in the Christians of St. Thomas the unpardonable guilt of heresy and
schism. Instead of owning themselves the subjects of the Roman pontiff,
the spiritual and temporal monarch of the globe, they adhered, like
their ancestors, to the communion of the Nestorian patriarch; and the
bishops whom he ordained at Mosul, traversed the dangers of the sea and
land to reach their diocese on the coast of Malabar. In their Syriac
liturgy the names of Theodore and Nestorius were piously commemorated:
they united their adoration of the two persons of Christ; the title
of Mother of God was offensive to their ear, and they measured with
scrupulous avarice the honors of the Virgin Mary, whom the superstition
of the Latins had almost exalted to the rank of a goddess. When
her image was first presented to the disciples of St. Thomas, they
indignantly exclaimed, "We are Christians, not idolaters!" and their
simple devotion was content with the veneration of the cross. Their
separation from the Western world had left them in ignorance of the
improvements, or corruptions, of a thousand years; and their conformity
with the faith and practice of the fifth century would equally
disappoint the prejudices of a Papist or a Protestant. It was the first
care of the ministers of Rome to intercept all correspondence with the
Nestorian patriarch, and several of his bishops expired in the prisons
of the holy office. The flock, without a shepherd, was assaulted by the
power of the Portuguese, the arts of the Jesuits, and the zeal of Alexis
de Menezes, archbishop of Goa, in his personal visitation of the coast
of Malabar. The synod of Diamper, at which he presided, consummated
the pious work of the reunion; and rigorously imposed the doctrine and
discipline of the Roman church, without forgetting auricular confession,
the strongest engine of ecclesiastical torture. The memory of Theodore
and Nestorius was condemned, and Malabar was reduced under the dominion
of the pope, of the primate, and of the Jesuits who invaded the see
of Angamala or Cranganor. Sixty years of servitude and hypocrisy were
patiently endured; but as soon as the Portuguese empire was shaken by
the courage and industry of the Dutch, the Nestorians asserted, with
vigor and effect, the religion of their fathers. The Jesuits were
incapable of defending the power which they had abused; the arms of
forty thousand Christians were pointed against their falling tyrants;
and the Indian archdeacon a