1 870. J Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 139 



Church. The work is entitled Mir -at ul Quds or ' Mirror of Sanc- 

 tity,' and is a Life of Christ, written in A.D. 1602, at the request of the 

 Emperor Akbar, by Jerome Xavier, nephew to the renowned 

 Francis Xavier. Hough in his History of Christianity in 

 India, (Vol. II, p. 282) says ofJeromeXavie r— ' Having studied 

 Persian for the purpose of commending Christianity to the Emperor 

 himself, he composed two works in that language ; the first entitled, 

 The History of our Lord Jesus Christ. The second, The Life of the 

 Apostle St. Peter. These works were interwoven with Persian 

 legends,* which he imagined would render them more acceptable 

 to his imperial disciple.' In a foot note, he adds — 



1 These two works, in manuscript, fell into the hands of Louis de 

 D i e u, a celebrated professor of oriental languages in the University 

 of Leyden, who published them with a Latin version, and some 

 notes, " which, says the Jesuit Alegambe, were worthy of the 

 fire." * * The purport ofLouisdeDieu's notes was, to defend 

 the Sacred Scriptures against the imputation of sanctioning such 

 gross falsehoods asJeromeXavier had mixed up with them. 

 * * * Besides his works on the Gospel, J. Xavier composed a 

 similar version of the Koran in Portuguese. * * La Croze, pp. 

 332, 333.' 



The MS. before the meeting, is the first of the abovementioned 

 works. Although X a v i e r ' s works have been translated, for 

 polemic reasons, into Latin by Louis de Dieu, who was professor 

 of Oriental Languages at Leyden in 1639, or twenty- two years after 

 J. Xavier's death, I thought that the insertion in our Journal of 

 a short notice of this curious MS., from a literary point of view, 

 might not be out of place. On previous occasions I drew the attention 

 of the members to the religious views of the Emperor Akbar, by laying 

 before them passages bearing on this subject, which I had collect- 

 ed from Muhammadan Historians. A short notice of LeDieu's 

 translation itself might form a fitting sequel to my former remarks ; 

 but the discovery, in India, of a MS. of J. Xavier's text, is a 



* This is not the case. Neither the Mir-at-ul-Quds, nor the history of St. 

 Peter, contains Persian legends. That Jerome Xavier should have mixed up 

 Persian legends, in order to please Akbar, is most improbable, unless H ough 

 means Pars/ legends. There is sufficient evidence in the Mir-dt-ul-Quds to shew 

 that J. Xavier was thoroughly acquainted with Akbar' s religious views. 



