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 ...