Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/562

 PAROUSIA

508

PARSIS

phjTOgenitus (Dc thoinatibus, 2) call it Parthicopn- lis, but the second locates it in Thrace. Stephanas Byzantius calls it Parthenopolis and relates accord- ing to Theagenes the legend of its foundation by Cic- nrstus, son of Mygdoii, said to have named the city in honour of his (wo daughters. Phny (IV, xi) has the same name, but places it in Thrace. Its bishop, Jonas or John, assisted at the Council of Sardiea (342 or 343) ; at the Council of Chalcedon (451) there was present John " Parthicopolis prima; Macedoni;c" (Le Quien, "Oriens christianus", II, 75). This see is not mentioned in any of the Greek "NotitiiE episcopa- tuum".

S. PETRIDfcs

Parousia. See Second Advent.

Parrenin, Dominique, b. at Russey, near Besan^on, 1 Sept ., IGO.') ; d. at Pekin, 29 Sept., 1741 . He entered the Jesuit order 1 September, 1685, and in 1697 was sent to China; At Peking (1698) he attracted the attention of K'ang-hi. His varied knowledge, and familiar use of the court languages, Chinese and Tatar-Manchu, gained him the good-will of the em- peror. Father Parrenin utilized this favour in the Interest of religion and science. While satisfying the extraordinary curiosity of K'ang-hi, especially about physics, medicine, and the history of Europe, he dem- onstrated how the scientific culture of the West was due to Christianity. Obliged to travel with the em- peror, he visited the native Christians. Well liked by important personages at the court and the highest dignitaries of the empire, he led them to look with fa^'our on the spreading of Christianity. In the "Lettres edifiantes," he has written of the admirable examples set by the princes of the Sounou family, whose conversion, begun by Father Suarez, he com- pleted. He rendered the greatest services to religion during the reign of Yong-tching (1723-35), son of K'ang-hi. The new emperor soon made known his aversion for Christianity and only his consideration for the missionaries at Peking, principally for Father Parrenin, prevented the extermination of Christianity in China. This emperor respected the missionaries, not for their scientific knowledge, but for their char- acters and virtues. He demanded services of more tangible importance, notably at audiences granted to the ambassadors of Russia and Portugal and during the long negotiations, both commercial and political, with the former of the two powers. The Chinese ministers needed the missionaries, not only as conscien- tious and trusty interpreters, but men capable of dis- pelling Chinese ignorance of European matters and of inspiring confidence. Parrenin, who had served the Government of K'ang-hi so capably in this dual role, was no less serviceable under Yong-tching. He was assisted by his confreres, Fathers Mailla and Gaubil. The mission at Peking continued to exist amid most violent persecutions, and became the salvation of the Christians of the provinces: as long as Christianity sus- tained itself at the capital, its position in the rest of the empire w;is not hopeless; subaltern persecutors hesitated to apply the edicts in all their rigour against a religion which the emperor tolerated in his capital, and against men who.se confreres the emperor treated with honour.

Science is indebted to Parrenin for his services in drawing up the great map of China (see Regis, Jean- Baptiste). He roused in K'ang-hi a desire to see his entire domain represented by methods more exact than those of the Chinese cartographers. Father Parrenin had a hand in the preparations for the making of this maj) in the Provinces of Pechili, Shan-tung, and Liao-tung. He also collaborated on a map of Peking and environs, which the emperor caused to be made in 1700. He tran.slated into the Tatar-Man- chu language for K'ang-hi several of the works pub- lished in the "M4moire8 de I'Acad^mie des Sciences"

at Paris. In 1723 Dortous de Mairan, of the Acade- mic des Sciences, and Freret. perpetual .secretary of the Academic des Inscriptions, sent him their "doubts" about the history, chroiiology, and astron- omy of the Chinese. His answers led to other ques- tions, and this scientific correspondence continued until 1740. Father Parrenin's conduct m.ay not have been always above reproach during the agitation caused in the Chinese missions by tlic famous con- troversy about the rites (see China; 'I'hk (Juertion OF Rites). But his whole life contrailicls the oilious character attributed to him by writers who ciiitcd with more passion than truth the " Menioircs liistoii((ues du Cardinal de Tournon" and the "Anecdotes sur I'Etat de la Religion dans la Chine".

LeUres edifiantes el curieuses. 26' Recueil, Pri/nce ei Leitre du P. Chalier (Paris, 1753) ; Lettre du P. Antoinc Gaubil on the death of P. Parrenin, MS. 12225 in the Biblioth^que Nationalc, with the letters of Parrenin to Mairan and Freret (1729-60), unedited; LeUres de M. de Mairan au R. P. Parrenin, conlenant diverses ques- tions sur la Chine (Paris, 1759-70); Bhuckeh. La Mis.-!sion de Chine de 1723 a 1735 in Revue des questions historiques, XXIX, 491 (1881); Idem, Correspondance scienlifinue d'un missionairc fran- qais d Peking, au X VIII' Sikcle in Revue du Monde catholique, LXXVI, 701 (1883); De Bacher-Sommervoqel, Bibliotheque dea ecrivains de la C. de J., VI, 284-90, IX, 757; Cokdier, BiUiolheca Siyiica.

Joseph Bruckek.

Parsis (Parsees) a small community in India, ad- herents of the Zoroastrian religion and originally emi- grants from Persia. According to the census of 1881 their total number in India was 85,397, to which must be added for sake of completeness about 3, scat- tered about various other countries and .-ilso about 8,000 in various parts of Persia — thus liriiigiiig uji the total of Zoroastrians in the world to sonjething under 100,000. Of the 85,397 in India, 82,091 were by the same census found in the Bombay presidency, and 3,306 scattered over the rest of the country. Of those in the Bombay presidency more than half (48,507) resided in Bombay City. ti,227 in Surat, and 3,088 in Broach; about 10,000 being in X;itive States, and the rest in other parts, chiefly of Ciuzerat. The census of 1901 reveals a rise to a total of 94,190 in India, of whom 78,800 are in the Bombay presidency, not in- clusive of 8,409 found in Baroda State. In Persia the Zoroastrians (called Iranis to distinguish them from those in India) are chiefly found in Yezd and the twenty-four surrounding villages, where according to figures collected in 1854, there were a thousand families, comprising 6,658 souls — a few merchants, the remainder artisans or agriculturalists. At Kerman there were also about 4.5(3; and at Teheran, the capi- tal of Persia, about fifty of the merchant class. They were formerly much more numerous; they now show a constant tendency to decline.

History. — This small community owes its origin to those few Persians who, when Khalif Omar subjugated Persia in a. d. 641, resisted the efforts of the conquer- ors to impose on them the Moslem faith. Escaping to the coast they found a first refuge in the Island of Ormuz, at the mouth of the Persian (Julf; but having here little permanent chance of safety or sustenance for any large number, they began a series of emigrations acro.ss the sea, landing first at Diu on the Kathiawar coast some time about A. D. 700. After remaining here for nineteen years they were led, by an omen in the stars, to cross the Gulf of Cambay. After suffering shipwreck they landed at Sanjan, some twenty-five miles south of Daman on the Guzerat coast, where the local ruler, Jadi Rfina, on hearing their pathetic story and an account of their religious liclicfs, .allciwiMl theni to settle on condition that they wouhl learn the lan- guage of the country, abstain from the use of arms, dress and conduct their marriages in the Hindu man- ner etc. A spirit of accommodation to surroundings has characterized the Parsis throughout their history, and accounts at once for many of their usages in dress and manners, and for their subsequent success in in-