diplomatic and military triumphs which radiated from Constantinople in the sixth century, and by the Christian zeal of orthodox emperors and patriarchs. [Sidenote: Nestorianism in Persia.] Meanwhile in Persia the Monophysites contended for supremacy with the Nestorians, and organised themselves with considerable skill. But the Nestorians, who founded schools and developed a Christology on lines different from those on which European thought was {99} proceeding, became still more rigid in their rejection of the Catholic teaching. Maraba the catholicos (540-52) and Thomas of Edessa, his pupil, seem to have drawn very near to orthodoxy; but the controversy of the Three Chapters widened the breach. Council after council, theologian, catholicos, monastery, bishop, alike denounced Justinian; and they had the support of the pagan philosophers whom he had expelled from the schools of Athens. In Persia monasticism and the life of hermits--though the introduction of either is difficult if not impossible to trace[12]--flourished and developed on lines of their own. For a long time there was no distinction between monastic and secular life: it was only gradually that an organised monasticism grew up out of the coenobitic life for men and for women. But from the sixth century onward the organisation of monasticism gave strength to the Church, and enabled it for some time to resist the Muhammadan invasion. The Church, mapped out into dioceses and well served by numerous clergy, and having its own canon law, its own liturgical forms, and its own theology, was able for long, in spite of the absence of all state support and in spite often of state persecution, to survive in some appearance of strength till the Muhammadan invasion. The Mussulman conquest, when once it was achieved, gave something like security to the Nestorians. Though there was a time of persecution in the ninth century, it was short. Christians as teachers, physicians, philosophers, were famous in the foundation of the learning of the palmy days of the khalifs. But the whole {100} structure fell before the invasions, in later days, of the Mongols and the Turks. [Sidenote: The Church in Palestine.] From the more distant parts of the Persian Empire we may pass to the land where the Church had its birth. During the period of revived power in the Empire, Palestine was at peace under Justinian's rule. In Jerusalem itself[13] it is chiefly to be said that the emperor engaged in large restorations and some original church building after the style of his better known work. He had a severe struggle with the Samaritans, but it led to many conversions.[14] [Sidenote: Conquest by the Persians.]