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 SYRIA

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SYRIA

"Mart. Pal.", iv). The local church was burnt under Julian (cf.Theod.,"H.E.",iy,xxii). Eusebius (VIII, xiii) calls Silvanus, at the period of the great persecu- tion, bishop, not of Emesa but of "the churches round Emesa". Emesa thus resembled Gaza; owing to the fanaticism of the inhabitants Christians were unable to reside within the town itself, they had to quarter themselves in the adjoining villages. Anatolius, the successor of Silvanus, was the lir.st to take up his abode within the town. Theodoret ("H. E.", Ill, vii), WTiting of the age of Julian, says that the church there was yedSvriToi (newly built). With regard to Heh- opolis we have this definite information, that the town acquired its first church and bishop, thanks to Constantine, after 325 (cf. "V'ila Constant.," Ill, Iviii, and Socrat., I, x^aii). The "Mart. Syriacum" men- tions one mart jT, Lucian, at Hehopolis. Christians also were deported ("Mart. Pal.," XIII, ii) by Dazato Lebanon for penal servitude. One martjTdom makes it plain that there were Christians at Byblus. At Choda (Kabun), north of Damascus, there were also numer- ous Jewish Christians in the days of Eusebius.

We have no information in detail upon the diffusion and densitj' of the Christian population throughout Phoenicia. Rather general and satisfactory informa- tion is available for SjTia, a province with which Phcpnicia was at that time very closely bound up; even the Phoenician tongue had long been dislodged by S\Tiac. From the letters of Chrysostom and the state of matters which still obtained in the second half of the si.xth century, however, it is quite clear that Christianity got a firm footing only on the seaboard, while the inland districts of Pha?nicia remained pagan for the most part. Yet it was but recently, not earlier than the third century, that these Phoenician-Hel- lenic cults had experienced a powerful revival. The situation is quite dear: wherever Christianity went, it implied Hellenizing, and vice versa. Christianity, in the first instance, only secured a firm footing where there were Greeks. The majority of the Phoenician towns where Christian bishops can be traced lay on the coast; i. e., they were towns with a strong Greek population. In the large pagan cities, Emesa and Hehopolis, on the other hand. Christians were not tol- erated. Once we leave out inland localities where "heretics", viz., Marcionites and Jewish Christians, resided, the only places in the interior where Chris- tians can be found are Damascus, Paneas, and Pal- myra. Damascus, the great trading city, was Greek (cf. Mommsen, "Rom. Gesch.", V., p. 473; Eng. trans., II, 146) ; so was Paneas. In Palmyra, the head- quarters of the desert trade, a strong Greek element also existed (Mommsen, pp. 42.5 sq.; Eng. trans., II, 96 sq.). The national royal house in PalmjTa, with its Greek infusion, was well disposed not towards the Greek but towards the scanty indigenous Christians of Syria, as may be inferred from the relations be- tween Paul of Samosata and Zenobia, no less than from the policy adopted by Rome against him.

The Edict of Milan (A. D. 313) marks the beginning of a better-known period in the history of SjTian Christianity, during which the See of Antioch was filled by a succession of bishops illustrious through- out the Church, and the Church of Syria was involved in the most troublesome period of church history and theology, which marks the beginning of those fatal schisms, heresies, and Christological controversies that led to the final separation of the Syrian Church and the Churches of the East from the Church of Rome (See Arianism; Nestorianlsm; Monophy- smsM). The death of Severus (542), the deposed Monophysite Patriarch of Antioch, may be taken to mark the beginning of a new period in the history of the Syrian ( hurch; for from thi.s date the double suc- cession in the See of Antioch has been maintained to the present day. The death of the Emperor Maurice (A. D. 602) and the succession of his murderer, Phocae,

gave the signal for the Persians to ravage the Roman dominions. Hitherto Mesopotamia had been the arena of war between the rival powers, and Dara, Anjida, and Nisibis the keys of possession. But HeracUus came to the throne in 602 to find all Syria in the hands of Chosroes. First Damascus, then the Holy City itself fell before the Persian general Shahr- barz (614), and the Patriarch Zacharias of Jerusalem was carried off with the True Cross itself, to grace the infidel's triumph. Never since Constantinople was built had there been such a disaster; and at Chalcedon itself, almost opposite the very walls of the capital, the Persians were encamped, stretching out their hands to the Slavs and Avars, who threatened the city on the north side of the isthmus, and inviting them to join in its destruction. An insulting and blasphemous letter from the Persian king aroused the emperor and all Christendom; while from Constantinople to Arabia the Church poured fortli her treasures of plate and money to help in the crusade. Constantinople was fortified and with a gigantic effort, worthy of the great conquerors of the world's history, Heraclius drove back the Persians, cutting them off in CiHcia, and forcing them finally to make an abject appeal for mercy in the very royal palace of Dastagerd itself. Chosroes had been already murdered by his son, who submitted to Heraclius (a. d. 628). The emperor re- turned, leaving the East in peace, to restore the Cross to its place in Jerusalem.

Meanwhile in an obscure corner of the empire Mohammed had been born, and in this very year sent round a letter demanding for a new creed the submission of the kings of the earth. "The year of flight" (a. d. 622) had passed, and Mohammed was at the head of a devoted band of followers, ready to conquer Arabia and perhaps the world. It was an epoch of the world's history, and twice the patriarchs of Jerusalem saw the abomination of desolation stand- ing in the holy place, and thought the end of all things at hand. Ten years after Shahrbarz (637), when the glories of Heraclius paled before the storm of Arab conquest, Sophronius the Patriarch and Omar the Arab stood side by side at the altar of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. East of the Mediterranean the Roman Empire had given way for ever, and the Arab arms now ruled the Churches which the councils of two centuries before had cut off from the orthodox communion. For the future it was not the Melchite or Imperialist to whom the Eastern Churches were to acknowledge an unwilling homage, but to the sword of Islam. Byzan- tine history now affected them little, for the succes.sors of Herachus had enough to do to keep the Saracen fleets away from the capital. The famous Icono- clastic controversy, begun by Leo the Isaurian, was continued for nearly a hundred years (720-802) by his successors. How httle the second great contro- versy of the times affected the Syrians may be judged by their own language in regard to the "Procession of the Holy Ghost". The words inserted in the Creed by the Western Church were the occasion of the rupture, for which the rival claims of Gregory of Rome and John Scholasticus of Constantinople had paved the way; and the ninth century witnessed the unseemly recriminations and the final break between the two great communions

In the seventh century the Syrian Christians fade from the general history of the Church. The Arabs were inclined to favour them as rivals of the Greeks, and early in the eighth century A\'alid secured the entry of their patriarch into Antioch, whence they had been driven by the Greeks since the death of Jacobus Barada'US. But he remained there only a short time, nor were his people free from the perse- cutions which .'\bdelmalik and Yazid ordered against the Christians; while in 771 the Khalif Abdullah took a census throughout Syria and Mesopotamia, ordering