Note 29 — Chapter IV · THE MOHAMMEDAN CONQUEST. A.D. 632-1104.

It needed no prophetic inspiration to acquaint Mohammed with this fact. The site of the Temple was not only well known to the Christians, but was systematically defiled by them out of abhorrence for the Jews. Eutychius expressly tells us that—“when Helena, the mother of Constantine, had built churches at Jerusalem, the site of the rock and its neighbourhood had been laid waste, and so left. But the Christians heaped dirt on the rock so that there was a large dunghill over it. And so the Romans had neglected it, nor given it that honour which the Israelites had been wont to pay it, and had not built a church above it, because it had been said by our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Gospel, ‘Behold, your house shall be left unto you desolate.’”