XVI.

SECT.

named Joseph [n], reside in the city of Diarbek. CENT. Some of the Armenian provinces embraced the scr. III. doctrines and discipline of Rome so early as the PARTI fourteenth century, under the pontificate of John XXII. who, in the year 1318, sent them a Dominican monk to govern their church, with the title and authority of an archbishop. The episcopal seat of this spiritual ruler was first fixed at Adorbigana, in the district of Soldania [o]; but was afterwards transferred to Naxivan, where it still remains in the hands of the Dominicans, who alone are admitted to that ghostly dignity [p]. The Armenian churches in Poland, who have embraced the faith of Rome, have also their bishop, who resides at Lemberg [q]. The Georgians and Mingrelians, who were visited by some monks of the Theatin and Capuchin orders, disgusted these missionaries by their ferocity and ignorance, remained inattentive to their counsels, and unmoved by their admonitions; so that their ministry and labours were scarcely attended with any visible fruit [r].

man mis

these sects,

XXIII. The pompous accounts which the pa-The labours pal missionaries have given of the vast success of of the Rotheir labours among all these Grecian sects, are sionaries aequally destitute of candour and truth. It is evi- mong all dent, from testimonies of the best and most re-produce litspectable authority, that, in some of these coun- the fruit. tries, they do nothing more than administer clandestine baptism to sick infants who are committed to their care, as they appear in the fictitious

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[7] See Assemanni Biblioth. Orient. Vatican. tom. iii. par. I. p. 615.-Le Quien, Oriens Christianus, tom. ii. p. 1084. [] Odor. Raynald, Annal. tom. xv. ad A. 1318, sect. iv. [p] Le Quien, Oriens Christian. tom. iii. p. 1362 and 1403. Clemens Galanus, Conciliatione Ecclesie Armenice cum Roa mana, tom. i. p. 527.

[q] Memoires des Missions de la Compagnie de Jesus, tom.

1. p. 54.

[r] Urb. Cerri Etat present de l'Eglise Romaine, p. 162.

CEN T. tious character of physicians [s]; and that, in XVI other places, the whole success of their ministry' PART Lis confined to the gathering together some

SECT. III.

wretched tribes of indigent converts, whose poverty is the only bond of their attachment to the church of Rome, and who, when the papal largesses are suspended or withdrawn, fall from their pretended alliance to Rome, and return to the religion of their ancestors []. It happens also, from time to time, that a person of distinction among the Greeks or Orientals embraces the doctrine of the Latin church, and promises obedience to its pontif, nay, carries matters so far as to repair to Rome to testify his respectful submission to the apostolic see. But in these obsequious steps the noble converts are almost always moved by avarice or ambition; and accordingly, when the face of their affairs changes, when they have obtained their purposes, and have nothing more to expect, then they, generally speaking, either suddenly abandon the church of Rome, or express their attachment to it in such ambiguous terms, as are only calculated to deceive. Those who, like the Nestorian bishop of Diarbek [u], continue stedfast in the profession of the Roman faith, and even transmit it with an appearance of zeal to

their

[] Urb. Cerri Etat present de l'Eglise Romaine, p. 164.Gabr. de Chinon, Relations nouvelles du Levant, par. I. c. vi. p. 174. This Capuchin monk delivers his opinion on many subjects with frankness and candour.

[] See Chardin's Voyages en Perse, tom. i. p. 186. tom. ii. P. 53, 75, 206, 271, 349, and principally tom. iii. p. 433, of the last edition published in Holland, in 4to; for, in the former editions, all the scandalous transactions of the Roman missionaries among the Armenians, Colchians, Iberians, and Persians, are entirely wanting.-See also Chinon, Relations du Levant, par. II. p. 308, which regards the Armenians; and Maillet, Description d'Egypte, tom. iii. p. 65, which is relative to the Copts.

[u] Otherwise named Amidad and Caramit.

XVI.

their posterity, are excited to this perseverance CE N'T. by no other motive than the uninterrupted liberali- ser. II ty of the Roman pontif.

PART. I.

On the other hand, the bishops of Rome are extremely attentive and assiduous in employing all the methods in their power to maintain and extend their dominion among the Christians of the East. For this purpose, they treat, with the greatest lenity and indulgence, the proselytes they have made in these parts of the world, that their yoke may not appear intolerable. Nay, they carry this indulgence so far, as to shew evidently, that they are actuated more by a love of power, than by an attachment to their own doctrines and institutions. For they do not only allow the Greek and other eastern proselytes the liberty of retaining, in their public worship, the rites and ceremonies of their ancestors (though in direct opposition with the religious service of the church of Rome), and of living in a manner repugnant to the customs and practice of the Latin world; but, what is much more surprising, they suffer the peculiar doctrines, that distinguish the Greeks and Orientals from all other Christian societies, to remain in the public religious books of the proselytes already mentioned, and even to be reprinted at Rome in those that are sent abroad for their use [m]. The truth of the matter seems to

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be

[w] Assemanni complains in many passages of his Biblioth. Orient. Vatican. that even the very books that were printed at Rome for the use of the Nestorians, Jacobites, and Armenians, were not corrected nor purged from the errors peculiar to these sects; and he looks upon this negligence as the reason of the defection of many Roman converts, and of their re turn to the bosom of the eastern and Greek churches, to which they originally belonged.-See, on the other hand, the Lettres Choisies du R. Simon, tom. ii. let. xxiii. p. 156, in which this author pretends to defend this conduct of the Romans, which some attribute to indolence and neglect, others to artifice and pruudence.

XVI.

CENT be briefly this: That at Rome, a Greek, an ArSECT. III. menian, or a Copt, is looked upon as an obedient PART 1 child, and a worthy member of the church, if he acknowledges the supreme and unlimited power of the Roman pontif over all the Christian world. XXIV. The Maronites, who inhabit the mounts Libanus and Antilibanus, date their subjection to the spiritual jurisdiction of the Roman pontif from the time that the Latins carried their hostile arms into Palestine, with a view to make themselves masters of the Holy land [*]. This sub

The Maronites.

jection

[x] The Maronite doctors, and more especially those that reside at Rome, maintain, with the greatest efforts of zeal and argument, that the religion of Rome has always been preserved among them in its purity, and exempt from any mixture of heresy or error. The proof of this assertion has been attempted, with great labour and industry, by Faust. Nairon, in his Dissertatio de origine, nomine, ac religione, Maronitarum, published in 8vo at Rome, in the year 1679. It was from this treatise, and some other Maronite writers, that De la Roche drew the materials of his discourse concerning the origin of the Maronites, together with the abridgment of their history, which is inserted in the second volume of his Voyage de Syrie et du Mont Liban, p. 28, &c. But neither this hypothesis, nor the authorities by which it is supported, have any weight with the most learned men of the Roman church; who maintain, that the Maronites derived their origin from the Monophysites, and adhered to the doctrine of the Monothelites, until the twelfth century, when they embraced the communion of Rome. See R. Simon, Histoire Critique des Chretiens Orientaux, ch. xiii. p. 146. -Euseb. Renaudot, Histor. Patriarch. Alexand. in Præfat. iii. 2. in Histor. p.49 The very learned Assemanni, who was himself a Maronite, steers a middle way between these two opposite accounts, in his Biblioth. Orient. Vatic. tom. i. p. 496. while the matter in debate is left undecided by Mich. le Quien, in his Oriens Christianus, tom. iii. p. 1. where he gives an account of the Maronite church and its spiritual rulers.-For my own part, I am persuaded, that those who consider that all the Maronites have not as yet embraced the faith, or acknowledged the jurisdiction of Rome, will be little disposed to receive with credulity

Those who maintained, that, notwithstanding the two natures in Christ, viz. the human and the divine, there was, nevertheless, but one will, which was the divine.

XVI

jection however was agreed to, with this express CENT. condition, that neither the popes nor their emis-scr III. saries should pretend to change or abolish any PARTL thing that related to the ancient rites, moral precepts, or religious opinions, of this people. So that, in reality there is nothing to be found among the Maronites that savours of popery, if we except their attachment to the Roman pontif [y], who is obliged to pay very dear for their friendship. For, as the Maronites live in the utmost distress of poverty, under the tyrannical yoke of the Mahometans, the bishop of Rome is under a necessity of furnishing them with such subsidies

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the assertions of certain Naronite priests, who are, after the manner of the Syrians, much addicted to boasting and exaggeration. Certain it is, that there are Maronites in Syria, who still behold the church of Rome with the greatest aversion and abhorrence; nay, what is still more remarkable, great numbers of that nation residing in Italy, even under the eye of the pontif, opposed his authority during the last century, and threw the court of Rome into great perplexity. One body of these non-conforming Maronites retired into the vallies of Piedmont, where they joined the Waldenses; another, above six hundred in number, with a bishop and several ecclesiastics at their head, fled into Corsica, and implored the protection of the republic of Genoa against the violence of the Inquisitors. See Urb. Cerri Etat. present de l'Eglise Romaine, p. 121, 122. Now, may it not be asked here, What could have excited the Maronites in Italy to this public and vigo rous opposition to the Roman pontif, if it be true that their opinions were in all respects conformable to the doctrines and decrees of the church of Rome? This opposition could not have been owing to any thing but a difference in point of doctrine and belief; since the church of Rome allowed, and still allows the Maronites under its jurisdiction, to retain and perform the religious rites and institutions that have been handed down to them from their ancestors, and to follow the precepts and rules of life to which they have always been accustomed. Compare with the authors above cited, Thesaur. Epistol. Crozian, tom. i. p. II.

[y] The reader will do well to consult principally, on this subject, the observations subjoined by Rich. Simon, to his French translation of the Italian Jesuit Dandini's Voyage to Mount Libanus, published in 12mo at Paris, in 1685. See also Euseb. Renaudot, Historia Patriarch. Alexandr. p. 548.