The Syrian Christ Part 4

[8] John xiii: 23.

[9] John xiii: 26.

[10] John xiii: 28, 29.

[11] Matt. xxvi: 49.

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CHAPTER VII

THE LAST SCENE

Perhaps nowhere else in the New Testament do the fundamental traits of the Oriental nature find so clear an expression as in this closing scene of the Master's life. The Oriental's _dependence_, to which the world owes the loftiest and tenderest Scriptural pa.s.sages, finds here its most glorious manifestations.

As I have already intimated, the Oriental is never afraid to "let himself go," whether in joy or sorrow, and to give vent to his emotions. It is of the nature of the Anglo-Saxon to suffer in silence, and to kill when he must, with hardly a word of complaint upon his lips or a ripple of excitement on his face. He disdains asking for sympathy. His severely individualistic tendencies and spirit of endurance convince him that he is "able to take care of himself."

During my early years in this country the reserve of Americans in times of sorrow {73} and danger, as well as in times of joy, was to me not only amazing, but appalling. Not being as yet aware of their inward fire and intensity of feeling, held in check by a strong bulwark of calm calculation, as an unreconstructed Syrian I felt p.r.o.ne to doubt whether they had any emotions to speak of.

It is not my purpose here to undertake a comparative critical study of these opposing traits, but to state that, for good or evil, the Oriental is preeminently a man who craves sympathy, yearns openly and noisily for companionship, and seeks help and support outside himself.

Whatever disadvantages this trait may involve, it has been the one supreme qualification that has made the Oriental the religious teacher of the whole world. It was his childlike dependence on G.o.d that gave birth to the twenty-third and fifty-first Psalms, and made the Lord's Prayer the universal pet.i.tion of Christendom. It was also this dependence on companionship, human and divine, which inspired the great commandments, {74} "Thou shalt love the Lord thy G.o.d with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself."

Now it is in the light of this fundamental Oriental trait that we must view Christ's utterances at the Last Supper and in Gethsemane. The record tells us that while at the Supper he said to his disciples, "With desire I have desired to eat this pa.s.sover with you before I suffer,"[1]--or, as the marginal note has it, "I have heartily desired," and so forth, which brings it nearer the original text.

Again, "He was troubled in spirit, and testified and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me." "This is my body ... This is my blood ... Do this in remembrance of me." We must seek the proper setting for these utterances, not merely in the upper room in Zion, but in the deepest tendencies of the Oriental mind.

And the climax is reached in the dark hour of Gethsemane, in the hour of intense suffering, imploring need, and ultimate triumph in {75} Jesus' surrender to the Father's will. How true to that demonstrative Oriental nature is the Scriptural record, "And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground."[2]

The faithful and touching realism of the record here is an example of the childlike responsiveness of the Syrian nature to feelings of sorrow, no less striking than the experience itself. It seems to me that if an Anglo-Saxon teacher in similar circ.u.mstances had ever allowed himself to agonize and to sweat "as it were great drops of blood," his chronicler in describing the scene would have safeguarded the dignity of his race by simply saying that the distressed teacher was "visibly affected"!

The darkness deepened and the Master "took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry {76} ye here, and watch with me."[3] Three times did the Great Teacher utter that matchless prayer, whose spirit of fear as well as of trust vindicates the doctrine of the humanity of G.o.d and the divinity of man as exemplified in the person of Christ: "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pa.s.s from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt!"[4]

The sharp contrast between the Semitic and the Anglo-Saxon temperament has led some unfriendly critics of Christ to state very complacently and confidently that he "simply broke down when the critical hour came." In this a.s.sertion I find a very p.r.o.nounced misapprehension of the facts. If my knowledge of the traits of my own race is to be relied on, then in trying to meet this a.s.sertion I feel that I am ent.i.tled to the consideration of one who speaks with something resembling authority.

The simple fact is that while in Gethsemane, as indeed everywhere else throughout his ministry, Jesus was not in the position of one {77} trying to "play the hero." His companions were his intimate earthly friends and his gracious heavenly Father, and to them he spoke as an Oriental would speak to those dear to him,--_just as he felt_, with not a shadow of show or sham. His words were not those of weakness and despair, but of confidence and affection. The love of his friends and the love of his Father in heaven were his to draw upon in his hour of trial, with not the slightest artificial reserve. How much better and happier this world would be if we all dealt with one another and with G.o.d in the warm, simple, and pure love of Christ!

As the life and words of Christ amply testify, the vision of the Oriental has been to teach mankind not science, logic, or jurisprudence, but a simple, loving, childlike faith in G.o.d.

Therefore, before we can fully know our Master as the cosmopolitan Christ, we must first know him as the Syrian Christ.

[1] Luke xxii: 15.

[2] Luke xxii: 44.

[3] Matt. xxvi: 37-38.

[4] _Ibid._ 39.

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PART II

THE ORIENTAL MANNER OF SPEECH

CHAPTER I

DAILY LANGUAGE

The Oriental I have in mind is the Semite, the dweller of the Near East, who, chiefly through the Bible, has exerted an immense influence on the life and literature of the West. The son of the Near East is more emotional, more intense, and more communicative than his Far-Eastern neighbors. Although very old in point of time, his temperament remains somewhat juvenile, and his manner of speech intimate and unreserved.

From the remote past, even to this day, the Oriental's manner of speech has been that of a worshipper, and not that of a business man or an industrial worker in the modern Western sense. To the Syrian of to-day, as to his ancient ancestors, life, with all its activities and cares, revolves around a religious center.

Of course this does not mean that his religion {82} has not always been beset with clannish limitations and clouded by superst.i.tions, or that the Oriental has always had a clear, active consciousness of the sanct.i.ty of human life. But it does mean that this man, serene or wrathful, at work or at play, praying or swearing, has never failed to believe that he is overshadowed by the All-seeing G.o.d. He has never ceased to cry: "O Lord, Thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising; Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it!"[1]

And it is one of the grandest, most significant facts in human history that, notwithstanding his intellectual limitations and superst.i.tious fears, because he has maintained the altar of G.o.d as life's center of gravity, and never let die the consciousness that he was compa.s.sed about by the living G.o.d, the Oriental {83} has been the channel of the sublimest spiritual revelation in the possession of man.

The histories of races are the records of their desires and rewards, of their seeking and finding. The law of compensation is all-embracing.

In the long run "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."[2]

"He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully."[3] In the material world the Oriental has sown but sparingly, and his harvests here have also been very meager. He has not achieved much in the world of science, industry, and commerce. As an industrial worker he has remained throughout his long history a user of hand tools. Previous to his very recent contact with the West, he never knew what structural iron and machinery were. As a merchant he has always been a simple trader. He has never been a man of many inventions. His faithful repet.i.tion of the past has left no gulf between him and his remote ancestors. {84} The implements and tools he uses to-day are like those his forefathers used in their day.

The supreme choice of the Oriental has been religion. To say that this choice has not been altogether a conscious one, that it has been the outcome of temperament, does by no means lessen its significance. From the beginning of his history on the earth to this day the Oriental has been conscious above all things of two supreme realities--G.o.d and the soul. What has always seemed to him to be his first and almost only duty was and is to form the most direct, most intimate connection between G.o.d and the soul. "The fear of the Lord," meaning most affectionate reverence, is to the son of the East not "the beginning of wisdom" as the English Bible has it, but the _height_ or _acme_ of wisdom. His first concern about his children is that they should know themselves as living souls, and G.o.d as their Creator and Father. An unbeliever in G.o.d has always been to the East a strange phenomenon. I never heard of atheism or of an atheist before {85} I came in touch with Western culture in my native land.

My many years of intimate and sympathetic contact with the more varied, more intelligent life of the West has not tended in the least to lessen my reverence for religion nor to lower my regard for culture. Culture gives strength and symmetry to religious thought, and religion gives life and beauty to culture. And just as I believe that men should pray without ceasing, so also do I believe that they should strive to make their religious faith ever more free and more intelligent.

Yet the history of the Orient compels me to believe that the soil out of which scriptures spring is that whose life is the active sympathy of religion, regardless of the degree of acquired knowledge. When the depths of human nature are thoroughly saturated with this sympathy, then it is prepared both to receive and to give those thoughts of which scriptures are made. Industry and commerce have their good uses. But an industrial and {86} commercialistic atmosphere is not conducive to the production of sacred books. Where the chief interests of life center in external things, religion is bound to become only one and perhaps a minor concern in life.

The Oriental has always lived in a world of spiritual mysteries.

Fearful or confident, superst.i.tious or rational, to him G.o.d has been all and in all. "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. In keeping of them there is great reward."[4] The son of the East has been richly rewarded. He is the religious teacher of all mankind. Through him all scriptures have come into being. All the great, living religions of the world originated in Asia; and the three greatest of them--Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism--have come into the world through the Semitic race in that little country called Syria. The perpetual yearning of the Oriental for spiritual dreams and visions has had its rewards. He sowed bountifully, he reaped bountifully.

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Note the Syrian's daily language: it is essentially Biblical. He has no _secular_ language. The only real break between his scriptures and the vocabulary of his daily life is that which exists between the cla.s.sical and the vernacular. When you ask a Syrian about his business he will not answer, "We are doing well at present," but "_Allah mn 'aim_" (G.o.d is giving bounteously). To one starting on a journey the phrase is not "Take good care of yourself," but "Go, in the keeping and protection of G.o.d." By example and precept we were trained from infancy in this manner of speech. Coming into a house, the visitor salutes by saying, "G.o.d grant you good morning," or "The peace of G.o.d come upon you." So it is written in the tenth chapter of Matthew, "And as ye enter into the house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it be not worthy, let your peace return unto you."

In saluting a day laborer at work we said, "_Allah, yaatik-el-afie_"

(G.o.d give you health {88} and strength). In saluting reapers in the field, or "gatherers of the increase" in the vineyards or olive groves, we said just the words of Boaz, in the second chapter of the Book of Ruth, when he "came from Bethlehem and said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord bless thee." Or another Scriptural expression, now more extensively used on such occasions, "The blessing of the Lord be upon you!" It is to this custom that the withering imprecation which is recorded in the one hundred and twenty-ninth Psalm refers: "Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion: let them be as the gra.s.s upon the housetops which withereth afore it groweth up: wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom. Neither do they which go by say, The blessing of the Lord be upon you: we bless you in the name of the Lord."

In asking a shepherd about his flock we said, "How are the blessed ones?" or a parent about his children, "How are the preserved ones?"

{89} They are preserved of G.o.d through their "angels," of whom the Master spoke when he said, "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father."[5] Speaking of a good man we said, "The grace of G.o.d is poured upon his face." So in the Book of Proverbs,[6]

"Blessings are upon the head of the just."

Akin to the foregoing are such expressions as these. In trying to rise from a sitting posture (the Syrians sit on the floor with their legs folded under them), a person, using the right arm for leverage, says, as he springs up, "Ya _Allah_" (O G.o.d [help]). In inquiring about the nature of an object, he says, "_Sho din_?" (what is its religion?) And one of the queerest expressions, when translated into English, is that employed to indicate that a kettleful of water, for example, has boiled beyond the required degree: "This water has turned to be an infidel"