commonly the cake is dipped into the wine, as among the Nestorians.
In the administration of baptism, the old Jacobites are reported to have signed the child in the face, or the arm, with the figure of the cross by the imprint of a burning iron.[1]
They pray, as the other Syrians, for the dead, but deny the doctrine of purgatory.
The Jacobites of Syria and Mesopotamia have a traditionary belief, that they are lineally descended from the first Hebrew Christians. Dr. Wolff, speaking on this point, says: "They call themselves the Bnee Israel, 'the children of Israel,' whose ancestors were converted by the apostle James. There cannot be the least doubt, that their claim to being the descendants of the Jewish Christians of old is just. Their physiognomy, mode of worship, their attachment to the Mosaic law, their liturgy, their tradition, so similar to the Jewish, the technical terms in their theology,—all prove that they are real descendants of Abraham."[2]
The clergy of the Jacobite church are constituted on the model of a perfect hierarchy. Extremely tenacious of their ecclesiastical status in this particular, they glory in an apostolical succession from St. Peter as the first bishop of Antioch, and exhibit what they hold to be an unbroken series of more than an hundred and eighty bishops of that see from his day to our own. But with-
- ↑ So Brerewood, but on what authority he does not state. ("Inquiries," p. 188.) With regard to baptism, they believe that the Holy Spirit descends into the water, and regenerates the subject of the ordinance. The face of the child, or person, is turned toward the East, and a triple affusion of water is made by the left hand of the priest. Chrism is added to baptism, and confirmation follows after seven days.
- ↑ Journal, 1839. Saligniac, in his Itinerary, viii. c. 1, asserts that in his day they still used circumcision.
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