Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3): The Turks in Their Relation to Europe; Marcus Tullius Cicero; Apollonius of Tyana; Primitive Christianity — John Shaqi
Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3): The Turks in Their Relation to Europe; Marcus Tullius Cicero; Apollonius of Tyana; Primitive ChristianityNewman, John Henry
HistoryHistory
Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3): The Turks in Their Relation to Europe; Marcus Tullius Cicero; Apollonius of Tyana; Primitive Christianity
Newman, John Henry
Apollonius, of Tyana; Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600; Cicero, Marcus Tullius; Turkey -- History
The first of these is the Empire of the Huns, under the sovereignty of
Attila, at the termination of the Roman Empire; and it began and ended
in himself. The second is in the time of the Crusades, when the Moguls
spread themselves over Europe and Asia under Zingis Khan, whose power
continued to the third generation, nay, for two centuries, in the
northern parts of Europe. The third outbreak was under Timour or
Tamerlane, a century and more before the rise of Protestantism, when the
Mahometan Tartars, starting from the basin of the Aral and the fertile
region of the present Bukharia, swept over nearly the whole of Asia
round about, and at length seated themselves in Delhi in Hindostan,
where they remained in imperial power till they succumbed to the English
in the last century. Then come the Turks, a multiform and reproductive
race, varied in its fortunes, complicated in its history, falling to
rise again, receding here to expand there, and harassing and oppressing
the world for at least a long 800 years. And lastly comes the Russian
Empire, in which the Tartar element is prominent, whether in its pure
blood or in the Slavonian approximation, and which comprises a
population of many millions, gradually moulded into one in the course of
centuries, ever growing, never wavering, looking eagerly to the South
and to an unfulfilled destiny, and possessing both the energy of
barbarism in its subjects and the subtlety of civilization in its
rulers. The two former of these five empires were Pagan, the two next
Mahometan, the last Christian, but schismatic; all have been persecutors
of the Church, or, at least, instruments of evil against her children.
The Russians I shall dismiss; the Turks, who form my proper subject, I
shall postpone. First of all, I will take a brief survey of the three
empires of the Tartars proper; of Attila and his Huns; of Zingis and his
Moguls; and of Timour and his Mahometan Tartars.
I have already waived the intricate question of race, as regards the
various tribes who have roamed from time immemorial, or used to roam, in
the Asiatic and European wilderness, because it was not necessary to the
discussion in which I am engaged. Their geographical position
assimilated them to each other in their wildness, their love of
wandering, their pastoral occupations, their predatory habits, their
security from attack, and the suddenness and the transitoriness of their
conquests, even though they descend from our first parent by different
lines. However, there is no need of any reserve or hesitation in
speaking of the three first empires into which the shepherds of the
North developed, the Huns, the Moguls, and the Mahometan Tartars: they
were the creation of Tribes, whose identity of race is as certain as
their community of country.
2.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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