If there is any one fact in history which seems absolutely clear and certain, it is this, that _the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was destroyed by command of Hakem_. William of Tyre expressly describes the reconstruction of the church. Raoul, as shown above, tells how the news of the destruction was received. All the Arabic historians record the event.
It was an unlucky day for the Jews when Robert went on his embassy, whatever that was, to the East. But a renewal of the religious spirit in the West was always attended by a persecution of the Jews. No story was too incredible to be believed of them, no violence and cruelty too much for them. When the Crusades began, almost the first to suffer were the hapless Jews, and we know how miserable was their situation so long as the Crusading spirit lasted. Even when this was dying out, when the Christians and the Saracens were often firm friends, the Jews alone shared none of the benefits of toleration. To be a descendant of that race by whom Christ was crucified, was to be subjected to the very wantonness of cruelty and persecution.
One of the principal sights in Jerusalem then, as now, though the Latins have long since given it up, was the yearly appearance of the holy fire. Odolric was witness, not only of this, but of another and a more unusual miracle. For while the people were all waiting for the fire to appear, a Saracen began to chant in mockery the _Kyrie Eleison_, and snatching a taper from one of the pilgrims, he ran away with it. “But immediately,” says Raoul, “he was seized by the devil, and began to suffer unimaginable torments. The Christian who had been robbed regained his taper, and the Saracen died immediately after in the arms of his friends.” This example inspired a just terror into the hearts of the infidels, and was for the Christians a great subject of rejoicing. And at that very moment the holy fire burst out from one of the same lamps, and ran from one to the other. Bishop Odolric bought the lamp which was first lit for a pound of gold, and hung it up in his church at Orleans, “where it cured an infinite number of sick.”
One can easily understand the growth of stories, such as that of the stricken Saracen. An age like the tenth was little disposed to question the truth of a miracle which proved their faith. Nor was it likely to set against the one Saracen who died in torture after insulting the Cross the tens of thousands who insulted it with impunity. The series of miracles related by Raoul and others are told in perfect good faith, and believed by those to whom they were related as simply as they were believed by those who told them. And we can very well understand how they helped, in a time when hardly any other thing would have so helped, to maintain the faith of a people, coarse, rough, unlettered, and imaginative.