Philip the Arab and Christianity that appear—save for one reference to Ishmael—figure in the political history of the first three centuries of the Christian era. To Eusebius, the Saracens of the 4th century are direct-line descendants of the biblical Ishmaelites, descendants of the handmaid, Hagar, and the patriarch, Abraham. They are thus outcasts, beyond God's Covenant with the favored son of Abraham, Isaac. The twin images of the Ishmaelite and the Saracen—outcasts and "latrones", raiders of the frontiers—reinforce each other and give Eusebius' portrait of the Arab nation an unhappy color. He may have been reluctant to associate the first Christian emperor with a people
Abraham's family tree Abraham's family tree Abraham is known as the patriarch of the Jewish people through Isaac, the son born to him and Sarah in their old age and the patriarch of Arabs through his son Ishmael, born to Abraham and his wife’s servant Hagar. Although Abraham's forefathers were from southern Mesopotamia (in present-day Iraq) according to the biblical narrative, Yahweh led Abraham on a journey to the land of Canaan, which he promised to his descendants. The genealogy of Abraham appears in Genesis 5, Genesis 10:1-7, 20, 22-23, 31-32, and Genesis 11. The documentary hypothesis attributes these genealogies to the Priestly