proving at least, that, notwithstanding the writer's avowed attachment to Rome, he secretly recognised the authority of Antioch. The letters show also, that he held the distinguishing dogma of the Jacobites; and these circumstances, taken together, favour the conclusion, that he was a prelate of that sect, though he might judge it expedient for a time outwardly to conform to the Roman ritual. The first of his letters was written in the year 1709, in which he conjures the Patriarch to send a Metropolitan and two priests to remedy the evils of the Indian Church, which was now disunited through the faction of an ecclesiastic attached to the Archbishop Gabriel. This prelate, he goes on to say, affirms that he was sent by Elias, Patriarch of Mosul; he teaches that there are two natures and two persons in Jesus Christ, and celebrates the Lord's Supper with unleavened bread. This letter is dated from Candanate, in the kingdom of Cochin; and the writer signs his name, Ganpho, which is probably the same name that the Portuguese have corrupted into de Campo. The Bishop intrusted it to the Dutch governor of Cochin, entreating him to transmit it to Antioch by way of Holland. No doubt his object in sending it through that channel, was to conceal from the Romanists the fact of his having written to the Jacobite Patriarch; in this, however, he was disappointed. His letter was forwarded indeed to its destination; but a copy of it having fallen into the hands of M. Schaaf, a Dutch professor of Oriental languages, he published an imperfect translation of it at Leyden in 1714. The learned professor did not sufficiently consider the probable consequences of this exposure of the Indian A.D. 1714. II. CHAP. Bishop's application. The letter immediately found its way to many persons of consideration in the Roman Church, who placed it in the hands of the Papal Nuncio, and it soon reached even the Pope himself. This would naturally put the Roman ecclesiastics on the alert to intercept any prelate or priests who might be sent from Antioch, in order to commit them, like poor Attalla, to the custody of the Inquisition. A. D. 1720. The second letter was dated from Pharaor Patona (probably Parur), the 25th of September 1720. It was written by the same Mar Thomas to the Jacobite Patriarch; but it never reached its destination, the emissaries of the papacy having intercepted it and sent it to Rome. It was deposited in the archives of the Propaganda Fide, where M. Asseman obtained a copy of it for publication in his Bibliotheca Orientalis.2 This letter agrees substantially with the former, and was, probably, written in consequence of no notice having yet been taken of the application made to the Patriarch for assistance. In repeating his request, Mar Thomas now desires that a Patriarch may be sent to them, besides a Bishop and two priests. He also informs Ignatius, the Patriarch, that Charles, a Dutch doctor of great respectability, and an approved philosopher, had shown them great friendship, and endeavoured to persuade them to embrace his religion; and he desires to know what they ought to do in the matter.3 De Syris Nestorianis, tom. iii. part 2. pp. 464–468. 3 Since the English have been acquainted with these Syrians, they have frequently been commissioned by them to transmit letters to Antioch, conveying applications similar to those contained in the letters here described. In speaking of their friendly visitors also, they mention them, as in the case of this It is unnecessary to enter further into this letter. Like the former, it was to have been transmitted through the Dutch governor. The original Syriac and a Latin translation are given by M. Asseman, who has also drawn from its contents the following inferences. First. That the Jacobite priests of whom he had before spoken, came to Malabar before the year of our Lord 1720. Second. That Mar Thomas himself, who says that he was the fifth Syrian Bishop in India, was a Jacobite, and dependant upon Ignatius, the Patriarch of that sect. Third. That Gabriel, who was sent to India by Elias, the Nestorian Patriarch, still retained the Nestorian heresy, notwithstanding that he had often abjured it. Fourth. That the Dutch, who, when the Portuguese were driven from Cochin, Coulan, and Cranganore, took possession of the towns of Malabar, endeavoured to draw the Christians who had renounced the Roman creed, to their own religion; or, at least, confirmed them in their ancient errors. 40. In the year 1721, died J. Rebeiro, the Jesuit Bishop of Cranganore, and he was succeeded by Antony Pimentel, a presbyter and scholar of the same society. This is as far as the line of the Romish prelates of the Malabar diocese can be traced at that period. The Dutch doctor, Charles, only by their Christian names, with their titles; Benjamin the priest, Samuel the priest, &c. In the year 1820, the author paid his first visit to the churches of Malabar, when the Southern Metran, Mar Dionysius, intrusted him with a similar letter, in which the same peculiarities occur. This circumstance may tend to confirm the authenticity of the two letters referred to in the text. Another letter from Mar Dionysius, already noticed, was published in the Missionary Register for 1822. * Atque hactenus quantum nobis licuit, de Episcopis Malabarensis Dioecesis Divi Thomæ. J. F. Raulin. De Ind. Orient. Dio. Dissert. v. p. 449. Romæ 1745. CHAP. II. A. D. 1725. Bishops of Cochin and Verapoli, the latter of whom was a Carmelite, continued to preside over their respective dioceses independent of each other, and without any cordiality between them. Indeed, the Jesuit had not receded one step from his pretensions to the primacy of the whole country of Malabar, and he looked upon the prelates of every other order with a jealous eye. The Syrians who at that time owned their jurisdiction, were reckoned at fifty thousand, about the half of their body: but the remainder adhered to their own Bishops, and were as determined as ever to resist all attempts of the Roman church to bring them again under her domination. The records of their church in this century are as brief as those of their antagonists, consisting of little more than allusions to persons and events. About the year 1725, they began to be specially noticed by the Church of England. In the year 1705, the King of Denmark established a protestant mission at Tranquebar for the conversion of the heathen; and not long after, the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts contributed towards its support. This object, however, being considered a departure from the terms of that Society's charter, and the East India mission requiring more assistance than it was compatible with its own immediate claims in the western world to render, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge undertook the prosecution of the noble design in the East, and in 1710 they entered upon "the management of such charities as were, or should be put into their hands, for the support and enlargement of the Tranquebar mission." Not to anticipate the history of that Society's missions in the East, it will suffice to notice here, that its managers very soon called the attention of the Danish missionaries to the Syrian church of Malabar, and advised them, if practicable, to propose its union with the protestant church, and employ some of its priests to propagate the Gospel in India. In compliance with this suggestion, they opened a correspondence with a Dutch clergyman at Cochin, the Reverend Valerius Nicolai : and the result of their communications was, that such a union was hopeless, and that the Syrian clergy at that time were wholly unfit for protestant missionaries. In the year 1727 the missionaries wrote to Mar Thomas, the native Bishop, inviting him to communicate with them freely; and in the following year they received his answer, in which he deplored the division of the Syrian community between the churches of Babylon and Rome. This prelate died in the same year, and was succeeded by his nephew, of the same name. Not long after his elevation, Mar Thomas showed his zeal against the Roman church, and also against his rival, Mar Gabriel, the Nestorian Bishop: for, on the 8th of June 1729, he wrote to the Dutch commander at Cochin, charging the other Syrian Bishops with the Nestorian heresy, with the assassination of two Bishops of his sect, and with a murderous design upon the life of his late uncle. Then, after inveighing against the papal supremacy, the Romish doctrines and mass, he concludes. "We, on the contrary, acknowledge the church of Antioch for our head, that the Messias has but one nature and one person, and that the Holy Ghost goes out only from the Father: and in the Holy Sacrament, we distribute fresh A. D. 1727. A. D. 1727. A. D. 1728. A. D. 1729. |