SYRIA.
THE MARTYR OF LEBANON.
1826-1830.
The conversion, life, and martyrdom of Asaad Shidiak,1 so very early
in the history of this mission, is a significant and encouraging
fact. He not only belonged to the Arab race, but to a portion of it
that had long been held in slavish subjection to Rome. His fine mind
and heart opened to the truths of the Gospel almost as soon as they
were presented; and when once embraced, they were held through years
of suffering, which terminated in a martyr's death. With freedom to
act, he would have gone forth an apostle to his countrymen. The
Arab-speaking race is estimated at sixty millions, and they must
receive the gospel mainly from those to whom the language is
vernacular. It will tend greatly to strengthen the faith of
Christians as to this result, to contemplate the grace of God as
seen in the case of this early convert. Space cannot be afforded to
do full justice to the facts, which were chiefly recorded by the
Rev. Isaac Bird, but the reader is referred in the margin to more
ample sources of information.2
1 Written also Asaad el-Shidiak, and Asaad esh-Shidiak.
2 See _Missionary Herald_ for 1827, pp. 68, 71-76, 97-101, 129-136,
169-177, 268-271, 369-372; for 1828, pp. 16-19, 115-119, 165, 373,
375; for 1829, pp. 15, 47, 111, 115; and _The Martyr of Lebanon_, by
Rev. Isaac Bird, Boston, 1864, pp. 208.
Asaad Shidiak was the fourth son of a respectable Maronite, and was
born about the year 1797, at Hadet, a small village a few miles from
Beirût. His early training was among the Maronites. Such was his
ability and fondness for learning, that his family aided him in
preparing for the Maronite college at Ain Warka, the most noted
seminary on the mountains. He entered the college at the age of
sixteen, and remained nearly three years, applying himself
diligently to rhetoric, and to natural and theological science, all
of which were taught in the Arabic and Syriac languages.
Having completed his college course with the highest honor, he
became a teacher, first of a common village school, and then of
theology and general science in a convent. Occasionally he was
permitted to deliver public lectures. His text-book in the
instruction of the monks, was the theological treatise of St.
Anthony of Padua, translated into Arabic; of which he made an
abridgment, that is still used among the Maronites.
From about the year 1820 to 1824, Asaad was successively in the
employ of the Maronite bishop of Beirût, and of several Arab chiefs.
These frequent changes were apparently not for his advantage.
He next made application in person to his old college instructor,
who had been elevated to the Patriarchal chair. His holiness gave
him a cool reception, and reproached him for having preferred the
service of sheikhs and princes to that of his bishop. Yet so
valuable were his services, that he remained a while with the
Patriarch, copying, illustrating, and arranging certain important
documents of the Patriarchate, and making out from them a convenient
code of church-laws for the Maronite nation, which has since been
adopted for general use. But for some reason Asaad felt himself
unwelcome, and returned home dissatisfied.
At this time the Maronite priesthood began to be alarmed by the
distribution of the Scriptures, and the spread of Protestantism. The
Patriarch issued a proclamation against the missionaries, and they
replied. Asaad set himself to answer their reply. It was in this
connection that his name first became known to the missionaries, to
whom he was reported as a man of talent and high education. The
dignitaries of the church did not see fit to allow his essay to be
published.
In March, 1825, a well-dressed young man, of easy manners and sedate
countenance, came to Beirût and asked to be employed by the mission
as a teacher of Arabic. As soon as he gave his name, he was
recognized as the man who was to have answered their reply to the
Patriarch. He took no pains to conceal his agency in the matter, and
even frankly begged the liberty of examining the original book,
containing one of the most important quotations in the reply by the
mission.
There was then no special need of another teacher; and though his
very gentlemanly appearance and apparent frankness, and his good
sense pleaded in his favor, it was thought prudent to decline his
proposal. Little did those excellent brethren think, as this young
man turned to go away, how soon they would welcome him to their
hearts and homes, and how many thousands of Christian people, even
across the ocean, would thrill in sympathy with his sufferings as a
martyr for Christ.
Providence so ordered it, that Mr. King arrived from Jerusalem just
in time to secure the services of Asaad before he went elsewhere. He
was for several weeks Mr. King's instructor in Syriac. The two were
well met, and in their frequent discussions, on the differences
between the doctrines of the Gospel and those of the Papacy, Mr.
King found him one of the most intelligent and skillful reasoners in
all the mountains. He was shrewd, sensible, and inquisitive, candid
and self-possessed, and was always as ready to hear as to speak. His
age was then twenty-nine. There is no good reason to believe that
Asaad was actuated, at this time, by higher than worldly motives.
At the close of his connection with Mr. King, he made another effort
to secure employment from his Patriarch. Not succeeding, he became
Arabic teacher to Mr. Fisk; at the same time assisting Mr. King,
then about leaving the country, in preparing his celebrated
"Farewell Letter" to his Arab friends. After having put this into
neat Arabic style, he made a large number of copies, to be sent to
different parts of the country.
On the day of Mr. King's departure from Beirût, Asaad, at the
request of the mission, commenced an Arabic grammar-school for
native boys. His leisure hours were devoted to composing a
refutation of the doctrines contained in Mr. King's "Farewell
Letter." This is his own account: "When I was copying the first
rough draught of my reply, and had arrived at the last of the
reasons, which, he said, prevented his becoming a member of the
Roman Catholic Church; namely, their teaching it to be wrong for the
commom people to possess or to read the Word of God, I observed that
the writer brought a proof against the doctrine from the prophet
Isaiah; namely, that if they spoke not according to the law and to
the testimony, it was because there was no light in them.
"While I was endeavoring to explain this passage according to the
views of the Roman Catholic Church, with no other object than the
praise of men and other worldly motives, I chanced to read the
twenty-ninth chapter of Isaiah from the fifteenth verse to the end.
I read and was afraid. I meditated upon the chapter a long while,
and feared that I was doing what I did with a motive far different
from the only proper one,--the glory and pleasure of God. I
therefore threw my paper by without finishing the copy, and applied
myself to the reading of Isaiah.
"I had wished to find in the prophet some plain and incontrovertible
proofs of the Messiahship of Christ, to use against Moslems and
Jews. While thus searching, I found various passages that would
_bear_ an explanation according to my views, and read on till I came
to the fifty-second chapter, and fourteenth verse, and onward to the
end of the next chapter.
"On finding this testimony, my heart rejoiced and was exceeding
glad, for it removed many dark doubts from my own mind. From that
time, my desire to read the New Testament was greatly increased,
that I might discover the best means of acting according to the
doctrines of Jesus. I endeavored to divest myself of all selfish
bias, and loved more and more to inquire into religious subjects. I
saw, as I still see, many doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church,
that I could not believe, and which I found opposed to the truths of
the Gospel, and I wished much to find some of her best teachers to
explain them to me, that I might see how they proved them from the
Holy Scriptures. As I was reading an appendix to a Bible printed at
Rome by the Propaganda, and searching out the passages referred to
for proving the duty of worshipping saints, and the like, I found
that these proofs failed altogether of establishing these doctrines,
and that to infer them from such Scripture texts was even
ridiculous. Among other things, I found in this appendix the very
horrible Neronian doctrine, 'that it is our duty to destroy
heretics.' Now every one knows, that whoever does not believe that
the Pope is infallible, is, in the Pope's estimation, a heretic. And
this doctrine is not merely that it is allowable to kill heretics,
but that we are in duty bound to do it.
"From this I was the more established in my convictions against the
doctrines of the Papacy, and saw that they were the doctrines of the
ravenous beast, and not of the gentle lamb. After I had read this, I
asked one of the priests in Beirût about this doctrine, and he
assured me that it was even as I had read. I then wished to go even
to some distant country, that I might find a Roman Catholic
sufficiently learned to prove the doctrine above alluded to."
Receiving two letters from the Patriarch, requiring him to leave the
missionaries on pain of the greater excommunication, and promising
to provide him a situation, he went to his friends at Hadet. But his
thoughts were drawn to the subject of religion, and finding nothing
in which he could take delight, he returned to Beirût, and engaged
himself to Mr. Bird for a year. This was in December, 1825. For
greater security, a consular protection was now obtained for him
from Mr. Abbott, which ensured him, while in the employ of the
mission, all the liberty and safety of an English resident. There
was no American Consul in the country at that time. He now applied
himself to searching the Scriptures, and discussing religious
doctrines. Discarding all unwritten traditions, the Apocryphal
books, and all implied dependence on the fathers and councils, he
found himself standing, in respect to his rule of faith, on
Protestant ground.
With all his strong points of character, Asaad had the
constitutional weakness of being artless and confiding. In January,
1826, the Patriarch sent his own brother, as a special messenger,
inviting Asaad to an interview, and making him flattering promises.
The consultation with the priest was private, but it soon appeared,
that Asaad was disposed to comply with the patriarchal invitation.
It was suggested to him, that the Patriarch was meditating evil
against him; but his reply was that he had little fear of it, that
the Maronites were not accustomed to take life, or to imprison men,
on account of religion. So confident was he that good would result
from the visit, that the brethren in the mission ceased to urge
their objections. On reaching the Patriarch's convent, he thus
wrote:--
"I am now at the convent of Alma, and God be thanked, I arrived in
good health. As yet, however, I have not seen his blessedness.
"I pray God, the Father, and his only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,
that He will establish me in his love, and that I may never exchange
it for any created thing; that neither death, nor life, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor riches, nor
honor, nor dignity, nor office, nor anything in creation, shall
separate me from this love. I beg you to pray to God for me, which
request I make, also, to all the believers."
Several weeks brought no farther direct intelligence, and there were
conflicting reports, which awakened apprehension as to his safety.
In the latter part of February, a messenger was sent to obtain
accurate knowledge of his situation. The man saw him at the convent
of Alma, and had a short private interview. Asaad said, that three
things were before him; either to be regarded as mad, or to commit
sin, or to offer up his life; but he was ready, he said, to go to
prison, or to death. He was engaged in daily controversy with the
Patriarch, the Bishop, and others. The main topics on which he
insisted, were the necessity of a spiritual religion in distinction
from mere forms, the sufficiency of Scripture, and the absurdity of
holding the Pope to be infallible. The Patriarch was highly
displeased with these bold sentiments, and gave utterance to cruel
threats, though at other times offering promotion and money.
Asaad objected to the plan of rescuing him by consular authority, as
it might endanger his life. He thought it best to await some
providential opening for his escape. One soon occurred. After a
week, he left the convent at midnight. The mountain paths were
narrow, stony, and crooked, and he often found himself astray,
stumbling over rocks and hedges, wading in brooks, or miring in mud.
Reaching the sea-shore, he found a shelter under which he rested for
a while, and then walked on to Beirût, where he was received most
joyfully. The Patriarch and his train were engaged in morning
prayers when Asaad's escape was announced. There was great
excitement. One man among them, who had sympathized with Asaad,
ventured to speak out in his justification. "You had reason," he
said, "to expect nothing else. Why should he stay with you here?
What had he here to do? What had he to enjoy? Books he had none;
friendly society none; conversation against religion abundant;
insults upon his opinions and feelings abundant. Why should he not
leave you?" Messengers were sent in quest of him in every direction,
but in vain.
Asaad's written account of his experiences during his absence on the
mountains, is very interesting, but there is not room for even an
abridgment of it.1 A few of the incidents may be noted. The chief
object of the Patriarch was to induce him to say, that his faith was
like that of the Romish Church. This he declined doing, as it would
be a falsehood. The Patriarch offered to absolve him from the sin of
falsehood, to which Asaad replied, "What the law of nature condemns,
no man can make lawful." Accompanied by a priest, he visited his own
college of Ain Warka, but gained no light; and the same was true of
his visit to the superior of the convent of Bzummár, who desired to
see him. It is a suggestive fact, that the infallibility of the
Pope, even then, was everywhere a controverted point between him and
the priesthood. The weakness of the reasoning on the papal side was
everywhere so apparent to him, as greatly to strengthen his
evangelical faith. In one of his interviews with the Patriarch he
said: "I would ask of you the favor to send from your priests two
faithful men to preach the Gospel through the country; and I am
ready, if necessary, to sell all I possess and give it towards their
wages." He afterwards offered to go himself and preach the Gospel.
But neither of these proposals was accepted.
1 See _Missionary Herald_ for 1827, pp. 71-76, 97-101.
He was at length deprived of his books, and severely threatened by
the Patriarch. "Fearing," he says, "that I should be found among the
fearful (Rev. xxi. 8), I turned, and said to him, 'I will hold fast
the religion of Jesus Christ, and I am ready, for the sake of it, to
shed my blood; and though you should all become infidels, yet will
not I;' and so left the room."
Asaad says, in his narrative: "A friend told me, that the Patriarch
wondered how I should pretend that I held to the Christian religion,
and still converse in such abusive terms against it. And I also
wondered, after he saw this, that he should not be willing so much
as to ask me, in mildness and forbearance, for what reasons I was
unwilling to receive the doctrines of the Pope, or to say, that I
believed as he did. But, so far from this, he laid every person, and
even his own brother under excommunication, should they presume to
dispute or converse with me on the subject of religion. Entirely
bereft of books, and shut out from all persons who might instruct
me, from what quarter could I get the evidence necessary to persuade
me to accept the Patriarch's opinions?
"Another cause I had of wonder was, that not one of all with whom I
conversed, when he thought me heretical, advised me to use the only
means of becoming strong in the faith, namely, prayer to God Most
High, and searching his Holy Word, which a child may understand. I
wondered, too, that they should ridicule and report me abroad as
insane, and after all this, be afraid to engage in a dispute with
the madman, lest he should turn them away from the truth."
As the Patriarch, and the Bishop of Beirût, whose diocese included
Hadet, were determined to shut him out from the people, and even
threatened his life, Asaad resolved on escaping to Beirût, which he
accomplished, as already stated, on the morning of Thursday, March
2, 1826.
Asaad's statement was forthwith copied and sent in various
directions through the mountains, and afterwards it had a much wider
circulation in a printed form.
The Patriarch's first effort to recapture the fugitive, was by means
of a Turkish sheriff, and it failed. On the following Monday, an
uncle and the two elder brothers of Asaad came to see what they
could do; and they were followed by another brother, and then by the
mother and her youngest son. The older brothers were loud and
violent in their denunciations. All these the persecuted young
Christian met with a calm firmness, but he was at one time almost
overcome by the distress of his mother. She was at length pacified
by the declarations, that he was not a follower of the English, that
he derived not his creed from them, that he believed in the Trinity,
that Jesus was God, and that Mary was his mother. Phares, the
youngest brother, consented to receive a New Testament, and was
evidently affected and softened by the interview.
On the 16th of March, Asaad received a kind and fatherly epistle
from the Patriarch, begging him to return home, and relieve the
anxieties of his mother and family, and giving him full assurance,
that he need not fear being interfered with in his freedom. He was
thus approached on his weak side. Too confiding, he really believed
this insidious letter, and that he might now go home and live there
with his religion unshackled. He wrote a favorable reply. The family
was doubtless urged to make sure of the victim before anything
occurred to change his mind, and the very next day four of his
relations, including Phares, came to escort him to Hadet. The
missionaries all believed it perilous, and so he thought himself,
but he believed, also, that there was now a door opened for him
prudently to preach the Gospel. At Beirût, he said, he could only
use his pen, "but who is there in this country," he asked, "that
reads?" One of the sisters of the mission said, as she took him by
the hand, that she expected never to see him again in this world. He
smiled at what he regarded her extravagant apprehension, returned
some quiet answer, and proceeded on his way, never to return.
Asaad was treated harshly by his older brothers, and had reason to
regard his life as imperiled: "I am in a sort of imprisonment," he
said, "enemies within, and enemies without," Towards the last of
March, twenty or more of his relations assembled, to take him to the
Patriarch by force. He expostulated with Tannûs, the eldest of the
family except one, as the chief manager in the affair, and besought
him to desist from a step so inconsistent with their fraternal
relations. The unnatural brother turned from him in cold
indifference, which so affected Asaad that he went aside, and prayed
and wept.
In the evening, he at one time addressed the whole assembled company
in this manner: "If I had not read the Gospel, I should have been
astonished at this movement of yours; but now I see through it all.
It is just what the Gospel has told me to expect; 'The brother shall
deliver up the brother to death, and a man's foes shall be they of
his own household.' Here you see it is just so. You have assembled
together here to fulfill this prophecy of the Gospel. What have I
done against you? What is my crime, that it should have called
together such an assemblage? Be it that I take the blessed Bible as
my only guide to heaven, does that injure you? Is it a crime that
renders me worthy of being taken as a malefactor, and sent into
confinement?"
Surrounded, as he was, by men insensible to pity, the mother's heart
was deeply moved seeing him arrested and borne away as if he had
been a murderer. She wept, and Asaad sympathized with her, and
turned his back on the home of his childhood, weeping and praying
aloud.
He was first taken to the convent of Alma, and then to Canobeen.
That convent, where he was destined to wear out the miserable
remainder of his life, was in one of the wildest and least
accessible recesses of Lebanon.
More than a mouth passed without intelligence, when the Mission
received reliable information, that Asaad was in prison, and in
chains, and that he was beaten a certain number of stripes daily. A
cousin was afterwards permitted to visit him, and reported that he
found him sitting on the bare floor, his bed having been taken from
him, with a heavy chain around his neck, the other end of which was
fastened to the wall. He had also been deprived of all his books and
writing utensils. Fruitless efforts were made to effect his
deliverance, and his family at last relented, and joined in the
efforts. The mother accompanied one of the older sons to Canobeen,
and found him in chains, which she had not been willing to believe
till she saw it for herself. So decided were the two younger
brothers in their movements on his behalf, that they had to consult
their own safety in flight. Once they almost succeeded. Asaad
himself, under the pressure of his sufferings, made several attempts
to flee, but not knowing the way, he was easily apprehended, and the
only effect was an aggravation of his misery. A priest gives the
following account of his treatment, after one of these failures. "On
his arrival at the convent, the Patriarch gave immediate orders for
his punishment; and they fell upon him with reproaches, caning him,
and smiting him with their hands; yet as often as they struck him on
one cheek, he turned to them the other. 'This,' said he, 'is a
joyful day to me. My blessed Lord and Master has said, Bless them
that curse you; and if they strike you on the right cheek, turn to
them the other also. This I have been enabled to do; and I am ready
to suffer even more than this for Him who was beaten, and spit upon,
and led as a sheep to the slaughter on our account.' When they heard
this, they fell to beating him anew, saying, 'Have we need of your
preaching, you deceiver? Of what avail are such pretensions as
yours, who are in the broad road to perdition?' He replied, 'He that
believeth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, hath eternal life.'
'Ah,' said they, 'this is the way you are blinded. Your salvation is
by faith alone in Christ; thus you cast contempt on his mother, and
on his saints. You believe not in the presence of his holy body on
the earth.' And they threw him on the ground, and overwhelmed him
with the multitude of their blows."
For three successive days he was subjected to the bastinado, by
order of the Patriarch. Remaining firm to his belief, he was again
put in chains, the door barred upon him, and his food given him in
short allowance. Compassionate persons interceded, and his condition
was alleviated for a time, but no one was allowed to converse with
him. After some days, aided, it is supposed, by relatives, he again
fled from the convent, but was arrested by soldiers sent out in
search of him by the Emeer Abdallah, and delivered to the Patriarch.
"On his arrival," says a priest who was with him at Canobeen, "he
was loaded with chains, cast into a dark, filthy room, and
bastinadoed every day for eight days, sometimes fainting under the
operation, until he was near death. He was then left in his misery,
his bed a thin flag mat, his covering his common clothes. The door
of his prison was filled up with stones and mortar, and his food was
six thin cakes of bread a day, and a cup of water."
To this dungeon there was no access or outlet whatever except a
small loop-hole, through which they passed him his food. Here he lay
several days, and its ever-increasing loathsomeness need not be
described. No wonder he cried: "Love ye the Lord Jesus Christ
according as He hath loved us, and given himself to die for us.
Think of me, O ye that pass by; have pity upon me, and deliver me
from these sufferings."
A certain priest, who had been a former friend of Asaad, was touched
with compassion, and by perseverance succeeded in once more opening
his prison doors, and taking off his chains. But he also became
suspected in consequence of his kindness to Asaad, and it is not
known how long the sufferer was allowed this partial freedom. One of
his brothers visited him in 1828, and found him inclosed within four
solid stone walls, as in a sepulchre "full of all uncleanness." In
1829, there appears not to have been any mitigation of his
sufferings. For three years or more, the priestly despot had him
under his heel, and inflicted upon him the greatest amount of
suffering compatible with the continuance of life.
His death is supposed to have occurred in October, 1830. Public
opinion was divided as to the cause and manner of it. The Patriarch
said it was by fever. There is the same uncertainty as to the manner
of his burial. But though thrown down into the ravine and covered
with stones, as was alleged, his dust will ever be precious in the
eyes of the Lord.
Asaad maintained his Christian profession to the last, and he must
ever have an honorable place among the Christian martyrs of modern
times.
Soon after the capture of Acre by Ibrahim Pasha, in 1832, Mr. Tod,
an English merchant, accompanied by Wortabet, obtained an audience
with him, and made known the case of Asaad. The Pasha directed the
Emir Beshir to furnish ten soldiers to Mr. Tod, with authority to
search the convent of Canobeen by force, if necessary. He was
received by the Patriarch and priests of the convent with dismay.
They asserted that Asaad had died two years before, pointed out his
grave, and offered to open it. The convent was thoroughly searched,
but he was not found, and Mr. Tod was convinced that he was really
dead.1
1 _Missionary Herald_ for 1833, pp. 51-57.
When it is considered how severely and in how many ways Asaad was
tried, his faith and constancy appear admirable. His pride of
intellect and authorship, and his reputation for consistency, were
opposed, at the outset, to any change in his religious opinions.
Then all his reverence for his ecclesiastical superiors and his
former tutors, some of whom were naturally mild in their tempers,
and his previous habits of thought, withstood his yielding to the
convictions of conscience and the authority of Scripture. Next, the
anathemas of the Church, the tears of a mother appalled by the
infamy of having an apostate son, the furious menaces of brothers,
and the bitter hatred of masses stirred up by an influential
priesthood, combined to hold him back from the truth. All these
things were preparatory to being seized by indignant relatives,
chained to his prison walls, deprived of the New Testament and other
books, and of every means of recreation, refused even those bodily
comforts which nature renders indispensable; in such a forlorn
condition, exposed to the insults of a bigoted populace and the
revilings of a tyrannical priesthood, beaten till his body became a
mass of disease, and held in this variety of grief for years,
without one ray of hope, save through the portals of the tomb, who
expected that he would endure steadfastly to the end?
On the other hand, if he would only recant, promotion awaited him,
and wealth, indeed everything that could be offered to prevent a
dreaded defection. How many are there, with all our knowledge and
strength of religious principle, who, in his situation, would like
him be faithful unto death?