Aramaic Catholicism, Maronite History and Identity: A Journey from the Ancient Middle East to the Modern WestExtracts from the Conclusions: The book also tracks the modern day religious descendants of the first Christian converts Jews, indigenous Aramaic and Coptic speaking gentiles, and even the Greek (Antiochian Melkite) colonists living in the Middle East In the seventh Christian century, tensions between Rome and Constantinople and private treaties between Byzantine emperors and the newly emerged Arab Muslim caliphs suggest how the Middle East's