For some time, it seemed probable that the emperor would seek to reconcile the discontented provinces by abandoning the council to which they objected; this policy, however, was rejected by Justinian (527-565), with the result that these “Monophysite”[31] malcontents organized themselves on a footing of separation from the Greek Church, but they remained in fellowship with the Churches of Armenia and Egypt; and the bulk of the Christian population of these provinces was in sympathy with them.
Thus, when the Mohammedan invasions of the seventh century commenced, the Arabs found that the bulk of the provincials were disposed to receive them as deliverers rather than as foes. In return, they recognized these Monophysites as the dominant Christian millet of these provinces, and so they remained for centuries.
Their nickname of “Jacobite” has nothing whatever to do with the “White Rose Society,” but was given them during the sixth century. Justinian attempted to force them into “Orthodoxy” by imprisoning their bishops, so as to prevent the ordination of any clergy but those of whom he approved. While in prison, the bishops consecrated a certain monk Jacobus Baradaeus, to the[{46}] episcopate, and gave him a “roving commission.” For thirty-five years he wandered from place to place in a beggar’s horse-cloth (bara’da), and reorganized the whole separatist hierarchy.
Their Patriarch claims to be a true representative of the original Patriarchate of Antioch. In the days of their oppression, he was naturally not permitted to reside there, and shifted his quarters from monastery to monastery, till he settled at last at Deir el Za’aferan. The Greeks have of course a Patriarch of the see, though they have to admit the existence of gaps in his line of ancestry, and a Latin claimant of the same was established in the time of the Crusades. These reside now at Damascus and Beyrout respectively.
The Jacobite Church comprises about a quarter of a million adherents in Asiatic Turkey with—we believe—twelve bishops; and there are about the same number under British rule in Malabar.
Neither they nor their eastern neighbours the “Nestorians” hold now (if they ever did) the peculiar heresies which their names suggest, and which their enemies credited them with teaching. Each has now come to teach, and perhaps has always taught, all the doctrine that their Orthodox opponents sought to guard at the councils which these Separatists nevertheless continue to repudiate. The old division continues; but more as a matter of convenience than of principle, and the more intelligent bishops on both sides admit that all real differences have disappeared.
Yet no fusion is likely at present, for the rank and file are unreconciled, and fortify their mutual suspicion with all sorts of groundless ideas. “Is it really true,” asked an old Jebel Tur monk in all simplicity, “that the Nestorians wash their altar with asses’ blood before they celebrate the Eucharist?”
The Nestorian deacon who attended us, and who heard this amazing aspersion, could hardly be restrained from falling on the inquirer there and then![{47}]
CHAPTER III
THE MARCHES OF ANCIENT ROME
(DARA AND NISIBIN)
FROM the eastern gate of Mardin the road decants itself plainwards in a skein of curves and zigzags—a vertical descent of 2000 feet, spinning out its gradients to a length of five or six miles. It is not at all a bad road. One could easily bicycle down it—and perhaps even bicycle up it if in specially strenuous mood. But it is, as it were, the swan-song of the modern Ottoman Telfords, and as soon as it reaches the level it reverts into a sheaf of footpaths. Henceforth to the end of our journey we saw no more metalled roads.