RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Syria
Syriac Literature
superb tributes to the foreigners who toiled amid the darkness and confusion of the past twenty-five years. Great problems confront the present administration. The politico-religious alliance between Islam and the State must certainly give way to something more suited to the modern world. Those who have fanned the fanaticism of the ignorant Moslems are guilty of awful crimes. But closer contact with European influence, the growth of education, the reading of the Bible, the phenomenal increase of newspapers, and the spread of a purer Christianity are surely leavening the minds of an increasingly larger number of Mohammedans. Diplomacy can never regenerate the East. The patient work of education, the preaching of the Gospel, the distribution of God's word among the masses, and the diffusion of Christian literature, will gradually disarm prejudice, awaken inquiry, promote social harmony, destroy polygamy, reform the oriental churches, and bring the followers of Mohammed to the religion of Jesus Christ. Thus will the press, the Church, and the school cooperate in hastening the true regeneration of this most interesting, and, until recently, so degraded land. H. H. JessupI Revised by F E. Hoskins.
Bibliography: On the geographical and political history up to the fall of the Seleucidan kingdom the literature is fully included in the lists given under Assyria; Babylonia; Persia; Ahab; Israel, History op (where such works as McCurdy's History, Prophecy and the Monuments deal with Assyrian and Babylonian control of Syria) ; Palestine; Ptolemy; and Seleucid\e; see also under Druses; and Maronites. Consult further: G. Cormack, Egypt in Asia. A Plain Account of pre-Biblical Syria and Palestine, New York, 1908; Schrader, KAT, ed. of 1902, pp. 132-135; A. P. Stanley, History of Syria and Palestine, new ed., London, 1883; W. L. Gage, Palestine, Historic and Descriptive, London, 1887; H. Winckler, Keilinschriftliches Textbuch zum A. T., 2d ed., Leipsic, 1903; idem, Auszug aus der vorderasiatische Geschichte, ib. 1905; A. Henderson, Historical Geography of Syria, Edinburgh, 1885; A. Sanda, in Der alte Orient, v. no. 3, Leipsic, 1902; T. Noldeke, in Hermes, v. 443-468; A. Neubauer, La Geographic du Talmud, Paris, 1868; W. M. Muller, Asien und Europa nach altagyptischen Denkmalern, Leipsic, 1893; A. Muller, Der Islam im Morgen- und Abendland, 2 vols., Berlin, 1885-87; E. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, vols. i., iii., Stuttgart, 1884-1901; idem. Die Entstehung des Judentums, Halle, 1896; idem, Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstamme, Halle, 1906; W. Geiger and E. Kuhns, Iranische Philologie, ii. 395-604; F. Hommel, Grundriss der Geographic und Geschichte des alten Orients, pp. 187- 194, Munich, 1904; idem, Geschichte des alten Morgenlandes, 3d ed., Leipsic, 1904; G. L. Bell, Durch die Wusten und Kulturstdtten Syriens, 2d ed. Leipsic, 1910.
On missionary work, besides the reports of the various bodies operating in Syria, consult: T. Laurie, Historical Sketch of the Syria Mission, New York, 1862; R. Anderson, Oriental Missions, 2 vols., Boston, 1872; J. S. Dennis, Sketch of Syrian Missions, New York, 1872; H. H. Jessup, Women of the Arabs, New York, 1874; idem, Syrian Home Life, ib. 1874; idem, Mohammedan Missionary Problem, Philadelphia, 1880; idem, Fifty-three Years in Syria, New York, 1910; E. D. G. Prime, Forty Years in the Turkish Empire; . Memoirs of . W. Goodell, New York, 1876; W. A. Holliday, Historical Sketch of Missions to Syria, Philadelphia, 1881 ; Mrs. E. R. Pitman, Mission Life in Greece and Palestine, London, 1881 ; The Star in the East: quarterly Record of the Progress of Christian Missions within the Turkish Empire, London, 1883; F. Conil, Jerusalem moderne. Hist, du mouvement catholique dans la Ville Saint, Paris, 1894; J. H. Wilson and J. Wells, Sea of Galilee Mission of the Free Church of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1895; M. Jullien, La Nouvelle Mission de la compagnie de Jesus en Syrie, 1831-95, 2 vols., Tours, 1898; A. Forder, With the Arabs in Tent and Town; an Account of missionary Work in Moab and Edom, London, 1902; H. J. E.,
One Hundred Syrian Pictures, illustrating the Work of the Syrian Mission, London, 1903; W. A. Essery, The Ascending Cross. Some Results of Missions in Bible Lands, London, 1905; Jehay, Sujets Ottomans non-Mussulmans, Brussels, 1906; Baedeker's Syria and Paltttint, Leipiic, 1908.