he acted in this tragedy, by referring to a foolish letter which Mar Simeon is said to have written to the Patriarch of Babylon, but which bears strong marks of having been forged for this purpose. In it he is represented as acknowledging himself a layman, announcing his arrival in India, describing the church there as in a very low state, and Mar Abraham as too infirm to attend to his duties. He is then made to say, that he deemed it for the service of God and for the patriarch's honour, to take upon himself to ordain priests; and to beg that he may be confirmed in the episcopal office, and that all his ordinations may be sanctioned, by the primate's letters.' What must the historian have thought of his readers' credulity to suppose that they could receive all this! What unprejudiced mind can believe it possible, that the Patriarch of Babylon would send a layman to relieve an aged Bishop in the discharge of his onerous and appropriate duties, that the Syrians would have consented to receive ordination at such hands, or that Mar Simeon himself should so little understand the nature of episcopacy as to imagine, that any letters from the patriarch could render valid the ordinations administered by an unconsecrated person? And even if he had been guilty of the folly here imputed to him, what right had the pope to punish him for the act? He was in no way amenable to the Church of Rome. The whole proceedings were, therefore, most iniquitous on the part of all who assisted in them; and thus is it often seen, that the God of truth gives over His offending servants to be punished, sometimes even unto death, by those very persons who 1 La Croze, p. 70. U A. D. 1578. deserve to be the sufferers, rather than the executioners of His vengeance. Thus saith the Lord, "O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so, but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few."2 As of Assyria, so of Rome, the object of all her wicked and unjust proceedings was, to maintain her proud pretensions; and in the day of His righteous judgment will Jehovah visit upon all who are implicated in her guilt, the miseries which they have unsparingly inflicted. 11. Having anticipated our history for the purpose of concluding the mournful narrative of Mar Simeon's fall, we shall now retrace our steps. The removal of that unhappy prelate seemed to open to his rival the prospect of a quiet possession of his bishopric; but in this he was disappointed. The cattanar Jacob, Mar Simeon's vicar-general, refused to acknowledge Mar Abraham, and thus kept open the schism in the Church. The aged prelate met with further disturbance also from his old enemies, the Portuguese. In the year 1590, Don Matthias, Archbishop of Goa, called another provincial council, the fourth that had been held in India. In conformity to the brief of Pope Gregory XIII. Mar Abraham was summoned to attend, but he was too conscious how little he had fulfilled his promises at the last council to place himself again in his 2 Isaiah x. 5-7. enemies' power. Accordingly, he answered the summons with this proverb-The cat that has once been bitten by a snake is frightened at a cord. By this he intimated, that he could not venture to expose himself to dangers which he believed to be inevitable, if he trusted himself again in the power of the Portuguese ecclesiastics. We may hope also, that he now felt ashamed of his former disgraceful conduct, and that he was filled with compunction at the ruin which he had brought successively upon his two brethren, Mar Joseph and Mar Simeon. Certainly his subsequent behaviour indicated a feeling of remorse, and a desire to make some reparation for the past. He dissembled no longer, boldly refused to comply with the Archbishop's injunctions, and publicly avowed his unshaken adherence to the Chaldæan faith.4 A. D. 1590. accusations 12. The Romanists were now furious against Romanist's him; and finding that they could no longer against him. work upon his fears, they endeavoured to blacken his character. They accused him of administering holy orders and the sacraments for money, and of admitting Christians to the communion, without previously requiring of them that confession which in the Syrian church is indispensable. These assertions are made without a shadow of proof. Criminal as Mar Abraham's conduct had been, in the means he used to secure the undivided possession of his bishopric, yet it requires much stronger evidence than these ex parte statements, to believe the aged Bishop guilty of such profanation. 3 This is an Arabic proverb found in the collection of Erpenius. + About this period, in the year 1591, a party of Englishmen first visited India overland. See next chapter. CHAP. Menezes, Archbishop to India, with full powers from the pope to act A. D. 1595. 13. When the account of these proceedings arrived at Rome, Don Alexio de Menezes, the newly appointed Archbishop of Goa, was on the eve of sailing for India. Accordingly the pope, Clement VIII. addressed to him the brief he issued on the occasion. It was dated 27th of January, 1595. After expressing the in Malabar. grief with which he learned, that Mar Abraham, Archbishop of Angamale, having sometime ago embraced the Roman faith, and rendered obedience to the holy see, as well at Rome as in the synod of Goa, was now unhappily fallen into his ancient Nestorianism, and refused to consent to have the Syriac books, that were used in his diocese, corrected and purged from the errors with which they were filled; and further, that he had committed divers acts of simony-to_remedy these disorders, the pope commands Don Alexio de Menezes to make strict inquisition into the conduct and errors of that prelate; and in case he found him guilty of such crimes as were laid to his charge, to have him apprehended, and secured at Goa: afterwards, to send to Rome authentic copies of the verbal process and information, in order that the holy see might be able to form a correct judgment of the whole matter. In the mean time, that the diocese of Angamale might not suffer any temporal or spiritual inconvenience from the absence of its diocesan, the pope directed the Archbishop, in the same brief, to appoint a governor, or vicar apostolic, of the Roman communion, over the bishopric; and he was to procure, if possible, a man well acquainted with the Syriac language. In the event of Mar Abraham's death, he was ordered to take special care, that no Bishop coming from Babylon should be suffered to enter Malabar, as his successor, nor any other prelate not appointed by the holy see. Armed with these powers, Menezes embarked for India, more in the character of a crusader against an infidel nation, than in that of a Christian Bishop, to instruct the ignorant, and guide the wandering, and comfort the afflicted of Jesus' flock. He went, not as an herald of mercy, to carry glad tidings of great joy to the poor Syrians, and gather them into the fold of Christ; but as an invader, to bring them, by one unprincipled course of violence and intrigue, under the usurpation of the pope. A. D. 1595. and imme cautions to intercept all from Persia. ecclesiastics 14. On his arrival in India, he lost no time His arrival, in executing the commission with which he diate prewas charged. He began by pronouncing Mar Abraham guilty of all the crimes alleged against him, though it is not said that he examined any witnesses but those who were also his accusers. He did not issue orders for the apprehension of the aged prelate, hearing that he had retired to Angamale, which was out of the reach of the Portuguese, and that he was now too old and infirm to move out of the house; but he sent him his process, perhaps for form's sake, without, however, requiring him to appear at Goa. Finding that Mar Abraham, in conjunction with his people, had written to the patriarch of Babylon for a successor, the Archbishop issued orders to the authorities at Ormus, and all other ports to the West of the Arabian sea in possession of the Portuguese, to stop every Chaldæan, Persian, or Armenian ecclesiastic that might be on his way to India, unless he had a pass under his own hand. These orders were punctually executed. They arrived at Ormus just in time to stop a man who is said to have appeared |