By Theodore Shoebat

ISIS is right now attacking the Christian area of Tel Maghasaneh, and what is truly amazing is how only 17 Christians are defending the area as we speak. This is truly an illustration fortitude and self denial. I did a whole video on this story:

ISIS has just attacked Christian areas, the same areas where hundreds of Christians were kidnapped last week. According to Syriac International News Agency, they are attacking the areas of Tel Nasri, Tel Mkhaz, Tel Mazas,Tel Ruqba, and Tel Hufyan.

The battle has ensued and intense fighting is taking place between the Christian militia, called the Syriac Military Council, Kurdish forces and ISIS jihadists who are firing mortars against the Christians.

What is truly remarkable is how only 17 Christians are holding down the line to protect the area of Tel Maghasneh, by themselves with very little ammunition. Rima Tüzün, head of Foreign Affairs of the European Syriac Union, said:

Seventeen Syriac Military Council fighters are surrounded in Tel Maghasneh… Do not have weapons or even ammunition to repel ISIS.

The Christians have sent out an “urgent alert calling for coalition airstrikes and international assistance for the besieged towns.” The exhortation coming from the Christians spoke of how “heavy weapons and troops” are flooding into Tel Maghasaneh from Mount Abdulaziz for a “major assault on the entire area”.

Mount Abdulaziz is very significant, because as Shoebat.com reported to you earlier, it is said that a mosque in the Arab Sunni village of Bab Alfaraj was calling Muslims to attend a “mass killing of infidels in the mountain of Abdul Aziz on Friday.” Well, the Muslims in Abdulaziz are answering this call and are now trying to annihilate Christianity in these Christian areas that they are now attacking.

Archimandrite Emanuel Youkhana of the Christian Aid Program, said that the maid objective of ISIS is to dominate the town of Tel Tamar, which is right now under the jurisdiction of Kurds and Christian militants.

As we learn from Osama Edwards, Sweden-based director of the Assyrian Network for Human Rights, Tal Tamr would provide the ISIS jihadists an opening into the eastern border to Iraq. According to the Assyrian Network for Human Rights, “this is the most violent offensive on the town [Tal Tamr] in a long time.” Emanuel said:

Half of Tel Nasri has been occupied by IS. They controlled the hill. The Kurdish and Assyrian fighters are trying to push them out. Fights are ongoing,” he said. “Tel Hafyan, Tel Maghas and Rakba are been occupied by IS.

He also said that five Kurdish fighters have been slain in the fighting, but so far not one of the Christian fighters have been killed.

With this story I am reminded of the valiant Christian king Agbar V, the first Christian king in the history of Christianity. Not only was he the first king in the Faith’s history, but the first person to launch the first Christian war in the history of the Church. He fought against the Persian pagans who were trying to invade his kingdom, located in Syria, the very nation where these Christian militants are fighting ISIS right now.

The following is a section from my upcoming book on Christian militancy, which will be the most extensive research ever written on the subject of Christian warfare and fighting…

THE FIRST CHRISTIAN KING AND THE FIRST CHRISTIAN BATTLE HAPPENED IN THE FIRST CENTURY

When we read or hear of Christian wars, we usually begin with the Crusades, or at times we are told of wars that took place in the fourth century, or wars that were fought between Byzantium and its enemies in the early Middle Ages. But when speaking of the earliest Christian king, and the earliest Christian battle, done with arms and weapons, what we are never told is that the first Christian battle was not done in the Middle Ages, or any time around that, but within the first century after the Resurrection of our Lord.

It was done by King Abgar V, who ruled over the Syrian city of Edessa, and who was the first Christian sovereign. He left the path of the heathen and sojourned to the Light of God when Christ was on earth. According to the historian Eusebius, King Abgar was dreadfully ill and, hearing of Christ and how He healed so many countless people, he sent a letter to the Holy Master, asking for his infirmity to be healed. Eusebius copied the letter, which he said were taken from the public records of Edessa, as follows:

Agbarius, prince of Edessa, sends greeting to Jesus the excellent Saviour, who has appeared in the borders of Jerusalem. I have heard the reports respecting thee and thy cures, as performed by thee without medicines, and without the use of herbs. For as it is said, thou causest the blind to see again, the lame to walk, and thou cleanest the lepers, and thou castest out the impure spirits and demons, and thou healest those that are tormented by long disease, and thou raisest the dead. And hearing all these things of thee, I concluded in my mind one of two things: either that thou art God, and having descended from heaven, doest these things, or else them, thou art the son of God. Therefore, now I have written and besought thee to visit me, and to heal the disease with which I am afflicted. I have, also, heard that the Jews murmur against thee, and are plotting to injure thee; I have, however, a very small but noble state, which is sufficient for us both. (Euseb. Eccles. Hist. 1.13)

King Abgar V with image of Jesus Christ

Christ is said to have written a response to the king, in a letter, said by the Eusebius to be taken from Edessa’s public records. It is said in tradition that the letter was sent through one Ananias who took the letter from Christ and gave it to the king. Eusebius copied the letter, and it reads:

Blessed art thou, O Agbarus, who, without seeing, hast believed in me. For it is written concerning me, that who have seen me will not believe, that they who have not seen, may believe and live. But in regard to what thou hast written, that I should come to thee, it is necessary that I should fulfill all things here, for which I have been sent. And after this fulfillment, thus to be received up, I will send to thee a certain one of my disciples, that he may heal thy affliction, and give life to thee and to those who are with thee. (Euseb. Eccles. 1.13)

It was said that after Christ ascended to Heaven, one of the Disciples, named Thaddeus, healed the king Abgar, and from such a miracle came the first Christian ruler. After this, it did not take long for the armies of the devil to prey after the saintly king; the Persians, pagan Zoroastrians who worshipped the false god of Ahura Mazda, soon surrounded the city of Edessa, and were already planning to conquer and seize it for their own heathen expansion.

Seeing such a great horde of savage barbarians before his land, he did not surrender nor turn the other cheek, and nor did he pray for his enemies. He, the first Christian king, took the letter that Christ wrote to him, and in the presence of all his soldiers, he raised arms high up to Heaven, his hand gripped around the letter, and he mightily prayed to the Eternal General.

“Lord Jesus,” he declared, “You promised us that no enemy would enter this city. But look, at this moment the Persians are attacking us.” He prayed with few words, and as his hands still stood aloft, a great darkness covered the sky and blackened the day’s light.

The Persians, who were now just three miles away from the city, witnessed the darkness and how it smothered the sun’s rays, and surely they were terrified. So stricken with confusion were the Persians that they could barely even set up their camp and surround the city. They did not know how to strike, nor how to penetrate the walls of Edessa, but after some time, they became so desperate to fulfill their desires for conquest and pillage, that they nevertheless besieged the city and attacked it with all there frenzied exertion.

For many months catapults launched their missiles, for many months did the city endure the onslaughts of the pagan, and for many months did the Christian king hold his ground, neither surrendering nor acquiescing, but protecting his people from God’s enemies, as a true sovereign of Christendom.

Above the city there was a hill from which the people received their water, and when the Persians saw it they contrived a plan to cut the water supply off and kill the inhabitants with thirst. They diverted the water from the city, to their own camp. But when they did this all of the springs under the earth miraculously bursted forth, guaranteeing to the city their water, while the water that was to be diverted the Persians dried up.

So dry was the water source that the Persians sought to steal, that the pagans who were besieging the city did not have enough to quench their parched thirsts. Their unbearable thirsts compelled them to leave the city, and so was the Christian king, thanks to God alone, victorious. And every time the Persians tried to invade the city, the letter of Christ was brought out and read at the gate, and by the will of God, the enemy was forced to flee.

In the fourth century, several hundred years after this glorious triumph, a Spanish nun named Egeria visited the city of Edessa, and there she saw a statue of King Abgar, and the local bishop told her: “There is King Abgar, who, before seeing the Lord, believed in Him and believed that He was truly the Son of God.” This bishop recounted to Egeria the beautiful story of the battle between the Christians and the pagan Persians, and she recorded all that he told her in her diary, from which we know this event. (Egeria, Diary, ch. 19)

Is it not majestic and awe-inspiring, that right there, in the first century — so few years after the Resurrection — we have a Christian king partaking in battle against pagans? The king fought his enemies, and within him were the teachings of Christ; for he would have known about the eternal precepts of our Lord. Christ taught us to carry our cross; to deny ourselves; to love God with all heart, mind, soul, spirit, and strength; to love our neighbors as ourselves; to sacrifice ourselves so that we could be taken up to the timeless realms of Heaven.

And here, a king, being amongst the first converts, exerted the Christian spirit through Holy War; for he took up his cross in the face of the enemy; he denied himself and utterly surrendered to the will of God; he did not seek to save himself, and so he never surrendered; he loved God with all his being, and so he ceaselessly defended his nation rather than allow it to be taken by the devil and his slaves; he loved his neighbor as himself, and so he protected his people, rather than sell them to the pagans through greedy compromise; he did not save himself, but rather put his own life on the line for the sake of his people.

He was a warrior mystic, fighting a spiritual war through physical arms, for the glory of God and for the downfall of the devils. And in this battle, he exerted the truest form of love, and that is, righteous action.

Let this story be a lesson, that Christians were not passive only until the fourth century or the Middle Ages, but that from the beginning, the idea of combat and warfare was already within the Church, not hiding, but waiting for the obtaining of a state by which to execute Holy War. You may argue that this is only one example, and that the Apostles did not fight. But, this was a Christian king, not an apostle, and he led a war. Imagine if the whole empire became Christian in the time of the Apostles; surely in such a state they would have not prohibited it from commencing a righteous war.

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After reading this, we must realize that our Christian brothers and sisters are being massacred and enslaved in Pakistan. Our team in Pakistan right now is rescuing Christians from Islamic persecution. We have liberated thousands from this horrific oppression. Please help us save more.

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