to all the inhabitants of Syria, whatever their religion may be. In origin they are the old Semitic population of the land, Aramæans, called in later language Syrians. From the time of Alexander the Great there was considerable Greek influence throughout Syria, mostly in the towns. Greek became the common language of all the Eastern Mediterranean basin, spoken by the more educated townsmen; while peasants went on speaking Syriac and Coptic. Certainly there was considerable infiltration of Greek blood. Alexander and the Seleucid kings brought many Greeks from Hellas to Syria. But this strain of Greek blood has long been lost in the general mass. It has not formed one "nation" among the others. As far as blood is concerned, a Moslem of Syria is just as likely to have Greek blood as a Melkite. Then, with the Moslem conquest of the seventh century, came a new influence. Arabic became the language of the Government, then of the whole people. The Greek influence died out; even Syriac was forgotten; so now they all talk only Arabic. No doubt, from the time of the Moslem conquest there have been infiltrations of Arabic blood too; but this is lost in the general mass, as the Greek blood was before. The language people speak is never a safe nor a final test of their blood. The population of Syria, then, is mixed, as is that of nearly all countries. Fundamentally it is Syrian; it has Greek and Arabic elements. The case is exactly parallel in Egypt. Here we have a population, originally Egyptian, with Greek and Arabic strains lost in the general mass. Probably no single person in either land knows how much of each element he has in his veins. The mixture is the same for all. It has nothing whatever to do with the various religious distinctions, which owe their origin to entirely different causes.[1]
Now we turn to a more serious question, the ecclesiastical origin of the Melkite Church. We have not here the case of
- ↑ The discussion about the ethnological origin of the Melkites is still lively over there. See C. Charon, "L'origine ethnographique des Melkites," Echos d'Orient, xi (1908), pp. 35-40; 82-91. H. Lammens, S.J., wrote against the supposed Greek origin in the Arabic review alMašriḳ, vol. iii (1900), pp. 267-273. Evangelos 'Id wrote, angrily defending it, "Étude sur les origines des Grecs melkites, réponse au R. P. H. Lammens, S.J.," Rome, 1901. Next year he published an Arabic version of this at Beirut. Constantine Bāšā, O.S.Bas. (Salv.) also wrote to defend their Greek descent, "Baḥthu-ntiḳādiyy fi aṣli-rrūmi-lmalakiyin, waluǵatihim" ("Critical Research Concerning the Origin of the Melkites and their Language"), Cairo, 1900. S. Vailhé sums up this discussion in the article, "Melkites et Maronites." Echos d'Orient, vi (1903), pp. 143-147.
