1888.] 
H. Beveridge —Father Jerome Xavier . 
35 
bihist, 1602 A. D. In a note at the end, he mentions that the Persian 
version was made by him in conjunction with Maulana ’Abdu-s-Sanarin 
Qasim of Labor. A final note, which was probably added by some 
Muhammadan, says that the manuscript was accurately written out on the 
8th of the blessed month of Ramazan 1027 A. H. (1617). Xavier’s 
work consists of four parts. It is chiefly taken from the Bible, but 
many legends are introduced. For instance he tells the story of Agba- 
rus, the king of Edessa, relates the legend of St. Veronica, and quotes 
two letters, one of Pontius Pilate and another of Lentulns, giving an 
account of the personal appearance of Jesus Christ, etc. I do not think, 
however, that Xavier acted with bad faith. He tells his readers that he 
has used other sources than the Bible, and no doubt he believed all that 
he wrote. His work fell into the hands of Lewis De Dieu, a learned 
Belgian, who was professor in the Walloon College at Leyden. De Dieu 
was a somewhat violent Protestant, as one whose father had been driven 
out of Brussels by the prince of Parma might be expected to be. He 
himself was born at Flushing, and in dedicating his book to the magis¬ 
trates of that city, he says that he glories in having sprung from a town 
which was the first to shake off the Spanish yoke, which sent a relative 
of the Duke of Alva to the scaffold, and was the origin of the Belgian 
liberties. “ Quae prima tyrannidis Hispanicse jugum excutere ausa, Ducis 
Albani consanguineum.patibulo decoravit, et Belgicae libertatis, qua 
adhuc felices vivimus, fons exstitit atque origo.” A reference to Motley 
shows that Flushing was the first town to rebel after the conquest of 
Brill. I do not know who the relative of Alva was, unless he was one 
of the two Spanish officers who were hanged alongside of the unfor¬ 
tunate engineer, Pacheco, in 1572. De Dieu was a man of worth and 
learning, and the Jesuit Alegambe admits that his translation of 
Xavier’s Persian is a good one, though he says that he has added here¬ 
tical notes which deserve to be burnt. There is a notice of De Dieu 
in Bayle’s Dictionary. He is very bitter in his remarks on Xavier, and 
his object in making the translation and in publishing the work appears 
to have been to show how the Jesuits adulterated the pure milk of the 
Word. But still all must feel grateful to him for having been the means 
of preserving a knowledge of Xavier’s curious work. 
Xavier was the author of some other Persian works, of which the best 
known, perhaps, is the Ainah-i-Haq-Numa, or £ the truth reflecting mirror.’ 
This work was a controversial one, treating of the superiority of the 
Christian religion to the Muhammadan. An abridgement of this work fell 
into the hands of a learned Muhammadan of Persia, Sayyid Ahmad bin 
Zainu-1-Abadin, and he composed a refutation of it, entitled Misqal-i-Safa 
dar tahliy ah-i- A'lnah-i- H aq-H um a, or ‘the polisher for the cleansing of the 
