PREFACE

...is the power of letters and of the literate in either direction, whether they promote error or truth. The time will come when the Syrian, returning from the City Referring to Rome/The Vatican., will joyfully revisit the books of his own Doctor, magnificently and most elaborately reprinted with Vatican types. Having discovered the doctrine of his ancestors from the reading of these same works, he will understand that it was not the Romans who strayed from the most holy Fathers of the Syrians, but the Syrians themselves who fell away from their ancestral institutions and customs. He will see that even now, the Roman Church faithfully and most constantly guards the deposit of faith entrusted to her by the Apostles; and accordingly, through the discipline of those same Fathers, she keeps watch for the salvation of all mortals, receiving all nations—even the most remote—into her wide-open embrace as they come to her.

Furthermore, she invites and exhorts those who disagree to come to her communion, so that they may submit themselves to the Chair of Blessed Peter, without which the unity of the Catholic Church cannot stand; she does this not so much to pursue her own rights as to provide for the happiness of her own children. While others may be ignorant of this, the Greeks and Syrians certainly ought not to be, for whom the long-lasting servitude of so many centuries has most clearly demonstrated that a division of the ecclesiastical body harms the members cut off from it even more than the head, bringing sorrow to the latter but even destruction to the former. Moreover, although there are many things, Most Illustrious Cardinal, nobly performed and written by you which will transmit your name to late-born grandsons and to the final age—indeed, to speak my mind frankly—fame itself will not repay the favor equal to your merits,

nor the greatest ones. The academies of Florence will testify to the sublime genius they observed in you as a youth, and a mind aspiring to the highest things, such as an encomiast An orator who writes a speech of praise (an encomium). records that the Alexandrians admired in the boy Origen, "stretching beyond his age" Original Greek: ὑπὲρ τὴν ἡλικίαν προτεινομένην. This refers to the early brilliance of the early Christian scholar Origen.. The people of Corfu Latin: Corcyræi. Cardinal Quirini had served as the Archbishop of Corfu. will proclaim your zeal for religion and your expertise in Greek letters and rites in their supreme High Priest. The people of Brescia Latin: Brixiani. Referring to the Cardinal's service in Brescia, Italy. will say even greater things: the labors undertaken for the pastoral office—which you still exercise now—in performing sacred visitations; your lavish liberality toward the needy; the retreats established for men and women; and the expenses and care contributed to the building of the city’s primary cathedral. This was done with such effort and striving of spirit that you seemed to have undertaken to finish, by yourself, the construction of a massive and almost despaired-of structure. This most ample harvest of praises—to stop here, for I am not acting as a formal orator of praise now—the records of the Cardinals of the Roman Church will collect by custom for your posthumous fame, as I well know, and will propose it, beautifully arranged, for the imitation of posterity.

But however weighty these testimonies of most highly praised men may be, what of it? Shall these same praises cross the seas, or, though they move forward much, shall they transcend the borders of Europe? Will the people of Malabar The Malabar Coast of southwestern India. hear them, or the Mughals Latin: Mogoles. Referring to the Mughal Empire in India. inhabiting the fields subject to the Indus and the Ganges? Or the Chaldeans bordering the Persians, or the Arameans neighboring the mountains of the Kurds Latin: Carduchorum. Referring to the Carduchi or Kurds., where the breeze of the South Wind barely reaches in its exhaustion? It is the one Master of the whole world, Blessed [Peter]... The text cuts off here, likely continuing "Blessed Peter" on the next page. who shall return this favor of most celebrated and widespread fame to you.