&c. I cannot, however, concur in the opinion, that the Nestorians preserved the original liturgy of Mesopotamia: because Ephrem Syrus, who lived at Edessa (the very centre of apostolical preaching) considerably before the rise of Nestorianism, gives an account of the liturgy, which is totally at variance with all the Nestorian liturgies. The three Nestorian liturgies concur in placing the general prayers for all men before the invocation of the Holy Ghost; see Renaudot, p. 590, &c. 592: 620, 621; 630.633; while the ancient liturgy of Edessa, as described by Ephrem Syrus, (see the quotation in note, p. 35,) placed the general prayers after the invocation of the Holy Ghost. With regard to the other two liturgies, ascribed to Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius, little need be said. They seem to have few claims to primitive antiquity. Leontius of Byzantium, A.D. 590, it is true, refers to the existence of a liturgy of Theodore, (see note, p. 46,) but this does not prove the genuineness of that liturgy; and in fact it seems improbable that either Theodore or Nestorius composed the formularies which bear their names, as a different order seems to have prevailed in their churches, and all the adjoining countries; and the documents under consideration are evidently more recent than the Nestorian "liturgy of the Apostles," resembling it very much in the order of their parts, and yet composed in a florid and verbose style, far removed from the simplicity of primitive liturgies. LITURGY OF INDIA. CHRISTIANITY appears to have penetrated to India at an early period, as the name of a bishop of the church in "Persia and India" occurs amongst the acts of the general council of Nice, A.D. 325. (Gelasii Hist. Syn. Niceni, pars ii. c. 35. Labbe, Concilia, tom. ii. p. 267.) Cosmas, who, about the year 547, wrote a treatise on Christian topography, states that in Taprobana or Ceylon, and Male or Malabar, there were Christian churches; and in Calliana or Calianapore, a bishop who was ordained in Persia. The Nestorians must by this time have been established in India, as they had for nearly a century been in possession of the churches in Persia; and, of course, the bishops of India ordained by Nestorian prelates were themselves Nestorian. The liturgy of the Christians of Malabar, or St. Thomas, has not come down to us free from interpolations and alterations. Menezes, who in the sixteenth century was appointed archbishop of Goa by the Portuguese some time after their discovery of India, took care to reform the Nestorian liturgy of Malabar. (See an account of his alterations in Le Brun, Cérémonies de la Messe, &c. tome vi. p. 451, &c.) This liturgy was translated from Syriac into Latin, and is found in the Bibliotheca Patrum. Le Brun has endeavoured to restore it, as extant before the time of Menezes, (tom. vi. p. 468, &c.) When the dominion of the Portuguese in India was shaken by the Dutch, and a portion of the native Christians in Malabar recovered their independence in the latter part of the seventeenth century, they received bishops from the Jacobite patriarchs of Antioch, and have ever since continued in the Jacobite communion. Of course they use the liturgy of St. James in Syriac, of which I have already spoken, section i. p. 16. 20, &c. and probably other liturgies of the Jacobites, many of which have been printed by Renaudot in the second volume of his Oriental Liturgies. |