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Sunday School

Lesson 1: The “Fall” of Rome and the Rise of Islam

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David Capoccia

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Note: This transcript and summary was autogenerated. It has not yet been proofread or edited by a human.

Summary

This lesson launches a series on medieval church history by examining the fall of Rome and the rise of Islam. We are reminded that the Middle Ages were not simply a “dark” or unimportant period, but a complex era that shaped the modern world and the Christian church. The common narrative of the Middle Ages as a period of pure decline is challenged — technologically, artistically, and even spiritually, this era had significant bright spots.

We are called to understand the Roman Empire’s transformation (the West falling in 476, the East enduring until 1453) and how the rapid rise of Islam after Muhammad’s death fundamentally reshaped Christianity by shrinking Christian populations, elevating the bishops of Rome and Constantinople, and sparking both fear and apologetic engagement with Muslims.

Key Lessons:

  1. The Middle Ages were not a uniformly dark or backward period — the medieval church, especially in the early centuries, contained genuine believers and gospel proclamation.
  2. The Roman Catholic Church’s departure from the true gospel was gradual, with the decisive break occurring around 1200 at the Fourth Lateran Council, not at the beginning of the medieval period.
  3. Islam’s rapid expansion was driven not only by military conquest but also by trade, diplomatic influence, and incentive structures like the tribute tax that encouraged conversion away from Christianity.
  4. God remains sovereign over the rise and fall of empires, and He never leaves Himself without a faithful remnant even in the most challenging periods of church history.

Application: We are called to resist oversimplified narratives about church history, to appreciate how medieval developments shaped our faith today, and to respond to the challenge of Islam not with hatred but with the heart of Christ — seeking to love and evangelize rather than merely to oppose.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How does learning that the medieval church contained genuine believers and gospel preachers challenge assumptions you may have held about this period?
  2. In what ways do the incentive structures the caliphate used to spread Islam (Quran, tribute, or the sword) parallel pressures Christians face today to compromise their faith?
  3. How should Christians today respond to the legacy of Islam’s impact on historically Christian regions — with fear, indifference, or gospel-driven love and mission?

Scripture Focus: Ecclesiastes (the past is too deep to discover), Daniel 4:17 (God bestows dominion on whomever He wishes) — teaching that God is sovereign over the rise and fall of nations and empires, and that history ultimately serves His purposes.

Outline

Introduction

Far from no. I’m actually feeling like it’s a little bit of a crime that we only have seven lessons because I feel like there’s so much that I should share with you. But we have to do only seven lessons because Sunday school takes a break starting in July and I don’t want to leave things off until the fall. So we only have seven Sundays until then.

Another reason why we can kind of get away with only seven Sundays, seven lessons series is because I’ve partly covered some issues of medieval church history in our first course in the early church course. So if you want to get the most out of this course, like I wrote in the email, if you saw that yesterday, please go back and make sure you have listened or you do listen to the 101 course. It does overlap with some of the things we’re going to talk about.

If you want to know about my source material, again, see the email I sent yesterday. Just know that primarily this is based off of the seminary course I took with Dr. Nathan Booznet’s historical theology one, but there’s other things that I’ve included.

What’s today’s topic? What’s our first investigation as we go into the Middle Age period? Well, the fall of Rome and the rise of Islam. Now, notice “fall” is in quotes there. I’ll explain that a little bit later.

Here’s my agenda for this first lesson. We are first going to remind ourselves why studying church history and in particular medieval church history is worthwhile. Then we’ll review the fall of Rome and the trajectory of Rome through the medieval period, the Roman Empire that is. And then we will overview the rise of a new transformative force in the seventh and eighth centuries in the middle ages and that is Islam.

Let me pray and ask God’s blessing on this time.

Why Study Medieval Church History?

Heavenly Father, thank you that you are the Lord of history and that you always are faithful. God, I pray that we would be encouraged as well as informed by this study of church history and we would treasure you and your word and your promises even more in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Okay, let’s talk about the first part of our agenda today. Why study medieval church history? This question is like one I asked at the beginning of the church history 101 course: Why study church history in general? Is there any real benefit to be had from this labor? Shouldn’t we just study the Bible instead?

Well, certainly we must never give up the priority of Bible study. However, if you will allow me to remind you briefly of what I said in the 101 class as to why studying church history is also worthwhile and even crucial for Christians, I have four reasons.

First, church history is the history of God’s family, our family, your family. If you are in Jesus Christ, it is the record of our family after the Bible ends and thus should be innately interesting to us. Don’t you want to know your family? Don’t you want to know what happened to them and how you’ve inherited what came from them? Study church history.

Second, church history is a portal of access to sanctifying fellowship with our extended family, even believers in the past. This fellowship is with believers who have a unique perspective because they are unaffected by our own age and biases from our culture. We can’t get this perspective in just the fellowship we have in the world today. So there’s a unique benefit.

These past brethren, these departed brothers and sisters, they can teach and encourage and warn us in a special way by their own perspective and by their own examples.

Third, church history is a clear testimony of God’s faithfulness to everything he says in his word. This is not something that competes with the word of God. This is something that reinforces the word of God because we see God’s word vindicated in many ways in church history. Church history is like a blinking arrow directing us back to the word of God for everything we need for godliness and joy in this life.

“Church history is a clear testimony of God’s faithfulness to everything he says in his word.”

Not only from the testimonies of our brethren, but in the developments that occur in history.

Fourth and finally, church history, like the recorded histories in the Bible, fundamentally helps us better understand origins. Why the world is, why Christianity is the way that we see it today. The circumstances we encounter didn’t just appear out of the sky. No, that’s based on what came before, even what happened in the medieval period.

The Middle Ages: Not Just a ‘Dark’ Period

Now, to these four reasons for a general church history study, someone may still say, “But the Middle Ages really, I mean, I can understand studying early church history that’s close to the time of the apostles, or better reformation church history, but what benefit could there be of studying medieval church history? I mean, shouldn’t we just skip this dull period and get back to the good stuff?” That is a common sentiment.

And maybe you feel that way, too. Especially if you’re well acquainted with the reformers and the way they reacted against what came before them in the Middle Ages.

But here’s where I need to stand up and defend the Middle Ages just a little bit. Just listen to that term for this next period of history: the Middle Ages. By the way, medieval means the same thing from the Latin medium ivam, or middle age.

What do these terms suggest about the period that we’re about to examine? There’s something before and something after. Anything else that these terms suggest?

How important are the middle ages compared to what came before and after? Truly, it is just as important. But with this term, it suggests that it’s not that important. It’s just a transition period.

What are the ages before and after the middle ages? We have the classical period of Greece and Rome. And then we have what comes after: the Renaissance, rebirth. But that’s a little condescending to the people who are in the Middle Ages, right? They didn’t think they were in a mere transition period, something unimportant. They were on the cutting edge. Medieval was modern to them.

An even worse term for this period is the dark ages. Because what does that suggest? Evil. It’s evil. It’s ignorant. It was when the world got worse. It was a backwards time.

“Medieval was modern to them.”

Understandably, medieval historians really don’t like the term dark ages except as an appropriate descriptor of the early Middle Ages. Not because it was a bad time period, but because we don’t know what happened. There are very few records of the early Middle Ages.

So dark ages were kind of in the dark about that period. But it’s not because that period was especially bad.

Indeed, were the Middle Ages really just a dark, depressing, unimportant time? Well, it depends on your point of view.

Correcting Misconceptions About the Middle Ages

It depends on what you value. When we first start to see people use terms like the Middle Ages and the Dark Ages to describe this period, it’s in the Renaissance and in the Enlightenment. What was it that these periods particularly valued? They valued reason. They valued classical literature, classical art, and classical ideas going back to Greece and Rome.

Those in the Enlightenment in particular—and the Enlightenment period would be the 1600s to 1700s—looked back with disdain on the Middle Ages because of the Enlightenment’s emphasis on human ability through reason to understand and solve all the world’s problems. In the Middle Ages, by contrast, while not forgetting the value of reason, they nonetheless asserted greater value in faith. Belief in God. Reason subordinated to faith. So faith came first, reason underneath it, reason only being able to take you so far.

And if we’re familiar with the teaching of scripture as Christians, isn’t this a concept that we should agree with?

“In the Middle Ages, while not forgetting reason, they asserted greater value in faith.”

We probably find it easy to believe the intellectual narratives constructed for us regarding the Middle Ages because those narratives seem so simple. It’s a neat way to divide history: here’s where civilization was great, here’s where it kind of lost itself for a while, and here’s when it became great again in the Renaissance.

Or from a Protestant perspective, it’s very neat and tidy to say, “Here’s when the church was right and the gospel was being proclaimed in the early church. Here’s where everything got lost in that middle period. And then here’s when Protestants rediscovered the gospel in the Protestant Reformation.” It’s very neat and tidy, but history is more complicated than that.

We often think of the Middle Ages as being a downgrade in everything that’s good in science, art, culture, and the gospel, especially compared to the early church or classical period. But the more we find out about the Middle Ages, the more we find out that this is not the case. It was not a downgrade in all areas, but it was a change.

For instance, you may have heard that in the Middle Ages, people thought the earth was flat. But that’s not true. Basically, virtually no scholars after 300 BC expressed belief in a flat earth. That idea about what middle-aged people thought is misinformation from the 19th century—people going back and saying this is what they thought when they didn’t really.

The medieval period saw the invention or adoption of many new important technologies. These people weren’t slouches when it came to their thinking. They were innovative. They discovered and implemented great ideas and technology such as the heavy plow from the fifth century, the stirrup from the sixth century, the horseshoe from the ninth century, the basket wine press from the twelfth century, the rib vault from the twelfth century, and the chimney from the twelfth century, just to name a few.

In terms of art, the style and preferences in the Middle Ages were certainly different than that of classical antiquity. But skilled artistry continued. Even today, we have many beautifully decorated bookbindings and book pages, elaborate tapestries, religious icons, gorgeous but creepy reliquaries, and awe-inspiring buildings.

“It was not a downgrade in all areas, but it was a change.”

These are still some of the most celebrated architecture in Europe. These awe-inspiring cathedrals—you see it in the pictures. Writing continued as well in the Middle Ages, mostly from clergy but also by secular authors. The Middle Ages saw many hymns, hagiographies (that is, stories of saints’ lives), theological treatises, philosophical treatises, histories, poems, and even epics.

Some of the more famous works from this period include Beowulf, the Canterbury Tales, The Song of Roland, and the Summa Theologica. Now, someone might say, “Well, what about safety? Isn’t it true that the Middle Ages were essentially anarchy? People living in fear that roving barbarians or knights might come and slaughter them at any moment?” Well, that’s partially true.

Violence was a big part of the medieval period. But violence has been a part of pretty much every period. Actually, people were more well protected by their feudal lords in the medieval period than by the Roman Empire in the Western Empire’s last two centuries. Indeed, in late antiquity, the Romans, especially in the West, did an increasingly poor job of protecting people on its borders from barbarians.

One source I read claimed that life expectancy actually went up in the Middle Ages rather than down, at least compared to the end of the Roman period. Now, what about spiritually?

The Medieval Church: Not Entirely Corrupt

Weren’t the medieval church corrupt and apostate? Weren’t medieval Christians superstitious and focused only on external righteousness? Weren’t all Christians just raid Muslim haters?

These are oversimplifications. The later Middle Ages were indeed a period in which the Roman Catholic Church became increasingly corrupt and apostate, and many Christian followers consequently were lost and confused. But the early Middle Ages generally speaking were not like that.

In this course, we’re going to speak positively about people like Pope Leo I and Pope Gregory I. Men who in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries were true believers in our Lord Jesus Christ and proclaimers of the true gospel.

Really, the history of the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages is one of very gradual movement away from the true faith with various reformers along the way saying, “Hey, we’re seeing unbiblical things in the church. We need to get back on track.” But these aren’t simply people outside the church. Guess who’s preaching that message most prominently? Early medieval popes.

“The history of the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages is one of very gradual movement away from the true faith.”

And also bishops and regional councils, different brothers and sisters in the Middle Ages, especially in the early period, are rejecting things like prayers to saints, clergy members not actually preaching in their churches, the adoration of icons and other unbiblical practices.

Truly, when we think about the Middle Ages and the Roman Catholic Church and to some extent the Greek Orthodox Church, I posit to you that we should think of the medieval church as an imperfect yet true body of Christians.

Throughout most of the Middle Ages, the breaking point comes at about the year 1200, though we begin to see some obviously corrupt popes from about 800 to 1000.

The Gradual Departure from the Gospel

It’s really the fourth Lateran Council in 1215 that finally articulates the Roman Catholic Church sacramentalism as we know it today, officially asserting doctrines like transubstantiation and necessary confession to priests, the efficacy of the Eucharist, etc. Thomas Aquinas, the high Middle Ages scholar, would emphasize this movement towards apostasy in his work, the Summa Theologica, and that’s in the later 1200s.

This work officially articulates the Roman Catholic Church’s seven sacraments and explains their saving and sanctifying abilities. Now, were such ideas in the Catholic Church before 1200? Sure, but they were not officially embraced by all congregations or officially asserted as dogma from Rome.

As you build a mental timeline for thinking about when the church goes off track in the Middle Ages and fundamentally departs from the true gospel, we’re really talking about the high and late Middle Ages, not the whole thing.

But even in the latter portion of the Middle Ages, God didn’t leave himself without a remnant. He didn’t leave himself without a witness, without a light of the gospel because he never does. Though the Reformation is thought traditionally to begin in 1517 with Martin Luther, we first start seeing substantial pre-Reformation movements around 1200.

The Waldensians, the first big pre-Reformation movement, appear in 1170, right around the time the official church is obviously embracing apostasy.

“God didn’t leave himself without a remnant. He didn’t leave himself without a witness.”

A Balanced View of the Middle Ages

So, we need to more closely examine some of the things we’ve heard or thought about the Middle Ages. This isn’t to say that everything we’ve heard and been taught before is untrue.

Did international trade decline in Europe in the medieval period? Probably. Europe’s economies apparently did become more regional and self-sufficient, and serfdom was involved in this.

Did literacy decline from what we saw in the classical period? Likely yes, since reading and writing were not important for most people in society whose primary occupations were soldier and farmer. Therefore, the literate were either those who could afford it, or they were clergy or monks.

Did much of Europe change from one ruling power to many ruling powers in the Middle Ages? Yes. But again, whether that’s a good or a bad thing depends on your point of view.

In trying to correct our assumptions about the Middle Ages, I don’t want to paint too rosy of a picture. It’s not like this was a golden age. It was a period that had its bright spots and its dark spots like every other time in human history and in church history.

We sometimes think of the early church as being the golden age of Christianity, but if you were in the 101 course, you realize that is not the case. There are serious problems going on in the early church.

“It was a period that had its bright spots and its dark spots like every other time in human history.”

And we think of it too highly. But I think the Middle Ages has the opposite problem. We think that it’s the dark age, that there’s nothing good happening. No, it wasn’t as bad as we often think, though it did have its dark spots.

Certainly, as we go through and study medieval church history, you will find that so much of the modern world and even today’s Christian church was shaped by medieval developments.

When Did Rome Fall?

All this to say, the study of medieval church history is just as much worth our time as the study of church history in other periods. Now let’s get more specific and learn about the Middle Ages.

We move on to our second agenda point by discussing what happened to the Roman Empire. Before we talk about the what, let’s talk about the when. When did Rome fall?

The most traditional date for Rome’s fall is 476, but there’s a fair amount of debate about which date best represents the real fall of Rome and the beginning of the Middle Ages. In general, historians place the Middle Ages between AD 500 and 1500, with some choosing more specific dates around those times to begin and end the period.

Many historians divide the Middle Ages themselves into three parts, which you see at the bottom of this slide: the early Middle Ages, approximately 500 to 1,000; the high Middle Ages, approximately 1,000 to 1,300; and the late Middle Ages, approximately 1,300 to 1,500. In our church study, I’m generally going to treat the Middle Ages as running from 476 to 1453.

In 476, the last Western Roman emperor is deposed in Rome. In 1453, well, does anyone know what significant event happens in that year? It is the fall of Constantinople. The Ottoman Empire takes over, and the last Eastern Roman emperor is deposed. So that’s the when.

Let’s now clarify the what—what happened to the Roman Empire. In 476, the Western Roman Empire is replaced by a collection of kingdoms. The Western Roman Empire falls, and the Western Roman emperors do not rule again.

But notice I keep saying western because I understand that aside from the emperors Constantine and Theodosius, after the 3rd century, the Roman Empire was continually ruled by not one emperor but two—two different emperors, one in the west and one in the east.

“Historians place the Middle Ages between AD 500 and 1500.”

The Fall of the Western Roman Empire

However, these western emperors gradually lost power and became puppets, symbolic rulers only with real power resting with influential Roman generals or barbarian warlords. The Western Roman Empire consequently got weaker and weaker, gradually ceding territory to barbarians on its borders until the city of Rome itself became vulnerable to attack.

Rome was sacked by Alaric the Goth in 410, which prompted Augustine to write the City of God. Rome was nearly pillaged by Attila the Hun in 452. Rome was plundered by the Vandals around 455. Finally, in 476, Rome was conquered by the barbarian Odoacer.

Rather than taking what wealth he could and just leaving, he decided to set up a kingdom in Italy. So we finally have a barbarian ruling in Rome. What caused the deterioration of the Western Roman Empire? Why did it fall apart?

This is an interesting question and the subject of much debate and many books. I covered this question a little more fully in my 101 class, so I’m not going to rehash the full explanation here. But certainly there are a lot of theories put forward as to why the Roman Empire weakened and fell in the West.

“Rome was sacked by Aleric the Goth in 410, prompting Augustine to write the City of God.”

Why Did Rome Fall?

Did it fail because of a fundamental flaw in Roman society itself? Was there some unlucky factor outside of Rome’s control that doomed the empire? Was there just a perfect storm of pressures that simply overwhelmed an otherwise robust system?

Or did the empire not really fall at all but just undergo a necessary decentralizing transformation? The problem with definitively answering the question as to why Rome fell is that there isn’t much evidence to show us an answer. And what evidence exists is variously interpreted.

It certainly is clear that as we go into the 400s, the Western Roman Empire gradually lost territory. Its city shrank in size, its tax revenues dried up, its military declined in quality, and its trade diminished.

The why exactly this all happened has not yet been settled, and it may never be. I think of Ecclesiastes where Solomon says, “The past is too deep to discover.” There’s so much about the past that has been lost, and it’s difficult to recover.

Daniel 4:17: “God bestows dominion on whomever he wishes.”

But whatever the reason or reasons humanly speaking for the Western Roman Empire’s fall, its decline or transformation was ultimately because it was God’s will. It fit God’s purpose.

As God says to Nebuchadnezzar, God bestows dominion on whomever he wishes. And so God eventually said to the Western Roman Empire, “Your time is up. Your purpose has been fulfilled.” Just as God may one day say to our own nation or to other nations in the world.

Again, with the Western Roman Empire no more, the area was filled up by various kingdoms, some of which would form the basis for nations of the modern world. For instance, the Franks took over Gaul and they called it Frankia, which eventually became modern France.

The Anglo-Saxons ended up setting up shop in Britannia and they called it Angloland, which eventually became modern England. But while the western half of the Roman Empire disappeared, things were different in the east.

The Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire

If Eastern Romans were around today, they’d probably get really annoyed about everybody talking about the fall of Rome in 476 because they’d probably say, “Hello, we’re Romans, too, and we did not fall at that time.” Indeed, the Eastern Roman Empire would survive for another thousand years after the fall of the West, which is pretty incredible when you think about it.

If you take the beginning of the Roman Empire and add it to the longevity of the Eastern Roman Empire, that means Rome lasted for 1,500 years, which is six times longer than the United States has been a nation. And it’s not like those in the East stopped being Roman.

“Rome lasted for 1,500 years — six times longer than the United States has been a nation.”

We often call the Eastern Roman Empire in the medieval period the Byzantine Empire, but the people at the time didn’t call it that. Despite not actually ruling from the city of Rome or speaking Latin after the year 500 or so, people in the Byzantine Empire called themselves Romans, Romoi in Greek.

We called them the Byzantine Empire for the sake of convenience and to emphasize the change in the empire with the loss of its western portion. But let’s remember that’s not the way that they thought of themselves. They thought of themselves as Romans.

By the way, Byzantine comes from the ancient name of the city of Constantinople, which was called Byzántium in Latin or Byzanton in Greek. So that’s where the term Byzantine comes from.

Justinian and Byzantine Legacy

Now this Eastern Roman Empire, which we call the Byzantine Empire, had both periods of prosperity and periods of decline throughout the Middle Ages. This is a long-lasting polity and it has its ups and downs.

Justinian I is someone you need to know. Justinian the First was a great Byzantine emperor who ruled from 527 to 565. He reconquered much western Roman territory during his reign, including most of Italy and much of North Africa.

He also created the Corpus Juris Civilis. This document was a codification and a rewriting of Roman law that became the basis of civil law in many modern nations. He was one of the last emperors to use Latin.

Indeed, the legacy of Rome was continuing through Justinian and through the Byzantine Empire. Additionally, Justinian constructed the Hagia Sophia, the church of holy wisdom in Constantinople, modern-day Istanbul.

By the way, the four towers on the Hagia Sophia that you see in the picture were added later. Does anyone know what they are? They are minarets.

After the Muslim conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque. It was later converted into a museum in 1935, but in 2020 it was made a mosque again and it still is, though there is a museum portion now on the upper floor.

Justinian, in a way, was restoring even more the glory of the Roman Empire, but it was only for a time. After Justinian, the Byzantine Empire declined again, then later improved, then declined, then improved, then declined.

“The legacy of Rome was continuing through Justinian and the Byzantine Empire.”

The Decline and Fall of Byzantium

The Byzantine Empire was a great power through most of the Middle Ages until a mortal blow was struck against them in 1204 in a very unexpected way. The poor Eastern Romans had the unfortunate responsibility of fighting against each Middle Eastern empire that emerged. After the 600s, it was Muslim empires.

First the Romans were fighting against the Sassanid Persians, then the Arab empires, then the Seljuk Turks, and finally the Ottoman Turks. Every great empire in the Middle East kept banging up against Byzantium, the Eastern Roman Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire generally was holding its own and doing okay until they made the mistake of accepting the help of Western crusaders around the year 1200.

Due to a series of bizarre and unfortunate circumstances, which I’ll describe in a later lesson, the crusaders of the Fourth Crusade ended up fighting not against the Muslims, but against the Christian Byzantines. These crusaders attacked and sacked Constantinople and set up a Latin—that is, a Western—kingdom there.

Though the Byzantines eventually threw off Western control, they never really recovered from this setback. After the 1200s, the Eastern Roman Empire gradually declined until Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

“The crusaders of the fourth crusade ended up fighting not against the Muslims, but against the Christian Byzantines.”

If you really want to talk about the fall of the Roman Empire, a more accurate understanding notes a difference between the fall in the west, traditionally dated to 476, and the fall in the east in 1453. No matter when you date the official fall, the Middle Ages was definitely a time of change for Roman Christians—both in the east, those under the official empire, and those in the west who were under the empire’s successors.

We’re going to track many of those changes in our course together. We’re through two agenda items. We now know what happened to the Roman Empire, generally speaking.

But where did the Muslim empires come from, and how did they get so powerful? Let’s talk about the rise of Islam.

The Rise of Islam: Muhammad’s Early Life

We all know the founder of Islam. Who’s that?

Muhammad. Muhammad was born in 570 in Mecca, modern-day Saudi Arabia. His father died before he was born. His mother died when he was six.

Muhammad was raised by his uncle, a merchant and leader of Muhammad’s clan. Muhammad trained under his uncle and became a wealthy merchant. He obtained a reputation for being an honest man, a good man.

He married his first wife, the wealthy widow Kadaja or Kada—I’ve heard it both ways—when he was 25 and she was 40. Note that Muhammad’s harem would only come later after Kadaja’s death.

Mecca, Muhammad’s hometown, was both a center of pagan worship and a center of trade. Mecca contained many gods and many idols, but the high god in the Arabian pantheon was God—Allah in Arabic.

The Kaba, the square structure that many Muslims still journey to today in Mecca to walk around, existed in Muhammad’s day as a shrine to Allah, the Arabs’ high God. Though it originally had many various idols, gods and goddesses around it.

Think of Mecca as this big pagan worship site. It’s got this structure, this shrine to Allah, but many other gods as well.

Now, Muhammad grew up part of this tribal religion.

“Muhammad was raised by his uncle, a merchant and leader of his clan.”

Muhammad’s Visions and Mission

But he soon encountered Christians and Jews in Mecca and on his travels as a merchant. He even ran into some Christian heretics who had various strange ideas about God. Now Muhammad appears to have eventually adopted his own version of a monotheistic religion, a personal religion. He was very devoted.

As part of his personal devotion, Muhammad often went alone to pray in a cave on Mount Hyra near Mecca. It was there, in 610 at 40 years old, that Muhammad had his first supposed vision from God—a message from the angel Gabriel.

Muhammad was initially terrified by the vision, wondering if he was being oppressed by demons or if the vision really were from God. Would others ever believe him? But Muhammad was encouraged by his wife especially and his other friends that this vision must be from Allah himself. Muhammad ought not to fear this vision or any others, for surely God would not allow such a good man to be deceived by a false vision.

“Muhammad was initially terrified by the vision, wondering if he was being oppressed by demons.”

Muhammad did not receive his next vision until three years later. In that next vision, Gabriel told Muhammad, allegedly, that the one and only God had commanded Muhammad to preach to others new revelation as God’s prophet.

Muhammad’s mission was to restore true religion toward the monotheistic God, not only for the polytheistic pagans, but also for the Jews and Christians.

Now, this isn’t the first time in church history that we hear about someone receiving new revelation supposedly to restore true worship to God, and it won’t be the last. Nevertheless, Muhammad obeyed the visions and began preaching his new message, a combination of Judaism, Christianity, and traditional tribal beliefs in Mecca.

Muhammad’s Persecution and Flight to Medina

Muhammad preaches in Mecca. Though he immediately gained some followers from his preaching, he mostly met with opposition. After all, Mecca was the center of local pagan worship, and it made great money off of its worshippers.

Muhammad therefore began to be persecuted, and some of his followers were tortured and killed.

“Though he gained some followers, he mostly met with opposition. Muhammad began to be persecuted.”

In 622, sensing his own life to be in danger, Muhammad and his followers fled from Mecca to which city? Medina, at that time called Yathreb. The people of Medina were much more receptive to monotheism and to the idea of a new prophet.

They saw in Muhammad a leader who could bring peace between the city’s tribes that had warred against each other in previous years.

The Conquest of Mecca and Unification of Arabia

Soon after Muhammad arrived, he created the Constitution of Medina, a set of religious and practical laws that essentially set up the first Islamic State. Mecca continued to harass Muslim communities after Muhammad’s flight. Muhammad committed himself to conquering the city through skillful political maneuvers and a number of victories over Mecca and its allies. Muhammad built up a strong army.

In 630, Muhammad marched on Mecca with more than 10,000 men. The city surrendered, and when Muhammad offered them mercy, the people there adopted Islam. Muhammad’s followers then destroyed all the city’s idols and rededicated the Kaaba for Islamic worship.

Mecca has remained the holiest site in Islam ever since and is the city to which all Muslims pray and to which they are supposed to go on pilgrimage, or the Hajj. Amazed at Muhammad’s victories and fearful of his power, many of the other Arabian tribes quickly joined with Muhammad and converted to Islam.

By the year 632, the year of Muhammad’s death, most of Arabia was under Muhammad’s control. But at the age of 62 or 63, Muhammad fell ill and died. He was buried beneath his favorite new wife’s room, which later was made part of the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina. His tomb is still there to this day.

So now we see how Islamic power initially started. It was with Muhammad and with his skillful maneuvering and leadership to control Medina, conquer Mecca, and unite the Arabian tribes. But how did Islamic power get to the point that it was the primary threat to Christians in Europe? That answer has to do with the prophet’s successors, or caliphs.

“By the year 632, the year of Muhammad’s death, most of Arabia was under Muhammad’s control.”

The Caliphate: Explosive Expansion

Caliph is the Arabic word that means successor. Despite Muhammad’s eventual harem of 14 plus wives and concubines, Muhammad had no surviving sons. However, Muhammad had created a strong expansion-minded, religiously united state that was stepping into a power vacuum in Europe and in the Middle East.

As we discussed earlier in today’s lesson, the Western Roman Empire had long disintegrated before the arrival of the Islamic Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire had weakened itself trying to reconquer Western Rome’s old territory and fighting against the Sassanid Persians. The Sassanid Empire in turn had weakened itself with its wars against Byzantium. Just before 630, the Sassanids and the Byzantines had just fought an extremely costly war which Byzantium had won, but both sides were exhausted because of the effort.

In addition to this, certain provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire, namely Syria and Egypt, had grown disaffected with Constantinople’s political and religious control. Ever since the Council of Chalcedon, the Christians in Syria and Egypt were never fully on board with what the council had decided and what Constantinople was trying to enforce. There had always remained this tension, and it persisted even into the early 600s.

Therefore, the caliphate, as the Muslim Empire came to be known, found ready and easy expansion into the formerly Persian and Roman lands with the Christians in Syria and Egypt even welcoming Muslim warriors as liberators. Within about a hundred years, the caliphate extended from India to Spain as you can see on the map. If not for the defeat at the Battle of Tours or Poitiers in 732, which took place between those two cities, the caliphate would have gone even further north into France. But it was checked at that battle.

Now, if you’re amazed just looking back at this period at Islam’s rapid expansion, just imagine what it was like to live during those days.

“Within about a hundred years, the caliphate extended from India to Spain.”

How Islam Spread: Quran, Tribute, or the Sword

Such success seemed almost miraculous, as if divinely gifted. We often hear about Muslim religion expanding by the sword. But that is only partly true. The essential motto of the expanding caliphate was summed up well by one Muslim warrior: the Quran, tribute, or the sword. Can anybody explain what those three options are?

If you’re encountering these Muslim armies and they say the Quran, tribute, or the sword, what are your options?

That’s right. You can convert and become Muslim and join the Islamic enterprise. You can not convert, but just submit to Muslim rule and pay a tribute tax as a non-Muslim. Or you can fight and most likely die because that’s what everybody else did who tried to resist the Muslim expansion.

It’s very hard to overcome these Muslim armies. This is primarily how the Muslim religion expanded through this three-fold endeavor because no matter which option you choose—Quran, tribute, or the sword—you will end up aiding the spread of Islam.

Many groups like the various tribes in Arabia following Muhammad’s victories converted out of fear or they saw the Muslim victories as proof of Allah’s existence and of his favor on Muslims. So many took the first option. Others submitted to the Jizya, the tribute tax for non-Muslims.

But why would this also lead to conversions to Islam? People respond to incentives. And monetary incentives can be very powerful. People don’t want to pay a tax and they don’t want to be second-class citizens. Remember, we covered this in the 101 course.

Many Christians in these conquered regions were only half-converts. They were those who were baptized and made part of the church, but they were never really part of Christ. So when these Muslim empires roll over your territory, why stay Christian? Why pay tax when the Christian God clearly cannot stand up to the Islamic God?

If you fought the Muslims, as I said, you probably got defeated or killed since most people did. And that’s not really going to stop the spread of Islam. That’s only going to aid it.

“No matter which option you choose — Quran, tribute, or the sword — you end up aiding the spread of Islam.”

Now, not everyone converted to Islam. Many Christians and Jews continued to practice their religions in the conquered territories, but in segregated communities, and they had to pay a tax.

They had to pay a poll tax. Aside from this tax, life under the caliphate wasn’t too bad for Christians. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible.

Non-Muslims had slightly fewer rights. And every once in a while there were pogroms against Jews or Christians—random massacres, random acts of violence, zealous violence against Christians.

But most significantly, Christians in Muslim-controlled lands were forbidden on pain of death from public displays of worship, from evangelizing Muslims, and from any writing or speech that could be considered offensive to Muhammad. Also, any Muslims who converted to Christianity were to be put to death. That sound familiar?

I should also mention that trade was another important way that Islamic religion spread. Muslim merchants brought their religion with them just as Christian merchants had brought the message of Jesus six centuries earlier.

Furthermore, as some historians have noted, rulers of various kingdoms thought that converting to Islam would increase the ruler’s legitimacy as well as secure favorable diplomatic and trade relations with the mighty caliphate. As we’ve already seen in the 101 course with Constantine, the conversion of a ruler to a religion often goes together with the conversion, or at least the half-conversion, of the ruler’s subjects.

This is partly why we see Islam in many African nations today as well as in far-flung Indonesia. This was not by conquest. This was by trade and by the diplomatic influence of the caliphate.

So caliphate expansion was explosive. Yet the power of Arab and Muslim unity would not last. Not only would Shia Muslims begin splitting from Sunni Muslims in the mid-600s, but also the original caliphate itself would eventually divide into different Muslim polities.

Some of the new Muslim states would continue warring with Christians, especially in Spain, in Sicily, and in the remaining Byzantine Empire of Greece and Turkey. The eastern piece of the caliphate, later becoming the Ottoman Empire, would finally destroy the Byzantine Empire in 1453.

And then that Ottoman Empire would last for quite a while. It would participate in World War I and wouldn’t be dissolved until 1923. If you see on this map, the Ottoman Empire eventually made substantial gains into Eastern Europe, even coming to the very gates of Vienna in Austria.

Effects of Islamic Expansion on Christianity

A very powerful and transformative force through the Middle Ages and beyond. The last thing I want to cover in our class today is this: What were the effects of Islamic expansion on medieval Christians and medieval Christianity? We may have time for a few questions afterwards.

I’ll give you eight effects briefly, and many of these will be no surprise to you.

Number one: a steady decline of Christians in Muslim-controlled areas. If you’re not allowed to convert, if people who do convert are to be put to death, if you’re not allowed to evangelize—all those types of things—and there’s a heavy incentive to convert away from Christianity, well, over time, you’re going to lose Christians. There just aren’t going to be very many Christians in that area.

Which is why there are virtually no Christians in many Muslim countries today in North Africa, Arabia, and Central Asia. It’s because of this. This is also why there are only small Christian minorities in otherwise historically Christian regions such as Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Turkey.

This is where the gospel first went. This is where the first churches were established. It’s a huge and ancient tradition of Christianity in these areas. And yet there are so few Christians. Why? Because of the Muslim empires and because of their policies.

“This is where the gospel first went. This is where the first churches were established. And yet there are so few Christians.”

What was another effect?

Christian Soul-Searching and Renewed Unity

Number two, Christian soulsearching.

After Christian military defeats and Muslim religious taunts, one of the things that Muslims criticized Christians for incessantly was belief in the Trinity, veneration of Mary, veneration of icons. And I think there was one other thing that I’m forgetting right now.

Christians had to think, all right, are they right about any of these things? How do we answer that? It is interesting that Muslim mocking of Christians for idolatry did lead, for a short period in the Byzantine Empire, to a period of iconoclasm where the Byzantine emperors made an effort to remove and destroy all Christian images that were being used for worship.

They said this is idolatry. This goes against scripture. We would actually agree with that. But this effort didn’t last.

“Muslim mocking of Christians for idolatry led to a period of iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire.”

In the seventh and last ecumenical council, the second council of Nicaea in 787, icon worship was officially restored as a legitimate worship practice for Christians. We would not agree with that, but that was just an example of some of the turmoil that the Muslims caused and even Christian soulsearching.

Number three, another effect of the Muslim conquest, ironically, was renewed religious unity in non-Muslim controlled Eastern Christianity. As I said earlier, for 200 years after the Council of Chalcedon, Alexandria and Syria, or Egypt and Syria, had opposed Constantinople over describing the nature of Christ. This is called the Monophysite controversy.

But with the loss of these regions to Islam, Eastern Christianity could simply move on without reconciliation. We don’t have to get these guys on board anymore. They’re not part of our territory. Which explains why the Nestorians in the east, Syria and Persia, and the Copts in the south in Egypt, are still separate from the Eastern Church today. There was never any reconciliation.

A fourth effect of the Muslim conquest was apologetic and evangelistic efforts to reach Muslims.

Evangelistic Efforts and Fear of Muslims

Now, this is encouraging, right? This is what we had hoped for. Admittedly, most Christians did not seriously attempt this, especially as doing so within Muslim-controlled territory could get a person killed. But some Christians did. Some Christians outside Muslim territories and even some brave souls who traveled to Muslim territories or were already residing there.

Out of love for Muslims and out of love for the glory of God, they sought to give the gospel even to their conquerors. We see this in people like Raymond Lull, John of Damascus, and Thomas Aquinas. What’s encouraging about these Christians is that they used largely the same Bible-based arguments that Christians use today to defend Christianity and to persuade Muslims of the gospel.

But there is another effect which clashes with what I just shared with you. The fifth effect was a new deep emotional fear and hatred of Muslims among many in Christian lands, especially in the regions without regular interaction with Muslims. This is regrettable, but it is understandable, isn’t it?

“Out of love for Muslims and for the glory of God, they sought to give the gospel even to their conquerors.”

The Arab armies gobbled up so much ancient Christian territory so rapidly, and by their regular ongoing wars with Christians, they seemed intent to force all of Europe to submit to Islam.

Whereas many Eastern Christians came to respect the culture and civilization of the Arab and Turkish empires, many Western Christians fell victim to an almost mindless hostility that simply saw Islam and those who followed it as the enemy to be defeated and destroyed at all costs. Some of this still exists today.

Militarization of Christianity and Preservation of Greek Texts

Also, a sixth and related effect was the militarization of Christianity against the clear and present danger of the Islamic Empire. Between the sword and the pen, many European Christians saw the sword as the more demonstrably effective option for countering Islam.

Thus, not only were many Christian kingdoms determined to defend against Islamic incursion at all costs, they were also intent on reconquering land from the Muslim invaders.

This increased militarization of Christianity would show up in the rise of Christian military orders as well as the later armed pilgrimages to Muslim lands known as the Crusades.

Seventh, another unexpected outcome was the preservation and transmission of important ancient Greek texts to Western Europe. As knowledge of the Greek language disappeared in the west, so did access to many ancient Greek works and authors, including Aristotle.

But as many Islamic rulers became interested in amassing and profiting from ancient knowledge, Greek texts got translated by subject Greek scholars into Arabic. These Arabic texts later became translated into Latin, especially in frontier areas like Spain and Sicily.

This rediscovery of Greek and especially Aristotelian texts via these Latin translations of the Arabic of the Greek would later have a profound effect on medieval theology, philosophy, and science in the high and late Middle Ages.

“The rediscovery of Greek texts via Latin translations of Arabic would have a profound effect on medieval theology.”

The Elevation of Rome and Constantinople

Finally, one more effect: the elevation of the bishops of Rome and Constantinople. The Muslim conquest caused the elevation of the bishops of Rome and Constantinople. Now, if you were part of the 101 course, you may remember something called the pentarchy.

Can anybody tell me what that was?

As there was a drive to monoepiscopacy in the early church—centralization of church authority around one bishop in each church rather than a plurality of elders as scripture teaches—there was also this drive to centralize authority in certain prominent churches. We have one bishop in each church, but some churches are more important than others. They exert more influence. They have more prestige. They have more authority.

Usually these were centered on historic Christian sites or major metropolises. And so there emerged five churches in five cities with the greatest respect, authority, and influence: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria in Egypt, Antioch in Syria, and Jerusalem. They were the spiritual leaders of Christianity through the latter part of the early church period.

Sometimes Rome or Constantinople would say, “Hey, we’re the leader of the leaders.” And other leaders would say, “No, you’re just one of the leaders. You need to listen to us as well.” Well, with the Islamic conquests, what just happened to the pentarchy?

Three of the pentarchy seats are gone. They’re under Muslim control. So yes, there are still churches there, but their influence on the rest of Christianity is going to be severely muted. This means the prominence and rivalry between the two remaining seats—Rome and Constantinople—intensifies. Now they’re the two leading lights of Christianity in Europe.

But what do you notice just looking at this map here about the geography of these two sites? If these are the two leaders, what do you notice about the geography of Rome versus Constantinople?

Rome dominates Europe. Constantinople is a very storied site—the site of the Byzantine emperors—but it’s all the way in the east. So maybe some of the people around Constantinople are going to look to the bishop there for spiritual guidance and authority. But if you’re in Frankia or Visigothic Spain or even in Germany, Constantinople is far away.

“If you’re in Frankia or Visigothic Spain, Constantinople is far away. Whom are you going to look to? Rome.”

Whom are you going to look to for leadership? Rome.

And thus we see one of the key factors in the elevation of the Roman papacy in the Middle Ages. Why did the Roman Catholic Church, why did the papacy become so powerful and influential in the Middle Ages? This is one of the main causes: because of the Islamic conquest and the removal of these other pentarchy seats, and the rivalry and distance of Constantinople. All Western Christians, or most Western Christians, are looking to Rome for guidance.

In the next two lessons, we’re going to talk about the elevation of the Roman papacy and how that was good and how that was bad. That does it for today’s lesson.

I have a couple minutes for questions about what you heard today.

Q&A: Bible Availability in the Medieval Period

During that period, the question for people is whether the Bible was available and understandable. Was the Bible available for medieval Christians? We’ve heard that it was not and that it couldn’t even be read in the languages of the people. Is that true?

It’s a little hard to say for the early medieval period. Going into late antiquity, the scriptures are available. In fact, Jerome’s Vulgate in the fifth century is an effort to translate both the Old and New Testaments into Latin, the language of the people. This was meant to be disseminated for people to use in the church, but also to be read to the laity and even by the laity if they had the wealth and resources to acquire it.

This is going to change as the medieval period goes on. As literacy declines and the availability of scriptures declines from a monetary standpoint, books become increasingly expensive. They are costly to produce because they’re not using papyrus. Usually they are made from animal skins that have to be prepared and treated, then fitted together and bound.

This is why surviving books in the medieval period, even Bibles or books of hours or things like that, are often richly decorated. These are treasures. To own a book or a set of books meant that you were a pretty wealthy person. So certainly the availability of the scriptures is going to diminish as the Middle Ages go on, not by official policy at first, but just because it’s difficult to obtain those documents or to purchase or to produce a book.

It’s only in the late Middle Ages, toward the Reformation period around 1200, when you see the Roman Catholic Church definitely becoming apostate and forbidding the Bible to be translated into the languages of the common people. When we talk about the Lollards in the 1300s, that’s one of the reasons why they get persecuted. John Wycliffe and his followers are trying to put the Bible into Middle English, and the Catholic Church is not happy about that.

“Books are expensive — to own a book meant you were a pretty wealthy person.”

They actually come after his followers and try to kill him. So the short answer to your question is that there seems to have been availability of the scriptures, particularly in the early Middle Ages, but it becomes a little bit fuzzy after that. The availability of the scriptures declines as we get through the Middle Ages, mostly because it’s just difficult to obtain, but later by church order.

I think we have time for no more questions. If you have other questions, come talk to me afterwards or send me an email. Next week we’ll talk about the rise of the papacy. Let me close in prayer.

Closing Prayer

Lord, there’s a lot to say about this. Indeed, we might wonder along with the medieval Christians, God, why did you grant such success to a religion, to a people, Lord, who were not following you? Why did you allow your people—ostensibly the people who actually profess to follow Christ—to encounter such defeats, to be conquered by the Muslims? Lord, why?

We don’t know, Lord, except that you have a good purpose in all that you do. Lord, we thank you for the brethren who sought to remain faithful in the midst of that, even sought to evangelize their conquerors.

I pray, God, today that even as we consider maybe the threat that Islamic religion might pose today, it would never get to the point where we say, “I hate these people and I want them to be destroyed.” No. May we have the heart of Christ, which is a saving heart, which is a heart that looks to love first and foremost.

Lord, would you grant—even as you have it seems in various places—would you grant revival in these Muslim nations, in these nations where Christianity has long been strangled? Would you grant revival?

Would you grant boldness to your people?

Would you grant love to your people and a zeal for you to see Muslims saved, see Muslims rescued out of the domain of darkness and into the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Lord, thank you for this series. I pray that you’d bless it going forward and bless the rest of this service today. Amen. Amen.

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