Feb 22, 2021
Dr. John Rao begins by arguing that aspects of the crusading spirit are natural to man, and that it was also alive in the ancient world already. Cyrus the Great, Isocrates and Alexander the Great, historians like Polybius, and the Maccabees all illustrate examples of a crusading spirit or a call to a crusade. Taken...
Feb 22, 2021
Dr. John Rao says that Christianity made the crusading spirit into a battle for the construction of a soul that was fit to live eternally with God, and the creation of a social order that could aid such an ascent to the Divine. Dr. Rao shows how Christianity's appearance on the scene unleashed bitter hatred on the part...
Feb 22, 2021
Dr. John Rao describes the maturation of the idea of Crusading. This process of maturation is shown to have taken hundreds of years, from the 600's through the 1000's. Maturation involved the Heraclian "Crusade" versus the Zoroastrian Persian invaders of the Eastern part of the Empire in the early Seventh Century. Icons...
Feb 22, 2021
Dr. John Rao says the the arrival of Islam into the Mediterranean world of the Seventh Century also aided in the shaping of Crusading concepts. Dr. John Rao shows in great detail that Islam is a terribly divided religion, but that its idea of Holy War does play a role within it, and one to which Christians were obliged...
Feb 22, 2021
Dr. John Rao explains that the monks of Cluny aided the maturation process enormously, teaching rough soldiers how they could use their military skills for acceptable purposes. The Pilgrimage to Compostella became a training ground for Crusaders. Also, Moslem Sufi Brotherhoods, some of them very militant, taught how...