Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/200

146 some of the Nestorian patriarchs discovered a propensity to accommodate matters with the Church of Rome. Elîa II. patriarch of Mosul, sent two private embassies to the Pope, in the years 1607 and 1610, to solicit his friendship; and, in the letter he addressed upon that occasion to Paul IV. declared his desire to bring about a reconciliation between the Nestorians and the Latin Church. Elîa III., though at first extremely averse to the doctrine and institutions of that Church, changed his sentiments in this respect; and in the year 1657, addressed a letter to the congregation De propaganda Fide in which he intimated his readiness to join with the Church of Rome, on condition that the Pope would allow the Nestorians a place of public worship in that city, and would abstain from all attempts to alter the doctrine or discipline of that sect. The Romish doctors could not but perceive that a reconciliation, founded on such conditions as these, would be attended with no advantage to their Church,13 and promised nothing that could flatter the ambition of their pontiff. And accordingly we do not find that the proposal above mentioned was accepted. It does not appear that the Nestorians were received, at this time, into the communion of the Romish Church, or that the Bishops of Mosul were, after this period, at all solicitous about the friendship or goodwill of the Roman pontiff. The Nestorian patriarchs of Ooroomiah, who successively assume the name of Shimoon, proposed also, more than once, plans of reconciliation with the Church of Rome; and with that view, sent the Roman pontiff a confession of their faith, that gave a clear idea of their religious tenets and institutions. But these proposals were little attended to by the court of Rome, which was either owing to its dislike of the doctrine of these Nestorians, or to that contempt which their poverty and want of influence excited in the pontiffs, whose ambition and avidity aimed at acquisitions of more consequence; for it is well known, that, since the year 1617, the patriarchs of Ooroomiah have been in a low and declining state, both in point of opulence and credit, and are no longer in a condition to excite the envy of their brethren at Mosul. The Romish missionaries gained over, nevertheless, to their communion, a handful of Nestorians, whom they formed into a congregation or Church, about the middle of this century. The patriarchs of this little