From this great continent must undoubtedly have issued at some unknown period that extraordinary emi- gration which peopled America. It cannot be ques- tioned that the inhabitants of the north-eastern parts of Asia, little attached to the soil, and subsisting chief- ly by hunting and fishing, might pass either in their canoes in summer, or upon the ice in winter, from their own country to the American shore. Or a passage of this kind may not be necessary, for it is by no means unlikely that the Straits of Behring were formerly oc- cupied by the land, and that the isthmus which joined the old world to the new was subverted and over- whelmed by one of those great revolutions of nature which shake whole continents, and extend the domin- ion of the sea to places where its waters are unknown. Dr. Prichard, in his Researches into the Physical His- tory of Man, is decidedly of opinion that America was peopled by an Asiatic migration ; and in the examples he gives of the coincidences of words, he has fully es- tablished the fact of an intercourse between the na- tions of Northern Asia and those of America, long before the very existence of the latter continent was known to modern Europe. Later investigations have, almost without exception, tended to confirm this conclusion.
The Scriptures make no mention of many of the empires and nations of Asia, such as the Chinese em- pire, the Hindoos, and the numerous tribes inhabiting the extensive region of Siberia or Asiatic Russia. In- dia is mentioned in the Book of Esther, but only in reference to the extensive dominions of Ahasuerus. The Medo-Persian branch of the Indo-European na- tions who inhabited Asia, of whom were the Medes and ancienl Persians, Parthians, and Armenians, are, how- ever, mentioned in sacred history; and among the na- tions of Asia Minor we have the Phrygians, the Mys- i.m , and the Bithynians. Of the ancient western Asiatic nations, those connected with sacred history arc' the Elamites, or descendants ofElam; the Assyri- an-, or descendants of Ashur; Hebrews and Idumse- aus, or Edomites; Beni-Jaktan, or Arabs; the f'has- dim, or Chaldeans; the Aramaeans, who inhabited
Syria and Mesopotamia ; the Phoenicians, or descend- ants of Canaan ; the Mizraim, or the Egyptians ; the Cushites, or Ethiopians; and the Philistines. Of the ancient empires mentioned in the Scriptures, the As- syrian is the earliest, so called from Asshur, the son of Shem. Out of the empire founded by Nimrod at Babylon sprung the Babylonian or Chaldaean, the capital of which was Babylon, while that of Assyria was Nineveh. The empire of the Medes also sprung from the Assyrian, and was at length united by Cyrus with Persia, a country which, previous to the reign of that great prince, did not contain more than a single province of the present extensive kingdom, and which continued to rule over Asia upward of two centuries, until its power was overthrown by Alexander the Great. Elam, which originally denoted the country of the Elymsei in the modern Khusistan, afterward be- came the Hebrew term for Persia and the Persians, who were allied to the Madai or Medes. The other nations of Asia mentioned in the Scriptures have each their appropriate designations, such as the Arphaxad, or Arph-Chesad, supposed to be the Chaldseans; the Lud or Ludim, alleged by Josephus and Bochart to be the Lydians ; and the Aramites or the Sj'rians. The Asiatic countries more especially mentioned as the scenes of great events and important transactions are Arabia, Armenia, Assyria, Babylonia, Sj'ria, and Ju- daja or Palestine, Phoenicia and Persia. See each in its alphabetical order.
II. Church History. — Christianity spread rapidly in the first centuries in Western Asia, which, after the times of Constantine, belonged among the Christian countries. The apostolic churches of Antioch (q. v.) and Jerusalem (q. v.) received along with Rome and Alexandria the rank of patriarchates. The diocese of Asia, of which Ephesus was the metropolis, was reck- oned next in rank to the four patriarchates up till the council of Chalcedon, which sul ordinated the diocese to the Patriarch of Constantinople. In the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries the Nestorians and Monophy- sites were excluded by oecumenical synods from the Church, and organized themselves as independent de-
I nominations, which still exist. See Nestorians ; j Armenians ; Jacobites. Down to the twelfth cen- tury the churches of Western Asia were still in a mod- I erately flourishing condition ; but about that time the j Saracens succeeded in establishing several principali- ' ties, which were the cause of sad desolation to the j Church. The Turks, who succeeded, completed the wreck. For the Church history of the following cen- turies, we refer, besides to the articles already men- tioned, to Turkey ; Greek Cihrch. Also in other portions of Asia the Gospel was early proclaimed, and Christianity flourished for seme time in Persia, till it succumbed to the rising power of Mohammedanism. The outposts of Christianity in China and India, which probably reach back to an early period, were lost sight of by the Latin and Greek churches. The Roman Church, in the Middle Ages and modern times, made great effort to unite with itself the churches of Western Asia, and to convert the pagans in various Asiatic countries. She succeeded in most of the Portu- guese and Spanish possessions, and founded a number of dioceses in other countries. The history of Protest- antism begins with the establishment of the rule of the East India Company; and in the nineteenth century its missions have developed on so large a scale that the time appears to be near when it will have the ascendency in a lar^e portion of Eastern Asia. For more details on the history of both the Boman and the Protestant churches, wcrefer to the articles Persia; China; In- dia; Farther India; Indian Archipelago; Ja- pan.