Introduction
It was not a war to end all wars. It was not a war to destroy or truncate the Roman Empire in the east. The Persian aim at the outset was not even regime change, merely restoration of an ousted regime. But the fighting went on and on. There was a steady escalation in its scope and intensity with the passing years. After a decade of conflict, foreboding came upon contemporaries. The saints were plainly withdrawing their favour from mankind. God was turning his face from the present generation. The world and all things in it were being troubled because of man’s sinfulness, and those few who strove to squeeze out desire, ambition, envy, and other human feelings from their lives should withdraw and pray for a softening of God’s anger. For one distant observer, far to the south of the Fertile Crescent, where the two belligerent great powers were engaged in combat, the war presaged the end of time. The last days were at hand, when the earth would shake and the seas boil, when the sky would be torn apart and the stars scattered, when men would come face to face with the creator and manager of all things....