น

the annunciation of the patriarch, who signs the newly ordained in the forehead, and proclaims his ordination as bishop or metropolitan of such a church or diocese: another lesson from the gospel is then recited by the new bishop, who receives at the conclusion the episcopal staff.

ܡܠܦܢܳܐ a corruption of

The maphriono, holds a dignity peculiar to the Jacobite church. He takes precedence next to the patriarch. The Syrian writers deduce this office from that sustained by the disciples of the apostles, Adæus, Achæus, and Mari. The name itself some consider to be malphono, a doctor; but others, with a greater appearance of correctness, derive it from aphri, a word designative of fruitfulness, and suggesting the idea of paternity; the maphrian being considered as a bishop of bishops, or a pater patrum. In former days his power was all but supreme. instituted episcopal sees, ordained and deposed bishops, and discharged in general those pontifical functions in the regions to the East, which the patriarch himself undertook in the West. But the office in the present day is merely titular.

He

The patriarch is elected by lot, in a synod of the maphrian and bishops, the consecration being performed by the senior members of the episcopal college. His style, or dignity, as proclaimed at his enthronement, is "patriarch of the city of Antioch, and of the whole domain of the apostolic see;" and in his epistolary and official communications, "IGNATIUS, patriarch of Antioch, the city of Goll, and of the whole East." The name Ignatius, after the illustrious martyr of Antioch, has been assumed ever since the year 878. patriarchal residence has been variously at Mabug, Mardeen, Rhesa, Caramit or Amida, and Alep; but it is now

The

generally at the convent of Deyr Safran, at Merdeen. The maphrian has lived usually at Tagrit, Nineveh, Mosul, and Bagdad. After the East became subject to the Mahomedans, the Jacobite patriarch, like the Nestorian, commonly received from the khalif, sultan, or other regnant potentate, a charter or diploma, called by Bar Hebræus, sigilion, by which he was confirmed and protected in his authority.

The

Some of the Jacobite patriarchs have at various times entered into communion with the see of Rome. first who did this was Ignatius, in 1552, who sent his profession to pope Julius III. It was at the same time that Moses, a priest of Mardeen, brought the manuscript of the Peschito New Testament into Europe for the purpose of procuring a printed edition of it. The example of that Ignatius was afterwards followed by Ign. Juchanon, Ign. Daoud, Ign. Nahemus, Ign. Andreas, and Ign. Petros, patriarchs, and by Gregory, metropolitan of Damascus, Ignatius, bishop of Alep, and Taizonius, bishop of Jerusalem;* but few of these "reconciliations were permanent. The congregations which have been converted to Romanism, are designated by the steadfast Jacobites, Maghlobeen, the "Beaten," or "Conquered."+

When will something be attempted by our Protestant Missionary Societies for the true evangelization of this venerable church?

vice versa

* EVODIUS ASSEMANNI, Biblioth. Medicea.

There

+ The Jacobites mostly abound in Mesopotamia, especially about Mosul and Mardeen. In Palestine there are scarcely any. are a few families in Damascus and in Nebk, the villages of Sudud and Karysteen: small congregations also subsist in Hooms, Hamah, and Aleppo. In Jerusalem they have a monastic house and a resident bishop. Exclusive of those in Malabar, their entire number does not probably exceed 150,000 souls.

THE SYRIAN CHRISTIANS OF INDIA.

Or the time and manner in which Christianity was first brought into India, the testimony of authentic history is not so clear as to admit of no difference of opinion. But they who have well weighed the evidence which has come down to us, have commonly inclined to the belief that it was the apostle Thomas who led the way of all other missionaries into that region. This, as we have seen, is the constant tradition of the oriental churches. "We are taught," says Bar Hebræus in his "Syrian Chronicle," "that the divine apostle Thomas announced the Christian message to the eastern country in the second year after our Lord's ascension. As he passed through on his journey to India, he preached to divers nations; the Parthians, Carmanians, Bactranians, Margues, and Indians."

So, down to the present day, as we read in the Asiatic travels of the American missionaries, there are localities held, in a manner, sacred by the Nestorians, as places where St. Thomas rested and preached on his way into India. This, too, is recognised as an historical fact in the public service-books of the Malabaric church. Thus in their ancient Syriac Breviary, it is said in one of the antiphons, that "the Hindoos and Chinese, the Persians, and they of Syria, Armenia, Greece, and Rome, hold in veneration the name of Thomas : and a memorial for the second nocturn in the office for the day of that apostle states, that "by his instrumentality the errors of the Indian idolatry were dispelled." It was in India that, according to uniform tradition, he finished the toils of life by martyrdom. "He had returned from China to the coast of Coromandel: " the chiefs of that country showing a willingness to receive the gospel, "Thomas

baptized the king," Salivahan, "and his brother, and many of the nobles, and began to preach with great boldness. Then went he up into a mountain of India, and there proclaimed the gospel of God; and being there thrust through with a lance by one of the Heathens, his body was conveyed to Calamina, (Meliapore,) and buried there." This is thought to have been in the year 68. According to a Syrian historian, quoted by Yeates, it was "by reason of the innumerable conversions to the faith of Christ that he had exposed himself to the hatred of the Bramins; who, having raised an uproar against the apostle, overwhelmed him with stones; but another of the Bramins, when he perceived that he was yet alive, thrust him through with a lance, and he expired."

The scene of this martyrdom, still called "the Mount of St. Thomas," is not far from Meliapore. It is described as a rocky, yet wooded, ascent, and has a small church towards the summit, hewn out of the solid stone. The population around, Pagans as well as Christians, hold the immemorial belief that here the apostle of the gospel met his end.

We must connect with this the tradition recorded by Eusebius,* that so early as about the year 190, when Pantænus went from Egypt into India, as an evangelist, he found there the Gospel of St. Matthew in Hebrew, which was said to have been left there by Thomas, or his coadjutor Bartholomew. Next, that at the council of Nice, in the year 325, there was a bishop of India, whose name, Joannes, was subscribed in the acts of that assembly, and who was charged with the duty of promulgating its ordinances in "the great Indies."+

We read also that some twenty years later than the council of Nice, the emperor Constantius sent a mission

* EUSEBII Eccles, Hist, v. 10,

+ FLEURY, liv. xi, c. 25,

to the Homerite Arabs, by a certain Theophilus, an Indian, who is stated to have been a native of Diu, or Divu, an old Indian name for an island; (hence Maldives, "isles of Mala ;") and which, in this instance, is thought to point out Ceylon. After having discharged his mission in Arabia, this Christian priest passed, says the historian, into the island of Divu, his country, and from thence εις την αλλην Ινδικήν, " into the other India,” probably the main continent; where he visited several churches, and reformed certain irregular customs. *

66

So also Cosina, the Egyptian merchant, and afterwards a monk, writing, about the year 547, his Christian Topography, says expressly that the Christians had then churches in the island of Taprobane and Malabar. "In Taprobana insula ad interiorem Indiam, ubi Indicum Pelagus exstat, ecclesia Christianorum habetur, ubi clerici et fideles reperiuntur, an ulterius etiam ignoro. Similiter in Male, ut vocant, ubi gignitur piper. In Calliano vero episcopus est in Perside ordinari solent.”+

Now some authors have sought to identify the St. Thomas of the Indian tradition with a disciple of Manes, who, according to Theodoret, was sent by that heresiarch as a missionary to India. But by the same authority it appears that the Manichean Thomas returned again into Persia, whereas the true apostle to the Indians sealed his doctrine by martyrdom. Paolino, a missionary thirteen years in that country, says that the Manichean Thomas is entirely unknown there.

According to a second theory, the Thomas of India is no other than a certain Tamo, a Chinese of some renown as the leader of a sect of Contemplatists. That sect, however, did not spring up even in China till about A. D.

* PHILOSTORG. lib. iii. c. 4-6. Conf. the Commentary of Godefroi on the Theodosian Code (tome iv.) with this place in Philost. + Collect. PP. et Script. Gr. (Montfaucon,) tom. ii. 178.