Difference between revisions of "Aramaic Church"
(→The Peshitta) |
m (→The Worship of the Early Aramaic Church) |
||
| Line 14: | Line 14: | ||
===The Worship of the Early Aramaic Church=== | ===The Worship of the Early Aramaic Church=== | ||
| − | What is | + | What is known about the life and worship of the earliest Aramaic community, is derived from an Aramaic (Syriac) document, once thought to be from a later "Judaizing" element within the Church, but now known, by comparison with linguistic affinities to the Dead Sea Scrolls in conjunction with the Gospel of John, to come from the first century, from the time that the church was still Jewish. This document is the "Odes of Solomon". The "Odes" are earlier than most literature of the New Testament. There, Gentile Christians are exhorted to be tolerant and caring for the remaining early Jewish believers in their midst. Here in the Odes of Solomon, Jewish believers are urged to be tolerant and caring for the Gentiles who had come to faith and were now in their midst. "And the Gentiles, who had been dispersed, were gathered together; But I [Jesus speaking] was not defiled by My love (for them); Because they had praised Me in High Places. (Odes Sol. 10:5). They went out early each morning before work and prayed together with arms outsteched, the fashion of worship of a slightly later gentile prayer position, considering this outstretching the "sign of the cross" - "I extended my hands and approached my Lord, For the expansion of my hands is His sign, And my extension is the common cross; That was lifted up on the way of the Righteous One." (A History of Christianity in Asia, Vol. l., Samuel Hugh Moffett, Orbis,{Odes Sol.42:1,2,}, 1998, pg.52). The Odes, have either a joining of Biblical passages, or the thought of such passages prior to their writing. An example is Ode 41:12-15 bringing together the prologue of the Gospel of John and Philippians 2. "His word is with us on the way; The Saviour who gives life and does not reject (us); The Man who humbled Himself, but was exalted because of His own Righteousness...;And Light dawned from the Word, that was before time in Him." |
There is little to be said in the Odes about the organization of this early Aramaic Church. The "Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons" of the roughly contemporaneous New Testament are not mentioned, but that may not mean much. As Samuel Moffett wrote about this matter, "[hymns]are rarely required to sing of bureaucracies". The closest to a list of ministries is from Ode 12:4 - "...the interpreters of His beauty, and the narrators of His Glory, and the confessors of His purpose, and the preachers of His mind, and the teachers of His works." | There is little to be said in the Odes about the organization of this early Aramaic Church. The "Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons" of the roughly contemporaneous New Testament are not mentioned, but that may not mean much. As Samuel Moffett wrote about this matter, "[hymns]are rarely required to sing of bureaucracies". The closest to a list of ministries is from Ode 12:4 - "...the interpreters of His beauty, and the narrators of His Glory, and the confessors of His purpose, and the preachers of His mind, and the teachers of His works." | ||
Revision as of 14:13, March 21, 2008
Contents
The Aramaic Church
Origin and Early Mission to the East
As Paul and the other Apostles and missionaries took the message of Jesus Christ to the West, to the synagogues first, and then to Greek culture and language peoples of the Roman Empire, The Apostle Thomas and his followers took the message to the East, to the Aramaic language and varied cultured peoples of the Parthian (Persian) Empire. These two Empires were at war with each other which tended to cause the two Christian communities to develop independently of each other - the Western Church to eventually be alligned with the Roman Empire, the Eastern to remain always subservient to the Persian Empire. The major Western border Kingdom was Osrhoene with its capital city Edessa. 400 miles to the east of Edessa was the small Persian Kingdom of Adiabene with its capital city of Arbela (modern Irbil on the Tigris river in Iraq). Adiabene was the last existing province of the hostile-to-Israel Assyrian empire.
The Peshitta
In 36 A.D., both the Queen of Adiabene, known in Greek as Queen Helena (not the mother of Constantine) and known to the Jews as Queen ShlomZion ("Peace of Zion"), and her son King Ezad were converted to Judaism. Queen Helena was buried in the grand tomb complex in East Jerusalem - formally thought to be the Tomb of the Kings. Her palace complex takes up the full half of the Hill of the City of David as reconstructered by Israeli archaeologist, Mikhael Avi-Yonah (reconstruction now in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem). Queen Helena commissioned or furthered the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures in her Kingdom's language - Aramaic. That developing translation came to be known as the Peshitta - meaning simple or common speech, in much the same way as the Hebrew Bible would be translated into Latin by Jerome, with extensive help form a Rabbi,and the resultant translation would be called the Vulgate - meaning simple or common speech. The Peshitta retains elements of the then Jewish "targumic" (interpretive) understanding of the Hebrew Bible. (A History of Christianity in Asia, Volume l, Samuel Hugh Moffett,orbis, 1998, pg. 70).
When Thomas' followers (possibly Adai (Thaddeus), the Galilean from Caesarea Phillipi among them) arrived in Adiabene, and having gone, to the synagogues first, they found already, if not a populous, then an elite governmental element, conversant with the biblical message in Aramaic. From these people, hearing the preaching of the messengers from Israel , came believers in Jesus Christ, and soon after, came the translation of the Greek New Testamet Scriptures into Aramaic, and so the Peshitta was added to by inclusion of the New Testament in Aramaic.
Adiabene and its surroundings then became the sending center for a mission to the East that would eventually, taking advantage of the newly rediscovered monsoon winds blowing for months across the Arabian sea, making it possible for ships to no longer hug the coasts, and taking advantage of the "Silk Road" all the way from Antioch in Syria to China, take the message of Jesus Christ to India (bringing about the Aramaic language churches of Kerala) and even to China itself.
The Worship of the Early Aramaic Church
What is known about the life and worship of the earliest Aramaic community, is derived from an Aramaic (Syriac) document, once thought to be from a later "Judaizing" element within the Church, but now known, by comparison with linguistic affinities to the Dead Sea Scrolls in conjunction with the Gospel of John, to come from the first century, from the time that the church was still Jewish. This document is the "Odes of Solomon". The "Odes" are earlier than most literature of the New Testament. There, Gentile Christians are exhorted to be tolerant and caring for the remaining early Jewish believers in their midst. Here in the Odes of Solomon, Jewish believers are urged to be tolerant and caring for the Gentiles who had come to faith and were now in their midst. "And the Gentiles, who had been dispersed, were gathered together; But I [Jesus speaking] was not defiled by My love (for them); Because they had praised Me in High Places. (Odes Sol. 10:5). They went out early each morning before work and prayed together with arms outsteched, the fashion of worship of a slightly later gentile prayer position, considering this outstretching the "sign of the cross" - "I extended my hands and approached my Lord, For the expansion of my hands is His sign, And my extension is the common cross; That was lifted up on the way of the Righteous One." (A History of Christianity in Asia, Vol. l., Samuel Hugh Moffett, Orbis,{Odes Sol.42:1,2,}, 1998, pg.52). The Odes, have either a joining of Biblical passages, or the thought of such passages prior to their writing. An example is Ode 41:12-15 bringing together the prologue of the Gospel of John and Philippians 2. "His word is with us on the way; The Saviour who gives life and does not reject (us); The Man who humbled Himself, but was exalted because of His own Righteousness...;And Light dawned from the Word, that was before time in Him."
There is little to be said in the Odes about the organization of this early Aramaic Church. The "Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons" of the roughly contemporaneous New Testament are not mentioned, but that may not mean much. As Samuel Moffett wrote about this matter, "[hymns]are rarely required to sing of bureaucracies". The closest to a list of ministries is from Ode 12:4 - "...the interpreters of His beauty, and the narrators of His Glory, and the confessors of His purpose, and the preachers of His mind, and the teachers of His works."
These Odes have been called the "earliest Christian hymnbook" (The Odes of Solomon: The Syriac texts Edited with Translation and Notes, J. H. Charlesworth, Oxford, Clarendon, 1973). The Odes are 42 biblical style psalms, each psalm usually in three sections - a first narrative style about the Lord, a middle section in which, often, Jesus speaks in the first person, and a last section offering a doxology of praise.
