Thursday, May 6, 2021

Examples of Early Christian Texts Believing Islam to be Antichrist and the Abomination of Desolation

 

 

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)