Alright. So the year is 630. The Byzantine Empire is in full swing, has just defeated the Persian army after a 25 year struggle. The emperor Heraclius is making his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, returning the true cross of Christ to Jerusalem that had been captured previously by the Persians. Wait.
True cross of Christ meaning, like, the the wood cross? I was narrating the intro to the alright. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Let’s clarify. No. We’re gonna get there. We’re gonna get there. The wood cross.
Like, the cross that Jesus died on. The cross. They had it. They saved it. I’ve never been I’m I don’t know.
I mean, I’m just telling you what they say. I can neither confirm nor deny that this was the actual cross of Christ. I’m a bit of a skeptic. Yeah. Yeah.
I find it highly suspect considering the thousands upon thousands of people crucified and the reuse Yeah. Of crosses by the Roman Empire. However They’re not gonna retire that cross. Back to the story. Oh, wait wait wait.
But time out, wasn’t there that place in Tennessee that we went to and they literally said they had the piece of Noah’s Ark? They had discovered it. It was in the middle of Tennessee. It was like this country town. There was like some fake museum set up and they had a piece of the Noah’s Ark.
Buddha’s tooth in Sri Lanka or I have In Turkey, there’s Paul’s hair or something like that. They have Abraham’s staff in Istanbul. Hey. They have, I have seen Peter’s bones at Saint Peter’s Basilica. Now that one is actually a little more.
Actually, you know, in Peru recently brought those out and I do do you wanna tell that story at some point. Well, in Peru, the missionary was telling us at that cathedral in the in the square in, the capital Lima, they have Peter’s bones. But he says it’s a fake. That’s a fake fake. The real one is there at Saint Peter’s Basilica.
I saw it. But he said people believe it. In the capital of in Lima, Peru, why would they have Peter’s bones in a cathedral? I’m sure there’s an elaborate story as to how they got there. Sure.
So as emperor, Heraclius has his triumphal entry into Jerusalem to return the true cross of Christ, I don’t think he had any clue that within 5 years, this Byzantine Empire that was now, the sole rulers and now conquered Persia was about to be overrun by the Muslim world. I don’t think at that point in time the emperor had even any clue about who the Muslim were who the Muslims were or who Mohammed was. He had been so focused on the Persians that it’s almost as though Islam, rises out of the abyss and just shows up on the scene and takes over what is known as the Eastern Roman Empire in a few short years. Once again, Muslim terrorists. A terrorist.
Islamic extremists. These are the total terrorists of the country. They’re random terrorists and brutal endeavors. News flash America. These Muslim extremists not irrelevant.
It is a warning. Welcome to the Truth About Muslims podcast, the official podcast of the Swimmer Center For Muslim Studies, where we help to educate you beyond the media. Here are your hosts, Howard and Trevor. Okay. So it’s it’s important to understand how the stage is set for Islam to come in.
And before there is an Islamic Empire, there really is, several 100 years of Christian imperialism, particularly in the east with the Byzantine Empire. So the Byzantine Empire is really just the Eastern Roman Empire and Constantine is really the one who sets that up. But even before we get to Constantine, we have to understand how this whole way of looking at life through the emperors comes into play, and it’s happening right there in the Bible. Howard, do you remember the story? I believe it’s in Mark 12 and also in Matthew 22 where the Pharisees try to corner Jesus and say is it okay to pay taxes to Caesar?
Mhmm. We think of this passage as very much just a, really a passage about the IRS and our responsibility to pay income tax. You’re talking about an application for us today? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. But but it’s really more complex than that. When he asked for the tribute coin or the denarius, he says, whose whose inscription whose face is on this coin? Right.
Caesar. And, it’s really, Tiberias. And then he says, in whose, inscription? And, really, if you don’t know what that coin looks like at that point in time in history, you miss a really important part of the story. The coin on the front would have been the picture of the Emperor Tiberius and then on the back it would have said, son of the the divine and chief priest.
What? Son of the divine and chief priest. That’s what the coin would have said. Wow. So that changes it, doesn’t it?
It it it makes the question so much more interesting than at first glance. Maybe, what the question is really doing is maybe Jesus is saying something about whose picture is that and whose inscription. Maybe they should have said, well, it’s Caesar’s picture, but it’s your inscription. You’re the son of God. You’re the son of the divine.
You are the chief priest. Maybe, the people right then and there would have been trying to get Jesus to claim to become son of God and overthrow the emperor right then and there, hoping that they would hear about it and and crucify him then and there. The whole concept of this idea of the son of God, exists there right in the middle of when Jesus comes on the scene. And it starts with Julius Caesar. After he dies, his adopted son, Octavian, declares Julius Caesar is divine, which, of course, makes him what?
Son of the divine. And then when Octavian dies, his son declares Octavian divine, and way the way that they would do that is they would give them the title of Augustus. They would be Caesar while they’re living, and then they would retain the title of Augustus when they died. So their children would say, oh, yeah. My father, he’s now an Augustus.
He is divine, and I am a son of the divine. I am a son of God, and my father is God. And this emperor worship was going on when Jesus comes onto the scene. This emperor worship, though, was it genuine? Did they really think that they were God?
I believe that the emperors believed they were God. I don’t know if anybody else believed they were God Alright. Wholeheartedly. Right. Right.
Right. Well, there’s eventually an emperor named Diocletian that comes on the scene and Diocletian, around 285 divides the Roman Empire into 2 and he gives a Western Empire and an Eastern Empire and he makes an emperor for the East himself and an emperor for the West. Okay. And then, they take on the titles of Augustus, meaning they have divine status while they’re living. Now this is a new idea.
Oh. And then they have their own, sort of emperors underneath them that have the titles of Caesar. So they’re sons of God. And they’re the gods. The god of the east, the god of the west, and Roman Empire.
Really? Yeah. And they’re trying to unify the Roman Empire by really consolidating the religious belief under paganism, and that’s why you have with Diocletian this extreme persecution that goes out against the church. I mean, he is known to be one of the biggest persecutors of the early church. Because he wants everyone to worship him.
Yeah. Emperor worship and paganism will unify the empire, and these Christians are messing it all up. The only problem is with persecution of Christians, something strange happens, and they keep spreading. And that’s why you have, like, Tertullian saying this the blood of the martyr is the seed of the church. It keeps spreading and growing and growing and growing.
So it’s not really working, this whole idea of persecuting Christians. So, eventually, this eastern part of the Roman Empire and this western part of the Roman Empire gets reunified under one particular emperor who makes a bit of a shift in the religious allegiances of the Roman Empire, and that’s Constantine. Oh, that’s when he comes into the picture. Right. And so, Constantine, comes onto the scene and he takes over the western part of the empire, and then eventually he takes over the eastern part of the empire and he unifies the 2.
And right there in the middle of that story is that dream that he has, this is when he’s going to conquer the Western Empire, reconquer Rome, reclaim Rome. He has a dream and he sees a sign in his dream, and it is the chi rho, the Greek alphabet. It looks like an x and a p. Yes. This is the first two letters of, Jesus’ first name in Greek, Christos, or not Jesus’ first, but the Christ Christos.
Christ is his last name. Yes. So, you have Cairo and they paint this on their shields and then after the victory, he decides that he will issue an edict in, the 4th century, 312 12, the edict of Milan, that there would be no more persecution of the Christians. So Constantine does not make it a Christian empire necessarily by any particular edict, but he has a vision for a Christian empire. And he goes to the east, and he sets up the city of God, Byzantium.
And he changes Istanbul to Constantinople. You’ve heard the song. Right? Istanbul, it’s Constantinople, now it’s Istanbul, not So, Constantine has this idea that he is going to set up a city of God that will become sort of the beacon for the Christian Empire of the Roman Empire. And, his mother, Saint Helena, St.
Helena makes a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and she finds the true cross of Christ And she brings back this true cross of Christ to, Constantinople and sets it up there at the city with a wonderful statue of Constantine holding a scepter. Apparently, the nails were were brought into Constantine’s crown, the nails from the crucifixion, and the true cross of Christ stands right there next to, Constantine at the city gates, proclaiming this to be the new Christian city of the new Christian Roman Empire. Wait, wait, wait. So, Constant Constantine at this point had become a Christian? So that’s the debate.
A lot of folks don’t think he ever was a Christian, that he was just using faith as a means to control the empire. Some folks say he was, baptized on his deathbed. That’s what I heard. That’s what I heard. That’s the truth.
That would be a bad strategy to control your empire through Christians or by proclaiming Christianity, wouldn’t it? Because the powers that be would be pagan. Well, the powers that be were most certainly for the Roman gods, but guess what? You can just eliminate them, and then all of a sudden you are the sole ruler. God’s divine ruler here on Earth.
I mean, it really did make sense. So he just wiped them all out. Yeah. It’s quite the the stories of the emperors during that time are are it’s like a daytime soap opera where you have, husbands killing their own wives, killing their own sisters, marrying their sisters off to other emperors and other people in different areas to consolidate power. It’s it’s quite disturbing.
So they basically did whatever it took to put them in the place that they wanted to be? Sure. And and this idea of Christian relics is huge. I mean, they have the literal baskets where the loaves and the fish were gathered, by the disciples there. You have the building of St.
Peter’s Basilica, the original one there in Rome, by St. Helena. You have the Church of the Holy Sepulchre there, in Jerusalem. You have the true cross of Christ. It’s just a very, it’s a huge shift in world history where it goes from pagan Roman emperor worship to the syncretism of the church in the Roman Empire, and Constantine is presiding over the church in some way.
Some would I know some people that are Constantinian scholars are like, no. He didn’t preside over the church, but he did provide preside over the Council of Nicaea and call the Council of Nicea in 2025. Right. And when they disagreed, right, he forced them to come to some kind of agreement or something like that. Well, we have the we have the Hadithine creed.
He had a lot of influence. Of course. Yeah. He is the emperor. What a what a stark, contrast that image would have been with him and his statue with a scepter and then the true, you know, the so called true cross of Christ.
Yeah. Like like that would be the, like, the exact, like, model of syncretism. I mean, it’d be a great image of syncretism right there. Yeah, especially when Jesus seems to be pretty clear at least that, you know, my followers are not of this world. If they were of this world, they would fight.
Right. And here now we have sort of the king, the emperor, and we have the cross of Christ. And eventually, you have, more and more Christian influence and there are some monks that are involved with Constantine and pushing this and then there are some monks that are saying, nope, this is wrong and they’re withdrawing to the monasteries and even protecting the pagans as the pagans are being persecuted by the Christians eventually. So it’s just a mess. So it sounds like today.
Hey, ladies. I’m from, truth about Muslims podcast. Have you heard of it? Yeah. Okay.
So we want you to read an ad for us. Can you do that? You’ll be famous, like, world famous. It’ll be amazing. C I u?
C I u. C I u. C I u. C I u. I’m Kevin Kekaisen.
Kevin. Yeah. Oh, wow. Nice. You just lose faith.
Luke faith. Luke. Alright. CIU educates people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ. You wanna read that again?
No. I feel like I’ll be so embarrassed to be out there. Like, there’s all these ideas of of, you know, right, how we should move forward in, pushing forward our faith or, you know, like, in our in our government. Right? I know people out there probably gonna disagree with me.
But in the US government, some people are, like, you know, we need to be political. We need to, put in a Christian president. We need to make all the laws Christian. All the legislation’s Christian. You know, like, that kind of stuff.
And some others are like, no. We don’t want anything to do with this. Let the let the, you know, give unto Caesar what is Caesar. Let the government do what it wants to do. That we’re we’re done with that.
Definitely a huge division within the Christians. And so this is kinda what’s happening in the the very first situation of Christians actually having to deal with this. Yeah. Go ahead. It is.
And and right there in the very beginnings you have the disagreements happening. You’re right. You have those that feel like that we should be using the government to, spread Christianity. Right. And there’s there’s taxes put against people that are not Christian.
The Jews are treated quite poorly actually under Constantinian Christianity. Another emperor will come along eventually named Justinian who writes a code of law. I think it would be very interesting to look at the sort of setup of a theocratic law under Justinian and how when Islam comes in, look. Wait. Wait.
His law was the theocracy? Everything about the Eastern Empire would have been looked at as theocratic because it was the Christian Empire. Wow. So all of the laws had to do with what the Bible had said? Well, that would be the basis for a lot of them.
Yeah. I’m not of the mindset that that they were correct interpretations of what the Bible had said. Right. They did have to make real interpretations and so it would be like the Sharia law that we’re, you know, that people are so concerned about, but it’s the Christian version. I do think that there is a Christian version.
Yeah. And we see it there in the in the Byzantine Empire. And so I’m assuming that it came out pretty, twisted. There’s some parts of it that are good and they’re still being used in today’s, civil law, and then there’s some parts that were quite corrupt. Treating people differently based on faith and based on ethnicity is, in my mind, not a good way of operating justice.
But that was quite common during the day. So think about it in this sense. What does it matter for the setting of the stage of Islam? If you have at 325 this council where all the bishops have to come together and work out the idea of the the nature of Christ and there’s a lot of fighting going on and I mean some of it’s quite visceral this fighting between bishops. Wait, fighting like the fist fight?
No. A lot of its, you know, power of the pin type fighting, but there’s also a few, within the church there’s some infighting that gets quite violent as well and there’s there’s a lot of things going on. But I I don’t wanna characterize the whole thing as just being Right. Wicked. There was some intellectual discussion about the nature of Christ and the Council of Nicaea is where this really gets worked out.
And the and the question, really gets fleshed out over the nature of Christ and, of course, Arius and his views, is that Christ is not divine and you have the views that no, he is divine and eventually, Arius loses. Arianism is declared a heresy and it’s no coincidence that the belief that Christ was not divine, that he was just a prophet and a messenger of God is floating around at the time of Mohammed because it’s quite popular, at that point in time in history to believe that Christ was not divine, that he was only a prophet of God. It’s an early Christian heresy that’s dealt with in the 4th century at with Constantine at the Council of Nicaea. Mhmm. Now later you have another debate that’s happening with this whole concept of the theotokos, the mother of God.
Now you have the whole concept of, is did Jesus’s mother, Mary, did she give birth to God? And the historian the historians was and the stories would say, no, you cannot call her the mother of God. She gave birth to his human nature. And so where was his divine nature? And that’s where the debates come about where is the divine nature of God?
Where’s the human nature of God? Eventually it gets worked out right 100% man 100% God. It’s very clear. Okay. So I just think they’re arguing about ensoulment.
When did God’s divine soul enter or spirit enter into the the human Jesus? You have, the concept of adoptionism that Jesus becomes fully divine at his baptism and the the Spirit of God descends upon him, the divine spirit and joins with his flesh. You have the gnostic arguments of docetism where, they believe that Jesus only appeared to be in the form of a body Right. But he was really fully divine. Yeah.
And it makes sense when you hear stuff in the Quran like it only appeared as though they had crucified Christ, but they crucified him not. Right. Very much in line with a docetic view of the divine nature of Christ or the Aryan view of he’s not God he’s just a prophet very much articulated well in the Quran. So the the Christian heresies are really setting the stage is what I’m trying to to say. That makes sense?
Setting the stage for Islam to enter and take over. Right. Because you have these revelations from Mohammed that say things like, Jesus, son of Mary, did you ever say to mankind worship me and my mother as gods beside me? And Jesus will reply, glory be to you. I could have never claimed what I have no right to and that’s Surah 5.
Woah. So there Islam is seeing itself as a correction of Christian heresies that are birthed out of an imperial Christianity of the third and 4th century. And so these these heresies, how prevalent are they in this time in this Byzantine Empire at this point? Very. So they’re just dominating the conversation.
They’re exiled from the Byzantine Empire, they just simply float into the, Arabian Peninsula and even after Arius was declared the loser, the the Aryan heresy still carried on quite well. And that’s where they went. Mhmm. Now, I wouldn’t say it’s totally like today in a sense that, 1, a lot of Christian theologians aren’t, you know, ex communicating people the way that they once did. And 2 That’s true.
We’re not gathering up people by the tens of 1,000 into the hippodrome and and persecuting and killing them if they don’t convert. Right. There there was a certain amount of pressure that came from the Christian Empire against the pagans that, in my opinion, was quite shameful and really fits Wait. Wait. Causing the pagans to convert to Christianity by force.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s not it it doesn’t come under, Constantine necessarily. It’s not until later that Christianity is declared the official religion of Rome, meaning if you’re not Christian you’ll be persecuted.
Constantine set the Edict of Milan which would allow Christians not to be persecuted, but there’s another edict that comes later that allows that actually makes Christianity the official religion of Rome. So he he just basically started turning the tide at that point. Right. Right. So imagine imagine that you are there when eventually you have this war that breaks out between the Persians.
The Persians controlled Jerusalem in 6 14 and then you have this 25, year war that’s going on. Woah. The war was 25 years? Between the Persians and the Byzantines. Yeah.
Wow. But in 614, the Persians controlled Jerusalem and then eventually they win it back. About 15, 16 years later, Heracles Heraclius goes in and returns the true cross of Christ to Jerusalem. They won Jerusalem back. This all comes right before Islam is on the scene.
This is exactly the same time that Mohammed is passing away and Islam is about to take over. And so how big is Islam at this point? I don’t know numbers or demographics, but it’s not big enough that they should have won. And that’s one of those things where a lot of Muslims will look and claim the same thing that a lot of Christians will see. Yeah.
That God is obviously on our side. Yeah. And they do have some things that happen that are, to them, miracles. You know, sandstorms that come out of nowhere, small armies that are able to defeat large armies. Now the Arabs were known as being very effective mercenaries at that point in time, and that’s the only sort of interaction the Byzantine and Persian Empire had is they would hire the Arabs to go and, fight battles on the ground.
Big enough to to conquer an empire. No. I don’t think so. That’s one of the things that Muslims would argue that that’s that’s the miracle of Islam. Now what about the weakness of having a 25 year war with the Persians?
That that, of course, is my answer as a as a Christian, and and I’m totally unbiased here, you know. So but the whole concept is if you have a 25 year battle going on Yeah. And you have a constant argument over the nature of Christ, and you’re not sure who you’re supposed to align with, and you have constant taxation from this Christian empire, and you have constant bickering and infighting among, the people, they are exhausted. Right. They are literally exhausted.
And, I mean, the amount of death that they had experienced during the 25 years prior to Islam coming on the scene. If Islam comes on the scene and they say, hey, we’ve worked out the whole nature of Christ thing. He’s just a man. We’re more than happy to come in. We’re gonna, take over, run shop here.
We’re gonna offer some low taxes to you guys that are Christian. If you’re Muslim, you wanna convert it to an even lower tax. To be to be honest, I think Philip Jenkins, writes it well in his lost history of Christianity. He talks about the, burden or the yoke of, the incoming Islamic empire was much lighter than the former Christian empire. Yikes.
So there’s already the stage is set. So Justinian’s law, Sharia fits right in there, have a law, a theocratic law. Yeah. They were primed and ready for that that type of government. And the theocratic law, quite honestly, from the Muslim perspective, was much lighter than the theocratic law of the imperial Christian empire.
Which is insane. Yeah. It is. If you if you think about it in terms like you know, because a lot of people do want a Christian government, you know, the United States to become a Christian government. Right?
What would that look like? Theocratic law, what would that look like? You know? And, we don’t I don’t know if we go that far to even think about because it could be pretty, you know, corrupt and messed up. And, of course, I mean, it’s gonna be run by humans.
Yeah. Not not could be. It would be. Right. Historically, we’ve seen that movie, and I don’t you know, got the t shirt, been there, done that, got the t shirt, don’t wanna go back.
Yeah. Yeah. I’m I’m not convinced that would be the best strategy. But but do you see how the stage is set Yeah. For Islam?
They’re primed and ready. Yeah. And so when you have this, you know, this first four sets of caliphs and they shift the focus out of Mecca into Syria into Damascus and they begin to overrun this Byzantine Empire, it really didn’t require a whole lot of there’s a lot of arguments people say, yeah. Well, they conquered by the sword. They really didn’t need much of a sword.
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Then email us and let us know. Alright. So you can see how the stage is set, Howard. Let just sum it up for us. What is it that you’re seeing here?
The stage being set for the coming of the Muslim empire. Alright. I’m gonna give it my best shot. Okay? And you can jump in and correct.
I will. Don’t worry. But, you know, audience, I’m listening and learning just as you guys are. Okay. So this is what’s happening.
The Muslims were, a baby religion at this point. Mohammed had just passed away, recently, I guess. And then Byzantine, on the other hand, you know, where it’s Turkey, I guess. That area, they were really kind of unhappy. They were a Christian, empire.
Yeah. The entire Middle East all the way across North Africa up into Rome. I mean, the Roman Empire. And they were there was a lot of fighting in between and there was not very much peace and, of course, there was this this yoke that this Christian government or this empire would put on the people. So there was, like, a lot of taxes and, pagans were getting killed left and right, or forced to convert.
So it was a really unhappy place. Yeah. Not not warm feelings towards Christendom. Right. Right.
And so that’s kinda setting the stage. So then when, Mohammed passes away, then all of the Muslims start to, come over and they’re about to wanting to take over the Byzantine Empire? Is that what their goal was? Absolutely. Spread Islam.
And and to the people, the common people of the Byzantines, Right? It would have been a very it would look like a blessing. Yeah. Like, it would be like their yoke is a lot lighter. Their taxes are less.
They’re kinda clearing up all of the the the theological arguments that everyone is having, and they’re gonna allow Christians to operate within government positions, maintain sort of status as Christians. They’re not gonna force us to convert to Islam. So are we get special titles that we now look at as quite negative, but at that point in time it wouldn’t have been such a bad thing to have this dimmy status, the second class citizen that we often hear like that. That was a common theme. Right?
I mean, if you have a theocratic government and you’re not of that faith, it’s not gonna bode well for you. And Christians can’t boast that Christendom treated the Jews well. Yeah. Right. And so all of this kind of was happening, in spite of the fact that we, I guess, in modern times, we think that the Christians were just being slaughtered.
Muslims were coming in to slaughter, but that that wasn’t always the case. Often sometimes, like in this case, there was actually a happy change, a change that they wanted to happen. Is that is that, accurate? Is that pretty good? I think so.
I mean, there’s some points in history where Muslims and Christians get along quite well. There’s other points in times in history where there’s unhappy feelings, not so warm. But the important thing to realize is that the Constantinian sort of imperialistic Christianity set the stage. Constantine presented the city there’s one mosaic that that kind of tells the story where Constantine is presenting to the it’s the mother of God and Jesus sitting on her lap. Constantine is presenting the City of God and Justinian is presenting the Church of God because he builds the Hagia Sophia, the church that has become, you know, church mosque church mosque.
Right, right, right. There in Turkey, modern day Turkey. So it’s it’s really important to understand that context or else we’ll get into the, throwing rocks living in a glass house mentality. So Yeah. What is that what is that saying?
Those that don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. Yes. I don’t even know who says that, but but I think it’s true. Yeah. So this might be this series might be a little bit heady.
This is a part of our Islam 101. Yeah. It’s the early development of Islam and the early relationships between Christians and Muslims. Right. We’ll get into the trinity and all that stuff too.
Right. And as time goes on, you will see how pertinent this is to us, modern day. So do you want to hear my, Peter’s bones story? Yeah. Okay.
So You’re like good. Yeah. We were living overseas and we didn’t we couldn’t go home for Christmas because our mission agency really wanted us to stay out for the 1st couple years without returning home so that we could really get used to the culture and not just run home for the 1st Christmas break. So we decided we would go to Rome and, Rome in the winter is really cheap actually. It’s very affordable.
Is it cold? Very. And everybody was dressed so nice. We were in our blue jeans and sweatshirts. Just looked like total bunch of Americans.
Yeah. So anyway, before we went, my wife had decided that she would write to the Vatican and ask for special permission to visit the catacombs. Nuh-uh. Yes. She really did this?
I totally imagine Katie doing this right. She writes to the, the Vatican because she had heard, she had read a story somewhere that if you ever go to the Vatican write special She told them how we were missionaries, how we had a deep affection for Christ and that you know, we didn’t say we were Catholic, just Protestant missionaries and that we really would appreciate a tour of the catacombs to see this early part of church history. I thought it was a bit, you know, of a stretch. Like, really? We’re gonna write the Vatican and ask for permission?
But, nevertheless, they wrote her back and said, absolutely. Here’s your tour, date and time. Be there. So we show up again wearing jeans and sweatshirt. So you went to the Vatican?
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And, they had special guards. The, what is it?
The Swiss guards that they have. Mhmm. I’ve seen pictures. Yeah. They’re dressed kind of funny with the funny hats and the tights and they carry like spears and stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were there. So they’re, they let us in. We write down some information and then we join a tour. We are the only non priest on the tour.
Well, they’re all priests in the group? Yes. They’re all priests in the group and this is like their pilgrimage, right? This is their, important they’ve come to the Vatican. They’re going to the catacombs.
So we had heard that they had the bones of the Apostle Peter in the catacombs And that’s what we were really excited about seeing. Like, what is this story? What is this, we don’t know what it is at this point other than they say they have the bones of Peter. So they began taking us through the catacombs showing us these early early tombs of Christians and it was amazing. What did it look like?
Was it really dark in there? Yeah. Dark dank. What you would imagine a catacomb looking like is what it looked like. And the guy That’s kinda scary.
It was a little bit creepy. And, the guy that was giving the tour was from Ohio. Okay. He was a priest in training, and, he was telling us the history of the catacombs, in particular, people who had been buried in different places and how when Saint Peter’s Basilica now remember from the story that Saint Helena had first Saint Peter’s Basilica built over the the grave of Peter. Okay.
Now, that basilica was torn down and rebuilt into the current Saint Peter’s Basilica, But they were doing, some sort of renovation, and, apparently, there was somebody that was mopping the floor and something fell from a ladder and a piece of the, floor went down underneath the ground. And that’s when they began excavating these catacombs and realizing that there were all these catacombs underneath the current Saint Peter’s Basilica. As, the guy goes on telling the story, they realize that, they come to one catacomb and they think, man, I wonder if we could find the burial place of the apostle Peter because, historically, it’s supposed to be over the top of his grave. Uh-huh. So they start looking and they come across this one catacomb where it says something along the lines apostle Peter the Rock, the cornerstone of the church type writing.
So then they begin digging up and they’re like, oh, man. We found it. And they dig up and they dig up. They get these bones out and they test them. And you know what they were?
What? Animal bones. They were animal bones. And so they were like, what? This isn’t the apostle Peter’s bones.
So somebody stole them? Well, there was a piece of the puzzle that was missing, some part of the writing that they couldn’t quite decipher because something was missing from it. And it turns out that the if I remember the story correctly, that it came and it went to a pope’s desk and basically operated as a paper holder or something like that. And somebody one day finds it and then goes back down and says, here’s the missing piece. It sounds right out of Indiana Jones.
Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say, this is Indiana Jones. So they eventually figured out that they had intentionally buried animal bones in case somebody wanted to come and try to steal Peter’s bones because there was a big emphasis on Christian relics. Remember talking about Constantine?
Right. All this is happening during, the World War where Hitler is also very interested in He’s looking for relics too. Right. So they’re having to hide all of this while they’re doing it so that Hitler doesn’t come in and steal or try to steal. If they find out that they’re looking for Peter’s bones, he will come and try to find them and get them himself.
This is crazy. So they have to hide this whole process and eventually, they figure out that the bones were actually buried. I believe it was in the wall of the catacomb and they go in and they decipher the message. They go in. They find these bones.
They lay them out and it’s a man of a certain height and stature that would have fit Peter’s descriptions. His feet are missing, and as the story goes, he was cut from the cross because he was crucified upside down. Right. Cut down from the cross in a hurry, his feet and his hands missing, and the bones fit the description. And so they said they found the bones of the apostle Peter.
So they left his hands and feet on the cross as they removed his body? Yep. Oh my gosh. So they show us this x-ray of these bones, and they’re right there. I mean, you can’t touch them or anything.
They’re right there. You can see them. You’re 5 feet from them. Them. They’re in this ornate box, and they show us this x-ray, man.
I just got I had goosebumps all over me. I was like, what? This is unreal. So then I went, afterwards, and we just had a moment of just, like, you know, just sitting and thinking, wow, is it is it real? You know?
One thing’s for sure. We were walking on the roads that are the same roads. We are among the early church here in the catacombs. At the moment when it was being told in the story, I felt that it was real. I mean, I think it just seemed so intense.
It wasn’t until after I left that I realized that there’s a lot of controversy surrounding the bones as to whether or not they are actually the bones of Peter or if this is just one more Christian relic story. And so it wasn’t until recently that they actually left the Vatican as the Pope brought them out into Saint Peter’s Basilica into the courtyard and showed them to the world inside of this box. And I thought, I’ve seen that, been there, done that, got the t shirt. That’s a that’s a crazy story. I got chills too.
Did this is kind of an off question, but did they bury his wife with him too? Because I know that I think she was crucified too upside down. Yeah. And the story goes, she was calling out to him or and, he was calling out to her. Remember the Lord.
Remember the Lord. I don’t I don’t know if she was, buried with him buried with him. Mhmm. What a crazy story. Well, regardless, man, that that’s really cool.
So I did I did see on our reviews that we had a Catholic priest, write us a very kind review. Right. I was very excited about that. And if you’re still listening, maybe you could call in and kind of clarify for us the story. Maybe I’ve messed up a few pieces.
I don’t remember. This was 20 years ago when we did this. No 15 years ago when we did this. So my memory is not, so sharp to think that I got everything right in that story. So if that Catholic priest is still out there listening, give us a call.
Help us understand. Do we or do we not have the bones of Peter? What are your thoughts? Just curious. Alright.
Well, thanks guys for listening. This is Truth About Muslims. This is Howard and Trevor signing off. We’ll see you next week.