Vol. X, No. 2.] 



[N.S.] 



•/ the A postles. 69 



and India to satisfy his passion for Oriental studies, wrote that 



he met at Surat on March 7, 162 5, a Jesuit lay-brother 1 who 



was going to Agra. He handed him a letter for the Fathers of 



Agra, reminding them that he had written to them a first time 



from Persia to ask for a correct copy of the Persian books 



written by the Fathers at the Moghul Court. His intention 



was to get them printed in Rome. It would seem that his 



request was not complied with. None of J. Xavier's writing 



appears in the list of Persian books brought by della Valle from 

 India/ 2 ° J 



I do not know of any other complete specimen of the Lives 

 of the Apostles than the copy of Serampur. Those in the 

 Marsden collection, the Bodleian (?) and the National Library, 

 Paris, are perhaps compbte, too. 



The copy of the Life of St. Peter published by Louis de 

 Dieu contained two other Persian treatises: viz., the death of 

 Hussain, son of the Khalff 'All, and a fragment of Akbar's 

 Life. It had been brought from Mogor with 8 or 9 other 

 Persian books, one of which bore the note: " Emptus in Agra : 



Stuf 



loannps Romanus Roterodamo 



Batavus." de Dieu concluded that John Romanus, a Doctor 

 and Oriental scholar, had bought the Life of St. Peter during 

 his travels in India. On his death, after his return to his 

 country, these books fell into other hands, the Life of St. Peter 

 and another passing into the possession of John Eligmannus, 

 de Dieu's friend. 3 



Fourmont had already shown that de Dieu did not publish 

 the whole of Xavier's Lives of the Apostles, his Catalogus MSS. 

 BibL.Regiae, Codices Persici, No. Vr, pointing to a complete 

 copy in 4° " translated from the Latin/' in the " Royal Li- 

 brary" of Paris.* 



Xavier's Life of St Peter, as published by de Dieu, was 

 placed on the Index, both on account of de D!eu's "heretical " 

 notes, and certain unsafe or apocryphal sources made use of 

 by the author. 5 



Description of the Serampur MS. 



The Serampur MS., a volume bound in brown leather on 

 back and corners, measures >».30 x m .135 between the covers. 



Saidabad, in the Dist. of Murshidabad, Bengal Cf. C. Rieu, Cat. of the 

 Persian MSS. in the Brit. Mua. 9 1870, p. 5. 



1 Probably Brother Manoel Marquez, who went to Tibet with Fr. 

 A. de Andrade in 1624. 



2 Cf. De' Viagqi di Pietro della Valle Parte III, Roma, 



Maacardi, MDCLXIII, Letter from Surat, March 22, 1623, pp. 89-90. He 

 obtained at Ispahan a Persian-Italian Vocabulary of the words in the 

 Christian Doctrine composed by J. Xavier, as also a Christian Doctrine in 

 Persian, probably bv the same. Cf. Assemani. Bib!. OrUntalia. I. 590, 

 ^os. 48 and 49. 



s Cf. L. de Dieu, Historia S. Petri, pp. 120 121. 



* Cf. Sommervogel, Op. at., VIII, Col. 1340, No. 9. * Cf. ibid. 



