1534.] Account of the Christians on the Malabar Coast. 348 



of men or beasts — the doctrine of Necessity, and that every one 

 may be saved in the religion he professes. That the first of these 

 errors was not the doctrine of their church is evident from many 

 other passages in the acts of the Synod, from whence it appears 

 that they believed the souls of the departed just were in a terres- 

 trial paradise, where they were to remain till the day of judgment. 

 The second charge is grounded on a confusion of necessity with 

 predestination from which, the Archbishop at least O' ght to have 

 known, it is essentially distinct. 



By another decree of that day's session they are accused of 

 accounting it a grievous sin so much as to think or speak of our 

 Saviour's passion — a charge utterly irreconciliable with the fact 

 of their having crosses in all churches and in many houses, of 

 their constant administration of the Lord's Supper, and of their 

 preaching that it was Christ and not the Son of God that sufiered 

 on the cross. Frequent meditation was enjoined on this great 

 and fundamental doctrine, and to that end the devotion of the 

 rosary of the Blessed Virgin was especially recommended ! The 

 belief of the immaculate conception and sinless purity of the 

 Virgin is specially enjoined, and the unity of the Church under 

 the bishop of Rome as its supreme head on earth, fully declared. 

 The title of universal Bishop, which was heretofore given in their 

 liturgy to the patriarch of Babylon, was ordered to be transferred 

 to the Pope whose name was inserted in their public prayers. 

 The commemoration of Nestorius and his followers on particular days 

 was strictly prohibited and their place supplied with other names 

 from the Roman Calendar. The attendance of christian children 

 on heathen schoolmasters who obliged them to pay reverence to 

 the idols in their house, is strictly forbidden, and the practice of 

 certain christian schoolmasters setting up idols in their schools 

 in order to induce the heathen to send their children, condemned 

 under pain of excommunication. The 14th decree prohibits the 

 reading or possession of certain books, condemned as heretical and 

 mischievous ; and under this pretence a grievous and irreparable 

 injury was done not only to their church, but to theological learn- 

 ing generally, by the subsequent destruction of many curious and 

 valuable remains of antiquity. Their Liturgy also and oflices 

 were purged from every trace of Nestorian heresy, and at the same 

 time polluted with the doctrine of transubstantiation, which 

 till then was unknown to them. The destruction of the prohibi- 

 ted books and the correction of the others was entrusted to Fran- 



