ment to the episcopal office, and the gradual decay of consecration thereto by two or more bishops, which at length led to the persuasion, that he was the only valid consecrator, favoured this assumption and abuse of power on the part of the later Patriarchs, and finally resulted in a spiritual despotism, as baneful in its effects upon the entire body of the Nestorians, as it was contrary to their own ancient canons, and opposed to the traditions handed down to us from the Apostles.
It is moreover clear from the above autobiography, that the Nestorians of the plains had become so weak and degraded, that on the death of the last Mar Elîa, neither of the two Metropolitans his nephews had sufficient power to lay claim to the succession, otherwise it is natural to suppose that the one or the other would have assumed the patriarchal dignity. To streugthen his pretensions, which were likely to be disputed by the elder nephew, Mutran Yeshua-yau, Mutran Hanna goes over to Rome the day after his uncle's death, and appears to have received obsequiously the very uncertain and undefined authority with which the Roman Pontiff chose to invest him. This defection, which increased the weakness of the Nestorian community, placed additional obstacles in the way of Mutran Yeshua-yau, whose frequent change of creed lays him open to the charge of having followed for the time that party which he thought more able or better disposed to confirm him in the patriarchal dignity. How much the Latin missionaries had to do in fomenting these divisions we are not left to conjecture: the testimony of Mutran Hanna, whose attachment to the Roman Church, if his own writing is to be believed, cannot be doubted, goes to prove that their object throughout was to oppose the two bishops the one to the other, in order more effectually to establish the supremacy of the popedom;—that they ruled over the one with despotic sway, and made him yield to all their demands by holding up the other to him as an instrument ready to co-operate with them in their purposes;—and that the pretended concessions of patriarchal power made to Mutran Hanna on his submission to the Pope were mere stratagems designed to delude him and those Nestorians who followed his example into the belief that no infringement had been practised upon their ancient rights and privileges. In the
M
