kindly by its neighbours on many occasions. When Barhebræus entered Bagdad as Mafrian in 1265, the Nestorian Katholikos (Mkikâ, 1257-1281) sent his two nephews and a deputation to welcome him.[1] Mâr Yaballâhâ III (1281-1317, p. 97) was very well disposed towards Jacobites.[2] Even with the Crusaders, who persecuted all schismatics, Jacobite relations were not always bad. Sometimes the Latins ill-treated them;[3] at other times they seem to have got on well together. Michael I praised the tolerance of the Franks.[4]
The sect at one time had several outlying colonies. Even as late as the 11th century they still had a community and a church at Constantinople.[5] They had a great monastery "of the Mother of God" in the Nitrian desert,[6] and many churches in Egypt.[7] For their relations with Armenians see p. 432, n. 3. But throughout their history they have had continual quarrels, schisms and rival Patriarchs among themselves. From about the 6th till after the 8th century there was in Syria a smaller Monophysite body, the "Julianists" who were aphthartolatrians (p. 207); these had their own Patriarch.[8] In Barhebræus' time there was a schism, and two Patriarchs. Dionysius of Meliṭene was elected without the consent of the Mafrian (John Bar M'adene) in 1252. This was against the canons (p. 337); so Bar M'adene not only refused to recognize him, but got himself elected rival Patriarch. Both then began bribing Moslem officials, Jacobite bishops and notables in order to be recognized. Barhebræus was on Dionysius' side and was employed as a go-between. The schism lasted till Dionysius, who had murdered his two nephews, was himself murdered by the monks of Mâr Bar Ṣaumâ, while he was standing at the altar during the Night Office on February 18, 1261.[9]
But the great trouble was from 1292 to 1495. During these two
- ↑ Barhebræus, ii. 436.
- ↑ Nöldeke, loc. cit. 267.
- ↑ Martin: Les premiers princes croisés et les Syriens Jacobites de Jérusalem; "Journ. asiatique," viii. 12 (1888), pp. 471-490.
- ↑ Ed. Chabot, iii. 183, 222: "The Pontiffs of our Church were among them, without being persecuted or hurt."
- ↑ Ib. iii. 185.
- ↑ Dair asSuriani; Butler: Anc. Coptic Churches, i. 316-326.
- ↑ Baumstark: Festbrevier u. Kirchenjahr der Syr. Jakobiten (Paderborn, 1911), p. 10.
- ↑ Michael I (ed. Chabot), ii. 263-267.
- ↑ Barhebræus, i. 696-744.
