Stylus Productions

THE STORY OF THE CHRISTIANS

Volume XI: The Cross and the Crescent

Not only were Rome and Constantinople growing further apart, but the Monophysites of Syria, Armenia, and Egypt were becoming ever more estranged from the Melkite (Greek) church of Constantinople. Constantinople ruled her remaining provinces with an increasingly autocratic and despotic hand.

As the Roman/Byzantine Empire was shaken by these military and religious tremors, Shah Chosroes II launched a massive attack against the Empire’s Mesopotamian provinces. It was another chapter in the seven centuries of warfare between the Roman/Byzantine Empire and the Persian/Sassanian Empire. Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt fell to the Sassanians and the True Cross was carried back to Ctesiphon as a prize. After contemplating abandoning Constantinople for Carthage, Heraclius (reg. 610-641) launched an attack into the heartland of the Sassanian Empire. Shah Chosroes II was defeated and overthrown, the True Cross returned to Jerusalem, and Heraclius returned to Constantinople for a much-needed respite; it never came.

No sooner had the Byzantine-Sassanian War ended than a new and hostile force emerged from the Arabian deserts - Islam. With astounding speed the armies of Islam destroyed the Sassanian Empire, conquered half of the Byzantine Empire, and created an empire of their own that stretched from the Pyrenees to the Himalayas. Then it began to fracture.

After investigating the politics and religions of the Arabian Peninsula in pre-Islamic times, the authors explore the life of Mohammed and the creation of Islam. Special attention is given to the first Christian reactions to this new political and religious enemy.

The long reign of Justinian I (reg. 527-565) marked the last florescence of the dream of a world-wide Christian Roman Empire with his reconquest of northern Africa, Italy, and parts of the Iberian Peninsula from their Germanic Arian Christian rulers. Justinian died leaving a financially strapped Empire that was quickly overrun by the Lombards (Arians) in Italy and the Slavs and Avars (pagans) in the Balkans. As the Empire’s borders were breached, continuing sectarian differences further strained the Christian Church.

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