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The various ethnic communities of indigenous pre-Arab, Semitic and often Neo-Aramaic-speaking Christian people of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Israel, advocate different terms for ethnic self-designation. Syriac Christians from the Middle East are theologically and culturally closely related to, but should not be confused with the Saint Thomas Christians from India, whose cultural and ethnic links were a result of trade links and migration by Assyrian Christians from Mesopotamia and the Middle East mostly around the 9th century. Historically, the three ethnic names used to describe those who would become Syriac Christians were extant long before the advent of Christianity. ''Assyrian'', in its Semitic forms (''Assurayu'' being the oldest), dates from at least the mid-21st century BC, and perhaps earlier, and refers to the land and people of Assyria in northern Mesopotamia. ''Aramean'', from the 13th century BC, referring to The Levant subsequent to Aramean domination from the 13th century BC, and ''Syrian'' from at least the 9th century BC, originally being used specifically as an Indo-European corruption of ''Assyrian'', but from the late 4th century BC, being applied by the Seleucid Greeks to the Arameans of The Levant also. Babylon was abandoned during the Seleucid Empire (323-150 BC), however despite this, the terms ''Babylon'' and ''Babylonian'' lingered until the Sassanid Empire (224-650 AD) when it was subsumed into Assuristan (Assyria), the Babylonians of southern Mesopotamia being ethnically, culturally and linguistically the same people as the Assyrians of northern Mesopotamia, and being regarded as such by the Sassanids. In the Near East however, in both the pre-Christian and Christian eras, the three ethnic terms used by both Near Eastern Semites (and the so-called Syriac Christians they would become), and also their neighbours were; ''Assyrian'', ''Syrian'' and ''Aramean''. Syrian becoming a ''catch all'' term from the late 4th century BC, taken to mean Assyrian when applied to the Assyrians of Upper Mesopotamia/Athura/Assuristan, and Aramean when applied to Syriac Christians in western, northwestern, southern and central Syria.〔http://www.aina.org/articles/frye.pdf〕 Other purely doctrinal and theological terms with ''no ethnic meaning whatsoever'',〔a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Travis, Hannibal. Genocide in the Middle East: The Ottoman Empire, Iraq, and Sudan. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2010, 2007, pp. 237-77, 293–294〕〔〔Nisan, M. 2002. Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle for Self Expression .Jefferson: McFarland & Company.〕 such as Syriac Christian, Chaldean Catholic, Jacobite and Nestorian, appeared much later, usually as labels imposed by theologians from Europe. The problem became more acute in 1946, when with the creation and independence of Syria, the adjective "Syrian" came to refer to that Arab-majority independent state, where Syriac Christians (Arameans and Assyrians) formed Christian ethnic minorities. There are around 7,000,000 Syriac Christians of various ethnicities and denominations in the world, the majority living in the diaspora with the largest centres being in India, the United States, Canada, Syrian Arab Republic, Sweden, Australia, Lebanon, Germany, Russia, The Netherlands, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan), Turkey and Iran. ==History== In the Pre-Christian era, during the mid and late Bronze Age and Iron Age, the northern part of Iraq and parts of south-east Turkey and north-east Syria were encompassed by Assyria from the 25th century BC, southern Iraq by Babylonia from the 19th century BC, the Mediterranean coast of Lebanon and Syria by Phoenicia from the 13th century BC, and the remainder of Syria together with parts of south-central Turkey, by Aramea, also from the 13th century BC. Modern Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian Territories and the Sinai peninsula were encompassed by various Canaanite states from the 13th century BC, such as Israel, Judah, Samarra, Edom, Ammon, the Amalekites and Moab. The Arabs emerged in the Arabian Peninsula in the mid-9th century BC, and the long extinct Chaldeans migrated to south-east Iraq from The Levant at the same time. This entire region (together with Arabia, Asia Minor, Persia, Egypt, the Caucasus and parts of Ancient Iran/Persia and Ancient Greece) fell under the Neo-Assyrian Empire (935–605 BC), which introduced Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of its empire. Little changed under the succeeding Achaemenid Empire (544–323 BC), which retained these lands as provinces under Achaemenid control, although some ethnicities and lands, such as Chaldea, Moab, Edom and Canaan disappeared before the Achaemenid period. The terminological problem dates from the Seleucid Empire (323–150 BC), which applied the term ''Syria'', the Greek and Indo-Anatolian form of the name ''Assyria'', which had existed even during the Assyrian Empire, not only to both Assyria and the Assyrians themselves in Northern Mesopotamia (modern northern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey), but also to lands to the west in the Levant, which had never been a part of Assyria, previously known as Aramea, Eber Nari and Phoenicia (modern Syria, Lebanon and northern Israel). This caused not only the Assyrians of Mesopotamia, but also the ethnically and geographically distinct Arameans and Phoenicians of the Levant to be collectively called ''Syrians'' and ''Syriacs'' in the Greco-Roman world. This was to cause a confusion in the ''Western World'' which would last until recent times. Syriac Christianity was established in Syriac and Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyria (Persian ruled Athura/Assuristan) and Western Aramaic-speaking Aramea during the 1st to 5th centuries AD. The Church of the East (the mother church of the modern Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church and Ancient Church of the East) was founded amongst the Assyrians in Assyria between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD. Aramea was also home to significant communities, (with Syrian Antioch being the center of some of the earliest Christian communities of the Near East). The Syriac Orthodox Church and Maronite Church emerged in this region. Until the 7th century AD Arab Islamic conquests, Syriac Christianity was divided between two empires, Sassanid Persia in the east and Rome/Byzantium in the west. The western group in ''Syria'' (ancient Aramea), the eastern in ''Assyria'' and Persian Assyria (Athura/Assuristan) and Mesopotamia. Syriac Christianity was divided from the 5th century over questions of Christological dogma, viz. Nestorianism in the east and Monophysitism and Dyophysitism in the west. Medieval Syriac authors show awareness of the descent of their ''language'' from the ancient Arameans, without however using "Aramean" as an ethnic self-designation. Thus, Michael the Great (13th century) wrote 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Terms for Syriac Christians」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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