SYRIAN
414
SYRIAN
a convenient arrangement in view of the fact that
most printed liturgies of these rites are Uniat. The
language of all three forms of the East Syrian Rite
is Syriac, a modern form of which is still spoken by the
Nestorians and some of the Uniats. The origin of
the rite is unknown. The tradition — resting on the
legend of Abgar and of his correspondence with
Christ, which has been shown to be apocryphal
(see Abgar, the Legend of) — is to the effect that
St. Thomas the Apostle, on his way to India, es-
tabUshed Christianity in Mesopotamia, Assyria, and
Persia, and left Adaeus (or Thaddeus), "one of the
Seventy ", and Maris in charge. To these the normal
liturgy is attributed, but it is said to have been re-
vised by the Patriarch Yeshuyab III in about 650.
Some, however, consider this liturgy to be a develop-
ment of the Antiochene.
After the Council of Ephesus (431), the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, which had hitherto been governed by a catholicos under Antioch, refused to accept the condemnation of Nestorius, and cut itself and the Church to the East of it off from the Catholic Church. In 498 the catholicos assumed the title of "Patriarch of the East", and for many centuries this most suc- cessful missionary Church continued to spread throughout Persia, Tartary, MongoUa, China, and India, developing on lines of its own, very little influenced b> the rest of Christendom. At the end of the fourteenth century the conquests of Tamerlane all but destroyed this flourishing Church at one blow, and reduced it to a few small communities in Persia, Turkey in Asia, Cyj^rus, South India, and the Island of Socotra. The Cypriote Nestorians united them- selves to Rome in 1445; in the sixteenth century there was a schism in the patriarchate between the rival lines of Mar Shimun and Mar Elia; the Christianity of Socotra, such as it was, died out about the seven- teenth century; the Malabarese Church di\'ided into Uniats and Schismatics in 1599, the latter deserting Nestorianism for Monophysitism and adopting the West Syrian Rite about fifty years later; in 1681 the Chaldean Unia, which had been struggling into existence since 1552, was finally established, and in 1778 received a great accession of strength in the adhesion of the whole Mar Elia patriarchate, and all that was left of the original Nestorian Church con- sisted of the inhabitants of a district between the Lakes of Van and Urmi and the Tigris, and an out- lying colony in Palestine. These have been further reduced by a great massacre by the Kurds in 1843, and by the secession of a large number to the Russian Church within the last few years. About twenty years ago there was an attempt to form an "Inde- pendent Catholic Chaldean Church", on the model of the "Old Catholics". This resulted in separating a few from the Uniats.
MSS. AND Editions. — The authorities for this rite are chiefly in manuscript, the printed editions being very fev/. Few of the manuscripts, except some lection- aries in the British Museum, were written before the fifteenth century, and most, whether Chaldean or Nestorian, are of the seventeenth and eighteenth. The books in use are: (1) TaMsa, a priest's book, containing the Eucharistic service {Qurbaiia or Qii(lasha) in its three forms, with the administration of other sacraments, and various occasional prayers and blessings. It is nearly the Euchologion of the Greeks (see Constantinople, Rite of). (2) Kthawa dhaqdham ivadhwathar or Qdhamtiimthar, "Before and After", contains the Ordinary of the Divine OflTice, except the Psalter, arranged for two weeks. (3) Dnxcidha (David), the Psalter, divided into hulali, which answer more or less to the KaBljiiara of the Greeks. It includes the collects of the hiihiH. (4) Qirynna, Shiikd )//Hvj/i(/(;^;/»Hr;, lections, ejiistles, and gos))('ls, somctinics together, sometimes in Beparate books. (5) Turq<imn, explanatory hymns
sung before the Epistle and Gospel. (6) Khudra,
containing the variables for Sundays, Lent and the
Fast of the Ninevitcs, and other holy days. (7)
Kashkul, a selection from the Khudra for weekdays.
(8) Geza, containing variables for festivals except
Sundays. (9) Abukhalima, a coUectary, so called
from its compiler, EUas III, Abu Khalim ibn al-
Khaditha, Metropolitan of Nisibis, and patriarch
(1175-99). (10) Ba'uthad' Ninwayi, rh}'thmicalpra3'ers
attributed to St. Ephraem, used during the Fast of the
Ninevites. (11) Takhsa d'amadha, the office of baptism.
(12) Burakha, the marriage service. (13) Kahnila,
the burial service for priests. (14) Anidha, the burial
service for lay people. (15) Takhsa d'siamidha, the
ordination services. (1(3) Takhsa d'khusaya, the
"Office of Pardon", or the reconcihation of penitents.
These last (11 to 16) are excerpts from the Takhsa.
Of the above the following have been printed in Syriac :
For the Nestorians. — The Takhsa, in two parts, by the Archbishop of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission (Urmi, 1890-92). The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge has published an English trans- lation of the first part of the Takhsa, both parts "unmodified except by the omission of the heretical names" (Brightman); Dhaqdham wadhwalhar, by the same (Urmi, 1894); Daividha, by the same (Urmi, 1891).
For the Chaldean Uniats: "Missale Chaldaicum", containing the Liturgy of the Apostles in Syriac and the Epistles and Gospels in Syriac with an Arabic translation, in Carshuni (Propaganda Press fol., Rome, 1767). A new and revised edition, containing the three liturgies and the lections, epistles, and gos- pels, was published by the Dominicans at Mosul in 1901. The Order of the Church Services of Common Days, etc., from Kthawa dhaqdham wadhwalhar (8vo, Mosul, 1866). "Breviarium Chaldaicum in usum Nationis Chaldaicae a Josepho Guriel secundo edi- tum" (16mo, Propaganda Press, Rome, 1865). " Breviarium Chaldaicum ", etc. [8vo, Paris (printed at Leipzig), 1886).
For the Malabar Uniats: "Ordo Chaldaicus Missae Beatorum Apostolorum, juxta ritum Ecclesiae Mala- barica;" (fol.. Propaganda Press, Rome, 1774). "Ordo Chaldaicus Rituum et Lectionum", etc., (fol., Rome, 1775). "Ordo Chaldaicus ministerii Sacra- mentorum Sanctorum ", etc. (fol., Rome, 1775). These three, which together form a Takhsa and Lectionary, are commonly found bound together. The Prop- aganda reprinted the third part in 1845. "Ordo Baptismi adultorum juxta ritum Ecclesiae Mala- barica; Chaldajorum" (8vo, Propaganda Press, Rome, 1859), a Syriac translation of the Roman Order.
The Malabar Rite was revised in a Catholic direc- tion by Aleixo de IMenezes, Archbishop of Goa, and the revision was authorized by the Synod of Diamper in 1599. So effectively was the original Malabar Rite abolished by the Catholics in favour of this revision, and by the schismatics (when in 1649, being cut off from their own patriarch by the Spaniards and Por- tuguese, they put themselves under the Jacobite patriarch) in favour of the West Syrian Liturgy, that no copy is known to exist, but it is evident from the revised form that it could not have differed materially from the existing Nestorian Rite.
Thi? Eucharistic Service, Qurhana, "the Of- fering", udasha, "the Hallowing". — There are three Anaphone; that of the Apostles (Sts. Adieus and Maris), that of Nestorius, and that of Theodore (of Mopsuestia) the Interpreter. The first is the normal form, and from it the Malabar revision was derived. The second is used by the Chaldeans and Nestorians on the Kpiphanv and the feasts of St. John the Baptist ;uid of the" Greek Doctors, both of which occur in Kjjiphany-tidi' on the \\'<'dnesday of the Fast of the Ninevites, and on Maundy Thursday.
