archbishops and bishops have been counted in the different
ages of the Jacobite church; but the order of the hierarchy is relaxed
or dissolved, and the greater part of their dioceses is confined to the
neighborhood of the Euphrates and the Tigris. The cities of Aleppo and
Amida, which are often visited by the patriarch, contain some wealthy
merchants and industrious mechanics, but the multitude derive their
scanty sustenance from their daily labor: and poverty, as well as
superstition, may impose their excessive fasts: five annual lents,
during which both the clergy and laity abstain not only from flesh
or eggs, but even from the taste of wine, of oil, and of fish. Their
present numbers are esteemed from fifty to fourscore thousand souls, the
remnant of a populous church, which was gradually decreased under the
impression of twelve centuries. Yet in that long period, some strangers
of merit have been converted to the Monophysite faith, and a Jew was
the father of Abulpharagius, [130] primate of the East, so truly eminent
both in his life and death. In his life he was an elegant writer of the
Syriac and Arabic tongues, a poet, physician, and historian, a subtile
philosopher, and a moderate divine. In his death, his funeral was
attended by his rival the Nestorian patriarch, with a train of Greeks
and Armenians, who forgot their disputes, and mingled their tears over
the grave of an enemy. The sect which was honored by the virtues
of Abulpharagius appears, however, to sink below the level of their
Nestorian brethren. The superstition of the Jacobites is more abject,
their fasts more rigid, [131] their intestine divisions are more
numerous, and their doctors (as far as I can measure the degrees of
nonsense) are more remote from the precincts of reason. Something may
possibly be allowed for the rigor of the Monophysite theology; much more
for the superior influence of the monastic order. In Syria, in Egypt,
in Ethiopia, the Jacobite monks have ever been distinguished by the
austerity of their penance and the absurdity of their legends. Alive or
dead, they are worshipped as the favorites of the Deity; the crosier
of bishop and patriarch is reserved for their venerable hands; and they
assume the government of men, while they are yet reeking with the habits
and prejudices of the cloister. [132]

[Footnote 125: Is the expression of Theodore, in his Treatise of
the Incarnation, p. 245, 247, as he is quoted by La Croze, (Hist. du