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The real cause, however, appears to have been the machinations of a certain monk named John. This man had in vain endeavoured to induce his patriarch (Zacharias) to consecrate him to the office of bishop, but his superior had persistently refused to accede to his repeated request. Impelled by ambition and revenge, John came to Egypt, presented himself before Hakem at Jebel Mokattem (where the caliph was in the habit of resorting to practise his superstitious and profane ceremonies), and addressed to him a petition filled with the grossest calumnies against the patriarch. “Thou art the king of the country,” so the document ran; “but the Christians have a king more powerful than thee, owing to the immense riches which he has amassed,—one who sells bishoprics for gold, and conducts himself in a manner highly displeasing to God.” Hakem, on reading these words, at once commanded that all the churches throughout the kingdom should be closed, and the patriarch himself arrested, and wrote to the governor of Jerusalem in the following terms: “The Imam, the Commander of the Faithful, orders you so to destroy the Church of El Camámah,^[39] that its earth shall become its heaven, and its length its breadth.” The order was immediately put into execution; the church was razed to the ground, and an attempt made—though fortunately without success—to destroy the rock-hewn tomb itself, which had been for so many years the special object of devotion to myriads of Christian pilgrims.