Melkites

“ By far the greatest man of the Melkite Church is the Patriarch Maximos III. [93] Michael Maẓlūm was born at Aleppo of Melkite parents in 1779. He studied at his native city under a priest, Michael Naḥāwī, who is said to have been imbued with the ideas of Germanos Ādam. No doubt it was from him that Maẓlūm acquired those Gallican ideas that he never quite abandoned. He went to no seminary. Among the Melkites then it was still common (as in the schismatical Eastern Churches) that a priest should take young men to his house and teach them what theology, liturgy, and so on he could. ”

“ But the community suffers from the curse of all Christians in the Near East, constant emigration, chiefly to America and Australia. There are many Melkites in the States, South America, Australia, some in South Africa. When they have made their fortune, they generally come home again and build themselves a house in their native village. ”

“ The Melkites, adherents of the orthodox or court religion sanctioned by the council of Chalcedon, were mainly of foreign extraction, from the various Hellenistic races which peopled the Eastern Roman empire, while the bulk of the population, the true Egyptians, were Monophysite. ”

“ The one connection between this group, separating them from the others, is that all these use the Byzantine rite in various languages. So far they do not seem to have had any common name. Some of them are Ruthenians, some Melkites, some Italo-Greeks.
It might seem convenient to call them all Melkites; but by universal custom, that name is used only for those who speak Arabic, in Syria and Egypt. No one ever calls a Ruthenian a Melkite. "Catholic Orthodox" suggests itself as a name. ”

“ Heraclius, in 638 after the repulse of the Persians, endeavoured to unite the churches, but, failing in that, he persecuted the Monophysites more severely than ever before, until ‛Amr brought Egypt under the Moslem rule of ‛Omar, as has been related above. Under the persecution many Copts had gone over to the Melkites, but now it was the turn of the Melkites, as supporters of the emperor of Constantinople, to suffer, and they almost entirely disappeared from Egypt, though a remnant headed by a patriarch of Alexandria of the Orthodox Christians has survived to this day. ”

“ They are not, of course, really Patriarchs of anything like all the East in the usual meaning. The Melkite has jurisdiction over Melkites in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt only. He has never received nor assumed the title of Constantinople; though I have heard it whispered in Syria that Cyril VIII, having already so many titles, had vague dreams of being Œcumenical Patriarch. People in the East love titles. ”

“ Two Congregations of monks, those of St Saviour and Shuwair, eventually three, by the division of Shuwair into Baladites and Alepins, have played a great part in the story. The Melkites use the Byzantine rite, almost entirely in Arabic. They are certainly one of the most prosperous and advanced communities in the Near East.
↑ For all the following account of the Melkite Church I am indebted, most of all, to the admirable work of Father Cyril Charon. Charon is a Frenchman by birth and a Catholic priest of the Byzantine rite. ”

“ First the Orthodox insisted that, as the Melkites were practically Europeans, they should be made to dress like French priests, wearing the French hat. The malice of this is obvious. It would have stamped them as foreigners at the first glance, would have confused them with the Latin clergy, and would have lost to them the sympathy of natives. It is a common trick to injure a rival religion by representing it as foreign, and so hostile to all patriotic citizens. ”

“ It is known that, at any rate till the revolution of 1908, the Turkish Government grouped its Christian victims according to their religions. Each religion was a "nation," dependent on its religious head in civil matters too; these heads were responsible to the Porte for the behaviour of their people. When the division between Melkites and Orthodox came, at first that made no difference to the Turk. He still looked on them as one nation. Since the Government eventually took the side of the Orthodox Patriarchs, Silvester and his successors, these still had civil jurisdiction over the Melkites. ”

“ Now the Patriarch Clement thought it could be no longer put off. The Maronites had already adopted the Gregorian Calendar in their synod of 1736. [120] Clement ordered its use throughout the Melkite Church in 1857. At once there was an enormous uproar. Eastern people are very tenacious of their old customs, especially in such external matters. Many Melkites protested that the Patriarch was tampering with their faith, that he was a Franǵi trying to latinize them. ”

“ In Syria most of the Melkites live in the towns. Their chief centre is Zaḥleh in the Lebanon, then Aleppo, Damascus, Beirut. Most of them are merchants and shopkeepers; on the whole they are a prosperous community, except that everything in Syria now gives way to the competition of Western imports. In Egypt they are perhaps the most prosperous Christian community. There they hold important offices under the Government; many become extremely rich, even millionaires, in commerce. ”

“ The Turks imprisoned Germanos, Metropolitan of Aleppo, a partizan of Cyril, also Euthymios Saifi of Tyre, and many Uniates at Damascus, Aleppo, [51] Tripoli, Sidon. The greater part of the clergy then submit to Silvester; the others go off to Cyril in the Lebanon. There is now a clear parting of the ways, and two Churches, that of the Orthodox under Silvester, that of the Melkites under Cyril; though for a time each still claims the whole body and tries to attract his rival's supporters. Aleppo for a long time remained one of the chief centres of the Melkite party. ”

“ Some day, when there are more Melkites in Egypt and Palestine, there will be separate Patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem. ↑ The φήμη is the solemn proclamation of a bishop, in all his glory. It occurs in Polychronia, and (abbreviated) in Diptychs. ↑ A missionary in Syria was much puzzled by this "thirteenth apostle." The idea is simple enough. ”

“ MELCHITES. The name which is given to the Syriac, Egyptian, and other Christians of the Levant; who, though not Greeks, follow the doctrines and ceremonies of the Greek Church, and submit to the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon. The term Melchites is borrowed from the Hebrew or Syriac word Melec, which signifies king. So that Melchites is as much as to say Royalists, and is a term of reproach, given to the orthodox by the Eutychians, or Jacobites, on account of their implicit submission to the edicts of the emperors, for the publication and reception of the above-mentioned council. ”

“ It is the lord Melkarth that has always loved the colonies of Phoenicia, first among which is Carthage. It is he that has guided and guarded us through the perils of the deep and of the desert, of the skies and of the earth, of hunger and thirst, of beasts and men. What god equals him in our city! What god receives such gifts, such incense, such sacrifices! What though we fear Baal Moloch! Is it not the lord Melkarth whom we love? It is he who goes before our armies, that he may tell them when to attack, when to await the foe. I am his priest. ”

“ Melky, who had good reasons of his own for keeping in his cousin's favour, listened like a lamb to all she had to say, and went off promising implicit obedience to her commandments.
"Zillah ain't half gone on that chap!" mused Melky, as he pursued his way. "Now, ain't it extraordinary that a girl who'll come into a perfect fortune should go and fall head over ears in love with a red-headed young feller what ain't got a penny to bless hisself with! Not but what he ain't got good looks—and brains. And brains is brains, when all's said!" ”

“ Poison you while they look at you!"
"Bit cunning and artful about it, mister?" suggested Melky.
"Beyond your conception, my friend," replied Mirandolet. "Unless I very much mistake your physiognomy, you yourself come of an ancient race which is not without cunning and artifice—but in such matters as you refer to, you are children, compared to your Far East folk."
"Just so, mister—I believe you!" said Melky, solemnly. "And—which of 'em, now, do you consider the cleverest of the lot—them as you say you've lived amongst, now? You mentioned three lots of 'em, you know—Indians, Burmese, Chinese. ”

“ In the time of Ignorance the Kuraish used to hold their councils where the Meghámé-Hanefi now stands. The Maleki pulpit, to the south-west of the Ka’bah, is a small building open on all sides, and resting on four pillars. The learned doctor who founded the sect of the Malekites was called Malek Ebn Ans. He was born at Medina in the year ninety of the Hegira, and there he also died at the age of eighty-seven. His teaching is based [Pg 116] on the traditions of the Prophet. ”

“ When Melchior was under other disguises, she remained in the camp with Nattée.
Of Num, or Philotas, as Melchior thought proper to call him, I have already spoken. He was a half-witted idiot, picked up in one of Melchior’s excursions; and as he stated to me, so did it prove to be the fact, that when on the stage, and questioned as a fool, his natural folly, and idiotical vacancy of countenance, were applauded by the spectators as admirably assumed. Even at the alehouses and taverns where we stopped, everyone imagined that all his folly was pretence, and looked upon him as a very clever fellow. ”

“ It was Melky's firm belief—already—that the stud had been dropped in Daniel Multenius's back parlour by some person who had no business there—in other words by the old man's assaillant. And ever since he had found the stud, Melky had been wondering and speculating on his chances of finding its owner. Of one thing he was already certain that the owner, whoever he was, was no ordinary person. Ordinary, everyday persons do not wear studs or tie-pins on chains made of platinum—the most valuable of all the metals. ”

“ All three schools of theology are taught in the Azhar mosque, and Egyptians are divided, according to their class, between them. The Viceroy and the ruling clique, men of Ottoman origin, are Hanefites, and so too are the descendants of the [Pg 22] Circassian Beys, but the leading merchants of Cairo and the common people of that city are Shafites, while the fellahin of the Delta are almost entirely Malekite. Malekite, too, are the tribes west of the Nile, following the general rule of the population of Africa. ”

“ We have seen that the population of Melite, the worshippers of Herakles [330] , were probably foreigners, and that at one time there [152] was a shift of these Herakles worshippers from Melite to Diomeia. Is it not possible that the two facts are connected? Plutarch leaves us in mid-air as to the time and cause of the metastasis, but be it observed the shift is from Melite, a district outside the old burgh, to Diomeia, a district, at least in part, outside the new. May it not have been felt when the new circuit-wall of Themistocles was complete that it comprised too many foreigners? ”

“ Its origin is so old that the records cannot tell whether the earliest inhabitants of Gades came from Tyre or from Sidon, but they are pure Phœnicians to this day, and as such worship the great invisible god Melcareth. Their language is not quite the same as our own, and is somewhat mixed with Greek—it hath, withal, a slight admixture of the Iberian tongue; but all their religious customs are most pure and holy. And the temple in Gades of the great god Melcareth is worthy in its architecture of all the highest civilisation of the country of Carthage as it was when I remember it as a boy. ”

“ Instead of offering thy victims to those gods which are no gods, offer them to Him who is above the heavens, and who rules all things.”
King Melchi replied,“Go and do what I have commanded thee, as thou valuest thy life.”
After that he turned to his wife Salem, and he told her that he purposed sacrificing one of his sons. The queen wept bitterly, because she knew that the king designed the immolation of Melchizedek, and she said, “Alas! I have suffered and laboured in vain.” ”

“ Even their religion betrayed their bent: El and Cronos, their oldest deities, were wanderers, and vanished in the west; on their traces Melkarth led a motley swarm of colonists to the Atlantic. These legends, filtering through Cyprus, Crete, or Rhodes, or borne by rash adventurers from distant Gades, appeared anew in Grecian mythology, the deeds of Melkarth mingling with the labors of Hercules. We do not know when the Phœnicians first reached the Atlantic, nor what were the limits of their ocean voyages. ”

“ Melkarth, whose city had been thus depopulated, was then honoured with a splendid sacrifice. All the soldiers, in full armour, marched round the temple; games, including a torch race, were held in the precincts; while the battering-ram that had made the first breach in the wall, and the galley [215] that had first broken the boom guarding the harbour, were deposited within the temple itself.
“And now,” said the king, at the banquet with which the great festival of Melkarth was concluded, “we will settle with that insolent priest who would not help us against these Tyrian rebels.” ”

“ At last, however, the affair was placed in honourable hands, by the appointment of Metellus (Q. C.) to the command of the army. His probity placed him far above any bribe that Jugurtha could offer; and though it is a maxim with many, that every man has his price, it may be said of Metellus that his moral standard was too high for any pecuniary standard to be applied to it.
With the generosity of true genius, Metellus selected as his legate a man capable of sharing with himself any of the honours that might be gained in the wars about to be undertaken. ”