Page 161 - Demo

157Latin but in the Greek. Before the Nicene Council in 325 A.C., the Canon of the books of the New Testament was not completed, or rather established. There were dozens of Gospels and Epistles bearing the names of different Apostles and other companions ofJesus(pbuh) , which were held by various Christian communities as sacred, but they were rejected by the Nicene Council asspurious.As the seat or centre of the Syriac language and learning was Orhai, i.e. Edessa, and never Antioch, it was here that the books of the New Testament were translated from the Greek, after the notorious Assembly of Nicea.As the seat or centre of the Syriac language and learning was Orhai, i.e. Edessa, and never Antioch, it was here that the books of the New Testament were translated from the Greek, after the notorious Assembly ofNicea.A profound examination and study of the early Christian literature and history will show that the first preachers of the Gospel were Jews who spoke Aramaic or the old Syriac language. Whether this “Gospel” was written document, or an unwritten doctrine or religion taught and propagated orally, is a question for itself and lies outside the sphere of our present subject. However, one thing is certain and does really fall within the periphery of our subject - namely, the early Christians conducted their religious services in the Aramaic language. That was the common language spoken by the Jews, the Syrians, the Phœnicians, the Chaldeans, and the Assyrians. Now it is but clear that the Christians belonging to the Aramaic-speaking nationalities would certainly prefer to read and pray in their own language, and consequently various Gospels, Epistles, prayer books, and liturgies were written in the Syriac. Even the Armenians, before the invention of their alphabet in the fifth century, had adopted the Syriac characters.