DIVISIONS AND SUBDIVISIONS.-The Eastern Christians, who renounce the communion of the Greek Church, and differ from it in some respects, both in doctrine and worship, may be comprehended under two distinct classes.

To the former belong the Monophysites, so called (from movos, solus, and quis, natura), because they declare it as their opinion, that in the Saviour of the world there is only one nature; while the 3 G

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latter comprehends the followers of Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople in the fifth century, frequently called Chaldeans, from the country where they principally reside, but more generally known by the name of Nestorians, and who suppose "that there are two distinct persons or natures in the Son of God."*

The Monophysites are subdivided into two sects or parties; the one Asiatic, including the Jacobites and Armenians; and the other African, comprehending the Copts and Abyssinians.

And, in the class of NESTORIANS, are to be included the St. Thomè Christians, or Christians of St. Thomas, on the coast of Malabar.

* MOSHEIM, vol. iv. p. 257.

THE

JACOBITE MONOPHYSITES.

THE Monophysites first made their appearance in the fifth century, and Jacob Albardai, or Baradæus, as he is called by others, who flourished about A. D. 530, restored the sect, then almost expiring, to its former vigour, and modelled it anew; hence they were called Jacobites from him.

This denomination is commonly used in an extensive sense, as comprehending all the Monophysites, excepting the Armenians; it however more strictly and properly belongs only to the Asiatic Monophysites, of which Jacob Albardai was the restorer and the chief; and, as these differ in some points from the Copts and Abyssinians, I here propose to consider the Jacobites in this last sense, as limited by Dr. M'Laine.*

The Monophysites had at first gained over to their doctrine a considerable part of the eastern

DR. MOSHEIM'S Eccl. Hist. vol. iv. p. 257, note (h.)

provinces of the empire, and were warmly supported by the emperor Anastasius, who raised to the patriarchate of Antioch, Severus, a learned monk of Palestine, from whom they were for some time called Severians. But on the death of the emperor in 518, Severus was expelled from that see, and the sect was every where opposed and depressed by Justin and the following emperors, in such a manner that it seemed to be upon the very brink of ruin, and almost all hope of its recovery vanished; when Jacob Syrus, or Zanzalus,* for so he is also surnamed, an obscure monk, by his zeal and prudence, revived the drooping spirits of the Monophysites, and produced such an astonishing change in their affairs by the power of his eloquence, and by his incredible activity and diligence, that when he died bishop of Edessa, in 588, he left his sect in a most flourishing state in Syria, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and other countries, where they have subsisted and flourished, more or less, to the present day.†

The head of the Jacobites is the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch, who, from the fifteenth century downwards, has always taken the name of Ignatius, with a view to shew that he is the lineal

*«Genere Syrus,-homo obscurus, qui propter suam tenuitatem cognominatus est Zanzalus.”

FORBESII a Corse Opera, vol. ii. p. 107.

"They are not in all at most above forty, or five-andforty thousand families."

FATHER SIMON's Crit. Hist. chap. ix. p. 106.

successor of St. Ignatius, who was bishop of Antioch in the first century, and consequently the lawful patriarch of Antioch.

He resides, for the most part, in the monastery of St. Ananias, which is situated near the city of Merdin, in Mesopotamia, and sometimes at Merdin, his episcopal seat, as also at Amida, otherwise named Caramit, Aleppo, and other Syrian towns.

The government of this prelate was too extensive, even before the death of Jacob, and the churches over which he presided too numerous, to admit of his performing himself all the duties of his high office; and therefore the latter gave a part of the administration of the pontificate to a kind of colleague, who is called the Maphrian or Primate of the East, and whose doctrine and discipline are said to be adopted by the Jacobite Christians beyond the Tigris. This primate used formerly to reside at Tauris, or Tagritis, on the borders of Armenia; but his present habitation is the monastery of St. Matthew, which is in the neighbourhood of Mousul, a city of Mesopotamia.

In the seventeenth century, a small body of the Jacobites abandoned, for some time, the doctrine and institutions of their ancestors, and embraced the communion of the church of Rome. This step was owing to the suggestions and intrigues of Andrew Achigian, who had been educated at Rome, where he imbibed the principles of Pope