ABSTRACT
In Chapter XIII.6-15 of his text, the author of the ps.-Methodius Apoc-alypse 1 expresses his hopes for the end of Muslim domination:
And after these calamities and chastisements of the sons of Ishmael, at the end of that week, 2 when men will be lying in the peril of chastisement 3 and will have no hope that they may be saved from that hard servitude, being persecuted and oppressed and suffering indignities, hunger, and thirst, and being tormented by the hard chastisement, whereas these barbarian tyrants 4 will delight themselves with food and drink and rest and will boast of their victory, how they had laid waste and destroyed Persia and Armenia and Cilicia and Isauria and Cappadocia and Africa and Sicily and Hellas and the inhabited parts of the country of the Romans and all the islands of the seas 5 and will be dressed like bridegrooms and will be adorned like brides and blaspheme by saying: “The Christians have no savior”, 6 then suddenly the pangs of affliction as [those] of a woman in travail will be awakened against them and the king of the Greeks will go out against them in great wrath and “awake like a man who has shaken off his wine”, 7 who was considered by them as dead. He will go out against them from the sea of the Ethiopians and will cast desolation and destruction in the desert of Yathrib and in the habitation of their fathers. And the sons of the king of the Greeks 8 will descend from the western regions and will destroy by the sword the remnant that is left of them in the land of promise. And fear will fall upon them from all sides. And they and their wives and their sons and their leaders and all their camps in the land of the desert of their fathers will be delivered into the power of the king of the Greeks. And they will be surrendered to the sword and to destruction and to captivity and to slaughter. And the yoke of their servitude will be seven times more severe than their own yoke. And they will be in a hard affliction from hunger and from exhaustion. And they will be slaves, they and their wives and their sons. And they will serve as slaves to those who were serving them. And their servitude will be a hundred times more bitter than theirs. And the land which was desolated of its inhabitants will find peace. And the remnant that is left will return, everyone to his land and to the inheritance of his fathers: Cappadocia and Armenia and Cilicia and fsauria and Africa and Hellas and Sicily. And the entire remnant that is left over from the captives and which was in the servitude of the captivity, everyone will return to his country and to the house of his father. And man will multiply like locusts on the land which had been laid waste. And Egypt will be laid waste and Arabia will burn and the land of Hebron will be laid waste and the tongue of the sea will be pacified. And all the wrath and anger of the king of the Greeks will be vented upon those who had denied Christ. 9
With these words the author expresses his hope that at the end of ten “weeks of years” of Muslim domination the Byzantine emperor will suddenly and unexpectedly, by a large-scale military operation, put an end to the ro_le of the “sons of Ishmael” on the stage of world history. 10