JACOBITE CHURCH, an ecclesiastical organization thinly spread over Syria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia, having for itsdistinctive doctrinal principle theMonophysite thesis with regard to the person of Christ; it consequently accepts the decrees of the second (“Robber”) synod cf Ephesus, and rejects those of the council of Chalcedon. It has some minor peculiarities in points of detail,—for example, as to the preparation of the communion elements, the mode of making the sign of the cross, and the method of electing patriarchs and bishops. Its head is called the patriarch of Antioch, who has his residence, however, for the most part at Diarbekir; second to him is the “maphrian” (i.e., “fertilizer ”), who has a kind of primacy over the eastern section of the church. No accurate statistics as to the numerical strength of the Jacobite Church exist; its numbers may probably be safely placed considerably under 250,000. For a considerable time a Roman Catholic patriarch of the Jacobites has resided at Aleppo, and lately the Jacobites of Damascus have accepted Catholicism. The Jacobite Church owes its origin, as its name, to Jacobus, surnamed Baradaeus and sometimes Zanzalus, a native of Telia, who became a monk at Constantinople, and afterwards receiving episcopal consecration (541 or 543 a.d.) devoted thenceforward the rest of his life (nearly forty years) to extensive labours throughout Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and the Mediterranean, islands, on behalf of the Monophysite cause. Such were his energy and zeal that he is said to have consecrated in the course of his travels no fewer than two patriarchs, twenty-seven bishops, and fully 100,000 priests and deacons. The epithet “Jacobite” is sometimes applied with less strict propriety to the Coptic, Abyssinian, and ...

a denomination of eastern Christians, who first made their appearance in the fifth century, and were called Monophysites. Jacob Albardai, or Baradæus, who flourished about A. D. 530, restored the sect, then almost expiring, to its former vigour, and modelled it anew; and hence from him they obtained the name of Jacobites. See HYPOSTATICAL UNION. JACOB’s WELL, or fountain, a well near Shechem, at which our Saviour conversed with the woman of Samaria, John iv, 12. Jacob dwelt near this place, before his sons slew the inhabitants of Shechem. If any thing, says Dr. E. D. Clarke, connected with the remembrance of past ages be calculated to awaken local enthusiasm, the land around this city is preëminently entitled to consideration. The sacred story of events transacted in the fields of Sichem, Gen. xxxvii, from our earliest years, is remembered with delight; but with the territory before our eyes, where those events took place, and in the view of objects existing as they were described above three thousand years ago, the grateful impression kindles into ecstacy. Along the valley may still be seen, as in the days of Reuben and Judah, “a company of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh,” who would gladly purchase another Joseph of his brethren, and convey him as a slave to some Potiphar in Egypt. Upon the hills around, flocks and herds are seen feeding as of old; nor in the simple garb of the shepherds of Samaria, at this day, is there any thing repugnant to the notions we may entertain of the appearance formerly presented by the sons of Jacob. In the time of Alexander the Great, Sichem, or Napolose, as it is now called, was considered as the capital of Samaria. Its inhabitants were called Samaritans, not merely as ...