obsolete. Of the canon law which rules all these people the classical collection is that of Barhebræus.[1]
4. The Jacobite Faith
For this we may in general refer to that of their co-religionists in Egypt (pp. 259-265). But there are one or two special points to notice. That they are Monophysites hardly needs to be said. Their formula is that our Lord is one "from two natures (now become one nature)." As they identify nature and person, they also say that he is one person "from two persons."[2] Like most later Monophysites, they anathematize Eutyches (p. 168). But there is some slight difference between the Monophysism of Egypt and of Syria. The Syrians were always less vehemently opposed to the Orthodox than the Egyptians. They took up the cause less hotly (p. 326), and on the whole stood nearer to the faith of the empire. So in their authors the concept of our Lord is less strictly Monophysite, less Docetic than among the Copts.[3] But I doubt how far they are conscious of any difference now. Concerning the Procession of the Holy Ghost, although they have, of course, no Filioque in their creed, and declare that they believe the Holy Ghost to proceed from the Father alone, Renaudot observes that they are less opposed to us on this point than the Orthodox, and he quotes from their authors sentences very like our dogma.[4] Concerning the Sacraments they agree in general with the Copts.
- ↑ Nomocanon (Ktâbâ dHuddâye), in Latin by J. A. Assemani in Mai: Script. vet. Nova Coll. x. At Mardīn there is a curious group of semi-Christian Jacobites who were once sun-worshippers. They put themselves under the Jacobite bishop, were baptized and conformed to his religion, in order to escape Moslem persecution in the 18th century. They are called the Shamsīyah ("Sun-people"), and consist of about a hundred families, who live in a special quarter of the town. They conform to all Jacobite law, but also keep their own pagan observances. See Silbernagl: op. cit. 315-316.
- ↑ Assemani: Bibl. Or. ii. (Diss. de Mon.) § v.
- ↑ See Harnack: Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (4th ed., Tübingen, 1909), pp. 408-412; Kattenbusch: Confessionskunde, p. 223. (He says: "The Coptic Christ is a mere Wonder-being.")
- ↑ Lit. Orient. Coll. ii. 72. Parry says they hold "a position half way between those of the Greeks and Romans," about the procession of the Holy Ghost (Six Months, p. 355).
