Of the various local Christian responses in the Middle East to the rise of Islam and the Muslim conquests during the first century of Islam's existence, the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, originally written in Syriac in the latter half of the seventh century CE (a conventional terminus post quem being 692 CE), stands out for the fact that it very quickly entered into circulation in the West, being translated into both Greek and Latin (the latter being a translation of the Greek translation) by the eighth century CE.
Moreover, despite its relative obscurity among modern readers, the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius continued to be highly influential in Europe for many centuries after its original composition, with repeated reinterpretation of the work to apply it to crises and threats facing Christian communities and realms. An early example of reinterpretation can be seen in the Greek version translated in this post, as it contains an extended interpolation likely written in reference to Muslim assaults on the Byzantine Empire in the eighth and ninth centuries CE. Much further down the line, the secondary literature has highlighted that the work was even being reprinted in 1683 CE during the failed Ottoman siege of Vienna in Austria, around a thousand years after it was originally written.
The work is conventionally dubbed the apocalypse of 'Pseudo-Methodius' because it was attributed to Saint Methodius of Olympus, who was 'martyred' in the fourth century CE. The precise identity of the real author is not certain, but the preface of the original Syriac version claims that God revealed the vision of world history and the future to Methodius in the mountains of Sinjar, probably to be identified with the present-day Sinjar Mountains located in Ninawa province in northern Iraq today near the border with Syria. It seems plausible also that the real author of this work came from this area.
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https://aymennaltamimi.substack.com/p/early-eastern-christian-responses