Syria

• Syria

130:0.3Af­ter their stay in Rome they went over­land to Tar­en­tum, where they set sail for Athens in Greece, stop­ping at Nicopo­lis and Corinth. From Athens they went to Eph­esus by way of Troas. From Eph­esus they sailed for Cyprus, putting in at Rhodes on the way. They spent con­sid­er­able time vis­it­ing and rest­ing on Cyprus and then sailed for An­ti­och in Syria. From An­ti­och they jour­neyed south to Sidon and then went over to Da­mas­cus. From there they trav­eled by car­a­van to Mes­o­po­ta­mia, pass­ing through Thap­sacus and Larissa. They spent some time in Baby­lon, vis­ited Ur and other places, and then went to Susa. From Susa they jour­neyed to Charax, from which place Gonod and Ga­nid em­barked for In­dia.

• Syria

134:7.1When Je­sus re­turned from the jour­ney to the Caspian Sea, he knew that his world trav­els were about fin­ished. He made only one more trip out­side of Pales­tine, and that was into Syria. Af­ter a brief visit to Ca­per­naum, he went to Naz­a­reth, stop­ping over a few days to visit. In the mid­dle of April he left Naz­a­reth for Tyre. From there he jour­neyed on north, tar­ry­ing for a few days at Sidon, but his des­ti­na­tion was An­ti­och.

134:7.2This is the year of Je­sus’ soli­tary wan­der­ings through Pales­tine and Syria. Through­out this year of travel he was known by var­i­ous names in dif­fer­ent parts of the coun­try: the car­pen­ter of Naz­a­reth, the boat­builder of Ca­per­naum, the scribe of Da­mas­cus, and the teacher of Alexan­dria.

96:1.13The Syr­i­ans, while wor­ship­ing their gods, also be­lieved in Yah­weh of the He­brews, for their proph­ets said to the Syr­ian king: “Their gods are gods of the hills; there­fore they were stronger than we; but let us fight against them on the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they.”

80:1.2In the east­ern trough of the Med­i­ter­ra­nean the Nod­ites had es­tab­lished one of their most ex­ten­sive cul­tures and from these cen­ters had pen­e­trated some­what into south­ern Eu­rope but more es­pe­cially into north­ern Africa. The broad-headed Nod­ite-An­don­ite Syr­i­ans very early in­tro­duced pot­tery and agri­cul­ture in con­nec­tion with their set­tle­ments on the slowly ris­ing Nile delta. They also im­ported sheep, goats, cat­tle, and other do­mes­ti­cated an­i­mals and brought in greatly im­proved meth­ods of met­al­work­ing, Syria then be­ing the cen­ter of that in­dus­try.

121:1.9The first strug­gles be­tween the ex­pand­ing Ro­man and Parthian states had been con­cluded in the then re­cent past, leav­ing Syria in the hands of the Ro­mans. In the times of Je­sus, Pales­tine and Syria were en­joy­ing a pe­riod of pros­per­ity, rel­a­tive peace, and ex­ten­sive com­mer­cial in­ter­course with the lands to both the East and the West.

97:9.14Af­ter the de­feat of the Phil­is­tines, David gained pos­ses­sion of the “ark of Yah­weh,” brought it to Je­ru­sa­lem, and made the wor­ship of Yah­weh of­fi­cial for his king­dom. He next laid heavy trib­ute on the neigh­bor­ing tribes—the Edom­ites, Moabites, Am­monites, and Syr­i­ans.

156:3.1On Tues­day, June 28, the Mas­ter and his as­so­ciates left Sidon, go­ing up the coast to Por­phyreon and Hel­dua. They were well re­ceived by the gen­tiles, and many were added to the king­dom dur­ing this week of teach­ing and preach­ing. The apos­tles preached in Por­phyreon and the evan­ge­lists taught in Hel­dua. While the twenty-four were thus en­gaged in their work, Je­sus left them for a pe­riod of three or four days, pay­ing a visit to the coast city of Beirut, where he vis­ited with a Syr­ian named Malach, who was a be­liever, and who had been at Beth­saida the year be­fore.

139:7.10When these per­se­cu­tions caused the be­liev­ers to for­sake Je­ru­sa­lem, Mat­thew jour­neyed north, preach­ing the gospel of the king­dom and bap­tiz­ing be­liev­ers. He was lost to the knowl­edge of his for­mer apos­tolic as­so­ciates, but on he went, preach­ing and bap­tiz­ing, through Syria, Cap­pado­cia, Gala­tia, Bithy­nia, and Thrace. And it was in Thrace, at Lysi­machia, that cer­tain un­be­liev­ing Jews con­spired with the Ro­man sol­diers to en­com­pass his death. And this re­gen­er­ated pub­li­can died tri­umphant in the faith of a sal­va­tion he had so surely learned from the teach­ings of the Mas­ter dur­ing his re­cent so­journ on earth.

156:1.1There lived near the home of Karuska, where the Mas­ter lodged, a Syr­ian woman who had heard much of Je­sus as a great healer and teacher, and on this Sab­bath af­ter­noon she came over, bring­ing her lit­tle daugh­ter. The child, about twelve years old, was af­flicted with a griev­ous ner­vous dis­or­der char­ac­ter­ized by con­vul­sions and other dis­tress­ing man­i­fes­ta­tions.

156:1.2Je­sus had charged his as­so­ciates to tell no one of his pres­ence at the home of Karuska, ex­plain­ing that he de­sired to have a rest. While they had obeyed their Mas­ter’s in­struc­tions, the ser­vant of Karuska had gone over to the house of this Syr­ian woman, No­rana, to in­form her that Je­sus lodged at the home of her mis­tress and had urged this anx­ious mother to bring her af­flicted daugh­ter for heal­ing. This mother, of course, be­lieved that her child was pos­sessed by a de­mon, an un­clean spirit.

156:1.3When No­rana ar­rived with her daugh­ter, the Al­pheus twins ex­plained through an in­ter­preter that the Mas­ter was rest­ing and could not be dis­turbed; where­upon No­rana replied that she and the child would re­main right there un­til the Mas­ter had fin­ished his rest. Pe­ter also en­deav­ored to rea­son with her and to per­suade her to go home. He ex­plained that Je­sus was weary with much teach­ing and heal­ing, and that he had come to Phoeni­cia for a pe­riod of quiet and rest. But it was fu­tile; No­rana would not leave. To Pe­ter’s en­treaties she replied only: “I will not de­part un­til I have seen your Mas­ter. I know he can cast the de­mon out of my child, and I will not go un­til the healer has looked upon my daugh­ter.”

156:1.4Then Thomas sought to send the woman away but met only with fail­ure. To him she said: “I have faith that your Mas­ter can cast out this de­mon which tor­ments my child. I have heard of his mighty works in Gal­i­lee, and I be­lieve in him. What has hap­pened to you, his dis­ci­ples, that you would send away those who come seek­ing your Mas­ter’s help?” And when she had thus spo­ken, Thomas with­drew.

156:1.5Then came for­ward Si­mon Ze­lo­tes to re­mon­strate with No­rana. Said Si­mon: “Woman, you are a Greek-speak­ing gen­tile. It is not right that you should ex­pect the Mas­ter to take the bread in­tended for the chil­dren of the fa­vored house­hold and cast it to the dogs.” But No­rana re­fused to take of­fense at Si­mon’s thrust. She replied only: “Yes, teacher, I un­der­stand your words. I am only a dog in the eyes of the Jews, but as con­cerns your Mas­ter, I am a be­liev­ing dog. I am de­ter­mined that he shall see my daugh­ter, for I am per­suaded that, if he shall but look upon her, he will heal her. And even you, my good man, would not dare to de­prive the dogs of the priv­i­lege of ob­tain­ing the crumbs which chance to fall from the chil­dren’s ta­ble.”

156:1.6At just this time the lit­tle girl was seized with a vi­o­lent con­vul­sion be­fore them all, and the mother cried out: “There, you can see that my child is pos­sessed by an evil spirit. If our need does not im­press you, it would ap­peal to your Mas­ter, who I have been told loves all men and dares even to heal the gen­tiles when they be­lieve. You are not wor­thy to be his dis­ci­ples. I will not go un­til my child has been cured.”

156:1.7Je­sus, who had heard all of this con­ver­sa­tion through an open win­dow, now came out­side, much to their sur­prise, and said: “O woman, great is your faith, so great that I can­not with­hold that which you de­sire; go your way in peace. Your daugh­ter al­ready has been made whole.” And the lit­tle girl was well from that hour. As No­rana and the child took leave, Je­sus en­treated them to tell no one of this oc­cur­rence; and while his as­so­ciates did com­ply with this re­quest, the mother and the child ceased not to pro­claim the fact of the lit­tle girl’s heal­ing through­out all the coun­try­side and even in Sidon, so much so that Je­sus found it ad­vis­able to change his lodg­ings within a few days.

156:1.8The next day, as Je­sus taught his apos­tles, com­ment­ing on the cure of the daugh­ter of the Syr­ian woman, he said: “And so it has been all the way along; you see for your­selves how the gen­tiles are able to ex­er­cise sav­ing faith in the teach­ings of the gospel of the king­dom of heaven. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I tell you that the Fa­ther’s king­dom shall be taken by the gen­tiles if the chil­dren of Abra­ham are not minded to show faith enough to en­ter therein.”

185:0.1Shortly af­ter six o’clock on this Fri­day morn­ing, April 7, A.D. 30, Je­sus was brought be­fore Pi­late, the Ro­man procu­ra­tor who gov­erned Judea, Samaria, and Idumea un­der the im­me­di­ate super­vi­sion of the lega­tus of Syria. The Mas­ter was taken into the pres­ence of the Ro­man gov­er­nor by the tem­ple guards, bound, and was ac­com­pa­nied by about fifty of his ac­cusers, in­clud­ing the San­hedrist court (prin­ci­pally Sad­duceans), Ju­das Is­car­iot, and the high priest, Cai­a­phas, and by the Apos­tle John. An­nas did not ap­pear be­fore Pi­late.

185:1.6It is sig­nif­i­cant that, while this vac­il­lat­ing Ro­man ruler sac­ri­ficed Je­sus to his fear of the Jews and to safe­guard his per­sonal po­si­tion, he fi­nally was de­posed as a re­sult of the need­less slaugh­ter of Samar­i­tans in con­nec­tion with the pre­ten­sions of a false Mes­siah who led troops to Mount Ger­izim, where he claimed the tem­ple ves­sels were buried; and fierce ri­ots broke out when he failed to re­veal the hid­ing place of the sa­cred ves­sels, as he had prom­ised. As a re­sult of this episode, the lega­tus of Syria or­dered Pi­late to Rome. Tiberius died while Pi­late was on the way to Rome, and he was not reap­pointed as procu­ra­tor of Judea. He never fully re­cov­ered from the re­gret­ful con­dem­na­tion of hav­ing con­sented to the cru­ci­fix­ion of Je­sus. Find­ing no fa­vor in the eyes of the new em­peror, he re­tired to the prov­ince of Lau­sanne, where he sub­se­quently com­mit­ted sui­cide.

121:2.8The se­cret of the sur­vival of Pales­tine, the king­dom of the Jews, as a semi-in­de­pen­dent state was wrapped up in the for­eign pol­icy of the Ro­man gov­ern­ment, which de­sired to main­tain con­trol of the Pales­tinian high­way of travel be­tween Syria and Egypt as well as the west­ern ter­mi­nals of the car­a­van routes be­tween the Ori­ent and the Oc­ci­dent. Rome did not wish any power to arise in the Lev­ant which might curb her fu­ture ex­pan­sion in these re­gions. The pol­icy of in­trigue which had for its ob­ject the pit­ting of Se­leu­cid Syria and Ptole­maic Egypt against each other ne­ces­si­tated fos­ter­ing Pales­tine as a sep­a­rate and in­de­pen­dent state. Ro­man pol­icy, the de­gen­er­a­tion of Egypt, and the pro­gres­sive weak­en­ing of the Se­leu­cids be­fore the ris­ing power of Parthia, ex­plain why it was that for sev­eral gen­er­a­tions a small and un­pow­er­ful group of Jews was able to main­tain its in­de­pen­dence against both Se­leu­ci­dae to the north and Ptolemies to the south. This for­tu­itous lib­erty and in­de­pen­dence of the po­lit­i­cal rule of sur­round­ing and more pow­er­ful peo­ples the Jews at­tributed to the fact that they were the “cho­sen peo­ple,” to the di­rect in­ter­po­si­tion of Yah­weh. Such an at­ti­tude of racial su­pe­ri­or­ity made it all the harder for them to en­dure Ro­man su­zer­ainty when it fi­nally fell upon their land. But even in that sad hour the Jews re­fused to learn that their world mis­sion was spir­i­tual, not po­lit­i­cal.

73:1.5Shortly af­ter the de­struc­tion of Dala­ma­tia the fol­low­ers of Nod be­came di­vided into three ma­jor groups. The cen­tral group re­mained in the im­me­di­ate vicin­ity of their orig­i­nal home near the head­wa­ters of the Per­sian Gulf. The east­ern group mi­grated to the high­land re­gions of Elam just east of the Eu­phrates val­ley. The west­ern group was sit­u­ated on the north­east­ern Syr­ian shores of the Med­i­ter­ra­nean and in ad­ja­cent ter­ri­tory.