The Syrian Christ Part 21

As is well known to church historians, the Syrian Christians of the Semitic stock have had very little to do with the development of the "creeds of Christendom." Theological organization has been as foreign to the minds of the Eastern Christians as political organization. They have always been wors.h.i.+ppers rather than theologians, believers rather than systematic {405} thinkers. Their religious thinking has never been brought by them into logical unity, nor their mysticism into full metaphysical development.

The Oriental has been a lender in religion and a borrower in theology.

The course of religion ran from the East to the West, the course of theology ran from the West to the East. Had it been left to itself, it is certain that the Christianity of Palestine never would have built up such a ma.s.sive structure of doctrine as the Athanasian Creed. Wherever the great doctrinal statements of our religion may have originated,--whether in Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, or Alexandria,--their essential parts were Greek and Roman, and not Oriental.

The Christian Church had its simple origin with a group of Jewish followers of Jesus Christ in Palestine, but it had its marvelous expansion and organization among the "Gentiles." In Palestine the faith of the Church may be said to have been instinctive, but {406} among the Gentiles and under Greek and Roman influences that faith became highly reflective. Faith in G.o.d the Father, and in his Son (by anointing) Jesus Christ, and love of the brethren, const.i.tuted the simple creed of the Palestinian Christians.

It is not within my power, nor do I deem it necessary here, to trace the steps by which this simple faith was transformed into a ponderous, learned, and authoritative creed, whose essentials were finally fixed in the early years of the fourth century. It is sufficient for the purpose of this sketch to state that when the great doctrines which were wrought by the Ec.u.menical Councils were thus fixed, sealed with an "anathema," and backed up by imperial and ecclesiastical power, the churches which refused to accept them had but a very slender chance to live. The intention of those beneficent ecclesiastics and politicians who controlled the actions of the Councils was to do away with the schismatic spirit in the Church and to have "one flock and one shepherd."

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Thus it may be readily realized that it was not very long after the crucifixion when the subtle mentality of the Greek and the organizing genius of the Roman began to a.s.sume control of the thought and practice of the Syrian churches. Excommunication, exile, and martyrdom swept away in course of time all obstacles out of the way of the "authoritative creed"; simple faith in Christ was forced to be hospitable to intricate scholastic statements of doctrine, and "love of the brethren" gave way, as a bond of union, to ecclesiastical authority. When the ambitious ecclesiastics of Rome and Constantinople finally brought about the great schism which divided Christendom into two bodies, known as the Eastern and the Western, or the Greek and the Latin churches, the churches of Syria aligned themselves with either the one or the other. The creeds became to those churches party slogans and means of division and hatred, and thus Christ was "divided," and those who claimed to be his followers, in both the Orient and the Occident, {408} took up the cry, "I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas." So the doctrines of the Syrian churches of every name are essentially those of the two great Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox communions.

In answer to the second question I will say that I have refrained from doctrinal discussion in the present work; first, because so many of the speculative doctrines of Christendom have very little to do with the New Testament; second, because the central purpose of this publication is simply and purely to give the Oriental background of certain Scriptural pa.s.sages, whose correct understanding depends upon knowledge of their original environment. I have deemed it unnecessary even to follow in the footsteps of the "higher critics" and inquire into the "genuineness" and "non-genuineness" of some of those pa.s.sages. For the purpose of this work every Scriptural pa.s.sage which reflects a phase of Eastern thought and life is "genuine." The aim of the author is {409} that this book shall be as free from labored arguments as the simple statements of the Gospel themselves.

There is perhaps no phase of human thought which the Christian churches have not used in the advancement of their divisive creeds and pet speculative doctrines. There is an untold number of doctrinal doc.u.ments which are now lying in the libraries of the world as repositories of moth and dust. They are of the earth earthy. The idea of universal brotherhood and human solidarity which is agitating the minds of men of all races and countries at the present time, is leading the Christian bodies back to the simple faith of Jesus of Nazareth, and causing them to heap contempt upon their technical subtleties and forced uniformities of intellectual belief. At least Protestantism is beginning to be sympathetically aware of its own precious heritage, and to feel the urging of its own genius. Free and cooperative individualism is winning signal victories over the unnatural authority of creed in the Protestant {410} bodies, and the bondage of the letter is giving way to the freedom of the spirit. The Gospel of Christ is triumphing over the theories _about_ Christ, and spiritual self-fulfillment by becoming Christ-like is crowding out of existence all theories of magical salvation. The creed of the theologians consists of many "articles"; the creed of Christ only of two,--"Love the Lord thy G.o.d with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself."

I prefer Christ's creed.

THE END