CHALDEANS
The course of our narrative will take us on into Kurdistan, and among
peoples different to those we have met in our journeyings from the
Mediterranean and the eastern border of Mesopotamia. We have had
occasion to notice various races and peoples in passing, but of all
these, those who have by their high antiquity of descent the premier
claim to description are the Chaldeans, to whom up to the present we
have not given more than casual notice. As we are about to pass out
of the land of their ancestors, into the hills and mountains of the
semi-independent Kurds, this opportunity for adequate remark upon the
interesting Chaldean race cannot be passed.
The traveller of to-day, once he passes Urfa to go east, meets,
besides Armenians and Christians of Greek descent, large numbers of
the non-Muhammadan population who, in various places, go under a
variety of names--Nestorians, Nasara, Kaldani, Jacobites, Catholics,
New Chaldeans, Inglisi, Amrikani, and Protestan--the last three in
north-west Persia. These varied sects are all branches of the Chaldean
and Assyrian race, lineal descendants of the two nations that occupied
the Tigris valley as far from the mouth as Jaziri ibn Umar; and the
lower Euphrates valley, or Babylonia.
It is now 2500 years since the Assyrian nation broke up, and but a
little less since the second Chaldean period was brought to an end by
Alexander the Great; and since then, the Assyrians or Chaldeans (for
they were the same race) have been in subjection to alien rulers,
though the powerful and tenacious nature of the Chaldeans has won
for them a premier place in the civil life of all ages, and is to-day
the means of furnishing a great part of western Asia with a class of
merchants and villagers on a far higher scale of civilisation and
culture than the peoples among whom they live.
[Sidenote: THE NATIVE CHRISTIAN]
Many writers, and many residents in the countries inhabited by “native”
Christians have given unrestrained exercise to their pens in describing
their disgusting character, their deceit, their petty spirit, their
unfaithfulness, and so on. Nor can any deny that this is only too true
in many cases. Certainly the Christian who comes in contact with the
European is often a very disagreeable character, but it would be but
fair to him to mention, if possible, any member of any Oriental race or
faith--particularly Semitic--whose moral standard was not debased by
intercourse with Europeans, and the usual imitation of European vice,
consequent upon a mistaken idea of Western catholicism and progress. It
will be readily appreciated that the Christian naturally follows this
line of conduct sooner and with more facility than the Muhammadan, the
intrinsic aloofness of whose faith holds him off from a ready adoption
of Western habits, good or bad, particularly in the case of the Semitic
Muhammadan.
Our sources of information upon the origin of the Christian Church
in Mesopotamia are unfortunately extremely scanty, and it is only by
references to passing events that occur in purely secular works that we
are enabled to follow the course of dissemination of the doctrines of
Jesus Christ in the Middle East. To adherents of the English Protestant
Church the history of the Chaldean or Eastern Church should have a
special interest, for the old Chaldeans followed a scheme of tenets
more similar to those of the English Church than of any other section
of the much-divided Christian religion. Sir H. Layard, who stayed among
the Chaldeans of Mosul in 1840, in his work on Nineveh remarks: “To
Protestants, the doctrine and rites of a primitive sect of Christians,
who have ever remained untainted by the superstitions of Rome[34] must
be of high importance.”
We have no ground for any assumption, such as has been made, that
Christianity was carried by the old road through Urfa and Nisibis,
to Assyria by a follower of SS. Barnabas and Paul to Nineveh, or one
other of the cities which still stood upon the sites of old Assyrian
capitals. Nevertheless, in A.D. 410, when Yezdijird I. of Persia
reigned, Christianity was a recognised part of the social structure of
Assyria and Persia. Obviously for such progress to have been made as
to render Christianity one of the accepted religions in those regions,
points to the fact that preachers and priests must have commenced their
itineraries a great while before A.D. 400.
It was the Assyrians, or Chaldeans, who as a nation adopted speedily
the tenets of the new faith. Doubtless after the demolition of Assyria,
and then of Babylonia, the worship of Bel and Ishtar, the ancient gods,
had fallen into abeyance or even total desuetude, and the remnants of
the old nation seized upon the new religion to satisfy the spiritual
need that every people experiences. Their prelates and dignitaries soon
became a very important part of the Christian organisation, and it is
interesting to note the sympathy of the Persian Sasanian kings for this
new religion, and the success Christian effort met among the Persians.
This ancient and highly civilised people, whose character contains a
great deal of the speculative, has always been ready to consider the
claims of new Deistic theories, and has, in Muhammadan times, found an
outlet for its speculative tendency in the adoption of Shiism, which
it has made a purely Persian section of Islam. The early Christians
looked, perhaps with a warranted hope, upon the field of Persia, for
here were no feats of iconoclasm to perform--no Diana, no Jove, no
Venus, disputed with Christ the right to men’s adoration.
In Persia they found a tolerance broad as her mighty plains, a dualist
theory that provided only for principles of good and evil, as sharply
defined as her barren hills, a splendid isolation of thought far above
the turmoil of degraded passion that then represented the pantheistic
doctrines of the Greeks, Romans, and Assyrians themselves. High ideals,
spiritual aims of an altitude unknown to the Western materialists,
found themselves in singular harmony with the ascetic idea of early
Christianity.
[Sidenote: THE CHALDEANS IN PERSIA]
We must understand that of all places, near and remote, it was
Persia and the Zoroastrian people, the Perso-Aryans, and probably
the Medes--or races inhabiting modern Kurdistan--that welcomed Jesus
Christ’s doctrines, and hailed their purifying influences with the
delight of the neophyte to whom the master’s knowledge is revealed. So
we are told by a Chaldean bishop, writing in A.D. 400, that Yezdijird
I., king of Persia, was a merciful and good ruler, just and kindly.[35]
And so after, it was the known sympathy and support of the Persians
that gained for the new Church the name of “The Persian Party.”
This name was given after Nestorius himself, excommunicated from the
Byzantine Church, had found asylum under Yezdijird, and the support
given by this king was extended also by his son Firuz (A.D. 459–484),
who took under his protection later dissenters from the Western Church.
In A.D. 410 the great dissension between Nestorius, Patriarch of
Constantinople, and St Cyril, upon various points of doctrine, arose,
and resulted in the split which gave birth to the new sect called
the Nestorians. Throughout the controversy--resulting in the General
Council at Ephesus in 431--Nestorius had been supported by the Eastern
Bishops, and it was natural that after the rupture, the Chaldeans, who
sent them, should join the ranks of, or rather become themselves, the
Nestorians.
The doctrines of Nestorius were not by any means novel, nor, to those
who would regard Christianity as a whole, sufficiently important to
cause a split, or occasion such venom as has unfortunately always been
characteristic of the militant sectaries of the religion of peace.
The Bishop of Tarsus, Diodorus, had already promulgated Nestorius’
doctrines among the Western Assyrians, and as they were gradually
accepted, their upholders gained the name of the Persian party, partly
because of the situation of the new sect, and partly on account of the
sympathy of the Persian kings.
From this time the tenets of Nestorius, stamped out in Syria and
western Asia, became exclusively identified with the Chaldean nation,
and the first existence of the Nestorian Church or Assyrian Church
began about A.D. 450, or earlier.
From now till the advent of Muhammad, the Church may be said to have
prospered. It had vicissitudes certainly, for it was not in such a
position as to dictate to rulers and kings. It is, again, a sorry
feature of Christianity that we are told that during that time all the
persecution they suffered was from the Christian Byzantine Empire, and
all the sympathy and protection they obtained from the Zoroastrian
monarchs of Persia.
Among these stands out the exception of Kawad, king of Persia, who is
described by Chaldean priests of the period as a monster; war also did
its work in harassing the Church, but we have no reason to believe that
it did not harass the idolaters as well, for the Persians, whose armies
continually scourged Mesopotamia, were not admittedly of the religion
of any of the invaded peoples, while inclining to the doctrines of
Christianity, as we have seen already.
During these times the great college of Edessa (Urfa), which the
Isaurian Zeno had closed on account of its Nestorian doctrines, was
transferred to Jund-i-Shapur, near the modern Shushtar, in Elam, into
Persian territory, for there the Chaldeans were sure of protection
and sympathy from a people whose talent has ever been for literature
and learning. And the hope of the exiled priests was well justified.
The place of exile became a cherished home, and the medical college
of Edessa grew at Jund-i-Shapur to a great missionary and educational
centre.
[Sidenote: NUSHIRVAN THE JUST]
From Jund-i-Shapur, already in the territory of the Persian shahs,
missionaries were sent out to every Eastern country, Chaldeans by
birth and tongue, speaking Persian, and their enterprise carried
them to India, Turkestan, and China. So great had become the hold of
Christianity upon Persia, that at a very early date the country was
divided into bishoprics.
This college was established about A.D. 550 by Nushirvan the Just,
shah of Persia, one of the last of the Zoroastrian kings, and of the
Sasanian dynasty. Through all the later ages of Persia and Arabia he
has been the subject of eulogy, by Christian and Muhammadan alike,
for his great justice, a virtue more highly esteemed in the East than
by us, because so much rarer. Although he never became confessedly
Christian, his sympathies with the Christians were such as to induce
him to make a Chaldean woman his queen. Her son was brought up as a
Christian, and by his zeal he provoked admonition from his father,
whose policy seems to have dictated an impartial attitude toward all
faiths.
Had his relationship with, and just bearing towards, Christians been
insufficient to gain their gratitude and esteem,[36] he would have
won it by his persecution of the peculiar sect of Mazdak, which the
Christians had regarded with loathing and horror.
It is difficult to come at a true appreciation of Mazdak’s character
and doctrines, for all we know of either has been recorded by sectaries
of other religions, Christian, Zoroastrian, and Muhammadan, and such
reports are naturally prejudiced.
In general the scheme was a communistic idea which involved mystic
rites; the property of men, even to their wives, was common to all,
and certain regulations for daily life were imposed, notably the
prohibition from eating flesh and shedding blood, which last law
excited the extreme abhorrence of priests of other faiths.
The sect arose and was favoured in the reign of that Kawad before
mentioned, who probably earned the execration of the Christians and
Zoroastrians alike by his favouritism of the Mazdakites, perhaps
induced by hopes of quelling the great power the Zoroastrian priests
had acquired.
Nushirvan, however, while yet Crown Prince, instituted a policy of
repression that ended in a massacre of Mazdakites, and the execution
of Mazdak himself, at which some Christian Persians and the court
physician, a Christian priest, were present. This occurred only after
Nushirvan (then known as Khosru) had exposed to his father the king,
the means by which Mazdak performed his miracles. During the long and
glorious reign of this prince, perhaps the most peaceable and tolerant
period of that age, the Christians made great progress in Persia.
Nushirvan, though refraining from any committal of his own convictions,
imported to his college Greek philosophers and adherents of Nestorius,
and went so far as to make with the Byzantines a treaty which protected
them.
So at this time, the latter end of the 6th century, we have a pleasant
enough picture of Persia excellently ruled by a monarch of broad views,
whose queen and eldest son were Christians; whose courtiers, doctors,
and advisers counted in their ranks men of the same faith; whose
principal college, the glory of his life, was a Christian institution.
Small wonder, then, that the Chaldeans looked with high hope upon
the future, when Zoroastrianism should pass away to give place to a
Christian Persia.[37]
But while Nushirvan dreamed of empire, and the Christians of religious
supremacy, there was born he who would sweep before him the Persian
Empire and the priests of Zoroaster, leaving but a remnant in their
original domains. For Muhammad Mustafa--“The Prophet”--was born about
this time, and mentioned it himself later--“I was born,” said he, “in
the time of the just king,” _i.e._, Nushirvan, shah of Persia.
[Sidenote: ADVENT OF ISLAM]
Nushirvan died 578 A.D., and was followed by a number of weak monarchs
till the ill-fated Yazdijird III., last Zoroastrian king of Persia,
who, defeated at Qadasiyya by the Arabs in A.D. 635, died, an exile, in
Khurasan, in A.D. 651.
At this, one of the most important turning-points in the history of
the East, and the occasion of the inception of a doctrine that numbers
among its adherents a large portion of the total population of the
world, it is advisable to turn aside for a moment from the history of
the Eastern Christians to ascertain in what condition the Church was at
that time. Most commentators upon Islam and the Christianity of this
period agree that the Church of Jesus Christ had, by its adoption of
various heterodox ideas, become split up into little more than a widely
spread religion, which, while nominally one in faith and aim, was
actually nothing more than a number of sects at war with one another
upon points of dogma, and generally sunk in corruption. This certainly
was the case among the Christians of the West under the Byzantine
Emperors, and the Syrian or Arab Christians of Western Arabia and
Damascus. In such confusion was the Christian Church in these parts
that Muhammad in seeking between the two great faiths of his land,
Judaism and Christianity, for material wherewith to compile the Quran,
turned away from the involved and contradictory views of the Christian
priests, to the more comprehensible doctrine of the Jews.
But we are concerned with the Nestorians alone, and of all the sects,
or schisms, this was the least corrupted in fundamental idea, and we
find that it compared very favourably in organisation and unity of
purpose, with the almost idolatrous sects of the Syrian and Coptic
Churches.
Secessions and heresies occurred in Malabar, Socotra, and Diarbekr,
but the original Nestorian idea seems to have been generally retained,
namely, that of the dual nature of Jesus Christ, one personality the
man, and the other the Word of God, and the refusal of the title of
“Mother of God” to the Virgin Mary, who, they said, was the carnate
vessel, albeit purified, that received the purely material seed
communicated by a miracle, and therefore the mother of the man Jesus,
the carnate individuality.
At any rate it may be seen that such doctrines, in themselves the
result of speculation, are by no means bound to be the final expression
of speculation, which is ever progressive, and it is hardly remarkable
that many sub-theories should have sprung into existence among the
Chaldeans. Yet we notice that the Chaldean Church existed, homogeneous,
through the great bulk of its immensity from the year 410 till about
the 17th century, a fact which speaks as no argument can for its unity
of idea and teaching, as compared with the lamentable condition of the
degraded Christian institutions of Syria and Greece.
In the first years of Islam there was more tolerance for Christianity
than ever afterwards, as well as for Jews. Even Zoroastrians met with a
certain consideration owing to a half-reverence Muhammad had accorded
to their prophet. The Christians and Jews, however, were “People of the
Book”--that is, people of a revealed faith--and as such entitled to
more merciful treatment than pagans and idolaters. Moreover, Muhammad
was considerably indebted to Christians and Jews for a great part of
the Quran; and a Nestorian priest, Sergius, is said to have assisted
him in the compilation of certain chapters. In answer to an accusation
by the Arabs that he was assisted by a foreigner, the passage in the
Surah ul Nahl (The Chapter of the Bee) was “revealed.” “We also know
that they say, ‘Verily a certain man teacheth him to compose the
Quran.’ The tongue of the person to whom they incline is a foreign
tongue, whereas the Quran is written in the perspicuous Arabic tongue.”
[Sidenote: MUHAMMAD AND THE CHALDEANS]
So, while Muhammad displayed the greatest abhorrence for all Christian
symbols, execrating above all the cross or crucifix, yet he did not
force them to retract their beliefs, and arranged a special code of
treatment for them, particularly exempting them from military service,
in lieu of which they paid a poll-tax, or “jaziya.”[38]
In the case of towns and countries which submitted to the Islamic army,
the generals of Muhammad entered into covenants of protection in some
cases, agreeing to protect them as long as they paid this tax, and
there is ground for believing that the treaty between Muhammad and the
Chaldean Church, of which an exact copy was published in A.D. 1630,[39]
but the authenticity of which is doubtful, existed in some form. By the
terms of this treaty the Nestorians were protected and exempted from
many vexatious taxes.
The Chaldeans now entered upon a second period of prosperity, which
lasted 200 years, and during which under the early Khalifas they
attained premier positions in all matters of philosophy, learning, and
even statesmanship, causing more than once complaints from the less
gifted and, consequently, the less favoured Musulman Arabs. The 2nd
century of this period, from the time of the battle of the Zab (see p.
107), when a Persian dynasty reigned, was as well the golden age of
the Khalifate as of the later Chaldean Church. Under the beneficent
rule of the earlier Abbasid Khalifas (among whom were the renowned
Harun al Rashid and Ma’mun) the patriarchate was transferred to Bagdad,
and a new bishopric was founded at Kufa, the very heart and centre of
Islam. Under the Khalifas Ma’mun and Harun al Rashid particularly, the
Chaldeans found themselves in the greatest favour. Their colleges were
protected, and as they were versed in many languages and sciences,
their priests and philosophers were given the translation into Arabic
of books from the Greek, Persian, and Chaldean languages. It is to the
Chaldeans of this time that Islam is indebted for many of the Greek
authors’ works, particularly Aristotle, whose philosophical treatises
have been ever popular among the Arabs.
Undoubtedly, both Arabian letters and the Chaldean Church reached their
highest point in the period A.D. 809–813, the Khalifate of Ma’mun, and
we may here remark upon the extent of the Church at that date. There
were then, or soon after, as many as twenty-five bishoprics all over
Asia,[40] for the missionaries sent out in the 5th century had not been
idle, as we shall see later.
However, this, the brightest period of Islam and Christianity, was
sadly darkened by the accession of one of the monsters of history to
the Khalifal throne. After the Khalifa Ma’mun came Al Mu’tasim, a
famous ruler also, who transferred the capital to Samerra, higher up
the Tigris than Bagdad, and he was followed by Al Wathiq, and then by
Al Mutawakkil in A.D. 847, who degraded the high office he held as much
as his greater predecessors had exalted it.
[Sidenote: PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS]
One of his first acts was to favour the very brutal Turkish soldiers
and ruffians in his service, abasing the Persians and Arabs who had
served his brother and predecessor. It was not sufficient for him to
degrade thus the faithful servants about him; he went on--in the excess
of orthodox zeal he displayed as a counterfoil to his drunkenness and
debauchery--to defile and destroy the graves of the martyrs of the
Shi’a section, to cause to be disgracefully ridiculed the memory of
Ali, a saint revered by Sunni and Shi’a alike, and to murder countless
adherents and admirers of those martyrs. Every degradation and disgrace
he could thrust upon the Jews and Christians he did, causing them to
wear garments of conspicuous and unpleasant hues, “parti-coloured
badges, and caps, and girdles of certain ignoble patterns, to ride
only on mules and asses, with wooden stirrups and saddles of strange
construction, and to have placed over their houses effigies of
devils.”[41]
The college of Jund-i-Shapur, that Nushirvan had founded, was deprived
by him of all its rights, and the director, one Bokht Yishu, banished
to Bahrain. The churches of the Christians were destroyed or used as
mosques, and various rules prevented their proclaiming their religion
while living by any signs, or when dead by tombstones.
In the long record of philosophers, literati, and authors of the
earlier times of Islam it is hardly surprising to find almost a blank
between the years 847 and 861, when Mutawakkil was murdered during a
fit of drunkenness by the Turks, whom he had preferred to all others.
All the persecution the Christians now suffered was not enough to
extinguish their influence, and they partially regained their position
in the 11th century under the Seljuq monarchs, and right up to the time
of the terrible scourge of the Mongols under Chengiz Khan and Hulagu
Khan, they still occupied positions of some importance, and were as yet
a cognate church of some extent. Far beyond the bounds of Islam they
were busy; busy upon a scheme which they hoped would crush Islam and
exalt Christianity all over Asia, from Pekin to Syria. This scheme was
no less than the invasion of Asia by the Tartar kings of Qarakorum,
whose power was growing fast, and whose thirst for land was growing
keener. The Christians, meanwhile, strove to make the religion of Jesus
Christ the national faith before the day of conquest dawned, and had
certainly made great progress among various Mongol people when the
hordes poured out westwards.
It will be remembered that in very early days missionaries had been
sent to China and Turkistan, and they had acquired considerable
influence over the Khans of Tartary, some of whom are said to have been
converted to Christianity. The famous Prester John, whose name has been
obscured behind many absurd legends, was one of these rulers.[42]
The campaign carried on from Merv, the see of the Chaldean Bishop of
Tartary, succeeded to such a degree as to win to Christianity a large
number of the female members of the ruling families, and an important
nomad tribe called the Keraite, whose capital was in Qarakorum, in the
Altai Mountains. Yet, of the actual invaders of the West none were won
over, being frankly pagans, making a policy of equal freedom for all
religions, but adhering to none. Thus, while several were of Christian
mothers, and were even baptized in infancy, receiving Christian names,
they retained no sign of their origin when come to power, changing the
names of their infancy to Tartar titles, and forgetting the religion of
their childhood.
In China the missionaries had had equal success, as is witnessed by the
tablet found at Se-gan-fu, which described the favour which had met
their doctrine from both king and country, mentioning also the names
of Chinese Christian bishops and mandarins of that faith. From this
interesting tablet it was first ascertained that, up to A.D. 781, the
date of the inscription, the Chaldeans had pushed so far as China, and
the revelation of the existence of a recognised Church there was so
astonishing to the critics, as to throw discredit upon the monument for
some time.[43]
[Sidenote: THE CHALDEANS IN MONGOLIA]
Towards the fall of the Khalifate, the Chaldeans, seeing their Church
in Persia almost extinct, and in Mesopotamia confined, and melting
before the gradual absorption by Islam, turned the eyes of hope towards
these Mongol states, aspiring to find in them a weapon to drive out
Islam. That it acted against Islam, dealing it almost a death-blow,
is well known; but the too sanguine Christians did not foresee that
it would be at the hands of two of the Mongol Khans, one a baptized
Christian, that the Nestorian Church should suffer persecution and
massacre, and its remnants be forced to save themselves by flight to
the inaccessible mountains of the Kurds. For it was not at all a zeal
for Christianity that urged the Mongols on, though the reports by
Chaldean priests of Western wealth may have excited the greed of the
Khans. Just at the period before the great invasions, the opening of
the 13th century, missionary effort had redoubled, and Roman Catholics
for the first time appeared on the scene, many courageous monks daring
the dangerous voyage from Europe to the unknown East. The tolerance of
Chengiz Khan, first Mongol emperor, was responsible in a great measure
for this renewed enthusiasm, which was the more sanguine in remembering
that Islam does not proselytise.
But the terrible invasion of Hulagu Khan, that swept great and small,
faithful and infidel, before it, broke both Christianity and Islam for
a time, striking at the heart of both, Bagdad, which was reduced to
ruins among scenes of the most terrible inhumanity ever witnessed.[44]
Hulagu, himself pagan, acknowledging no power, superhuman nor human,
but himself, was followed by successors who first embraced Buddhism
and later Islam, most noteworthy of whom was Ghazan Khan (A.D. 1295),
who destroyed thousands of Christians all over Tartary, Persia, and
Mesopotamia.
Now Islam had gained over the devastating Tartars, and began to revive
as a religion, though the high degree of culture of former days was
obviously not to be looked for under the rule of barbarians. But
Christianity, persecuted, despised, and detested alike by Mongol and
Arab, waned, and its adherents became obscure and humble. Nevertheless,
though the great Chaldean Church no longer existed as before, its
amputated members in China and India being separated from the central
Church, its headquarters demolished, and its priests scattered,
yet a great number of Christians still lived in the domains of the
Mongol Emperors till the second period of invasion, when Timur-i-Lang
(Tamerlane) emulated by his ferocity the earlier and pagan invaders.
Among the many cruelties he committed was the massacre of Christians.
From the first (A.D. 1380), he made a point of persecuting these
people, his design being obviously to exterminate the whole race and
religion. Not content with destroying what remained of their churches,
he pursued them in every part of Persia, Chaldea, and Babylonia, till
he had driven them out of the lands of their ancestors, and their
panic-stricken remnants found refuge among the remote valleys and hills
of the Kurds, whom even Tamerlane could not assail.
The patriarchate, which had been removed to Mosul, was now transferred
to Julamark, a village in the very heart of Kurdistan, out of the
reach of any but the Kurds, who lived upon terms of friendliness till
the Turks and priests ousted the fine old princes who ruled them there,
and induced them to turn against the Chaldeans, in 1839.
[Sidenote: UNSCRUPULOUS ROMAN CATHOLICS]
The Roman Catholics had, through their missionaries, become aware
of the existence of the great Chaldean Church, and now--to their
eternal discredit be it said--they actually combined with the Turks to
persecute the Chaldeans who yet remained in the foothills and plains
near Mosul.
“By a series of the most open frauds, the Roman Catholic emissaries
obtained many of the documents which constituted the title of the
Chaldean Patriarch, and gave him a claim to be recognised and protected
as the head of the Chaldean Church by the Turkish authorities. A system
of persecution and violence which would scarcely be credited compelled
the Chaldeans of the plain to renounce their faith and unite with the
Church of Rome.”[45]
However, these unsavoury operations took some time in development,
and meanwhile we may see the progress of the emaciated Church--now at
enmity with Muslim and Christian alike, finding only sanctuary from its
foes among the savage Kurds, the terror of whose name kept the Turks
away from the mountains.
The patriarchate in the 15th century was at Al Qush, not far from
Mosul, but persecution growing more persistent, and many being forced
into the Catholic ranks, the existing patriarch Mar Elias was ignored
by the orthodox Chaldeans farther east, and the patriarch Mar Shimun
at Julamark was elected, whose descendants, always bearing the name
Shimun, are still the leaders of the now almost extinct old Chaldean
Church.
In the 16th century the Roman Catholics having by the means employed
sufficiently subdued the Chaldeans nominally Catholic, nominated a
patriarch, and founded thus a patriarchal line in the name of Yusif,
whom they established at Diarbekr, placing him over the Catholic
Chaldeans without in any way consulting their wishes.
While this Catholic Chaldean section continued, by the exertions
of missionaries, to enlist more recruits from the Chaldeans of the
plains, the orthodox party in the mountains was gaining strength and
confidence. Among the rough and fierce Kurds they became, too, warlike.
Adopting Kurdish dress and habits it was almost impossible to tell
them from the hereditary mountaineers, with whom they lived upon the
best of terms. Inaccessible as were their villages and castles, the
Turks were forced to leave them independent, though they nominally
admitted the Sultan as lord of the soil they inhabited. It was not till
1839 that the Turkish Government officials encouraged the revengeful
spirit of Nurullah Bey, a Hakkiari Kurd, who was at blood-feud with
some Chaldeans, and Badar Khan Bey, who was better remembered than the
greater man.
A very significant fact in support of the assertion that the Kurds
were incited to rise, is the treatment of Badar Khan Bey, when, after
the repeated protests and considerable pressure from Europe, the
Sultan was forced to capture him. The officer deputed to this task,
one Osman Pasha, made such lenient terms with the Kurdish chief as
made it practically certain that he had not been acting without the
acquiescence of the Turks. Nor was any part of the Kurdish territory
invaded, except in the expedition against Badar Khan Bey, after which
the troops were withdrawn. The opinions of contemporary Chaldeans, as
expressed in some old letters I saw at Mosul, confirm these views, and
state that the Kurds, although ever alive to the supposed wealth of the
Chaldeans, had been always on fairly good terms with them; indeed, as
we have seen, for over four hundred years they had lived side by side
without any disturbances occurring.
The Mar Shimun of the period fled, during the massacres, to Urumiah,
where were settled a number of Chaldeans, but returned later to
Julamark, and was pensioned by the Turkish Government, thereby giving
up the last remnants of any pretensions to independence that his people
might have preserved. His successors have further weakened their
positions by giving way to an overwhelming passion for intrigue, and,
occupied with these discreditable operations, in which they try to
involve American and Protestant missionaries, they have lost most of
their hold over the Church, leaving the field open to the energetic
assaults of the Catholics.
[Sidenote: MASSACRE OF CHALDEANS]
In January this year (1909) a new massacre of old Chaldeans occurred
in the neighbourhood of S’airt, near Bitlis, a district where the
Chaldeans have sunk into such a position of degradation, physical and
moral, as to leave them little more than savages. Their priests are in
some cases not sufficiently instructed to say the ordinary services,
and the people are reported as complaining bitterly that they do not
know whom they are supposed to worship, nor what is the significance
of the word “Christian.” This condition of affairs has obtained for a
long time now. For many years, under the vitiated governmental system
of Turkey, the Kurds have been allowed to do as they please with the
possessions of the Chaldean peasants, no steps ever being taken against
them by the Turks, at once complaisant and afraid. It is a noteworthy
fact that under the Shi’a rule of Persia the Chaldeans have prospered,
and the miserable creatures they call “Gavarnai,” who come, naked and
hungry, fleeing down the mountain slopes from Turkish territory, are
almost a different race from the educated and progressive Chaldeans of
Urumia and Salmas in Persia.
The Roman Catholic Chaldeans in Turkish territory have increased in
numbers since the split in 1550, all those about Mosul and in Diarbekr
being of that persuasion. However, Roman Catholicism received a shock
in 1869, when the Bull of Papal Infallibility was issued, and a section
was led by Thomas Ronkus, the Mutran Mallus, and Kas Jacob Naaman,
afterwards Archbishop of Bagdad--which was called the New Chaldeans,
that split from the Roman Catholics.
The clauses of the Bull to which these objected were:--
1. That a bishop cannot be made without Papal sanction.
2. That three candidates for archbishoprics must proceed to Rome, of
whom the Pope will choose one and reject two.
3. All the revenues of the Church are to be sent to Rome.
It appears that the Mutran Mallus, who had been sent by the Patriarch
Yusif Odo to Rome, at first accepted the Bull, but that upon the
Armenian Catholic Church splitting on the same subject, the Patriarch
Yusif Odo and his mutrans seceded, and betook themselves to Al Qush,
and in the village of Dar el Sayeda appointed four mutrans without
interrogating Rome. One of these, Elie, however, deserted to the
Dominicans at Mosul, and was made a full priest, afterwards becoming
Bishop of Jazira ibn Umar. In 1875 Yusif Odo re-entered the Roman
Catholic Church, leaving the New Chaldean sect under the Mutran Mallus.
After the decease of the Yusif Odo, which occurred shortly after his
desertion of the New Chaldeans, Elie was appointed in his place, and at
once directed his energies towards regathering the little sect into the
Catholic fold.
He was assisted in a measure by the departure of Mallus for Malabar,
and after his return, finding his people wavering, came with them to
Mosul and re-entered the Roman Catholic Church.
One of the principal strongholds of this sect was Tel Kaif, a large
village near Mosul, which had been one of the first to turn Roman
Catholic.[46]
The Old Chaldeans have made several attempts to regenerate the old
Church, and have appealed in every case to England for the assistance,
for they have always considered themselves more in sympathy with the
English Church than with any other.
[Sidenote: THE ARCHBISHOP’S MISSION]
In 1843, the year of the last massacre under Badar Khan Bey,
communications were opened with Archbishop Howley, but no result was
forthcoming. Previous to this, two gentlemen had visited Urumiah at the
instance of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and the Royal
Geographical Society, to report upon the condition of the Nestorians.
No substantial reply having been received to their appeals, the
Chaldeans became discouraged, and it was Archbishop Tait in 1868 who
received the next appeal, and after sending a clergyman to report,
in 1881 he sent out a minister. Several years later the Archbishop
of Canterbury’s mission took form, and a complete staff came out to
Urumiah, and was hailed with delight and gratitude by the Chaldeans;
for it had come, not to win them over by force or persuasion to another
faith, but to help them regenerate the ancient Church upon the lines of
their own belief and tradition. Schools and colleges have been opened,
as well for ordinary instruction as for priests and deacons.
Among the annals of self-sacrifice and hardship cheerfully endured must
shine the name of the Rev. W. Brown, whom Mrs Bishop the traveller met
in 1887, at Julamark, tramping from village to village, discredited and
harassed by the Turks, living in the lowest poverty, and often going
hungry and cold in the mountains. This priest exerted his endeavours
to pacify the Kurds, who were exhibiting great hostility towards the
Chaldeans, and he succeeded in preventing a massacre.
Meanwhile other proselytising bodies have not been idle. The Americans
appeared in Urumiah and Turkish territory about 1818, and have a
mission in the Urumiah district, a branch of that at Teheran, and
a body of Chaldeans has left the old Church to follow the American
Presbyterians, gaining for itself the name of Amrikani among other
sects. The mission in Urumiah has distinguished itself by an ability to
keep on good terms with the Kurds, one of whom was so friendly with Dr
Cochrane in 1880, that when Shaikh Abaidulla invaded Persia, he spared
Urumiah at the intercession of the missionary.
Not long after the Americans the French Lazarists appeared, and
established themselves near Salmas. The original priests, Fathers
Cluzel and Darnes, experienced some difficulty and were nearly
expelled, for the Russians induced the Shah to issue a “farman,” or
royal command, prohibiting Christians from changing their religion.
However, the mission survived, and has now schools and priests at
Urumiah and Khosrova, near Dilman.
At this latter place the inhabitants, while nearly all confessing Roman
Catholicism, lament the fact, for they assert that the means adopted
by the missionaries have been underhand and deceitful in a degree only
by those of their predecessors in Turkey. Certain it is, that they
have by intimidation, by working upon personal disagreements, and by
other even less creditable means, quite captured the population of the
place, and obtained for themselves the best gardens and buildings, even
constituting themselves arbitrators and lords of the water-supply,
which they condescend to hand over to the five thousand odd inhabitants
only after they have used so much as to ensure the success of their
extensive crops, and their consequent enhanced price when those of the
villages fail.
Such briefly is the history of the Chaldeans and Assyrians since their
nation was broken up. At present they exist, as we have seen, in
Urumiah of Persia, in central Kurdistan, in Mosul, and latterly in the
new colony at Ahwaz.
[Illustration: ON THE PERSIAN FRONTIER, S. KURDISTAN.]
Particular mention must be made of the colony in the old capital of
the Ardalan princes of Kurdistan, Sina, where, under the enlightened
rule of that ancient family they were originally granted refuge, and
subsequently so protected and encouraged as to have made them what they
are now, a wealthy and powerful, if not numerous body, living on terms
of the greatest cordiality with the Kurds of the Persian province of
Ardalan. Here they possess a handsome school, the greater part of
the money for which was subscribed by the Kurdish nobles of Sina, and
at which many of the Kurdish lads receive instruction side by side with
their Christian fellows.
[Sidenote: THE CHALDEAN CREED]
There are also large colonies in Tiflis, and a considerable number have
now settled in America, where they have generally been very successful.
The doctrine of Nestorius, that of the dual existence of Jesus Christ,
has already been noted, and we may here briefly detail the tenets of
the old Chaldean Church. The Creed is as follows:[47]--
“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of all things
which are visible and invisible.
“And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten of
His Father before all worlds: who was not created: the true God of
the true God: of the same substance with His Father, by Whose hands
the worlds were made, and all things were created; Who for us men and
for our salvation descended from Heaven, and was incarnate by the
Holy Ghost, and became man, and was conceived and born of the Virgin
Mary; and suffered and was crucified, in the days of Pontius Pilate;
and died, and was buried, and rose on the third day, according to the
Scriptures; and ascended into Heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of
His Father; and is again to come to judge both the living and the dead.
“And we believe in one Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, who proceeded
from the Father--the Spirit that giveth light.
“And in one Holy and Universal Church.
“We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and the
resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”
There appears to be some doubt as to the number of sacraments, but
seven is supposed to be the number.
In use and ritual there is a nearer approach to the proceedings of the
English Church than to any other.
Confession, transubstantiation, the existence of purgatory, exhibition
of images, are the main points that are denied or prohibited; while
they administer both elements to communicants who have been confirmed.
The clergy were formerly all allowed to marry, and it was only the
highest functionaries who discontinued the custom.
There are eight orders of clergy: Patriarch, Archbishop, Bishop,
Archdeacon, Priest, Deacon, Subdeacon and Reader. As we have seen, the
Patriarchal office is hereditary, and certain restrictions regulate the
diet of the mother before the child’s birth as well as his own diet
during his life, when all meat is forbidden.
The fasts and feasts are extremely numerous, and all Chaldeans--Roman
Catholic, Orthodox, or otherwise--are extraordinarily strict in the
observance of such days in their respective sects, besides being very
strict Sabbatarians.
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER VII:
[34] Ichabod! the proud day of that statement is passed away, and so is
the greater part of the Chaldean Church--“the superstitions of Rome”
have captured the Chaldeans, though not, I fear, in fair contest.
[35] “The good and merciful King Yezdijird, the blessed amongst the
kings, may he be remembered with blessing, and may his future be yet
more fair than his earlier life! Every day he doeth good to the poor
and distressed.”--Browne, _Lit. Hist._, vol. i., p. 135.
[36] Browne, _Lit. Hist._, vol. i., p. 168, quotes the gratitude
Christians bore Nushirvan, for they “gave a touching proof of their
gratitude for his favours a century later, when they would not suffer
the remains of his unfortunate descendant Yazdigird III. ... to lie
unburied.”
[37] None can tell, naturally, what would have been the condition of
the Middle East had Muhammad never appeared, but while it would quite
possibly have been Christian, it would have been a very debased faith;
for even in those days before Islam, wherever the Christian Church
had wandered far from Chaldea, it had become terribly corrupt, and
doctrines crept in that almost took from it the right to be called
Christian.
[38] An enormous amount of feeling has been recently roused upon this
subject in Turkish dominions, by the resolve of the new Turkish Majlis
to abolish the jaziya and make Christians and Jews serve in the army.
[39] _Testimentum Mahometi_ (Paris: Sionita, 1630).
[40] The Bishoprics were: 1. Elam (Arabistan of south-west Persia); 2.
Nisibis (north-east Mesopotamia); 3. Basra (Persian Gulf); 4. Assyria
(tract between the Zab rivers); 5. Beth Qurma, in Assyria; 6. Hulvan,
in western Persia (now called Zuhab, a Kurdish province); 7. Persia;
8. Merv; 9. Herat; 10. Arabia; 11. China; 12. India; 13. Armenia; 14.
Syria; 15. Azarbaijan (north-west Persia); 16. Ray and Tabaristan
(northern Persia); 17. Dailam (south coast of the Caspian Sea); 18.
Samarqand (Transoxiana); 19. Kashgar and Turkestan (Tartary); 20. Balkh
and Tucharestan; 21. Sistan (eastern Persia); 22. Khan Baligh (Pekin);
24. Tanguth (Tartary); 25. Chasemgara and Nuachita (Tartary).--(From
Layard, _Nineveh and its Remains_, vol. i., p. 257.) From the twelfth
bishopric were descended the Christians of St John of Malabar. That of
Persia included the Bishopric of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, said to
have been founded by one Theophilus, about A.D. 350.
[41] Muir’s _Caliphate_, pp. 521–2.
[42] A very interesting letter regarding the state and pomp of this
khan is quoted in Layard’s _Nineveh and its Remains_, vol. i., pp.
250–4.
[43] _Vide_ Layard, _Nineveh_, vol. i., p. 245, for a full description
of the monument and a part translation. More recent discoveries in the
20th century have confirmed this inscription, which was first seen in
A.D. 1625.
[44] From the accounts that are to be read of the invasion of Hulagu
Khan, we learn thousands of details of the revolting and bestial nature
of the inhuman Mongols, and of the ghoulish ingenuity of cruelty they
displayed. These are fully described in the books of Planocarpini,
Guillaume de Ruysbroeck, d’Ohsson, and others.
[45] Layard, _Nineveh and its Remains_, vol. i., p. 259.
[46] This village, whose inhabitants would seem to have a special
aptitude for river work, supplies deck-hands to the steamers of Messrs
Lynch Bros., on the Tigris and Karun rivers, to the Turkish boats, and
to the “Nusrat,” a Persian steamer on the Karun. By this means the
Chaldeans find themselves once more back in their ancient country, and
there is now a priest at Ahwaz, not far from where his forbears taught
in the great college of Jund-i-Shapur.
[47] Layard, _Nineveh and its Remains_, vol. i., pp. 262–3.