66 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [February. 1914. 



>> 1 



of the Life of St. Peter at p. 94. " Usque ad hodiernum diem 

 qui annus millesimus sexcentesimus a Nativitate D Jesu, 

 <fc quadragesimus nonus sublimitatis Epochce srssionis Majes- 

 tatts Imperatorice [Akbar] est," i.e., "Until to-day, the year 

 1600 from the Birth of the Lord Jesus, and the 49th of the 

 sublime Era of His Imperial Majesty's enthronement. 

 There is an evident discrepancy between these two ways of 

 speaking, since the year 1600 makes the 45th, not the 49th, of 

 the Ilahi era The Ilahi year must be the correct one, no allu- 

 sion to the Lives of the Apostles being found in the Jesuit 

 Letters until 1602, when, as we saw, Akbar asked for it. 



The Life of St. Peter may thus have been completed in 

 the 49th year of Akbar 's rei^n or A.D. 1604. A note sent 

 me by Mr. George Ranking would show that Akbar saw it 

 before his death (1605), together with the lives of St. x^ndrew, 

 St. James and St. Paul. The complete work was probably not 

 finished till two years after Jahangir's accession. From the 

 preface of the Serampur MS., kindly translated for me by Mr. 

 H. Bevei idge, we gather that the Lives of the A jostles was 

 undertaken at Akbar's request after the completion of the 

 Miratu-l-Quds or Life of Christ, that it was dedicated to Jahan- 

 glr, and translated by c Abdu-s-Sattar from the " FiringM, 

 by winch we should understand ''Portuguese." 



A copy of the Lives of the Apostles, in the "National 

 Library" of Paris, is described as "containing the life and 

 the miracles of the twelve Apostles, translated from the Latin 

 into Persian by Fr. Jerome Xavier, of the Society of Jesus, 

 who ded ated it to Dgelal-Uddin Mohammad Akbar, Emperor 

 of the M ngols."* similarly, John Dry's fiibl. Bodl God. 

 MSS. Orientalium, Part I, Oxonii 1787, p. 270, No. VIII, de- 

 scribes one of J. Xavier's works thus: "Codex bombvcinus, 

 perita manu, folia 215 efficiens. Complectitur opus, Speculum 

 Sanctilatis inscriptum, ubi niinirum exhibentur vita et miracula 

 duo lecim Apostolorum, e Latina lingua in P* rsicam conversa, 

 auctore Patre Hier onymo Xaverio Societatis Jesu, qui opus 

 suura Gelaleddino Akbar, Mongolorum Imperatori nuncupavit. 

 Praemittitur quinque paginarum prafatio [Laud. A. 125]." 

 The title is given in Persian : M iratu-l-Quds . Tins description 



-55 



is partly wrong 



•/ 



Q 



IS, 



;/ 



said to 



contain their lives, and miracles; but, then, Ury mistook for 

 the title of it the words " M iratu-l-Quds y ' mentioned in the 



1 Compare with the date of Xavier's Historia Christ I edited by 

 L. de Dieu. p. 536: M [Hie liber] Anno millesimo sexcentesimo secundo 

 a Nativitate D. Je-u, atq: quadragesimo septimo sublimitatis Sancti 

 Imperaboris tinom accepit." 1602 =47 th year of the Ilahi era, is correct. 



2 Cf. Sommervogel. Bibl. dt la O. de ./., VIII, col. 1340, No. 0. 



