“What has my son done to be excommunicated? Hear it, ye people, hear it. And be just to me and my son. What has he done to deserve the anathema of the Church? What has he done?” And thus frantic, mad, she runs through the main street of the town, making wild gestures and clamours—publishing, as it were, the Patriarchal Bull, before it was read by the priest on the following day, and tacked on the door of the Church.
Of this Bull, tricked with the stock phrases of the Church of the Middle Ages, such as “anathema be he,” or “banned be he,” who speaks with, deals with, and so forth, we have a copy before us.
But our readers will not pardon us, we fear, if further space and consideration be here given to its contents. Suffice it to say, however, that Khalid comes to church on that fatal day, takes the foolscap sheet down from the door, and, going with it to the town-square, burns it there before the multitudes.
And it came to pass, when the Bull is burned in the town-square of Baalbek, in the last year of the reign of Abdul Hamid, some among the multitudes shout loud shouts of joy, and some cast stones.
Then, foul, vehement speaking falleth between the friends and the enemies of him who wrought evil in the sight of the Lord;
And everyone thereupon brandisheth a stick or taketh up a stone and the battle ensueth.
Now, the mighty troops of the Sultan of the Ottomans come forth like the Yaman wind and stand in the town-square like rocks;
And the battle rageth still, and the troops who are come forth to part the fighting multitudes, having gorged themselves at the last meal, can not as much as speak their part: