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With its God-and-man doctrine of Christology (in contrast to the orthodox doctrine
which held that while in Christ two natures existed, these were moulded into one
person), its protest against the deification of the Virgin Mary and its unusual vitality
and missionary zeal, this Church at the rise of Islam was the most potent factor in
Syrian culture which had impressed itself upon the Near East from Egypt to Persia.
Members of this community from the fourth century onward had studied and
translated Greek philosophical works and spread them throughout Syria and
Mesopotamia. From Edessa the Church extended eastward into Persia. Even under
Islam this Church had an unparalleled record of missionary activity. And there was,
on the other hand, the western branch of the Syrian Church with its God-man
Christology and its exaltation of the Virgin to the celestial rank, and which was
comparatively lacking in missionary endeavour. Its theology was monophysite,
giving prominence to the unity of Christ at the expense of the human element. In
Syria the Monophysite communion was called by hostile Greeks "Jacobites" after
Jacob Baradacus, bishop of Edessa in the mid-sixth century.
The Ghassanids and other Syrian Arabs adopted this creed before the advent of
Islam. The so-called Jacobite Church thus became preponderant in Syria, as the
Nestorian Church had done in Persia. Syriac was and has remained the language of
both churches; but Greek was also taught in the cloisters, and the Jacobites seconded
the efforts made by the Nestorians in transmitting Greek thought to Syria and then to
Islam. Qinnasrin was a great center in North Syria for disseminating Monophysite
doctrine and Greek knowledge. Jacobite scholars were depositories of whatever
sciences were cultivated or transmitted in those days.
Armenian, Coptic-Ethiopic, Maronite, and Melkite Churches
Besides the Jacobite Church of Syria, the Armenian Church and the Coptic-Ethiopic
Church are independent descendants of the Monophysite rite. With all their interest
in Greek learning the two estranged sister Syrian Churches of the East and the West
arose and developed largely as a reaction of the Syrian society against the
Hellenising influences of Byzantium and Rome. Jacobitism and Nestorianism, while
they professed different Christologies, were alike protests against foreign intrusion
and the process of syncretism that was turning Christianity, historically a Syrian
religion, into a Greco-Roman institution.
Another shoot of the ancient Church of Syria is the Maronite, which owes its origin
to its patron Saint Maron (d. Ca. 410), an ascetic monk about whose life not much is
known. He is probably that "Maron, the monk priest" to whom John Chrysostom, on
his way into exile, addressed an epistle soliciting prayers and news. The Maronite
Church has been charged with espousing the Monothelite cause (one will in Christ).
But later Maronite apologists, beginning with alDuwayhi (d. 1704) and ibn-Namrun
(d. 1711) have claimed continued Chalcedonian orthodoxy for their Church
throughout the ages. The East and the West Syrian Churches with their ramifications
did not comprise all Syrian Churches. There remained a small body which under the
impact of Greek theology from Antioch and Constantinople succumbed and
accepted the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon (451). Thereby this community
secured imperial orthodoxy not only escaped excommunication, but obtained
protection, even patronage from the state church and the imperial city. By way of
reproach their opponentscenturies laternicknamed them "Melkitesites,"
royalists (from Syriac malka, king). Gradually, Greek replaced Syriac Melkite
http://www.ewtn.com/library/chistory/eveislam.htm
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