The Teaching of Jacob the Newly Baptized (July, 634 CE)
The Teaching of Jacob
the Newly Baptized V. 16
Justus answered and
said, “Indeed, you speak the truth, and this is the great salvation: to believe
in Christ. For I confess to you, master Jacob, the complete truth. My brother
Abraham wrote to me that a false prophet has appeared. Abraham writes, “When
[Sergius] the candidatus was killed by the Saracens, I was in Caesarea,
and I went by ship to Sykamina. And they were saying, ‘The candidatus has
been killed,’ and we Jews were overjoyed. And they were saying, ‘A prophet has
appeared, coming with the Saracens, and he is preaching the arrival of the anointed
one who is to come, the Messiah.’ And when I arrived in Sykamina, I visited an
old man who was learned in the Scriptures, and I said to him, ‘What can you
tell me about the prophet who has appeared with the Saracens?’ And he said to
me, groaning loudly, ‘He is false, for prophets do not come with a sword and a
war-chariot. Truly the things set in motion today are deeds of anarchy, and I
fear that somehow the first Christ came, whom the Christians worship, was the
one sent by God, and instead of him we will receive the Antichrist. Truly,
Isaiah said that we Jews will have a deceived and hardened heart until the
entire earth is destroyed. But go, master Abraham, and find out about this prophet
who has appeared.’ And when I, Abraham, investigated thoroughly, I heard from
those who had met him that one will find no truth in the so-called prophet,
only the shedding of human blood. In fact, he says that he has the keys of
paradise, which is impossible.” These things my brother Abraham has written
from the East. (Stephen J. Shoemaker, A Prophet Has Appeared: The Rise of
Islam through Christian and Jewish Eyes—A Sourcebook [Oakland, Calif.:
University of California Press, 2021], 39-40)
Pseudo-Ephrem the Syrian, Homily on the
End-Times (ca. 640s CE)
Homily on the
End-Times, 2-5
2. Therefore, my
beloved ones, the end-times have arrived. Behold, we see the signs, just as
Christ described them for us. Rulers will rise up, one against the other, and
affliction will be upon the earth. Nations will rise against nations [cf. Mark
13.8], and armies will fall upon one another. And as the Nile, the river of Egypt,
floods and cover the earth, countries will prepare for battle against Roman
Empire. Nations will rise up against nations, and kingdom against kingdom [Mark
13.8]. And the Romans will go from place to place in flight, and the Assyrians
[i.e., the Persians] will rule over part of the Roman Empire. The fruits of
their loins will be enslaved, and they will also defile their women. And they
will be sewing and reaping, and they will plant fruit in the land. And they will
amass great riches and bury treasures in the land. But, just as the Nile, the
river of Egypt, turns back from what it has covered, so too will the Assyrians
turn back from the land to their own country. And the Romans will hasten back
to the land of their inheritance [i.e., the Promised Land], When wickedness has
increased in the world, and the land has been defiled with fornication, the cry
of the persecuted and the poor will ascend to heaven. Then justice will arise
to case them from the land [cf. Ps 12.5)] A holy wail will rise up; a cry will
ascend to heaven.
3. A people will come
forth from the desert, the offspring of Hagar, the servant of Sarah, who hold
fast to the covenant of Abraham, the husband of Sarah and Hagar. Once set into motion,
they will come in the name of the ram, the envoy of the Son of Perdition [cf.
Dan 8.3; 2. Thess 2.3]. And there will be a sign in the heavens, which the Lord
described in his gospel [cf. Matt 24.27]. It will shine forth among the bright
stars, and the light of his face will gleam. Rulers will quake and tremble; the
armies that they send forth will crumble. The nations of the earth will be
terrified when they see the sign in the heavens. And all nations and tongues
will prepare for battle and come together. And they will wage war there and
drench the earth with their blood.
4. And there the
nations will be defeated, and a marauding nation will triumph. The marauders
will spread across the land, over plains and mountaintops. And they will take
women and children captive, and men both old and young. The grace of men will
be destroyed, and the adornment of women will be removed. With mighty spears
and lances, they will impale old men. They will separate a son from his father,
and a daughter from her mother’s side. They will separate a brother from his
brother and a sister from her sister’s side. They will kill the bridegroom in
his bedroom and expel the bride from her bridal chamber. They will take away a
wife from her husband and slaughter her like a sheep. They will remove an
infant from his mother and chase the mother into captivity. And the child will
cry out from the earth, and its mother will hear, but that will she do? For it
will be trampled by the feet of horses and camels and infantry. And they will
not allow her to turn to it, and the child will remain in the field. They will
separate children from their mothers like soul from the body. She watches as
they separate her beloved from her bosom. Two of her children to two masters,
and she herself to another master, separated, and her sons with her, to be
slaves to marauders. Her children will cry out with weeping, and their eyes
burning with tears. She will turn toward her beloved, and milk will flow from
her breast. “Go forth in peace, my beloved, and may God go with you, the one
who accompanied Joseph during his servitude among foreigners [cf. Gen 37.28ff].
May he accompany you, my children, into the captivity to which you are going.” “Farewell,
our mother, and may God go with you, the one who accompanied Sarah into the
house of Abimelech the Gadarite [cf. Gen 20.18]. May he accompany you until the
day of resurrection.” A son will stand and watch his father sold into slavery.
The tears of both will flow, with one groaning before the other. Brother will
see brother slaughtered and thrown to the ground, and they will lead him too
into captivity to be a slave in a foreign land. They will also slay mothers
clutching their children to their breast. Shrill is the cry of the infants,
groaning to assuage their distress. They will make their way through the
mountains and blaze paths across the plains. They will plunder the ends of the
earth and take control of the cities, and the lands will be devastated, and the
slain will multiply on the earth, and all nations will be subjugated before the
marauding people. And when the nations have preserved in the land and they think
that peace is soon to come, they will impose tribute, and everyone will fear
them. And wickedness will multiply throughout the land and even conceal the
clouds, and iniquity will envelop the creation and rise up smoldering to
heaven.
5. Then the Lord in
his wrath, because of the iniquity throughout the land, will stir up kings and
mighty armies, for when he wants to purge the land, he sends men against men to
destroy one another. Then righteousness will summon kings and mighty armies
that are behind the gates that Alexander made. Many kings and nations will rise
up behind the gates, and they will look to heaven and call upon the name of
God. And the Lord will send a sign of his glory from heaven. And the divine
voice will call out to those inside the gates, and at once they will be
destroyed and will collapse at the divine command. Many armies will go forth,
like stars without number, as multitudinous as the sand of the sea and more
than the stars of heaven. (Ibid., 85-87)
Excerpts from a Lost Seventh-Century Greek
Sources: The Chronicle of Theophanes (c. 814) and The Chronicle of
Michael the Syrian 1195)
‘Umar and the
Conquest of Jerusalem (Translated from Theophanes, Chronicle AM 6127 and
AM 6135 and Michael the Syrian, Chronicle)
THEOPHANES AM 6127
[634/5 CE] In this year ‘Umar invaded Palestine, and after he besieged the Holy
City for two weeks, he took it by agreement, for Sophronius the bishop of
Jerusalem received a guarantee of security for all of Palestine. And ‘Umar
entered the Holy City clothed in filthy garments made of camel’s hair, and showing
diabolical deceit, he sought the temple of the Jews, the one built by Solomon,
in order to make it a place of worship for his blasphemy. Seeking this,
Sophronius said, “Truly this is the abomination of desolation, as Daniel said,
standing in a holy place” [Dan 11.31; cf. Matt 24.15]. And with many tears this
champion of piety lamented for the Christian people. And while ‘Umar was there,
the Patriarch besought him to take cloth garments from him and put them on, but
he refused to put them on. Through persistence he persuaded him to wear them
until his own clothes were washed, and then he returned them to Sophronius, and
he put on his own clothes. (Ibid., 228-29)
