Sienna. They soon set out for the scene of their mission, the two former proceeding by sea from Portugal; the latter going over land by way of Aleppo, Bagdad and Bassora. These arrived first at Surat, towards the close of the year 1656,8 5. While the Syrians were preparing to assert their freedom, Divine Providence was gradually weakening the power of their enemies. The 7 These were the names they received, according to the custom of the Carmelites, on assuming the habit of their order, on which occasion they were rebaptized. 8 Vincent Maria published an account of his journey, entitled-Il Viaggio all 'Indie Orientali, fol. Roma, 1673, from which some idea may be formed of his capabilities for this mission. He was a native of Germany; resolute and zealous in his work, but very ignorant and credulous. Of this abundant proofs are to be found in his narrative. For instance-in his description of Tortosa, he says, that it is celebrated by the appearance of the Angel there to Godfrey de Bouillon.' This vision he mentions as a fact, instead of a poetic fiction that is to be found only in Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, book i. In speaking of the composition of the Koran, he states as facts several fables which are both false and ridiculous in the extreme: so notoriously so, that Father Louis Maracci, in his treatise on the Koran, thought it necessary to refute them, which he has done with much care and discretion. Again, in his enumeration of the Christians who inhabit Mesopotamia, Vincent says, that the Nestorians, the Jacobites and the Armenians, derive their errors from the same source.' Whereas, the Jacobites are directly opposed in sentiment to the Nestorians, and the doctrines of the Armenians bear no resemblance to the peculiar tenets of either. Again, in his account of the Malabar Christians he repeatedly asserts, that they honour the memory of Nestorius and Dioscorus, Patriarch of Alexandria, two men as violently opposed to each other as any polemics that ever engaged in the field of disputation. In this manner does the Carmelite missionary perpetually state error for truth, and confound things and persons essentially different from each other. such was the man that the Church of Rome selected for an enterprise of this delicacy and importance. La Croze, pp. 352, 353. Yet A. D. 1655. A. D. 1656. The Dutch bothe Christians seek a prelate from Syria. take Colum CHAP. I. Dutch were now established in considerable force in the eastern isles, and were looking towards India as the next object of their ambition. Hitherto their progress had been rapid. Towards the close of the sixteenth century they threw off the Spanish yoke in the Netherlands; and, their trade with the ports of Spain being immediately stopped, they turned their attention to the commerce of the East, and soon became formidable rivals to the Portuguese in that quarter of the globe. Their first attempt was upon Java, which they reached in the year 1595; and, after several contests, they succeeded in obtaining possession of that island, where they founded the city of Batavia, the capital of their possessions in the eastern Archipelago. This success was followed in a few years by the capture of Formosa, Amboyna, Sumatra, and several smaller islands. In the year 1603, they commenced trading with the island of Ceylon, and soon carried on an extensive commerce in its productions. For some years they seem to have limited themselves to these peaceful occupations, but in 1632 their ambition stretched beyond the bounds which had hitherto confined them. Their designs of conquest becoming known to the king of Candy, in the year 1636 he invited them to come to Ceylon, with force enough to help to deliver him from the arrogance and tyranny of the Portuguese. Finding that the natives generally, and the king of Candy in particular, had just cause to be disaffected towards the Portuguese government, they were induced to listen to the invitation; and they lost no time in sending a strong armament to the king's assistance, with 9 The King's letter is preserved in Churchill's Travels, &c. vol. iii. pp. 630, 631. orders to act in concert with his troops against the oppressors. After a long and sanguinary struggle,' with varied success, they finally took possession of Columbo, which had sustained a seige of seven months. This conquest was effected in 1656, the year in which two of the Carmelite missionaries arrived from Rome to reclaim the Syrians of Malabar. The power of the Portuguese in Ceylon was now destroyed, and they were expelled from the island. The Dutch soon became formidable to them in other places, and were not long before they began to threaten their possessions on the Malabar coast.2 Little were the poor Syrians then dreaming of deliverance from such a quarter. They followed up the bold step they had taken in seceding from the Church of Rome, with an application to their ancient Patriarch at Mosul, to send them a Bishop without delay. To guard against disappointment, they wrote also to the Patriarchs of the Copts, in Egypt, and of the Jacobites, in Syria, for the same purpose. It cannot be ascertained what time elapsed between these applications. If, as appears from subsequent dates to have been the case, they were made simultaneously, the Syrians' impatience to obtain a prelate of any church, the validity of whose consecration was as unquestionable as that of Rome, must have caused them to overlook the probable inconvenience 1 A particular account of this war to its termination is given by Philip Baldæus, in his description of Malabar, &c., chapters xxiii-xxxix. Churchill's Voyages, &c. vol. iii. In all their conquests, the Dutch government, wherever their power was established, took pains to propagate Christianity, according to the Helvetic confession of Faith. An account of their Indian missions is reserved for the next volume. A. D. 1656. CHAP. I. Bishop Mosul- his character. that might have ensued, from the arrival of two Bishops holding sentiments diametrically opposed to each other. We say, two, for the Copts were a sect of Jacobites. It is very probable, however, that the Christians were too little acquainted with the respective tenets of those churches to attach much importance to such a consequence, even if they had contemplated its probability. Although the Nestorians and Jacobites held contrary tenets, yet both retained the ancient Episcopal mode of government; and the Syrians evidently attended more to the expediency of securing the primitive order of their church, than to points of doctrine. At that time all eastern churches were sufficiently uniform in their polity, and equally independent of Rome, to answer their purpose: and this seems to have been the only question that entered into their deliberations.3 6. At that time the Patriarch of the Copts pointed from resided at Grand Cairo. When he received the letter of the Syrian Christians, he is said attempts to to have had with him a Bishop of their church, depreciate named Attalla, the Arabic for the greek name Theodore.4 The Roman missionary 5 asserts, that he was originally a Jacobite, and Bishop of that communion in Damascus; that he was deposed by his Patriarch in Syria, for his misconduct, when he fled to the Patriarch of Alexandria for protection; that the letter arriving from India about this time, the Coptic Patriarch thought him a suitable person for the mission, because of his knowledge of the Syriac lan 3 It appears, from M. Renaudot and others, that such an application from one church to another was not without precedent. Raulin. Diss. 5. de Ind. Orient. Dioecesi. p. 441, 442. 5 Vincent Maria. guage; that Attalla was delighted at the proposal, as he sought only to remove as far as possible from Syria, where his name was held in abhorrence; that he set out immediately for Mosul, in order to obtain from the Nestorian Patriarch the confirmation of his appointment; and that, having received the desired letters, he sailed direct to India. The whole of this account looks, as La Croze justly observes, very suspicious. It is most unlikely that the Patriarch of the Copts should protect a Bishop who had been deposed by the Jacobite Patriarch of Syria, with whom he maintained an intimate friendship. It is still more improbable that he should commit so important an undertaking to a person in such disgrace; or that, having appointed him, he should send him to the Nestorian Patriarch to confirm his appointment, the application he had himself received from India rendering such confirmation unnecessary. Or, even if he had thought proper to take this precaution, it was most improbable that the Nestorian Patriarch should have sanctioned the nomination of one whom he would regard as a notorious heretic. It has been thought that this prelate was a Nestorian, and that he was sent to India by the Patriarch of Mosul." Vincent Maria, however, describes him as a Jacobite, and says that he came to Malabar in the year 1653.8 The present Syrians of India have a tradition, that a Jacobite prelate, named Mar Ignatius, came from Antioch to Malabar in the same 6 La Croze, pp. 358, 359. 7 Ibid. p. 359. M. Asseman, Bib. Ori. tom. iii. pt. ii. P. 462. 8 L. ii. cap. viii. p. 163, Raulin says, about 1654. A. D. 1656. |