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 Noko Ishmael Noko Ishmael Noko (born 1943) is a southern African Lutheran priest who was the General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) from 1994 to 2010. Born on 29 October 1943 in then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Noko received his primary and high-school education locally. He pursued his theological studies at the University of South Africa in Pretoria, and at the University of Zululand. He completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1971, majoring in systematic theology, church history and biblical studies. After his ordination in 1972, he studied for a Master's degree at the Lutheran Theological Seminary, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan,