As Christianity spread, it acquired certain members from well-educated circles of the Hellenistic world; they sometimes became bishops. They produced two sorts of works, theological and apologetic, the latter being works aimed at defending the faith by using reason to refute arguments against the veracity of Christianity. These authors are known as the Church Fathers, and study of them is called patristics. Notable early fathers include Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen.
There were recurrences of the plague in Syria–Palestine about every decade between 688/89 and 744/45. [35] "The Umaiyad [sic] dynasty was literally plagued by this disease ", in the words of Dols. [36] The deaths of the Umayyad caliphs Mu'awiya II ( r . 683–684 ), Marwan I ( r . 684–685 ), Abd al-Malik ( r . 685–705 ), Sulayman ( r . 715–717 ) and the Umayyad governors in Iraq al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba ( r . 661–671 ) and Ziyad ibn Abihi ( r . 685–673 ) may all possibly have been caused by the plague epidemics in Syria and Iraq. [37] [21] The caliphs routinely withdrew from the cities to their desert palaces when the plague emerged during the summer months. [36] Notable among them was Caliph Hisham ( r . 724–743 ), who preferred his palace at Rusafa over Damascus because he viewed the latter to be unhealthy. [38]
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