Predictions of invaders’ imminent collapse proved persistently wrong

Evidence

Sophronios looks forward to the imminent destruction of the Saracens, whose role in the divine scheme of history he limits to a brief cameo appearance as divine chastisement, an unpleasant but necessary interlude in the reign of the Christian Roman empire. Over the next several years, the Muslim invaders showed no signs of going away. Sophronios himself had to surrender Jerusalem to the caliph ‘Umar; in the last of his sermons to come down to us, he bewails the desolation wreaked by the Saracens and predicted by the prophets; the Saracens, he complains, boast that they are subduing the whole world. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 298

Categorization

• CANDY: The irony that Sophronios kept predicting the imminent end of conquerors who never went away is a light, self-contained anecdote.