solophakialos. After his death, Peter Mongus was able to expel the Catholic, John Talaia: and then, from 490 to 538, Alexandria had a succession of five Monophysite patriarchs. Under Justinian, from 538, during forty years, we find four Catholic patriarchs. So, again, in Eulogius, the friend of St. Gregory, and John the alms-giver. But during this time the Monophysites also had their patriarchal succession, and that even from different sects of the heresy. The end of it was that the bitterest enmity arose between the Melchite or Royalist, and the Monophysite party. The former, being a small minority, held by favour of the Byzantine emperor and his troops in Egypt the possession of authority. The Copts, being a great majority, considered themselves oppressed, and welcomed as deliverers, in 638, the conquering Arabs. The Melchite party sunk so low that their patriarchal place was vacant during eighty years, and the number of their bishops greatly sank. After 750, the Christian inhabitants of Egypt were more and more exposed to Mohammedan brutality. Sharp laws against them were issued: distinguishing marks and clothes prescribed.