Do not Call the Illustrious Nation of Aramaeans by the Misnomer 'Assyrians'!

Jacob of Urhoy (Urfa)

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The Historian Poseidonios from Apamea (ca. 135 BC - 51 BC), was a Greek Stoic philosopher, politician, astronomer, geographer, historian, and teacher. He says: "

"The people we Greek call Syrians, they call themselves Arameans"

From: See J.G. Kidd, Posidonius (Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries, 1988), vol. 2, pt. 2, pp. 955-956)

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Strabo (born 63 BC or 64 BC, died ca. 24 AD), a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher is mostly famous for his Geographika ("Geography")

He says: "Poseidonius conjectures that the names of these nations also are akin; for, says he, the people whom we call Syrians are by the Syrians themselves called Arameans."

(From: The Geography of Strabo, translated by Horace Leonard Jones and published in Vol. I of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1917, Book I, Chapt. 2, 34)

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Flavius Josephus (c. 37 – c. 100 AD (or CE)) was a 1st century Jewish historian and apologist of priestly and royal ancestry who survived and recorded the Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 and later settled in Rome. He says: ""Aram had the Arameans, which the Greeks called Syrians.""

(From: Antiquities of the Jews, translated by William Whiston in 1737, Book I, Chapt. 6)

Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 275 – May 30, 339), was a bishop of Caesarea in Palestine and is often referred to as the father of church history because of his work in recording the history of the early Christian church. He says: ""and from Aram the Arameans, which are also called Syrians"

(From: Sebastian Brock, "Eusebius and Syriac Christianity," in Harold W. Attridge and Gohei Hata, eds., Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism (Leiden 1992), p. 226)

Abu Al-husayn 'ali Ibn Al-husayn Al-mas'udi, born 895 in Baghdad [Iraq] and died 957 in al- Fustat [Egypt], was a historian and traveler, known as "the Herodotus of the Arabs.” He was the first Arab to combine history and scientific geography in a large-scale work. On Tur Abdin he says: "Tur Abdin is the mountain where remnants of the Aramean Syrians still survive."

(From: Michael Jan de Goeje: Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum III, Leiden 1906, 54, I)

Prof. Dietrich Hermann Hegewisch born Dec. 15, 1746 in Quakenbrück [Germany] and died April 4, 1812 in Kiel, was a prolific german historian at the University of Kiel with a wide span of interests. He says: "Do not the Syrians, as they are usually called, or the Arameans, as they in fact are termed, deserve more attention in world history than they are usually given?"

(From: D.H. Hegewisch: Die Aramäer oder Syrer; ein kleiner Beitrag zur allgemeinen Weltgeschichte, Berlinische Monatschrift, 2, 1794, p. 193)

On Page 197 he says: "The names Syria, Assyria, Mesopotamia, Babylon, etc. stem from the Greeks, who were not familiar with the true geography of these lands when the names first started to be used. Later, partly because of continuing ignorance and partly because of convenience despite having accurate knowledge, they persisted in using them since it would have required something of an effort to give up the old, familiar names and divisions of the countries and switch to the new ones, even if they were more accurate. The old, true, and single name of these lands is Aram; it is mentioned numerous times in the Bible of the Old Testament, and Greek scholars were also familiar with it and probably described the population of these areas as Arameans, though seldom, as they usually continued to use the term Syrian, which had been familiar to the Greeks."

On page 307 he says: "The Syrians or Arameans were not merely a numerous and large people, they were also a much cultivated people."

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Prof. Theodor Mommsen born Nov. 30, 1817, Garding, Schleswig [now in Germany] died Nov. 1, 1903, Charlottenburg, near Berlin, was a German historian and writer, famous for his masterpiece about the History of Rome. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1902. He says: "the history of the Aramaean or Syrian nation which occupied the east coast and extended into the interior of Asia as far as the Euphrates and Tigris"

(From: The History of Rome, written between 1854 and 1856, Leipzig, by Theodor Mommsen, Book First, Chapter One)

"the Arameans defended their nationality with the weapons of intellect as well as with their blood against all the allurements of Greek civilization and all the coercive measures of eastern and western despots, and that with an obstinacy which no Indo- Germanic people has ever equalled, and which to us who are Occidentals seems to be sometimes more, sometimes less, than human."

(ibid, Book Third, Chapter One)

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Prof. Theodor Nöldeke born March 2, 1836 in Harburg near Hamburg, died December 25, 1930 in Karlsruhe, was the leading german semitic scholar, who studied at Göttingen, Vienna, Leiden and Berlin. He says: "The main body of the population of all these wide landscapes from the Mediterranean Sea to beyond the Tigris belonged to a certain nationality, that of the Arameans."

(From: Th. Nöldeke: Assyrios Syrios Syros, in Zeitschrift für klassische Philologie, Hermes 5, Berlin 1871, p. 460)

On page 461 he says: "It is well understandable that people have started to transfer the name of the country to the most important nationality and so the name 'syrian' was apprehended ethnological and was equated with 'aramaic'."

On page 468 he says: "Since the times of Alexander [the Great], if not already somewhat earlier, people have started to transfer the name of the Syrians exclusively over the prevailing in Syria nationality, and in this way this originally political-geographical term became an ethnological one that was identified with the local Arameans."

"From the time the Greeks came to have a more intimate acquaintance with Asia, they designated by the name of Syrians, the people who called themselves ´Arameans’.” (From: Th. Nöldeke, Kurzgefasste Syrische Grammatik (Leipzig, 1880), p. XXIX)

"Regarding the name of this nation and its language is the original 'Aramean’ in essence also the only one [sic], that for the employment of the present-day scholarship as yet strongly fits.” (From: Th. Nöldeke, "Die Namen der aramäischen Nation und Sprache,” in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 25 (1871), p. 131)

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Karl Eduard Sachau born 20 July 1845 and died 1930 was a German orientalist. He was 1872 professor at the University of Vienna, and in 1876, professor at the University of Berlin, where he was appointed director of the new Seminar of Oriental languages in 1887. He is especially noteworthy for his work on Syriac and other Aramaic dialects. He says: "The nation of the Arameans: This national name later, mainly in consequence of Jewish-Christian literature influences, gave way to the Greek designation Syrians."

(From: Verzeichnis der Syrischen Handschriften der königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin von Eduard Sachau 1. Abteilung, Berlin 1899, Vorrede I)

Aramean people: Aramean people (not to be confused with ‘Armenians’) speak Aramaic, the language spoken by Abraham, Moses and Jesus. They are the indigenous people of what was called in ancient times Aram- Nahrin, in our days it is called ‘Mesopotamia’.

Some Arameans today identify themselves with “Assyrians”, because of the spiritual colonial hate generating activities of the Western missionaries and diplomats in the Middle-East in 16th and 19th centuries. Other Arameans became known as “Chaldeans”. However all of them are Arameans.In Turkey, the Arameans are called: Süryani. In Arabic they are called Al- Suryan.

Do not Call the Illustrious Nation of Aramaeans by the Misnomer 'Assyrians'!

2-7-2007- Part 4

Continuing our interview with Mr. Gabriel Sengo, Chairman of the Aram Nahrin Organization, we focus on the pernicious and criminal role played by Western Christian missionaries and diplomats in the Middle East, and more particularly among the Aramaeans.

Dutch Version

By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis, Orientalist

Source: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/do-not-call-illustrious-nation-aramaeans-misnomer-assyrians.html

http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard/Article/Do-not-Call-the-Illustrious-Nation-of-Aramaeans-by-the-Misnomer--Assyrians--/27814

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=31143

The Aramaeans have been victims of hate generating acts, and unprecedented partiality from the part of the French and the British who are the representatives of a false, impostor Jesus.

Through the lucidity of the answers of Mr. Sengo, the criminal and devious nature of the Western false Christianity is revealed in all its depth and width.

Embodiment of the divisive deeds and practices of the Catholic and the Anglicans missionaries among the Aramaeans is the gradual and lethal Western academic, educational and cultural infiltration among the Aramaeans, and the diffusion of false identities, namely ‘Chaldaean’ and ‘Assyrian’ for parts of the Aramaean nation.

Obliterating through bribery and blackmail one nation’s identity is a most criminal deed, and Mr. Sengo is quite justified to deliberately call it ‘Spiritual Genocide’.

An Interview with Mr. Gabriel Sengo, Chairman of the Aram Nahrin Organization – Part IV

- Are there Aramaeans calling themselves under other ethnic names; what are these names?

- Yes, there are. Those calling themselves Chaldeans (since the 16th century), and those calling themselves Assyrians (since the 19th century); they both are the spiritual children of the Western Spiritual colonial practices!

‘Assyrians’-puppets of the British and ‘Chaldeans’-puppets of the French

- Why this happens, and to whom is this division due?

- This happened because of the spiritual war between the Western Catholics and Protestants. In a deeper sense, it was a war between the former powers France (together with the Roman Catholic Church) on one side and Great Britain (with the Anglican Church) on the other side that has been transferred within the Middle-East in the 16th and 19th century, and made havoc amongst the Aramean nation by fragmentizing and weakening them. Through this procedure, the Arameans became vulnerable to those who apply the path of the "sword" and who lack words like peace and brotherhood.

Both parties asserted to act on behalf of "Jesus". However, this was not the Jesus Christ of the Bible, but "another" Jesus, namely the powerful Jesus of the West who made havoc in the Middle-East while misusing the name of Jesus Christ of the Bible.. His tactic has always been intermingling of political and religious matters.

- Would you give historical details?

In the year 1553 the Roman Catholic missionaries brainwashed a part of the East- Aramean "Nestorian" clergy by means of bribery to call themselves "Chaldeans" and with that the Chaldean Church (of Babylon) was born and the division within the East - Arameans was a fact!

As a counter-manoeuvre, the Anglican missionaries started the same game in the 19th century and brainwashed the remaining part of the East - Aramean "Nestorian" tribes of Hakkari (bordering Turkey and Iraq) and Urmia (Iran) to call themselves "Assyrians"- a term which was used purely geographically and only applied to the "Nestorians".

- What are the consequences of this division?

The consequence of all this is that a divided nation is of course a weak nation. In addition, this prevents the social, cultural and human rights development /progress of our nation worldwide.

The missionaries (spiritual colonialists) came to the Middle-East and created havoc among the defenceless, weak and mostly illiterate Arameans of Mesopotamia. Instead of helping them, they "came in" and planted doubts in the hearts of our nation concerning their ethnic origin which caused a deep division and hatred amongst our people.

Misnaming the Arameans as "Assyrians" is a Criminal Act – a Spiritual Genocide

The war and hatred between the Anglican Church and the Catholic Church was battled out at the cost of the Aramean nation. The Catholics (together with France) promoted their product "Chaldeans" and Anglicans (with Great Britain) promoted their product "Assyrians".

Since then "Assyrianism" has become extremely fanatical and has even reached the level of terrorism, thereby besmirching our nation. This is what we call "Spiritual genocide".

Calling Aramaic language "Assyrian language" is a form of spiritual genocide, calling Aramean people "Assyrian people" is a form of Spiritual genocide, calling Aramean genocide "Assyrian genocide" is a form of spiritual genocide etc.

The Aramean spiritual genocide is also glorified by some forces within the European Parliament. For this reason, we sent them a comprehensive report to remind them that, by glorifying the "product" and "creation" of their forefathers and by ignoring the indigenous Aramean origin of our nation, they are violating the fundamental Human Rights of our nation.

To explain this in other words:

We are fighting against a phenomenon which was created by the West in the name of "Jesus" and has caused unprecedented hatred and division within our nation. We are not happy with this, and we didn’t ask for it. By means of bribery and brainwashing of our nation, they were uprooted from their origin and made to believe in a fake identity introduced by the missionaries.

It is quite sad and painful to observe the behaviour of the Church of England towards the Arameans and their efforts to divide our nation by implementing a horrible form of fanaticism. The Arameans have always treated others with respect and with brotherly love. For example, a seventh century monk named Theodore from Tarsus went on to become Archbishop of Canterbury in England and oversaw the re-establishment of Christianity there, as well as bringing some distinctively Aramean traditions and practices with him.

Oriental Christianity rejects the False Jesus of the West, and faces Euro-promoted Genocide

- What the major differences between Aramaean Christians and Western Christians? Whom do you define as Western Christians? The Orthodox, the Catholics, the Protestants?

- By the term ‘Western Christianity’ we refer to the Catholics and the various Protestant denominations. In the past the Arameans suffered much under Byzantine Emperors, in particular after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, because the Arameans didn’t want become the subject of the Emperor.

There is an immense difference in mentality between the Aramean and the Western Christians. The Aramean Christians are in general very pure, simple and honest in their approach to their fellow Christians. They have no interests whatsoever to force their ideas onto the minds of their fellow Christians. They have no secret agenda whatsoever, but act only from pious Christian love! Two examples will explain this:

In the 1980s, an evangelical missionary went to Tur Abdin to "preach" the gospel. When travelling, he lost his way and came across an Aramean monk working on land. The man went to the monk and introduced himself as a Christian from the West and said that he had lost his way. Without any hesitation, the monk went to him and embraced him. The Westerner was astounded and paralyzed! His answer to the monk was, "But, you don’t know me. You don’t know whether I am Catholic, Protestant or Baptist. And you kiss me?" The monk replied to him immediately, "I am not interested in your denomination. You said to me that you are a Christian and that is enough to me. It means that you are my brother".

This exemplifies the simple, pure, unsuspecting and pious Aramean Christinaity.

As to the Western Christianity, unfortunately, our experience is that many of them had ulterior motives when talking about "love" and "brotherhood" in the name of Jesus. They commonly intermingle political and religious matters which is typical of the unholy Jesus of the West. The showpiece of "Jesus of the West" always has been: dividing, ruling, weakening and subjecting other nations.

A perfect example is the establishment of the Syrian Catholic Church where the "spiritual" and "political" powers have worked together in the name of "Jesus" to weaken the Aramean nation. "The first [Syrian] Catholic Patriarch had been consecrated in Aleppo in 1662 with French help through the mediation of Ambassador Francois Picquet …. .. which was encouraged by French diplomats present in Aleppo at that time. The diplomats favoured the separation in the hope of one day uniting the Eastern Churches with that of Rome. The Catholic mission activities were strongly supported by French Ministry of Foreign Affairs policy, which had been reinforced in the region by creation in 1856 of a vice-consulate in Diyarbekir at the request of the Vatican (The Forgotten Genocide: Eastern Christians, The Last Arameans is a scientific analyse from the hands of Sebatien de Courtios, page 36).

And what do we read in many Catholic books and websites? The story is told in different way! They call it "The Unification of the Syrians with the Mother church (i.e. the Roman Catholic Church)".

Of course, they consider the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch as "heretic" and to underline their contempt some of them call it "Jacobite Church" in order to weaken the authority of this church that has been the mother of all the churches, including the Roman Catholic Church.

They never admit that by means of bribery, brainwashing, inciting father against son, daughter against mother, brother against brother and family against family, they have torn up the Arameans of the Middle-East thereby weakening them considerably!

What can we say about this? Whether Catholic or Protestant, they have always used this bad excuse of "unifying", "helping" and "educating" to not only destroy the Aramean nation but other nations as well.

Remorseless, vicious, and criminally anti-Christian West

One can just wait and wonder, how long the Creator of Heaven will allow this happen? Mixing of religious and political interest with the aim to destroy the Aramean nation, and thus causing unprecedented hatred.

Look for example in Iraq; it is just outrageous to have so many Christian denominations who all proclaim to obey Christ Jesus. Originally there was one Church, the Syrian Church of Antioch!

The Crusades - burning of the monastery of St. Barsaumo in Malatya in 1148

The second example of the "light" from the West to "enlighten" the East are the crusades. When we talk about the Crusades, in many cases the West’s evil intentions towards the Islamic world are underscored in a mistakenly exclusive way.

Well, this is not completely true! The Crusaders were not only against the Islamic world, but against the entire Middle-East, including the Aramean Christian nation.

Ruins of St. Barsaumo Monastery in Malatya

The Aramean nation suffered greatly as well under the crusades. An example will clarify this. The Aramean monastery of St. Barsaumo in Melitene / Malatya (Turkey) was the seat of the Patriarch of Antioch in the 12th and 13th century. The ruins of this monastery can still be seen, situated at the Borsum Kalesi, atop of a mountain some 55 km south-eastwards of Malatya. One of the most famous Patriarchs of this monastery was the Patriarch Michael the Great (1166-1199 AD). Before he became Patriarch, Michael was the Abbot of this monastery.

In 1148, some years before Michael became abbot, the monastery was visited by Jocelyn, count of Edessa, the Great Center of Aramaic Wisdom, Science, Art and Theology which had been taken by the Crusades. Jocelyn pretended he had come as a pilgrim to pray here, but once he had got his entourage inside the monastery wall, he plundered the place and even stole the treasured relic of St. Barsaumo’s hand.

The Impostor Jesus of the West

This has always been their tactic, namely misusing the name of Jesus Christ to "come in" and subsequently causing havoc in the name of the same Jesus! We wish to underline, in particular to the Islamic readers, that this has nothing to do with the Christ Jesus of the Bible, but rather with impostor Jesus of the West which continues in our days.

The remarkable thing is that in Western bibliography we sometimes read about the relationship between the Arameans and the Crusades falsehood like that: "The Syrian Orthodox developed warm relations with the crusaders in the 12th and 13th centuries".

Conclusions

Unconscious of the intentions of the Western missionaries, we welcomed them to the Middle-East in the 16th and 19th centuries as our equal brothers in Christ and were not suspicious whatsoever about their noble intentions. Unfortunately our simple belief turned out to be naïf and a great miscalculation. The plan of the brothers of the West turned out to be a spiritual war between Catholics and Protestants at the cost of our nation by dividing them and creating fake identities, namely "Assyrians" (19th century) and "Chaldeans" (16th century) and imposing them onto the minds of our nation.

In addition, they created hatred between families, cities and tribes and introduced a terrible form of fanaticism which in our days has even reached the level of terrorism.

- Would you give us some information about contacts among Eastern Christians and their hierarchies? The Georgians, the Armenians, the Aramaeans, the Copts, the Abyssinians?

The Aramean, the Armenian, the Coptic, Abyssinian (Ethiopian) and Eritrean orthodox churches are in communion with each other and reject the council of Chalcedon (451). They are also called the Oriental Orthodox churches.

As regards the Abyssinian Orthodox Church, we wish to make this remark:

According to tradition, the Abyssinians were chirstianized by two Aramean brothers from Tyre, Frumentius and Edesius, who in the middle of the fourth century were shipwrecked in the Red Sea and enslaved in the Kingdom of Aksum.

The Arameans became tutors to the Royal family, and converted King Ezana to Christinaity, after which Frumentius was consecrated as bishop of Aksum. In the Calender of the Ehopian Orthodox Church, there are many Aramean Saints, among them the Saints of the Monastery of Mor Gabriel (Tur Abdin, Turkey).

All the parts of the interview:

Part 5 Interview

Part 6 Interview (final)

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الترجمات العربية

Aramean Spiritual/ Physical Genocide

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Arameans in the Media

Professor Dr. John Joseph.

5-7-2008: Assyria and Syria: Synonyms?

In a letter to the author (John Joseph), dated June 11, 1997, Patricia Crone wrote that she and Cook “do not argue that the Nestorians of pre-Islamic Iraq saw themselves as Assyrians or that this is what they called themselves. They called themselves Suryane, which had no greater connotation of Assyrian in their usage than it did in anyone else…. We take it for granted that they got the modern Assyrian label from the West and proceeded to reinvent themselves… Of course the Nestorians were Arameans.”

(Page 27, footnote 94)

Professor Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

28-6-2004: Progenitor of Wars and Tyrannies: the Falsehood of Pan-Arabism

The deep and hidden reason of the tyrannical oppression practiced throughout the Middle East is the imposition by France and England of pan-Arabic nationalist cliques that intend to dictatorially arabize the various peoples of the Middle East, who are – all – not Arabs

10-8-2005: The Aramaeans' rise will transfigure the Middle Eastern Chessboard

The basic fact is that all these populations are only Arabic – speaking; they are not Arabs. Their ethnic historical identity is Aramaic. Aramaeans are Semitic, but as distant from the Arabs as the Ancient Hebrews were from the Babylonians. For reasons we are going to explain, these Aramaean populations got gradually arabized, but the arabization phenomenon took place at the linguistic level only, not at the ethnic, national, cultural levels

Out of it, colonial missionaries, political agents, and diplomats made a huge lie (namely that these Aramaeans are not Aramaeans but 'Assyrians') with which they disconnected the Nestorian Aramaeans from their Aramaic identity

18-12-2008: Syriacs, "Assyrians" and "Chaldaeans" are all Aramaeans

What is the correct national name of the Modern Aramaeans? Why are there Aramaeans, who despite the fact that they speak Aramaic, insist on calling themselves 'Assyrians'? Why other Aramaeans stick to a third name, 'Chaldaeans'? Is it proper to use the name 'Syriac' that usually describes a late form of Aramaic language and scripture (from which Arabic derived) as national name of the Aramaeans?

16-12-2008: Pseudo-Assyrians, Pseudo-Chaldaeans, and the Cultural – National Needs of the Aramaean Nation

Contrarily to the farfetched – and well financed – inaccuracies of Simo Parpola, there is not a single element in the defunct before 2600 years Assyrian Cultural and National Heritage to resemble in anything with the genuinely Aramaean culture of today’s Aramaeans, irrespective of the appellation that they use to designate themselves, Aramaeans, Chaldaeans, Assyrians or Zulu.............

Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly

28-10-2008: “...but I would like to state that we, the Chaldean, Assyrian and Syrian people are one people called Aramean”

13-5-2006: Is there an Assyrian cause in Iraqi Kurdistan?

But this claim has been researched by historians, and concluded that people in middle East mostly refer to people to their region, like someone from Kirkuk, was named Kirkuki whether he was , Kurd, Turkmen or Aramean. So is the case with Assyrians or actually the “Athuris” that is how they are called in the region. That name is been used to label the Nestorian Arameans of Athur(Asur) region at the suburbs of Mosul. The term has no any relation with the ancient Assyrians and the modern Assyrians

2-8-2005: IRAQ's Modern History. The Arab Majority and The Minorities

As for the terms "Assyrians" and "Chaldaeans," which are used to describe non-Arab Christians (other than Armenians), there is absolutely no historical reference of their association with the Assyrians and Chaldaeans of ancient Mesopotamia

“The Church of the East and the Church of England: A History of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission “ is the title of the book written by J.F. Coakley and published in 1992.

On page 147 Coackly reports about a dispute between Arthur Maclean, head of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission from 1886 to 1891, and Hormuzed Rassam, the brother of Christian Antun (Isa) Rassam; a Chaldean family from Mosul. We read: “As he (Maclean) insisted, the ‘Syrians’ called themselves that, never ‘Assyrians’; …… to apply the name ‘Assyrians’ to these Eastern Syrian Christians appears to me either an error, or else pedantry. There is really as far as I know no proof that they had any connection with the Old Assyrians. ....... ..... Why should we invent a name when we have such a very convenient one, used for centuries, at our hand? I can understand that one living close to the ruins of Nineve should have a fit enthusiasm of Old Assyria; but is it common sense to cast aside a name used by the people themselves, and to invent another for them of very doubtful applicability? “