The Nestorians; or, The Lost Tribes

Title

The Nestorians; or, The Lost Tribes

Creator

Asahel Grant

Date

1841

Description

Asahel Grant set out expressly to explore the Assyrian mountains to test the claim that the Nestorians were direct descendants of the ancient Assyrians, and after on the ground inquiry he says he found no evidence for that identification. Asahel Grant was an American physician and traveler who journeyed through northern Mesopotamia and into what he called the Assyrian mountains. He approached the region with the then popular expectation of linking the contemporary Nestorians to peoples of antiquity. After spending time in the country of the ancient Chaldeans, he explicitly states that he found no evidence to support such identifications. In particular, he argues that the ecclesiastical title “Chaldean” when applied to East Syriac Christians is of recent origin, arising in 1681 when a Nestorian prelate at Diyarbakir entered communion with Rome and was consecrated as patriarch of the Chaldeans. Grant describes this as the creation of a new Catholic body of “papal Syrians,” comparable to papal Armenians or papal Greeks. From his on the ground observations he treats the nineteenth century ethnonyms being applied in the area, including “Assyrian” and “Chaldean,” as modern overlays rather than proof of direct descent from the empires of antiquity, despite his own travel focus on the Assyrian districts and his interest in ancient Assyria.

Language

English

Publisher

Asahel Grant, The Nestorians; or, The Lost Tribes (London: John Murray, 1841), p. 170.

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