Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/490

464 brought so near to one of our Lord's personal disciples as the story suggests. But he is important in another way, as we shall see later on. Palut represents the advent of Antiochene influence over the far-off Syrian Church beyond the desert and the river. Hitherto the Christianity of Edessa had been developing independently; and a very interesting course it was then taking. One could have wished, for the sake of freedom and variety, that it had been let alone altogether, so that we might have witnessed the profoundly instruciveinstructive [sic] spectacle of a Syrian Church, having its discipline and doctrine all to itself, working out its problems apart from the admixture of Greek philosophy and Roman methods of government which came in so early to modify primitive Christianity and translate it into the amalgam known as Catholicism. We cannot forget that the gospel had its origin in Syria; that it was first taught in Aramaic; that it began as an Oriental, Semitic faith. What should we have seen if it had been allowed to develop at least in one spot as still an Oriental, Semitic faith, without any admixture of Western civilisation?

In point of fact no such independent development was possible even in very early ages. Before the time of Palut, Greek influences had penetrated to Edessa, for the church in this city was in communication with its brethren farther west. Tatian's Harmony affords a proof of this statement, and at the same time a clear indication of the comparative separateness of the most ancient Syrian Christianity. In his Address to the Greeks Tatian says that he was " born in the land of the Assyrians," but instructed in Greek doctrines and afterwards in those that he there undertakes to proclaim. Thus, like Justin Martyr, of whom he was a friend and disciple, Tatian came to Christianity after studying Greek philosophy. His writings cannot be dated later than about 175. Now his Address to the Greeks and the titles of