



Produced by Al Haines









[Illustration: Cover]




THE SYRIAN CHRIST


BY

ABRAHAM MITRIE RIHBANY




BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

1916




COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY ABRAHAM MITRIE RIHBANY


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED


_Published October 1916_




{v}

PREFACE

This little volume is sent forth in the confident hope that it may
throw fresh light on the life and teachings of Christ, and facilitate
for the general public the understanding of the Bible.  As may be
readily seen, from its perusal, the present work is not intended to be
a commentary on the Bible, nor even an exhaustive study of the subject
with which it deals.  That it leaves many things to be desired is very
evident to the author, who fears that his book will be remembered by
its readers more by the things it lacks than by the things it contains.

Yet, from the cordial reception with which the opening chapters of this
publication (which made their first appearance in the _Atlantic
Monthly_) met from readers, of various religious affiliations, the
author has been encouraged to believe that his aim has not only been
clearly {vi} discerned, but thoroughly approved.  The books which
undertake the systematic "expounding of the Scriptures" are a host
which no man can number, nor is there any lack of "spiritual lessons
drawn from the Bible."  Therefore, as one of the Master's fellow
countrymen, and one who has enjoyed about twenty years of service in
the American pulpit, I have for several years entertained the growing
conviction that such a book as this was really needed.  Not, however,
as one more commentary, but as an Oriental guide to afford Occidental
readers of the Bible a more intimate view of the original intellectual
and social environment of this sacred literature.  So what I have to
offer here is a series of suggestions, and not of technically wrought
Bible lessons.

The need of the Western readers of the Bible is, in my judgment, to
enter sympathetically and intelligently into the atmosphere in which
the books of the Scriptures first took form: to have real intellectual,
as well as spiritual, fellowship with those Orientals who sought {vii}
earnestly in their own way to give tangible form to those great
spiritual truths which have been, and ever shall be, humanity's most
precious heritage.

My task has not been a light one.  It is comparatively easy to take
isolated Bible texts and explain them, treating each passage as a
detached unit.  But when one undertakes to group a large number of
passages which never were intended to be gathered together and treated
as the kindred thoughts of an essay, the task becomes rather difficult.
How far I have succeeded in my effort to relate the passages I have
treated in this book to one another according to their intellectual and
social affinities, the reader is in a better position to judge than I
am.

It may not be absolutely necessary for me to say that infallibility
cannot justly be ascribed to any author, nor claimed by him, even when
writing of his own experiences, and the social environment in which he
was born and brought up.

However, in Yankee, not in Oriental, {viii} fashion, I will say that
_to the best of my knowledge_ the statements contained in this book are
correct.

Finally, I deem it necessary before I bring this preface to a close to
sound a note of warning.  So I will say that the Orientals' extensive
use of figurative speech should by no means be allowed to carry the
idea that _all_ Oriental speech is figurative.  This manner of speech,
which is common to all races of men, is only _more extensively_ used by
Orientals than by Occidentals.  I could wish, however, that the learned
theologians had suspected more strongly the literal accuracy of
Oriental utterances, and had thus been saved at times from founding a
huge doctrinal structure on a figure of speech.

Notwithstanding all this, the Gospel and the Christian faith still live
and bless and cheer the hearts and minds of men.  As an Oriental by
birth, and as an American from choice, I feel profoundly grateful that
I have been enabled to render this modest service to the Churches of
{ix} America, and to present this book as an offering of love and
homage to my Master, the Syrian Christ.

ABRAHAM MITRIE RIHBANY

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.




{xi}

CONTENTS


PART I.  THE SYRIAN CHRIST.

  I.  Son of the East
  II.  Birth of a Man Child
 