150 KEY. G. E. WHITE, ON SQRYIVALS OP PKIMITIVE 



aio real unity in the present life of the fair and wide peninsula, 

 with its fifteen millions of our fellow human beings. 



The people of Asia Minor have more in common, however, 

 than appears on superficial observation, and especially is this 

 the case with many deep religious convictions and significant 

 religious rites. However, many times since pre-Christian days 

 these twenty provinces have been swept by invading armies, 

 the whole population, or even the greater part of it, has never 

 been swept away at once. In no case have the old cults been 

 entirely wiped out, nor have alien formulas of worship entirely 

 superseded them. As the Teutons conquered the Eomans and 

 absorbed their intellectual and religious ideas, so the succes- 

 sive hordes of soldiers invading Anatolia have in every 

 instance absorbed much from native blood, and still more from 

 native sentiments and practices. The history of creed, cult 

 and conduct has been more nearly continuous than the history 

 of public institutions. As it is increasingly clear that the 

 generations that accepted Christianity carried with them into 

 the Church much of what they formerly held as heathen, so 

 Mohammedanism as practised is mingled with much that was 

 never known to the Prophet. What is neither from the 

 Scripture nor from the Koran must be of Pagan origin; a 

 survival from primitive times which nominally ended nearly 

 twenty centuries ago; and so far as the same superstitions areheld, 

 the same ceremonies practised by people of diflerent races and 

 nominal creeds, thus far there is a common bond among them all. 



It is the object of this address to point out some of these 

 present-day beliefs and practices in the land of the writer's 

 adoption, of which many seem peculiar to one place or people, 

 while others are widely prevalent and interlace our friends 

 iicross political and ecclesiastical barriers, across national and 

 linguistic- lines. Most of the Anatolians may be cLassified 

 in one or another of two double religious connections : these 

 are Mohammedans, Sunnite or Orthodox, and Shiite or Alevi ; 

 .and Oriental Christians, Armenian and Greek. Sundry 

 fragments of creeds and cults remaining are omitted from the 

 present review, as are also missionary converts and the rising 

 generation of really educated and intelligent young people. 

 AVe are dealing with what we may call men " of the old school," 

 who still compose the great bulk of the population, althougli 

 shadows of the truth have begun to give place to the rays of 

 ■coming dawn. 



In the Oriental Churches the Holy Trinity has been 

 Xjractically held to consist of the Father, the Son and the Virgin 



