Here is an excerpt:
"When medieval intellectuals discovered
the enormous literary and ideological potential of conflating the Biblical myth
of Gog-Magog with the Hellenistic legend of the Iron Gates, the romantic tale turned
into a theological saga. The setting matched the everlasting conflict between
the Christian realm of goodwill and learning versus the apocalyptic anti-world of
evil and ignorance.
The
barrier sustains the line of demarcation between the opposite camps and
facilitates the authoritarian control over the enclosed territory. “Historia
Augusta” is a Late Latin collection of biographies describing the lives and
deeds of the Roman rulers. In one of its profiles, an anonymous author praises Emperor
Hadrian for putting up a rampart on the westernmost state border as an example
of a sovereign who grasped the urgency of segregation between the law-abiding
subjects and the illegal immigrants:
"the first to build a wall from sea to sea... to separate the
barbarians from the Romans." (1)
The wall
features not only a brick-and-mortar boundary between the people of the sown
and the nomads but also a wedge between the adepts of a certain faith and unbelievers.
Ibn-Arabi, the philosopher of the Islamic Golden Age, commends the Possessor of
Two Horns-the Koranic version of Alexander-for making “a barrier between those
of God’s servants who obey him and those who disobey.” (2)
The master of the mountain pass, who
functioned as Alexander’s governor, played a leading role in geopolitical
games. The sad truth was that the defile recently
shifted from the Christian to the Muslim sway. Confirming this, Michael Syrian
makes a transit from hearsay tales to actual history: “In earlier times the
kings of the peoples of the Orient were said to have guarded these gates, but
at present, they are in the hands of the
Arabs.” (3)
The Syriac Early Christian
literature, especially the late-seventh century Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius,
linked a barrier episode to the exploits of Alexander. The bulwark cried out
for shielding the civilized nations from impure, polluted rabble. However, this
time the European military genius confronted the sinister hordes of Gog-Magog
rather than plundering barbarian tribes.
Image: The henchmen
of Antichrist are besieging the city of saints
Courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gog_and_Magog#/media/File:Toulouse_ms_815-049v-Gog%26Magog.jpg
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