opposite end of the theological spectrum the Monophysites, unable to accept the decisions of the fourth
General Council at Chalcedon (451), set up a rival hierarchy against those in communion with the
Orthodox patriarchates. The government harassed them in Egypt and Syria, and as a result, when these
provinces first met the force of the Arab invaders from 634, the capacity of the Byzantine army and
administration to resist was weakened by the deep alienation of many of its Monophysite citizens, who
soon found their new rulers, though not always tolerant, at least much easier to live with than the
Constantinople straitjacket. In Egypt the scale of apostasy to Islam so saddened one seventh-century
monk on Sinai that in despair he took his life, and in the circumstances even suicide incurred no censure.
The Arab conquest of Syria, Egypt, north Africa, and then southern Spain and Sicily, ended the unity of
the old Roman world as no other factor did. The Mediterranean was no longer a Roman lake.