A Multitude of All Peoples: Engaging Ancient Christianity's Global Identity by Vince L. Bantu

Author:Vince L. Bantu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: contextualization;enculturation;western church;global south;missiology;global church;Chalcedon;Constantine;empire;hegemony;Justinian;schism;East;West;Arabia;Islam;ethnogenesis;multiethnicity;Egypt;Nubia;Ethiopia;North Africa;Syria;Lebanon;Armenia;Georgia;Persia;India;Central Asia;China;indigeneity;indigenous;diverse expressions of christianity;intercultural communication;history of christianity
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2020-02-06T12:31:41+00:00

The earliest extant Old Georgian inscription comes soon after the time of Mesrop in the early fifth-century Bir el Qutt Inscription. This inscription was written in the early Asomtavruli script of Old Georgian at a Judean monastery in 430. One of the Bir el Qutt inscriptions mentions the famous Georgian theologian Peter (or Murvan) the Iberian, who was the prince of Kartli taken to Constantinople to ensure Georgian loyalty to the Roman Empire. Georgian Christians had a high degree of contact with neighboring ethnic groups as is evidenced by the earliest Georgian inscriptions coming from Palestine and their alphabet being invented by Armenian scribes. However, medieval attribution of the creation of the alphabet to pre-Christian Georgians was an attempt to locate ownership of the alphabet in Georgian sources.126

Attempts on the part of Georgian Christians during the Middle Ages to assert independence from Armenia are best understood in light of the schism that transpired between the two at the turn of the seventh century. Along with the Armenian, Egyptian, and Syrian bishops, the Georgian catholicos (later known as “patriarch”) initially rejected the Council of Chalcedon. However, tensions began to rise between Armenia and Georgia during the sixth century as Armenia began to exercise preeminence in the Caucasus region. Coupled with a desire to gain Byzantine support against the Persian Sassanids, the Georgian church adopted the Chalcedonian confession of the Roman church and split from the Armenians at the Third Council of Dvin in 607.

Political pressure from Persia varied in Georgia. The rulers of Kartli remained primarily loyal to their Persian rulers through the turn of the fifth century. During the reign of Vakhtang I Gorgasali (447–522), however, the Georgians closely allied themselves with the Romans and unsuccessfully revolted against the Persians. Vakhtang I founded the modern Georgian capital of Tbilisi from where the Persians would center their control over eastern Georgia. The Chosroid dynasty lost control after the reign of Vakhtang I and the Sassanians abolished the Georgian monarchy in the late sixth century. Georgian monarchial descendants continued to vie for control of Georgia by appealing to Roman and Persian authorities. Guaram I formed an alliance with the Byzantine emperor Maurice, which resulted in the division of eastern Georgia between Byzantium and the Sassanids. Guaram’s son and successor Stephanus I, however, reversed Iberian Georgia’s allegiance to Persia, which resulted in the capture of Tbilisi by Roman emperor Heraclius in 627. The reestablishment of Georgian Chosroid rule under the auspices of Byzantine hegemony came only a few years before Georgia was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate in the mid-seventh century.

The Arab Muslim conquest during the seventh century instigated a process by which Georgian Christians began to assert an autonomous identity distinct from Byzantine Christianity. Although the creation of the alphabet would serve this end to an extent, the fact that the alphabet was created by Armenian scholars lessened the degree of ethnic pride. Likewise, preconquest Georgian hagiography included a majority of foreign saintly figures such as the Armenian noblewoman Shushanik. The influx

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