It might have appeared to any man watching affairs
in the earlier years of the seventh century say from 600 to 630, that only one
great main assault having been made against the Church, Arianism and its
derivatives, that assault having been repelled and the Faith having won its
victory, it was now secure for an indefinite time.
Christendom would have to fight for its life, of
course, against outward unchristian things, that is, against Paganism. The
nature worshippers of the high Persian civilization to the east would attack us
in arms and try to overwhelm us.
The savage paganism of barbaric tribes, Scandinavian,
German, Slav and Mongol, in the north and centre of Europe would also attack
Christendom and try to destroy it.
The populations subject to Byzantium would continue to parade
heretical views as a label for their grievances. But the main effort of heresy,
at least, had failed so it seemed. Its object, the undoing of a united Catholic
civilization, had been missed. The rise of no major heresy need henceforth be
feared, still less the consequent disruption of Christendom.
By A.D. 630
all Gaul had long been Catholic. The
last of the Arian generals and their garrisons in Italy and Spain had become
orthodox.The Arian generals and garrisons of Northern Africa had been conquered by the orthodox armies of the Emperor.
It was just at this moment, a moment of apparently
universal and permanent Catholicism, that there fell an unexpected blow of
overwhelming magnitude and force.
