§ 64. MISSIONARY OPERATIONS IN THE EAST.
The real missionarizing church of this period was the Western
(§ 75 ff.). It was pre-eminently fitted for this by its practical
tendency and called to it by its intimate connection with the hordes
of the migrating peoples. Examples of organized missionary activity in
the East are rare. Yet other more occasional ways were opened for the
spread of Christianity outside of the empire, by Christian fugitives
and prisoners of war, political embassies and trade associations.
Anchorets, monks and stylites, too, who settled on the borders of
the empire or in deserts outside, by their extraordinary appearance
made a powerful impression on the surrounding savage tribes. These
streamed in in crowds, and those strange saints preached Christ to
them by word and work.
§ 64.1. =The Ethiopic-Abyssinian Church.=[186]--About A.D. 316
a certain Meropius of Tyre on a voyage of discovery to the
countries south of Egypt was murdered with his whole ship’s
company. Only his two nephews Frumentius and Aedesius were spared.
They won the favour of the Abyssinian king and became the tutors
of the heir apparent, Aizanas. Frumentius was subsequently, in
A.D. 438, ordained by Athanasius bishop of the country. Aizanas
was baptised, the church spread rapidly from Abyssinia to
Ethiopia and Numidia. A translation of the bible into the Geez
dialect, the language of the country, is attributed to Frumentius.
Closely connected with the Egyptian mother church, it fell with
it into Monophysitism (§ 52, 7). In worship and discipline,
besides much that is primitive, it has borrowed many things
from Judaism, and retained many of the old habits of the country,
_e.g._ observing the Sabbath alongside of the Sunday, forbidding
certain meats, circumcision, covenanting. Their canon comprised
81 books: besides the biblical, there are 16 patristic writings
of the Pre-Chalcedonian age.
§ 64.2. =The Persian Church.=--The church had taken root in
Persia as early as the 3rd century. With the 4th century there
came a sore time of bloody persecution, which was constantly fed
partly by the fanatical Magians, partly by the almost incessant
wars with the Christian Roman empire, which aroused suspicion of
foreign sympathies hostile to the country. The first great and
extensive persecution of the Christians broke out in A.D. 343
under Shapur or Sapores [Sapor] II. It lasted 35 years and during
this dreadful time 16,000 of the clergy, monks and nuns were
put to death, but the number of martyrs from the laity was far
beyond reckoning. Only shortly before his death Shapur [Sapor]
stopped the persecution and proclaimed universal religious
toleration. During 40 years’ rest the Persian church attained
to new vigour; but the fanaticism of Bishop Abdas of Susa who
caused a fire-temple to be torn down in A.D. 418, occasioned
a new persecution, which reached its height in A.D. 420 under
Bahram or Baranes V. and was carried on for 30 years with the
most fiendish ingenuity of cruel tortures. The generosity of a
Christian bishop, Acacius of Amida in Mesopotamia, who by the
sale of the church property redeemed a multitude of Persian
prisoners of war and sent them to their homes, at last moved
the king to stop the persecution. The Nestorians driven from the
Roman empire found among the Persians protection and toleration,
but were the occasion under king Firuz or Peroz of a new
persecution of the Catholics, A.D. 465. In A.D. 498 the whole
Persian church declared in favour of Nestorianism (§ 52, 3),
and enjoyed forthwith undisturbed toleration, developed to an
unexpected extent, retained its bloom for centuries, gave itself
zealously to scientific studies in the seminaries at Nisibis,
and undertook successfully mission work among the Asiatic tribes.
The war with the Byzantines continued without interruption.
Chosroes II. advanced victoriously as far as Chalcedon in
A.D. 616 and persecuted with renewed cruelty the Catholic
Christians of the conquered provinces. Finally the emperor
Heraclius plucked up courage. By the utter rout of A.D. 628
the power of the Persians was broken (§ 57, 5), and in A.D. 651
the Khalifs overthrew the dynasty of the Sassanidæ.
§ 64.3. =The Armenian Church.=--There were flourishing Christian
churches in Armenia so early as Tertullian’s time. The Arsacian
ruler Tiridates III., from A.D. 286, was a violent persecutor
of the Christians. During his reign, however, Gregory the
Illuminator, the Apostle of Armenia, carried on his successful
labours. He was the son of a Parthian prince, who, snatched
when a child of two years’ old by his nurse from the midst
of a massacre of his whole family, received in Cappadocia a
Christian training. In A.D. 302 he succeeded in winning over
to Christianity the king and the whole country. He left behind
him the church which he thus founded in a most prosperous
condition. His grandson Husig, his great grandson Nerses I.
and his son Isaac the Great held possession of the patriarchal
dignity and flourished even in the hard times, when Byzantines,
Arsacides, and Sassanidæ fought for possession of the country.
Mesrop, with the help of Isaac, whose successor he became in
A.D. 440 (dying in A.D. 441), gave to his church a translation
of the bible into their own tongue, for which he had to invent
a national alphabet. Under his successor, the patriarch Joseph,
the famous religious war with the Persian Sassanidæ broke
out, who wished to lead back the Armenians to the doctrine
of Zoroaster. In the fierce battle at the river Dechmud in
A.D. 451 the holy league was defeated. But Armenia still
maintained amid sore persecution its Christian confession.
In A.D. 651 the overthrow of the Sassanidæ brought it under
the rule of the Khalifs.--The Armenian church had vigorously
and earnestly warded off Nestorianism, but willingly opened
its arms to Monophysitism introduced from Byzantine Armenia.
At a synod at Feyin, in A.D. 527, it condemned the Chalcedonian
dogma.--Gregory the Illuminator had excited among the Armenians
an exceedingly lively interest in culture and science, and when
Mesrop gave them an independent system of writing, the golden age
of Armenian literature dawned (the 5th century). Not only were
many works of classical and patristic Greek and Syrian literature
made the property of the Armenians through translations, but
numerous writers built up a literature of their own. The history
of the conversion of Armenia was written in the 4th century
by Agathangelos, private secretary of the king. Whether this
was composed in Greek or in Armenian is doubtful; both texts
are still extant, evidently much interpolated with fabulous
matter and also in many points conflicting with one another.
In the 5th century Eznik in his “Overthrow of Heretics” addressed
a vigorous polemic against pagans, Persians, Marcionites and
Manichæans. Moses of Chorene, also a scholar of Mesrop, composed
from the archives a history of Armenia, and Elisaeus described
the Armeno-Persian religious war, in which, as secretary of the
Armenian commander in chief, he had taken part. On the service
done by the Mechitarists to the old Armenian literature, see
§ 164, 2.[187]
§ 64.4. =The Iberians=, in what is now called Georgia and Grusia,
received Christianity about A.D. 326 through an Armenian female
slave Nunia, whose prayer had healed many sick. The church then
extended from Iberia to the =Lazians= in what is now Colchias
and among the neighbouring =Abasgians=. In =India= Theophilus
of Diu (an island of the Arabian Gulf?) found in the middle
of the 4th century several isolated Christian communities. He
was sent by his fellow-citizens as hostage to Constantinople and
there was educated for the Arian priesthood. He then returned
home and carried on a successful mission among the Indians.
The relations of the Indian to the Persian church led to the
former becoming affected with Nestorianism (§ 52, 3). Cosmas
Indicopleustes (§ 48, 2) found in the 6th century three Christian
churches still surviving in India. Theophilus also wrought in
=Arabia=. He succeeded in converting the king of the Himyarite
kingdom at Yemen. In the 6th century, however, a Jew Dhu-Nowas
obtained for himself the sovereignty of Yemen and persecuted the
Christians with unheard of barbarity. At last Eleesban king of
Abyssinia interfered; the crowned Jew was slain, and from that
time Yemen had Christian kings till the Persian Chosroes II. made
it a Persian province in A.D. 616. Anchorets, monks and stylites
wrought successfully among the Arab nomadic hordes.
§ 65. THE COUNTER-MISSION OF THE MOHAMMEDANS.[188]
Abu Al’ Kasem Mohammed from Mecca made his appearance as a prophet in
A.D. 611, and founded a mixed religion of arid Monotheism and sensual
Endæmonism drawn from Judaism, Christianity and Arabian paganism.
His work first gained importance when driven from Mecca he fled to
Medina (Hejira, 15th July, A.D. 622). In A.D. 630 he conquered Mecca,
consecrated the old Heathen Kaaba as the chief temple of the new
religion, Islam (hence Moslems), and composed the Coran, consisting
of 114 suras, which had been collected by his father-in-law, Abu Bekr.
At his death all Arabia had accepted his faith and his rule. As he made
it the most sacred duty of his adherents to spread the new religion by
the sword and had inspired them with a wild fanaticism, his successors
snatched one province after another from the Roman empire and the
Christian church. Within a few years, A.D. 633-651, they conquered
all Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Persia, then, in A.D. 707, North Africa,
and, in A.D. 711, Spain. Farther, however, they could not go for the
present. Twice they unsuccessfully besieged Constantinople, A.D. 669-676,
and A.D. 717-718, and, in A.D. 732, Charles Martel at Tours completely
crushed all their hopes of extending further into the West. But the
whole Asiatic church was already reduced by their oppressions to the
most miserable condition, and three patriarchates, those of Alexandria,
Antioch and Jerusalem, were forced to submit to their caprices. Amid
manifold oppressions the Christians in those conquered lands were
tolerated on the payment of a tax, but fear and an eye to worldly
advantages led whole crowds of nominal Christians to profess Islam.
§ 65.1. =The Fundamental Principle of Islam= is an arid
Monotheism. Abraham, Moses and Jesus are regarded as God-sent
prophets. The miraculous birth of Jesus, by a virgin, is also
accepted, and Mary is identified with Miriam the sister of Moses.
The ascension of Christ is also received. Mohammed, the last and
highest of all the prophets, of whom Moses and Christ prophesied,
has restored to its original purity his doctrine, which had
been corrupted by Jews and Christians. At the end of the days
Christ will come again to conquer Antichrist and give universal
sovereignty to Islam. Most conspicuous among the corruptions
of the doctrine of Jesus is the dogma of the Trinity, which
is without more ado pronounced Tritheism, and conceived of as
including the mother of Jesus as the third person. So too the
incarnation of God is regarded as a falsification. The doctrine
of divine providence is strongly emphasized, but is contorted
into the grossest fatalism. The Mussulman is in need of no
atonement. Faith in the one God and His prophet Mohammed secure
for him the divine favour, and his good works win for him the
most abundant fulness of eternal blessedness, which consists in
absolutely unrestricted sensual enjoyments. The constitution is
theocratic; the prophet and his successors the Khalifs are God’s
vicegerents on earth. Worship is restricted to prayers, fastings
and washings. The Sunna or tradition of oral utterances of the
prophet is acknowledged as a second principal source for Islam,
alongside of the Coran. The opposition of the Shiites to the
Sunnites is rooted in the non-recognition of the first three
Khalifs and the prophet’s utterances only witnessed to by them.
Mysticism was first fostered among the Ssufis. The Wechabites,
who first appear in the 12th century, are the Puritans of Islam.
§ 65.2. =The Providential Place of Islam.=--The service under
Providence rendered by Mohammedanism which first attracts
attention is the doom which it executed upon the debased church
and state of the East. But it seems also to have had a positive
task which must be sought mainly in its relation to heathenism.
It regarded the abolition of idolatry as its principal task.
Neither the prophet nor his successors gave any toleration to
paganism. Islam converted a mass of savage races in Asia and
Africa from the most senseless and immoral idolatries to the
worship of the one God, and raised them to a certain stage of
culture and morality to which they could never have risen of
themselves. But also upon yet another side, though only in a
passing way, it has served a providential purpose, in spurring
on mediæval Christianity by its example of devotion to scientific
pursuits. Syncretic, as its religious and intellectual life
originally was, during its flourishing period from A.D. 750,
under the brilliant dynasty of the Abassidean Khalifs at Bagdad
in Asia, and from A.D. 756 (comp. § 81) under the no less
brilliant dynasty of the Ommaiadean Khalifs at Cordova in Spain,
driven out by the Abassidæ from Damascus, it readily appropriated
the elements of culture which the classical literature of
the ancient Greeks afforded it (§ 42, 4), and with youthful
enthusiasm its scholars for centuries on this foundation kept
alive and advanced scientific studies--philosophy, astronomy,
mathematics, natural science, medicine, geography, history--and
by their appropriation of those researches the Latin Middle Ages
reached to the height of their scientific culture (§ 103, 1).
But also the reawakening of classical studies in the Byzantine
Middle Ages (§ 68, 1), which is of still more importance for the
West (§ 120, 1), is preeminently due to the impetus given by the
scientific enthusiasm of the Moslems of Bagdad, who shamed the
Greeks into the study of their own literature. With the overthrow
of those two dynasties, the culture period of the Moslems closed
suddenly and for ever, but not until it had accomplished its task
for the Christian world.[189]