THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
Mediterranean for nearly forty years, expounding his doctrines, ordaining deacons and priests, and consecrating bishops, doing his work in the daytime and traveling at night sometimes forty miles to a new place of labor. He is said to have consecrated two patriarchs and twenty-seven bishops, and to have created 100,000 priests and deacons. After the death of the patriarch Severus, he attached himself to the party of Sergius of Telia, and when Sergius died he had Paulus of Egypt made patriarch. He left little in the shape of literature. An Anaphora is ascribed to him (Lat. transl. by E. Renaudot, Liturgiarum orientalium collectio, ii., Paris, 1716, pp. 333 sqq.), also a confession extant in Arabic and Ethiopic, the genuineness of which is doubtful. A number of encyclicals in a Syriac manuscript in London are thought to be his.
It was from Jacobus Baradseus that the Jacobites
took their name, and not from the Apostle, as was
stated by John of Ephesus, nor from
Their the Hebrew patriarch. They used to
System call themselves " the orthodox," and
and in Egypt went under the names of
Order. Theodosians, Severians, and Dioscurians. For the peculiarities of doctrine consult the articles Eutychianism, and Monophysites. In the propagation of this system they were peculiarly zealous. In 1587 Leonard Abel found the agent of the Jacobites ready to acknowledge the Roman Church, but he absolutely refused to condemn Dioscorus and to recognize Chalcedon. In the cultus emphasis is laid upon the making of the bread of the Eucharist of leavened dough mixed with salt and oil, and also upon the addition to the trisagion " who was crucified on your account." They make the sign of the cross with one finger, and the lot is often used at the election of patriarchs and bishops. Their patriarch takes his title from Antioch, though he never resides there, inasmuch as the Greeks regard Jacobites as heretics and refuse to their chief officer residence in Antioch. His seat is therefore not fixed, but is sometimes in a monastery, often in Amid (Diarbekr). During the Jacobitic schism, 1364-1494, there were as many as four officials claiming the title of patriarch in as many different places. The jurisdiction of the Syrian patriarch meets that of the Coptic patriarch, though Jerusalem has both a Coptic and a Syrian- Jacobitic bishop. In the most flourishing period of the Church it had probably 100 bishops. Under the patriarch is the Maphrian, who is the primate of the East, and is sometimes called Catholicus. His office dates as far back as Jacobus Baradseus, though the title is much later. It is not uncommon for a married man to be admitted to the order of deacon or presbyter, though marriage after ordination is not permitted. They have a number of monasteries. The monks are not reckoned among the clergy, yet the bishops are chosen from among the monks, and have charge of the cloisters. The writers of the Jacobites include Jacob of Edessa, Jacob of Sarug, John of Ephesus, John of Dara, Isaac of Antioch, George, bishop of the Arabs, and Philoxenus (qq.v.), also Paul of Telia, Thomas of Heraclea, Stephen bar Sudaili, Dionysius of Tell-
mahre, Moses bar Kepha, and Dionysius bar Salibi.
The emperors of the East, with the exception of
Zeno and Anastasius, were opposed to the Jacobitic
doctrines, and Justinian I. attempted
History in vain to unite them with the Cathand olic Church. The Syrian Jacobites
Present suffered not only under the emperors,
Status. but also under the Mohammedans, while their brethren in Egypt seemed to be able better to conciliate the followers of Mohammed. The Crusaders refused them access to the Holy Sepulcher. In the time of Gregory XIII., the Jacobites are said to have numbered 50,000 families, mostly poor, scattered in the towns and villages of Syria, Babylonia, and Mesopotamia. Since that time they seem to have dwindled, as the reports of different travelers are followed from that time to the present. Sachau reports that at Mosul out of 2,328 Christian houses, some 900 were those of Syrian Jacobites. The most recent statistics give 22,700 adherents, twenty-four parishes, forty-two churches, eighty-one priests; in Mosul is the largest number of adherents, 7,000, and in Mardin the next largest number, 4,000. The situation of these people has been the more critical because, while the most of the other sects received recognition from the Porte, they were without it. Through the interposition of the English this disability was removed in 1882. What adds to the difficulty of their position is that they are regarded as heretics by all other sects in the region. Perhaps their most flourishing settlement is at Sadad, on the road from Damascus to Palmyra. In 1653 the Christians of St. Thomas of India (see Nestorians) seem to have had relations with them, though there is no indication of present affiliation. Recently special attempts have been made by the Church of Rome to have the Oriental churches come into connection with it; the encyclical Prceclara of Leo XIII. of June 20, 1894, and particularly the Orientalium dignitas ecclesiarum of Nov. 30, 1894, are evidences of this movement. Several periodicals are employed to further these efforts, notably Bessarione in Rome, the Revue de I'orient chretien of Paris, with its auxiliaries, and the Calendarium ecclesiae utriusque of Innsbruck. The earlier attempts of the years 1169, 1237, 1247, and 1442 produced no permanent results. (E. Nestle.)
Bibliography: The chief work on the Syrian Jacobites is still J. S. Assemani, Bibliotheca orientalis, especially vol. ii., Rome, 1721. Consult farther: E. Renaudot, Hist, patriarcharum Alexandrinorum Jacobitarum, Paris, 1713; M. Le Quien, Oriens Christianus, vols, ii.-iii., ib. 1740; J. M. Neale, Hist, of the Holy Eastern, Church, 2 vols., London, 1850 (for the liturgy); O. H. Parry, Six Months in a Syrian Monastery, ib. 1895; C. E. Hammond, Liturgies Eastern and Western, ed. F E. Brightman, i. 69- 110, ib. 1896; F. Diekamp, Die origenistischen Streitigkeiten im 6. Jahrhundert, Minister, 1899; R. Duval, La Litterature syriaque, Paris, 1900; E. Sachau, Am Euph'at und Tigris, Leipsic, 1900; J. B. Chabot, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, patriarche jacobique d'Antioche (1166- 1199), 2 vols., Paris, 1900-04; F. C. Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity, London, 1904; L. Silbernagl, Ycrfassung und, gegenwartiger Bestand samtlicher Kinhen des Orients, Regcnsburg, 1904; Harnack, Dogma, passim; KL, xi. 1124-34; the periodicals mentioned in the last paragraph above, together with Echos d'orient; and the literature under Eutychianism; Moxophysites. On