400 - 1000

(My original has many pictures and illustrations.  Please excuse this installment until I am able to complete it.)

400           400           400           400

400 - In starting a school for native Gothic evangelists, John Chrysostom writes, "'Go and make disciples of all nations' was not said for the Apostles only, but for us also".

Saint Moses the Black (330–405), (also known as Abba Moses the Robber, the Ethiopian and the Strong) was an ascetic monk and priest in Egypt in the fourth century AD.  Moses was a slave of a government official in Egypt who dismissed him for theft and suspected murder.  He became the leader of a gang of bandits who roamed the Nile Valley spreading terror and violence.  He was a large, imposing figure.  After one crime, he took shelter with some monks in a colony in the desert.  The dedication of their lives, as well as their peace and contentment, influenced Moses deeply. He soon gave up his old way of life, became a Christian, was baptized and joined the monastic community.  Moses became the spiritual leader of a colony of hermits in the Western Desert.  At about age 75, word came that a group of Berbers planned to attack the monastery.  The brothers wanted to defend themselves, but Moses forbade it.  He told them to retreat, rather than take up weapons.  He and seven others remained behind and greeted the invaders with open arms, but all eight were martyred by the bandits.

The Psychomachia (Battle for Man's soul) by poet Aurelius Prudentius Clemens (Northern Spain, in 348- 405, possibly around 413) is probably the first and most influential "pure" medieval allegory.  The poem describes the conflict of vices and virtues.  Christian faith is attacked by and defeats pagan idolatry to be cheered by a thousand Christian martyrs.  Characters: Chastity is assaulted by Lust, but cuts down her enemy with a sword.  Anger attacks Patience, is unable to defeat her and destroys herself instead.  Various vices fight corresponding virtues and are always defeated.  Biblical figures that exemplify these virtues also appear (e.g. Job as an example of patience).  Despite the fact that seven virtues defeat seven vices, these are not the canonical seven deadly sins, nor the three theological and four cardinal virtues.

Rutilius Claudius Namatianus (fl. 5th century) was a Roman Imperial poet, notable as the author of a Latin poem, De Reditu Suo, in elegiac metre, describing a coastal voyage from Rome to Gaul in 416.  De riditu suo is a brilliant essay on what he regarded as troubles caused by the Jews of that day.

Pelagius (ca. AD 354 – ca. AD 420/440) was an ascetic who denied the need for divine aid in performing good works.  He also, therefore, denied the more specific doctrine of original sin as developed by Augustine of Hippo.  Pelagius was declared a heretic by the Council of Carthage.  His interpretation of a doctrine of free will became known as Pelagianism.  His reputation in Rome earned him praise early in his career even from such pillars of the Church as Augustine, who referred to him as a "saintly man."  Most of his later life was spent defending his doctrine against theologians teaching the Catholic Faith.  Due to his status as a heretic, little of his work has come down to the present day except in the quotes of his opponents.  However, more recently some have defended Pelagius as a misunderstood orthodox.  Original sin is still a doctrine which holds vast differences even within Catholic-originated Protestantism.  Catholics, Lutherans and Presbyterians, et al all have differing explanations for infant baptism.  Others hold to adult baptism and speak of sin nature as opposed to original sin. 

 John Chrysostom (344-407 A.D.) – One of the "greatest" of church fathers; known as "The Golden Mouthed."  He was a missionary preacher famous for his sermons and addresses.  – “The synagogue is worse than a brothel…it is the den of scoundrels and the repair of wild beasts…the temple of demons devoted to idolatrous cults…the refuge of brigands and debauchees, and the cavern of devils.  It is a criminal assembly of Jews…a place of meeting for the assassins of Christ… a house worse than a drinking shop…a den of thieves, a house of ill fame, a dwelling of iniquity, the refuge of devils, a gulf and a abyss of perdition."…"I would say the same things about their souls… As for me, I hate the synagogue…I hate the Jews for the same reason.”  -“Do not be surprised if I call the Jews pitiable.  They really are pitiable and miserable.  When the Morning Sun of Righteousness arose upon them, they thrust aside its rays and still sit in darkness.  And now you let them frighten you?”-Homilies against Judaizing Christians.  “If the Jewish rite are holy and venerable, our way of life must be false.  But if our way is true, as indeed it is, theirs is fraudulent.  I am not speaking of the Scriptures.  Far from it!  For they lead one to Christ.  I am speaking of their present impiety and madness.”  His denunciations of the Jewish people are found in six sermons he delivered in Antioch where Jews were numerous and influential and where apparently some Christians were attending synagogues and visiting Jewish homes.  He accused the Jews of all imaginable crimes and vices.  The devil lived in Jewish homes, according to John Chrysostom, and the synagogue was an assembly of animals.  This was so because of the Jews' assassination of Jesus.  God has always hated the Jews, John Chrysostum insisted, and they will forever remain without temple or nation. “The Jews say they hope to see their city restored! No, they are mistaken.  The Temple will never rise again, nor the Jews return to their former polity…He whom you crucified did afterwards pull down your city, scatter your people, and disperse your nation throughout the whole world.”

"The Jews sacrifice their children to Satan....they are worse than wild beasts.  The synagogue is a brothel, a den of scoundrels, the temple of demons devoted to idolatrous cults, a criminal assembly of Jews, a place of meeting for the assassins of Christ, a house of ill fame, a dwelling of iniquity, a gulf and abyss of perdition."  "The Jews have fallen into a condition lower than the vilest animal.  Debauchery and drunkenness have brought them to the level of the lusty goat and the pig.  They know only one thing: to satisfy their stomachs, to get drunk, to kill, and beat each other up like stage villains and coachmen."  "The synagogue is a curse, obstinate in her error, she refuses to see or hear, she has deliberately perverted her judgment; she has extinguished with herself the light of the Holy Spirit."

"There are legions of theologians, historians and writers who write about the Jews the same as Chrysostom: Epiphanius, Diodorus of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyprus, Cosmas Indicopleustes, Athanasius the Sinaite among the Greeks; Hilarius of Poitiers, Prudentius, Paulus Orosius, Sulpicius Severus, Gennadius, Venantius Fortunatus, Isidore of Seville, among the Latins."

Already in 408, Theodosius ruled against Purim on the presumption that Jews understood Haman to represent Jesus.  Elliot Horowitz demonstrates in his book, “Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence”, 2006, this presumption was often correct, and Haman came to represent, if not Jesus himself, then the Christian oppressors among whom Jews were living.

415 -In late 414 to early 415, years of tension between the Jews of Alexandria and the Gentiles reached a climax beginning with a series of riots and finally an ASSAULT WAS MADE BY THE JEWS against the Christians in the city.  That next day, the patriarch Cyril demanded all Jews be removed from the city.  This was refuted by the prefect of Alexandria, Orestes, but Cyril paid no heed.  Cyril himself led an army of Christians against the Jews in the city, plundering and destroying the synagogues as well as killing Orestes, burning the Library of Alexandria, and the expulsion of the Jews from the city.

Saint Jerome (c. 347 – 9/30, 420) was an Illyrian Christian priest and apologist.  He is best known for his new translation of the Bible into Latin, which has since come to be called the Vulgate and his list of writings are extensive.  He is recognized by the Catholic Church as a saint and Doctor of the Church.  St. Jerome describes the Jews as "... serpents, wearing the image of Judas, their psalms and prayers are the braying of donkeys." “If you call it a brothel, a den of vice, the Devil’s refuge, Satan’s fortress, a place to deprave the soul … you are still saying less than it deserves.”   Jerome claims Jews were possessed by an impure spirit.  “The Jews must be hated, for they daily insult Jesus Christ in their synagogues.”

 Stylites (Greek stylos, "pillar") or Pillar-Saints are a type of Christian ascetic who in the early days of the Byzantine Empire stood on pillars preaching, fasting and praying.  They believed that the mortification of their bodies would help ensure the salvation of their souls.  The first stylite was probably Simeon Stylites the Elder who climbed on a pillar in Syria in 423 and remained there until his death 37 years later.

  Augustine of Hippo (11/13, 354 – 8/28, 430), was a Romanized Berber philosopher and theologian.  Augustine, a Latin church father, is one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity.  St. Augustine, the famous Doctor of the Catholic Church, tackled this issue in his "Sermon Against the Jews."  He asserted that even though the Jews deserved the most severe punishment for having put Jesus to death, they have been kept alive by Divine Providence to serve, together with their Scriptures, as witnesses to the truth of Christianity.   In an interesting twist, he claimed that their (the Jews) existence was further justified by the service they rendered to the Christian truth, in attesting through their humiliation, the triumph of the Church over the Synagogue.  They were to be a "Witness people"; slaves and servants who should be humbled.  Augustine labels the Talmudists as falsifiers.  “The Jews murdered Christ in oder not to lose face…They are undoubetedly our enemies…Long before the coming of the Saviour, Judaism had progressibvely become corrupt…after the revelation of Christ, it fell completely under Satan’s inspiration; formerly the chosen children of God, they became the sons of the devil…The true image of the Hebrew is Judas Iscariot, who sells the Lord for silver.  The Jew cannot understand the Scriptures and forever will bear guilt for the death of Jesus. …The Jews hold hm, the Jews insult him, the Jews bind him, crown him with thorns, dishonor him with spitting, scourge him, overwhelm with reviling, hang him upon a tree, piercehim with a spear.  The Jews killed him.”

Augustine and Jerome - Branded Judaism a corruption and called for the enslavement and severe persecution of Jews until they agreed to convert.

Saint John Cassian (ca. 360 – 435) was a Christian theologian celebrated in both the Western and Eastern Churches for his mystical writings.  He is known both as one of the "Scythian monks" and as one of the "Desert Fathers."

    

****The Germanic Migration Period, also called the Barbarian Invasions (and in German: Völkerwanderung 'migration of peoples'), was a period of human migration in Europe that occurred from c. 300 to 700 AD.  This period marked the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Migrations were catalyzed by profound changes both within the Roman Empire and on its "barbarian frontier."  Migrating peoples included the Huns, Goths, Vandals, Avars, Slavs, Bulgars, Alans, Suebi, Frisians, and Franks.

409 The Jews were already in Spain together with the Romans.  The Visigoths, the German tribes, the Suevi, Vandals, Alans, and Silingi, took possession of the Pyrenean peninsula, but then fought with the Romans, for seventy-two years (409-481).  The Germans professed Christianity. For 300 years until the Moslems, they kept the Jews in check.

 430  Vandals (a Germanic tribe) established a kingdom in North Africa.  The Jews there lived peacefully and flourished until the Almohad conquest of the 11th century.

431 Council of Ephesus, 3rd Catholic Council -Theodosius II ruled as emperor. Pope Saint Celestine I, declaring the Divine Maternity Dogma of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Mother of God.  Also, led by Saint Cyril of Alexandria, the Council defined that Christ has two natures - Divine and human, but only one Person which is Divine.  This affirmation condemned Nestorianism and deposed Nestorius, who was the bishop of Constantinople. The Council also affirmed the Council of Carthage held for the local Church in 416, thus condemning Pelagius and his teachings.

 Nestorius (c386–c451) was Archbishop of Constantinople from April 10, 428 to June 22, 431.  He emphasized the disunity of the human and divine natures of Christ.  He sought to defend himself at the First Council of Ephesus in 431, but instead he found himself formally condemned for heresy and removed from his see.  Thereafter he retired to a monastery, where he asserted his orthodoxy for the rest of his life.  Despite his acquiescence, Nestorianism became the official position of the Church of the East.  A brief definition of Nestorian Christology can be given as: "Jesus Christ, who is not identical with the Son but personally united with the Son, who lives in him, is one hypostasis and one nature: human."  [Nestorian Christianity is vibrant in the East traveling all the way through India and deep into China by the 5th century.]  The Missionary Herald in 1837 –“The Nestorians despise the Jews….The Jews they say, were the murderers of our Savior.”

His teachings, which included a rejection of the long-used title of Theotokos ("Mother of God") for the Virgin Mary, brought him into conflict with other prominent churchmen of the time, most notably Cyril of Alexandria, who accused him of heresy.  Nestorius sought to defend himself at the First Council of Ephesus in 431, but instead he found himself formally condemned for heresy and removed from his see.  Thereafter he retired to a monastery, where he asserted his orthodoxy for the rest of his life.  Despite his acquiescence, many of his supporters split with the rest of the church in the Nestorian Schism, and over the next decades a number of them relocated to Persia.  Thereafter Nestorianism became the official position of the Church of the East.

The Nestorian church emerged stronger after this period of ordeal, and increased missionary efforts farther afield. Missionaries established dioceses in the Arabian Peninsula and India (the Saint Thomas Christians).  They made some advances in Egypt, despite the strong Oriental Orthodox (Monophysite) presence there.  Missionaries entered Central Asia and had significant success converting local Tartar tribes.  Nestorian missionaries were firmly established in China during the early part of the Tang Dynasty (618–907); the Chinese source known as the Nestorian Stele records a mission under a Persian proselyte named Alopen as introducing Nestorian Christianity to China in 635.  Following the Muslim conquest of Persia, completed in 644, the Persian Church became a protected dhimmi community under the Rashidun Caliphate.  The church and its communities abroad flourished under the Caliphate; by the 10th century it had fifteen metropolitan sees within the Caliphate's territories, and another five elsewhere, including in China and India.  Particularly inspiring were the Nestorians' missionary successes among the Mongol and Turks of Central Asia; the French historian René Grousset suggests that one of the seeds of the Prester John story may have come from the Kerait clan, which had hundreds of thousands of its members converted to Nestorian Christianity shortly after the year 1000.  By the 12th century, the Kerait rulers were still following a custom of bearing Christian names, which may have fueled the legend.

By the 5th century there were still 5 Patriarchs, not just the Pope.  These were Jerusalem, Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria.

 432 - Saint Patrick (c387 – 3/17, 493 or 460) was a Romano-Briton and Christian missionary, who is the most generally recognized patron saint of Ireland or the Apostle of Ireland.  In legend: St. Patrick banishes all snakes from Ireland; St. Patrick uses shamrock in an illustrative parable;  St. Patrick's dead ash wood walking stick grows into a living tree; St. Patrick speaks with ancient Irish ancestors who were born long before his time.  Patrick goes to Ireland as missionary.  When he was about 16, he was captured from Britain by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Ireland, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family.  After entering the Church, he returned to Ireland as an ordained bishop.  Saint Patrick venerated in Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, Anglican Communion, Lutheran Church.  Major shrine Glastonbury Abbey; Armagh. Feast 17 March (Saint Patrick's Day)

435 Date of the Coming of the Messiah - R. Judah HaNasi predicted that the Messiah would come in this year (365 years after the destruction of the Temple). R. Hanina, his student, predicted that the Messiah would come in the year 470 (400 years after the destruction).  This, coupled with persecution and natural disasters, resulted in the appearance of false messiahs.  This phenomenon became so widespread that most rabbis forbade predictions of the coming of the Messiah, since often people bereft of hope would convert after grave disappointment.

439 January 31, Code of Theodosius II (Byzantine Empire) – This was the first imperial compilation of anti-Jewish laws since Constantine.  Jews were prohibited from holding important positions involving money, including judicial and executive offices.  The ban against building new synagogues was reinstated.  Theodosius was the Roman emperor of the East (408-450).  The Code was also readily accepted by Western Roman Emperor, Valentinian III (425-455).  Some of the laws in this code actually protected Jews from violence and asserted their basic rights and freedom.  But the largest section restricted Jewish cult and activities.

  Theodosius II (4/10, 401 – 7/28, 450) was Byzantine Emperor from 408 to 450.  He presided over the outbreak of two great christological controversies, Nestorianism and Eutychianism.  During a visit to Syria, Theodosius met the preacher Nestorius and appointed him Patriarch of Constantinople in 428.  Nestorius quickly became involved in the disputes of two theological factions, which differed in their Christology.  Nestorius tried to find a middle ground between those who, emphasizing the fact that in Christ God had been born as a man, insisted on calling the Virgin Mary Theotokos ("birth-giver of God"), and those who rejected that title because God as an eternal being could not have been born.  Nestorius suggested the title Christotokos ("birth-giver to Christ"), but did not find acceptance by either faction and was accused of detaching Christ's divine and human natures from each other, a heresy later called Nestorianism.  Though initially supported by the Emperor, Nestorius found a forceful opponent in Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria.  With the consent of the Emperor and Pope Celestine I, an Ecumenical Council convened in Ephesus in 431, which affirmed the title Theotokos and condemned Nestorius, who was then exiled by the Emperor.  Almost twenty years later, the theological dispute broke out again, this time caused by the Constantinopolitan abbot Eutyches, whose Christology was understood by some to mingle Christ's divine and human nature into one.  Eutyches was condemned by Patriarch Flavian of Constantinople but found a powerful friend in Cyril's successor Dioscurus of Alexandria.  Another council convoked to Ephesus in 449, deemed "robber synod" because of its tumultuous circumstances, restored Eutyches and deposed Flavian, who was mistreated and died shortly afterwards.  Pope Leo I of Rome and many other bishops protested against the outcome, but the Emperor supported it.  Only after his death in 450 would the decisions be reversed at the Council of Chalcedon.

Valentinian III (7/2, 419 – 3/16, 455), was Western Roman Emperor from 425 to 455.  His reign is marked by the ongoing dismemberment of the Western Empire.  By the time of his death, virtually all of North Africa, all of western Spain and the majority of Gaul had passed out of Roman hands.  He is described as spoiled, pleasure-loving, and heavily influenced by sorcerers and astrologers.  Valentinian was devoted to religion, contributing to churches of St. Laurence in both Rome and Ravenna.

Purim, the Jewish holiday of Revenge against Gentiles.  Theodosius prohibited Jews from burning an effigy of Haman on Purim, believing the custom to be a parody of the crucified Jesus).  

 The Seven Sleepers, refers to a group of Christian youths who hid inside a cave outside the city of Ephesus around 250 AD, to escape a persecution of Christians being conducted during the reign of the Roman emperor Decius.  Having fallen asleep inside the cave, they purportedly awoke approximately 150-200 years later during the reign of Theodosius II, following which they were reportedly seen by the people of the now-Christian city before dying.  The tale is told among others by Gregory of Tours (d.594), Paul the Deacon (d.799), Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend and the Qur'an.  The story rapidly attained a wide diffusion throughout Christendom, popularized by Gregory of Tours, in his collection of miracles.  The account had become proverbial in 16th century Protestant culture.  The poet John Donne could ask, "were we not wean'd till then?/ But suck'd on country pleasures, childishly?/Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?"-"The good-morrow".

This caused many Jews to flee to Babylonia which again became the national and cultural center of Judaism.

  '...part of a belt-set from early years of the 5th century.' '...design is Germanic and may have been worn by one of the early Saxon mercenaries. Discovered in a grave at Mucking, Essex.'

Purim, the Jewish holiday of Revenge against Gentiles.

439 Socrates of Constantinople (c.380- ?), also known as Socrates Scholasticus, was a Greek Christian church historian, a contemporary of Sozomen and Theodoret, who used his work.  He wrote Historia Ecclesiastica ("Church History"), which covers the years 305-439.  He refers to a case in 415 at Inmestar, near Antioch, in Syria.  The local Hebrews, in their debaucheries and intemperate revelry to celebrate Purim, after getting suitably drunk, according to the prescriptions of the ritual, which provided that they must drink so much wine that they can no longer distinguish Haman from Mordecai: “took to deriding the Christians and Christ Himself in their boasting; they ridiculed the cross and anyone trusting the crucifix, putting the following  in practice.  They took a Christian child, tied it to a cross and hanged him.

442 Jose (Moses of Crete) - Proclaimed himself the new Moses and predicted that on a certain day the sea would open and the Jewish people would walk on dry land to Eretz Israel.  On the given day he and many of his followers dutifully jumped off a low cliff into the sea.  The sea didn't split and he couldn't swim.  Rav Ashi cautioned against exaggerated enthusiasm at the imminent coming of the messiah.

 Stations of the Cross (Via Dolorosa or Way of Sorrows) refers to a series of artistic representations, very often sculptural, depicting Christ Carrying the Cross to his crucifixion in the final hours (or Passion) of Jesus, and to devotions commemorating the Passion that use the series, often moving physically around a set of stations.  The early set of seven scenes was usually numbers 2,3,4,7,6 and 14 from this list.  The standard set from the 17th to 20th centuries has consisted of 14 pictures or sculptures depicting the following scenes: 1.Jesus is condemned to death  2.Jesus is given His cross  3.Jesus falls the first time  4.Jesus meets His Mother  5.Simon of Cyrene carries the cross  6.Veronica wipes the face of Jesus  7.Jesus falls the second time  8.Jesus meets the daughters of Jerusalem  9.Jesus falls the third time  10.Jesus is stripped of His garments  11.Crucifixion: Jesus is nailed to the cross  12.Jesus dies on the cross  13.Jesus' body is removed from the cross (Deposition or Lamentation)  14.Jesus is laid in the tomb and covered in incense.  Although not traditionally part of the Stations, the Resurrection of Jesus is sometimes included as a fifteenth station.

 The Via Dolorosa ("Way of Suffering") is a street, in two parts, within the Old City of Jerusalem, held to be the path that Jesus walked, carrying his cross, on the way to his crucifixion.  The winding route from the Antonia Fortress west to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre — a distance of about 600 metres (2,000 feet) — is a celebrated place of Christian pilgrimage.  The current route has been established since the 18th century, replacing various earlier versions.  It is today marked by nine Stations of the Cross; there have been fourteen stations since the late 15th century, with the remaining five stations being inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

To align better with Scripture, Pope John Paul II introduced a new form of devotion, called the Scriptural Way of the Cross on Good Friday 1991.  In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI approved this set of stations for meditation and public celebration: They follow this sequence: 1.Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane,  2.Jesus is betrayed by Judas and arrested,  3.Jesus is condemned by the Sanhedrin,  4.Jesus is denied by Peter,  5.Jesus is judged by Pilate,  6.Jesus is scourged and crowned with thorns,  7.Jesus takes up His cross,  8.Jesus is helped by Simon to carry His cross,  9.Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem,  10.Jesus is crucified,  11.Jesus promises His kingdom to the repentant thief,  12.Jesus entrusts Mary and John to each other,  13.Jesus dies on the cross,  14.Jesus is laid in the tomb.  The Stations were used as early as the fifth century.

  ****Attila the Hun (406–453) was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in 453.  He was leader of the Hunnic Empire, which stretched from Germany to the Ural River and from the Danube River to the Baltic Sea.  During his rule, he was one of the most fearsome of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires' enemies, and came to be known as "the Scourge of God" (in Latin Flagellum Dei).  He invaded the Balkans twice and marched through Gaul (modern France) as far as Orléans before being defeated at the Battle of Châlons.  He refrained from attacking either Constantinople or Rome.  In much of Western Europe, he is remembered as the epitome of cruelty and rapacity.  However, in Hungary, Turkey, and other Turkic-speaking countries in Central Asia, he is regarded as a hero and his name is revered.

In 450, Attila proclaimed his intent to attack the powerful Visigoth kingdom of Toulouse, making an alliance with Emperor Valentinian III in order to do so. He had previously been on good terms with the Western Roman Empire and its influential general Flavius Aëtius.  Aëtius had spent a brief exile among the Huns in 433, and the troops Attila provided against the Goths and Bagaudae had helped earn him the largely honorary title of magister militum in the west.  The gifts and diplomatic efforts of Geiseric, who opposed and feared the Visigoths, may also have influenced Attila's plans.  However, Valentinian's sister was Honoria, who, in order to escape her forced betrothal to a Roman senator, had sent the Hunnish king a plea for help – and her engagement ring – in the spring of 450.  Though Honoria may not have intended a proposal of marriage, Attila chose to interpret her message as such.  He accepted, asking for half of the western Empire as dowry and that he would come to claim what was rightfully his.  Attila gathered his vassals—Gepids, Ostrogoths, Rugians, Scirians, Heruls, Thuringians, Alans, Burgundians, (Khazars, modern-day Jews) among others and began his march west.  In 451, he arrived in Belgica with an army exaggerated by Jordanes to half a million strong.  J.B. Bury believes that Attila's intent, by the time he marched west, was to extend his kingdom – already the strongest on the continent – across Gaul to the Atlantic Ocean.

Theodoric I, was the King of the Visigoths from 418 to 451.  He aided an alliance against the Huns which pushed them out of Europe.

Theodoric the Great (454 – August 30, 526) was king of the Ostrogoths (471–526), ruler of Italy (493–526), regent of the Visigoths (511–526), and a viceroy of the Eastern Roman Empire.  A son of King Theodemir, an Amali nobleman, Theodoric was born in Pannonia, after his people had defeated the Huns at the Battle of Nedao.  Growing up as a hostage in Constantinople, Theodoric received a privileged education, and succeeded his father as leader of the Pannonian Ostrogoths in 471 AD.  Settling his people in lower Moesia, Theodoric came in conflict with Thracian Ostrogoths led by Theodoric Strabo, whom he eventually supplanted, uniting the peoples in 484.  Subsequently, Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno gave him the title of Patrician and the office of Magister militum (master of the soldiers), and even appointed him as Roman Consul.  Trying to achieve further aims, Theodoric frequently ravaged the provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire, eventually threatening Constantinople itself.  In 488, Emperor Zeno ordered Theodoric to overthrow the German usurper Odoacer, who had established himself as King of Italy.  After a victorious three-year long war, Theodoric killed Odoacer with his own hands, settled his people in Italy, around 100,000 to 200,000, and founded a Kingdom based in Ravenna.  Although promoting separation between the Arian Ostrogoths and the Roman population, Theodoric stressed the importance of racial harmony.  Seeking to restore the glory of Ancient Rome, he ruled Italy in its most peaceful and prosperous period since Valentinian, until his death in 526.  Memories of his reign made him a hero of Germanic legend as Dietrich von Bern.  Theodoric in his final years was no longer the disengaged Arian patron of religious toleration that he had seemed earlier in his reign.  "Indeed, his death cut short what could well have developed into a major persecution of Catholic churches in retaliation for measures taken by Justinian in Constantinople against Arians there".  Theodoric was of Arian faith.  At the end of his reign quarrels arose with his Roman subjects and the Byzantine emperor Justin I over the Arianism issue. 

Saint Genevieve (c419/422 - 502/512) is the patron saint of Paris in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox tradition.  In 451 she led a "prayer marathon" that was said to have saved Paris by diverting Attila's Huns away from the city in 464. 

Wolfdietrich is a German hero of romance.  The tale of Wolfdietrich is connected with the Merovingian princes, Theodoric and Theodebert.  Wolfdietrich is the son of Hugdietrich, emperor of Constantinople.  Repudiated and exposed by his father, the child was spared by the wolves of the forest, and was educated by the faithful Berchtung of Meran.  After the emperor's death, Wolfdietrich was driven from his inheritance by his brothers at the instigation of the traitor Sabene.  Berchtung and his sixteen sons stood by Wolfdietrich.  Six of these were slain and the other ten imprisoned.  It was only after long exile in Lombardy at the court of King Ortnit that the hero returned to deliver the captives and regain his kingdom.  Wolfdietrich's exile and return suggested a parallel with the history of Dietrich von Bern.  Among the exploits of Wolfdietrich was the slaughter of the dragon which had slain Ortnit.

Ortnit, a German hero of romance, was the elder of two brothers known as the Hartungs, who correspond in German mythology to the Dioscuri.   He was related to the Russian saga heroes and in ordinary German legend he ruled in Lombardy.  Ortnit won his bride, a Valkyrie, by hard fighting against the giant Isungs, but was killed in a later fight by a dragon.  His younger brother, Hardheri (replaced in later German legend by Wolfdietrich), avenged Ortnit by killing the dragon, and then married his brother's widow.

Hugdietrich is in the German heroic saga of the father of Wolf Dietrich.

451  The Council of Chalcedon, 4th Catholic Council -  Marcian, then the Roman Emperor of the East, with Pope Saint Leo the Great.  This time Monophysitism (that Christ had only one nature) was the controversy and that Constantinople should be on an equal basis with Rome ecclesiastically.  Pope Leo determined that the See of Peter in Rome has no equal and that Abbot Eutyches was a heretic.

 451 Oriental Orthodoxy refers to the faith of those Eastern Christian Churches that recognize only three ecumenical councils — the First Council of Nicaea, the First Council of Constantinople and the First Council of Ephesus.  They rejected the dogmatic definitions of the Council of Chalcedon. The Oriental Orthodox communion comprises six groups: Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Eritrean Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (India) and Armenian Apostolic churches.  These six churches, while being in communion with one another, are hierarchically independent.  The Oriental Orthodox Church and the rest of the Church split over differences in Christological terminology.  The First Council of Nicaea (325) declared that Jesus Christ is God, "consubstantial" with the Father; and the First Council of Ephesus (431) that Jesus, though divine as well as human, is only one being (hypostasis).  Twenty years after Ephesus, the Council of Chalcedon declared that Jesus is in two complete natures, one human and one divine.  Those who opposed Chalcedon likened its doctrine to the Nestorian heresy, condemned at Ephesus, that Christ was two distinct beings, one divine (the Logos) and one human (Jesus).

 455 ROME -The Vandals plundered Rome for two weeks.  Many of the Jerusalem Temple vessels were taken to Carthage.

The Merovingians (also Merovings) were a Salian Frankish dynasty that came to rule the Franks in a region (known as Francia in Latin) largely corresponding to ancient Gaul from the middle of the fifth century.  Their politics involved frequent civil warfare among branches of the family. During the final century of the Merovingian rule, the dynasty was increasingly pushed into a ceremonial role.  The Merovingian rule was ended in 751 when Pepin the Short formally deposed Childeric III, beginning the Carolingian monarchy.

465 Council of Vannes (Gaul) -Prohibited the clergy from participating in Jewish feasts.  This was designed to place Jews further beyond the pale of Christian civilization.

“The Visigoths and the Burgundians took measures in respect of them [the Jews], and the Council of Vannes, in 465 forbade priests from frequenting the sons of Israel.  The Merovingian kings Clotaire II and Dagobert II were even more severe: the first withdrew from them the right to litigate against a Christian, and the second repressed them in his states.”  – Henry Coston

472 Isfahan, Persia -Although for the most part Jews had lived in peace under the Zoroastrians, anti-Jewish riots spread through the city after rumors began that the Jews killed two Zoroastrian priests.

473 Yotabe (Gulf of Aquba) -After its conquest by Persia, Jewish merchants set up a semi-autonomous colony.  Emperor Anastassus recognized it as such in 498, but in 535 Justinian revoked its autonomy.

Zeno (Latin: Flavius Zeno Augustus) (c. 425 – 4/9, 491), originally Tarasis the Isaurian, was Byzantine Emperor from 474 to 475 and again from 476 to 491.  Domestic revolts and religious dissension plagued his reign, which nevertheless succeeded to some extent in foreign issues.  His reign saw the end of the Western Roman Empire under Julius Nepos and Romulus Augustus, but he contributed much to stabilizing the eastern Empire. When the bones of some Jewish dead were burnt in a synagogue fire, he asked: "Why do they not burn the living Jews along with the dead?" (M. Grant, Jews in the Roman World)

490 Joseph Rabbah (India) -Arrived with a group of Babylonian Jews to the Malabar coast of India.  Rabbah was granted a mini-state in Granganor and freedom of religion.  Eventually some Jews settled in Mattachary near Cochin, which became known as "Jews Town".

 Beowulf is an Old English heroic epic poem set in late 5th century Denmark and Sweden.  It is commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.  In the poem, Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, battles three antagonists:  Grendel, who has been attacking the resident warriors of a mead hall called Heorot in Denmark; Grendel's mother; and an unnamed dragon. The last battle takes place later in life, after returning to Geatland (modern southern Sweden), where Beowulf has become king.  In the final battle, Beowulf is fatally wounded. After his death his retainers bury him in a tumulus in Geatland.

Throughout the story of Beowulf, one finds many elements of Christian philosophy: that man survives only through the protection of God, that all earthly gifts flow from God, and that the proper bearing of man is to be humble and unselfish: wealth, accumulated through the grace of God, must be shared unselfishly.   Throughout the story Beowulf repeatedly acknowledges God as his protector. However, there is also a strong sense that God's protection must be earned; a warrior must first be true to his values, courage, honesty, pride, and humility and only then will he earn God's protection.  It teaches that a king's earthly power is only an illusion.  The true power lies with God.  Any "delight" that a man enjoys here on earth is achieved only through the grace of God.  (Also see 800ad)

 King Arthur was a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defense of Romano-Celtic Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century.  The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated and disputed by modern historians.   Geoffrey of Monmouth (c.1100 – c.1155) was a Welsh cleric and one of the major figures in the development of British history and the popularity of tales of King Arthur.  He is best known for his chronicle ("History of the Kings of Britain"), popular well into the 16th century.  Sir Thomas Malory (c.1405 – 3/14, 1471) was an English writer, the author or compiler of Le Morte d'Arthur (The Death of Arthur). In the Middle Ages he was a member of the Nine Worthies, a group of heroes encapsulating all the ideal qualities of chivalry.

Geoffrey depicted Arthur as a king of Britain who defeated the Saxons and established an empire over Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Norway and Gaul.  Many elements and incidents that are now an integral part of the Arthurian story appear in Geoffrey's Historia, including Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, the wizard Merlin, Arthur's wife Guinevere, the sword Excalibur, Arthur's conception at Tintagel, his final battle against Mordred at Camlann and final rest in Avalon.  The 12th-century French writer Chrétien de Troyes, who added Lancelot and the Holy Grail to the story, began the genre of Arthurian romance that became a significant strand of medieval literature.  In these French stories, the narrative focus often shifts from King Arthur himself to other characters, such as various Knights of the Round Table.  Arthurian literature thrived during the Middle Ages but waned in the centuries that followed until it experienced a major resurgence in the 19th century.

 ****Liberal Arts: In the 5th century AD, Martianus Capella defined the seven Liberal Arts as: grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.  In the medieval Western university, the seven liberal arts were divided in two parts: the Trivium: grammar, logic, rhetoric; the Quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy.  Proverbs 9:1 “Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn out her seven pillars.”  The contemporary liberal arts comprise studying literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics, and science.

  Clovis (c. 466 – 511) was the first King of the Franks to unite all the Frankish tribes under one ruler, changing the leadership from a group of royal chieftains, to rule by kings, ensuring that the kingship was held by his heirs.  He was also the first Catholic King to rule over Gaul, known today as France.  In 496, he converted, along with 3,000 warriors.  His conversion to the Roman Catholic form of Christianity served to set him apart from the other Germanic kings of his time, such as those of the Visigoths and the Vandals, who had converted from pagan beliefs to Arian Christianity.  His embrace of the Roman Catholic faith may also gained him the support of the Catholic Gallo-Roman aristocracy in his later campaign against the Visigoths, which drove them from southern Gaul (507).  Clovis is remembered for three main accomplishments: The Unification of the Frankish nation, The Conquest of Gaul, His conversion to Christianity.

 ****The Feast of Fools was a festival celebrated from the fifth century until the sixteenth century, principally France, but also Spain, Germany, Poland, England, and Scotland.  The feast of fools was an imitation of the Roman Saturnalia, and, like that festival, was also celebrated in December. There can be little doubt that medieval censors commonly took it that the license and buffoonery which marked this occasion had their origin in pagan customs.  The Feast of Fools and the almost blasphemous extravagances in some instances associated with it were constantly the object of sweeping condemnations of the medieval Church.  The Feast of the Ass was a Christian feast observed on January 14, celebrating the Flight into Egypt.  It was celebrated primarily in France, as a by-product of the Feast of Fools celebrating the donkey-related stories in the Bible, in particular the donkey bearing the Holy Family into Egypt after Jesus's birth.

500           500           500           500  

The Roman Empire falls due to excessive diversity and disunity.  The Empire was to live on in the east for many centuries, and enjoy periods of recovery and cultural brilliance, but its size would remain a fraction of what it had been in classical times.  It became an essentially regional power, centered on Greece and Anatolia.  Modern historians tend to prefer the term Byzantine Empire for the eastern, medieval stage of the Roman Empire.

502 Mar Zutra II (Babylon) – Jews revolted against the Kobad the Zenduk (488-531), establishing a Jewish state in Babylon with Mahoza as its capital. It lasted seven years.  Eventually his army was overcome and he and his grandfather, Mar Hananiah, were crucified on the bridge of Mahoza.  Many Jewish leaders were forced to flee and their institutions were closed.

Blossius Aemilius Dracontius (c. 455 – c. 505) of Carthage, Christian poet, wrote “De laudibus Dei”.   The account of the creation is Hexameron and the apology (Satisfactio) which both showed considerable vigor of expression, and a remarkable knowledge of the Bible and of Roman classical literature.

Alberich was a legendary sorcerer who originated in the mythology or epic sagas of the Frankish Merovingian Dynasty of the 5th to 8th century AD, and whose name means king of the elves, who possessed the ability to become invisible.  He was also known as king of the dwarves.   In the Nibelungenlied (see 1190), an epic poem in Middle High German, he is a dwarf, who guards the treasure of the Nibelungen, but is overcome by Siegfried.

 Sigismund was King of the Burgundians from 516 to his death in 524.  He enacted laws against Jews after coming to the throne after his conversion in 514.

 Pope Boniface II was pope from 530 to 532.  He was by birth an Ostrogoth, the first Germanic pope, and he owed his appointment to the influence of the Gothic king Athalaric. 

545 ad  ~"The Jews who live scattered throughout the world and stick together are but fixed, crafty, inhumane and dangerous creatures that can equal the poisonous snake.  They must be dealt with, namely immediately as they sneak up, you step on the head, because they only raise their head for a moment, and will surely bite, and their bite is surely poisonous."-Adb al-Qadir al Jilani, al-Fath ar Rab bani wal-Faid al-Rahmani, (Arabs before Islam!)

Saint Benedict of Nursia (c.480–547) was a Christian saint, honored as the patron saint of Europe and students.  Benedict founded twelve communities for monks to the east of Rome, before moving to Monte Cassino in the mountains of southern Italy.  There is no evidence that he intended to found a religious order.  The Order of St Benedict is of later origin and, moreover, not an "order" as commonly understood but merely a confederation of autonomous congregations.  Benedict's main achievement is his "Rule", containing precepts for his monks.  It is heavily influenced by the writings of John Cassian, and shows strong affinity with the Rule of the Master.  But it also has a unique spirit of balance, moderation and reasonableness, and this persuaded most religious communities founded throughout the Middle Ages to adopt it.  As a result, the Rule of Benedict became one of the most influential religious rules in Western Christendom.  For this reason, Benedict is often called the founder of western Christian monasticism.

 Totila, original name Baduila (died July 1, 552) was the penultimate King of the Ostrogoths, reigning from 541 to 552 AD.  A skilled military and political leader, Totila reversed the tide of Gothic War, recovering by 543 almost all the territories in Italy that the Eastern Roman Empire had captured from his Kingdom in 540.

553 Second Council of Constantinople, 5th Catholic Council –Under Justinian I, Nestorius’ disciples were further condemned and the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of Edessa were soundly condemned.  This Council also affirmed the condemnations declared at the Council of Carthage in 416 and previous condemnations by Popes of heresies.

563 - Columba ("dove of the church") (12/7 521 – 6/9 597) missionary, sails from Ireland to Scotland where he founds an evangelistic training center on Iona.

Columbanus (540 – 11/23, 615; "the white dove") was an Irish missionary notable for founding a number of monasteries on the European continent from around 590 in the Frankish and Lombard kingdoms, most notably Luxeuil (in present-day France) and Bobbio (Italy), and stands as an exemplar of Irish missionary activity in early medieval Europe.  He spread among the Franks a Celtic monastic rule and Celtic penitential practices for those repenting of sins, which emphasized private confession to a priest, followed by penances levied by the priest in reparation for the sin. He is also one of the earliest identifiable Hiberno-Latin writers.

Pope St. Gregory I (the Great) (c540 – 3/12, 604) was Pope from Sep 590 and well-known for his writings.   He protested wholesale circumcision of Christian slaves by Jewish traders, who monopolized the slave trade in Europe and the Middle East and were widely suspected of supplying white girls to Oriental and African buyers.

 Justinian I (the Great)(483– 11/13 565)  was Byzantine Emperor from 527.  Justinian sought to revive the Empire's greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the classical Roman Empire. The Justinian Code was an edict.  A section of the code negated civil rights for Jews.  Once the code was enforced, Jews in the Empire could not build synagogues, read the Bible in Hebrew, gather in public places, celebrate Passover before Easter, or give evidence in a judicial case in which a Christian was a party.  Jews were barred from civil service, military posts and other government posts. This was a substantive revision of the Theodosian Code and basically eliminated many of the protective clauses regarding Jews in the original version, including the provision which guaranteed Jews the right to practice their religion.  The Justinian Code imposed new restrictions on the Jews in nearly all areas.  The most critical restriction was the transfer of power to Emperor to regulate Jewish worship.  His famed lawbook decreed for the Jews that they were to "enjoy no honors. Their status shall reflect the baseness which in their hearts they have elected and desired."

In spite of Jewry calling Justinian an “anti-Semite,” the Orthodox Church not only honors him as a great Emperor but also as a great saint.

In the reign of Justinian the Jews made common cause with the Samaritans of Cæsarea, and harassed their Christian fellow-citizens.  They even killed the governor, Stephan, July, 556

Saint Guntram (c. 532–1/28, 592) was the king of Burgundy from 561.  Guntram had a period of intemperance.  He was eventually overcome with remorse for the sins of his past life, and spent his remaining years repenting of them, both for himself and for his nation.  In atonement, he fasted, prayed, wept, and offered himself to God.  Throughout the balance of his prosperous reign he attempted to govern by Christian principles. According to Gregory, he was the protector of the oppressed, caregiver to the sick, and the tender parent to his subjects.  He was open-handed with his wealth, especially in times of plague and famine.  He strictly and justly enforced the law without respect to person, yet was ever ready to forgive offences against himself, including two attempted assassinations.  Guntram munificently built and endowed many churches and monasteries.  "Woe to the nation of the Jews, because it is always bad and faithless and deceitful Heart."

Recared I (559–601) reigned from 586, was Visigothic King of Hispania, Septimania and Galicia.  His reign marked a climactic shift in history, with the king's renunciation of traditional Arianism in favour of Catholic Christianity in 587.  Recared promulgated a series of laws against the Jews in 589, codified by Reccesuinth in the Visigothic Code of Law.

 ****Decrees by the early Catholic Church (partial list):

Synod of Elvira (306) - prohibited intermarriage and sexual intercourse between Christians and Jews, and prohibited them from eating together.

Councils of Orleans (533-541) - prohibited marriages between Christians and Jews and forbade the conversion to Judaism by Christians.

Trulanic Synod (692) - prohibited Christians from being treated by Jewish doctors.

Synod of Narbonne (1050) - prohibited Christians from living in Jewish homes.

Synod of Gerona (1078) - required Jews to pay taxes to support the Church.

Third Lateran Council (1179) - prohibited certain medical care to be provided by Christians to Jews.

Fourth Lateran Council (1215) - required Jews to wear special clothing to distinguish them from Christians.

Council of Basel (1431-1443) - forbade Jews to attend universities, them from acting as agents in the conclusion of contracts between Christians, and required that they attend church sermons.

596 - Gregory the Great sends Augustine and a team of missionaries to (what is now) England to reintroduce the Gospel.  The missionaries settle in Canterbury and within a year baptize 10,000 people.

600           600           600           600

600 The Migration Period, also called the Barbarian Invasions (and in German: Völkerwanderung 'migration of peoples'), was a period of human migration that occurred during roughly AD 300–700 in Europe, marking the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages.  These movements were catalyzed by profound changes within both the Roman Empire and the so-called "barbarian frontier".   Migrating peoples during this period included the Huns, Goths, Vandals, Avars, Bulgars, Alans, Suebi, Frisians, and Franks, among other Germanic and Slavic tribes.

****Christian Historicism, a view of prophecy speaks of the joining of the ten divisions of Rome rejoining.  1.Alemanni – Germany;  2.Franks – France;  3.Burgundians – Switzerland;  4.Suevi – Portugal;  5.Vandals – melded into other nations;  6.Visigoths – Spain;   7.Anglo-Saxons – England;  8.Ostrogoths – melded into other nations;  9.Lombards – Italy;  10.Heruli - melded into other nations.  The Vandals had established North Africa.  The Vandals, Ostrogoths and Heruli after losing their own territories supported the Byzantine Empire among other nations.  All these tribes are Germanic and are generally the current Europe.

Migrations of peoples, although not strictly part of the Migration, continued beyond the period usually referred to as the Migration Period, marked by the Arab conquest or Rise of the Ottoman Empire, and by Viking, Magyar, Moorish, Turkic, and Mongol invasions, these also had significant effects, especially in North Africa, the Iberian peninsula, Anatolia, Central and Eastern Europe.

600 In Arabia, Jews (proselytes?) had formed many warlike tribes.  They were renowned, especially in Yathuolb (Medina), Khaiba and Taima, for their advanced knowledge of irrigation.  They introduced the date palm, grape vines and the honey bee.

608 Jews of Antioch kill their Christian neighbors. This facilitated the entrance of Persian troops.  In Simon Dubnov’s History of the Jews, we read: “In Antioch... in 608, the local Jews rebelled; since they predominated in numbers they killed many Christians, including the patriarch Anastasias, whose body they dragged through the city streets... In other localities the Jews were hostile toward the Christians.  During commercial transactions, they would not even accept money directly from the hands of a Christian; they had to throw their coins into water, where the Jews would then retrieve them.”

  Heraclius (c575 – 2/11, 641) was Byzantine Emperor from 610.  He was responsible for introducing Greek as the empire's official language. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his father, Heraclius the Elder, the exarch of Africa, successfully led a revolt against the unpopular usurper Phocas.  Heraclius' reign was marked by several military campaigns.  He initiated reforms to rebuild and strengthen the military.  Heraclius drove the Persians out of Asia Minor and pushed deep into their territory, defeating them decisively in 627 at the Battle of Nineveh.  The Persian king Khosrau II was assassinated soon after and peace was restored to the two deeply strained empires.  However, soon after his victory he faced a new threat, the Muslim invasions.  Emerging from the Arabian Peninsula, the Muslims quickly conquered the collapsing Persian empire.  In 634 the Muslims invaded Roman Syria, defeating Heraclius' brother Theodore.  Within a short period of time the Arabs would conquer Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Egypt.

In religious matters, Heraclius is remembered as the driving force in converting the peoples migrating to the Balkan Peninsula.  At his request, Pope John IV (640–642) sent Christian teachers and missionaries to the Dalmatia, newly Croatian provinces, who practiced Slavic paganism.  He tried to repair the schism in the Christian church in regard to the Monophysites by promoting a compromise doctrine called Monothelitism.  The Church of the East (so called Nestorian) was also involved in the process.  Eventually, however, this project of unity was rejected by all sides of the dispute.  He was the first Emperor to engage the Muslims; in the Islamic tradition he is portrayed as an ideal ruler who corresponded with Muhammad, was a true believer of Islam, and viewed Muhammad as the true prophet, the messenger of God.

The Revolt against Heraclius was a Jewish insurrection against the Byzantine Empire across Levant, coming to the aid of the Persian during Byzantine–Sassanid War of 602–628.  The revolt began with the Battle of Antioch (613), culminating with the conquest of Jerusalem in 614 by Persian and Jewish forces and establishment of Jewish autonomy.  The revolt ended with departure of the Persian troops and an eventual surrender of Jewish rebels to Byzantines in the year 625 (or 628).  In 629, the situation escalated, resulting in a wide scale massacre of Jewish population throughout Jerusalem and Galilee, ensuing with tens of thousands of Jews put to flight from Palaestina to Egypt.  Heraclius is said to have dreamed that destruction threatened the Byzantine Empire through a circumcised people (which happened indeed with the Muslim Conquest of the whole Empire in the following centuries).  He therefore proposed to destroy all Jews who would not become Christians; and he is reported to have counseled Dagobert, king of the Franks, to do the same.  By that time, the situation of the Jews was so desperate that the Tiburtine Sibyl said that the entire community of Jews in the Byzantine Empire would be converted in one hundred and twenty years (by 628).

608 - 610 Byzantine Empire -Anti-Jewish pogroms broke out from Syria to Asia Minor. (Because of racist, Talmudic, anti-Gentile practices?)

 Halloween - All Saints' Day is celebrated on November 1 by Western Christianity, the day after Halloween (hallowed evening) and the day before All Souls' Day.  The origin of the festival of All Saints celebrated in the West dates to May 13, 609 or 610, when Pope Boniface IV consecrated the Pantheon at Rome to the Blessed Virgin and all the martyrs.  This usually fell within a few weeks of the Celtic holiday of Samhain, which had a theme similar to the Roman festival of Lemuria, but which was also a harvest festival. 

The Fylfot (Swastika) on ancient British artifacts:

 Anglo-Saxon brooch 6th CE. Ilkly Moor Swastika Stone.   Funeral Urn, 5 CE Silver Dragon disk brooch, 8th CEfuneral Urn, 5th CEGilded Saxon disc brooch, 5th CE

Saxon Urn 7th CE Bronze Saxon brooch, 5th CEAnglo Saxon mount, 6th CE,  Anglo Saxon brooch

 ****610   Islam begins –Islam is influenced by Judaism and Christianity, Mohammed creates the religion of Islam in Mecca.  Islam means ‘submission to God’.  Koran means ‘Recitation’.  He reaches out to the Jews, then about 20 years later he rejects them.  The term Allah means God.  It no more means Moon God then Yahweh means Thunder God.  Islam has dozens of sects, the three main divisions being Shiite, Sunni, and Sufi, perhaps similar to Catholicism/Orthodoxy, Protestantism, and Charismatic.   Just as Christianity went through its dogmatic dark ages or in Zionism present still, Islam has had its ages and dogmatism.  Christianity considers Jesus as the Logos or expressed Word of God.  Islam considers the Koran to be God’s expressed Word and is only a true Koran if in the original Arabic.  Because of dialects, languages and geography, there are many Muslims who cannot read their own Scripture.  Thus the doctrine of Inerrancy is central to Islam, unlike Christianity or even Judaism.  This may change in the future as older Arabic Korans are discovered and are seen to have had word changes.  Before World War II, there were a couple of ancient Korans found by German archeologists which disagreed in detail with modern Korans.  These were lost in the midst of the War, but throw doubt on the veracity of Koranic transmission.  Mohammed is also considered the Comforter whom Jesus was to send.  They have high regard for Jesus and Mary, even considering that Jesus will be the Second Coming.  They are Christians’ natural allies, even being considered by the Church to be hetero-Christians for their first two centuries of existence.  "Whoever is a friend of a Jew, belong to them, becomes one of them, God cannot tolerate this mean people. The Jews have wandered from divine religion. You must not relent in your work which must show up Jewish deceit." 

There are Christian Muslims who understand Jesus to have been the Messiah and privately pray to Him while attending Mosque.  Also Islam is very reverential to God’s Creation.

Muslims do not accept the Old Testament to be infallible and have many alternative beliefs.  For instance, Abraham took Ishmael (not Isaac) up the mountain to sacrifice and God stayed his hand.

 Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullāh (ca. 570/571 – 6/8, 632), is regarded by Muslims as the last law-bearer and the last prophet.  Muslims thus consider him the restorer of an uncorrupted original monotheistic faith (islām) of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and other prophets.  At age 40, in the month of Ramadan, he received his first revelation from God.  By the time of his death, most of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam; and he had united the tribes of Arabia into a single Muslim religious polity.  Besides the Qur'an, Muhammad’s life (sira) and traditions (sunnah) are also upheld by Muslims.  They discuss Muhammad and other prophets of Islam with reverence.  He is revered as a true prophet and Manifestation of God in the Baha'i Faith.

The Qur’an is widely regarded as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language.  Muslims hold that the Qur’an is the verbal divine guidance and moral direction for mankind. Muslims also consider the original Arabic verbal text to be the final revelation of God.  Muslims believe that the Qur’an was repeatedly revealed from Allah to Muhammad verbally through the angel Jibrīl (Gabriel) over a period of approximately twenty-three years, beginning in 610 CE, when he was forty, and concluding in 632 CE, the year of his death.

Some verses of the Qur'an preach tolerance towards members of the Jewish faith as members of a legitimate community of believers in God, "people of the Book", and therefore legally entitled to sufferance.  Most verses state that wretchedness and baseness were stamped upon the Jews, and they were visited with wrath from Allah, that was because they disbelieved in Allah's revelations and slew the prophets wrongfully.  And for their taking usury, which was prohibited for them, and because of their consuming people's wealth under false pretense, a painful punishment was prepared for them.  The Qur'an requires their "abasement and poverty" in the form of the poll tax jizya.  In his "wrath" God has "cursed" the Jews and will turn them into apes/monkeys and swine and idol worshipers because they are "infidels".

Muslims credited the assassination of Mohammed to a Jew.

 661–750 Greatest Extent of Islam

 Sinbad the Sailor is a fictional sailor from Basrah, living during the Abbasid Caliphate – the hero of a story-cycle of Middle Eastern origin.  During his voyages throughout the seas east of Africa and south of Asia, he has fantastic adventures going to magical places, meeting monsters, and encountering supernatural phenomena.  The name Sindbad indicates the name of the Indus River (Sindhu).  The Sindhi Sailors, who became famous due to their skills in navigation, geography and languages may very well have inspired the stories of Sindbad the Sailor.    The collection is tale 120 in Volume 6 of Sir Richard Burton's 1885 translation of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights).

In 610, the Jews of Antioch massacred Christians. The Jewish historian Graetz wrote:  “[The Jews] fell upon their Christian neighbours and retaliated for the injuries which they had suffered; they killed all that fell into their hands, and threw their bodies into the fire, as the Christians had done to them a century before.  The Patriarch Anastasius, an object of special hate, was shamefully abused by them, and his body dragged through the streets before he was put to death.”  “The Jews of Antioch... disemboweled the great Patriarch, Anastasisu, and forced him to eat his own intestines... They hurled his genitals into his face.” 

610 - 620 Reign of Sisebut (c.565 - c.621) (Visigothic Spain) - Liberator of much of Byzantine Spain.  He prohibited Judaism after many of his anti-Jewish edicts were ignored.  Those not baptized fled, but returned under his successor, Swintilla.

 The Siege of Jerusalem in 614 was part of the final phase of the Roman-Persian Wars.  The Persian Shah Khosrau II appointed his generals to conquere the Byzantine controlled areas of the Middle East, establishing a strategic alliance with the Jewish population of the Sassanid Persia. Following the Persian advances into Syria in the previous year, Shahrbaraz's next target was Jerusalem, the capital of Palaestina Prima and the Christian Empire holy city.  Providing direct access to the Mediterranean Sea, the city would have also provided a strategic location for the Persian Empire to begin constructing a naval fleet, thereby threatening Byzantine hegemony in the Mediterranean.  Reinforced by the Jewish army from Persia and local Jewish rebels under Benjamin of Tiberias, Persian army laid siege on Jerusalem.  After 21 days of relentless siege warfare, Jerusalem's walls yielded and the conclusive Persian victory resulted in the territorial annexation of Jerusalem, and all of Palaestina Prima.

614 The Jews join the Persians in killing the Christians of Palestine.  90,000 Christians perish in Jerusalem itself.  [These Christians are former ‘Jews’.  Jews were killing their earlier co-religionists!]  37,000 Christians were deported.  Jews were given permission to run the city.  At that time there were approximately 150,000 Jews living in 43 settlements throughout Palestine.

In his 1974 history, “Christianity Through Jewish Eyes: The Quest for Common Ground”, Walter Jacob informs us thus: “For centuries a range of defamatory material ridiculing Christ was popularly circulated in the Jewish communities.  This was, eventually, became known as Sefar Toledoth Yeshu.  The earliest known copy found in modern times was discovered in a synagogue built in the seventh century.  Christ, it was said, practiced witchcraft and was the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier or, by other accounts, a disreputable man of the tribe of Judah.  It enjoyed wide circulation among the general Jewish population.” 

614 Fifth Council of Paris (Gaul) - Largest ever meeting of Merovingian Bishops.  They decided that all Jews holding military or civil positions must accept baptism, together with their families.

615 Oath More Judaico (Italy) –This was the earliest referral (in the Justinian codes) to the Jewish Oath also known as Juramentum Judaeorum.  It was originally established by Emperor Justinian 75 years earlier.  The idea was based on the concept that no heretic could be believed in court against a Christian.  Various methods were used to ensure that the Jew would tell the truth. These included swearing on an opened Torah scroll while standing on a pig skin or while wearing a belt of thorns, or even standing on a stool wearing a "Jews hat."  In 1555 the oath became standardized throughout Europe and only was totally abolished in 1914 (Romania).

“Concerning the Catholic Faith, Against the Jews” by Isidore of Seville (560-636)

617 Jerusalem - After only three years the Persians reneged on their promises and forbade Jews to settle within a three mile radius of the city.

624 - 627 Jewish Arabian (proselytes) Tribes - Were attacked by Mohammed.  These tribes had lived in Southern Arabia for centuries.  Legend has it that they were sent by Joshua to fight the Amalakites at Yatrib.  The majority immigrated to Arabia after the Roman persecutions in Eretz Israel.  One by one they were destroyed for refusing to convert to Mohammedanism.  Two of the strongest tribes are known as Benu-Nadhir and Benu-Eruzia.

Dagobert I (c. 603 – 1/19, 639) was the king of Austrasia (623–634), king of all the Franks (629–634), and king of Neustria and Burgundy (629–639).  He was the last Merovingian dynast to wield any real royal power. In order to emulate the religious zeal of Heraclius and Sisebut, the rulers of the Byzantine and West-Gothic empires, who were persecuting the Jews, Dagobert decreed, about 629, that the Jews who were not converted to Christianity by a certain date should either leave his dominions or be put to death.  For the next 150 years, little was heard from any Jewish community there.

636 Muslims conquer old Christian lands of Syria and Iraq.  [Some say that the people converted easily due to a toleration of Christians and Muslim local leaders rather than keeping Christian foreign leadership.]  Palestine falls in 638.  Egypt (non-Arab) falls in 642.  North Africa (non-Arab) falls by 709.  In 711, Muslim Moors cross into Visigothic Iberia(Spain & Portugal).  By 718, Muslims cross into Gaul(France).

Chinthila of the Visigoths (601- 640) King from 636 promulgated a decree (637), that all the Jews, without exception, should quit the kingdom.

 637 – Lombards (Padanians, Po Valley), a German people living in northern Italy, become Christians.

The Visigothic Code comprises a set of laws promulgated by the Visigothic king of Hispania, Chindasuinth in his second year (642/643).  Excerpt: ‘Concerning New Laws against the Jews, in which Old Ones are Confirmed, and New Ones are Added’

650   George Pisida (7th century) was a Byzantine poet who wrote Christian classics on Behavior, Ecclesiastes, The resurrection of Christ and on the recovery of the True Cross.

“On Proofs of the Sixth Century Against the Jews” by converted Jew Archbishop Julian of Toledo.

681 Third Council of Constantinople, 6th Catholic Council - Emperor Constantine IV called in light of the growing threat of Islamism.  Pope Saint Agatho.  The heresy of the time was Monothelitesism which taught that Christ only had a Divine will, rather than a Divine and human will.  It denied the perfect harmony of the two wills within the one Divine Person.  Pope Agatho died during this Council and his successor Pope Saint Leo II continued it, approving the decrees of past Councils and taking to task one of his predecessors Pope Honorius I for not keeping the heresy of Monothelites in check, specifically not challenging the Patriarch of Constantinople Sergius who was spreading the heresy.  St. Leo's actions set precedence for calling into question error by previous Pontiffs and confirmed that a Pope can be in error when not speaking from the Chair of Peter - ex cathedra.

The Angelic Salutation, Hail Mary, or Ave Maria (Latin) is a traditional biblical Catholic prayer asking for the intercession of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus.  The Hail Mary is used within the Catholic Church, and it forms the basis of the Rosary.: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus./ Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”  It may have been used as early as the 7th century.

"At the Council of Toledo in 694, King Egiza appealed to his prelates to devise some means by which Judaism  could be wiped out, for all efforts to convert Jews had proved futile; and there was danger that, in conjunction with their brethren in other lands, they would overthrow Christianity.  The Council alludes to a Conspiracy by which the Jews endeavored to occupy the throne."- from Vol. 1, 1906 Edition, "History of the Inquisition in Spain" by Henry Charles Lea.

700           700           700           700

700 Abu Isa Al-Isfahni (Persia) -Began to preach a national Messianic movement, much to the anger of Caliph Abd al Malik.

702 Dahra (Dahiya) Al Kahina, Jewish "priestess”.  From southeast Algeria, she led an alliance of Berber tribes which was defeated by Moslem forces.  She was said to have lived 127 years and ruled with her 3 sons over the tribe of Jerava for 65 years.  Many Berbers were converted to Judaism.

Visigoth King Roderic (710-711) maintained a civil war against the Moslem Saracens.  Jews in masses hastened to the Moslems’ standard.  The king, and the flower of the Gothic nobility and people were left dead on the field, and the Visigothic kingdom was at an end.

711–718  Jews are instrumental in selling out Spain to the Muslims.  Moorish records tell that many Jews accompanied the invasion as army officers, armorors and provisioners.  The Governor of Morocco was invited to invade Spain by the Jews of Spain.  Nearly all of the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Muslim armies (see Moors) from North Africa.  These conquests were part of the expansion of the Umayyad Islamic Empire.  Only a number of areas in the mountainous north of the Iberian Peninsula managed to resist the initial invasion and they were the starters of the Reconquista.

712 March, TOLEDO (Spain) -The Jewish inhabitants opened the gates for the Moslem invaders under Tarik ibn Zayid marking the end of Visigothic rule in Spain and the beginning of 150 years of peace.  The Iberian caliphate was independent of Baghdad and encouraged the flowering of Spanish-Jewish culture at the same time that it was being suppressed by the Baghdad caliphate.

“During the reign of the Moors, with but few interruptions, the Spanish Jews enjoyed not merely an equality of rights not accorded to Jews in other European countries until the French revolution; they held positions of great honour and distinction.  There was hardly a Cabinet during the period between the eighth century and the Christian Reconquest which did not have a Jew serving as minister of finance.”   -“The Secret Jews” (1973) by Joachim Prinz, a former President of the American Jewish Congress.

Germanus (634-734) was a Greek hymnwriter.  He was made patriarch of Constantinople in 715. : 1.A great and mighty wonder, a full and holy cure: The virgin bears the Infant with virgin honor pure! Repeat the hymn again: “To God on high be glory And peace on earth to men!”  2.The Word becomes incarnate and yet remains on high, And cherubim sing anthems to shepherds from the sky.  Repeat the hymn again: “To God on high be glory And peace on earth to men!”  3.While thus they sing your Monarch, those bright angelic bands, Rejoice, ye vales and mountains, ye oceans, clap your hands.  Repeat the hymn again: “To God on high be glory  And peace on earth to men!”  4.Since all He comes to ransom, by all be He adored, The Infant born in Bethl’em, the Savior and the Lord.  Repeat the hymn again: “To God on high be glory And peace on earth to men!”  5.And idol forms shall perish, and error shall decay, And Christ shall wield His scepter, our Lord and God for aye.  Repeat the hymn again: “To God on high be glory And peace on earth to men!”

   716 – St. Boniface (c. 680 – 6/5, 754), the Apostle of the Germans, was born in England and propagated Christianity in the Frankish Empire.  He is the patron saint of Germany.  In 716, he begins missionary work among Germanic tribes; 724 - Boniface fells pagan sacred oak of Thor at Geismar in Hesse (Germany).   Boniface was "one of the truly outstanding creators of the first Europe, as the apostle of Germany, the reformer of the Frankish church, and the chief fomentor of the alliance between the papacy and the Carolingian family."  He is regarded as a unifier of Europe, and he is seen (mainly by Catholics) as a German national figure.

720 SERENE (Babylon) - A Syrian Jew promised to recapture the Holy Land.  He also urged that the Talmud be abolished.  Caliph Yezid, Omar's successor, arrested this "Messiah" and handed him over to the Jews in Pumbedita for punishment.  Natronai ben Nehemia (Gaon) urged the Jewish community to readmit their brethren into the fold.  They eventually did so, though they were initially reluctant.

10/10 732 The Battle of Tours pitted Frankish and Burgundian forces under Charles Martel against an army of the Umayyad Caliphate led.  The Franks were victorious.  Later Christian chroniclers and historians praised Charles Martel as the champion of Christianity, characterizing the battle as the decisive turning point in the struggle against Islam, a struggle which preserved Christianity as the religion of Europe.

 732 Charles Martel (the Hammer) outnumbered by 2 to 1 stops the Muslim advance about 100 miles south of Paris.  Charles Martel (c. 688 – 10/22 741) was a Frankish military and political leader.  A brilliant general, he is considered to be a founding figure of the Middle Ages, often credited with a seminal role in the development of feudalism and knighthood, and laying the groundwork for the Carolingian Empire.  He was also the father of Pepin the Short and grandfather of Charlemagne.

737 - 843 Carolingian Empire - Lasted until the Treaty of Verdun.  The Carolingians were the second dynasty of Frankish rulers after the Merovingians.  During the height of its rule it encompassed Gaul, and much of Germany and Italy.  The Jews were generally well treated, especially under Charlemagne and his grandson, Charles the Bald.  The Treaty of Verdun, August 843, was a treaty between the three surviving sons of Louis the Pious, the son and successor of Charlemagne, which divided the Carolingian Empire into three kingdoms.  It ended the three year long Carolingian Civil War.

 Roland (  -8/15, 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne.  Roland's death during retreat from a campaign in Spain was transmogrified in later medieval and Renaissance literature. He became the chief paladin of the emperor Charlemagne and a central figure in the legendary material surrounding Charlemagne, collectively known as the Matter of France.  Roland was a popular legendary figure in medieval Europe.  Over the next several centuries, Roland became a "pop icon" in medieval minstrel culture.  According to many legends, he was a nephew of Charlemagne (whether or not this was true is unknown), and turned his life into an epic tale of the noble Christian killed by Islamic forces.  The Matter of France, also known as the Carolingian cycle, is a body of legendary history that springs from the Old French medieval literature of the chansons de geste.  Its tales were first developed in these epics, but the stories they told lived on after the medieval epics themselves were no longer widely read.  It was contrasted by medieval French writers with the Matter of Britain, the legendary history of Great Britain; and the Matter of Rome, which represented the medieval poets' interpretations of Greek mythology and the history of classical antiquity.

 Saint John of Damascus (c. 676 – 12/4, 749) was an Arab Christian monk and priest.  A polymath whose fields of interest and contribution included law, theology, philosophy, and music, before being ordained, he served as a Chief Administrator to the Muslim caliph of Damascus, wrote works expounding the Christian faith, and composed hymns which are still in everyday use in Eastern Christian monasteries throughout the world.  -“God gave the Jews the Sabbath because of grossness and sensuality and an absolute propensity for material things.”-Exposition Of The Orthodox Faith.  John of Damascus prophesied, ‘Antichrist will come to Jews and for Jews, against Christ and Christians’. (John the Damascene was a friend of Islam and he explained Muslim dogma of eternal Koran as a form of the Christian teaching of Logos).

 740 - Irish monks reach Iceland.

748 Abu Isa (Ispahan, Persia) - Convinced that he was the (Dai) precursor to the Messiah, he formed an army.  During the general upheaval against Mervan II by the Abbasids under Abu I Abbas, he attacked Mervan II, the last Umayyad caliph.  He advocated abolishing divorce and added four extra daily prayer periods.  Although he fell in battle (799), his adherents organized their own sect (Isarits) and lived according to his doctrine - the first new Jewish sect since the fall of Israel.  They existed as a separate sect until the tenth century when all mention of them ceased.

750           750           750           750

750 - 1258 Abbasid Dynasty (from Abu Abbas) (Persia) -Expanded intellectual horizons and world trade.  The Abbasids gave more power to the Persians and Turkish tribes, with Caliphs taking upon themselves absolute authority.  Although, as with the Umayyad Dynasty, the Jewish position depended on the current ruler, in general, Jews began to play an important role in world trade and banking (not forced into it.).

 Abbasid Caliphate (light and dark green) at its greatest extent, c. 850. Territories in dark green were lost early on.

759 Narbonne (Carolingian Empire) -Moorish occupation ended after just 39 years.  During this brief time the Jewish population greatly increased. They played a pivotal role in the formal occupation of the city by Charlemagne, who granted them 1/3 of the town under their own ruler (Nasi). 

“There is unimpeachable evidence that the Carolingian Kings granted Septimanian Jewry a domain of considerable extent along the Mediterranean seacoast and on the borders of Spain.”   -“A Jewish Princedom in Feudal France” (1972) by Arthur Zuckerman

771 - Charlemagne becomes king of the Franks and will decree that sermons be given in the vernacular.  He also commissioned Bible translations.

The Lombards, were a Germanic people originally from Northern Europe who settled in the valley of the Danube and from there invaded Byzantine Italy in 568 under the leadership of Alboin.  They established a Lombard Kingdom, later named Kingdom of Italy, which lasted until 774, when it was conquered by the Franks.  Under the Lombards Jewish power and influence increased.  When the Lombards embraced Christianity the Jews passed under the protection of the Popes.  As the Jewish merchants grew and prospered in the principal cities, their influence and special protection continued to expand.  A nephew of Rabbi Nathan ben Jehiel became administrator of the property of Pope Alexander III (c1100–1181).  Under Norman rule the power and influence of the Jews became so great in southern Italy and Sicily that they were given complete jurisdiction of their own affairs—a special concession afforded no other alien group.  Isaac ben Mordecai (late 13th) became physician to the Pope.  When Pope John XXII (1249 –1334), contemplated a ban against the Jews, King Robert of Sicily was induced to intercede in their behalf, which he did, dissuading the Pope in his purpose.  The synod convoked by the Jews at Bologna sent a deputation to Pope Martin V (c1368 –1431), with costly gifts, requesting the repeal of the laws decreed by Antipope Benedict XIII (1328 –1423).  Pope Martin not only acceded to their prayer, but restored their special status.  While Pope Eugenius IV (1383 –1447), reenacted the laws issued by Benedict, his bull (official order from the Pope) was neglected and unenforced in Italy.  Many of the Jews in Venice, Genoa, Florence and elsewhere were bankers, and held the commercial interests of those centers in their hands.  In spite of the papal bull, their position became stronger than before.  It became easy for them to obtain permission to establish banks and to engage in financial transactions.  The Bishop of Mantua was prevailed upon to grant permission to the Jewish bankers to lend money at interest.  All banking and financial transactions in Tuscany were in the hands of a Jew named Jehiel of Pisa.  William of Portaleone became physician to the King of Naples and to the ducal houses of Sforza and Gonzaga.

787 Second Council of Nicaea, 7th Catholic Council –To deal with the heresy of Iconoclasm.  Called by the Empress Irene - the widow of the late Emperor Leo IV and mother of the Emperor Constantine IV - to head off the growing unrest with the Eastern Bishops who were spreading the heresy of Iconoclasm fostered by Emperor Leo III.  The latter had been fiercely condemned by Pope Hadrian I, as well as his predecessors Popes Gregory II and Pope Gregory III.  A great Doctor of the Church Saint John Damascene had also defended images as a means of reverence.  At the core was the growing split and resentment between East and West.

 8th   The Harrowing of Hell is a doctrine in Christian theology referenced in the Apostles' Creed and the Athanasian Creed that states that Jesus Christ "descended into Hell".  The lack of explicit scriptural references to Christ's descent to the underworld has given rise to controversy and differing interpretations.  As an image in Christian art, the harrowing is also known as the Anastasis (a Greek word for "resurrection"), considered a creation of Byzantine culture and first appearing in the West in the early 8th century.  In Dante's Inferno the Harrowing of Hell is mentioned in Canto IV by the pilgrim's guide Virgil.  Virgil was in Hell in the first place because he was not exposed to Christianity in his life time, and therefore he actually describes in generic terms Christ as a 'mighty lord' who rescued the Hebrew forefathers of Christianity, but left him behind in the very same circle.  It is not clear that he fully understands the significance of the event.

****740 - 1259 KINGDOM OF KHAZAR - Khazars were a tribe of Uighurs or Huns that entered in the late 6th century. Their Turko-Mongolic leaders converted to Judaism.  The King Bulan converted his people to a vague form of Judaism ("religion of Abraham") after ordering a disputation between the three major monotheistic faiths.  Ibn Shaprut, the foreign minister for Abd ar-Rahman of Cordova, corresponded with King Joseph (960).  Most of our knowledge of the Khazars is based on these letters.  The Khazars were eventually overcome by the Mongols under Genghis Khan.  With the spread of Christianity by the Russians, many Khazars were forcibly baptized.  The rest fled.  Some went into northern Hungary where villages still have names such as Kozar and Kozardie.  Tshagataish, the language of the Khazar Jews, is spoken by the few remaining Jewish Krimtchaki of the Crimea.  The Khazars' campaign against the Muslims (730-740) succeeded in checking the Muslim advance on the eastern flank of Europe.  The Khazars succeeded in defending themselves for 500 years against Muslims, Byzantines and Russians.

About 90% of current Jews are Khazarian.  But like so many nationalities, they have their own oral traditions which are often wrong.  There are only a few Jews who know their own true history.  Most contemporary Jews want to identify themselves with old Israel.  The current story is that when they were expelled from Spain they migrated through the low countries into Germany and then Poland and Russia.  There were some who migrated to Poland to join their co-religionists of Khazarian ancestry, but Khazarian Jews never were in Spain or the low countries until a more recent migration westwards.  Other sections of this Thesis discuss physical characteristics which show the differences between Sephardic and Askkenazic Jews.

Late 8^th Khazaria At some point in the last decades of the 8th century or the early 9th century, the Khazar royalty and nobility converted to Judaism, and part of the general population followed.  The extent of the conversion is debated. Ibn al-Faqih reported in the 10th century that "all the Khazars are Jews."  The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people who dominated the Pontic steppe and the North Caucasus from the 7th to the 10th century. The name "Khazar" seems to be tied to a Turkic verb form meaning "wandering".  There were some African descendents around the Black Sea until only recently.   Since nearly 90% of Jews are Ashkenazim or descended from the Khazars, the current Jewish look is an amalgamation of Turkic, Mongol, Slavic and a little Aryan and Black.  Many Jewish names correspond to Khazarian names.  Obadiah, the leader or Khaqan of the Khazars, adopted rabbinic Judaism ( Pharisaism) two generations after their conversion.

Khazar Khaganate, 650–850    Map of the Western (purple) and Eastern (blue) Göktürk khaganates at their height, c. 600 CE. Lighter areas show direct rule; darker areas show spheres of influence.

"The Khazars' tribal structure is not well understood. They were divided between Ak-Khazars ("White Khazars") and Kara-Khazars ("Black Khazars"). T he Muslim Geographer al-Istakhri claimed that the White Khazars were strikingly handsome with REDDISH hair, white skin and blue eyes while the Black Khazars were swarthy verging on deep black as if they were "some kind of Indian".  However, many Turkic nations had a similar (political, not racial) division between a "white" ruling warrior caste and a "black" class of commoners; the consensus among mainstream scholars is that Istakhri was himself confused by the name given to the two groups.

After conversion to Judaism, there was some assimilation with previous Jews.

Russian and Austrian scholar Poliak Kutscher confirmed that today's "Jews" are Khazars, a Polish historian Vetulani (?) speaks of immigrants from Khazaria and Russia, who set up in Poland, their first settlement.  The Ashkenazi, who rule Palestine and elsewhere, from which most of the rabbis, came from the East: Polish, Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania and Belarus, are Khazars.  Orthodox fundamentalists are not Semites but the Ashkenazim, the Khazars. Many Jewish and Gentile authors are referenced in this compilation confirm that today’s Jews are not descended from Abraham.

**** Rabbinic Judaism or Rabbinism has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the sixth century CE, after the codification of the Talmud. Rabbinic Judaism gained predominance within the Jewish diaspora between the second to sixth centuries CE, with the development of the oral law and the Talmud to control the interpretation of Jewish scripture and to encourage the practice of Judaism in the absence of Temple sacrifice and other practices no longer possible.  Rabbinic Judaism is based on the belief that at Mount Sinai, Moses received directly from God the Torah (Pentateuch) as well as additional oral explanation of the revelation, the "oral law," that was transmitted by Moses to the people in oral form.   Mainstream Rabbinic Judaism contrasts with Karaite Judaism, which doesn't recognize the oral law as a divine authority, and the Rabbinic procedures used to interpret Jewish scripture.  Although there are now profound differences among Jewish denominations of Rabbinic Judaism with respect to the binding force of halakha and the willingness to challenge preceding interpretations, all identify themselves as coming from the tradition of the oral law and the Rabbinic method of analysis.  It is this which distinguishes them as Rabbinic Jews, in comparison to Karaite Judaism.  It is a direct descendent of Pharisaism.

According to the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia the Khazar chieftain Bulan was the ruler that decided the Khazars would convert to Talmudism.

"A successor of Bulan, who bore the Hebrew name of Obadiah, was the first to make serious efforts to further the religion of the Talmud. He invited Talmudist/Kabbalah sages to settle in his dominions, rewarded them royally, founded synagogues and schools … caused instruction to be given to himself and his people in the Kabbalah and the Talmud, and introduced a divine service modeled on the ancient communities.  After came a long series of Talmudist chagans, for according to a fundamental law of the state only Talmudist/Kabbalah rulers were permitted to ascend the throne."- Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews

The rabbis sent for by Khakan Obadiah were indoctrinated in and were zealots for the Babylonian Talmud.

"I have a record that although our fathers were few in number, the holy one blessed be he, gave them strength, power, and might so that they were able to carry on war after war with many nations who were more powerful and numerous than they.  By the help of god they drove them out and took possession of their land.  Upon some of them they have imposed forced labor even to this very day.  The land in which I now live was formerly occupied by the Bulgarians.  Our ancestors, the Khazars, came and fought with them, and, although these Bulgarians were as numerous as the sand on the shores of the sea, they could not withstand the Khazars.  So they left their country and fled while the Khazars pursued them as far as the Danube River.  Up to this very day the Bulgars camp along the Danube and are close to Constantinople.  The Khazars have occupied their land up till now." - Joseph, King of the Khazars

"From its earliest times the policy of the Russian government was that of complete exclusion of the Talmudist Khazars from its territories." - Universal Jewish Encyclopedia

"Scorning honest labor, the Khazars had fastened themselves on the Russian peasants and craftsmen like an army of leeches.  Money-lending, the liquor trade, and white slavery were their preferred means of support - and their means of destroying the Russian people.  So great was the Russians' hate for their Khazar tormenters that the Russian rulers were obliged to institute special legislation, both protecting the Khazars and limiting their depredations against the Russian people." - Dr. William Pierce

"I know that in the whole world there is certainly no other people who would be complaining as much about their lot, incessantly, after each step and word of theirs - about their humiliation, their suffering, their martyrdom.  One might think it is not they who are reigning in Europe, who are directing there at least the stock exchanges and, therefore, politics, domestic affairs, the morality of the state.  Now, how would it be if in Russia there were not three million Khazars, but three million Russians, and there were eighty million Khazars - well, into what would they convert the Russians and how would they treat them?  Would they permit them to acquire equal rights? Would they permit them to worship freely in their midst?  Wouldn't they convert them into slaves?  In truth, the whole activity of the Khazars in these border regions of ours consisted of rendering the native population as much as possible inescapably dependent on them, taking advantage of the local laws.  They have always managed to be on friendly terms with those upon whom the people were dependent.  Point to any other tribe from among Russian aliens which could rival the Khazars by his dreadful influence in this connection!" - Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

"Not merely educated by the Talmud but actually living the life of its Babylonian background, which they may have regarded with increased devotion because most of the Jews of Mesopotamia had embraced Islam, the rabbi-governed Khazars had no intention whatever of losing their identity by becoming Russianized or Christian.  The intransigent attitude of the rabbis was increased by their realization that their power would be lost if their people accepted controls other than Talmudic.  The rabbinical controls used by the rabbis were responsible not only for basic mores, but for such externals as the peculiarities of dress and hair - specifically Khazar Talmudist social culture was to remain physically separated from the gentiles. It has been frequently stated by writers on the subject that the "ghetto" was the work not of Russians or other Slavs but of rabbis.

As time passed, it came about that these Khazar people of mixed non-Russian stock, who hated the Russians and lived under Babylonian Talmudic law, became known in the western world, from their place of residence and their legal-religious code, as Russian Jews.

The Wessobrunn Prayer, Creation Poem) believed to date from c790, is among the earliest known poetic works in Old High German.  It seems highly probable that it was composed after an Anglo-Saxon model for use in the Christian missions to the heathen taking place in Germany at this time.   The poem is in two sections: the first is a praise of creation in nine lines of alliterative verse, and the second is the actual prayer, in free prose.  The two together constitute a prayer for the wisdom and strength to avoid sin.  The two-part structure is reminiscent of Germanic magic spells: a transcendental precedent is first evoked (in this instance the gift of creation made to human beings by the Creator), according to the pattern of which the thing prayed for may be performed.

The Lay of Hildebrand (Das Hildebrandslied) is a heroic lay (lyric), written in Old High German alliterative verse.  It is one of the earliest literary works in German, and it tells of the tragic encounter in battle between a son and his unrecognized father.  It is the only surviving example in German of a genre which must have been important in the oral literature of the Germanic tribes.

In the 1967 work, “Hebrewisms of West Africa: From Nile to Niger with the Jews”, by Joseph J. Williams, Rabbi Lewis Browne, 1897-1949, is quoted thus: “Jews traveled everywhere from England to India, from Bohemia to Egypt.  Their commonest merchandise in those days, beginning with the eighth century, was slaves.  On every high road and on every great river and sea, these Jewish traders were to be found with their gangs of shackled prisoners in convoy… Slave trading seems irredeemably vile and hateful to us today, but we must remember here again the standards have changed... And in light of the customs of those times, the slave-traffickers were actually doing almost a moral act.  They alone were keeping the conquering armies from slaughtering every one of their defeated foes after each battle.” 

St. Patrick's Breastplate - This poem invokes God's protection on a journey (either literal or the metaphorical "journey of life") against all manner of evils, including "the spells of women and smiths and druids".  It was dated as from the 8th century.

800           800           800           800

Beowulf ("bee wolf" i.e. "bee hunter", a kenning for "bear")(8th-11th) is the conventional title of an Old English heroic epic poem set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.  In the poem, Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, battles three antagonists: Grendel, who has been attacking the resident warriors of the mead hall of Hroðgar (the king of the Danes), Grendel's mother, and an unnamed dragon.  After the first two victories, Beowulf goes home to Geatland in Sweden and becomes king of the Geats.  The last fight takes place fifty years later.  In this final battle, Beowulf is fatally wounded. After his death, his servants bury him in a tumulus in Geatland.  There are many Christian motifs in this story.  (see late 5^th)

Anatolius (circa 800), was a Scottish bishop and hermit, who left his see and Scotland to make a pilgrimage to Rome.  He became a hermit at Salins, France.  Another tradition states that Anatolius was a bishop in Galicia, Spain.:  1.The Lord and King of all things But yesterday was born; And Stephen’s glorious offering His birth-tide shall adorn: No pearls of orient splendor, No jewels can he show; But with his own true heart’s blood His shining vestments glow.  2.Come, ye that love the martyrs, And pluck the flowers of song, And weave them in a garland, For this our suppliant throng; And cry, “O thou that shinest In grace’s brightest ray, Christ’s valiant protomartyr, For peace and favor pray!”  3.Thou first of all confessors, Of all the deacons crown, Of every following athlete, The glory and renown: Make supplication, standing Before Christ’s royal throne, That He would give the kingdom, And for our sins atone!

Harun al-Rashid (786-809) It is said that the law requiring Jews to wear a yellow badge upon their clothing originated with Harun, and the laws of Islam were stringently enforced by him to the detriment of the Jews.  The government meanwhile accomplished all it could toward the complete humiliation of the Jews. All non-believers — Magi, Jews, and Christians — were compelled by Al-Mutawakkil to wear a badge; their places of worship were confiscated and turned into mosques; they were excluded from public offices, and compelled to pay to the caliph a tax of one-tenth of the value of their houses. An utterance of the caliph Al-Mu'tadhel (892-902) ranks the Jews, as state servants, after Christians.

The Pope crowned Karl the Great (Charlemagne) on Christmas eve and declared “The Holy Roman Empire of the Noble German Nation”.

 800-814 Charlemagne unites nearly all of Western Europe, brought Christianity and a cultural Renaissance.  Charlemagne (Charles the Great; 4/2, 742 – 1/28, 814) was King of the Franks from 768 to his death.  He expanded the Frankish kingdom into a Frankish Empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe.  During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III on December 25, 800 which temporarily made him a rival of the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople.  His rule is also associated with the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of art, religion, and culture through the medium of the Catholic Church. Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define both Western Europe and the Middle Ages.  He is numbered as Charles I in the regnal lists of France, Germany (where he is known as Karl der Große), and the Holy Roman Empire.

“The Jews came into France shortly after the invasion of the Romans. In the fourth century, toward the year 353, they assassinated a Roman officer, who, after having governed Egypt, returned to Gaul by order of the Emperor Constans. Among the Gauls, the Jews were no better received than they were in Rome. Nor were they better treated by the Visigoths. The council held in 465 forbade the Christians to associate with the Jews or to eat with them. Clotaire II withdrew from them the right to begin an action against the Christians, and in 633 Dagobert II expelled them from his States. They were always punished for their usurious dealings, but they always repeated the offence, and finally they became so rich that we find them in later years prominent even in political affairs. Charlemagne added a Jew to the embassy he sent to Haroun-al-Raschid. Their influence was so great that, not content with obtaining freedom of worship, they sought to pass a law that no business should be transacted on Saturday, and demanded heavy import duties destined to crush their Christian competitors, while they were themselves arch smugglers, and the manufacturers of spurious goods which they palmed off as being imported. They were, furthermore, the associates of all the lowest elements of those times.”- Mr. Jacobs

 

Charlemagne: Capitulary for the Jews, 814

1. Let no Jew presume to take in pledge or for any debt any of the goods of the Church in gold, silver, or other form, from any Christian. But if he presume to do so, which God forbid, let all his goods be seized and let his right hand be cut off.

2. Let no Jew presume to take any Christian in pledge for any Jew or Christian, nor let him do anything worse; but if he presume to do so, let him make reparation according to his law, and at the same time he shall lose both pledge and debt.

3. Let no Jew presume to have a money-changer's table in his house, nor shall he presume to sell wine, grain, or other commodities there. But if it be discovered that he has done so all his goods shall be taken away from him, and he shall be imprisoned until he is brought into our presence.

4. Concerning the oath of the Jews against the Christians. Place sorrel twice around his body from head to feet; he ought to stand when he takes his oath, and he should have in his right hand the five books of Moses according to his law, and if he cannot have them in Hebrew he shall have them in Latin. "May the God who gave the law to Moses on Mount Sinai help me, and may the leprosy of Naamon the Syrian come upon me as it came upon him, and may the earth swallow me as it swallowed Dathan and Abiron, I have not committed evil against you in this cause."

 The Paladins, sometimes known as the Twelve Peers, were the foremost warriors of Charlemagne's court, according to the literary cycle known as the Matter of France.  They first appear in stories such as The Song of Roland, where they represent Christian martial valor against the Saracen hordes.

810 Hildebrandslied  (Song of Hildebrand)  is about migrating Ostrogoths yielding before Asiatic Huns and conquering Italy under king Theodoric. The fragment is mainly taken up with a dialogue between Hilde brand and his son Hadubrand.  When Hildebrand followed his master, Theodoric the Great, who was fleeing eastwards before Odoacer, he left his young wife and an infant child behind him.  At his return to his old home, after 3o years' absence among the Huns, he is met by a young warrior and challenged to single combat.  Hildebrand asks for the name of his opponent, and discovering his own son in him, tries to avert the fight, but in vain; Hadubrand only regards the old man's words as the excuse of cowardice.

Ludwig the Pious, - Louis the Pious (778 – 6/20, 840), also called the Fair, and the Debonaire, was the King of Aquitaine from 781.  He was also King of the Franks and co-Emperor (as Louis I) with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. As the only surviving adult son of Charlemagne and Hildegard, he became the sole ruler of the Franks after his father's death in 814, a position which he held until his death, save for the period 833–34, during which he was deposed.  He succeeded his father as king.  He continued and expanded his father's policies toward the Jews.  Market day was changed from the Sabbath to Sunday and a Jew, Ebeard, was appointed Magister Judeacrum to protect Jewish rights.

 780-1070  Swedes, Danes and Norwegians become the Vikings who undertook wide-scale raids and colonization.  This is actually a second migration for the Germanic peoples.  Vikings took much of the British Isles, found their way to Italy, Spain and southern France and to Kiev, Constantinople, and Baghdad in the East  and pre-Columbian North America.  It was primarily the Norwegians and Danes who went West, while the Swedes went East and South.  They colonized Iceland.  Norse mythology developed and flourished.  It wasn’t until the year 1000 that the Icelandic Assembly voted to become Christian.  The old gods reigned in Sweden even longer with accounts of sacrifices to Odin as late as 1070.  Norse society was based on agriculture and trade with other peoples and placed great emphasis on the concept of honor, both in combat and in the criminal justice system.  It was, for example, unfair and wrong to attack an enemy already in a fight with another.  Raids on Christian lands took place only when the Christians refused to trade with the still pagan Scandinavians as they had previously done for centuries.

 Berserkers (or berserks) were Norse warriors who are reported in the Old Norse literature to have fought in a nearly uncontrollable, trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the English word berserk.  Berserkers are attested in numerous Old Norse sources.  Most historians believe that berserkers worked themselves into a rage before battle, but some think that they might have consumed drugged foods.  The Úlfhéðnar were said to wear the pelt of a wolf when they entered battle and described as Odin's special warriors.  The name berserker means wearer of bear shirt and suggests a robe.  The earliest surviving reference is in the late 9th century: “I'll ask of the berserks, you tasters of blood, Those intrepid heroes, how are they treated, Those who wade out into battle?  Wolf-skinned they are called.  In battle  They bear bloody shields.  Red with blood are their spears when they come to fight.  They form a closed group.  The prince in his wisdom puts trust in such men  Who hack through enemy shields.”  The Icelandic historian and poet Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) wrote: “His (Odin's) men rushed forwards without armor, were as mad as dogs or wolves, bit their shields, and were strong as bears or wild oxen, and killed people at a blow, but neither fire nor iron told upon them.  This was called Berserkergang.”  They were used as "shock troops" or bodyguards.  Byzantine emperor Constantine VII (AD 905–959) wrote of a "Gothic Dance" performed by members of his Varangian Guard (Norse warriors working in the service of the Byzantine Empire), who took part wearing animal skins and masks.  There could be a connection between the berserker rage of soldiers and the hyperarousal of post-traumatic stress disorder.  The word "berserker" today applies to anyone who fights with reckless abandon and disregard to even his own life.  "Going berserk" refers to an overdose of adrenaline-induced opioids in the human body and brain leading a soldier to fight with fearless rage and indifference.  It was no doubt due to these excesses of the berserker that resulted in their demise.  In 1015 King Erik outlawed berserks, along with duels: it had become a common practice for a berserker to challenge men of property, and upon slaying the unfortunate victim, to take possession of his goods, wealth, and women.

Top 10 Misconceptions About The Vikings  by Signe, April 21, 2009

When most of us think of vikings, we see horn-helmeted violent blond men raping and pillaging everything in sight. But, in fact, many of these images are misconceived – as you are about to find out. The Vikings lived from the late eighth to the early eleventh century and their relatively short history had had a massive impact on western society.

10            One Nation             Misconception: The Vikings were a nation

The Vikings were not one nation but different groups of warriors, explorers and merchants led by a chieftain. During the Viking age, Scandinavia was not separated into Denmark, Norway and Sweden as it is today, instead each chieftain ruled over a small area. The word Viking does not refer to any location, but is the Old Norse word for a person participating in an expedition to sea.

9              Wild, Dirty People                   Misconception: The Vikings were all dirty, wild-looking people

In many movies and cartoons, the Vikings are shown as dirty, wild-looking, savage men and women, but in reality, the Vikings were quite vain about their appearance. In fact, combs, tweezers, razors and “ear spoons” are among some of the most frequent artifacts from Viking Age excavations. These same excavations have also shown that the Vikings made soap.

In England, the Vikings living there even had a reputation for excessive cleanliness because of their custom of bathing once a week (on Saturday). To this day, Saturday is referred to as laugardagur / laurdag / lørdag / lördag, or “washing day” in the Scandinavian languages, though the original meaning is lost in modern speech in most cases. However, “laug” does still mean “bath” or “pool” in Icelandic.

8              Big and Blond         Misconception: The Vikings were all big and blond

The Vikings are often shown as big, bulging guys with long blond hair, but historical records show that the average Viking man was about 170 cm (5’7”) tall which was not especially tall for the time. Blond hair was seen as ideal in the Viking culture, and many Nordic men bleached their hair with a special soap. But the Vikings were great at absorbing people, and many people who had been kidnapped as slaves, became part of the Viking population in time. So, in Viking groups, you would probably find Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, French, and Russians — a very diverse group built around a core of Vikings from a particular region, say, southern Denmark or an Oslo fjord.

7              Skull Cups                Misconception: The Vikings drank from skull cups

The origin of this legend is Ole Worm’s “Reuner seu Danica literatura antiquissima” from 1636 in which he writes that Danish warriors drank from the “curved branches of skulls” – ie, horns (pictured above), which was probably mistranslated in Latin to mean human “skulls”. The fact is, however, no skull cups have ever been found in excavations from the Viking Age.

6              Crude Weapons      Misconception: The Vikings used crude, unsophisticated weapons

Vikings are often shown with crude, unsophisticated weapons such as clubs and crude axes, but the Vikings were actually skilled weapon smiths. Using a method called pattern welding, the Vikings could make swords that were both extremely sharp and flexible. According to Viking Sagas, one method of testing these weapons was to place the sword hilt first in a cold stream, and float a hair down to it. If it cut the hair, it was considered a good sword.

5              Home Town            Misconception: The Vikings lived only in Scandinavia

The Vikings did originate from the Scandinavian countries, but over time they started settlements in many places, reaching as far as North Africa, Russia, Constantinople, and even North America. There are different theories about the motives driving the Viking expansion, the most common of which is that the Scandinavian population had outgrown the agricultural potential of their homeland. Another theory is that the old trade routes of western Europe and Eurasia experienced a decline in profitability when the Roman Empire fell in the 5th century, forcing the Vikings to open new trading routes in order to profit from international trade. Pictured above is a viking village in Canada.

4              Hated by their Peers               Misconception: The Vikings were hated everywhere

One could imagine that the Vikings were hated everywhere because of their raids, but it seems that they were also respected by some. The French King Charles the III – known as Charles the Simple – gave the Vikings the land they had already settled on in France (Normandy), and he even gave his daughter to the Viking chief Rollo. In return, the Vikings protected France against wilder Vikings.

Also in Constantinople the Vikings were acknowledged for their strength – so much so that the Varangian guard of the Byzantine emperors in the 11th century was made up entirely of Swedish Vikings.

3              Bloodthirsty            Misconception: The Vikings were unusually bloodthirsty and barbarian

The Viking raids were indeed very violent, but it was a violent age, and the question is whether non-viking armies were any less bloodthirsty and barbarian; for instance, Charlemagne, who was the Vikings’ contemporary, virtually exterminated the whole people of Avars. At Verden, he ordered the beheading of 4,500 Saxons. What really made the Vikings different was the fact that they seemed to take special care to destroy items of religious value (Christian monasteries and holy sites) and kill churchmen, which earned them quite a bit of hatred in a highly religious time. The Vikings probably enjoyed the reputation they had; people were so scared of them that they often fled from their cities instead of defending them when they saw a Viking ship coming near.

2              Rape and Pillage     Misconception: The Vikings pillaged as their only way of living

It was actually only a very small percentage of the Vikings that were warriors; the majority was farmers, craftsmen and traders. For the Vikings who took to the sea, pillaging were one among many other goals of their expeditions. The Vikings settled peacefully in many places such as Iceland and Greenland, and were international merchants of their time; they peacefully traded with almost every county of the then-known world.

1              Helmet Style           Misconception: The Vikings wore helmets with horns

This most be the biggest misconception about Vikings, but the fact remains, there are no records of such helmets having ever existed. All depictions of Viking helmets dating to the Viking age, show helmets with no horns and the only authentic Viking helmet that has ever been found does not have them either. An explanation for the helmet with horns myth is that Christians in contemporary Europe added the detail to make the Vikings look even more barbarian and pagan, with horns like Satan’s on their head. It should be noted that the Norse god Thor wore a helmet with wings on it, which do look somewhat similar to horns.

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Agobard (c. 779 – 840) was a Carolingian prelate and Archbishop of Lyon. In 816 he became Archbishop of Lyon. He continued in the reformation of the Church. In his writings against popular superstitions, he denounced the trial by ordeal of fire and water, the belief in witchcraft, and the ascription of tempests to magic.  He also wrote anti-Jewish pamphlets in which he refers to Jews as "sons of darkness".  He returned to the rhetoric of John Chrysostom. The civil situation quickly worsened. With the death of Charles the Bald Jewish rights practically vanished.

“Agobard (820), Amolon, Rigord, Pierre de Cluny (1146), Simon Maiol were these anti-Jews.  They were among those whom the wealth of the Jews revolted more than their ungodliness, who were more scandalized by their luxury than by their blasphemies.  (They said)-The Jews oppress the people; they hoard up wealth that is the fruit of usury and plunder; they hold the Christians in servitude; they possess enormous treasures in the cities which had received them; they commit larceny, they acquire money by evil methods; they sell counterfeit jewels, they receive stolen goods, they coin bas money, cannot be trusted, collect their debts twice over.” - Bernard Lazare

 822 - Mojmír I of Great Moravia was the first known ruler of the Moravian Slavs (c. 830–846), converts to Christianity.

828 - First Christian church in present-day Slovakia is built.  First missionaries reach the area that is now the Czech Republic.

Amulo, Archbishop of Lyons (841) in the reign of Charles the Bald; died 852.  From his master and predecessor, Agobard, he learned to hate the Jews, and he tried, at the Council of Meaux (849), to revive the old canonical laws and anti-Jewish restrictions.  But Charles would not yield to the prelate's injunctions, and dissolved the meeting.  Amulo, however—unremitting in his efforts against the Jews, like his master—wrote a virulent letter to the spiritual authorities, in which he expounded his grievances against the Jews, forgetting no fact to their discredit, not even the conversion of the court-chaplain Bodo to Judaism.  Although the letter did not immediately produce the effect expected by its author, it attracted the attention of the clergy, who were at that time generally favorable to the Jews, and the calm enjoyed by Jews in France gradually came to an end.

850           850           850           850

~850 Christian of Stavelot was a noted grammarian, Biblical commentator, and eschatologist with an extensive knowledge of Greek grammar and probably of Hebrew.  Among Christian's works is the commentary ("Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew"), in which he discussed (among other things) the eschatological implications of portions of that Gospel.  “At the present time we know of no nation under the heavens where Christians do not live.  For [Christians are even found] in the lands of Gog and Magog -- who are a Hunnic race and are called Gazari (Khazars) [they are] circumcised and observing all [the laws of] Judaism.  The Bulgars, however, who are of the same seven tribes [as the Khazars], are now becoming baptized [into Christianity].”

9th century -The Merseburg Incantations are two medieval magic spells.  They are the only known examples of Germanic pagan belief.

 864 - Conversion of Prince Boris (-Michael) of Bulgaria ( -5/2 907) was the Prince of First Bulgarian Empire in 852–889.  The historian Steven Runciman called him one of the greatest persons in history.  When in 885 the disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius were banished from Great Moravia, Boris I gave them refuge and provided assistance to develop the Slavic alphabet and literature.  After he abdicated in 889, his eldest son and successor tried to restore the old pagan religion but was deposed by Boris I.  He is regarded as a saint in the Orthodox Church.

 The Church of St George is an Early Christian red brick rotunda that is considered the oldest building in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.  It is situated behind the Sheraton Hotel, amid remains of the ancient town of Serdica.  Built by the Romans in the 4th century AD, it is mainly famous for the 12th-14th century frescoes inside the central dome.  Three layers of frescoes have been discovered, the earliest dating back to the 10th century.

Saint Ansgar, Anskar or Oscar, (9/8, 801 – 2/3, 865) was an Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen.  The see of Hamburg was designated a "Mission to bring Christianity to the North", and Ansgar became known as the "Apostle of the North".  Ansgar was a product of the phase of Christianization of Saxony (present day Northern Germany) begun by Charlemagne and continued by his son and successor, Louis the Pious.  Ansgar took the Gospel to Denmark and Sweden.

 867 - All Serbian tribes are fully Christianized.

870   Evangelienbuch by Otfrid of Weissenburg (c. 800 - after 870) was the author of a gospel harmony in rhyming couplets.  Apart from the Evangelienbuch, he is the author of a number of works in Latin, including biblical commentary and glossaries.  Evangelienbuch is divided into five books, with reference to the five senses, which are to be purified and sanctified by the reading of the sacred story.  The first book narrates the Nativity of Christ; the second and third, His Teachings and Miracles; the fourth, the Passion; the fifth, the Resurrection, Ascension, and Last Judgment.  Between the narrative portions chapters are inserted superscribed "Moraliter", "Spiritaliter", "Mystice", in which the events narrated are interpreted allegorically and symbolically.

~870  Muspilli is a poem which has been theorized as a Christianized version of the pagan Ragnarök, with figures represented in 13th century sources swapped with Christian figures.  The focus of the text is first on the fate of the soul after death.  The hosts of heaven and hell do battle over the deceased individual's soul and the winning party will carry it off as booty.  Attention then shifts to another battle, the battle between Elijah and the Antichrist, which the text says will precede the Last Judgment.  The two combatants are fighting as champions for God and the Devil.  The Antichrist will fall but Elijah will be wounded and his blood dripping on the Earth will set the world on fire – announcing the muspilli (fire. This realm is one of the Nine Worlds).  The rest of the poem is concerned with the Resurrection and Judgment Day itself. 

Charles the Bald (6/13, 823 – 10/6, 877), Holy Roman Emperor (875–877, as Charles II) and King of West Francia (840–877, as Charles II, with the borders of his land defined by the Treaty of Verdun, 843), was the youngest son of the Emperor Louis the Pious by his second wife Judith.  He was poisoned by the Jew Sedecias.

869-70 Fourth Council of Constantinople, 8th Catholic Council -The issue of declaring Photius a heretic was paramount for the Fourth Council of Constantinople which was called jointly by the Emperor Basil and Pope Hadrian II in 869. Photius had openly criticized clerical celibacy, challenged Pope Saint Leo III's crowning of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas of 800, and questioned the Filioque of the Creed. Photius was condemned by the Council. 200 years later the Great Eastern Schism became official when Michael Cerularius closed the Latin churches in Constantinople and was excommunicated by Pope Saint Leo IV in 1054. Also of concern at the Council was the growing Saracen threat.

8/3, 881   The Ludwigslied (Song of Ludwig) is a poem celebrating the victory of the Frankish army, led by Louis III of France, over Danish (Viking) raiders at the Battle of Saucourt-en-Vimeu.  The poem is thoroughly Christian in ethos.  It presents the Viking raids as a punishment from God: He caused the Northmen to come across the see to remind the Frankish people of their sins, and inspired Louis to ride to the aid of his people.  Louis praises God both before and after the battle.

Waltharius, founded on German popular tradition, relates the exploits of the west Gothic hero Walter of Aquitaine, who was legendary king of the Visigoths.  He figures in several epic poems and narratives in medieval languages.  Walter fights single-handedly against the Burgundian king Gunther and his retinue, killing all attackers except for Gunther and Hagen.  In later literature, Walter figures in Scheffel's novel Ekkehard (1887).  The poem is set in the time of the migrations of the peoples.  All the Germanic kings have been forced to leave hostages with Atilla.  Threatened by the Huns under Attila, the kings of the Franks, of the Burgundians, and of Aquitaine decide to pay tribute and give hostages: Gibicho gives his noble follower Hagano; Heriricus, his daughter Hiltgunt; and Alphere, his son Waltharius—i.e., Walter of Aquitaine.  The three children are educated by the Huns in a manner suited to their station.  Hagano escapes when it is learned that Gibicho has died and his son Guntharius does not intend to continue the tribute.  In order to bind Waltharius to him, Attila proposes that he should marry a princess of the Hun realm; but he and Hiltgunt have been betrothed as children, and they plan an escape.  Their presence in his realm is revealed to Guntharius as they cross the Rhine River.  Hagano recognizes from their description who they are, but Guntharius insists on pursuing them to take their treasure.  The rest, and by far the larger part, of the poem is devoted to his attempts to do so….Guntharius, Hagano, and Waltharius are all seriously wounded, but none is killed; and Waltharius and Hiltgunt continue on their way.  The story became well known in Germany, and there is an account, albeit with considerable differences, in the Norse Thidriks saga.

 Saints Cyril of Slavonia and Methodius were two Byzantine Greek brothers born in Thessaloniki in the 9th century.  They became missionaries of Christianity among the Slavic peoples of Bulgaria, Great Moravia and Pannonia.  Through their work they influenced the cultural development of all Slavs, for which they received the title "Apostles to the Slavs".  They are credited with devising the Glagolitic alphabet, the first alphabet used to transcribe Old Church Slavonic.  After their deaths, their pupils continued their missionary work among other Slavs.  Both brothers are venerated in the Orthodox Church as saints with the title of "equal-to-apostles".  In 1880, Pope Leo XIII introduced their feast into the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church.  In 1980, Pope John Paul II declared them co-patron saints of Europe, together with Benedict of Nursia.

884 Basil I (Byzantine Empire) Basil I, called the Macedonian (830/835 – 8/29, 886) reigned from 867 to 886.  Born a simple peasant, he rose and showed great ability in running the affairs of state, leading a revival of imperial power and to a renaissance of Byzantine art.  He was perceived by the Byzantines as one of their greatest emperors, and the dynasty he founded, the Macedonian, ruled over what is regarded as the most glorious and prosperous era of the Byzantine Empire.   In 884, his legal manual “Epanagoge”, he reinforced the law prohibiting Jews from holding any civil or military office.

 Alfred the Great (849 – 10/26, 899) was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.  Alfred is noted for his defense of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great".  Alfred was a learned man who encouraged education and improved his kingdom's legal system and military structure. He may often be found depicted in stained glass in Church of England parish churches.  He was, to a remarkable extent, consistently Christian in all that he did.  His interpretation of biblical law was a major part of the developing Common Law.

Henry I the Fowler (876 – 7/2, 936) was the Duke of Saxony from 912 and King of the Germans from 919 until his death. First of the Ottonian Dynasty of German kings and emperors, he is generally considered to be the founder and first king of the medieval German state, known until then as East Francia. An avid hunter, he obtained the epithet "the Fowler" because he was allegedly fixing his birding nets when messengers arrived to inform him that he was to be king.  Henry regarded the kingdom as a confederation of stem duchies rather than as a feudal kingdom and saw himself as primus inter pares. Instead of seeking to administer the empire through counts, as Charlemagne had done and as his successors had attempted, Henry allowed the dukes of Franconia, Swabia and Bavaria to maintain complete internal control of their holdings. Henry was an able military leader.  Henry died of a cerebral stroke on 2 July 936. By then all German tribes were united in a single kingdom.  Henry returned to public attention as a character in Richard Wagner's opera, Lohengrin (1850). There are indications that Heinrich Himmler identified himself with this first king of Germany.

**** “The Heliand” (The Savior) The Saxon Gospel -Late 800’s.  The Gospel is rewritten for the Germanic peoples of Europe.  In the Heliand the Saviour and His Apostles are conceived as a king and his faithful warriors, and the spontaneous mode of expression are of one accustomed to sing of heroic themes.  It is synthesis between Christianity and Germanic warrior-society – that would lead to the culture of knighthood and become the foundation of medieval Europe.  The Germans easily accepted the Gospel as they were preconditioned by their mythology.

 ****European mythological gods were either tripartite or closely aligned with 2 other gods.  The three roles were Sovereign, Warrior, Cultivator  and were personified as Odin-Thor-Freyr (or Tyr).  Christianity taught the Triune God or triple roles of Creator-Redeemer-Sanctifier.  As Zeus and the other great sky gods were absorbed into the Christian God, and Mary successfully replaced the great goddess, Jesus gathered together in himself not only the elements of the dying-god myth but those of the old Indo-European hero myth in general.   Jesus was at once priest, victim, king and god.   As the “Son of God” he was the ultimate sacrifice – the Purusha (I am, the first man, the universal soul) who was the Logos who had always been and always would be.   Through his sacrifice came eternal life.   Like Odin on Yggdrasill, he hung on the tree –the world tree or center of the universe, being for Christians the cross, the symbol of the meeting of time and eternity – to confront the ultimate mystery of life and death.  Like Dionysos, Jesus descended into Hell.   His body and blood which originally was symbolized only in the Passover meal becomes a regular ritual of the new fruit on the New World Tree.

 The Triple Goddess has been used to refer both to goddess triads and to a single feminine deity described as triple in form or aspect.  In this case, the central concept comprises the idea of three separate female figures being united; frequently described as the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone, each of which symbolizes both a separate stage in the female life cycle and a phase of the moon, and often rules one of the realms of earth, underworld and the heavens.   The pagan Goddess role of the Europeans was replaced by “Blessed Virgin Mary” who is protective, loving and grieving.

The Viking Trinity - According to Adam of Bremen: "If plague and famine threatens, a libation is poured to the idol Thor; if war, to Odin; if marriages are to be celebrated, to Frey."  Because Odin, the All-Father, was generally more feared than loved and subsequently kept at a distance, his son, Thor, assumed the position as favored deity.  He was the protector and trusted friend.

Was it the Christianization of Germany or the Germanization of Christianity?  Jesus was to present the way to the Father and glorify the Father.  Western Christianity has elevated and focused on the Son and left the Father more at a distance.

Árpád (c845 – c907) was the second Grand Prince of the Magyars (Hungarians) from 895.  Under his rule the Magyar people settled in the Carpathian basin.  The dynasty descending from him ruled the Magyar tribes and later the Kingdom of Hungary until 1301.

 “During the 9th and 10th centuries Jewish merchants in both the Muslim and Christian worlds had tremendous advantages over their competition. In the first place, their competitors often came from regions of diverse legal systems… And the different cultures hated one another.  This made international trade difficult.  Jews, on the other hand, were united under a common legal system, the Talmud… Jews were tolerated under both civilizations.  As a result… Jews succeeded in making fortunes by establishing trade relations between the two major international cultures.”- “Gates to Jewish Heritage” by Rabbi David E. Lipman  

900           900           900           900

912 - The Normans become Christian.

948 - The leader of the Magyars converts to Christianity.  Magyar/Hungarian expansion into Europe was checked in 955, but raids on the Balkan Peninsula continued until 970.  Hungarian settlement in the area was approved by the Pope when their leaders accepted Christianity, and Stephen I the Saint (Szent István) was crowned King of Hungary in 1001.  The century between the Magyars' arrival from the eastern European plains and the consolidation of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1001 was dominated by pillaging campaigns across Europe, from Dania (Denmark) to the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal).  After the country's acceptance into Christian Europe under Stephen I, Hungary served as a bulwark against further invasions from the east and south, especially against the Turks.

958 “Let us, therefore, renew the diplomatic relations that once obtained between our fathers, and let us transmit this heritage to our children. You ask us also in your epistle: ‘Of what people, of what family, and of what tribe are you?’  Know that we are descended from Japhet, through his son Togarmah…” - from Joseph, King of the Khazars, to a request for information from Rabbi Hasdai.

10th  An Easter Drama is a liturgical drama or religious theatrical performance in the Roman Catholic tradition, largely limited to the Middle Ages.  These performances evolved from celebrations of the liturgy to incorporate later dramatic and secular elements, and came to be performed in local languages.  They were succeeded by the Passion Plays.  In the Middle Ages the celebration of liturgical feasts was as rich and varied as they were numerous; poetry and music, in particular, were used to impress on the congregation the significance of the events commemorated.  Liturgical worship is in itself dramatic, with its stylized dialogues and the use of choirs.  Often, as at Christmas, Epiphany, and Easter, the text of the Gospel called for a variety of roles. 

There were numerous Holy Days (holidays) in the Middle Ages.  Peasants worked only about a third of a year.  Many of the days off were devoted to building cathedrals and of course recreation.

 ****The Dream of the Rood is one of the earliest Christian poems. Rood is from the Old English rod "pole", specifically "crucifix".  Preserved in the 10th century Vercelli Book, the poem may be considerably older.   An interesting paradox is created within this poem.  The Cross is set up to be the way to salvation.  In the poem the Cross states that it cannot fall and it must stay strong to fulfill the will of God.  However, in order to fulfill the will of God the Cross has to be a critical instrument in the death of Christ.  It also puts a whole new light on the actions of Jesus during the Crucifixion. Both Jesus and the Cross are not given the role of the helpless victim in this poem.  Instead they are both standing firm to what they need to do. Jesus is the strong conqueror. He is made to appear like all of the other Old English heroes.  Christ is shown as a “heroic German lord, one who dies to save his troops”.  Jesus does not just accept that he will be crucified instead he “embraces” the Cross and takes on all the sins of mankind.

 962 Otto I crowned Imperator Romanorum; Holy Roman Empire formed.  Otto I the Great (11/23 912– 5/7 973), son of Henry I the Fowler, was Duke of Saxony, King of Germany, King of Italy, and "the first of the Germans to be called the emperor of Italy".  While Charlemagne had been crowned emperor in 800, his empire had been divided amongst his grandsons, and following the assassination of Berengar of Friuli in 924, the imperial title had lain vacant for nearly forty years.  On February 2, 962, Otto was crowned Emperor of what would later become the Holy Roman Empire.

 965 - Harold I of Denmark converts to Christianity and smoothes the way for the acceptance of Christian faith by the Danish people.  Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson (c935-985) having ruled as King of Denmark from around 958 and King of Norway for a few years probably around 970.

 Saint Bendt’s Church in Ringsted, is the earliest brick-built church in Denmark.  The church was officially consecrated in 1170 and at the same time Earl Knud Lavard was declared a saint and the Crown Prince, Knud VI, was crowned.  The church was then used as a sepulchral church of the Valdemars from 1182–1341 and was thus Denmark’s first royal church.

 966 - Mieszko I of Poland converts to Christianity and begins the period of Christian Poland.  Mieszko I (c930 – 5/25 992), was a Duke of the Polans from about 960 until his death.  He was the father of Bolesław I the Brave, the first crowned King of Poland.  The first historical ruler of Poland, Mieszko I is considered the de facto creator of the Polish state.

970 Hasdai (Abu Yusuf ben Yitzhak ben Ezra) ibn Shaprut (~915 -~975 Spain), was a Jewish scholar, physician, diplomat, and patron of science.  His father, Isaac benjamin Ezra, was a wealthy and learned Jew of Jaén. Hasdai acquired in his youth a thorough knowledge of Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin, the last-named language being at that time known only to the higher clergy of Spain. He also studied medicine, and is said to have discovered a universal panacea, called Al-Faruk. Appointed physician to the Caliph Abd ar-Rahman III (912-961), he, by his engaging manners, knowledge, character, and extraordinary ability, gained his master's confidence to such a degree that he became the caliph's confidant and faithful counselor. Without bearing the title of vizier he was in reality minister of foreign affairs; he had also control of the customs and ship-dues in the port of Córdoba.  Hasdai arranged the alliances formed by the caliph with foreign powers, and he received the envoys sent by the latter to Córdoba. In 949 an embassy was sent by Constantine VII. to form a diplomatic league between the hard-pressed Byzantine empire and the powerful ruler of Spain. Among the presents brought by the embassy was a magnificent codex of Dioscorides' work on botany, which the Arabic physicians and naturalists valued highly.  Hasdai, with the aid of a learned Greek monk named Nicholas, translated it into Arabic, making it thereby the common property of the Arabs and of medieval Europe.  Correspondence between the king of the Khazars Joseph and a certain subordinates Caliph of Spain, supposedly Sephardic "Jew" Hasdai Ibn Schaprut in which the Joseph explains that religion professes "Jewish", but his ancestors came from the third son of Noah , Japheth, and his grandson Togarmah, the father of all Turkish tribes.  Khazars who founded his country between the Caspian and the Black Sea is also the descendants of the Huns (Bankowski include them in the "old Slavs"), who, after the death of Attila settled there and mingled with the peoples.

 Sviatoslav I Igorevich (c942 – March 972), also spelled Svyatoslav, was a prince of Rus, ruled for ten years and famous for his incessant campaigns in the east and south, which precipitated the collapse of two great powers of Eastern Europe—Khazaria and the First Bulgarian Empire; he also conquered numerous East Slavic tribes, defeated the Alans and the Volga Bulgars, and at times was allied with the Pechenegs and Magyars.  The name Sviatoslav was composed of the Slavic roots for "holy" and "glory", was an artificial derivation combining those of his predecessors Oleg and Rurik (they mean "holy" and "glorious" in Old Norse, respectively).  His mother, Olga, converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity at the court of Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus in 957.  However, Sviatoslav remained a pagan who believed that his warriors would lose respect for him and mock him if he became a Christian.  The allegiance of his warriors was of paramount importance in his conquest of an empire that stretched from the Volga to the Danube.

His greatest success was the conquest of Khazaria, which for centuries had been one of the strongest states of Eastern Europe.  The Khazars were a tribe of Uighurs or Huns that entered in the late 6th century. Their Turko-Mongolic leaders converted to Judaism.  The Rus' had an interest in removing the Khazar hold on the Volga trade route because the Khazars collected duties from the goods transported by the Volga.  The Volga trade route was a major path by which Nordic goods reached Middle Eastern markets.   They had charged exorbitant rates as Middlemen.  The Khazars had been limited in their treacheries by the Byzantine Empire and they had retaliated against the Christians with genocide. 

Sviatoslav began by rallying the Khazars' East Slavic vassal tribes to his cause.   The annihilation of Khazaria was undertaken against the background of the Rus'-Byzantine alliance, concluded in the wake of Igor's Byzantine campaign in 944.   For the Vikings, the forests and plains of Eastern Europe were thought of as a dark area inhabited by trolls and giants and evil.  They thought Ragnarok would be held here as the final battle between the good gods and the forces of evil.

Following Sviatoslav's death, tensions between his sons grew. A war broke out between Sviatoslav's legitimate sons, Oleg and Yaropolk, in 976, at the conclusion of which Oleg was killed. In 977 Vladimir fled Novgorod to escape Oleg's fate and went to Scandinavia, where he raised an army of Varangians and returned in 980.  Yaropolk was killed and Vladimir became the sole ruler of Kievan Rus'.

Sviatoslav has long been a hero of Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian patriots due to his great military successes.  His figure first attracted attention of Russian artists and poets during the Russo-Turkish War, 1768–1774, which provided obvious parallels with Sviatoslav's push towards Constantinople.  Russia's southward expansion and Catherine II's imperialistic ventures in the Balkans seemed to have been legitimized by Sviatoslav's campaigns eight centuries earlier.

 In 2005, reports circulated that a village in the Belgorod region had erected a monument to Sviatoslav's victory over the Khazars by the Russian sculptor Vyacheslav Klykov.  The reports described the 13-meter tall statue as depicting a Rus' cavalryman trampling a supine Khazar bearing a Star of David. This created an outcry within the Jewish community of Russia.  The controversy was further exacerbated by Klykov's connections with Pamyat and other anti-Semitic organizations, as well as by his involvement in the "letter of 500", a controversial appeal to the Prosecutor General to review all Jewish organizations in Russia for extremism.  The Press Center of the Belgorod Regional Administration responded by stating that a planned monument to Sviatoslav had not yet been constructed, but would show "respect towards representatives of all nationalities and religions."  When the statue was unveiled, the shield bore a twelve-pointed star.

 989 Vladimir the Great (Russia) (c958– 7/15 1015) was a grand prince of Kiev, ruler of Kievan Rus' in (980–1015), adopted Christianity.  Legend has it that he called upon representatives of the three religions to explain their religions - and chose Christianity.  Hilaria, the first native Metropolitan (bishop) feared Jewish influence and wrote a special treatise "Mosaic Law and Truth of Jesus".  Baptism of Kievan Rus' (Vikings)

 “In the tenth century the Jews possessed salt mines near Nuremberg.  They also traded in arms, and exploited the treasuries of the churches.  But their great specialty... was their trade in slaves.”- Julius Brutzkus in I “The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation” (1970) by Abram Leon

“In the tenth century the Spanish Jews often owed their wealth to their trade in slaves.”-  “Jewish Life in the Middle Ages” (1961) by Israel Abrahams

 Olaf Tryggvason (960s – 1000) was King of Norway from 995 to 1000.  He converted to Christianity in 994.

 A stave church is a medieval wooden church with a post and lintel construction related to timber framing.  The wall frames are filled with vertical planks. Stave churches were once common in Northern Europe.  In Norway alone, it is believed about 1000 were built; recent research has adjusted this number upwards and it is now believed there may have been closer to 2000.  In Sweden, the stave churches were considered obsolete in the Middle Ages and were replaced.  In Norway, they were not replaced as quickly and many survived until the 19th century, when a substantial number were destroyed.  In Norway, 28 historical stave churches remain standing. > Post church (Norwegian: Pallisade) is a term for a church building which predates the stave churches and differ in that the corner posts do not reside on a sill but instead have posts dug into the earth.  Posts are the vertical, roof-bearing timbers that were placed in the excavated post holes.  Posts were often placed in trenches filled with stone, but were still susceptible to decay.

Pope Gregory V (c972, Germany – 2/18, 999) served from 5/3, 996 to death.  One of his first acts was to crown Otto III Emperor on 5/21, 996.   Until the conclusion of the council of Pavia in 997, Gregory V had a rival in the person of the antipope John XVI (997–998), whom Crescentius II and the nobles of Rome had chosen against the will of the youthful Emperor Otto III, Gregory's cousin.  The revolt of Crescentius II was decisively suppressed by the Emperor, who marched upon Rome.  John XVI fled, and Crescentius II shut himself up in the Castel Sant'Angelo. T he Emperor's troops pursued the antipope, captured him, cut off his nose and ears, cut out his tongue, blinded him, and publicly degraded him before Otto III and Gregory V.  He was sent to the monastery of Fulda in Germany, where he lived until 1013.  The Castel Sant'Angelo was besieged, and when it was taken in 998, Crescentius II was hanged upon its walls.  Gregory V died suddenly, not without suspicion of foul play, on 2/18, 999. He is buried in St. Peter's Basilica.

     This story made the rounds in late September 2012, but I didn’t want you to miss it. It’s a 1,000-year-old Buddhist statue – returned to Germany shortly before World War II by a Nazi-backed expedition to Tibet – A recent article about an ancient Tibetan sculpture may sound like something you've seen in the movies. It involves an important archaeological find, it was once in hands of Nazis, and it holds a newly uncovered revelation. The statue, it turns out, was carved from a meteorite that crashed to the Earth 15,000 years ago.

In 10 c., St Andrew the Byzantine prophesied, ‘The kingdom of Israel will be restored and it will become the launching pad of Antichrist’.

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