It was thus that, alike as statesmen and Christians, the emperors were devoted advocates of missions. Their wars of conquest often--as notably with the great Emperor Heraclius--assumed the character of holy wars. Where the barbarians of the East made havoc there too often the Church fell without leaving a trace of its work. Without priest and sacrament, the people came to retain only among their superstitions, as sometimes in North Africa to-day, usages which showed that once their ancestors belonged to the kingdom of Christ. Much {24} of the missionary work of the period was done by Monophysites; the record of John of Ephesus preserves what he himself did to spread Christianity in Asia. And it would seem that even the most orthodox of emperors was willing to aid in the work of those who did not accept the Council of Chalcedon so long as they earnestly endeavoured to teach the heathen the rudiments of the faith and to love the Lord in incorruptness. [Sidenote: Organisation of the Church.] The Church of the period was divided into five patriarchates, the Church of Cyprus being understood to stand apart and autocephalous. Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch still retained their old power, while Jerusalem was regarded as somewhat inferior. The patriarchates were divided into provinces, the capital of each province having its metropolitan bishop. Under him were other bishops, and gradually the title of archbishop was being understood,--as by Justinian in the decree (Novel, xi.) in which he created his birthplace a metropolitan see,--to imply jurisdiction over a number of suffragan sees. Besides this there were still sees autocephalous in the sense that they owned no superior or metropolitan bishop. It would seem from the _Synekdemos_ of Hierocles (c. 535) that in the sixth century the patriarch of Constantinople had under him about thirty metropolitans and some 450 bishops. But the authority which the patriarch exercised was by no means used to minimise that of the bishops. If the influence of the Imperial Court on the patriarchate was always considerable and sometimes overwhelming, Justinian was careful to preserve the independence of the Episcopate and {25} to order that the first steps in the election of bishops should be by the clergy and the chief citizens in each diocese. And, as a letter of S. Gregory shows, the bishops were elected for life; neither infirmity nor old age was regarded as a cause for deposition, and translation from see to see was condemned by many a Council. All the clergy under the rank of bishop might marry, but only before ordination to the higher orders. In the East it would seem that the number of persons connected in some way with ecclesiastical office was very large. Even excluding the monks,--a numerous and continually increasing body--the hermits, the Stylites (who remained for years on a pillar, where they even received Communion, in a special vessel made for the purpose), the different