The Syrian Christ Part 20

In the sixth chapter of the Book of Judges, the eleventh verse, begins the story of Gideon, the "mighty man of valour," who delivered Israel out of the hands of the Midianites. "And there came an angel of the Lord, and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Abiezrite: and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the wine-press, to hide it from the Midianites."

It is a prevailing belief in the East that spirits and angelic visitors appear especially under trees and by streams of water. Huge oaks are often found in burying-grounds and in front of houses of worship. "Rag trees" also may be seen in many localities in Syria. A rag tree (_shajeret-omm-shrateet_) is a supposedly sacred or "possessed" tree, generally an oak, on whose branches the people hang shreds of the garments of afflicted dear ones for the {377} purpose of securing healing power for them. When the angel visited him, Gideon, we are told, was threshing wheat by the wine-press. The more correct rendering of the Revised Version and of the Arabic is, "Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine-press." As I have already stated,[5] the grapes are squeezed by being trodden in a large stone-flagged enclosure, which is about the size of an ordinary room. As the harvest time comes early in the summer, long before the wine-making season, Gideon could use the clean floor of this enclosure to beat out wheat, with a fair chance of escaping being discovered by his oppressors, the Midianites. He was not "threshing." He was beating with a club the sheaves he had smuggled, before threshing time came when the Midianites exacted their heavy toll from oppressed Israel. Threshing is done with the threshing-board (_nourej_), which is called in the Bible the "threshing instrument." The _nourej_ resembles a stone-drag. It consists of two heavy pine planks joined {378} together, and is about three feet wide, and six feet long. On its under side are cut rows of square holes into which sharp stones are driven. It is these sharp stones which Isaiah, refers to when he says, "Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument _having teeth_; thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff."[6]

The sheaves are scattered on the threshing-floor about a foot deep; the thresher attaches the threshing-board to the yoke and sits on it, with his goad in his hand. As the oxen which "tread the corn" drag the heavy board round and round, the sharp stones cut the sheaves. In three days the "threshing" is ready to be sifted. The finely cut sheaves are thrown up into a heap and tossed up in the air with large wooden pitchforks. The breeze blows the chaff and straw away, leaving the heap of the golden grain in the center of the threshing-floor to gladden the eyes of the grateful tiller of the soil. To this "purging"

of the threshing-floor--that {379} is, the freeing of the wheat from the chaff and straw--Luke alludes in the third chapter, the seventeenth verse, where he says, referring to the Christ, "Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable."

The reference to the burning of the chaff is meant to show its comparative worthlessness. I am not aware that the Syrian farmer always takes the trouble to burn the chaff, which is not easy to gather after the wind has carried it away from the threshing-floor and scattered it over acres of ground. The coa.r.s.er part of it, which falls near the floor, is gathered and saved to be used in making the clay mortar with which the houses are plastered, and also sun-dried brick.

We always went to the threshing-floor and secured a few bagfuls of chaff which we used in the annual plastering of the floor of our house.

Among the chief joys of my boyhood days were those hours when I was permitted to sit {380} on the threshing-board and goad the oxen which carried me round and round over the glistening, fragrant sheaves. I often bribed the owner to grant me the precious privilege; and even now I should in all probability prefer threshing after this manner to an automobile ride.

In the seventh chapter of the Book of Judges we have a description of the simple process by which Gideon's army, with which he attacked the Midianites, was selected. The very honest record states that out of thirty-two thousand men whom Gideon had first mobilized only three hundred stood the final test. That test was very simple. In the fifth verse it is said, "So he brought down the people unto the water: and the Lord said unto Gideon, Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise every one that boweth down upon his knees to drink. And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, were three {381} hundred men: but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water." The three hundred const.i.tuted Gideon's army.

Bowing down upon the knees while drinking from a stream or a bubbling spring (_fowwar_) is the prevailing custom in Syria. This kind of drinking is called _ghebb_; that is, the sucking in of the water with the lips. But to strong and wary men this is disdainful. Such a prostration betokens la.s.situde; besides it is not always safe for one to be so recklessly off his guard while traveling, and to render himself an easy prey to lurking robbers. Therefore the men of strength and valor (_shijaan_) upon approaching the water a.s.sume a squatting position, lift the water with the hand to the mouth and lap it quickly with the tongue. This manner of drinking indicates strength, nimbleness, and alertness.

One of the most reprehensible Syrian habits is the mocking of those afflicted with diseases, or any sort of physical defects. I have no {382} doubt that the afflicted of Palestine flocked to Jesus to be healed by him as much for the purpose of escaping the shame of the affliction as of securing bodily comfort. "There comes the one-eyed man [_'awar_]"; "there goes the limping man [_afkah_]"; "the half dumb [maybe one who stutters] is trying to discourse"; "the hunch-back is trying to cla.s.s himself with real men"; "the diseased head [_akkra'_]

is approaching, give way." These and other stigmatizations are very extensively current in the East. In the story of Elisha[7] it is said, "And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children ["young lads," Revised Version]

out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them."

What those children really said to Elisha {383} was, "Go up thou _akkra'_." The _akkra'_ is one who is afflicted with a disease of the scalp, a malady not uncommon among the poor people of Syria. Complete baldness of the head is spoken of also as _qara'_. It was this perhaps which the ill-mannered children noticed in the itinerant prophet. His cursing of the lads "in the name of the Lord" was no less an Eastern characteristic than their mocking of him.

As to the coming of the hungry bears out of the wood and devouring or tearing forty-two of those children, all I can say is that such narratives, which filled my childhood days, are deemed by Syrian parents to be the best means to teach the children not to be naughty.

In the opening verses of the fourth chapter of the Second Book of Kings we have the record of Elisha's kindness to a poor widow. "Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord: and the {384} creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen. And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee? tell me, what hast thou in the house? And she said, Thine handmaid hath not anything in the house, save a pot of oil.

Then he said, Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbors, even empty vessels; borrow not a few. And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full. So she went from him, and shut the door upon her and upon her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured out. And it came to pa.s.s, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed."

The belief in the miraculous increase of certain products, especially oil and wheat, is prevalent in Syria. In almost every community stories of such occurrences are told. G.o.dly men and women, largely of the past, are said to have {385} seen such wonders, and to have spoken of them to many before their death. Such blessings are supposed to come especially on the blessed night of Epiphany.[8] In the locality where I was brought up, the miracle of "increase" was said to happen in this wise: In some holy hour the cover of the jar of oil is thrown off by some unseen power and the oil begins to flow out of the mouth of the jar. The person who is fortunate enough to see such a sight must show neither fear nor surprise, but in the spirit of deepest prayer he must bring empty vessels and receive into them the increase. If he should fear or manifest surprise, the blessed flow would immediately cease, but if he receives the blessing in a spirit of grat.i.tude and prayer the flow continues until all the vessels that can be brought are filled.

But only G.o.dly men and women can see such a sight. Among the n.o.ble traditions of our clan is the story of one G.o.dly man of the Rihbany stock who witnessed the "miracle of increase" in his own storehouse.

The flow of {386} the blessing stopped, however, when his wife, who went into the storehouse to see why he was there so long, came in and threw up her hands in surprise at the strange occurrence. From childhood I heard this enchanting story, but I never felt deeply curious to investigate it until after I had gone to the American mission school in my native land. Then I sought the son of the "G.o.dly man" and begged him to tell me all that he knew about it. He a.s.sured me of his firm conviction that the miracle did happen in their storehouse when he was too young to see such wonders, and that his father and mother both saw it and spoke of it on occasions. At the time I became interested in the study of the origins of such narratives, both those good parents were dead.

But why allow shallow curiosity to weaken one's faith in the great spiritual principle which underlies all such beliefs? Attach all such pious tales to the Oriental's foundation belief that all good comes from G.o.d, and they become intelligible and acceptable. His intellectual {387} explanations are faint attempts to grasp the great mystery of divine providence, to explain the ways of the Great Giver.

If you do not attempt to make an infallible creed of these spiritual imaginings, they will serve as well as any intellectual devices to urge upon the mind the truth that ultimately "every good and every perfect gift cometh from above." Whether the resources were a few loaves and fishes, or thousands of loaves and fishes, it was G.o.d who fed the "five thousand," and it is he who feeds all the millions of his children through the annual miracle of increase in all the fields and vineyards of the world.

In his heart-stirring prayer, which begins with, "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord," the writer of the one hundred and thirtieth Psalm says, "My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say more than they that watch for the morning." The Revised Version's rendering, "More than watchmen wait for the {388} morning," limits the sense of the text, and, consequently, fails to express fully the phase of Eastern thought to which the Psalmist alludes. I have no doubt that the ancient poet meant that his longing for the manifestation of G.o.d was as keen as the longing of _el-mtesehhid_ for the dawn. This term comes from _shad_ (sleeplessness). Eastern poetry is full of references to the _shad_, either from fear or other intense feelings like sorrow or love. In a land of tribal feuds and where wild beasts abound, the night is full of terror. _El-mtesehhid_ "wrestles" with the night, keenly observes the stars which mark the night watches, and restlessly watches for the advent of the day to dispell his haunting fears. The Arabian poet exclaims, "Oh, the night's curtains which are like the waves of the sea are fallen upon me, to afflict me with every type of anxiety. It seems that the Pleiades [which marked the march of the night] have been arrested in their course by being tied with hemp ropes to an adamant!"

It is not the watchman only that is meant {389} here. He might watch keenly for the morning in times of fear, but the reference is to all those who watch for the morning in times of _shad_--a state which Orientals readily understand. The Psalmist would have that confidence and cheer in the presence of the Lord which come to the restless watcher of the night with the dawning of the day; that inward calm and peace which only the presence of G.o.d in the soul can give.

"Thus saith the Lord G.o.d, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders."[9]

The reference in these lines is to the custom of carrying the children in the East. The habit of carrying the children on the shoulders is, I believe, unknown to the West, but is universal in the East. In early infancy the little ones are carried in the arms. (The Revised Version {390} prefers the word "bosom.") As soon, however, as the child is old enough to sit up alone, it is carried on the shoulder. The mother lifts the child and places it astride her right shoulder, and instinctively the little one clings to her head, where there is no dainty hat to hinder. The custom is so familiar to the mothers that often one sees a mother spinning or knitting with the child astride her shoulder.

As is well known, the message in the lofty strains of the later Isaiah is the glad tidings of the restoration of scattered and oppressed Israel. It is a prophecy born of Israel's ever-lasting hope that G.o.d will not cast off his own forever. So the prophet a.s.sures Israel in the name of the Lord that he will lead the alien peoples, not only to let Israel return to its own home, but to carry the children of the "chosen people" in their arms and on their shoulders, as do the servants of aristocratic parents. The prophet's hope of the restoration of his own people appears in the succeeding verse clothed {391} in language which Oriental aristocrats love to use. It is the phraseology of earthly glory and a narrow vision of national destiny, which the New Testament liberates and enlarges. Says Isaiah: "And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their faces toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet." Our world still has many grave faults, but it has certainly progressed since the days of Isaiah.

In the third chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, the eleventh verse, John the Baptist, in paying his tribute to the coming Messiah, says: "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire." The same thought is expressed in the somewhat different presentation in the third chapter and sixteenth verse of Luke's Gospel, where it is said, "the latchet of whose shoes I am {392} not worthy to unloose." I have already stated elsewhere that to the Syrians the feet are ceremonially unclean; therefore it is very improper for one to mention the feet or the shoes in conversation, without first making ample apology by saying to his hearer, _Ajell Allah shanak_ (may G.o.d elevate your dignity); that is, above what is about to be mentioned. In the presence of an aristocrat, however, no apology is sufficient to atone for the mention of such an unclean object as the shoes. Therefore, when one says to another, in pleading for a favor, "I would carry your shoes, or bow at your feet,"

he sinks to the lowest depth of humility. So when some of those who came to him to be baptized thought that John the Baptist was the Promised One of Israel, he humbled himself in Oriental fashion by saying that he was not worthy to carry the shoes of the coming Deliverer, or even to touch the latchet with which those shoes were tied to the ankles. In this last expression, the sandals, rather than the shoes, are meant.

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The three evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, speak of the woman who was healed from a long illness by touching the hem or border of Jesus'

garment. Luke's version is found in the eighth chapter, and the forty-third verse, and is as follows: "And a woman, having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched. And Jesus said, Who touched me? ... Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me. And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling, and falling down before him, she declared unto him before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately. And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace."

The belief that holy persons and holy things impart divine power to those who trustfully and reverently touch them is not exclusively an {394} Oriental possession. The Orientals, however, have always believed this doctrine. The woman mentioned in the Gospel followed a custom which no doubt antedated her own time by many centuries. The practice is followed by Orientals of all shades of religious opinion.

As a son and adherent of the Greek Orthodox Church in my youth, I always considered it a great privilege to touch the hem of the priest's garment as he pa.s.sed through the congregation, elevating the Host. To me the act was a means of spiritual reinforcement. I never would pa.s.s the church building without pressing my lips to the door or to the cornerstone of the sanctuary. Virtue, as I believed, came out of those sacred objects into me. The interpretation of the details of such records as the pa.s.sage which is before us can be easily pressed too far. Such Gospel pictures should be sought for the general impression they make upon the mind, and not subjected to minute critical a.n.a.lysis as the reports of a scientific expedition. Jesus' reported saying, "for I perceive that virtue is {395} gone out of me," refers perhaps to the belief that holy persons impart virtue or spiritual power to those who come in touch with them. Whatever really happened in Palestine nineteen hundred years ago, this belief is well founded. Whomsoever and whatsoever we love and reverence becomes to us a source of power.

Many indifferent and merely curious persons touched Jesus, but nothing happened; for the _garment_ possesses no healing virtues. But when an afflicted woman came to him with dearest hope and deepest prayer, the mere touch of his person reinforced her strength and revived her spirits. The Master indicated plainly that the healing power was not in the garment when he said to the woman, "Daughter, be of good comfort: _thy faith_ hath made thee whole; go in peace."

In the story of the crucifixion[10] we read: "And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that {396} he might bear it after Jesus. And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus, turning unto them, said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.... For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?"

The saying with which the pa.s.sage ends is current in Oriental speech in various forms. Of one who is greedy and voracious it is said (when the thing he eats is not very tempting), "If his tooth works so effectively in the bitter, what would it do in the sweet?" And, reversing the Scriptural saying, "If the dry is so palatable to him, how much more must the green be!" Again, "If one is not good to those that are his kin, what must he be to strangers?"--and so forth.

Jesus' saying to the women who followed him, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and your children,"

facilitates the understanding of the closing sentence {397} of the pa.s.sage. He admonishes them not to lament the state of one who, though condemned, is utterly innocent, but the state of those who are so hard of heart, so devoid of human sympathy as to condemn one so innocent.

With amazement he exclaims, "For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" If they deal so cruelly with a good and innocent person, what must be their att.i.tude toward a real culprit.

The mention in the Gospel of the crowing of the c.o.c.k recalls to my mind a very familiar Oriental expression. The shrill sound of the wakeful fowl always served us in the night as a "striking clock." We always believed that the c.o.c.k crew three times in the night, and thus marked the night watches. The first crowing is at about nine o'clock, the second at midnight, and the third about three in the morning. The common people of Syria house the chickens in a small enclosure which is built, generally, immediately under the floor of the house. It has one {398} small opening on the outside, which is closed at night with a stone, and another opening on the inside, through which the housewife reaches for the eggs. So "the evening crow," "the midnight crow," and the "dawn crow" can be very conveniently heard by members of the household. And how often, while enjoying a sociable evening with our friends at one of those humble but joyous homes, we were startled by the crowing of the c.o.c.k, and said, "Whew! it is _nissleil_ [midnight]."

The hospitable host would try to trick us into staying longer by a.s.suring us that it was the evening and not the midnight crow.

Now some "enlightened" critics a.s.sert that "in fact the c.o.c.k crows at any hour of the night." Well, the critics are welcome to their "enlightenment." For us Syrians of the unsophisticated type the c.o.c.k crowed only three times, just as I have stated, and thus marked for us the four divisions of the night.

The New Testament makes definite reference to the "evening crow" and the "dawn {399} crow." As a rule the c.o.c.k crows three times (separated by short intervals) at the end of each watch of the night. We are told that after the Last Supper, the Master and his disciples "went out into the mount of Olives," where Jesus said to them, "All ye shall be offended because of me this night.... But Peter said unto him, Although all shall be offended, yet will not I. And Jesus saith unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this day, even in this night, before the c.o.c.k crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice."[11] This refers to the "evening crow," for the entire scene falls in the early evening.

And so it was that when Peter did deny his Master in most earnest terms, "he went out into the porch; and the c.o.c.k crew."[12] Again, while Peter was still being questioned as to whether he was not one of Jesus' followers, "he began to curse and to swear, saying, I know not this man of whom ye speak. And the second time the c.o.c.k crew."[13]

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The other pa.s.sage[14] refers to the "dawn crow." "Watch ye, therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the c.o.c.k-crowing, or in the morning."

In speaking of the speedy and mysterious "coming of the Son of man," in the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, Jesus alludes to the grinding at the handmill--a very common Syrian custom. The portentous saying in the forty-first verse is: "Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left."

The _jaroosh_ (handmill, literally, "grinder") has always been considered a necessary household article in Syria.[15] Our family possessed one, which, however, was shared by the families of my two uncles. The _jaroosh_ consists of two round stones--an upper and a nether--from eighteen to twenty inches in diameter, and about four inches in thickness. It is a portable {401} article. The two stones are held together by a wooden pin which is securely fastened in the center of the nether stone, and pa.s.ses through a funnel-shaped hole in the center of the upper stone. A wooden handle is inserted near the outer edge of the upper stone. As a rule a strong woman can grind a small quant.i.ty of wheat at this mill alone. But as cooperation tends to convert drudgery into pleasant work, the women grind in pairs. The mill is placed on a cloth--something like a bed-sheet--or on a sheepskin. The two women sit on the floor, exactly opposite, and of necessity close to each other, with the mill between them. They both grasp the wooden handle and turn the upper stone with the right hand, while they feed the mill through the funnel-shaped hole with the left hand. The circular shower of coa.r.s.e flour falls from between the stones onto the cloth or skin below.

At present the handmill is rarely used in Syria for grinding wheat into flour, which is now ground by the regular old-fashioned, {402} waterwheel flouring mills. The _jaroosh_ is used in the Lebanon districts and in the interior of Syria for crushing wheat into _brghl_. The wheat is first boiled and then thoroughly dried in the sun on the housetop. Just before it is poured into the mill the wheat is dampened with cold water, so that while it is being crushed it is also hulled. The _brghl_ is one of the main articles of food among the common people; it is especially used for making the famous dish, _kibbey_.[16] The whole season's supply of a family is ground in one or two evenings. The occasion is usually a very gay one. The neighbors gather around the mill, the men help in the grinding, and the telling of stories and singing of songs make of what is ordinarily a hard task a joyous festival.

The foregoing makes evident the meaning of the pa.s.sage as used by the evangelist. "The coming of the Son of man," that great consummation of all things in the advent of the Kingdom, which the faithful disciples of Christ {403} hoped and prayed for, was to be so swift and so mysterious that only the fully awake and watchful could have a share, in it. No one could tell who would be included in the Family Kingdom.

For even those, who in this world sat as close together as "two women grinding at the mill," were not certain of being taken together.

"Watch, therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come."[17]

It is vain to deny that this watchfulness, this expectation of the sudden and mysterious coming of the Kingdom, has been a mighty factor in the development of the Christian Church.

Among my correspondents who have been readers of my articles in the "Atlantic Monthly," are those who are interested to know the att.i.tude of the Syrian Christians in general toward the creeds and dogmas of the Church as they are known and accepted in the West, and also whether I would not enlarge the scope of this publication so as to include {404} in it a discussion of certain doctrines which claim to have firm Scriptural basis.

As may be very readily seen, these questions involve the study of a complexity of subjects which the original plan of this book was never intended to compa.s.s. Again the author feels that it would be inexcusable boldness on his part to enter a field of thought which noted scholars and historians have thoroughly explored, and to pretend to discuss issues which only such scholars have a right to discuss.

However, in compliance with the requests of those interested readers I will contribute my mite to the vast literature of a very old subject.