Urmi city and plain was the Mecca of one of the noblest of the religious faiths and philosophies that man has evolved for himself; for it was the birthplace of Zoroaster, and was for centuries a stronghold of the fire-worshippers’ cult. Their most sacred shrine, Sirsh (now Takht-i-Sulieman), is a little to the south; and ruins of the greatest of the fire temples still stand there, beside the weird crater-lake of Zindan. Not a Zoroastrian, however (as far as we know), is found in this district now; though a few still cluster round the Towers of Silence at Resht, and there is, of course, an important community of them in Bombay. Even there, however, their numbers are disproportionate to their influence, and even those small numbers are diminishing.
Once Urmi plain was their principal Holy Place; and even now, every village of importance stands on or near one of the great ash heaps (often covering acres of ground) that mark the sites where the sacred fires were kept perpetually burning. These memorials have fallen on very evil days lately; for the present owners of the land have found that good wood ash is one of the best of manures for their fields, and the heaps are steadily diminishing in consequence. Strange relics are uncovered in them at times, and are sold to the foreigner as antikas; though usually it is impossible to be certain where, or under what circumstances, they were found, and they lose much of their historical value in consequence. One such discovery[{200}] suggested grim rites at one period, as a part of the Zoroastrian ritual; for several skulls were unearthed, the owners of which had been killed by copper nails hammered into the brains, and still resting embedded in the bone.
Zoroaster was a reformer rather than a founder of a religion; and the sites that became fire-temples after his date (the seventh century before Christ) were probably shrines of some kind of worship for ages before that period. Thus the explorer can still find near them (and often buried under their advancing flanks as they grew in size) the tombs of chiefs of the Bronze Age, with spear-heads and sword-blades of that metal, and finely worked golden ornaments of a distinctive shell-like pattern. These were the tribes, one may suppose, that the Assyrians encountered, when (somewhere about 1000 B.C.) they tried to extend their empire into this fertile country, and fought a battle on the waters of the lake of which a picture still remains among their carvings. Their warriors were supported on inflated sheep-skins; a precaution that seems hardly necessary in such water, for Lake Urmi is a good second in the matter of buoyancy to the Dead Sea itself.
The lake is of a good size, perhaps forty miles by eighty, though at no place is it more than about thirty feet in depth. Its saltness is remarkable, for the bather sits in deep water much as in an armchair, with his head and shoulders emerging. Swimming is difficult, for the legs are so apt to kick clean out above the surface; and on landing, any scratch or cut on the person makes its presence very noticeable. The rash British Consul who once took a header in, as he was accustomed to do in ordinary salt water, is not likely soon to forget his experience.
It is, of course, a “dead sea,” for there is absolutely nothing living in it save a variety of shrimp of low organization. All fish carried down into it by the rivers die at once. Still it is an exhilarating place for a swim, provided that a bucket of fresh water is available for a wash down before attempting to dry. There are rocky promontories on the shore at intervals, but, as a rule, the water is very shallow near the bank; a fact borne impressively into the consciousness[{201}] of a member of the Royal Geographical Society who was making investigations in this land. His boat grounded hopelessly three-quarters of a mile from shore, and he had to wade that distance in waist-deep water with a muddy bottom; while every time he lifted a foot, a large bubble of sulphuretted hydrogen rose to the surface, and burst under his nose!
St. Thomas the Apostle once crossed the lake—on his way to India as local tradition has it—but in a fashion less laborious and odoriferous than did the scientist. He walked on the water’s surface; a smaller miracle in this case than some parallels in the lives of the saints, yet no small portent all the same. In memory of it all Urmi comes down for a solemn and ceremonial bathe in the waters on the anniversary of the passage, the fifteenth day of August. Other folk have to cross in boats, usually the very clumsiest craft that swim on any sheet of water in the world, with masts built after the style of an old-fashioned bear’s pole. With a strong wind dead astern, they move perhaps two miles an hour, and may get over in a day and a night. In any other case the sail is hauled down, and they wait for better times; so that the voyage of forty miles may last for a week or even more. Latterly, enterprise has risen to a steamer, plying between the ports of Urmi and Tabriz, and passing through the winding channel that divides the two principal islands of the lake, “Sheep Island” and “Donkey Island.” With luck, this craft may manage the passage (on the rare occasions when the engine does not break down and have to be repaired en route) in six hours. The regular programme, however, is a doleful remark from the engine-room “Machina qizdi,” “The machine has lost its temper”; and a halt that may last some hours, or may endure for a day. As for the islands, they are uninhabited by man. How the second got its name we know not; but “Sheep Island” has some herds of wild sheep, which have been long enough isolated to develop some characteristic peculiarities in their very fine horns.
Urmi is one of the most ancient centres of Christianity in the land; for if local tradition is to be trusted, the Faith[{202}] was brought here by no less a person than one of the “Wise Men,” who came from the East to the manger at Bethlehem. Oriental story, naturally, has nothing to say to their traditional migration to the city of Cologne; though it does include the three traditional names, Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar, as those of three of the band of twelve “Magi” who journeyed together to Palestine, looking for the fulfilment of the prophecy of that ancient initiate of their religion, Balaam the son of Beor. As for the identity of the Magian who came back to his home at Urmi, and brought the “Good News” with him; do not his revered bones rest to this day in the church of St. Mary in the city, and is not that proof enough? Like many another Oriental legend, it is at least more ancient, and less improbable, than is the story of the “Three Kings” of the city on the Rhine.
Many beautiful traditions or parables gather round the visit of the Magi in the East, as in the West; and one of them may be recounted here. “Our fathers say” that when Adam went forth from the garden, he took with him two things as memorials of his lost Paradise. These were some of the spices that grew upon the Tree of Knowledge, and one branch gathered from the Tree of Life. They were preserved by his descendants in the East, as tokens that the lost inheritance would be given back again some day; and when at last the Wise Men knew that He had come, who was to restore it, and went forth to do Him homage, those spices were the frankincense that they offered at Bethlehem. The branch of the Tree of Life they took with them also, and left in Jerusalem; and there those who knew not what they did, took it, and used it for the cross-beam of the Tree on Calvary.
Originally the church in Urmi, like that in the mountains, was of that “East Syrian” communion which its enemies called Nestorian. It is very certain, however, that the body did not teach what Nestorius of Constantinople was condemned for teaching, in the year 431; and indeed it is very doubtful whether either he or anybody else ever did so.[{203}]
It has since become the prey of foreign missions of various complexions, such as Russian Orthodox, French Roman Catholic, and American Presbyterian; each of which has been anxious to win the body over to what they are convinced is a much better form of Christianity, and could not conscientiously be content to leave it in its old independence, while recalling it to its own ancient rule. All three have achieved a good deal of success, and the “Old Church” is now a small minority; but to a member of the Church of England it appears doubtful whether the success was worth winning. Do you improve the Oriental Christian by taking him out of the Church of his fathers and inducing him to join any other body? He has his faults in the Old Church, and plenty of them; and there is an element of truth in the accusation so often thrown at him, that he is an invertebrate, backboneless creature—Christian, only because his fathers were Christian before him. There is no doubt that his religion is an external armour of inherited habit and belief; and that he is, so to speak, crustaceous rather than vertebrate in his spiritual construction. We will assume it as certain that all those who make this fact a reproach to him would themselves have become Christians, had they been born heathens or Mussulmans. Still, if a zealous reformer extracts the lobster from his shell (a feat which can be performed, if you disregard the lobster’s feelings), even that drastic operation does not enable him to develop a backbone. He merely develops a fresh armour of habit, that may or may not be superior to the old. Further, invertebrate though the Oriental Christian may be (and, therefore, of course, of a far lower type than the vertebrate European Protestant), he has the peculiar powers of his species; and can endure an amount of cutting and hacking, without losing his faith, which would altogether destroy the spiritual life of a higher type of Christian. The gift of passive endurance may appear small to those who have it not; but at least it can claim Gospel approval.