John of Damascus or John Damascene was an Arab Christian monk, priest, hymnographer, and apologist. He was born and raised in Damascus c. 675 or 676; the precise date and place of his death is not known, though tradition places it at his monastery, Mar Saba, near Jerusalem on 4 December 749.
Porphyrius was bishop of Gaza from 395 to 420, known, from the account in his Life, for Christianizing the recalcitrant pagan city of Gaza, and demolishing its temples.
Sophronius, called Sophronius the Sophist, was the Patriarch of Jerusalem from 634 until his death. He is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. Before rising to the primacy of the see of Jerusalem, he was a monk and theologian who was the chief protagonist for orthodox teaching in the doctrinal controversy on the essential nature of Jesus and his volitional acts. He is also renowned for negotiation of surrender of Jerusalem to the Muslim caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab.
Sergiusand Bacchus were fourth-century Syrian Christian soldiers revered as martyrs and military saints by the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches. Their feast day is 7 October.
Peter of Capitolias was an 8th-century Christian saint. He was born in Capitolias, in what is today Jordan, married and became the father of three children. After the death of his wife, he became a monk and, according to some traditions, was later consecrated bishop of Bosra.
Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam from the Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam series is a book by scholar of the Middle East Robert G. Hoyland.
Bayt Jibrin or Beit Jibrin, known between 200-400 CE as Eleutheropolis, was a historical town, located in central Israel near the 1949 ceasefire line, 21 kilometres (13 mi) northwest of the city of Hebron.The town had a total land area of 56,185 dunams or 56.1 km2, of which 0.28 km2 were built-up while the rest remained farmland.
Zosimas of Palestine, is commemorated as a Palestinian saint. His feast day is on 4 April.
Saints Behnam, Sarah, and the Forty Martyrs were 4th-century Assyrian Christians who suffered martyrdom during the reign of Shapur II. They are venerated as saints in the Assyrian Church of the East and Oriental Orthodox Churches.
Konstanti Kakhay or Konstanti Kakhi was a Christian Georgian nobleman from Kartli, who was seized captive by the Abbasid general Bugha al-Kabir during his 853 expedition into the Caucasus. He was subsequently put to death, at the age of 85, for refusing to convert to Islam. This made Kostanti a subject of the contemporaneous hagiography and a saint of the Georgian Orthodox Church.
Acts 8 is the eighth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records the burial of Stephen, the beginnings of Christian persecution, the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of Samaria and the conversion of an Ethiopian official. The book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke composed this book as well as the Gospel of Luke. Parts of this chapter may have been drawn from an earlier "Philip cycle of stories" used by Luke in assembling his material.
The siege of Queli was the last major military engagement during the Sajid invasion of Georgia in 914. The 28-day-long siege resulted in pyrrhic Muslim victory and execution of the Georgian commander Gobron. Despite the important victory, the invaders were unable to maintain a strong foothold in western Georgia and were forced to withdraw.
Elias of Heliopolis, also called Elias of Damascus, was a Syrian carpenter and Christian martyr revered as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox churches. He is known from a Greek hagiography.
The Synaxarion of Constantinople is a Greek collection of brief notices of saints commemorated in the churches of Constantinople arranged by feast. Each notice contains a short biography and the date and location of the commemoration (synaxis). It also contains descriptions of liturgical processions in the city. It was commissioned by the Emperor Constantine VII during his sole reign (944–959) and compiled by the deacon and librarian Evaristos. It is an important source for the urban topography of Constantinople.
The Arabic Homily of Pseudo-Theophilus of Alexandria is a pseudonymous prophetic sermon pertaining to eulogies and stories of miracles in Rome about the Apostles Paul and Peter, including their corpses. A dialogue between Peter and Athanasius of Alexandria during Athanasius's exile in Rome is considered one of the most important stories in the text. It pertains to the future of the inhabitants of Egypt as well as Egypt itself and presents passages about Arab dominance and Islam.
The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Athanasius is an apocalyptic sermon authored between 715 and 744 during the Umayyad Caliphate. Very popular, the work was found in multiple Coptic manuscripts and in Arabic translations. The text most likely served as an influence for both Coptic and Copto-Arabic writings and is also a rare witness to the reaction of Copts towards the Muslim conquest of Egypt. Though Islamic practices of faith are absent from the text, it still provides the author's Coptic perspective to the fundamental historic changes in their country and the everyday-lives of the inhabitants.
The Apocalypse of Shenute is a short Coptic apocalyptic text which purports to be a prophecy of Shenute from Christ about the eschaton. The Coptic Apocalypse of Elijah greatly influenced the text. It is the oldest miaphysite Coptic apocalypse to survive from the Islamic period, a rare contemporary witness to Coptic–Muslim relations in the earliest period, one of the earliest miaphysite Coptic sources to mention the Islamic rejection of the crucifixion of Christ, and a response to the Islamic conversion of Copts.
The Edessene Apocalypse or Edessene Fragment is an apocalyptic text. The original title has not been preserved due to missing pages; the conventional title was coined by modern scholars because the content heavily focuses on Edessa. The text is a revised and an abridged version of the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius with modified schema. It is a witness to the crisis Syriac Christians were experiencing due to the political success of Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr and the intensified pressure on non-Muslim communities in his reign.
The Gospel of the Twelve Apostles is a gospel text that summarizes the four canonical gospels and the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles followed by three apocalypses. It survives only in a single manuscript and is inspired by the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius. Its eschatological expectations was both simple and updated from previous Syriac apocalyptical texts of the same period and is a witness to the Syrian Christian strategy on coping with Muslim rule in the second half of the seventh century as the Muslim rule was no longer being perceived as a temporary event causing apocalyptic tensions to dissipate. It also advocates disconnection from Judaism and non-Miaphysite Christianity and presents the author's advocacy in their own community to not have them convert to Islam but have the community keep the true faith.
Leontius of Damascus was a Syrian monk who wrote a biography in Greek of his teacher, Stephen of Mar Saba. It emphasises Stephen's asceticism and thaumaturgy (miracle-working), but is also a rich source for the history of Palestine in the eighth century. It has been translated into English.