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 SYRIA

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SYRIA

ments of other lands. In religion the Mohammedans of Syria are Sunnites, or Traditionists — that is, in addition to the written word of the Koran, they recognize the authority of the Sunna, a collection of traditional sayings of the "Prophet", which is a kind of supplement to the Koran, directing the right ob- servance of many things omitted in that book. They are in general exact in the observance of the outward rites of their religion.

The Melawikh (sing. Metawly) arc the followers of 'Aly, the son-in-law of Mohammed. His predeces- sors, Abu Bekr, 'Omar, and Othman, they do not acknowledge as true khahfs. 'Aly they maintain to be the lav\'ful Imam; and they hold that the supreme authority, both in things spiritual and temporal, belongs of right to his descendants alone. They reject the Smina, and are therefore regarded as here- tics by the orthodox. They are allied in faith to the Shi'ites of Persia. They are almost as scrupulous in their ceremonial ob.'jcrvances as the Hindus. The districts in which they chiefly reside are Ba'albek, where their chiefs are the noted family of Harfush; Belad Besharah, on the southern part of the Leb- anon range; and a district on the west bank of the Orontes, around the village of Hurmul. They also occupy several scattered \illages in Li'banon.

The Nusairiiiych. — It isnot easy to tell whether these people are Mohammedans or not. Their religion still remains a secret, notwithstanding aU attempts lately made to dive info their' mysteries. They are represented a.s holding a faith half Christian and half Mohammedan. Thej' beheve in the transmigration of souls; and observe in a singular, perhaps idolatrous, manner a few' of the ceremonies conmion in the East- ern Church. They inhabit a range of mountains extending from the great valley north of Lebanon to the gorge of the Orontes at Antioch.

The Ismailiyych, who inhabit a few villages on the eastern slopes of the Ansairiyeh Mountains, resemble the Nusairi\-}-eh in this, that their religion is a mystery. They were originally a religious-political subdivision of the Shi'ites, and are the feeble remnant of a people too well known in the time of the Crusades as the Assassins. They have stilltheirchief seat in the Castle of Masjad, on the mountains west of Hamah.

The Druzes (The generic name in Arabic is ed- Deruz, sing. Durzy). — The peculiar doctrines of the Druzes were first propagated in Egj-pt by the noto- rious Hakim, third of the Fatimite dynasty. This khalif, who gave himself out as a projjhet, though he acted more like a madman, taught a system of half- materialism, as.serting that the Deify resided in 'Aly. In A. D. 1017 a Persian of the sect of Batanism, called Mohammed Ben-Ismail ed-Dorazy, settled in EgJ^)f, and became a devoted follower and stim- ulator of Hakim. He not only affected to believe in and propagate the absurd pretensions of the new- Egyptian prophet, but he added to his doctrine.'? that of the transmigration of souls, which he had brought from his native country, and he carried his fanaticism to such an extent that the people at last drove him out of Egjpt. He took refuge in Wady el-Teim, at the western base of Hermon; and, being secretly supi)Iied with money by the Eg>])lian monarch, propagated his dogmas, and became the founder of the Druzes. His system wa.s enlarged, and in some degree modified, by other discijjles of Hakim, e.-ipecially by the Persian Hanizeh, whom the Druzes still venerate as the founder of their sect and the author of their law. Hanizeh tried to g.ain over the Christ iansby representing Hakim a.« the Messiah who.se advent they expected. For further details .see Druzes.

The Jews of Syria arc of se\eral different classes. The Sephardim are .'^^Jianish-Portugupse .Jews, who immigrated after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain under Isabella I; most of them now sjjcak Arabic, though some still speak a Spanish patois. The XIV.— 26

Ashkenazim are from Russia, Galicia, Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, Germany, and Holland, and speak the dialect known as Yiddisli. These again are sub- divided into the Perushim and the C'lia8a<lim. "The Jews of the East have retained their original character to a considerable extent, and are generally tall and slender in stature. They live in the towns, generally in a quarter of their own.

History of Christianity in Syria. — The history of Christianity in Syria proper during the first three centuries and down to the Council of Nica;a (a. d. 325) centres chiefly about Antioch, while from the time of the Council of Niea;a down to the Arab invasion it is absorbed into that of the Antiochene Patriarchate (see Antioch, The Church of), just as the Chris- tianity of Palestine is practically that of Jerusa- lem, of Egj^pt that of Alexandria, of the West that of Rome, of Mesopotamia and Persia that of Seleucia Ctesiphon, and of the Byzantine Greek Church that of Constantinople. As Jewish Christianity originated in Jerusalem, so Gentile Christianity started at Antioch, then the leading city of the Hellenistic East, with Peter and Paul as its leading Apostles. From Antioch it spread to the various cities and provinces of SjTia, among the Hellenistic Syrians as well as among t he Jews who, as a result of the great rebellions against the Romans in a. d. 70 and 130, were driven out from Jerusalem and Palestine into Syria. The spread of the new religion was so rajiid and successful that at the time of Constantine Syria was honey- combed with Christian churches. The history of the Christian Church in SjTia during the second and third centuries is rather obscure, yet sufficient data to furnish a fair idea of the rapid spread of Christianity in SjTia during those two centuries have been col- lected by Harnack in his well-known work, "The Mission and Ex^iansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries " (Eng. tr., 2nd ed., London, 1908, vol. II, pp. 120 sqq.).

Outside the gates of Antioch, that "fair city of the Greeks" (see Isaac of Antioch's "Carmen", 15, ed. Bickell, i, 294), Syriac was the language of the people; in fact it was spoken by the lower classes in Antioch itself and only among the upper classes of the Greek towns was it displaced by Greek. The Syriac spirit was wedded to Greek, however, even here, and remained the predominant factor in religious and in social life, although at fii'st and indeed for long it did not look as if it would. Yet, in this S\Tian world, Christianity seems to have operated from Edessa rather than from Antioch. The wide terri- tory lying betw<-en these cities was con.sequently evangelized from two centres during the third century : from Antioch in the West by means of a Cireek Chris- tian propaganda, and from Edessa in the East by means of one which was SjTO-Christian. The infer- ence is that the larger towns practically adopted the former, while the country towns and villages went over to the latter. At the same time there was also a Western Syrian movement of Christianity, though it did not amount to much, both in and after the days of Paul of Samosata and Zenobia. The work of conversion, so it would ajipear, made greater headway in Ca'le-Sj'ria, however, than in Pluenicia. No fewer than twenty-two bishops from Cole-Syria attended Xiciea (two chorepiscopi), including .several who had Hellenic names. Hence we may infer the existence of no inconsiderable number of national SjTian Christians. By about 325 the districts round Antioch seem to have contained a very large number of ('hris- tians, and one dated (331) Christian inscription runs as follows: "Christ, have mercy; there is but one God".

In Chrysostom's day these Syrian villages appear to have been practically Christian. Lucian, the priest of Antioch, declares in his speech before the magistrate in Nicomedia (311) that "almost the