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561
CHALICE
two Chaldean schools (not counting those conducted
by Latin nuns and missionaries). At Mosul there is a
patriarchal seminary, distinct from the Syro-Chal-
dean seminary directed by the Dominicans. The
total number of the Chaldeans according to the above-
mentioned authority is nearly 7S,000, 24,000 of
whom are in the Diocese of Mosul. This number is
perhaps a little exaggerated. The figure of about
66,000 given by Dr. Oussani (see Asia) as against
1-40,000 Nestorians is more correct. The liturgical
language of the Chaldean Church is Syriac. Arabic,
Turkish, Persian, Kurd are variously spoken by the
people; in some districts the vernacular is neo-Syriac.
The liturgical books are those of the ancient Nesto-
ri:m Church, corrected in the sense of Catholic ortho-
doxy. Unfortunately, without doctrinal necessity,
they have in some places been made to conform with
Latin usage.
Religiously and morally the Chaldeans are on a level with the other Catholic communities of the Ori- ental Rite. They are becoming daily better in- structed, owing in part to the zeal and devotion of Latin missionaries and religious (Dominicans at Mosul, Carmelites at Bagdad, Lazarists in Persia I. Their clergy counts among its members such learned men. as Mgr. Giamil, Mgr, Addai' Scher, and Mgr. Minna, authors of numerous publications interesting to Orientalists. This literary revival is mostly due to the Lazarist, Pere Bedjan, a Persian Chaldean. He devoted much industry and learning to popularizing among his people, both Catholics and Nestorians, their ancient chronicles, the lives of Chaldean saints and martyrs, even works of the ancient Nestorian doctors.
IV. Malabar Christians. — The west coast of India exhibits since the sixth century a number of flourishing Christian communities subject to the Nestorian Catholicos of Persia. In the sixteenth cen- tury Portuguese invaders of India found on the afore- said coast over 200,000 of these ancient Persian or Syriac Christians, who called themselves Christians of St. Thomas. They acknowledged their depend- ence on the Nestorian Church; for a long time, how- ever, on account of the dangers of travel and contin- ual wars, their intercourse with it was only intermit- tent. Most of the time, therefore, they were without bishops. The clergy of Goa tried to annex them by a process of latinization, and the Jesuits, successors of St. Francis Xavier, followed a similar policy, but with much moderation and practical sense.
Vfter the above-described renewal of relations be- tween Rome and the Chaldean Catholics, their pro- curator, Bishop Hormizd Elias, was sent to India (1562) by the pope and the Patriarch 'Abdishd 1 , with two Dominican missionaries, one of whom was a bishop. 'Abdishd' ordained as Bishop of Malabar a certain Joseph whom the Portuguese detained at Goa, so thai In' was able to reach his mission only after two years. In the meantime, because of urgency, a suc- cessor had been named. Bishop Abraham of Anga- male. This was the cause of misunderstandings and lisputes to which Pius IV put an end ( 1565) by divid- ing the Malabar territory. This step did not greatly relieve the anxieties of the United Chaldeans of Mala- bar. Bishop Abraham complained to the pope "that ih. Lathers of the Society [of Jesus] and the Latin Portuguese" tried to withdraw him from obedience to the Chaldean patriarch and to persuade him to demand the pallium directly from the pope. In this way they sought to compel him to "conform to the Latin Rite and to turn over gradually to the Holy See the administration of this province". The King of Cochin himself asked from thi' po] liishop
Abraham a Bafe-conducl to attend at < loa the Provin- cial Council of the Indies, without fear of imprison- ment. In 1599, Alexis Menezes, Archbishop .of Con. ked at Diamper a celebrated synod, in which III.— 36
it was decided to unify the hierarchy and to correct
the rituals, missals, and other liturgical books of
the Malabar Christians in the sense of the Roman
Liturgy. Portuguese authority enforced these de-
cisions on the Malabar Coast, but the policy even-
tually failed. Many Catholics left the Latin Church
and joined the Nestorians. A little later (1653)
the Jacobite (Monophysite) patriarch sent a bishop
to India, whereupon more than a hundred thou-
sand Malabar Christians accepted him with a view-
to the preservation of their liturgical (Syriac) tongue,
heedless of his Monophysitism, which was, no doubt,
quite unintelligible to them. Owing to the Car-
melite missionaries, who succeeded the Jesuits, nearly
250,000 persevered in Catholic unity, and have re-
mained to the present loyal to the Holy See and sub-
missive to the Latin hierarchy though they have never
ceased their petition to be restored to the obedience
of the Chaldean patriarch. This re-affiliation has not
been accorded them, even after the Encyclical of Leo
XIII "Orientalium Dignitas". The pope, however,
has withdrawn them from the jurisdiction of the
Latin bishops and has given them three vicars Apos-
tolic of their nation and rite. These native bishops
administer the Dioceses of Trichur, Ernakulam and
Changanachery, and are directly subject to Propa-
ganda (1897). This is only a provisional solution.
TheCatholicChaldeansof Malabar look always tow aids
the (Catholic) Chaldean patriarchs, who never tire of
urging the extension of their jurisdiction over the
distant Malabar churches, historically united with the
Church of Persia and it- legitimate representatives.
Giami:
Or
I ' R
ion of official Roman Curia ranslated into Idaorum run.
■ i . \Ialabai .
parte prwium edit a- hist
1902). This work contains an imp rtai letters and documents exchanged betwe and the Chaldeans. The Syriac ink. In Latin, would be: Liber relation urn eodi Sede Aposlolicd Ramos; Chabot, (1) Les ( (2) Etat religieux des dioceses formant l> pat oi il ehaldien de lin'niloiie; i'.i) Vie de Mar Joseph I in Bemu ■ '<> -.■ t hnti.n (Paris. 1S06); Oussani. The Modern Chaldean and Nesto- rians, and the Study of Syriac among them in Johns Hopkins, Semitic Papers (Baltimore. 1901!) ; anions earlier works see, J. Al.. Asse.mam. De Calhoheix sen potnarchis f}iald,i.
Nestorianorum commeniarius (Rome, 1775); Jos. S, Asse.mam: Bibliotheca Orientalis, III. pt. II, passim.
J. Labourt.
Chalice — History. — The chalice occupies the first place among sacred vessels, and by a figure of speech the material cup is often used as if it were synon- ymous with the Precious Blood itself. "The chalice of benediction, which we bless", writes St. Paul, "is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?" (I. Cor.,x, 16). No reliable tradition has been preserved to us regarding the vessel used by Christ at the Last Supper. In the sixth and seventh centuries pilgrims to Jerusalem were led to believe that the actual chalice was still venerated in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, having within it the sponge which was presented to Our Saviour on Calvary. Curiously enough, while Antoninus of Piacenza refers to it as made of onyx, Adamnan, less than a century later, describes it as a "silver cup holding the measure of a Gallic sextarius and with two opposite handle Geyer, Itinera EQerosolimitana, pp. 154, 173, 234, 305). At a much later period two other vessels have been venerated as the chalice of the Last Supper. ( »ne, the sacro catino of Genoa, is rather a dish than a cup and is made of green glass, though long supposed to be an emerald, fourteen and a half inches m diam- eter and of priceless value. Theother,al Valencia in
Spain, is a cup of agate. The fact is that the whole tradition is untrustworthy and of late .late It will be referred to further under tin- article GRAIL, and meanwhile we may be content to quote the words of
St. ChrvBOstom (Horn. 1 in Matt.); "The tabli ■•
of silver, the chalice was not ol gold in which Christ gave His blood to His disciples to drink, and yet
