'Turkish Arabia: Being an Account of an Official Tour in Babylonia, Assyria, and Mesopotamia, 1886-87' [‎20r] (39/72)

2 3
the Nestorian Church was diffused from China to Jerusalem and Cyprus; and their num.
bers, with those of the Jacobites, were computed to surpass the Greek and Latin com
munities. Twenty-five metropolitans or archbishops composed their hierarchy/' Even
so late as Marco Polo's time (thirteenth century) the Nestorian Church formed one of the
most marked features of what, with the tendency to exaggeration to which he was a little
prone, the famous Venetian traveller described as "the very great kingdom of Mawsul."
How, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, dissensions among Nestorian Christians
tempted rival patriarchs to intrigue with Italian pontiffs need not here be described. To
the infinite credit of the Papal See, advances in which it was stipulated that conversion to
the Latin faith was not to be made a condition of Latin support met with no very cordial
reception. In the end perhaps it would have been better for all had a similar attitude
been maintained by the Roman missionaries engaged about the same time in disseminat
ing the doctrines of the Papacy in the country of the Nestorians themselves. These, as
so commonly happens, were more zealous than their masters. A proselyte, once ticketed
off, could be made, it seems to have been thought, into a convert afterwards. On these
lines no difficulty was met with. And a new patriarchate, Nestorian only in name, that is
based purely on a papal foundation, having been formed, in 1681, at Diarbakr, where most
of the Nestorians had by that time been "converted," the point of the wedge was thus
fairly driven into the body of the Nestorian Church. To the new sect the name "Chal
dean Church was given, in view probably of the large number of its adherents who are
natives of Babylonia, the ancient land of Chaldea j now known as Irak—the capital of
which, Baghdad, contains large bodies of these so-called Chaldean Christians, many of
them useful, honest, and even more or less educated.* Thus, in towns, have died out, in
name at least, the old Nestorians, a remnant of whom, amounting perhaps to 50,000, is
however still to be found in remoter parts. Side by side with their blood enemies, the
Muslim Kurds, these have fixed their villages like swallows' nests to the Kurdi mountains,
as well as planted them on Persian soil, among the fertile slopes west of Lake Urmia;
herdsmen, stocking-workers, not to say brigands, in the one locality; in the other,
gardeners and agriculturists. Their churches, said to be upwards of 200, are arranged in
nine dioceses, for the care of which there are seven metropolitans, the same number of
bishops, and nearly 200 priests. On paper this reads well. But the actual condition of
priests and people reflects rather the depths of misery and depression which they have
had to sound than the features of the religion which has come down to them. Their
clergy, for whom however they cherish the highest reverence, are to be seen not alone
holding the plough, but dragging it, in default of fourfooted labour. One of their "bishops"
met with one day struggling across the Z4b on a mule carried in his girdle a large wooden
spoon. The idea occurring was that this might have a symbolical meaning, like St. Peter's
keys; but on inquiry it turned out that the making and selling of these humble articles
was what the old man lived by.f
The way in which portion after portion of these primitive Christian churches have
become grafted on the Roman vine has now been glanced at. Next to be noticed are
the means in use for making the offshoots grow. Of this great work Mosul—the
patriarchial seat of the whole " Chaldean " Church in Turkey—may be regarded as the
centre. A delegate from His Holiness the Pope makes it his head-quarters, and round
him are gathered a body of dominican priests and nuns. The immediate base of
* The name Chaldean first appears in the Assyrian inscriptions of the 9th century B. C., where it was used to
designate the dominant race in the country about Babylon.
f Colonel Chesney's Euphrates expedition (1835), following on the partial establishment of Ottoman authority
in Kurdistan, helped to bring these mountain Nestorians, as well as the Christian Churches of Mesopotamia gene
rally, within the view of the British public. One result was the deputation (1842) of the Revd. G. P. Badger, by
the Christian Knowledge and Gospel Propagation Societies, to the country round Mosul, to fraternise with the
bishops and clergy, explain the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, and promote Christian educa
tion. Mr. (now Dr.) Badger published an account of his proceedings in a work entitled "The Nestorians and
their Rituals." In 1844 he was recalled. During his stay in Mosul the services of the Church of England were
performed in a small chapel fitted up in his house. This of course has ceased; but it is said a few of the natives
of Mosul still use the English prayer-book. For many years the American Board of Missions at Constantinople,
drawing its agents from the Presbyterian, Independent, Dutch reformed, and other Churches, has maintained its
missionaries and educationalists at M&rdin, a great centre of Syrian Christianity. A minister connected with the
Mllrdin mission chancing to visit Mosul during the period when material for these notes was being collected, facts
were in this and other ways gathered showing at once the practical lines on which this enterprise is based, and the
good prospect there is of its producing in time substantial results. Its founder, the late Dr. Grant (a medical
missionary), is still gratefully remembered in Mosul. " Nestorians on the brain" made him conceive he had discovered
in them the " Lost Tribes;" but even this had its advantages; for in support of his crotchet much sound information
was collected by him.
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