The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Re: part 9

Re: part 9
Posted by pancho (Guest) - Monday, August 27 2007, 21:52:10 (CEST)
from 71.116.101.196 - pool-71-116-101-196.snfcca.dsl-w.verizon.net Network - Windows XP - Internet Explorer
Website:
Website title:

“Michael the Syrian, the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch from 1166-1199, perhaps exaggerates the tolerance of the Crusaders. The Franks, he wrote, ‘never raise any difficulty on the subject of faith, nor concerning the adoption of one sole formula among all Christian peoples and tongues…they consider as Christian anyone who adores the cross, without further inquiry or examination.’”

If this was true, and it seems more like a fond wish or desire for it to be true, it could only have been because the Franks needed every Christian friend…no matter how heretical. When one considers how much Christian blood had been shed by Christians seeking to create one definitive creed…and how much Christian blood would yet be shed by Christians in this effort to have “one sole formula”…and how they would never accept as truly Christian “anyone who adores the cross, without further inquiry or examination”…one has to conclude that Michael had the common trait among us of being easily, and perhaps too willingly, duped by Western Christianity…as well as being ignorant of their actual, brutal, history.

“Patriarch Michael spoke well of the Muslims too. He praised the relations that existed between the Muslims and members of his community. ‘The Turks’, he wrote, ‘having no idea of the sacred mysteries…were in no way accustomed to inquire into professions of faith or to persecute anyone on their account’. The patriarch personally maintained the closest relations with Qilij Arslan II, who visited him and discussed religion with his learned men.”

How absolutely galling and sad too it must have been for Michael that he could sit peaceably and discuss his own religion with a Muslim, when he didn’t dare do so with a Christian of a different sect…or with the pope or Christian emperor. It does seem like a gross contradiction of basic Christian beliefs that fellow Christians would be more intolerant of Christianity than non-believers



---------------------


The full topic:



Content-length: 2248
Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/x-shockwave-flash, application/vnd.ms-excel, applicatio...
Accept-encoding: gzip, deflate
Accept-language: es-mx
Cache-control: no-cache
Connection: Keep-Alive
Cookie: *hidded*
Host: www.insideassyria.com
Referer: http://www.insideassyria.com/rkvsf5/rkvsf_core.php?Re_part_8-AFeu.1Yjw.REPLY
User-agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; InfoPath.1)



Powered by RedKernel V.S. Forum 1.2.b9