The campaigns

I was reading about the person who inspired the poem Ozymandias when I came upon the headline:

“First Syrian Campaign.”

Huh, I thought, so he also went to war in Syria. Interesting. Let me scroll past the war to another highlight.

“Second Syrian Campaign.”

Oh, I guess it didn’t go so well the first time. Let’s keep scrolling down to the next part.

“Third Syrian Campaign.”

Jesus, OK. They really had to get that done. Let’s keep scrolling down to see what happened next…

“Later Campaigns in Syria.”

Ok. I’m seeing a pattern here.

Keep scrolling.

“Peace treaty with the Hittites”

Done. Apparently, the first peace treaty in recorded history: “Its 18 articles call for peace between Egypt and Hatti and then proceeds to maintain that their respective gods also demand peace.”

That “their respective gods also demand peace,” is an interesting turn of phrase. In liberal societies, we talk about the role of religion in instigating war but we may not spend enough time discussing how religion can inspire peace. We may be underplaying the role that theology can play in the political process.