the Sphinx; and therefore the Mamelukes used it entirely as a target.
There was little in them of that double feeling, full of pathos and irony,
which divided the hearts of the primitive Christians in presence of
the great pagan literature and art. This is not concerned with brutal
outbreaks of revenge which may be found on both sides, or with chivalrous
caprices of toleration, which may also be found on both sides;
it is concerned with the inmost mentality of the two religions,
which must be understood in order to do justice to either.
The Moslem mind never tended to that mystical mode of "loving yet leaving"
with which Augustine cried aloud upon the ancient beauty, or Dante
said farewell to Virgil when he left him in the limbo of the pagans.
The Moslem traditions, unlike the medieval legends, do not suggest
the image of a knight who kissed Venus before he killed her.
We see in all the Christian ages this combination which is not
a compromise, but rather a complexity made by two contrary enthusiasms;
as when the Dark Ages copied out the pagan poems while denying
the pagan legends; or when the popes of the Renascence
imitated the Greek temples while denying the Greek gods.
This high inconsistency is inconsistent with Islam. Islam, as I
have said, takes everything literally, and does not know how to play
with anything. And the cause of the contrast is the historical
cause of which we must be conscious in all studies of this kind.
The Christian Church had from a very early date the idea of
reconstructing a whole civilisation, and even a complex civilisation.
It was the attempt to make a new balance, which differed from the old
balance of the stoics of Rome; but which could not afford to lose
its balance any more than they. It differed because the old system
was one of many religions under one government, while the new
was one of many governments under one religion. But the idea
of variety in unity remained though it was in a sense reversed.