The Syrian Christ

Preface

This little volume is set forth in the confident hope that it may throw fresh light on the life and teachings of Christ, and facilitate for the general public the understanding of the Bible. As may be readily seen, from its perusal, the present work is not intended to be a commentary on the Bible, nor even an exhaustive study of the subject with which it deals. That it leaves many things to be desired is very evident to the author, who fears that his book will be remembered by its readers more by the things it lacks than by the things it contains.

Yet, from the cordial reception with which the opening chapters of this publication (which made their first appearance in the Atlantic Monthly) met from readers of various religious affiliations, the author has been encouraged to believe that his aim has not only been clearly discerned, but thoroughly approved. The books which undertake the systematic "expounding of the Scriptures" are a host which no man can number, nor is there any lack of "spiritual lessons drawn from the Bible." Therefore, as one of the Master's fellow countrymen, and one who has enjoyed about twenty years of service in the American pulpit, I have for several years entertained the growing conviction that such a book as this was really needed. Not, however, as one more commentary, but as an Oriental guide to afford Occidental readers of the Bible a more intimate view of the original intellectual and social environment of this sacred literature. So what I have to offer here is a series of suggestions, and not of technically wrought Bible lessons.

The need of the Western readers of the Bible is, in my judgment, to enter sympathetically and intelligently into the atmosphere in which the books of the Scriptures first took form: to have real intellectual, as well as spiritual, fellowship with those Orientals who sought earnestly in their own way to give tangible form to those great spiritual truths which have been, and ever shall be, humanity's most precious heritage.

My task has not been a light one. It is comparatively easy to take isolated Bible texts and explain them, treating each passage as a detached unit. But when one undertakes to group a large number of passages which never were intended to be gathered together and treated as the kindred thoughts of an essay, the task becomes rather difficult. How far I have succeeded in my effort to relate the passages I have treated in this book to one another according to their intellectual and social affinities, the reader is in a better position to judge than I am.

It may not be absolutely necessary for me to say that infallibility cannot justly be ascribed to any author, nor claimed by him, even when writing of his own experiences, and the social environment in which he was born and brought up.

However, in Yankee, not in Oriental, fashion, I will say that to the best of my knowledge the statements contained in this book are correct.

Finally, I deem it necessary before I bring this preface to a close to sound a note of warning. So I will say that the Orientals' extensive use of figurative speech should by no means be allowed to carry the idea that all Oriental speech is figurative. This manner of speech, which is common to all races of men, is only more extensively used by Orientals than by Occidentals. I could wish, however, that the learned theologians had suspected more strongly the literal accuracy of Oriental utterances, and had thus been saved at times from founding a huge doctrinal structure on a figure of speech.

Notwithstanding all this, the Gospel and the Christian faith still live and bless and cheer the hearts and minds of men. As an Oriental by birth, and as an American from choice, I feel profoundly grateful that I have been enabled to render this modest service to the Churches of America, and to present this book as an offering of love and homage to my Master, the Syrian Christ.

ABRAHAM MITRIE RIHBANY

Table of Contents

PART I. THE SYRIAN CHRIST

I. SON OF THE EAST

JESUS CHRIST, the incarnation of the spirit of God, seer, teacher of the verities of the spiritual life, and preacher of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, is, in a higher sense, "a man without a country." As a prophet and a seer Jesus belongs to all races and all ages. Wherever the minds of men respond to simple truth, wherever the hearts of men thrill with pure love, wherever a temple of religion is dedicated to the worship of God and the service of man, there is Jesus' country and there are his friends

II. BIRTH OF A MAN CHILD

IN the Gospel story of Jesus’ life there is not a single incident that is not in perfect harmony with the prevailing modes of thought and the current speech of the land of its origin. I do not know how many times I heard it stated in my native land and at our own fireside that heavenly messengers in the forms of patron saints or angels came to pious, childless wives, in dreams and visions, and cheered them with the promise of maternity. It was nothing uncommon for such women to spend a whole night in a shrine “wrestling in prayer,” either with the Blessed Virgin or some other saint, for such a divine assurance; and I remember a few of my own kindred to have done so.

III. THE STAR

IV. MYSTIC TONES

I LOVE to listen to the mystic tones of the Christmas carol. The story of the “star of Bethlehem” is the medium of transmission of those deeper strains which have come into the world through the soul of that ancient East. I love to mingle with the social joys of the Christmas season and its spirit of good-will, the mystic accents of the ancient seers who expressed in the rich narratives of the New Testament the deepest and dearest hopes of the soul.

V. FILIAL OBEDIENCE

OF Jesus’ life between the period spoken of in the narrative of the Nativity and the time when he appeared on the banks of the Jordan, seeking to be baptized by John, the New Testament says nothing. One single incident only is mentioned. When twelve years old, the boy Jesus went with his parents on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Annual pilgrimages to the great shrines are still very common in Syria. The Mohammedans go to Mecca, the Christians and the Jews to Jerusalem. But there are many other and more accessible sanctuaries which are frequented by the faithful in all those communions. However, a visit to any other sanctuary than Jerusalem and Mecca is called zeara, rather than a pilgrimage. The simple record of Jesus’ pilgrimage to Jerusalem with his parents is that of a typical experience. In writing about it I seem to myself to be giving a personal reminiscence.

VI. FEAST AND SACRAMENT

OF Jesus’ public ministry and his characteristics as an Oriental teacher, I shall speak in later chapters. Here I will give space only to a portrayal of the closing scenes in his personal career. The events of the “upper room” on Mount Zion, and of Gethsemane, are faithful photographs of striking characteristics of Syrian life.

VII. THE LAST SCENE

Perhaps nowhere else in the New Testament do the fundamental traits of the Oriental nature find so clear an expression as in this closing scene of the Master’s life. The Oriental’s dependence, to which the world owes the loftiest and tenders Scriptural passages, finds here its most glorious manifestations.

As I have already intimated, the Oriental is never afraid to “let himself go,” whether in joy or sorrow, and to give vent to his emotions. It is of the nature of the Anglo-Saxon to suffer in silence, and to kill when he must, with hardly a word of complaint upon his lips or a ripple of excitement on his face. He disdains to ask for sympathy. His severely individualistic tendencies and spirit of endurance convince him that he is “able to take care of himself.” During my early years in this country the reserve of Americans in times of sorrow and danger, as well as in times of joy, was to me not only amazing, but appalling. 

PART II. THE ORIENTAL MANNER OF SPEECH

I. DAILY LANGUAGE

THE Oriental I have in mind is the Semite, the dweller of the Near East, who, chiefly through the Bible, has exerted an immense influence on the life and literature of the West. The son of the Near East is more emotional, more intense, and more communicative than his Far-Eastern neighbors. Although very old in point of time, his temperament remains somewhat juvenile, and his manner of speech intimate and unreserved.

II. IMPRECATIONS
III. LOVE OF ENEMIES
IV. THE UNVERACIOUS ORIENTAL
V. IMPRESSIONS VS. LITERAL ACCURACY
VI. SPEAKING IN PARABLES
VII. SWEARING
VIII. FOUR CHARACTERISTICS

PART III. BREAD AND SALT 

I. THE SACRED 'AISH

To an Oriental the phrase "bread and salt" is of sacred import. The saying, "There is bread and salt between us," which has been prevalent in the East from time immemorial, is equal to saying, "We are bound together by a solemn covenant." To say of one that he "knows not the significance of bread and salt" is to stigmatize him as a base ingrate.

II. OUR DAILY BREAD
III. "COMPEL THEM TO COME IN" 
IV. DELAYING THE DEPARTING GUEST
V. FAMILY FEAST

PART IV. OUT IN THE OPEN 

I. SHELTER AND HOME

SOME one has said that the ancient Israelites called God a "shelter" and a "refuge," and not a "home," because for the most part the Syrians lived out of doors. All the habitation an Israelite needed was a shelter from the storm and a refuge from the enemy. Hence the prayer of the Psalmist: "For thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy," and the prophecy of Isaiah, the fourth chapter and the sixth verse, according to the Revised Version: "And there shall be a pavilion for a shadow in the day-time from the heat, and for a refuge and for a covert from storm and from rain.

II. RESIGNED TRAVELERS
III. THE MARKETPLACE
IV. THE HOUSETOP
V. THE VINEYARDS AND THE FIELDS
VI. THE SHEPHERD

PART V. SISTERS OF MARY AND MARTHA 

I. WOMAN EAST AND WEST

PERHAPS on no other subject do the Orient and the Occident diverge more widely than on that of the status of woman. So far as they really differ, and as they imagine that they differ in their regard for woman, the Orientals and the Occidentals form two distinct human types.

II. PAUL AND WOMAN
III. JESUS AND HIS MOTHER
IV. "A GRACIOUS WOMAN"

PART VI

HERE AND THERE IN THE BIBLE

During the time when the earlier chapters of this book were being published in the "Atlantic Monthly," requests came to the author from readers of those chapters for his comments on certain Scriptural passages which did not appear in them. Some of the passages suggested by those interested readers, I have considered in other parts of this publication. The other passages thus suggested, and others which presented themselves to the author during the progress of this work, but which for some reason or other he could not include in the preceding the chapters, will now be considered, without the attempt to make of this portion of the book a coherent whole.