all he wrote is of this kind. He was a good theologian, and published many works of acknowledged merit. Chief among these is the Smaller Catechism he wanted to see adopted in the Patriarchate in place of a translation of Cardinal Bellarmine's Catechism, hitherto used. Although this was condemned by name specially, nevertheless, after correction, it has been reprinted and is still used in the Jesuit schools in Syria.
Ādam died in 1809, submitting all he had written to the judgment of the Holy See. In 1816 Pius VII condemned all his writings, especially the Catechism. It was not till 1835 that Gregory XVI (1831-1846) condemned the acts of the Synod of Ḳarḳafah. The Melkite Patriarch, Maximos III, adhered to this condemnation; gradually the whole movement disappeared. No one need fear Gallicanism among the Melkites to-day. The Jesuits have schools and missions all over the Patriarchate.
- 6. Maximos III (1833-1855).
By far the greatest man of the Melkite Church is the Patriarch Maximos III.[1] Michael Maẓlūm was born at Aleppo of Melkite parents in 1779. He studied at his native city under a priest, Michael Naḥāwī, who is said to have been imbued with the ideas of Germanos Ādam. No doubt it was from him that Maẓlūm acquired those Gallican ideas that he never quite abandoned. He went to no seminary. Among the Melkites then it was still common (as in the schismatical Eastern Churches) that a priest should take young men to his house and teach them what theology, liturgy, and so on he could. Maẓlūm was ordained priest by Germanos Ādam of Aleppo and, at least for a time, became one of his foremost defenders.[2] He was secretary of the Synod of Ḳarḳafah; there is no doubt that he then shared all its opinions. In 1810
- ↑ The figure of Maximos III looms large in every history of the Melkites. Paul Bāshā has published a contemporary account, "Historic notice of what happened to the nation of the Rūm Kāthūlīk (=Melkites) in the year 1837 and afterwards" in Arabic, "Nabḏat tārikhīyat fīmā ǵarā liṭā'ifat arrūmi-lkāthūlīk munḏ sanat 1837 fīmā ba'dhā." Beirut, 1907). Although it is anonymous, he says the author is Maximos himself. Charon's "Histoire des Patriarcats Melkites," vol. ii, part i, now published (see p. 185, n. 1), begins with Maximos's life, and gives an exhaustive account of his life, reign, and times. Many more details will be found here (pp. 1-400).
- ↑ Afterwards he denied that he had ever been a partizan of Ādam. There is something of the nature of a mental restriction about this (Charon, "Hist. des Melk.," ii, p. 9).
