...the fall of the Asian churches [during the Islamic conquest of the 7th century] made Christianity much less Semitic in thought and language. A thousand years after the world depicted in the Book of Acts, some of the world's most active and dynamic churches still thought and spoke in Syriac, a language closely related to the Aramaic of Jesus' own time. They still called themselves Nasraye, Nazarenes, and followed Yeshua. Through such bodies, we can trace a natural religious and cultural evolution from the apostolic world through the Middle Ages. If there is a decisive break between the New Testament world and modern Christianity, it occurs with the fall of these churches, chiefly during the 14th century. Christianity does indeed become predominantly "European," but about a millennium later than most nonspecialists think.