confidence by a conceptual world which emphasized the individual's helplessness in the face of supernatural forces outside his control. In his Confessions St Augustine portrayed his friend Alypius as a personification of the ancient ideal and then described how he succumbed to base feelings of bloodlust after visiting a gladiatorial contest; this 'reverse conversion' was presented as a lesson in the need for humility and divine grace. In part the change reflected a movement already under way in the Late Roman period as relatively scientific notions gave way to a more popular preoccupation with the other-worldly and the superstitious; a historian with such a thoroughly classical style as Procopius could seriously believe that Justinian and Theodora were demons. Classical ideas of the physical universe such as those of Ptolemy continued to be known, but lacked the wide appeal of Christian theories which were at once literal and allegorical. In the sixth century an Alexandrian merchant called Cosmas Indicopleustes ('sailor to India') wrote his Christian Topography in which he described the world as modelled on the Tabernacle of Moses with the earth forming its base and the heavenly kingdom enclosed in the vaulted top.

According to the early medieval world-picture mankind was an instrument of divine providence, with the nations of the world divided among the sons of Ham, Shem, and Japheth. The successes of 'gentiles', whether Muslims or German barbarians, were explained away as punishment for the sinfulness of Christians. History was seen as the universal unfolding of God's purpose with human actions of minor importance in comparison with the watershed of Christ's incarnation and the ultimate goal of the Last Judgement.

Around 250 St Cyprian had written, 'The Day of Judgement is at hand'. Early medieval man remained preoccupied with the impending end of the world. Views of the imminence of the Second Coming were based on biblical prophecies, and could not fail to be strengthened by the deepening crises of the sixth and seventh centuries. Gregory the Great saw the Lombards as presaging the end of the world and when the Caliph 'Umar entered Jerusalem in 638 the patriarch claimed that

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