The Origins of Middle Eastern Arab Christianity
By Dr. George Khoury
1- Introduction:
The Christian church was born in Palestine at a time when the
Roman Empire was in its youth and when Palestine had been
incorporated into at empire. Palestine was governed in the first
century by a Roman procurator who in turn was countable to the
legate of the Roman procurator province of Syria.
Jerusalem had the apostle James "the Minor" as first bishop, and
while not much is known about the life and career of the other
apostles, Peter, after the Council Jerusalem (Acts: 10, 15; Gal:
2:11), apparently went to Antioch in order to confirm the nascent
church there. Soon after, the Christian faith spread to Ephesus,
Edessa (today's Urfa), Alexandria, and Rome.
It was natural, therefore, that the teaching and the worship of
Christ spread first in his homeland, i.e., in Palestine, and
extended slowly to the neighboring countries. The Acts of the
Apostles gives us a vivid account of the progress of the faith and
its success Judaea, Samaria, and Galilee. This progress was slow,
and the Gospel seems to have had more effect in the hellenized,
maritime cities than inland. The Acts of the Apostles informs us
that the mission of the Apostle Philip took him to the pagan
cities along the Mediterranean shore. He proclaimed Christ in
Caesarea and Lydda, and it was near Gaza that he baptized a Jewish
proselyte of Ethiopian origin Acts 8:27). Peter, we are also
informed, followed Philip to these areas; first to Samaria, then
to Caesarea, Gaza, and Lydda. Anyway, we see Christians living on
the shore of Palestine at the end of the second century.
2- Paul Apostle to the Nations
Paul became the great missionary to the Gentiles. He was by no
means the only such missionary, but we hear more of him than of
any of the other apostles. Through him the faith was proclaimed
and planted in several cities in present-day Turkey and in Greece.
There were, however, communities of Christians which had arisen
quite independently of Paul, notably in Antioch and in Rome. We
also know that the faith had an early spread among the Syriac-
speaking peoples in Syria and Mesopotamia. As for Arabia, which
became a Roman province in A.D. 106, it probably received the
Christian faith from Palestine, Syria, and Iraq. In the land of
Saba -present-day Yemen- once the hub of Arabian civilization, it
had arrived from Abyssinia and for a time during the preceding
century had been the religion of the state, until the country was
overrun by the Persians.
3- The Ghassanids
The Ghassanids were the first to convert to Christianity.
Nestorian Christianity came early to Hira, where a monastery was
built in A.D. 410. A bishop is recorded in the same year.
Al-Mundhir III (d. 554) was a pagan though he had a Christian wife
some of the notables were Christians. Bishops are recorded in Uman
in 424 and in the district of Bahrain in 575. When the Persians
conquered South Arabia they favored the Nestorians and there was a
bishop of Sanaa as late as 800. From these borders Christianity
filtered through into the interior. There were bishops in Aila,
Duma, and Taima', and most of the tribes of the North had some
knowledge of the faith.
4- Christian Egypt
How Christianity infiltrated Egypt is not clear. The church in
Alexandria traditionally been ascribed to Evangelist Mark, once a
travelling companion of Paul declared by early report -though this
not historically a sue thing -to have been Peter in Rome and to
have written down the memories constituting the body of the
teaching of that Apostle, which we have as Gospel of Mark. It
seems though up until the third century it had meagre Christian
population despite the presence of many Christian communities.
However, at the Synod of Alexandria (320-321) which convened in
order to condemn Arius, there was already a thriving church with
an imposing ecclesiastical hierarchy. The historian Duchesne
states in his 'Early History of The Christian Church, vol. II,
pp.385-386.
Since the fourth century Egypt was the sanctuary of orthodoxy and
the classic ground of confessors of faith.. It was also the
fatherland of the monks. To the revered name of Athanasius were
united in pious stories the names of Antony and Pacomius, of the
two Macarii, of Ammon, and those of many other personages in whom
piety soon embodied the ideal of Christian heroes.
5- Antioch and Edessa
Antioch, whose Christian beginnings date from the first century
(Acts 11:19-21), became at the end of the third century an
important Christian center. In fact, as early as the second
century it considered the Apostle Peter to have been its first
bishop. One can hardly exaggerate the importance of Antioch for
the ancient Eastern Church. Because of its privileged position,
given its biblical connections with the early Jerusalem community,
and especially with the Apostles Peter, Paul, and Barnabas,
Antioch early on raised the claim of teaching and leading the
other churches. The region of Edessa, in Northern Syria, already
teemed with Christians at the end of the second century. In fact,
Christianity became the state religion around the year 200, and
while, according to Hitti, Antioch rose to a position of
leadership in the Greek speaking part of Syria, Edessa was getting
a corresponding position in the Aramaic (i.e.,Syriac) speaking
world. This city was the earliest seat of Christianity in
Mesopotamia. It was also the cradle of Syriac literature. The
chief versions of the Syriac Bible were probably made there in the
second century. The school of Edessa was founded by Saint Ephrem
(320-373). Around the year 489 the emperor Zenon closed the school
of Edessa and its students fled to Persia where they founded
instead the school of Nisibis which became a Nestorian center.
6- Arius and Nestorius
In the fourth and fifth centuries Christological controversies
split Syrian Christianity into a number of divisions. Arianism
taught that God is without beginning but that the Son had a
beginning and is not a part of God. The council of Nicaea rejected
and condemned Arianism in 325. As to the relation of the divine to
the human in Jesus, Apollinaris, a friend of Athanasius,
maintained that in Jesus the Logos was the rational element. That
position left the divine nature complete but made Christ less
human, for a human being, it was held, had body, soul, and reason.
The Ecumenical Council of Constantinople condemned in 381 the
views of Apollinaris and maintained that in Jesus both the divine
and the human natures were complete. In 431 the Council of Ephesus
rejected the views of Nestorius who preferred for Mary the title
Mother of Christ to the term Mother of God. And in 451 the Council
of Chalcedon adopted a creed which was influenced by the Tome of
Pope Leo, a document prepared by the then bishop of Rome. The
creed of Chalcedon declared Christ to be "perfect in Godhead and
perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, of rational soul and
body. "Thus the distinctive views ascribed to Apollinaris,
Eutyches, and Nestorius were condemned.
The decisions of Chalcedon did not produce peace in the church and
among the contending parties. On the one hand most of the members
of what was to become the Catholic Church, East and West, adhered
to them, as did the Greek-speaking majority in the East who looked
to the bishop of Constantinople as representing the teaching of
Chalcedon. There were on the other hand, elements in the East who
either rejected Roman rule or were restless under it as symbolized
by Constantinople. Most of these professed their adherence to the
decisions reached in Nicaca in 325 but rejected the definition in
the creed of Chalcedon of the relation of the divine and human in
Christ. Since they stressed the divine in Christ, those who
adhered to Chalcedonian Christology labeled their opponents
monophysites (of the one nature), with the implication that they
regarded Christ as wholly divine and not human. The dissenters from
Chalcedon repudiated the term monophysite, insisting that they
recognized both the divine a human in Christ but maintaining that
the relationship was not as described in Chalcedon. These
passionate controversies among the Eastern Churches created
continuing strife, thus weakening them and making easy the spread
and triumph of Islam seventh century.
Copyright (C) by Al-Bushra January 22, 1997
Al-Bushra (from Arabic, means good news), is created by Rev. Labib
Kobti from the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem (The Roman Catholic
Archdiocese of Jerusalem)
Courtesy of: Catholic Information Network (CIN) -
http://www.cin.org
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