The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Reverend Justin Perkins Among The Nestorians

Reverend Justin Perkins Among The Nestorians
Posted by atheist (Guest) - Wednesday, January 27 2010, 17:49:40 (CET)
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Another of the very earliest Westerners to dwell among the Nestorian tribes of Urmia was Justin Perkins, an American Baptist missionary. His book, titled, "Residence of Eight Years In Persia among The Nestorian Christians" was published in 1848. It was written in 1843 and his actual stay among the Nestorians began probably around 1834...which is a few years before Layard made his discoveries and went on to claim the Nestorians (except of course for the ones who turned Catholic, who stopped being "ethnically" Assyrian the moment they left the COE!) MUST be the ancient Assyrians.

In this book as well there is not a single mention by the Nestorians that they are Assyrians...they never use the term and they also claim to be descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, as Dr Grant mentions in his book.

The following quote is taken from page 175 of the Perkin's book.

"In conversation Mar Yohannan objected to my calling him and his people 'Nestorians'. I asked him what I should call them and he answered 'Chaldeans'. I inquired whether the Catholic Nestorians are not called Chaldeans. He acknowledged that they are, but asked, ' Shall a few Catholic converts from our people arrogate to themselves the name of the whole nation? and must we surrender up our name to them? Nestorius we do indeed respect, as one of our bishops; but our nation are under no particular obligation to be called by his name, and no reason exists why we should cease to be called Chaldeans.' ...The people usually call themselves 'Syrianee', and less often 'Nuzranee' for the purpose of designating both their religion and their nation."

And Syrianee (Syrian) is NOT the same as Assyrian...it is the Greek form of Aramean...but never mind that. The point is that until Layard and other Euros dug out the Assyrian artifacts and decided that the Christians living above them MUST be the ancient Assyrians, no evidence exists at all that the people thought of themselves as such...indeed, if anything, they were first mislead to call themselves Chaldeans, not Assyrians...so, contrary to Aprim's claims, Chaldean came BEFORE Assyrian...though both of them were dead wrong. The Nestorians who refused to convert to Rome were pissed that their new Catholic members got to call themselves by the exotic name of "Chaldean", so they decided they too would be called Chaldeans from then on and not Nestorians...they had no inkling of them of being "Assyrians"...that came later thanks to archaeology. And when they got to have their own ancient name, they became hostile to the entire notion of "Chaldean" and made fun of their pretensions....as if their silly claim was any different.

As Dr Joseph so clearly explains, the term Chaldean was resurrected as a GEOGRAPHICAL designation for that region in which the Catholic missionaries built their headquarters....hence the Nestorians of that same region became identified as the Chaldean Catholics and later just Chaldeans..but there was NEVER an intention to make the people ETHNICALLY Chaldean all of a sudden.

It's very like English missionaries building an Anglican Church in Beijing and calling it the Anglican Church of BEIJING. All that tells you is the location of that particular Anglican Church...it is in Beijing, and others may be built in Timbuktu or Memphis etc. This does not mean that the Chinese people entering that Church BECOME English...neither does it mean that the Anglican religion is INDIGENOUS to China.

The Catholic Church was built in the region, known from the Bible and ancient times, as Chaldea...it was just a name chosen by the Euros to designate the location of their church...that's all.

Assyrians were invented later, but they were just as much a figment of Euro imaginations as were the Chaldeans.



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