Among my correspondents who have been readers of my articles in the "Atlantic Monthly," are those who are interested to know the attitude of the Syrian Christians in general toward the creeds and dogmas of the Church as they are known and accepted in the West, and also whether I would not enlarge the scope of this publication so as to include {404} in it a discussion of certain doctrines which claim to have firm Scriptural basis. As may be very readily seen, these questions involve the study of a complexity of subjects which the original plan of this book was never intended to compass. Again the author feels that it would be inexcusable boldness on his part to enter a field of thought which noted scholars and historians have thoroughly explored, and to pretend to discuss issues which only such scholars have a right to discuss. However, in compliance with the requests of those interested readers I will contribute my mite to the vast literature of a very old subject. As is well known to church historians, the Syrian Christians of the Semitic stock have had very little to do with the development of the "creeds of Christendom." Theological organization has been as foreign to the minds of the Eastern Christians as political organization. They have always been worshippers rather than theologians, believers rather than systematic {405} thinkers. Their religious thinking has never been brought by them into logical unity, nor their mysticism into full metaphysical development. The Oriental has been a lender in religion and a borrower in theology. The course of religion ran from the East to the West, the course of theology ran from the West to the East. Had it been left to itself, it is certain that the Christianity of Palestine never would have built up such a massive structure of doctrine as the Athanasian Creed. Wherever the great doctrinal statements of our religion may have originated,--whether in Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, or Alexandria,--their essential parts were Greek and Roman, and not Oriental. The Christian Church had its simple origin with a group of Jewish followers of Jesus Christ in Palestine, but it had its marvelous expansion and organization among the "Gentiles." In Palestine the faith of the Church may be said to have been instinctive, but {406} among the Gentiles and under Greek and Roman influences that faith became highly reflective. Faith in God the Father, and in his Son (by anointing) Jesus Christ, and love of the brethren, constituted the simple creed of the Palestinian Christians.