THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
tendom." In 1445, moreover, all the Cyprian Nestorians with their patriarch Timotheus of Tarsus were converted to the Roman Catholic faith by Archbishop Andrew.
More lasting contact with the Roman Catholic Church began with the middle of the sixteenth century. Except for the Christians of St. Thomas in India, the Nestorians were then a small remnant with a few bishops in the Kurdish mountains. The patriarchate had become hereditary, 6. History nephew succeeding uncle. In 1551 from the this system resulted in a schism, and Sixteenth one faction sent its candidate for con- Century, secration to Rome, where he was proclaimed patriarch of the Chaldeans by Julius III. The schism still exists, the Uniate patriarch of the Chaldeans, always called Joseph, residing at Diarbekr, Mosul, and since 1830, Bagdad. In 1888 his jurisdiction included four archdioceses and seventeen dioceses, with some 33,000 souls. The patriarch of the non-Uniate Nestorians, always termed Simeon, lives in the almost inaccessible valley of Kochannes in the Kurdish mountains on the boundary between Persia and Turkey. In 1833 the number of these Nestorians, living in the Kurdish mountains and on the shores of the Lake of Urumiah, and constituting, except for the scanty communities in India, the sole remnants of this once powerful sect, were estimated at 70,000 souls. They do not, however, call themselves Nestorians — a term now employed only for the Nestorian Uniates — but Chaldeans, Meshihaye (" followers of the Messiah"), Nasrani (Arab., "Christians"), Syrians, Assyrians, and Madenhaye ("Orientals"), declaring that Nestorius, whose language they did not know, was not their patriarch, and that he followed them rather than they him. Since 1834 American missionaries have worked among the non-Uniates, not only keeping them from being absorbed by the Roman Catholic missions surrounding them — especially the Dominicans stationed at Mosul to counteract the American Protestant influence — but also raising their moral and intellectual status, a task the more difficult since they are unstable and inclined to sensuality and superstition. The American missionaries, moreover, have preserved the modern Syriac dialect of the Nestorians and developed it into a literary language, into which they have translated the Bible and written or translated an abundance of religious literature. The spoken language is divided into a number of dialects, falling mainly into the plain and mountain groups, the latter presenting the fuller forms. The liturgies and other ritual books of both Nestorians and Chaldeans are in classical Syriac. They live in almost constant open hostility with the Mohammedan Kurds, who in 1846 massacred some 6,000 of all ages and both sexes.
The Chaldean Nestorians have eight ranks in their clergy: Katholika or patriarka; metropolita or mutran; episkopa; arkidyakona; kasshisha ("priest"); shammasha ("deacon"); huhpodyakona ("subdeacon "); and kar°ya ("reader"). The Kurdish Nestorians are characterized by a pronounced Judaic Christianity which is also apparent in their rituals. Those in northern Mesopo-
tamia now have nine dioceses with metropolitans,
bishops, etc. Among their peculiarities is their
aversion to all religious representations,
7. Kurdish only the Cross and the portrait of
Nestorians. Christ being allowed in their churches. Their number of sacraments varies. In the medieval period it was seven, Timotheus II. (1318-60) defining them as ordination, consecration of a church or altar, baptism and unction, the Eucharist, benediction of monks, office for the dead, and marriage, with indulgence, or penance, and absolution as an appendix. Assemani held that they had but three sacraments: baptism, the Eucharist, and ordination. Among the modern Nestorians the Eucharist is a magic ceremony with certain peculiar usages. The Nestorian fasts are very numerous, meat being forbidden on 152 days. They eat no pork, and keep both the Sabbath and Sunday. They believe in neither auricular confession nor purgatory, and permit their priests to marry. The Nestorians of the plains, who are more intelligent than their mountain brethren, have peculiar marriage customs, and some of the usages of their other feasts are of interest. The mountain Nestorians are employed chiefly in hunting and pasturage. Their houses are in general wretched affairs, often having but one room, sometimes underground. They add to their resources by selling nut-galls, and are renowned for their basketry, especially in the district of Cheba, whence basketvenders traverse all Asia. They also engage in weaving and apiculture. Their chief food is barley bread, roasted meal, dried mulberries, and milk and its products. Despite their poverty they are extremely hospitable. They are governed by hereditary village sheiks called malik (Arab., " king "). Their clergy, who are greeted by kissing their hands and raising the hat (a usage not common elsewhere in the East), are ignorant but highly honored.
The Nestorians of India, after receiving a metropolitan from the Patriarch Timotheus (778-820), had bishops appointed henceforth immediately by the patriarch. They enjoyed special privileges from the native princes, particularly after the beginning of the ninth century, these being due primarily to Thomas Kananaeus (also 8. Nestorians called Mar Thomas), who seems to have
of India, been a wealthy and influential merchant, and not a bishop. Thanks to these privileges and their increase in population, they gradually became able to have kings of their own, but on the extinction of the dynasty their little domain was inherited by the rulers of Cochin. The internecine strife of the Indian princes so oppressed the Christians of St. Thomas that in 1502 they offered the crown to Vasco da Gama, when he landed in India. The bond between the Indian Nestorians and the patriarch seems to have been broken at an early date. About 1120-30 their spiritual head, Johannes, seems to have gone to Constantinople to request consecration, and thence to Rome. Later the church sank so that only a deacon was left to perform all ecclesiastical functions. Georgius and Joseph were accordingly sent in 1490 to the Nestorian patriarch to obtain a bishop; they were ordained priests and received the