" Thus the coming of Islam seems to be nothing less than a divine judgement on the Byzantine world for its failure to fulfil its mission. And the cause of that failure was the same as that for which St. Ephrem, the greatest of the Syrian Fathers, reproached the Greeks in the fourth century - the unbridled lust for theological controversy which made the most sacred dogmas of the faith slogans of party warfare, sacrificed charity and unity to party spirit. "

― Christopher Henry Dawson , The Formation of Christendom