his experiences in his second letter, Jordanus says that while he was away from his four companions in this place, on a journey to Baroch, they were arrested and killed by the Saracens. This is very significant. For the time being, the Nestorians are living in the same place in peace and safety, because they keep themselves to themselves. But these Franks, these new-comers who are busy in trying to make converts, cannot be endured. So the missionaries are killed, while the Church is not molested. Can we have a plainer proof of the mournful fact that this Church had entirely lost the evangelistic zeal that had been the glory of her founders?
In his Mirabilia Jordanus describes his mission as being very successful in spite of trying persecutions and perilous adventures. His story reads like St. Paul's chapter of autobiography in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. Four times he was cast into prison by the Saracens; how many times he had his hair plucked out, was scourged, was stoned, "God Himself knoweth," he writes. In the year 1330, Pope John xxii. issued a bull to the Christians of Quilon, nominating Jordanus bishop of that place, and inviting the Nestorians to enter "the Christian Church." No doubt this earnest, active man left some lasting fruits of his heroic work. John de Marignolli found a "Church of St. George" of the Latin communion in the year 1347. But the greatest activity of the Latin Church in India did not begin till a century later. This was of a very different spirit from Jordanus's Christ-like missionary enterprise. It was a Jesuit mission armed with the cruel weapons of the Inquisition.
