Syria up to the walls of Antioch, massacring the population indiscriminately, and holding captives of substance against their being replevied by the Romans.[1] On one occasion he burst into the city of Emesa, and finding there four hundred virgins congregated in a church, he sacrificed them all on the same day to Al Uzzâ, the Arabian Venus.[2]
In two states of the Caucasian region, both under kingly rule, Christianity had gained a footing about the time of Constantine.[3] Lazica, previously Colchis, the subject of heroic legends, and now Mingrelia, occupied the coast of the Black Sea north and south of the river Phasis. On its eastern border, watered by the Cyrus, lay Iberia, at present known as Georgia.[4] In 522 the young king of the Lazi, alarmed lest the Persian religion should be forced on him, fled to Constantinople, and prayed for Christian baptism under the immediate countenance of the Emperor. Justin assented,
- ↑ Zachariah Mytil., loc. cit.; cf. Procopius, De Bel. Pers., i, 17.
- ↑ Zachariah Mytil., loc. cit. This account seems to emanate from a contemporary native of Syria; cf. Procopius, De Bel. Pers., ii, 28. Al Lât and Al Uzzâ, names of a lascivious duality, held sway at Mecca till over-*thrown by Mahomet. This Arab, like most of his tribe, appears to have possessed a subtle wit, a circumstance which was utilized for the invention of a skit pointed at the Monophysites. It was related that two bishops of that sect, paying him a visit in the hope of converting him to Christianity, found him apparently in a state of great despair. On being questioned, Alamundar replied that he was shocked at having just heard of the death of the archangel Michael. The missionaries assured him that the death of an angel was an impossibility. "How then," exclaimed the Arab, "can you pretend that Christ, being very God, died on the cross, if he had but one divine nature?" The bishops retired discomfited; Theodore Lect., ii, 35, etc.
- ↑ Rufinus, x, 10; Socrates, i, 20, etc. A Christian captive, a female, won over the royal family by miraculous cures, etc.
- ↑ In the classical period Iberia was the usual name for Spain among the Greeks.
