Syriac (_i.e._ Aramaic) was the vernacular of these lands, whose capital for both ecclesiastical and political matters was Antioch. Their use of a separate language gave a national tinge to their Christianity; and they resented the Greek uniformity which the Emperor of Constantinople for political reasons sought to impose upon them. They fought this battle on the doctrinal field, refusing to accept the "Constantinopolitan" council of Chalcedon, and finding in that refusal a rallying-point for their own desire for independence. For some time, it seemed probable that the emperor would seek to reconcile the discontented provinces by abandoning the council to which they objected; this policy, however, was rejected by Justinian (527-565), with the result that these "Monophysite"[31] malcontents organized themselves on a footing of separation from the Greek Church, but they remained in fellowship with the Churches of Armenia and Egypt; and the bulk of the Christian population of these provinces was in sympathy with them. Thus, when the Mohammedan invasions of the seventh century commenced, the Arabs found that the bulk of the provincials were disposed to receive them as deliverers rather than as foes. In return, they recognized these Monophysites as the dominant Christian _millet_ of these provinces, and so they remained for centuries. Their nickname of "Jacobite" has nothing whatever to do with the "White Rose Society," but was given them during the sixth century. Justinian attempted to force them into "Orthodoxy" by imprisoning their bishops, so as to prevent the ordination of any clergy but those of whom he approved. While in prison, the bishops consecrated a certain monk Jacobus Baradaeus, to the episcopate, and gave him a "roving commission." For thirty-five years he wandered from place to place in a beggar's horse-cloth (_bara'da_), and reorganized the whole separatist hierarchy. Their Patriarch claims to be a true representative of the original Patriarchate of Antioch. In the days of their oppression, he was naturally not permitted to reside there, and shifted his quarters from monastery to monastery, till he settled at last at Deir el Za'aferan. The Greeks have of course a Patriarch of the see, though they have to admit the existence of gaps in his line of ancestry, and a Latin claimant of the same was established in the time of the Crusades. These reside now at Damascus and Beyrout respectively. The Jacobite Church comprises about a quarter of a million adherents in Asiatic Turkey with--we believe--twelve bishops; and there are about the same number under British rule in Malabar.