The Nestorians and their Rituals/Volume 1/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
The former narrative left our readers at Deir Zaaferân, the seat of the Syrian Patriarch. I deem this the fittest place to lay before them a general view of the present state of religion among the Syrian or Jacobite Christians.
It is not to be doubted that the efforts made by Rome during the last and preceding centuries to bring over the Jacobites to her allegiance, and the powerful assistance which the French government has afforded in this work of proselytism, have tended in a high degree to reduce them to their present pitiable condition. Nor may we forget, whilst attempting to account for the great diminution in their number, and for the decay of truth and general intelligence among them, the oppression and tyranny which they have undergone for centuries from a despotic and infidel government. Yet fruitful as this combined antagonism has allowedly been, it does not adequately account for the present deplorable state into which they have fallen. For this we must assign a more efficient cause, proceeding indeed from the same omnipotent Disposer of all things, but working more silently on the minds of those, who, because they refuse His Fatherly correction, are at length made to suffer His judicial chastisements. The continued separation of the Jacobites from the Church of Christ, from which their forefathers were cut off by the council of Chalcedon, a.d. 451, for their denial of the Two Natures in the incarnate Saviour, whereby they virtually impugn the doctrine of the blessed Atonement and deprive the human race of salvation, has been followed with the most signal displeasure of the Almighty. When we call to mind their early history, the 150 archbishops and bishops under the patriarch and maphrian of which their hierarchy once consisted, their numbers, the extent of country over which they spread, and the zeal and learning of some of their eminent doctors; and then look upon their present spiritual destitution, as also upon that of their co-religionists the Copts of Egypt and the Monophysites of Abyssinia, we cannot withhold the confession that the hand of the Lord has fallen heavily upon them.
But as it is not my intention to enter into any details of the past history of the Syrians, I shall proceed to give an account of their actual condition as a religious community, begging the reader to bear in mind that the following remarks are the result of two years' constant intercourse with them, of an intimate acquaintance with their patriarch and most of their bishops, and of personal visits to the districts in which they principally reside, as the foregoing and succeeding narrative will more fully testify.
The present hierarchy of the Jacobites in Turkey consists of a patriarch, who claims the title of "Patriarch of Antioch and successor of S. Peter," eight metropolitans, and three bishops. Of these one resides at Mosul, one in the convent of Mar Mattai in the same district, one at Urfah, one at Diarbekir or Kharpoot, one at Jerusalem, one at Mardeen, three in Jebel Toor, and two are called Temeloyo, i.e. universal, without any regular dioceses. The late patriarch Elias, whom I met at Constantinople in 1844, was a venerable old man of a kindly disposition, but wanting energy to rule. Moreover his time and attention were so absorbed in seeking to regain possession of the churches which the Syrian Romanists had seized upon, that little or nothing was done by him for the amelioration of the spiritual condition of his people. His successor, Mutran Yacoob, has already been introduced to our readers at Deir Zaaferân. From the almost universal testimony of the Syrians themselves, he is a man of a grasping and ambitious spirit, who only aims at exacting from his flock all that he can, not for any purposes of general good, but for his own personal aggrandizement. His behaviour towards the congregation at Jezeerah, which has already been related, speaks volumes against him; and he is said to be in the receipt of a yearly stipend from Russia, whither he had been once sent by his predecessor to collect subscriptions in behalf of the Syrians. On his first accession to the patriarchate he published an edition of the Syriac psalter for sale among the Jacobites of Turkey and India; but this forms the sum of all the good which he appears to have attempted for the regeneration of his people. Notwithstanding this neglect, he is ever demanding remittances from the Churches, and when these are not forthcoming he issues against them the severest censures.
The Bishops generally are illiterate men, but little versed in Scripture, and thoroughly ignorant of ecclesiastical history. They scarcely ever preach, and their episcopal visitations are confined to occasional ordinations, and to the collecting of tithe from their several dioceses. All of them can of course read the Syriac of their rituals, but few thoroughly understand it. Mutran Behnâm, however, is an exception to this rule; he is a good Syriac and Arabic scholar, has a competent knowledge of the holy Scriptures, and has for the last year or two preached regularly in the churches of Mosul. He has already been mentioned in the opening of this volume as the patriarch's delegate at Constantinople, where he resided with the Rev. H. Southgate, and enjoyed for several months the benefit of his kind hospitality and assistance. Much good was expected to result from the information which he gained respecting the English and American Churches, and from the zeal which he manifested to introduce reform among his people; but I regret to say that these expectations have not been realized. Shortly after his return from Constantinople, and after our departure from Mosul, he joined with a number of his people who had held intercourse with us in 1842—44, and had been led to desire a better state of things, in writing to the Lord Bishop of London, the Anglican Bishop at Jerusalem, and the Church Missionary Society, begging that teachers might be sent out to them; but no notice whatever was taken of their request. In 1849 the American Independents answered the appeal, and although, as I am fully persuaded, the Syrians would have preferred assistance from us, such was their ardent desire for improvement, and such their conviction of the gross abuses in their Church, that they welcomed the missionary who was sent out to them, and continue to frequent his meetings in spite of the excommunications which have been issued against a few of their number by their diocesan. Thus another schism has been formed, and another field opened for the spread of sectarian doctrines. Some blame is imputed to the Bishop for having in a measure invited the Independents to Mosul, as well as for other inconsistencies; but when we take into consideration the difficulty of his position, his anxiety for the maintenance of unity, his own continued attachment as well as that of a portion of his people to certain erroneous practices, and withal his desire for many radical reforms,—we may not judge him too harshly. It is beyond dispute, however, that he is decidedly opposed to the efforts of the new missionaries from America.
As might naturally be expected, the lower orders of the Syrian clergy are generally more illiterate than the Bishops; and how can it be otherwise? Their education for the priesthood is confined to a perusal of the Syriac rituals, which they are taught to read in a convent or in some obscure school, or of which they pick up a superficial knowledge whilst acting as servants to the church or village where they reside. From indigence or a love of gain, they often ply a trade or engage in mercantile speculations, and their sacerdotal functions are for the most part restricted to reading the prayers, administering the sacraments, and receiving the confessions of their parishioners. Among the many Jacobite priests with whom I am acquainted, I do not know one who preaches or who is capable of preaching to the people, and pastoral visits, or the catechizing of children, are equally unheard of among them.
Such being the backwardness and inefficiency of their clergy, it is not to be wondered at that religious knowledge and vital godliness are at a very low ebb among the Syrian laity. Notwithstanding the comparative affluence of this community, I believe that there do not exist among them more than twenty small schools in the whole of Turkey, where their population amounts to something like 100,000 souls. The following is a rough estimate in villages of the proportion of their numbers in the different districts.
| Jebel Toor | 150 | villages. | |
| District of | Urfah and Gawar | 50 | villages„ |
| Kharpoot | 15 | villages„ | |
| Diarbekir | 6 | villages„ | |
| Mosul | 5 | villages„ | |
| Damascus | 4 | villages„ | |
Making in all 230 villages now inhabited by Syrians. In Aleppo, where they once numbered several hundred families, not more than ten Jacobite families now exist, the rest having joined the Church of Rome. The same secession has left them only a name at Damascus, and their few remaining adherents in that district are confined to the villages of Sadad, Kariatain, Hafar, and Nebk, between Hamah and Aleppo. The Jacobite community of Baghdad has followed the example set them by their brethren at Aleppo and Damascus; Mosul now comprises an equal number of papal and Jacobite Syrians; at Mardeen and Diarbekir, as we have seen, there are rival communities of Romanist Syrians; at Urfah the Latin missionaries have already gathered a few stragglers to their flock; and if Jebel Toor has not hitherto furnished its quota of converts, it is because no measures have yet been taken to induce its rude inhabitants to acknowledge the supremacy of the Italian Pontiff. Such is the present degraded state of the Jacobites, such the dissensions among them, and such the conduct of their spiritual guides, that a combined effort on the part of Rome would speedily and inevitably result in their entire submission to the papal See.
And if the truth is to be told, it must be confessed that however much to be deplored this secession may be,—inasmuch as with a reception of the true Catholic doctrine respecting the divinity and humanity of our incarnate Lord, the seceders become confirmed in certain false doctrines and corrupt practices which, though prevalent among them now, are not sanctioned by their early fathers,—the Syrian proselytes to Rome are decidedly superior in many respects to their Jacobite brethren. Wherever they have formed themselves into a distinct body, they have established schools, rebuilt their churches, increased the number of their clergy, and provided better means for their education and support, and are far more united in concord and design than the community from which they have seceded. This is doubtless owing to the co-operation of the Italian missionaries, to the support which they have received from abroad, and from the profitable visits which several of their Bishops have paid to Europe, where they learned to appreciate the benefits of order and education. But to whatever cause attributable, the fact cannot be disputed, that the body now styling themselves "Syrian Catholics," are far superior to the Jacobites in general intelligence, respectability, ecclesiastical discipline, and mutual agreement.
Improvements such as these are not without their value when we take into consideration that the Jacobites of the present day, whatever may be the teaching of their old standard writers, have adopted well nigh all the erroneous doctrines and corrupt practices of the Church of Rome. To this cause we must attribute the principal success of the Roman missionaries; for bringing with them so little that was repugnant to the received opinions of the Jacobites, and so many additional advantages, social and political, they were welcomed by them as special benefactors.
Notwithstanding the faithfulness of the above picture, there are tokens of promise among the Syrians amply sufficient to engage the sympathies of the English Church in their behalf. We have already seen that with so many errors which they hold in common with Rome, the remaining Jacobites are strongly opposed to the efforts of her missionaries, and this opposition is doubtless strengthened by the feelings of jealousy which they harbour towards the seceders who have dispossessed them of so many of their churches. On the other hand, the late revolutions in France and Italy, since which the large annual remittances to the Eastern communities in alliance with Rome have been cut off, have greatly weakened the strength of the dissenters and hindered the onward progress of proselytism. Now the Independents are vexing them, and they have no other resource left to help them in the work of reform than the Church of England. The Syrian Bishop and people of Mosul applied for her aid, but it was not granted; and at this time I have abundant proof from the same quarter and from the villages around, that the Jacobites here would hail with gladness, and receive with gratitude, a mission from the Anglican Church.
How this work should be carried on, the Church alone has a right to decide; but it is certain that something may and something ought to be done in behalf of the Syrians. It is not enough to establish schools among them; the special mission of the Church in this instance would be to reform the errors of their creed, and to raise them up from their present state of spiritual destitution, and she will see to it that her missionaries are allowed to teach the whole truth of God, and that the ecclesiastical heads of the Jacobites sanction and approve of such a course. If some withhold their consent, wishing only to obtain from us the means of furthering their own erroneous doctrines, or of giving their people the benefits of secular knowledge, then we can turn to those who will welcome us as the reformers of their Church, and from my own knowledge there are several dioceses and Bishops who would not hesitate to receive us in that capacity.
Hoping that God will put it into the heart of the Church at home to enter upon this charitable work, I shall draw these remarks to a close, and resume our former narrative.