---

 

YOU WILL KNOW THEM BY THEIR FRUITS

 

---

 

[Our friend Viktor in Ukraine wrote this article so you can learn what is really happening there.]

"You will know them by their fruits." Good people bring forth good deeds, evil people produce evil deeds. War is pure evil. There will be so-called patriots in different countries telling people about our national security and our way of life. The news about the war is sanitized: we only learn about one side or the other advancing or retreating, jets being shot down, bases and buildings being bombed, etc. We hardly hear about the real. human side of it.

But war is pure evil – on both sides. Men are snatched from the street and sent to the front, often without any training... and some die the first day. Many civilians die, many are wounded, their homes are destroyed, their farm land is ruined, etc. The tractors sit idle in the fields because there are no men to drive them. The shops are becoming empty because there are no drivers for the trucks to deliver food to the shops. The only people who profit from war are politicians, generals and weapons producers. Every war has a beginning and will have an end... until it starts again and again. War is hell on earth and is the opposite of what Jesus taught our human race.

When war ends, the pain does not go away. Many families lose their loved ones, many of those who survive are seriously wounded either physically or psychologically. Their bodies and souls are injured. Many of the wounded soldiers will become unwanted by the same country that sent them to war. How do you heal and move forward? It is not easy. Even time does not have dominion over it. There are doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, different rehabilitation therapists, but they all have their limits.

In Ukraine, people are very family- and community-oriented, they like to be surrounded by people. Ukrainians do not break a sweat in an elevator when someone gets closer than two feet to them. Often times in a "marshrutka" (route taxi), as one of my driver friends told me, he tries to mix people up: man, woman, man, woman when he ckecks their tickets. People ride shoulder-to-shoulder, interact, talk to each other about everything and everyone, usually not even having an inch of distance between them. By the way, they are not only OK with it, they want it. After they get out of the marshrutka, everybody is happy.

This is how it used to be for millenia. God created a man and woman, not a man and a dog or a woman and a cat, but a man and a woman. Now, it is theraputic when a person feels that he or she is wanted and belongs in society! That is a good start, but where is God in all this? He is not necessarily a person with a long white beard sitting on a cloud somewhere above, extending a finger toward a man, but a loving Father and Creator who loves each and every one of us more than we can imagine.

He is everywhere and within us. In Aramaic, in the Lord's prayer, is says "dwashmeya" twice, Our Father who is everywhere and Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, which is everywhere. What is not do-able for a man is do-able for God our Father. It is no secret that a wound heals much faster when you pray, that is a visible way of an an invisible work of God on our body and soul.

Not all wounded soldiers have families or someone they can go to. When I was in the U.S., I had a friend who joined the army as a ranger as soon as he turned 18. He saw 7 years of war in Afganistan and Iraq. It was not easy to persuade him to stop taking drugs. Everybody who was there had to smoke weed to not go crazy. We communicated and he almost graduated from technical college until he called me one day and said he had to see the world.

I needed to tell him I could trust him more than anybody else around. I asked him to at least graduate as it was his last semester. He looked me in the eye and gave me an answer that I still remember, I have not seen anything but war in my life. I smiled as I realized he was right. I answered, "Go, but let me know where you go so I could get you out if necessary." He did go to see the world, first South America then Asia. Then he organized a rehabilitation organization in DC to help soldiers.

After this war ends, many wounded soldiers will not have a place or someone they can return to. If they end up living on the street, society in general will not necessarily greet them with open arms. In a reabilitation center such as an Agape Restoration Community where several generations, young and old, live in God's love, true miracles can happen. Wherever Ukrainians go, they have to be connected to God, community, and land. Serving Liturgy, cultivating land (at least a garden), and having community all together, is this not the true Kingdom of God here and among us? If you would like to "Donate," please designate your gift for "Ukraine." And please share these special requests: A Personal Note. Thanks in advance!

---

 

"WAR FOR LAND"

 

---

 

Please read "WAR FOR LAND" below. It seems that people have gone mad. They are simply protesting mindlessly, parroting the anti-(whatever politician they don't like) disinformation, the anti-Israel and anti-Ukraine propaganda that is flooding over the internet and outside agitators taking over university campuses; a recent local news item stated that not a single one of the protest organizers at U of Pittsburgh were students there. Please also see this "letter to U. of Edinburgh protesters" written in April 2021 by reknowned Scottish professor of Middle Eastern Studies Denis MacEoin that refutes the current flood of anti-semitic and anti-Israel disinformation.

The current U.S. president proclaimed Easter Sunday this year to be "Transgender Day of Visibility" - see www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2024/03/29/a-proclamation-on-transgender-day-of-visibility-2024/. What blasphemy! And the decrease in natural reproduction because of transgenderism, homosexuality, and abortion is bringing about the extinction of our population... so, as a leading politician said recently, we need all those illegal immigrants as workers.

The former U.S. president was convicted last week for committing adultery with a porn star, covering it up by paying her hush money, then writing it off as a legal expense, saying – "I didn't do anything wrong." (The local court that tried him had no jurisdiction to handle federal election law violations, and adultery and paying for non-disclosure agreements may not be illegal, but are still immoral and wrong.) Our country has sunk to the depths of moral depravity! And our country continues to print "funny money" for handouts with no goods or services to back it up, resulting now in a deficit of over a TRILLION dollars. Those "freebies" aren't free, they are actually a hidden tax that results in higher prices for goods and services, in other words, inflation.

Meanwhile, some conservatives have taken the insane position of aiding the neo-Stalinist regime in Russia by withholding aid to Ukraine. Stalin once said – "The death of one person is a tragedy; the death of millions is a statistic." Is that what we think when we watch the evening news: just more boring statistics? Millions of Ukrainians and Russians are being killed, both military and civilians. See this May 29 RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT from the ISW. A friend from Ukraine whom we met at our former church in Madison, WI, was born there and is now a U.S. citizen. He and his wife returned just for a visit in April 2021 but stayed on because of the Covid pandemic lockdowns (no airline flights) and the cost of having their baby in Ukraine versus in the U.S.

Now they are stuck there: as of June 1, men aged 18-60 who were born in Ukraine, regardless of dual citizenship, must not leave Ukraine. He sent me a link to the following YouTube video of the forced mobilization of men in Ukraine: it is entitled "A Veritable Safari" translated from Ukrainian – https://youtu.be/mOCWcQHloHw?si=gCti7kmJ3BiVQvE2. Please also read his report on the War in Ukraine.

The world has gone crazy. Here's my latest essay: WAR FOR LAND

In the C.E (“Common Era” – it’s considered ignorant and bigoted to say “A.D” – Anno Domini in Latin, which means “in the year of our Lord”), it is nevertheless important to realize that modern thinking is still permeated with the Christian ethic of loving your enemies and doing good to those who hate you. This ethic is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but is often paid only lipservice, as in calling the spy and war bureaus the departments of “State” and “Defense.”

Various reasons (rationalizations) are given, but the most basic reason for war is to seize the land and its wealth that belong to another country or nation. “The white man’s burden” or “The land of our ancestors” or “Making the world safe for Democracy” or “Lebensraum” or “Denazification” or “Manifest Destiny” or the “fulfillment of Bible prophecy” – all of these reasons have been used to justify land grabs. Ancient Israel once extended up into Lebanon and Syria, and included the territory of Gath (now Gaza) inhabited by the Philistines (now Palestinians). Israel’s leaders, not bothered by Christian ethics, claim that the current war in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria fulfill God’s command to exterminate those people and fulfill Bible prophecies such as in Jeremiah chapter 47. If we believe that the Bible is true, then we must conclude that the "C.E." age of grace is wrapping up.

Other examples: the U.S. of today is the result of wars with the British, the French, the Spanish, and native Indian tribes. These are all normalized by the signing of peace treaties at the end, in which the loser gives up claims to some or all its land. After a war with European powers, the U.S. acquired Florida from Spain in 1819. Texas and southern California were annexed and became states in 1845 after wars with Mexico along with Alaska and northern California, which had been settled as far south as Fort Ross, California, 90 miles from San Francisco Bay by Russians, was acquired from Russia peacefully (of all things!) for $7.2 million in 1867. After the Spanish-American War, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines became U.S. protectorates in 1898.

We hardly need to mention the many wars in Europe to establish and widen kingdoms and empires – the German, Dutch, French, British, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian empires to name a few. Ukraine had slipped out from Russian control after World War One. The outcome of that war broke up not only the Russian Empire but also the British, French, Dutch, and German colonies in Africa and Asia. But in 1932-1933 Stalin’s “Holodomor” (literally “starvation plague”) killed 5 million Ukrainians to bring that area back under Russia’s new Soviet empire, resettling the Donbas, the eastern part, with Russians. Now one of Russia’s excuses for its invasion of Ukraine in 2014 is “to protect native Russian speakers” (who were not native to Ukraine three generations ago). In 1938-39 Hitler invaded Austria, then Czechoslovakia, then Poland, which precipitated World War Two.

The horrific nature of those wars and all modern warfare includes “total war” – the mass killing of whole civilian populations along with enemy combatants, using methods such as nuclear weapons, poison gas, napalm, land mines, thousands of bomblets in each artillery shell, and gas-air bombs that suck the oxygen out of the atmosphere, causing masses of people to suffocate. This is all justified by calling them “enemy co-belligerents” for co-operating with their own country’s soldiers.

But what would be more natural than for civilians to side with their own fighters in a conflict? Would not the Spanish and Mexican settlers in Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California have offered support and shelter to their soldiers? Would not an army make use of secret agents, guerrilla fighters, and partisans all purporting to be civilians, to pave the way for an invasion? Consider the millions upon millions of illegal immigrants coming into the U.S.A.: we know that some of them are foreign agents, but we simply don’t know how many others are. What if this is an elaborate plan to infiltrate our country with trained guerrilla fighters in order to foment an insurrection? Mexico doubtless has many citizens who hold a grudge with the U.S. for seizing so much of its former territory. Could a morally, demographically, and economically weakened U.S. withstand such an attack from within?

You can read and download just this "War For Land" article as a PDF at https://agape-biblia.org/War-for-Land.pdf, and share it!

---

 

THE TRUE CHRISTIAN FAITH: DE FIDE ORTHODOXA

 

---

 

Amazon.com has just released my latest book:
(click →) The True Christian Faith: De Fide Orthodoxa - An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith.

This book by St. John of Damascus (676-749 A.D.) is a more readable modern English revision of de Fide Orthodoxa in Latin and translated into archaic "King James" English in 1898. Written by a man who worked under Arian Muslim rule in Damascus, this is the first systematic theology of Orthodox Christian doctrines. This saint lived at the time when the Church was still united, so he is considered a saint in both Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism, and is also commemorated by the Lutherans, Anglicans, and Episcopalians.

To celebrate, I've reduced the price of each of my books to 50% off through May 31! So The true Christian Faith, normally $9.99 for the Kindle e-book and $19.99 for the paperback, now are $4.99 and $9.99 respectively.

My book The Good News of Yeshua, the Messiah, normally $9.99 for the Kindle e-book and $19.99 for the paperback, now are $4.99 and $9.99 respectively. This is the four Gospels blended together into one continuous narrative, about half the length of all four Gospels separately. It is the companion to my earlier...

...book A First-Century View of Yeshua, the Messiah, normally $5.99 for the Kindle e-book and $11.99 for the paperback, now are $2.99 and $5.99 respectively. This is my updated M.Th.S. thesis with an added appendix on my view of how to understand the inspiration of Scripture.

Then, if you purchase and like the book(s), it would be a great boost for my marketing if you would write a nice review on each book's Amazon pages to help spread the word. Thanks in advance!

You can also see all 3 of my books on my author's page:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Robert-Hosken/author/B0CTXVHBVL

Your (not-so-humble but trying to be) fellow servant,

Bob Hosken

---

 

RECOVERY IN EAST AFRICA

 

---

 

In our special issue last weekend, we sent photos of the flooding in East Africa. Our friend Simon in Tanzania, who has built "Vision Complex" – an orphanage/school center for 50 AIDS orphans, sent us this photo of their former main road to their orphanage/school. It's now a pond for ducks and the only access is an even poorer road full of ruts. They lost their rice crop and the food for the orphans so we sent some money for maize to feed the orphans, but with the loss of their rice crop and seed, they lost $2,000 of income so they need $200 to buy new seed so they can re-plant. Our small non-profit, Agape Restoration Society Inc., has sent money for food, but we have limited income. Can you help us with this rice seed?

Please go to our giving page if you can help. The need is great, and we receive requests almost every day from others for assistance due to the flooding and for caring for AIDS orphans in East Africa. It's more than we can handle alone!

Another person in our 7 a.m. daily "Morning Prayers and Readings" is Maureen, who became an AIDS orphan in childhood: both of her parents died from AIDS. So her grandma, a widow herself, raised her. Maureen grew up, got married, had a baby girl, and then her grandma became disabled, so Maureen took her into their home. But her husband did not like this situation, so he abandoned the family.

This left Maureen to care for grandma and little Kayla, as well as running a stall in the market to support them. Then, after losing her one-room house in a slum fire 2 years ago and rebuilding, now she has lost her new house and stall in the slum market to the flood: see "KENYA FLOODS DEATH TOLL TOPS 200 AS CYCLONE APPROACHES" and KENYA FLOODS: NAIROBI HOMES DEMOLISHED AS CYCLONE HIDAYA APPROACHES."

They were able to sleep in her daughter's school for a few nights, but the schools have to reopen on Monday. So we helped her get some new blankets, plastic dishes and buckets, and rent for a one-room apartment. But now that she's lost her business too, she needs ongoing support for her family until she can get going again. Can you help Maureen, Kayla, and Grandma? Please go to our giving page if you can help.

---

A Personal Note: Please forgive me for being a day late with this issue: I went to the emergency room last Tuesday and stayed in the hospital until Friday to have an ablation on my heart. Now I'm feeling normal, not dizzy or winded like the past several weeks: praise the Lord!

 

---

 

---

 

FLOODING IN EAST AFRICA

---

 

We have several friends in Africa and India who are regulars in our online "Morning Prayers and Readings" at 7 a.m. daily. Our friend Simon in Tanzania has built "Vision Complex" – an orphanage/school center for 50 orphans. They raise crops to help support this complex. Here's a photo from February this year showing their rice fields: at that time there was already heavier than usual rainfall in Tanzania and all of East Africa.

But as of last week, the situation has become much worse: the rains kept coming in Tanzania, Kenya, and Burundi, so much that many places were flooded. I asked our friend Simon today – "How is the situation with the flooding?" And he replied – "On my side I am safe and the rain has stopped almost two days though still network [internet] is not good ... other places in Tanzania the situation is worse but in the town I am living with the school only faced much rain and the roads are what impassable but people are safe to some extent." Then I asked – "How is your rice field? Is the crop OK, or ruined?" He wrote back – "Oh!! Robert, all the crops are ruined... I expect great famine in future... most crops went with flood. I can't tell, very serious...." Pray against famine in Africa! [MAY 5 UPDATE: Simon called us via Skype, saying the cyclone swept away the food for his orphans, so he needs $200 right away, and the loss of their rice crop sets back their budgen by $2,000. Our small non-profit, Agape Restoration Society Inc., is sending $200 today for food: can you help replace the rice crop income?]

Things are especially dire in Nairobi, Kenya: the rain and wind has reached cyclone force, and a dam broke and large areas in the southern part of this capitol city were destroyed and over 200 people have lost their lives: see "KENYA FLOODS DEATH TOLL TOPS 200 AS CYCLONE APPROACHES" and "KENYA FLOODS: NAIROBI HOMES DEMOLISHED AS CYCLONE HIDAYA APPROACHES". More than 165,000 people had been uprooted from their homes including Maureen in Nairobi.

Here's a photo from Maureen, our friend in Nairobi and a regular in our "Morning Prayers." She wrote us – "Please, am in need of ksh950 [about $8] for a motorbike guy to help me in transporting the mattress for sleeping and some utensils for use if you can help, please." But I didn't see her message until later that day, and by then it was too late. I wrote back – "Did you save your mattress & other things?" She replied – "We couldn't because the water came inside the house while we were asleep so we saved nothing apart from our lives." They are sleeping in Kayla's school which is a little higher than the water, but have no food, all they have left is the clothes on their backs, so we sent some money for food. [MAY 5 UPDATE: We through ARS Inc. will do what we can to get her some food, clothing, rental housing, and medicine for her grandma. We're waiting hear from her what she needs right now. But she will also need long-term solutions for housing and employment. Can you help?]

Maureen became an orphan in childhood: both of her parents died from AIDS. So her grandma, a widow herself, raised her. Maureen grew up, got married, had a baby girl, and then her grandma became disabled, so Maureen took her into their home. But her husband did not like this situation, so he abandoned the family. This left Maureen to care for grandma and little Kayla, as well as running a stall in the market to support them. Then almost 2 years ago, a fire broke out in the slums of Nairobi and their little house burned down. So we raised funds to help her build another one-room tin house. Now that house has been destroyed, along with her little shop, this time by flooding.

Please help us provide some assistance to these dear people. We in the West live in nice, cozy homes, have plenty to eat (even too much!) and we worry about what outfit to wear at a wedding or even just about the toilet paper not tearing on the perforation! But these people have lost everything!

 

---

PLEASE CONSIDER GIVING $5, $15, or $25 TO SUPPORT OUR MINISTRY!

Keep these people from starving! Please go to https://agape-restoration-society.org/donate.htm and click on "Donate Monthly."

– OR – Make a quick one-time donation using our QR code

or by going to https://PayPal.me/AgapeRestoration.

And please Share Our Vision: https://agape-restoration-society.org/ARC/crowdfunding-tipsheet.htm with your family & friends!

Also, please share this blog post: https://arc-news-blog.blogspot.com/2024/05/flooding-in-west-africa.html. Thanks!

---

 

Is the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed Scriptural?

 

---

 

(Click the photo to get this as a PDF file.) This is the only concise summary of Christian doctrine accepted by Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and most Protestants. Most of the Creed was written in 325 A.D. at the Council of Nicea [the definition of the Holy Spirit was added to the Creed at the Council of Constantinople in 381 A.D.]. It was at Nicea where Athanasius of Alexandria led the debate against the heresy of Arianism, 68 years before the 27 books of the New Testament canon were officially recognized as Scripture in 393 A.D. at the Council of Hippo. Many holy writings were widely read and accepted by the early 300s, and in about 360 A.D. Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria composed the list of 27 books of true apostolic origin that would become the New Testament.


THE CREED
I believe in one God, (Deut. 6:4; Eph. 4:6)
the Father (Mt. 6:9) Almighty (Ex. 6:3),
Creator of Heaven and Earth (Gen. 1:1),
and of all things visible and invisible (Col. 1:15-16).
And in one Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 11:17),
the Son of God,(Mt. 14:33; Mt. 16:16),
Only-Begotten (Jn. 1:8; Jn. 3:16),
Begotten of the Father before all ages (Jn. 1:2).
Light from Light (Ps. 27:1; Jn. 8:12; Mt. 17:2 & 5),
True God from True God (Jn. 17:1-5),
Begotten, not made (Jn. 1:18),
of one essence with the Father (Jn. 10:30)
through Whom all things were made (Heb. 1:1-2);
Who for us men and for our salvation (1 Tim. 2:4-5)
came down from heaven (Jn. 6:33-35),
and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary (Lk. 1:35)
and became man (Jn. 1:15).
And He was crucified for us (Mk. 15:25; 1 Cor. 15:3)
under Pontius Pilate, (Jn. 19:6) suffered, (Mk. 8:31)
and was buried (Lk. 23:53; 1 Cor. 15:4),
And on the third day He rose again (Lk. 24:1-6),
according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:4),
and ascended into heaven (Lk. 24:51; Acts 1:10),
and sits at the right hand of the Father (Mk. 16:19; Ac. 7:55);
and He shall come again with glory (Mt. 24:27)
to judge the living and the dead; (Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:1)
Whose Kingdom shall have no end (2 Pet. 1:11).
And in the Holy Spirit (Jn. 14:26),
the Lord (Acts 5:3-4) and Giver of Life (Gen. 1:2),
Who proceeds from the Father (Jn. 15:26);
Who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified (Mt. 3:16-17),
Who spoke through the prophets (1 Sam. 19:20; Ezek. 11:5 & 13).
In one (Mt. 16:18; Eph. 4:1-4) holy (1 Pet. 2:5 & 9),
catholic (Jn. 17:20-23), and Apostolic Church (Ac. 2:42; Eph. 2:19-22).
I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins (Ac. 2:38; Eph. 4:5).
I look for the resurrection of the dead (Jn. 11:24; 1 Cor. 15:12-49; Heb. 6:2; Rev. 20:5),
and the life in the world to come. (Mk. 10:29-30)
Amen.

---

 

THE TRUE CHRISTIAN FAITH

 

---

 

Below is the Foreword from the Christian classic de fide Orthodoxa by St. John of Damascus in the eighth century. I've just finished re-editing, reformatting, updating and cleaning up the text. You can read it online and save this link for future reference: https://agape-biblia.org/literatura/#de-fide. You can also download it as a free *.epub-format e-book! Here it is:

This book, De Fide Orthodoxa in Latin, by St. John of Damascus was the first systematic theology of the whole Christian Church, and was originally written by a man who lived at the time when the Church was still united. St. John labored under Arian Muslim rule in Damascus. He produced this first systematic theology of Orthodox Christian doctrines and he is considered a saint in both Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism, and is also commemorated by the Lutherans, Anglicans, and Episcopalians.

In the seventh and eighth centuries when St. John lived, there was no "Roman Catholic Church" or "Eastern Orthodox Church" – there was just one true Christian Church and one pre-schism, pre-denominational, true Christian faith, although the East disputed the Roman claim to total papal supremacy. The words "orthodox" and "catholic" had different meanings than they do today: the word "catholic" meant "universal" in the same sense as "ecumenical" (the Ecumenical Patriarch lived in Constantinople), and "orthodox" meant "true faith" or "right praise (worship)." In other words, there was just one true faith for the Christian Church world-wide. This is the sense in which we should understand the Latin title "de Fide Orthodoxa" – one true faith of the entire Christian Church.

St. John was highly educated in the sciences of his day. With our modern instruments, we now know that the universe does not rotate around the earth, but that is how it appeared to people at that time. Today we still use words like "sunrise" and "sunset" although we know better – we still see the world from our human perspective. In St. John's day, however, people had not given up on the search for objective truth as many have done today. The Church through the oversight of the councils of bishops has remained true to the Christian Faith, even if one Christian, even a saint, may have human failings.

At the end of the Liturgy that dates back to three centuries before St. John of Damascus, we sing – "We have seen the true Light, we have received the heavenly Spirit, we have found the true faith, worshiping the Holy Trinity Who has saved us." To the modern ear, this sounds rather audacious – claiming to have the true faith. But there is the true faith, not just one of many denominations that each claim to have the truth, which has led to the worldview of relativism that says truth is relative and subjective, each person has his own truth, his own reality...

But there can be only one objective reality, one universal truth, one Supreme Being, and one true and visible Church. The idea "everything is relative, there are no absolutes, except this statement – it's absolute" is obviously absurd and thus untrue. So there must be one Absolute Truth. But finding it is not easy: we must search for it with all our heart and all our soul. This book is written in a declarative voice, no "ifs" or "perhaps" or "it seems to me" – it claims to be the "summa theologia" of true Christian faith.

The Church had been struggling for seven centuries against various false teachings – "heresies" – most notably Arianism and Iconoclasm. Arianism was the false teaching that Jesus was a good man, a moral teacher, perhaps even a prophet, that God came upon Him when He was born or baptized, He taught lofty morals, and He was crucifed and buried. Period. He was not considered to be the pre-eternal Son of God. The Arians were condemned as heretics at the First Ecumenical Council (323 A.D. – Nicea) and were exiled from the Greco-Roman Empire into the deserts of Arabia.

Iconoclasm was the heresy that God is so much higher and greater than human understanding that He cannot be depicted in an image ("ikon" in Greek), so Christ and the saints must never be depicted in images ("icons"), which contradicts the Scripture that Christ is the express image –ikon – of the Father (Hebrews 1:3). Therefore, the iconoclasts went about destroying icons and persecuting those who venerated (reverenced) icons. The iconoclasts were also exiled from the Greco-Roman Empire. Eventually these two major heresies were combined into one by an illiterate desert Arab and his followers, resulting in Islam, which turned against the Empire and eventually conquered much of it.

This is the historical context in which St. John of Damascus lived. Christians were often persecuted and killed by the Muslims, but also sometimes allowed to live as subjects to the Islamic Empire. Thus, the more highly-educated Christians might become servants directly under their Muslim rulers, just as the prophet Daniel served the king of Persia. This was the case of St. John of Damascus, who under Muslim (Arian and Iconoclast) rule served in the Muslim Caliph's court of Damascus. But because St. John refused to stop writing about the true Christian faith, he too was eventually persecuted: his hand was cut off.

Go to our ARC-News website to read our free e-newsletters and Subscribe You can read and download the whole article at https://agape-biblia.org/literatura/#de-fide, and share it!