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
Ishmael son of Nethaniah time on a seal impression to be dated ca. 600 BC (see L. G. Herr, BA 48 [1985] 169-72.” (). Baalis may have seen an opportunity to grab power for himself in the power vacuum. The writer of Jeremiah clearly crafts the account to portray this as a significant motive for Ishmael’s attack, though Carroll argues that it is not Ishamel’s own reason for acting. Ishmael son of Nethaniah Ishmael (Hebrew: ישמעאל "God shall hear") ben (= 'son of') Nethaniah was a member of the royal household of Judah who, according to biblical accounts in II Kings and Jeremiah, assassinated