"THE UNVERACIOUS ORIENTAL"
The Oriental's juvenile temperament and his partial disregard for
concrete facts have led his Anglo-Saxon cousin to consider him as
essentially unveracious. "You cannot believe what an Oriental says."
"The Orientals are the children of the 'Father of Lies.'" "Whatever an
Oriental says, the opposite is likely to be the truth"; and so forth.
I do not wish in the least to undertake to excuse or even condone the
Oriental's unveracity, any more than to approve of the ethics of
American politicians during a political campaign. I have no doubt that
the Oriental suffers more from the universal affliction of
untruthfulness than does the Anglo-Saxon, and that he sorely needs to
restrict his fancy, and to train his intellect to have more respect for
facts. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to say that a {108} clear
understanding of some of the Oriental's modes of thought will quash
many of the indictments against his veracity. His ways will remain
different from the ways of the Anglo-Saxon, and perhaps not wholly
agreeable to the latter; but the son of the East--the dreamer and
writer of scriptures--will be credited with more honesty of purpose.
It is unpleasant to an Anglo-Saxon to note how many things an Oriental
says, but does not mean. And it is distressing to an Oriental to note
how many things the Anglo-Saxon means, but does not say. To an
unreconstructed Syrian the brevity, yea, even curtness, of an
Englishman or an American, seems to sap life of its pleasures and to
place a disproportionate value on time. For the Oriental, the primary
value of time must not be computed in terms of business and money, but
in terms of sociability and good fellowship. Poetry, and not prosaic
accuracy, must be the dominant feature of speech.
There is much more of intellectual inaccuracy than of moral delinquency
in the Easterner's {109} speech. His misstatements are more often the
result of indifference than the deliberate purpose to deceive. One of
his besetting sins is his _ma besay-il_--it does not matter. He sees
no essential difference between nine o'clock and half after nine, or
whether a conversation took plate on the housetop or in the house. The
main thing is to know the substance of what happened, with as many of
the supporting details as may be conveniently remembered. A case may
be overstated or understated, not necessarily for the purpose of
deceiving, but to impress the hearer with the significance or the
insignificance of it. If a sleeper who had been expected to rise at
sunrise should oversleep and need to be awakened, say half an hour or
an hour later than the appointed time, he is then aroused with the
call, "Arise, it is noon already--_qûm sar edh-hir_." Of a strong and
brave man it is said, "He can split the earth--_yekkid elaridh_." The
Syrians suffer from no misunderstanding in such cases. They _discern_
one another's meaning.
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So also many Scriptural passages need to be _discerned_. The purpose
of the Oriental speaker or writer must be sought often beyond the
letter of his statement, which he uses with great freedom.
In the first chapter of St. Mark's Gospel, the thirty-second and
thirty-third verses, it is said, "And at even, when the sun did set,
they brought unto him all that were diseased, and them that were
possessed of devils. And _all the city_ was gathered together at the
door." The swiftness with which the poor people in Eastern communities
bring their sick to a healer, be he a prophet or only a physician, is
proverbial. Because of the scarcity of physicians, as well as of money
with which to pay for medical attendance, when a healer is summoned to
a home many afflicted persons come or are brought to him. The peoples
of the East have always believed also in the healing of diseases by
religious means. When a prophet arises the first thing expected of him
is that he should heal the sick. Both the priest and the physician
{111} are appealed to in time of trouble. To those who followed and
believed in him Jesus was the healer of both the soul and the body.
But note the account of the incident before us. The place was the city
of Capernaum, and we are told that "_all the city_ was gathered
together at the door" of the house where Jesus was bestowing the
loving, healing touch upon the sick. Was the _whole city_ at the door?
Were _all_ the sick in that large city brought into that house for
Jesus to heal them? Here we are confronted by a physical
impossibility. An Anglo-Saxon chronicler would have said, "Quite a
number gathered at the door," which in all probability would have been
a _correct_ report.
But to the Oriental writer the object of the report was not _to
determine the number_ of those who stood outside, nor to insist that
each and every sick person in Capernaum was brought into the humble
home of Simon and Andrew. It was rather to glorify the Great Teacher
and his divine work of mercy, and not to give a photographic report of
the attendant {112} circumstances. The saying, "Quite a number
gathered at the door," may be correct, but to an Oriental it is
absolutely colorless and tasteless, an inexcusably parsimonious use of
the imagination.
Take another Scriptural passage. In the seventeenth chapter of St.
Matthew's Gospel, the first verse, we read: "And after six days Jesus
taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an
high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them; and his face did
shine as the sun." "After six days" from what time? In the preceding
chapter a general reference to time is made in the thirteenth verse,
where it is said: "When Jesus came into the coasts of Cæsarea Philippi,
he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man
am?" But here no definite date is given. Chapter sixteenth ends with
those great words, "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and
whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a
man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and {113} lose his own
soul?" The two last verses of this chapter promise the speedy coming
of the Kingdom.
"After six days" from what time? Well, what does it matter from what
time? Do you not see that the object of the record is to give a
glimpse of what happened on that "high mountain" where the light and
glory of the unseen world were reflected in the face of the Christ?
The intelligent lay reader of the New Testament cannot fail to notice,
especially in the Gospels, gaps and abrupt beginnings such as "In those
days"; "Then came the disciples to Jesus"; "And it came to pass"; and
many similar expressions which seem to point nowhere. The record seems
to be rather incoherent. Yes, such difficulties, which are due largely
to the Oriental's indifference to little details, exist in the Bible,
but they are very unimportant. The central purpose of these books is
to enable the reader to perceive the secret of a holy personality,
whose mission was, is, and forever shall be, to emancipate the soul of
man from the {114} bondage of a world of fear, weakness, sin, and
doubt, and lead it onward and upward to the realms of faith, hope, and
love. This purpose the Scriptures abundantly subserve.
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