Small 8vo. [22], 135, [22 index], [1 bl.], Latin text with some Syriac & Arabic, contemporary vellum, soiled, bookplate of A. de St Ferriol verso front cover, Zacharie Dominique Acsamitek a Kronenfeld, Rome, first edition, 1679. Bound with: Requisiti, e Stato di Monsignor Gabriele Eva Arcivescovo di Cipro...: 15 pp., [1], Latin text, Pietro Ferri a Monte Citorio, Rome, 1737.

Synopsis

Extremely rare. Merheg Ibn Miha’il Ibn Mahluf al-Badi known as Antonious Naironus was a leading Lebanese Maronite scholar in the seventeenth century. His family was originally from the village of Bane (Bann) in the area of Batroun in north Lebanon, but he was born in Rome in 1628 where his parents had moved. He entered the Maronite College in Rome in 1636 where his Lebanese name, Merheg, was translated into Latin one, Faustus. He completed his studies in 1649. Faustus returned to Lebanon and was ordained priest by Patriarch Yuhanna Safrawy in 1650. He was sent to Rome the same year by the Patriarch to oversee the printing of the Phenqitho, the Maronite “proper of the Saints” in Syriac.
Faustus wanted to publish the work in Rome in order to prove that the Maronites had always been good Catholics and followed Rome, despite them being charged with Heresy by the Popes, from the time of Innocent III, in the papal bulls. The book was printed in 1666 in Rome by the congregation of Propaganda Fide, the Latin translation having been examined by a Roman committee before the book’s publication. Faustus stayed in Rome where he was appointed professor of Oriental languages at the Sapienza. In addition to mainly religious works, he wrote a treatise in Latin on coffee. He died in 1711.
The Maronites, an Eastern Rite Catholic Church, profess the same Apostolic Faith, celebrate the same Mysteries (Sacraments) and are united with the chief Shepherd of the Church, the Pope, as all Roman Catholics throughout the world. They have their own distinct theology, spirituality, liturgy and code of canon law.
Unique among the Eastern Churches, the Maronite Church is entirely Catholic with no corresponding Orthodox Church; it has never broken union with Rome. The Maronite Rite is of West Syrian origin but has been influenced by the East Syrian and Latin traditions. The Eucharist is a variation of the Syriac liturgy of St. James. Notably, this Church maintains the Eucharistic narrative in Aramaic, the actual language of Christ.
The Maronites trace their origin to a group of disciples of the hermit St. Maron (born in the middle of the 4th century) and their founding of a great monastery midway between Aleppo and Antioch. They were fervent supporters of the Chalcedonian definition of “two natures of Christ,” and in 532, a Synod in Constantinople made the monastery of Bet Maroun the head of the entire monastic community in northern Syria.
The Lateran Council of 1516 was the beginning of a new era, which has proved to be the most brilliant in Maronite history. The letters of the Patriarch Simon Peter and of his bishops may be found in the eleventh session of that council (19 December, 1516). From that time on, the Maronites were in permanent and uninterrupted contact with Rome. Moses of Akbar (1526-67) received a letter from Pius IV. The Patriarch Michael sought the intervention of Gregory XIII and received the pallium from him. That great pontiff was the most distinguished benefactor of the Maronite Church: he established in Rome a hospital for them, and also the Maronite College to which the bishops could send six of their subjects. Many famous savants attended this college: George Amira, the grammarian, who died Patriarch in 1633; Isaac of Schadrê; Gabriel Siouni, professor at the Sapienza in Rome, afterwards interpreter to King Louis XIII and collaborator in the Polyglot Bible (d. 1648); Abraham of Hakel (Ecchelensis), a very prolific writer, professor in Rome and afterwards in Paris, and collaborator in the Polyglot Bible and, above all, the Assemani — Joseph Simeon, editor of the “Bibliotheca Orientalis”, Stephanus Evodius, and Joseph Aloysius. Another Maronite college was founded in Ravenna by the Pope Innocent X but was amalgamated with that in Rome in 1665. After the French Revolution, the Maronite College was attached to the Congregation of Propaganda.
Gabriel Eva, a Lebanese monk of the order of St. Anthony, and abbot of St. Maroun in Mount Lebanon, was a Maronite archbishop of Cyprus in 1726. After a journey to Egypt he had been sent on a mission to Rome by the Maronite Patriarch Stephan Douwaihy; and the account he gave of the Nitrian Convents was received with much interest by Clement XI. The Pope was anxious to transfer from the desert to the Vatican a collection of manuscripts rendered precious and venerable by extreme antiquity and probably containing an unexplored mine of theological learning.
Bibliographic reference: Brunet IV, 4.