Who Is History"s Greatest Conqueror?

          The internet loves lists and one of its favorites is who is history’s greatest conqueror. If you google it you get hundreds of articles from a wide array of sources weighing in on the subject. I want to weigh in on it in part because the internet answers to that question are almost all wrong.

First we have to define what a conqueror must achieve to be called great. We start with how big was his empire? Second, how long did it last? And third, probably most important, how great was its impact? So three tests: size, longevity, and influence.

Let’s start at the beginning of history. There were a number of ancient empires—the Hittites, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Persians. None of them lasted more than a few hundred years, were not large by later standards, and had little lasting impact. All impacted the biblical children of Israel but none had even a fraction of the importance.

So we come to the first great conqueror and one who is cited by a number of internet sources as the greatest—Alexander of Macedon, known starting in the 19^th century as Alexander the Great. He is in my opinion the greatest military genius who has ever lived and with a small number of soldiers conquered every country and army in his path. At its greatest extent his empire covered about 2 million square miles—or a little more than half the area of the current United States. His empire was short-lived, breaking up into four different parts after he died. And these four were soon absorbed by the rising Roman Empire. So it was a large empire but by the test of longevity not important. However, it is in the area of influence that Alexander’s empire enters the conversation of greatest. His aim was to spread Greek culture and in this he succeeded admirably. He established around seventy new cities and brought the Greek language into widespread usage—the New Testament was written in Greek. I used to give a lecture in my Western Civ classes on Hellenistic culture. That’s the culture created by Alexander. It influenced science, philosophy, the arts, and literature, geography, and a host of other subjects. The eastern Mediterranean became the center of world culture after Alexander.

We move now to Rome and to the empire many scholars think the greatest in history. Notice we’ve changed the topic a bit. We are not talking about one specific individual conqueror but of the influence of an entire civilization. And Rome’s was indeed great. At its height the emperor in Rome ruled a domain of nearly 2 million square miles. The city of Rome began its expansion around 500 B.C. and did not officially end until the conquest of its eastern capital, Constantinople in 1453 A.D. That’s a time frame of 2,000 years. There is little like it in world history. In terms of influence Rome has few parallels. Roman influence is seen throughout Europe and the West today in architecture, law, administration, military organization and tactics, and literature. Many high schools in the United States teach its language, Latin. The founders of America referred repeatedly to Rome in the founding of American institutions. The largest institution on planet earth—the Roman Catholic Church—obviously takes its name from this great empire and is often considered a successor to it. Those who call Roman Empire history’s greatest conqueror have plenty of reason for doing so.

Continuing our way through history we come now to Mohammed and the empire of Islam. In this case we are combining a conqueror and a civilization. Muhammad himself controlled only a small area on the Arabia peninsula. The work of world Islamization was left to his followers. In terms of size, longevity, and influence the Muslims are, so far, the greatest by far. Islam has spread around the entire world and countries that call themselves exclusively Muslim comprise a land area of more than 10 million square miles. That’s three United States. And in terms of influence where Islam is in charge it controls life down to the smallest detail often with a secret religious police to enforce discipline. It has existed for 1400 years and as all of you well know is a major player in the affairs of the modern world. So Muhammad has to be placed on the list of great conquerors.

Proceeding through history we come to Genghis Khan. If you punch in the “greatest conqueror” question on the internet he is given first place most of the time. That is due to the size of his empire. At its greatest extent it covered about 9 million square miles. That’s just a little smaller that Russia and China combined.  It extended from eastern Europe and the Middle east all the way to the Pacific Ocean and from southern Russia to southern China. And much of this expansion came in his lifetime—he conquered more territory personally than anyone who has ever lived. But the empire didn’t last very long, maybe a couple hundred years at the most. And it was limited in its influence. Most historians give it credit for facilitating networking—the interaction between east and west. Marco Polo, the Italian explorer who lived with Kublai Khan for seventeen years, is as well-known as most Mongols because he wrote about this exchange. Mongol influence tends to be mostly negative. They are history’s greatest mass murderers, exceeded only by the followers of Karl Marx in the last hundred years. One historian of the Mongols said they greatly damaged Islam by killing the Caliph—a sort of Muslim pope—in Baghdad in the 13^th century, and they basically annihilated Nestorian Christianity, reducing it to a tiny remnant of its original numbers.

Now we come to history’s greatest conqueror and there can be no question about who He is. He is Jesus Christ. Let’s start with the size of His empire. The entire western hemisphere, all of Western, northern and southern Europe, are classified by historians as culturally Christian countries. But Christ’s kingdom has another characteristic. It is the most able to penetrate other Kingdoms. For example, in China, considered Buddhist, Christianity has made giant inroads in the last 50 years. From nearly zero China’s Christian population has grown to more than a 100 million. But recently the biggest story is Africa. About 2% Christian in 1900 today it is 47% Christian, and as you know African Christians are probably the most aggressive in the world. Christ’s is the largest kingdom in the history of planet earth. A routine internet search gives Christianity around 2.6 billion followers. Islam is next at around 1.9.

How about longevity. Church attendance may be down some in Western societies. But around the world more people gather to pay homage to Christ than any other person. The Christian faith is larger now than it ever has been. And its cultural impact is the greatest of any religion or ideological force that has ever existed. Recently, the most famous atheist in the world, Richard Dawkins, admitted that he was culturally a Christian. That’s the subject of my next video.

What separates Christ from all other conquerors is His methodology. Every other conqueror, including religious, has spread his faith at the point of a sword. Christianity does not operate this way. Jesus conquered the world by dying on a cross and his followers have spread His faith the same way—by living sacrificial lives of service. Kenneth Scott Latourette the great church historian says Christianity is the only religion that has risen to prominence without being driven by a dominant culture. In fact, it rose and triumphed in the face of hostility from one of the empires we mentioned—the Roman Empire.

And in a real sense it has made inroads in all the other great empires. When I was teaching at Colorado Christian University we had a guest speaker. His name was Moujik. He was president of the Mongolian Evangelical pastor’s association. He said there were 120 pastors in his group. At the beginning of class he presented me with a map of Genghis Khan’s empire. He said the group’s goal was to go everywhere Genghis went. To apologize and preach the gospel. This delightful Christian man was yet another conquest of Christ.

2700 years ago Isaiah the prophet wrote about the future Christ. He said of the coming Messiah, I will make you ^(L)as a light for the nations,
    that ^(M)my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

And that’s exactly what has happened. In 1719 Isaac Watts wrote his famous hymn:

Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
does its successive journeys run;
his kingdom spread from shore to shore,
till moons shall wax and wane no more.

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is history’s greatest conqueror. Aren’t we grateful that He is a conqueror like no other?

More: Why Christianity became the most powerful force in history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Zk1Kk7m4Y&list=PLkHlTST983SpujnPAjgOE2AsDzsEBKkxh&index=1&t=4s

For a detailed examination of how Christ triumphed and became history’s greatest conqueror see the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkHlTST983SpujnPAjgOE2AsDzsEBKkxh