Podcasts about ctesiphon

The Holy Symeon was bishop of the royal cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon in Persia, during a great persecution under King Sapor II. The king had been incited by (Zoroastrian) Magi jealous of the growth of the Faith in their territory, and by some Jews living in Persia. The king was already displeased with the holy bishop: his eunuch, Ustazan, a secret Christian, had denied Christ, but when reprimanded by Symeon, had confessed the Faith before the King, for which he was executed. On Holy Friday of 343 Symeon, along with at least a hundred other servants of the Church, was sent out to be slain. Symeon exhorted each to be of good courage, and was himself slain last. One year later, again on Holy Friday, the King's eunuch Azat was executed for Christ, along with a great number of the faithful. It is said that more than 1,000 Christians died as martyrs during this persecution.   The Zoroastrians still live in parts of Iran as a small, somewhat persecuted minority under the Islamic government.

Persophony and Persography as Symbols of Iranian Unity and the Reza-Khani OrderIn this presentation, delivered in Persian at the First International Symposium on Iranian Ancient ‎Languages and Scripts - From Turpan to Ctesiphon - on May 15th, 2022, in Dushanbe, the capital of ‎Tajikistan, I explore how the use of Persian, both in writing and speech over the past millennium, has ‎contributed to the concept of Iranian unity and the national identity of the Iranian people. This idea is ‎linked to the establishment of the Rezā Khān Order in 1914, which led to the founding of the first Iranian ‎Academy, known as Farhangestan. The Academy aimed to foster and cultivate the Persian language and ‎literature within Iran's borders.‎The creation of Farhangestān mirrors a broader tradition seen in Western countries, where language ‎academies have sought to protect and nurture national languages for centuries. Examples include the ‎Crusca Academy in Italy (1582), the Alliance Française in France (1620), and the Real Academia Española ‎in Spain (1713). Farhangestān's history in Iran began on May 20, 1935. Although the media rarely ‎acknowledges the early efforts of the Iranian Academy, particularly in the realm of linguistics and the ‎selection and refinement of Persian vocabulary, it is important to note that its foundation was laid earlier, ‎in 1924/1925, by representatives from the Ministries of War, Culture, and Art during the first Pahlavi era. ‎The clear directive from Reza Shah in 1935, known as "Destūre Rezā Khani," formalized these efforts.‎Reza Shah's order was undoubtedly the most systematic and enduring response to the chaotic state of the ‎Persian language at the end of the Qajar period and the early 20th century—a language that had been ‎subjected to foreign influences for over a millennium, absorbing Arabic, Mongolian, and Turkish elements, ‎and now faced the influx of European terms. In this talk, I will highlight some of the key efforts of the ‎Farhangestān Academy, offering prominent examples, while also discussing the challenges the institution ‎has encountered since its inception‎.For full access to the video, including the PowerPoint presentation, please CLIICK HEREپارسی؜ نویسی و پارسی؜ خوانی چونان نماد همبستگی ایرانی و دستور رضاخانیفرهنگستان چونان سازمانی که آرمان آن پاسداری، پشتیبانی، بالش و پرورش زبان ملی یک سرزمین ‏است، در باختر زمین پیشینه؜ ی گاه بیش از چهار سده را در برمی؜گیرد. آکادمی کروسکا در ایتالیا (۱۵۸۲)، ‏آکادمی آلیانس در فرانسه (۱۶۲۰) و رئال آکادمی در اسپانیا (۱۷۱۳) نمونه؜هایی از بنیادهایی هستند که ‏در این زمینه تلاش می کنند. تاریخ فرهنگستان در ایران به ۱۳۱۴ خورشیدی، یعنی به هشتاد و اندی ‏سال پیش بازمی؜ گردد. گرچه امروز در رسانه؜ های گروهی کمتر سخنی از کوشش؜ های نخستین فرهنگستان ‏ایران در زمینه؜ی زبانشناختی و بر پایه؜ی واژه؜ گزینی و پالوده ؜سازی زبان پارسی به میان می؜آید، اما بی؜جا ‏نیست که بدانیم که پیشتاز این اندیشه - که شالوده؜ ی آن پیشاپیش در سال ۱۳۰۳ خورشیدی و از ‏سوی گروهی از نمایندگان وزارت خانه ؜های جنگ، فرهنگ و هنر دوران پهلوی نخست پی؜ریزی شده ؜بود - ‏فرمان روشن رضاشاه در سال ۱۳۱۴ بود که سپس به "دستور رضاخانی" شهره شد. دستور رضاخانی ‏بی؜ گمان بنیادی؜ترین و استوارترین و همچنین سازمان ؜یافته ترین واکنش به زبان پارسی آشفته؜ی پایان ‏دوره؜ی قاجار و آغاز سده ؜ی بیستم میلادی بود، زبانی که در درازنای بیش از یک هزاره در کنار چالش ‏همیشگی ؜اش با عربی و سپس مغولی و ترکی اکنون دستخوش یورش واژگان اروپایی شده بود. در این ‏سخنرانی تلاش بر آن خواهد بود که گوشه؜هایی از تلاش؜ های فرهنگستان را با آوردن نمونه ؜های برجسته ‏نماییم و هم؜زمان چالش؜ هایی را که این بنیاد از آغاز تا کنون پیش روی داشته است، برشماریم. ‏برای دیدن ویدئوی کامل این سخنرانی به همراه ارائه ی پاورپوینت و نمونه تلاش‌های فرهنگستان ایران، لطف کنید اینجا را کلیک کنید! 

The Holy Symeon was bishop of the royal cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon in Persia, during a great persecution under King Sapor II. The king had been incited by (Zoroastrian) Magi jealous of the growth of the Faith in their territory, and by some Jews living in Persia. The king was already displeased with the holy bishop: his eunuch, Ustazan, a secret Christian, had denied Christ, but when reprimanded by Symeon, had confessed the Faith before the King, for which he was executed. On Holy Friday of 343 Symeon, along with at least a hundred other servants of the Church, was sent out to be slain. Symeon exhorted each to be of good courage, and was himself slain last. One year later, again on Holy Friday, the King's eunuch Azat was executed for Christ, along with a great number of the faithful. It is said that more than 1,000 Christians died as martyrs during this persecution.   The Zoroastrians still live in parts of Iran as a small, somewhat persecuted minority under the Islamic government.

The Holy Symeon was bishop of the royal cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon in Persia, during a great persecution under King Sapor II. The king had been incited by (Zoroastrian) Magi jealous of the growth of the Faith in their territory, and by some Jews living in Persia. The king was already displeased with the holy bishop: his eunuch, Ustazan, a secret Christian, had denied Christ, but when reprimanded by Symeon, had confessed the Faith before the King, for which he was executed. On Holy Friday of 343 Symeon, along with at least a hundred other servants of the Church, was sent out to be slain. Symeon exhorted each to be of good courage, and was himself slain last. One year later, again on Holy Friday, the King's eunuch Azat was executed for Christ, along with a great number of the faithful. It is said that more than 1,000 Christians died as martyrs during this persecution.   The Zoroastrians still live in parts of Iran as a small, somewhat persecuted minority under the Islamic government.

The Holy Symeon was bishop of the royal cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon in Persia, during a great persecution under King Sapor II. The king had been incited by (Zoroastrian) Magi jealous of the growth of the Faith in their territory, and by some Jews living in Persia. The king was already displeased with the holy bishop: his eunuch, Ustazan, a secret Christian, had denied Christ, but when reprimanded by Symeon, had confessed the Faith before the King, for which he was executed. On Holy Friday of 343 Symeon, along with at least a hundred other servants of the Church, was sent out to be slain. Symeon exhorted each to be of good courage, and was himself slain last. One year later, again on Holy Friday, the King's eunuch Azat was executed for Christ, along with a great number of the faithful. It is said that more than 1,000 Christians died as martyrs during this persecution.   The Zoroastrians still live in parts of Iran as a small, somewhat persecuted minority under the Islamic government.

The Holy Symeon was bishop of the royal cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon in Persia, during a great persecution under King Sapor II. The king had been incited by (Zoroastrian) Magi jealous of the growth of the Faith in their territory, and by some Jews living in Persia. The king was already displeased with the holy bishop: his eunuch, Ustazan, a secret Christian, had denied Christ, but when reprimanded by Symeon, had confessed the Faith before the King, for which he was executed. On Holy Friday of 343 Symeon, along with at least a hundred other servants of the Church, was sent out to be slain. Symeon exhorted each to be of good courage, and was himself slain last. One year later, again on Holy Friday, the King's eunuch Azat was executed for Christ, along with a great number of the faithful. It is said that more than 1,000 Christians died as martyrs during this persecution.   The Zoroastrians still live in parts of Iran as a small, somewhat persecuted minority under the Islamic government.

he Baghdad Battery is the name given to a set of three artifacts which were found together: a ceramic pot, a tube of copper, and a rod of iron. It was discovered in present-day Khujut Rabu, Iraq in 1936, close to the metropolis of Ctesiphon, the capital of the Parthian 

The Holy Symeon was bishop of the royal cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon in Persia, during a great persecution under King Sapor II. The king had been incited by (Zoroastrian) Magi jealous of the growth of the Faith in their territory, and by some Jews living in Persia. The king was already displeased with the holy bishop: his eunuch, Ustazan, a secret Christian, had denied Christ, but when reprimanded by Symeon, had confessed the Faith before the King, for which he was executed. On Holy Friday of 343 Symeon, along with at least a hundred other servants of the Church, was sent out to be slain. Symeon exhorted each to be of good courage, and was himself slain last. One year later, again on Holy Friday, the King's eunuch Azat was executed for Christ, along with a great number of the faithful. It is said that more than 1,000 Christians died as martyrs during this persecution

The Holy Symeon was bishop of the royal cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon in Persia, during a great persecution under King Sapor II. The king had been incited by (Zoroastrian) Magi jealous of the growth of the Faith in their territory, and by some Jews living in Persia. The king was already displeased with the holy bishop: his eunuch, Ustazan, a secret Christian, had denied Christ, but when reprimanded by Symeon, had confessed the Faith before the King, for which he was executed. On Holy Friday of 343 Symeon, along with at least a hundred other servants of the Church, was sent out to be slain. Symeon exhorted each to be of good courage, and was himself slain last. One year later, again on Holy Friday, the King's eunuch Azat was executed for Christ, along with a great number of the faithful. It is said that more than 1,000 Christians died as martyrs during this persecution

In the third century, Rome faced a reinvigorated Persia, led by the Sasanian dynasty. In 260 AD, the Roman Emperor Valerian was defeated and captured. Allegedly, the Persian King used him as a footstool to mount his horse before flaying him and displaying his skin in his palace. How did the Sasanians triumph over the Romans? Find out in this episode.

The Baghdad Battery is the name given to a set of three artifacts which were found together: a ceramic pot, a tube of copper, and a rod of iron. It was discovered in present-day Khujut Rabu, Iraq, close to the metropolis of Ctesiphon, the capital of the Parthian (150 BC – 223 AD) and Sasanian (224–650 AD) empires, and it is believed to date from either of these periods.

The Holy Symeon was bishop of the royal cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon in Persia, during a great persecution under King Sapor II. The king had been incited by (Zoroastrian) Magi jealous of the growth of the Faith in their territory, and by some Jews living in Persia. The king was already displeased with the holy bishop: his eunuch, Ustazan, a secret Christian, had denied Christ, but when reprimanded by Symeon, had confessed the Faith before the King, for which he was executed. On Holy Friday of 343 Symeon, along with at least a hundred other servants of the Church, was sent out to be slain. Symeon exhorted each to be of good courage, and was himself slain last. One year later, again on Holy Friday, the King's eunuch Azat was executed for Christ, along with a great number of the faithful. It is said that more than 1,000 Christians died as martyrs during this persecution.   The Zoroastrians still live in parts of Iran as a small, somewhat persecuted minority under the Islamic government.

The Holy Symeon was bishop of the royal cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon in Persia, during a great persecution under King Sapor II. The king had been incited by (Zoroastrian) Magi jealous of the growth of the Faith in their territory, and by some Jews living in Persia. The king was already displeased with the holy bishop: his eunuch, Ustazan, a secret Christian, had denied Christ, but when reprimanded by Symeon, had confessed the Faith before the King, for which he was executed. On Holy Friday of 343 Symeon, along with at least a hundred other servants of the Church, was sent out to be slain. Symeon exhorted each to be of good courage, and was himself slain last. One year later, again on Holy Friday, the King's eunuch Azat was executed for Christ, along with a great number of the faithful. It is said that more than 1,000 Christians died as martyrs during this persecution.   The Zoroastrians still live in parts of Iran as a small, somewhat persecuted minority under the Islamic government.

The Holy Symeon was bishop of the royal cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon in Persia, during a great persecution under King Sapor II. The king had been incited by (Zoroastrian) Magi jealous of the growth of the Faith in their territory, and by some Jews living in Persia. The king was already displeased with the holy bishop: his eunuch, Ustazan, a secret Christian, had denied Christ, but when reprimanded by Symeon, had confessed the Faith before the King, for which he was executed. On Holy Friday of 343 Symeon, along with at least a hundred other servants of the Church, was sent out to be slain. Symeon exhorted each to be of good courage, and was himself slain last. One year later, again on Holy Friday, the King's eunuch Azat was executed for Christ, along with a great number of the faithful. It is said that more than 1,000 Christians died as martyrs during this persecution.   The Zoroastrians still live in parts of Iran as a small, somewhat persecuted minority under the Islamic government.

The Holy Symeon was bishop of the royal cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon in Persia, during a great persecution under King Sapor II. The king had been incited by (Zoroastrian) Magi jealous of the growth of the Faith in their territory, and by some Jews living in Persia. The king was already displeased with the holy bishop: his eunuch, Ustazan, a secret Christian, had denied Christ, but when reprimanded by Symeon, had confessed the Faith before the King, for which he was executed. On Holy Friday of 343 Symeon, along with at least a hundred other servants of the Church, was sent out to be slain. Symeon exhorted each to be of good courage, and was himself slain last. One year later, again on Holy Friday, the King's eunuch Azat was executed for Christ, along with a great number of the faithful. It is said that more than 1,000 Christians died as martyrs during this persecution.   The Zoroastrians still live in parts of Iran as a small, somewhat persecuted minority under the Islamic government.

The Holy Symeon was bishop of the royal cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon in Persia, during a great persecution under King Sapor II. The king had been incited by (Zoroastrian) Magi jealous of the growth of the Faith in their territory, and by some Jews living in Persia. The king was already displeased with the holy bishop: his eunuch, Ustazan, a secret Christian, had denied Christ, but when reprimanded by Symeon, had confessed the Faith before the King, for which he was executed. On Holy Friday of 343 Symeon, along with at least a hundred other servants of the Church, was sent out to be slain. Symeon exhorted each to be of good courage, and was himself slain last. One year later, again on Holy Friday, the King's eunuch Azat was executed for Christ, along with a great number of the faithful. It is said that more than 1,000 Christians died as martyrs during this persecution.   The Zoroastrians still live in parts of Iran as a small, somewhat persecuted minority under the Islamic government.

The Holy Symeon was bishop of the royal cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon in Persia, during a great persecution under King Sapor II. The king had been incited by (Zoroastrian) Magi jealous of the growth of the Faith in their territory, and by some Jews living in Persia. The king was already displeased with the holy bishop: his eunuch, Ustazan, a secret Christian, had denied Christ, but when reprimanded by Symeon, had confessed the Faith before the King, for which he was executed. On Holy Friday of 343 Symeon, along with at least a hundred other servants of the Church, was sent out to be slain. Symeon exhorted each to be of good courage, and was himself slain last. One year later, again on Holy Friday, the King's eunuch Azat was executed for Christ, along with a great number of the faithful. It is said that more than 1,000 Christians died as martyrs during this persecution.   The Zoroastrians still live in parts of Iran as a small, somewhat persecuted minority under the Islamic government.

The Emancipation Proclamation Station Welcome back to the Emancipation podcast station the place to hear about history, researched and retold through the eyes of Middle and High school students   Beginning of World War I: Ella - One of the known causes of world war 1 turning into a world war was the alliance system.  In 1839, the treaty of London was signed which was where Britain was going to protect the neutrality of Belgium. In 1879 the dual alliance treaty was signed between Germany and Austria-Hungary to protect each other from Russia. Many other alliances were also forming at the time. Ethan - Germany’s navy was starting to get threatening to Britain’s navy. Britain took necessary precautions and signed a document with France called the Entente Cordial, tipping the odds of any war in in their favor. This made Germany realize they were a threat and thought they were being pushed back down, so in turn they became more aggressive and ready for war. Hunter- something that happened about three months before the war was the assassination of: Archduke Franz Ferdinand, on June 28 1914, in Sarajevo, resulting in the July Crisis. How Austria-Hungary responded to this assassination was by issuing an ultimatum to Serbia. Serbia’s reply to the ultimatum didn’t satisfy the Austrians, afterword the two moved to a war footing. Emma - The power that the nations of Germany and Italy possessed at the beginning of the first world war was impressive as it was, but we have to take into account how quickly they had acquired it. Both of these countries, though they had deep cultural roots, were very new as official nations. Both had formed during the Franco-Prussian war barely more than forty years previous but now held power over regions stretching from Africa to east Asia. Audrey - Starting in 1892 there was an alliance between France and Russia and this was the Franco Russian Military Convention. Then in the early 1900s there were a series of agreements between Great Britain France and Russia so that they were in good terms with each other. The alliance between Great Britain France and Russia was the Triple Entente (which means agreements). Skylar - World war I or sometimes known as the Great War started on July 28th, 1914, the war started in Europe. The war was in Africa, the middle east, Pacific islands, indian ocean, China, north and south atlantic oceans, and like i said Europe. They think that this war killed about 16 million people died from direct cause of this war. Gabe - The war started basically because russia wanted to protect serbia and germany wanted to protect austria so when austria went to fight serbia russia went to fight germany Ben - America only began to fight in World War 1 in 1917 ( April 6th to be specific ) with their allies. They had alliances with Russia, Britain, and France at the time, making them a strong force at the time. Led by major General John J. Pershing, 2 million American soldiers fought despite many American citizens wanting the country to stay neutral.   Other fronts of World War I: 1.Hunter- One of the many different fronts of the war was the Italian front,  the italians were apart of the Triple Alliance during this time, but italy stayed out of the war in 1914 because it claimed that Austria had not been attacked so therefor italy didn’t have to support Austria. In all reality the Italians had a secret agreement with the allies, the allies said that they would give the italians some Austrian territory if they attacked Austria-Hungary. EthanOL - As soon as the war started Japan decided they wanted what the Germans had. Japan was already allied Britain so that they could attack Germany without Britain growing apart from them. They attacked Tsingtao which was a German base in China. This was the first naval/aerial assault ever. They didn’t use exactly aircraft carriers but they did carry their aircrafts. This was called the Siege of Tsingtao which took place in 1914. Ella - Serbia was a very small country with approximately 4.5 million people and an army of around 400,000 soldiers. Almost everyone who could be in the army at the time was in it but it still ended up being destroyed with 60% of the army getting killed, which decreased Serbia's population by 16%. Emma - Italy’s agreements with the Triple Alliance and the Allies were only two of a long series of strategic alliances and deals the nation made on the road to the first world war. Their entry into the Triple Alliance was the first move, which was actually a surprising one, due to the fact that Italy and the Austro-Hungarian empire (another member of the triple alliance) had been enemies previously. Twenty years later, which still under this pact, they made a secret alliance with France. Twelve years after that, the Austro-Hungarian empire entered the war. Only one year later, they entered the treaty of London, an agreement with the Triple entente (england, russia, and france) to fight against their original allies, exit the triple alliance, and declare war on the Austro-Hungarian empire. 5.Skylar - Italy took part in the triple alliance in 1882 when they agreed to be apart of it, they were one of the first countries to take part in it. The whole reason that it was called the triple alliance was because there were three countries in it Italy, Austria-Hungary and Germany. This was kind of a weird mix because they didn’t really like each other but still said they would protect each other if worse comes to worst. Italy was making deals with other places like france in 1902. It was kind of just a lot of back stabbing.  Gabe - The Italians helped the allies by attacking austria hungary which is in the triple alliance so basically they made an alliance and were like let's help each other i mean we all don't like each other and would love to see each other destroyed so why not make an alliance really smart and then they dont even help each other its completely useless   Ben - Japan played a big part in the fight for the West Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. Most of the reason Japan fought was because they wanted influence in China, but even with the help of Sun Yat-sen, they didn’t have many successes. 8. Western and Eastern fronts of World War I: 1.Hunter- during this time in the war the Germans were fighting two countries, one of which during the western front was France, the Germans had thought if they were to defeat the French (Russia’s ally) in four weeks then they could have an advantage against the Russians in the Eastern front. Ethan- The Germans realized that after the Franco-Prussian War, they were going to be due for another war with France. Germany unified in advance to make sure France had a disadvantage. The humiliation was huge and Germany took Alsace and Lorraine, which were mineral rich and valuable to anyone who controlled it. Germany realized this might hurt them later because France was allied with Russia so if there was war that it’d be on 2 fronts. Ella - The western front in world war 1  was much smaller that the eastern front, but the western front could uses trenches as a defence system since they had less land to defend. The eastern front however, could not use this method due to the land being so wide and them not having enough people to dig them. Even if they were able to dig some, they wouldn't have enough and the western people could easily go around. Emma - In February of the year 1916, the battle of Verdun took place when the Germans launched an attack on the French military at the border between Germany and France. Unlike a lot of the other offensive acts in the war, this battle was not intended to result in the gain of territory for the Germans. The point of this attack was to cause the French to send so many troops, and to cause so many casualties that the French would deplete all their resources and be forced to withdraw from the war. Audrey - In WW1 the Germans were using poison gas as a weapon. Some of the poison gases are chlorine gas, which would immediately cause you to choke to death, phosgene gas, which wouldn’t cause choking and this allowed the gas to get into to lungs and there was a delayed effect, and mustard gas, another that wouldn’t cause choking but it would cause severe blistering which would take you out of the war. Ben - Germany eventually gained peace with Russia on May 3rd, 1918. Russia accomplished this by giving Germany a significant amount of land. This was done under the Bolshevik Government of Russia, which was founded in 1917 after a revolution overthrew the provisional government. Skylar- After the battle of Verdun the british and the French decide to go against a different part of the front, this time close to the Somme river in july of 1916. This battle was the first time they used tanks, it was an extremely bloody battle. 8.   Blockades and American entry: Hunter- On May 7, 1915, a German submarine sunk the British ocean liner called Lusitania, ending in the deaths of nearly 1,200 people and that includes 128 Americans. The event strained diplomatic relations between Washington and Berlin, and turned public opinion on Germany. Skylar -   the united states had maintained being neutral in the war up until this point, Wilson had just won presidency again because he had kept the US out of the war. Germany was getting pretty desperate so they were going to go back to their idea of unrestricted submarine warfare but they knew if they did that the US would side with their allies.  In january of 1917 the Zimmerman Telegram was created by Arthur Zimmerman sent a encoded telegram to mexico, it was encoded because it had to pass through lines that the US controlled. He told them that he knows a way to slow them down. (if someone wants to go off of this that would b awesome) 3.Ethan - In April 1917 the administration had thought about it and Germany had took it too far, with their submarine warfare. President Wilson decided that war on Germany was inevitable and sent a famous message to Congress for why it needs to go to war with Germany. On April 4th Congress decided to allow war on Germany, and war pursued quickly. Now, many people were deciding for themselves why we were at war. Many public opinion were stated, some saying it was inevitable, some saying we should stay out of war. Ella - So the United States entered world war 1 for multiple reasons including them having financial ties, trade ties, and cultural ties with the British. Another reason being the British using a lot of successful propaganda. Gabe - im a take a step back to skylar so the encoded telegram was intercepted by the british and then shared with america and it said that they would help mexico take texas arizona and new mexico back from the united states if they helped the germans in the war Audrey - In November of 1914 the British declared the entire North Sea a war zone so if a ship came they would probably be destroyed. The ships especially couldn’t carry any contraband, and food was considered a contraband. So the Germans and the Austrians had to start rationing food to the point of eating only 1k calories a day. This was making the central powers weaker not only because they couldn’t get what they needed for war but people were dying and there were about 400k deaths due to starvation. Emma - In 1917, Senator George Norris issued a speech in opposition to the entry of the United States of America into the World War. In his speech he acknowledged that both England and Germany were wrong in the actions of war they had chosen to take; declaring certain areas war zones, but he did not support the entry into the war and listed several alternative actions that could have been taken. Ben - Most of the American soldiers starting arriving and began fighting on the battlefields of france on the twenty sixth of June. Britain and France also sent additional officers to help train the newly drafted American soldiers.   World War I shapes the Middle East: 1.Hunter- The first world war truly shaped the middle east, but the aftermath of the war made the largest change in the region as we know it. One of the events that had changed the middle east was when Russia had staked a claim on Istanbul and waterways linking the Black seas to the Mediterranean seas, and the French claimed Syria and Cilicia in modern day Turkey. Skylar - the British wanted the help of the Arab’s because they wanted them to fight the Ottoman’s on the Palestine and Sinai fronts. So they told Hussein bin ali if he helped them that they would give him free territory, for an independent arab state and he agrees. After that he names himself king of the Hejaz in 1916. Ethan -  Britain had a presence in the Middle East at the time of the end of the war. Egypt was under the protection of Britain, and when they didn’t get freedom until 1922 there was a sort of revolt. In the end the Egyptians won this slight war and obtained their freedom. At this time Britain was also protecting Kuwait and they have since the 1800s. They still did not get their freedom handed to them until 1961. Ella - In 1915, 6,500 people from the British army were sieged in Kut, after retreating from Ctesiphon by the ottoman Empire for 147 days till they were forced to surrender.  Gabe - The Ibn Saud ruled the basically the other side of saudi arabia right next to Hussein bin ali and he actually goes and takes the Hejaz empire and declares himself king of the sauds in the hejaz in 1926 and this is how you get saudi arabia Emma - The British troops (made up of all the various countries that were part of the British empire, such as India and New Zealand) started their Middle Eastern campaign at the southern end of Mesopotamia, near the Persian gulf. They moved northward along the Tigris river, capturing land until they held control over the majority of what is now Iraq. Meanwhile on the other side of the land mass in Egypt, they were on the defensive side of the war for quite a while while the Ottomans attempted, and failed, to take capture Suez canal from British control. 7.Ben - After the Middle East changed, a lot of its boundaries and borders did too. They looked a lot closer to what they look like today. This happens a lot with very large wars because tons of land gets conquered, traded, or destroyed. 8.   Aftermath of World War I Skylar - Woodrow Wilson gave a speech on January 8th, 1918 that is called Woodrow Wilson’s fourteen points. The fourteen points were statements that Wilson gave to try to make peace with everyone and end the war. During his speech he talked about why he thought the war started and what they could do to end it with peace instead of hatred. He talked about free trade, how all conversations should be open for everyone to see, freedom of navigation, and many more things. 2.Hunter- the aftermath of this war truly was amazing, this war had changed so much of the world that we know now, for instance: WW1 had brought about the temporary political disruption of four venerable dynasties-- Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Turkey. This war also brought up a massive social disruption, as millions of women entered the workforce to support men who had went to war, and to replace those who never came back. Ella - World War one ended at the end of 1918, so in 1919 they started discussing the terms of peace so they held the Paris Peace conference. Now during the peace conference the winners decide the “terms of peace” but they all had different outlooks about it (someone plz build off of me if you can if not cool tho Gabe - One of the “Terms of peace” that came out of the Paris Peace conference is the Treaty of Versailles which probably was the treaty to germany it said that germany was gonna pay for all of the allies losses they had to pay something like 60 billion in today's money and that's not including the resources they payed they also were only allowed to have 100,000 men in there army there weren't allowed to have any u boats battleships tanks basically nothing mechanized and we took lots of their territory and split and was given to the allies 5..Emma - The Treaty of Versailles had a huge effect on the German economy and government at the time. Another term of the treaty was that they were not allowed to make an alliance with Austria, due to the cultural and linguistic ties between the two. They were also occupied by the allies in the Saar region of Germany, near the French border. This area was a large coal mining area and for fifteen years, all the coal mined there got shipped to France. That still left a large portion of reparations to be paid back in currency so the government basically printed a ton of money, and tried to convert it into other currencies which resulted in serious inflation all the way into the twenties. So when that happened and they could no longer pay in money, France occupied the Ruhr region and began shipping steel and coal out of there. Ethan - WWI left many families without a parent or without a child to come home to. Many soldier died in battle and from starvation, so in turn this was one of the most bloody battles in history. The U.S. lost approximately 116,708 soldiers in war. Not to mention the prisoners of war that died from many causes like starvation and disease. For those whose remains were never found we have the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier. This is a tradition that has been kept up since 1931 and have never not been guarded since then Ben - Strangely enough, World War 1 kind of helped Japan’s economy. The demand for japanese products became very large and the economy flourished for a time. This also happened similarly in America, because the American economy in the 1920’s was doing very nice. Audrey - There were approximately 16 million deaths due to WWI 8-10 million being military. About 60% of the soldiers deaths were the Entente and 40% were the Central Powers. But 6-7 million that died were civilians and out of that over a million of the civilian deaths were due to direct military action were the rest was caused by starvation and disease.

The Emancipation Proclamation Station Welcome back to the Emancipation podcast station the place to hear about history, researched and retold through the eyes of Middle and High school students   Beginning of World War I: Ella - One of the known causes of world war 1 turning into a world war was the alliance system.  In 1839, the treaty of London was signed which was where Britain was going to protect the neutrality of Belgium. In 1879 the dual alliance treaty was signed between Germany and Austria-Hungary to protect each other from Russia. Many other alliances were also forming at the time. Ethan - Germany’s navy was starting to get threatening to Britain’s navy. Britain took necessary precautions and signed a document with France called the Entente Cordial, tipping the odds of any war in in their favor. This made Germany realize they were a threat and thought they were being pushed back down, so in turn they became more aggressive and ready for war. Hunter- something that happened about three months before the war was the assassination of: Archduke Franz Ferdinand, on June 28 1914, in Sarajevo, resulting in the July Crisis. How Austria-Hungary responded to this assassination was by issuing an ultimatum to Serbia. Serbia’s reply to the ultimatum didn’t satisfy the Austrians, afterword the two moved to a war footing. Emma - The power that the nations of Germany and Italy possessed at the beginning of the first world war was impressive as it was, but we have to take into account how quickly they had acquired it. Both of these countries, though they had deep cultural roots, were very new as official nations. Both had formed during the Franco-Prussian war barely more than forty years previous but now held power over regions stretching from Africa to east Asia. Audrey - Starting in 1892 there was an alliance between France and Russia and this was the Franco Russian Military Convention. Then in the early 1900s there were a series of agreements between Great Britain France and Russia so that they were in good terms with each other. The alliance between Great Britain France and Russia was the Triple Entente (which means agreements). Skylar - World war I or sometimes known as the Great War started on July 28th, 1914, the war started in Europe. The war was in Africa, the middle east, Pacific islands, indian ocean, China, north and south atlantic oceans, and like i said Europe. They think that this war killed about 16 million people died from direct cause of this war. Gabe - The war started basically because russia wanted to protect serbia and germany wanted to protect austria so when austria went to fight serbia russia went to fight germany Ben - America only began to fight in World War 1 in 1917 ( April 6th to be specific ) with their allies. They had alliances with Russia, Britain, and France at the time, making them a strong force at the time. Led by major General John J. Pershing, 2 million American soldiers fought despite many American citizens wanting the country to stay neutral.   Other fronts of World War I: 1.Hunter- One of the many different fronts of the war was the Italian front,  the italians were apart of the Triple Alliance during this time, but italy stayed out of the war in 1914 because it claimed that Austria had not been attacked so therefor italy didn’t have to support Austria. In all reality the Italians had a secret agreement with the allies, the allies said that they would give the italians some Austrian territory if they attacked Austria-Hungary. EthanOL - As soon as the war started Japan decided they wanted what the Germans had. Japan was already allied Britain so that they could attack Germany without Britain growing apart from them. They attacked Tsingtao which was a German base in China. This was the first naval/aerial assault ever. They didn’t use exactly aircraft carriers but they did carry their aircrafts. This was called the Siege of Tsingtao which took place in 1914. Ella - Serbia was a very small country with approximately 4.5 million people and an army of around 400,000 soldiers. Almost everyone who could be in the army at the time was in it but it still ended up being destroyed with 60% of the army getting killed, which decreased Serbia's population by 16%. Emma - Italy’s agreements with the Triple Alliance and the Allies were only two of a long series of strategic alliances and deals the nation made on the road to the first world war. Their entry into the Triple Alliance was the first move, which was actually a surprising one, due to the fact that Italy and the Austro-Hungarian empire (another member of the triple alliance) had been enemies previously. Twenty years later, which still under this pact, they made a secret alliance with France. Twelve years after that, the Austro-Hungarian empire entered the war. Only one year later, they entered the treaty of London, an agreement with the Triple entente (england, russia, and france) to fight against their original allies, exit the triple alliance, and declare war on the Austro-Hungarian empire. 5.Skylar - Italy took part in the triple alliance in 1882 when they agreed to be apart of it, they were one of the first countries to take part in it. The whole reason that it was called the triple alliance was because there were three countries in it Italy, Austria-Hungary and Germany. This was kind of a weird mix because they didn’t really like each other but still said they would protect each other if worse comes to worst. Italy was making deals with other places like france in 1902. It was kind of just a lot of back stabbing.  Gabe - The Italians helped the allies by attacking austria hungary which is in the triple alliance so basically they made an alliance and were like let's help each other i mean we all don't like each other and would love to see each other destroyed so why not make an alliance really smart and then they dont even help each other its completely useless   Ben - Japan played a big part in the fight for the West Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. Most of the reason Japan fought was because they wanted influence in China, but even with the help of Sun Yat-sen, they didn’t have many successes. 8. Western and Eastern fronts of World War I: 1.Hunter- during this time in the war the Germans were fighting two countries, one of which during the western front was France, the Germans had thought if they were to defeat the French (Russia’s ally) in four weeks then they could have an advantage against the Russians in the Eastern front. Ethan- The Germans realized that after the Franco-Prussian War, they were going to be due for another war with France. Germany unified in advance to make sure France had a disadvantage. The humiliation was huge and Germany took Alsace and Lorraine, which were mineral rich and valuable to anyone who controlled it. Germany realized this might hurt them later because France was allied with Russia so if there was war that it’d be on 2 fronts. Ella - The western front in world war 1  was much smaller that the eastern front, but the western front could uses trenches as a defence system since they had less land to defend. The eastern front however, could not use this method due to the land being so wide and them not having enough people to dig them. Even if they were able to dig some, they wouldn't have enough and the western people could easily go around. Emma - In February of the year 1916, the battle of Verdun took place when the Germans launched an attack on the French military at the border between Germany and France. Unlike a lot of the other offensive acts in the war, this battle was not intended to result in the gain of territory for the Germans. The point of this attack was to cause the French to send so many troops, and to cause so many casualties that the French would deplete all their resources and be forced to withdraw from the war. Audrey - In WW1 the Germans were using poison gas as a weapon. Some of the poison gases are chlorine gas, which would immediately cause you to choke to death, phosgene gas, which wouldn’t cause choking and this allowed the gas to get into to lungs and there was a delayed effect, and mustard gas, another that wouldn’t cause choking but it would cause severe blistering which would take you out of the war. Ben - Germany eventually gained peace with Russia on May 3rd, 1918. Russia accomplished this by giving Germany a significant amount of land. This was done under the Bolshevik Government of Russia, which was founded in 1917 after a revolution overthrew the provisional government. Skylar- After the battle of Verdun the british and the French decide to go against a different part of the front, this time close to the Somme river in july of 1916. This battle was the first time they used tanks, it was an extremely bloody battle. 8.   Blockades and American entry: Hunter- On May 7, 1915, a German submarine sunk the British ocean liner called Lusitania, ending in the deaths of nearly 1,200 people and that includes 128 Americans. The event strained diplomatic relations between Washington and Berlin, and turned public opinion on Germany. Skylar -   the united states had maintained being neutral in the war up until this point, Wilson had just won presidency again because he had kept the US out of the war. Germany was getting pretty desperate so they were going to go back to their idea of unrestricted submarine warfare but they knew if they did that the US would side with their allies.  In january of 1917 the Zimmerman Telegram was created by Arthur Zimmerman sent a encoded telegram to mexico, it was encoded because it had to pass through lines that the US controlled. He told them that he knows a way to slow them down. (if someone wants to go off of this that would b awesome) 3.Ethan - In April 1917 the administration had thought about it and Germany had took it too far, with their submarine warfare. President Wilson decided that war on Germany was inevitable and sent a famous message to Congress for why it needs to go to war with Germany. On April 4th Congress decided to allow war on Germany, and war pursued quickly. Now, many people were deciding for themselves why we were at war. Many public opinion were stated, some saying it was inevitable, some saying we should stay out of war. Ella - So the United States entered world war 1 for multiple reasons including them having financial ties, trade ties, and cultural ties with the British. Another reason being the British using a lot of successful propaganda. Gabe - im a take a step back to skylar so the encoded telegram was intercepted by the british and then shared with america and it said that they would help mexico take texas arizona and new mexico back from the united states if they helped the germans in the war Audrey - In November of 1914 the British declared the entire North Sea a war zone so if a ship came they would probably be destroyed. The ships especially couldn’t carry any contraband, and food was considered a contraband. So the Germans and the Austrians had to start rationing food to the point of eating only 1k calories a day. This was making the central powers weaker not only because they couldn’t get what they needed for war but people were dying and there were about 400k deaths due to starvation. Emma - In 1917, Senator George Norris issued a speech in opposition to the entry of the United States of America into the World War. In his speech he acknowledged that both England and Germany were wrong in the actions of war they had chosen to take; declaring certain areas war zones, but he did not support the entry into the war and listed several alternative actions that could have been taken. Ben - Most of the American soldiers starting arriving and began fighting on the battlefields of france on the twenty sixth of June. Britain and France also sent additional officers to help train the newly drafted American soldiers.   World War I shapes the Middle East: 1.Hunter- The first world war truly shaped the middle east, but the aftermath of the war made the largest change in the region as we know it. One of the events that had changed the middle east was when Russia had staked a claim on Istanbul and waterways linking the Black seas to the Mediterranean seas, and the French claimed Syria and Cilicia in modern day Turkey. Skylar - the British wanted the help of the Arab’s because they wanted them to fight the Ottoman’s on the Palestine and Sinai fronts. So they told Hussein bin ali if he helped them that they would give him free territory, for an independent arab state and he agrees. After that he names himself king of the Hejaz in 1916. Ethan -  Britain had a presence in the Middle East at the time of the end of the war. Egypt was under the protection of Britain, and when they didn’t get freedom until 1922 there was a sort of revolt. In the end the Egyptians won this slight war and obtained their freedom. At this time Britain was also protecting Kuwait and they have since the 1800s. They still did not get their freedom handed to them until 1961. Ella - In 1915, 6,500 people from the British army were sieged in Kut, after retreating from Ctesiphon by the ottoman Empire for 147 days till they were forced to surrender.  Gabe - The Ibn Saud ruled the basically the other side of saudi arabia right next to Hussein bin ali and he actually goes and takes the Hejaz empire and declares himself king of the sauds in the hejaz in 1926 and this is how you get saudi arabia Emma - The British troops (made up of all the various countries that were part of the British empire, such as India and New Zealand) started their Middle Eastern campaign at the southern end of Mesopotamia, near the Persian gulf. They moved northward along the Tigris river, capturing land until they held control over the majority of what is now Iraq. Meanwhile on the other side of the land mass in Egypt, they were on the defensive side of the war for quite a while while the Ottomans attempted, and failed, to take capture Suez canal from British control. 7.Ben - After the Middle East changed, a lot of its boundaries and borders did too. They looked a lot closer to what they look like today. This happens a lot with very large wars because tons of land gets conquered, traded, or destroyed. 8.   Aftermath of World War I Skylar - Woodrow Wilson gave a speech on January 8th, 1918 that is called Woodrow Wilson’s fourteen points. The fourteen points were statements that Wilson gave to try to make peace with everyone and end the war. During his speech he talked about why he thought the war started and what they could do to end it with peace instead of hatred. He talked about free trade, how all conversations should be open for everyone to see, freedom of navigation, and many more things. 2.Hunter- the aftermath of this war truly was amazing, this war had changed so much of the world that we know now, for instance: WW1 had brought about the temporary political disruption of four venerable dynasties-- Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Turkey. This war also brought up a massive social disruption, as millions of women entered the workforce to support men who had went to war, and to replace those who never came back. Ella - World War one ended at the end of 1918, so in 1919 they started discussing the terms of peace so they held the Paris Peace conference. Now during the peace conference the winners decide the “terms of peace” but they all had different outlooks about it (someone plz build off of me if you can if not cool tho Gabe - One of the “Terms of peace” that came out of the Paris Peace conference is the Treaty of Versailles which probably was the treaty to germany it said that germany was gonna pay for all of the allies losses they had to pay something like 60 billion in today's money and that's not including the resources they payed they also were only allowed to have 100,000 men in there army there weren't allowed to have any u boats battleships tanks basically nothing mechanized and we took lots of their territory and split and was given to the allies 5..Emma - The Treaty of Versailles had a huge effect on the German economy and government at the time. Another term of the treaty was that they were not allowed to make an alliance with Austria, due to the cultural and linguistic ties between the two. They were also occupied by the allies in the Saar region of Germany, near the French border. This area was a large coal mining area and for fifteen years, all the coal mined there got shipped to France. That still left a large portion of reparations to be paid back in currency so the government basically printed a ton of money, and tried to convert it into other currencies which resulted in serious inflation all the way into the twenties. So when that happened and they could no longer pay in money, France occupied the Ruhr region and began shipping steel and coal out of there. Ethan - WWI left many families without a parent or without a child to come home to. Many soldier died in battle and from starvation, so in turn this was one of the most bloody battles in history. The U.S. lost approximately 116,708 soldiers in war. Not to mention the prisoners of war that died from many causes like starvation and disease. For those whose remains were never found we have the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier. This is a tradition that has been kept up since 1931 and have never not been guarded since then Ben - Strangely enough, World War 1 kind of helped Japan’s economy. The demand for japanese products became very large and the economy flourished for a time. This also happened similarly in America, because the American economy in the 1920’s was doing very nice. Audrey - There were approximately 16 million deaths due to WWI 8-10 million being military. About 60% of the soldiers deaths were the Entente and 40% were the Central Powers. But 6-7 million that died were civilians and out of that over a million of the civilian deaths were due to direct military action were the rest was caused by starvation and disease.

Don’t you love those group adventure movies? You know, the ones with a ragtag group of misfits who each have their special skill--Ocean’s 11, the Great Escape, Power Rangers? Rhetoric had that too and they were called the Canon of Ten of the Ten Attic Orators. Like most canonical lists, they weren’t clumped together until they well and dead. Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace compiled what’s called the Alexandrian Canon including these ten hotshots of the 5th and 4th century BCE. Later, a scholar who was probably not Plutarch, called the Psuedo-Plutarch, wrote “The Lives of the Ten Orators” to chronicle the Rat Pack of Classical Greek rhetoric. A couple of these ten will be familiar to you--Demosthenes and Isocrates. Demosthenes and Isocrates are like the George Clooney and Brad Pitt of the Ten Attic Orators, getting most of the screen time and most of the glory. We’ve have individual episodes on each of them as well as individual episodes on some of the works they’ve written. Mere Rhetoric isn’t alone in emphasizing these super stars of the Canon of Ten: the Psuedo Plutarch spends almost 3500 words on Demosthenes and a paltry 392 on Aeschines. So, to make it up to them, we’re going to dedicate eight episodes of Mere Rhetoric to the  other members of the Canon of Ten, the Bernie Macs and Casey Afflecks of Classical Greek Rhetoric.   And today we’re going to start with the anti-Demosthenes, Aeschines.   Aeschines hated Demosthenes. The most famous peice he ever wrote was a legal argument called Against Ctetisphon (k’tes-i-fawn), which really could have been “Against Demosthenes and His Stinkin’ Friend.”   First, some background. Aeschines came from a modest background. He wasn’t destitute, certainly but it is “generally doubted that his father could have afforded to provide him with an education in rhetoric” and he had to marry up to enter a public career (9). The Pseudo Plutarch describes him as “neither nobly born nor rich.”  Demosthenes, on the other hand, was born to privilege and had a first-rate education. Demosthenes was educated at the schools os Isocrates and maybe Plato; Aeschines was taught by someone named Leodamas, whose reputation in history is partially that he was a mathematician and partially that Plato may have taught him math. Not a particularly impressive training for a future political rhetor.   Aeschines was a good performer and did a stint as an actor, and while this wasn’t as shameful as it would become in later centuries, Demosthenes accuses Aeschines of being a bad actor, which is pretty shameful (10). Unlike Demosthenes, he never was a professional speechwriter--every speech we have is about his own political concerns, and all three of them may be all that there is to have--nothing seems to have been lost (12). The best of these three, “Against Ctetisphone,” requires a little political history.   Demosthenes, as we’ve discussed in our earlier episode, was a rabble rouser against King Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, and the aggressor of the Hellenistic cities like Athens. He defeated them and then ruled over them in something called the League of Corinth, sort of a loose confederation of vassal states. Demosthenes did not like that and called for activism, which was pretty popular. Aeschines on the other hand favored peace and capitulatoin with Macadonia and King Philip. He was badly let down, though, as were the rest of the pragmatists because they received no gains or special treatment from the partnership. Defiant Demosthenes gained all the cultural capital and Aeschines looked like a collaborator.   Demosthenes’ friend, Ctetisphon, seeks to give a public award to Demosthenes, kind of a lifetime acheivement award from the state, with some real money attached. This “Golden Crown” was a civic and almost religious honor : As Thomas Leland points out, “To give this transaction the greater solemnity, it was moved that the ceremony should be performed in the theatre of Bacchus during the festival held in honor of that god, when not only the Athenians, but other Greeks from all parts of the nation were assembled to see the tragedies exhibited in that festival.”  So everyone would be fawning over Demosthenes, not just the Athenians. Aeschines just can not. Ctesiphon gives public crown to Demosthenes, Aeschines brings suit against him, and, like an animal to a trap, Demosthenes shows up in person as a “speaker for Ctesiphon.”   So there you have it, head-to-head, Aeschines and Demosthenes in the courtroom arguing about whether Demosthenes is a public hero or an extravagant wastrel and war profiteer. Opposition political parties, opposite managerial styles, opposite backgrounds. You can kind of feel Aeschines boiling over in this oration. One scholar points out that “Against Ctesiphon” disorganized, uneven, although powerful in some places.”   But Aeschines makes three main claims that range from the reasonable to the vitriolic.   First off, there is the location. The law specifically says that the award is presented in assembly and nowhere else, certainly not at the theater! How humiliating, Aescheines says if “He confers this honor, not while the people are assembled, but while the new tragedies are exhibiting; not in the presence of the people, but of the Greeks; that they too may know on what kind of man our honors are conferred.”  Okay, I could see that.   Also, that the award being given to Demosthenes is a little preemptive. Aeschines complains about giving Demosthenes the crown--there hadn’t been a full investigation into his full character.   But finally, Aeschines says, the award is supposed to be for people who have excellent character and Demosthenes, he argues, is the opposite of excellent. He is not shy about it: “Say, then, Ctesiphon, when the most heinous instances of this man's baseness are so incontestably evident that his accuser exposes himself to the censure, not of advancing falsehoods, but of recurring to facts so long acknowledged and notorious, is he to be publicly honored, or to be branded with infamy? ”Demosthenes, as a senator, doesn’t acknowledge diplomats, and he led a lot of soldiers to their certain death in an ill-fated military campaign. Aeschines even attacks Demosthenes’ private life because “He who acts wickedly in private life cannot prove excellent in his public conduct: he who is base at home can never acquit himself with honor when sent to a strange country in a public character.”   At the beginning, he says,“An examination of Demosthenes’ life would be  too long a speech, why should I tell it all now…” then he does, tells tale of primary, nepotism, violence, heart of it though “the worst of the crimes” was his greed for a cut of the peace with Philip, benefitted from war profiteering and perjury, sacrificing the lives of the young soldiers “as yourselves whether the relatives of the dead will shed more teachers over the tragedies and sufferings of the heros that will be staged after this or at the city’s insensitivity” (152). He holds, even, his bad luck against him, because in ancient Greece, bad luck in a leader was as indefensible as stupidity.   Look, I’m team Demosthenes and fighting for independence is always going to sound better than capitulating to an occupying force and this speech is so venomous and spiteful that it’s hard not to just dismiss it because it is so angry, but Aeschines does make a lot of good points, and he’s mostly pointing out that we don’t make exceptions for Demosthenes, which could also be interpreted as “no one is above the law,” which I find quite reassuring. The law is a big deal for Aeschines--makes sense, this is a legal case, and he praises it throughout the speech. Aeschines proclaims how excellent the law is, how excellent the assembly is: “A noble institution this a truly noble institution, Athenians!” he declares.   I’m also sympathetic when Aeschines alleges the Demosthenes just wants to shut him up. “He compares me to the Sirens, whose purpose is not to delight their hearers, but to destroy them. Even so, if we are to believe him, my abilities in speaking, whether acquired by exercise or given by nature, all tend to the detriment of those who grant me their attention. I am bold to say that no man has a right to urge an allegation of this nature against me; for it is shameful in an accuser not to be able to establish his assertions with full proof.” You shouldn’t want to shut up your opposition--that leads to all kinds of tyrany.   But then again, Aeschines dishes it out again back at Demosthenes, “But when a man composed entirely of words, and these the bitterest and most pompously labored when he recurs to simplicity, to artless facts, who can endure it? He who is but an instrument, take away his tongue, and he is nothing.”   In the end, I think the jurors had the same unpleasant taste in their mouths that we do reading it--Aeschines comes across and a squirming, angry little man trying whatever he can to stop his wildly popular rival from getting praise. In the result of the trial, Ctesiphon was acquitted and Aeschines failed to get ⅕ of the votes. Aeschines was humiliated for having brought the lawsuit to the courts, and, because of the unsuccessful suit, he was slapped with a  “fine of 1000 drachmas and (probably) loss of the right to bring similar action again” to the court. Aeschines left Athens in shame, and ending up as a rhetoric teacher in Rhodes.  As a rhetoric teacher myself, I don’t think of this as that much of a crushing ignobility, and, really, history has looked fondly on him, including him, with his bitter enemy, on the list of the Ten Attic Orators.

Name The Surah takes its name Ar-Rum from the second verse in which the words ghulibat-ir-Rum have occurred. Period of Revelation The period of the revelation of this Surah is determined absolutely by the historical event that has been mentioned at the outset. It says: "The Romans have been vanquished in the neighboring land."In those days the Byzantine occupied territories adjacent to Arabia were Jordan, Syria and Palestine, and in these territories the Romans were completely overpowered by the Iranians in 615 A. D. Therefore, it can be said with absolute certainty that this Surah was sent down in the same year, and this was the year in which the migration to Habash took place. Historical Background The prediction made in the initial verses of this Surah is one of the most outstanding evidences of the Quran's being the Word of Allah and the Holy Prophet Muhammad's being a true Messenger of Allah. Let us have a look at the historical background relevant to the verses. Eight years before the Holy Prophet's advent as a Prophet the Byzantine Emperor Maurice was overthrown by Phocus, who captured the throne and became king. Phocus first got the Emperor's five sons executed in front of him, and then got the Emperor also killed and hung their heads in a thoroughfare in Constantinople. A few days after this he had the empress and her three daughters also put to death. The event provided Khusrau Parvez, the Sassanid king of Iran; a good moral excuse to attack Byzantium. For Emperor Maurice had been his benefactor; with his help he had got the throne of Iran. Therefore, he declared that he would avenge his godfather's and his children's murder upon Phocus, the usurper. So, he started war against Byzantium in 603 A. D. and within a few years, putting the Phocus armies to rout in succession, he reached Edessa (modern, Urfa) in Asia Minor, on the one hand, and Aleppo and Antioch in Syria, on the other. When the Byzantine ministers saw that Phocus could not save the country, they sought the African governor's help, who sent his son, Heraclius, to Constantinople with a strong fleet. Phocus was immediately deposed and Heraclius made emperor. He treated Phocus as he had treated Maurice. This happened in 610 A. D., the year the Holy Prophet was appointed to Prophethood. The moral excuse for which Khusrau Parvez had started the war was no more valid after the deposition and death of Phocus. Had the object of his war really been to avenge the murder of his ally on Phocus for his cruelty, he would have come to terms with the new Emperor after the death of Phocus. But he continued the war, and gave it the color of a crusade between Zoroastrianism and Christianity. The sympathies of the Christian sects (i. e. Nestorians and Jacobians, etc.) which had been excommunicated by the Roman ecclesiastical authority and tyrannized for years also went with the Magian (Zoroastrian) invaders, and the Jews also joined hands with them; so much so that the number of the Jews who enlisted in Khusrau's army rose up to 26,000. Heraclius could not stop this storm. The very first news that he received from the East after ascending the throne was that of the Iranian occupation of Antioch. After this Damascus fell in 613 A. D. Then in 614 A.D. the Iranians occupying Jerusalem played havoc with the Christian world. Ninety thousand Christians were massacred and the Holy Sepulcher was desecrated. The Original Cross on which, according to the Christian belief, Jesus had died was seized and carried to Mada'in. The chief priest Zacharia was taken prisoner and all the important churches of the city were destroyed. How puffed up was Khusrau Parvez at this victory can be judged from the letter that he wrote to Heraclius from Jerusalem. He wrote: "From Khusrau, the greatest of all gods, the master of the whole world: To Heraclius, his most wretched and most stupid servant: You say that you have trust in your Lord. why didn't then your Lord save Jerusalem from me?" Within a year after this victory the Iranian armies over-ran Jordan, Palestine and the whole of the Sinai Peninsula, and reached the frontiers of Egypt. In those very days another conflict of a far greater historical consequence was going on in Makkah. The believers in One God, under the leadership of the Prophet Muhammad (may Allah's peace be upon him), were fighting for their existence against the followers of shirk under the command of the chiefs of the Quraish, and the conflict had reached such a stage that in 615 A. D., a substantial number of the Muslims had to leave their homes and take refuge with the Christian kingdom of Habash, which was an ally of the Byzantine Empire. In those days the Sassanid victories against Byzantium were the talk of the town, and the pagans of Makkah were delighted and were taunting the Muslims to the effect: "Look the fire worshipers of Iran are winning victories and the Christian believers in Revelation and Prophethood are being routed everywhere. Likewise, we, the idol worshipers of Arabia, will exterminate you and your religion." These were the conditions when this Surah of the Quran was sent down, and in it a prediction was made, saying:"The Romans have been vanquished in the neighboring land and within a few years after their defeat, they shall be victorious. And it will be the day when the believers will rejoice in the victory granted by Allah." It contained not one but two predictions: First, the Romans shall be victorious; and second, the Muslims also shall win a victory at the same time. Apparently, there was not a remote chance of the fulfillment of the either prediction in the next few years. On the one hand, there were a handful of the Muslims, who were being beaten and tortured in Makkah, and even till eight years after this prediction there appeared no chance of their victory and domination. On the other, the Romans were losing more and more ground every next day. By 619 A. D. the whole of Egypt had passed into Sassanid hands and the Magian armies had reached as far as Tripoli. In Asia Minor they beat and pushed back the Romans to Bosporus, and in 617 A. D. they captured Chalcedon (modern, Kadikoy) just opposite Constantinople. The Emperor sent an envoy to Khusrau, praying that he was ready to have peace on any terms, but he replied, "I shall not give protection to the emperor until he is brought in chains before me and gives up obedience to his crucified god and adopts submission to the fire god." At last, the Emperor became so depressed by defeat that he decided to leave Constantinople and shift to Carthage (modern, Tunis). In short, as the British historian Gibbon says, even seven to eight years after this prediction of the Quran, the conditions were such that no one could even imagine that the Byzantine Empire would ever gain an upper hand over Iran. Not to speak of gaining domination, no one could hope that the Empire, under the circumstances, would even survive. bid`i sinin, and the word bid` in Arabic applies to a number upto ten. Therefore, make the bet for ten years and increase the number of camels to a hundred." So, Hadrat Abu Bakr spoke to Ubayy again and bet a hundred camels for ten years. In 622 A. D. as the Holy Prophet migrated to Madinah, the Emperor Heraclius set off quietly for Trabzon from Constantinople via the Black Sea and started preparations to attack Iran from rear. For this he asked the Church for money, and Pope Sergius lent him the Church collections on interest, in a bid to save Christianity from Zoroastrianism. Heraclius started his counter attack in 623 A. D. from Armenia. Next year, in 624 A. D., he entered Azerbaijan and destroyed Clorumia, the birthplace of Zoroaster, and ravaged the principal fire temple of Iran. Great are the powers of Allah, this was the very year when the Muslims achieved a decisive victory at Badr for the first time against the mushriks. Thus both the predictions made in Surah Rum were fulfilled simultaneously within the stipulated period of ten years. The Byzantine forces continued to press the Iranians hard and in the decisive battle at Nineveh (627 A.D.) they dealt them the hardest blow. They captured the royal residence of Dastagerd, and then pressing forward reached right opposite to Ctesiphon, capital of Iran in those days. In 628 A. D. in an internal revolt, Khusrau Parvez was imprisoned and 18 of his sons were executed in front of him and a few days later he himself died in the prison. This was the year when the peace treaty of Hudaibiya was concluded, which the Quran has termed as "the supreme victory", and in this very year Khusrau's son, Qubad II, gave up all the occupied Roman territories, restored the True Cross and made peace with Byzantium. In 628 A. D., the Emperor himself went to Jerusalem to install the "Holy Cross" in its place, and in the same year the Holy Prophet entered Makkah for the first time after the Hijrah to perform the `Umra-tul-Qada'. After this no one could have any doubt about the truth of the prophecy of the Quran, with the result that most of the Arab polytheists accepted Islam. The heirs of Ubayy bin Khalaf lost their bet and had to give a hundred camels to Hadrat Abu Bakr Siddiq. He took them before the Holy Prophet, who ordered that they be given away in charity, because the bet had been made at a time when gambling had not yet been forbidden by the Shari`ah ; now it was forbidden. Therefore, the bet was allowed to be accepted from the belligerent disbelievers, but instruction given that it should be given away in charity and should not be brought in personal use. Theme and Subject matter The discourse begins with the theme that the Romans have been overcome and the people the world over think that the empire is about to collapse, but the fact is that within a few years the tables will be turned and the vanquished will again become victorious. This introductory theme contains the great truth that man is accustomed to seeing only what is apparent and superficial. That which is behind the apparent and superficial he does not know. When in the petty matters of life, this habit to see only the apparent and superficial can lead man to misunderstandings and miscalculations, and when he is liable to make wrong estimates only due to lack of knowledge about "what will happen tomorrow", how stupendous will be his error if he risks his whole life-activity by placing reliance only upon what is visible and apparent with respect to his worldly life as a whole. In this connection, the Signs of the universe which have been presented as evidence to prove the doctrine of the Hereafter arc precisely the same which support the doctrine of Tauhid. Therefore from verse 28 onward, the discourse turns to the affirmation of Tauhid and the refutation of shirk, and it is stressed that the natural way of life for man is none else but to serve One God exclusively. Shirk is opposed to the nature of the universe as to the nature of man. Therefore, whenever man has adopted this deviation, chaos has resulted. Again here, an allusion has been made to the great chaos that had gripped the world on account of the war between the two major powers of the time, and it has been indicated that this chaos too, is the result of shirk, and all the nations who were ever involved in mischief and chaos in the history of mankind were also mushriks. In conclusion, a parable has been presented to make the people understand that just as dead earth comes to life, all of a sudden, by a shower of rain sent by God and swells with vegetation and plant life, so is the case with the dead humanity. When God sends a shower of His mercy in the form of Revelation and Prophethood, it also gives a new life to mankind and causes it to grow and develop and flourish. Therefore: "If you take full advantage of this opportunity, the barren land of Arabia will bloom by Allah's mercy and the whole advantage will be your. But if you do not take advantage of it, you will harm only your selves. Then no regret will avail and no opportunity will be provided to make amends." Source: Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi - Tafhim al-Qur'an - The Meaning of the Quran

This episode of Communio Santorum is titled, “And In the East – Part 2.”In our last episode, we took a brief look at the Apostle Thomas' mission to India. Then we considered the spread of the faith into Persia. Further study of the Church in the East has to return to the Council of Chalcedon in the 5th C where Bishop Nestorius was condemned as a heretic.As we've seen, the debate about the deity of Christ central to the Council of Nicea in 325, declared Jesus was of the same substance as the Father. It took another hundred years before the deity-denying error of Arianism was finally quashed. But even among orthodox & catholic, Nicean-holding believers, the question was over how to understand the nature of Christ. He's God – got it! But he's also human. How are we to understand His dual-nature. It was at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 that issue was finally decided. And the Church of the East was deemed to hold a position that was unorthodox.The debate was sophisticated & complex, and not a small part decided more by politics than by concern for theological purity. The loser in the debate was Bishops Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople. To make a complex issue simple, those who emphasized the unity of the 2 natures came to be called the Monophysites = meaning a single nature. They regarded Nestorius as a heretic because he emphasized the 2 natures as distinct; even to the point of saying Nestorius claimed Jesus was 2 PERSONS. That's NOT what Nestorius said, but it's what his opponents managed to get all but his closest supporters to believe he said. In fact, when the Council finally issued their creedal statement, Nestorius claimed they only articulated what he'd always taught. Even though the Council of Chalcedon declared Nestorianism heretical, the Church of the East continued to hold on to their view in the dual nature of Christ, in opposition to what they considered the aberrant view of monophysitism.By the dawn of the 6th C, there were 3 main branches of the Christian church:The Church of the West, which looked to Rome & Constantinople for leadership.The Church of Africa, with its great center at Alexandria & an emerging center in Ethiopia;And the Church of the East, with its center in Persia.As we saw last episode, the Church of the East was launched from Edessa at the border between Northern Syria & Eastern Turkey. The theological school there transferred to Nisibis in Eastern Turkey in 471. It was led by the brilliant theologian Narsai. This school had a thousand students who went out from there to lead the churches of the East. Several missionary endeavors were also launched from Nisibis – just as Iona was a sending base for Celtic Christianity in the far northwest. The Eastern Church mounted successful missions among the nomadic people of the Middle East & Central Asia between the mid-5th thru 7th Cs. These included church-planting efforts among the Huns. Abraham of Kaskar who lived during the 6th C did much to plant monastic communities throughout the East.During the first 1200 years, the Church of the East grew both geographically & numerically far more than in the West. The primary reason for this is because in the East, missionary work was largely a movement of the laity. As Europe moved into the Middle Ages with its strict feudal system, travel ground to a standstill, while in the East, trade & commerce grew. This resulted in the movement of increasing numbers of people who carried the Faith with them.Another reason the Church in the East grew was persecution. As we saw last time, before Constantine, the persecutions of the Roman Empire pushed large numbers of believers East. Then, when the Sassanids began the Great Persecution of Christians in Persia, that pushed large numbers of the Faithful south & further East. Following the persecution that came under Shapur II, another far more severe round of persecution broke out in the mid-5th C that saw 10 bishops and 153,000 Christians massacred within a few days.When we think of Arabia, many immediately think of Islam. But Christianity had taken root in the peninsula long before Muhammad came on the scene. In fact, a bishop from Qatar was present at the Council of Nicea in 325!  The Arabian Queen Mawwiyya, whose forces defeated the Romans in 373, insisted on receiving an orthodox bishop before she would make peace. There was mission-outreach to the south-eastern region of Arabia, in what is today Yemen before the birth of Muhammad by both Nestorian & Monophysite missionaries. By the opening of the 6th C, there were dozens of churches all along the Arabian shore of the Persian Gulf.The rise of Islam in the 7th C was to have far-reaching consequences for the Church in the East. The Persian capital at Ctesiphon fell to the Arabs in 637. Since the Church there had become a kind of Rome to the Church of the East, the impact was massive. Muslims were sometimes tolerant of religious minorities but only as communities of the disenfranchised known as dhimmi. They became ghettoes stripped of their vitality. At the same time, the Church of the East was being shredded by Muslim conquests, it was taking one of its biggest steps forward by reaching into China in the mid 7th C.While the Church of the West grew mostly by the work of trained clergy & the missionary monks of Celtic Christianity, in the East, as often as not, it was Christian merchants & craftsmen who advanced the Faith. The Church of the East placed great emphasis on education and literacy. It was generally understood being a follower of Jesus meant an education that included reading, writing & theology. An educated laity meant an abundance of workers capable of spreading the faith – & spread it they did!  Christians often found employment among less advanced people, serving in government offices, & as teachers & secretaries. They helped solve the problem of illiteracy by inventing simplified alphabets based on the Syriac language which framed their own literature & theology.While that was at first a boon, in the end, it proved a hindrance. Those early missionaries failed to understand the principle of contextualization; that the Gospel is super-cultural; it transcends things like language & traditions. Those early missionaries who pressed rapidly into the East assumed that their Syrian-version of the Faith was the ONLY version & tried to convert those they met to that. As a consequence, while a few did accept the faith & learned Syrian-Aramaic, a few generations later, the old religions & languages reasserted themselves and Christianity was either swept away or so assimilated into the culture that it wasn't really Biblical Christianity any longer.The golden age of early missions in Central Asia was from the end of the 4th C to the latter part of the 9th. Then both Islam & Buddhism came onto the scene.Northeast of Persia, the Church had an early & extensive spread around the Oxus River. By the early 4th C the cities of Merv, Herat & Samarkand had bishops.Once the Faith was established in this region, it spread quickly further east into the basin of the Tarim River, then into the area north of the Tien Shan Mountains & Tibet. It spread along this path because that was the premier caravan route. With so many Christians engaged in trade, it was natural the Gospel was soon planted in the caravan centers.In the 11th C the Faith began to spread among the nomadic peoples of the central Asian regions. These Christians were mostly from the Tartars & Mongol tribes of Keraits, Onguts, Uyghurs, Naimans, and Merkits.It's not clear exactly when Christianity reached Tibet, but it most likely arrived there by the 6th C. The territory of the ancient Tibetans stretched farther west & north than the present-day nation, & they had extensive contact with the nomadic tribes of Central Asia. A vibrant church existed in Tibet by the 8th C. The patriarch of the Assyrian Church in Mesopotamia, Timothy I, wrote from Baghdad in 782 that the Christian community in Tibet was one of the largest groups under his oversight. He appointed a Tibetan patriarch to oversee the many churches there. The center of the Tibetan church was located at Lhasa and the Church thrived there until the late 13th C when Buddhism swept through the region.An inscription carved into a large boulder at the entrance to the pass at Tangtse, once part of Tibet but now in India, has 3 crosses with some writing indicating the presence of the Christian Faith. The pass was one of the main ancient trade routes between Lhasa and Bactria. The crosses are stylistically from the Church of the East, and one of the words appears to be “Jesus.” Another inscription reads, “In the year 210 came Nosfarn from Samarkand as an emissary to the Khan of Tibet.” That might not seem like a reference to Christianity until you take a closer look at the date. 210! That only makes sense in reference to measuring time since the birth of Christ, which was already a practice in the Church.The aforementioned Timothy I became Patriarch of the Assyrian church about 780. His church was located in the ancient Mesopotamian city of Seleucia, the larger twin to the Persian capital of Ctesiphon. He was 52 & well past the average life expectancy for people of the time. Timothy lived into his 90's, dying in 823. During his long life, he devoted himself to spiritual conquest as energetically as Alexander the Great had to the military kind.  While Alexander built an earthly empire, Timothy sought to expand the Kingdom of God.At every point, Timothy's career smashes everything we think we know about the history of Christianity at that time. He alters ideas about the geographical spread of the Faith, its relationship with political power, its cultural influence, & its interaction with other religions. In terms of his prestige & the geographical extent of his authority, Timothy was the most significant Christian leader of his day; far more influential than the pope in Rome or the patriarch in Constantinople. A quarter of the world's Christians looked to him as both a spiritual & political head.No responsible historian of Christianity would leave out Europe. Omitting Asia from the record is just as unthinkable. We can't understand Christian history without Asia or Asian history without Christianity. The Church of the East cared little for European developments. Timothy I knew about his European contemporary Charlemagne. The Frankish ruler exchanged diplomatic missions with the Muslim Caliphate, a development of which the leader of the Church in the East would have been apprised.  Timothy also knew Rome had its own leader called the Pope. He was certainly aware of the tension between the Pope & the Patriarch of Constantinople over who was the de-facto leader of the Christian world. Timothy probably thought their squabble silly. Wasn't it obvious that the Church of the East was heir to the primitive church? If Rome drew its authority from Peter, Mesopotamia looked to Christ himself. After all, Jesus was a descendant of that ancient Mesopotamian Abraham. And wasn't Mesopotamia the original source of culture & civilization, not to mention the location of the Garden of Eden? It was the East, rather than the West, that first embraced the Gospel. The natural home of Christianity was in Mesopotamia & Points East. According to the geographical wisdom of the time, Seleucia stood at the center of the world's routes of trade & communication, equally placed between the civilizations that looked respectively to the West & the East.All over the lands of modern-day Iraq & Iran believers built huge & enduring churches. Because of its setting close to the Roman frontier, but far enough beyond to avoid interference—Mesopotamia retained a powerful Christian culture that lasted through the 13th C. Throughout the European Middle Ages the Mesopotamian church was as much a cultural & spiritual Christian headquarters as France or Germany or even that outstanding missionary base of Ireland.Several Mesopotamian cities like Basra, Mosul, Kirkuk, & Tikrit were thriving centers of Christianity for centuries after the arrival of Islam. In 800 AD, these churches & the schools attached to them were repositories of the classical scholarship of the Greeks, Romans & Persians that Western Europe would not access for another 400 years!Simply put, there was no “Dark Age” in the Church of the East. From Timothy I's perspective, the culture & scholarship of the ancient world was never lost. More importantly, the Church of the East countenanced no break between the primitive church that rose in Jerusalem in the Book of Acts and themselves.Consider this: We can easily contrast the Latin-speaking, feudal world of the European Middle Ages with the ancient Middle-Eastern church rooted in a Greek & Aramaic speaking culture. The Medieval Church of Europe saw itself as pretty far removed from the Early Church. Both in language & thought forms, they were culturally distinct & distant.  But in Timothy I's time, that is, the early 9th C, the Church of the East still spoke Greek & Aramaic. Its members shared the same basic Middle Eastern culture & would continue to do so for centuries. As late as the 13th, they still called themselves “Nazarenes,” a title the first Christians used. They called Jesus “Yeshua.” Clergy were given the title “rabban” meaning teacher or master, related to the Hebrew – “rabbi.”Eastern theologians used the same literary style as the authors of the Jewish Talmud rather than the theological works of Western Europe. As Philip Jenkins says, if we ever wanted to speculate on what the early church might have looked like if it had developed while avoiding its alliance with Roman state power, we have but to look East.Repeatedly, we find Patriarch Timothy I referring to the fact that the Churches of the East used texts that were lost to & forgotten in the West. Because of their close proximity to the setting of so much Jewish and early Christian history, Eastern scholars had abundant access to ancient scriptures & texts. One hint of what was available comes from one of Timothy's letters.Written in 800, Timothy answered the questions of a Jew in the process of converting to Christianity. This Jew told the Patriarch of the recent finding of a large hoard of ancient manuscripts, both biblical & apocryphal, in a cave near Jericho. The documents had been acquired by Jerusalem's Jewish community. Without much doubt, this was an early find of what later came to be known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Thank God, this early find didn't move treasure hunters to ransack the other caves of the area! In any case, as now, scholars were thrilled at the discovery. Timothy responded with all the appropriate questions. He wanted to know what light the find might shed on some passages of Scripture he was curious about. He was eager to discover how the newfound texts compared with the known Hebrew versions of the OT. How did they compare with the Greek Septuagint? Timothy was delighted to hear back that the passages he was concerned about did indeed exist in the ancient manuscripts.Timothy's questions are impressive when we compare them to what Western Latin scholars would have made of such a find. They had no idea of the issues Timothy raised. They could not even have read the language of the ancient manuscripts. Only a handful of Western scholars would even have known how to hold the manuscripts: for instance—which way was up and how do you read them, from left to right or vice-versa?The Church of the East Timothy I led was devoted to both scholarship & missionary activity. While the Latin Church saw the Atlantic Ocean as a wall blocking expansion to the West, the Church of the East saw Asia as a vast region waiting to be evangelized.The Eastern Church was divided into regions known as Metropolitans. A Metropolitan was like an archbishop, under whom were several bishops, to whom a number of priests & their churches reported. To give you an idea of how vast the church of the East was – Timothy had nineteen metropolitans & eighty-five bishops reporting to him. In the West, England had two archbishops. During Timothy's tenure as Patriarch, five new metropolitan sees were created near Tehran, in Syria, Turkestan, Armenia, & one on the Caspian Sea. Arabia had at least four bishops & Timothy ordained a new one in Yemen.Timothy I was to the Church of the East what Gregory I had been to the Western Church in terms of missionary zeal. He commissioned monks to carry the faith from the Caspian Sea all the way to China. He reported the conversion of the great Turkish king, called the khagan, who ruled most of central Asia.In our next episode, we'll take a look at the Gospel's reach into the Far East.I want to invite you once again to visit us on Facebook – just do a search for The History of the Christian Church, give the page a “like” and leave a comment about where you live.I also want to thank those subscribers who've left a review on iTunes for the podcast. Your comments have been so generous & kind. Thanks much to all. More than anything, it's those reviews on iTunes that help get the word out about the podcast.And last, as I engage this revision of Season 1 of CS, new subscribers will hear the revision, but then may get to episodes from the prior version that haven't been done yet. So, you may hear an occasional remark that CS doesn't take donations. We didn't originally and didn't need to because I was able to absorb the costs personally. As the podcast has grown, I can't do that anymore and am now taking donations. Seriously, anything helps. So, if you want to donate, go to the sanctorum.us site and use the secure donate feature. Thanks.

This is Episode 4 in the Saga of Rabban Sauma.After their 6 month rest at the oases of Khotan, Bar Sauma & Markos renewed their journey West. Cautious of the fighting taking place between Khubilai Khan and his cousin Khaidu, their guides escorted them around the regions of greatest threat, lengthening the journey by several weeks. They stopped at a Talas, a town in what is today Kyrgyz.500 yrs before, Talas was the scene of one of the most important battles in history. The forces of the Tang Dynasty smashed into those of the Arabian Umayyads. Talas was Khaidu's HQ. And while the two monks had before been leery of encountering the treacherous would-be khan, they now decided to present themselves before him. They were careful to avoid any hint they were emissaries of his enemy Khubilai. They were just two monks on a spiritual quest, pilgrims to the birthplace of their Faith.Though they already had the precious letters-patent form the Great Khan, they knew securing another passport from Khaidu might grease the wheels for any future local chieftains who aligned with him. So after placing a blessing on Khaidu, they requested the precious letters of passage.Sauma & Markos' passage across this region, embroiled as it was in war, proved typical for East-West trade and travelers at this time. While groups found all kinds of causes to fight over; ethnicity and religion being foremost, when it came to trade, such distinctions were often set aside in favor of an apolitical posture that was willing to overlook the reasons for war. This allowance for trade across such a wide spectrum of people and faiths was due to the realization trade was a major source of income to the various kingdoms. Harming or hindering it in one area meant diminishing it across the board. So with rare exception, trade was regarded as apolitical.Leaving Talas, the next portion of Markos and Sauma's journey was yet another challenge to endurance. They headed southwest into Khorasan in northeastern Persia, skirting present-day Afghanistan. Crossing rugged mountains and deserts little better than the Taklamakan which had just about ended them, they lost a good part of their baggage. The mountains soared so high travelers were beset by intense cold, thin ice, howling wind, and the ever-present threat of avalanches.This was also an area fraught with local warlords who survived by robbing caravans. The problem of brigandage was so severe, the Mongols set rules for how caravans were to protect themselves. Disheartening to all who traveled here were the frequent skeletons of camels, pack animals, and humans found regularly along the path.But this was the last leg of their journey from the Far to the Middle East. They finally arrived in the first of their destinations; Persia. But they were likely shocked at what they found. This eastern region in Persia had suffered terribly at the hands of the Mongols. If a city surrendered when first approached, it was spared. If it resisted, the entire population was wiped out. Many cities of this region had thought to resist the invaders and had suffered for it. But as the invaders moved southwest into the heart of the greater Persian plateau, word spread and cities capitulated. The Mongols then recruited skilled craftsmen and the educated into their burgeoning bureaucracy. They drew from Persian Muslims, Jews, and Christians.The year was 1280 when Bar Sauma & Markos settled into a monastery on the outskirts of Tus [Toos], Mongol capital of Khorasan in the northeast frontier region of Persia. Tus was the birthplace of several historical notables as well as the burial place of the great Caliph Harun al-Rashid, whose reign and court provided the literary base for the Arabians Nights.Tus was often the scene of conflict between Shi'a and Sunni pilgrims because not only did it hold the tomb of the Sunni al-Rashid, it was the burial place for the 8th Shi'a Imam Ali al-Rida.While Islam was the predominant religion in Persia at that time, there was a sizeable population of Jews, Buddhists, and Christians as well. Prior to the arrival of the Mongols, the majority Muslims ruled these minority faiths with a begrudged tolerance. After the Mongol Conquest, the Muslims protested that they were treated no better than the others. They believed their vastly superior numbers ought to gain them advantages. But the Mongols enforced their standard policy of religious tolerance. Muslims worried when they saw large numbers of Nestorians promoted into high office in the Mongol system. But the Mongols weren't showing a religious bias; they were merely filling the ranks of their civil government with the most educated, who happened to come from the highly literate Nestorian clergy.Having recouped their strength in Tus after their arduous passage across Central Asia,  Bar Sauma and Markos renewed their journey West. Resupplied by the local Christian community, they set out across Azerbaijan, skirted the Caspian Sea and Dashti Kavir Desert and headed toward Baghdad. Baghdad was HQ's of the Nestorian Church, home of their Great Patriarch, Mar Denha.But if they hoped to meet the grand leader of their church, they didn't need to travel to Baghdad to do so. Mar Denha was visiting Azerbaijan at the same time Sauma & Markos were passing through. He granted them an audience in the Mongol Capital of Maragha. The Ilkhan Hulegu had made Maragha a gem, building a large observatory there for the famed astronomer Nasir al-Din Tusi. This observatory was a mecca that attracted Muslim scholars from all over. It housed several ingenious astronomical devices and it's growing body of discovery and work became the envy of Chinese and Europeans scholars alike. The attached library held 400,000 volumes. So impressive was this center of learning, wealthy Muslim leaders and merchants established grants to fund it.The City provided a fitting stage for the meeting of the two Chinese monks and their church's leader. Markos and Bar Sauma bowed before him and amidst many tears expressed their gratitude they'd made the difficult journey to see him and carry the collective greetings of his people and churches in the Far East. Mar Denha was deeply moved by the expression of the faith their journey had demonstrated. He was surprised to hear the two monks had met with and been sent on their way with official endorsement by the Great Khan Khubilai. When they said their ultimate goal was to visit the birthplace of the Faith, the Patriarch assured them God would see they made it. After a few more days of meetings with the Mar Denha, they asked for permission and blessing to visit sites of interest to their Faith. There were tombs, churches, and shrines to visit in and around Baghdad, current HQs for the Church of the East. It's oldest and most revered site was in nearby Ctesphon which they also wanted to visit.In Baghdad, they were given a tour of the Great Church of Koke and the ancient monastery of Mar Mari, named for the early 4th C missionary who planted the church in Ctesiphon.Bar Sauma's account lists the sites they visited in the many towns between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Besides cataloging these shrines, he gives little description of what life was like for the locals.Other records tell us Baghdad of 1280- was a seething cauldron of tension between Muslims and Christians, who were universal of the Nestorian brand. The previously mentioned Catholicos Mar Denha had stirred the pot by inciting his flock into hostility toward Islam. When an apostate Christian became a Muslim, Mar Denha ordered his execution by drowning in the Tigris. The Muslims responded by trying to assassinate Mar Denha and burning down his house. Three years later, when an attempt was made on the civil governor's life, Christians and Muslims blamed each other. So local Nestorian congregations were greatly encouraged by the arrival of the two monks as it seemed to signal support from the Great Khan. After, all they did bear his august approval in tangible form in that letters-patent they carried. They may have been in the minority, but Khubilai and sent them succor in Sauma & Markos.The two ended their tour of Nestorian sites at the Mar Michael monastery in Arbil. Having been so long away from the monk's life, they decided to renew it by staying in the monastery as participants for a season before setting off for Jerusalem.While Mar Denha had originally applauded and affirmed their plan to travel to Jerusalem, he changed his mind. He'd seen how the two monks had generated hope and much-needed vitality to the increasingly moribund church he presided over. He wrote them a letter, berating them for thinking only of themselves in entering the monastery at Arbil. How dare they seek personal peace, he said, when their brothers and sisters were beset by dangers at the hands of their Muslim neighbors, left & right?Mar Denha was the Catholicos, the Patriarch of the Nestorian Church by selection of church officials. But the Mongol ruler reserved the right to affirm such elections. It had been 15 years and the Mongol Ilkhan, Abakha, still had not officially endorsed him. Abakha was Buddhist but married to a Christian. Because Mar Denha was a well-known antagonist and rabble-rouser in matters involving the majority Muslims, Abakha balked at granting Denha the official title. He knew to do so would risk riots form his Muslim subjects.Mar Denha saw in the two Chinese monks the lever to move the Ilkhan. After all, they enjoyed the favor of The GREAT Khan, did they not? Serving as Khubilai's unofficial envoys, their counsel could easily be passed off as a directive from the Far Eastern court.So, guilted into it, Sauma & Markos left the monastery, trekked back to Baghdad and met with Mar Denha. They agreed to approach the Ilkhan >> IF >> Denha would provide them an escort who could return him the credentials verifying his title and office, as they continued on their way to Jerusalem. Though the monks had previously treated Mar Denha as a near god-like figure, these shenanigans unmasked him as grasping, power-hungry, & self-serving. Because of the way they'd been treated by other Nestorian leaders back in China, they didn't trust the Catholicos to keep his word. They knew if they secured the treasure credentials, they'd make themselves too valuable a resource to let go. So their intention was to high tail it out of town as soon as they got Mar Denha what he wanted. So eager was he for the Ilkhan's recognition, Denha agreed.Eager to be on their way and out of Denha's grasp, Sauma & Markos traveled to Tabriz, Abakha's capital on the fringes of Azerbaijan.What would the Ilkhan say to their request for recognition of the scheming Mar Denha as Catholicos? We'll find out next time in Part 5.

This episode of Communio Santorum is titled, “And In the East – Part 1.”The 5th C Church Father Jerome wrote, “[Jesus] was present in all places with Thomas in India, with Peter in Rome, with Paul in Illyria, with Titus in Crete, with Andrew in Greece, with each apostle . . . in his own separate region.”So far we've been following the track of most western studies of history, both secular & religious, by concentrating on what took place in the West & Roman Empire. Even though we've delved briefly into the Eastern Roman Empire, as Lars Brownworth aptly reminds us in his outstanding podcast, 12 Byzantine Emperors, even after the West fell in the 5th Century, the Eastern Empire continued to think of & call itself Roman. It's later historians who refer to it as the Byzantine Empire.Recently we've seen the focus of attention shift to the East with the Christological controversies of the 4th & 5th Cs. In this episode, we'll stay in the East and follow the track of the expansion of the Faith as it moved Eastward. This is an amazing chapter often neglected in traditional treatments of church history. It's well captured by Philip Jenkins in his book, The Lost History of Christianity.We start all the way back at the beginning with the apostle Thomas.  He's linked by pretty solid tradition to the spread of Christianity into the East. In the quote we started with from the early 5th C Church Father Jerome, we learn that the Apostle Thomas carried the Gospel East all the way to India.In the early 4th C, Eusebius also attributed the expansion of the faith in India to Thomas. Though these traditions do face some dispute, there are still so-called ‘Thomas Christians' in the southern Indian state of Kerala today. They use an Aramaic form of worship that had to have been transported there very early. A tomb & shrine in honor of Thomas at Mylapore is built of bricks used by a Roman trading colony but was abandoned after ad 50. There's abundant evidence of several Roman trading colonies along the coast of India, with hundreds of 1st C coins & ample evidence of Jewish communities. Jews were known to be a significant part of Roman trade ventures. Their communities were prime stopping places for the efforts of Christian missionaries as they followed the Apostle Paul's model as described in the Book of Acts.A song commemorating Thomas' role in bringing the faith to India, wasn't committed to writing till 1601 but was said to have been passed on in Kerala for 50 generations. Many trading vessels sailed to India in the 1st C when the secret of the monsoon winds was finally discovered, so it's quite possible Thomas did indeed make the journey.  Once the monsoons were finally figured out, over 100 trade ships a year crossed from the Red Sea to India.Jesus told the disciples to take the Gospel to the ends of the Earth. While they were slow to catch on to the need to leave Jerusalem, persecution eventually convinced them to get moving. It's not hard to imagine Thomas considering a voyage to India as a way to literally fulfill the command of Christ. India would have seemed the end of the Earth.Thomas's work in India began in the northwest region of the country. A 4th C work called The Acts of Thomas says that he led a ruler there named Gundafor to faith. That story was rejected by most scholars & critics until an inscription was discovered in 1890 along with some coins which verify the 20-year reign in the 1st C of a King Gundafor.After planting the church in the North, Thomas traveled by ship to the Malabar Coast in the South. He planted several churches, mainly along the Periyar River.  He preached to all classes of people and had about 17,000 converts from all Indian castes. Stone crosses were erected at the places where churches were founded, and they became centers for pilgrimages. Thomas was careful to appoint local leadership for the churches he founded.He then traveled overland to the Southeast Indian coast & the area around Madras. Another local king and many of his subjects were converted. But the Brahmins, highest of the Indian castes, were concerned the Gospel would undermine a cultural system that was to their advantage, so they convinced the king at Mylapore, to arrest & interrogate him. Thomas was sentenced to death & executed in AD 72. The church in that area then came under persecution and many Christians fled for refuge to Kerala.A hundred years later, according to both Eusebius & Jerome, a theologian from the great school at Alexandria named Pantaenus, traveled to India to “preach Christ to the Brahmins.”[1]Serving to confirm Thomas' work in India is the writing of Bar-Daisan. At the opening of the 3rd Century, he spoke of entire tribes following Jesus in North India who claimed to have been converted by Thomas.  They had numerous books and relics to prove it. By AD 226 there were bishops of the Church in the East in northwest India, Afghanistan & Baluchistan, with thousands of laymen and clergy engaging in missionary activity. Such a well-established Christian community means the presence of the Faith there for the previous several decades at the least.The first church historian, Eusebius of Caesarea, to whom we owe so much of our information about the early Church, attributed to Thomas the spread of the Gospel to the East. As those familiar with the history of the Roman Empire know, the Romans faced continuous grief in the East by one Persian group after another. Their contest with the Parthians & Sassanids is a thing of legend. The buffer zone between the Romans & Persians was called Osrhoene with its capital city of Edessa, located at the border of what today is northern Syria & eastern Turkey. According to Eusebius, Thomas received a request from Abgar, king of Edessa, for healing & responded by sending Thaddaeus, one of the disciples mentioned in Luke 10.[2] Thus, the Gospel took root there. There was a sizeable Jewish community in Edessa from which the Gospel made several converts. Word got back to Israel of the Church community growing in the city & when persecution broke out in the Roman Empire, many refugees made their way East to settle in a place that welcomed them.Edessa became a center of the Syrian-speaking church which began sending missionaries East into Mesopotamia, North into Persia, Central Asia, then even further eastward. The missionary Mari managed to plant a church in the Persian capital of Ctesiphon, which became a center of missionary outreach in its own right.By the late 2nd C, Christianity had spread throughout Media, Persia, Parthia, and Bactria. The 2 dozen bishops who oversaw the region carried out their ministry more as itinerant missionaries than by staying in a single city and church. They were what we refer to as tent-makers; earning their way as merchants & craftsmen as they shared the Faith where ever they went.By AD 280 the churches of Mesopotamia & Persia adopted the title of “Catholic” to acknowledge their unity with the Western church during the last days of persecution by the Roman Emperors. In 424 the Mesopotamian church held a council at the city of Ctesiphon where they elected their first lead bishop to have jurisdiction over the whole Church of the East, including India & Ceylon, known today as Sri Lanka. Ctesiphon was an important point on the East-West trade routes which extended to India, China, Java, & Japan.The shift of ecclesiastical authority was away from Edessa, which in 216 became a tributary of Rome. The establishment of an independent patriarchate contributed to a more favorable attitude by the Persians, who no longer had to fear an alliance with the hated Romans.To the west of Persia was the ancient kingdom of Armenia, which had been a political football between the Persians & Romans for generations. Both the Persians & Romans used Armenia as a place to try out new diplomatic maneuvers with each other. The poor Armenians just wanted to be left alone, but that was not to be, given their location between the two empires. Armenia has the historical distinction of being the first state to embrace Christianity as a national religion, even before the conversion of Constantine the Great in the early 4th C.The one who brought the Gospel to Armenia was a member of the royal family named Gregory, called “the Illuminator.” While still a boy, Gregory's family was exiled from Armenia to Cappadocia when his father was thought to have been part of a plot to assassinate the King. As a grown man who'd become a Christian, Gregory returned to Armenia where he shared the Faith with King Tiridates who ruled at the dawn of the 4th C. Tiridates was converted & Gregory's son succeeded him as bishop of the new Armenian church. This son attended the Council of Nicea in 325. Armenian Christianity has remained a distinctive and important brand of the Faith, with 5 million still professing allegiance to the Armenian Church.[3]Though persecution came to an official end in the Roman Empire with Constantine's Edict of Toleration in 313, it BEGAN for the church in Persia in 340. The primary cause for persecution was political. When Rome became Christian, its old enemy turned anti-Christian. Up to that point, the situation had been reversed. For the first 300 hundred years, it was in the West Christians were persecuted & Persia was a refuge. The Parthians were religiously tolerant while their less tolerant Sassanid successors were too busy fighting Rome to waste time or effort on the Christians among them.But in 315 a letter from Constantine to his Persian counterpart Shapur II  triggered the beginnings of an ominous change in the Persian attitude toward Christians. Constantine believed he was writing to help his fellow believers in Persia but succeeded only in exposing them. He wrote to the young Persian ruler: “I rejoice to hear that the fairest provinces of Persia are adorned with Christians. Since you are so powerful and pious, I commend them to your care, and leave them in your protection.”The schemes & intrigues that had flowed for generations between Rome & the Persians were so intense this letter moved Shapur to become suspicious the Christians were a kind of 5th column, working from inside the Empire to bring the Sassanids down. Any doubts were dispelled 20 years later when Constantine gathered his forces in the East for war. Eusebius says Roman bishops accompanied the army into battle. To make matters worse, in Persia, one of their own preachers predicted Rome would defeat the Sassanids.Little wonder then, when persecution began shortly after, the first accusation brought against Christians was that they aided the enemy. Shapur ordered a double taxation on Christians & held their bishop responsible for collecting it. Shapur knew Christians tended to be poor since so many had come from the West fleeing persecution, so the bishop would be hard-pressed to come up w/the money. But Bishop Simon refused to be intimidated. He declared the tax unjust and said, “I'm no tax collector! I'm a shepherd of the Lord's flock.” Shapur counter-declared the church was in rebellion & the killings began.A 2nd decree ordered the destruction of churches and the execution of clergy who refused to participate in the official Sassanid-sponsored sun-worship. Bishop Simon was seized & brought before Shapur. Offered a huge bribe to capitulate, he refused. The Persians promised if he alone would renounce Christ, the rest of the Christian community wouldn't be harmed, but that if he refused he'd be condemning all Christians to destruction. When the Christians heard of this, they rose up, protesting en masse that this was shameful. So Bishop Simon & a large number of the clergy were executed.For the next 20 years, Christians were hunted down from one end of Persia to the other. At times it was a general massacre. But more often it was organized elimination of the church's leaders.Another form of suppression was the search for that part of the Christian community that was most vulnerable to persecution; Persians who'd converted from Zoroastrianism. The faith spread first among non-Persians in the population, especially Jews & Syrians. But by the beginning of the 4th C, Persians in increasing numbers were attracted to the Christian faith. For such converts, church membership often meant the loss of everything - family, property rights, even life.The martyrdom of Bishop Simon and the years of persecution that followed gutted the Persian church of its leadership & organization. As soon as the Christians of Ctesiphon elected a new bishop, he was seized & killed. Adding to the anti-Roman motivation of the government's role in the persecutions was a deep undercurrent of Zoroastrian fanaticism that came as a result of the conversion of so many of their number to Christianity; it was a shocking example of religious envy.Shortly before Shapur II's death in 379, persecution slackened. It had lasted for 40 years and only ended with his death. When at last the suffering ceased, it's estimated close to 200,000 Persian Christians had been put to death.[1] Yates, T. (2004). The expansion of Christianity. Lion Histories Series (28–29). Oxford, England: Lion Publishing.[2] Yates, T. (2004). The expansion of Christianity. Lion Histories Series (24). Oxford, England: Lion Publishing.[3] Yates, T. (2004). The expansion of Christianity. Lion Histories Series (25). Oxford, England: Lion Publishing.

This week's episode is titled – “Challenge.”We've tracked the development and growth of the Church in the East over a few episodes. To be clear, we're talking about the Church which made its headquarters in the city of Seleucia, twin city to the Persian capital of Ctesiphon, in the region known as Mesopotamia. What today historians refer to as The Church in the East called itself the Assyrian Church. But it was known by the Catholic Church in the West with its twin centers at Rome and Constantinople, by the disparaging title of the Nestorian Church because it continued on in the theological tradition of Bishop Nestorius, declared heretical by the Councils of Ephesus in 431 and Chalcedon 20 years later. As we've seen, it's doubtful what Nestorius taught about the nature of Christ was truly errant. But Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, more for political reasons than from a concern for theological purity, convinced his peers Nestorius was a heretic and had him and his followers banished. They moved East and formed the core of the Church in the East.While that branch of the Church thrived during the European Middle Ages, the Western Catholic Church coalesced around 2 centers; Rome and Constantinople. Though they'd reached agreement over the doctrinal issues regarding the nature of Christ and expelled both the Nestorians to the East and the Monophysite Jacobites to their enclaves in Syria and Egypt, the Western and Eastern halves of the Roman Church drifted apart.The Council of Constantinople in 692 marked one of several turning points in the eventual rift between Rome and Constantinople. Called by the Emperor, the Council was attended only by Eastern Bishops. It dealt with no real doctrinal matters but set down rules for how the Church was to be organized and worship conducted. The problem is that several of the decisions went contrary to the long-held practice in Rome and the churches in Western Europe that looked to it. The Pope rejected the Council. à And the gulf between Rome and Constantinople widened.This gap between the Eastern and Western halves of the Church mirrored what was happening in the Empire at large. As we've seen, Justinian I tried to revive the gory of the Roman Empire in the 6th C, but after his death, the Empire quickly reverted to its path toward disintegration. What helped this dissolution was the emergence of Islam from the southeast corner of the Empire.Historically, the Arabs were a people of multiple tribes who shared both a common culture and distrust of one another which fueled endless conflict. But the early 7th C saw them united by a new and militant religion. The endless struggles that had kept them at each other's throats, were merged into a shared mission of setting them at everyone else's. Why steal from each other in generations of just transferring the same loot back and forth when they could unite and grab new plunder from their neighbors?And so much the better when those neighbors who used to be too strong to attack, were now in decline and under-defended?It was a Perfect Storm. The emergence of the Muslim armies in the early 7th C, bursting forth from the furnace that forged them, came right at the time when the once unstoppable might of the Roman Empire was finally a relic of a bygone age. Constantinople was able to hold the invaders at bay for another 700 years, but Islam spread quickly over other lands of the once great Empire; into the Middle East, North Africa, and was even able to get a foothold in Europe when they jumped the Straits of Gibraltar and landed in Spain. In the East, the Muslims swept up into Rome's ancient nemesis, Persia, and quickly subdued it as well.It all began with the birth of an Arab named Muhammad in 570.Since this is a podcast on the history of Christianity rather than Islam, I'll be brief in this review of the new religion that moved the Arabs out of their peninsula during the 7th C.Islam marks its beginning to the Hegira, Muhammad's move from his hometown of Mecca to the city of Medina in AD 622.  This began the successful phase of his preaching. Muhammad built a theology that included elements of Judaism, Christianity, and Arabian polytheism.While there's much talk today about Islam's place with Judaism and Christianity as a monotheistic religion, a little research reveals Muhammad really only elevated one of the Arab's gods over the others – that is Il-Allah, or as it is known today – Allah. Allah was the moon god and patron deity of Muhammad's Quraysh tribe. The enduring proof of this is the symbol of the crescent moon that adorns the top of every Muslim mosque and minaret and is the universal symbol of Islam.Muhammad's new religion included elements of both Judaism and Christianity because he hoped to include both groups in his new movement.  The Jews refused his efforts while several Christians joined the new movement. It's understandable why. The church Muhammad was familiar with was one that had been co-opted by Arab superstition. It hardly resembled Biblical Christianity. It was ripe pickings for the emergent faith. When Islam later ran into more orthodox Christian communities, they refused the new faith. Muhammad was incensed at the Jews and Christians refusal to join, so they became the object of his wrath.Part of Muhammad's genius was that he sanctified the Arabic penchant for war by uniting the tribes and sending them on the mission of taking Islam to the rest of the world thru the power of the sword. Loot was made over as a religious bonus, evidence of divine favor.Islam's rapid spread across Western Asia and North Africa was facilitated by the vacuum left from the chronic wars between Rome and Persia. Just prior to the Arab conquests, the old combatants had concluded yet another round in their long contest and were exhausted!In the 2nd decade of the 7th C, the Persians conquered Syria and Palestine from the Romans, took Antioch, pillaged Jerusalem, then conquered Alexandria in Egypt. That means the Persians ruled what had been the 2nd and 3rd most populous cities of the Roman Empire. They conquered most of Asia Minor and set-up camp just across the Bosporus from Constantinople.Then, in one of the great reversals of history, Emperor Heraclius rallied the Eastern Empire and launched a Holy War to reclaim the lands lost to the Persians.  They retook Syria, Palestine, Egypt and invaded deep into Persia. You can well imagine what all this war did politically, environmentally and economically to the region. It left it exhausted. Like a body whose defenses are down, the Eastern Empire was ripe for a new invasion. And look; Oh goodie à Here come the Arabs swinging their scimitars. The Arab advance was nothing less than spectacular.Muhammad died in 632 and was followed by a series of associates known as caliphs. In 635 the Arabs took Damascus, in 638 they captured Jerusalem. Alexandria fell in 642. Then the Muslim armies turned north and swept up into the demoralized region of Persia. By 650 it was theirs, as were parts of Asia Minor and a large part of North Africa.The Muslims realized conquering the Mediterranean would require they become a naval power. They did and began taking strategic islands in the Eastern and Central sea. In the 670s with their new navy, they began taking shots at Constantinople but were chased off by a new invention – Greek Fire.They conquered Carthage in 697, the center of Byzantine might in North Africa. Then in 715, they hopped the Straits of Gibraltar and landed in Spain, bringing the Visigothic rule there to an end. They then crossed the Pyrenees and laid claim to Southwestern Gaul. It wasn't ill the Battle of Tours in 732 that the Franks under Charles Martel were able to put a halt to the Muslim advance. That also marks the beginning of the ever so slow roll-back of Muslim domination in the Iberian Peninsula.But what territory Islam lost in the far western reach of their holdings was made up for by their advances in the East. During the 8th C, they reached into Punjab in India and deep into Central Asia.The major islands of the Mediterranean became coins that flipped from Byzantine to Muslim, then back again. The Muslims even managed to settle a couple of colonies on the coast of Italy. They raided Rome.These conquests tapered off as the old tendency toward animosity between the Arabic tribes returned. The thing that had united them, Islam, became one more thing to fight over. The main point of contention was over who was supposed to lead the Umma – the Muslim community. Islam fractured into different camps who turned their scimitars on each other, and the rest of the world breathed a collective sigh of relief.The Church in those lands that now lay under the Crescent moon suffered. Islam was supposed to hold a certain respect for what they called “The People of the Book” - meaning Christians and Jews. Moses and Jesus were considered great prophets in Islam.  While pagans had to convert to Islam, Christians and Jews were allowed to continue in their faith, as long as they paid a penalty tax. The treatment of Christians varied widely across Muslims lands. Their fate was determined by the intensity of the rulers' faith and adherence to Islam.  This was largely due to the conflicting instructions found in the Koran about how to treat people of other faiths.In Islam, later revelation supersedes earlier pronouncements. Early in Muhammad's career, he hoped to win Christians by persuasion to his cause so he called for kindly treatment of them. Later, when he had some power and Christians proved intractable, he spoke more stridently and urged their forced compliance. Conversion FROM Islam to any other religion was to be punished by execution. But the Koran isn't set down in a chronological sequence and readers don't always know which was an earlier and which a later revelation. Some Muslims rulers were stern and read the harsh passages as being the rule. They persecuted Christian and tried to eradicate the Church. Others believed the call to a more merciful relationship with Christians was a higher morality and followed that. Churches were allowed to meet under such rulers, but public demonstrations of faith were banned and no new church building was permitted.Interestingly, there was a flowering of Arabic culture that took place due to rule by benevolent Muslims. Because Christian scholarship was allowed, the Classics of Greek and Roman civilization were translated into Arabic BY CHRISTIAN CLERGY and SCHOLARS. It was this that led to the emergence of the Arabic Golden Age modern historians make so much of. That such a Golden Age was sparked and enabled by Christian scholars giving Muslims access to the works of classical antiquity is rarely mentioned.The severe limits placed on the Faith by even lenient Muslim rulers, combined with the harsh treatment of the Church in other places led to widespread loses by the Church in terms of population and influence. Catholic Christians living in North Africa fled north to Europe where they were welcomed by those of similar faith. But the Jacobite Monophysite community was left behind to languish, and the vibrant church culture that had once dominated the region was nearly lost. The resurgent radical Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is now putting the final nails in the coffin of the Coptic Church, the spiritual heirs to that once vibrant history.Nearly everywhere Islam spread, it was accompanied by mass defections of marginal Christians to the new faith. Pragmatism isn't such a modern philosophy after all. Many nominal Christians assumed the single God of Islam was the same as the one God of Christianity and He must favor the Muslims – I mean > look at how successful they are in spreading their religion. Might makes right – Right? // Well, maybe it doesn't . . . Shhh! Not so loud, the mullahs might hear and their scimitars are sharp.As many had converted to the newly emergent Christianity under the auspices of Constantine in the early 4th Century, now many converted to Islam under the caliphates in the 7th.Along with the restrictions placed on those Christians who refused to convert to Islam was added a practice the Muslims picked up from the Zoroastrian rulers of Persia.  They required Christians to wear a distinctive badge and prohibited them from serving in the army. That was probably for the best since the army was used specifically to spread the Faith by the sword – the Muslim practice of jihad. But being banned from the military meant they were prohibited the use of arms, and forced to wear distinctive clothing meant easy identification for those hostile elements who saw the presence of Christians as contrary to the will of Allah. Christians became targets of public shame and often, violence. Since conversions FROM Islam were punishable by death, while conversion TO Islam was rewarded, even in the most lenient realms under the banner of Crescent Moon, the church experienced a steady decline.As Islam settled in and became the dominant cultural force throughout its domains, most of the Christian communities that remained became tradition-bound. They reacted strongly against any innovations, fearing they were dangerous deviations from the Faith they'd held to so tenaciously in spite of persecution. Another reason they rejected change was for fear it might lead to success and the church would grow. Growth meant the Muslim authorities paying closer attention, and that was something they wanted to avoid at all costs. For that reason, to this day the Church in Muslim lands tends to be archaic and bound to traditions practiced for hundreds of years.