Complaints of these scandalous profanations were sent to Rome, even in the lifetime of Nobili. Paul V. delegated the Archbishop of Goa to inquire into the nature of these practices, which the prelate utterly condemned. The Jesuits stirred themselves up in their own defence, and represented to Gregory XIII., Paul’s successor, that those rites were merely civic ceremonies, and not at all religious ones. Gregory, either little scrupulous or persuaded by their misrepresentations, by a brief, dated 1623, approved conditionally of some of those practices, such as absolution, painting with sandal-wood, and some others, which, as we said, were represented by the Jesuits to be merely civic ceremonies. This success confirmed the Jesuits in pursuing the same line of policy; and as they were also at that time at war with other monks to acquire, each for his order, paramount influence over the Indians, they thought that nothing could be more efficient to accomplish their ends than to flatter the prejudices of their neophytes, to be liberal in their concessions, and, in fact, to tolerate almost all the pagan usages. They acted in India, in all respects, as they did in Europe, where, to be the confessors of kings and of the powerful, they invented the doctrines of probableism, of mental reservation, and others of a character as immoral, which we shall examine by and by. For eighty years, therefore, they went from one abomination to another, till the scandal became so great and so universal, that the Roman See was again moved to interfere. Accordingly, Clement XI. delegated Charles Maillard de Tournon, Patriarch of Antioch, with unlimited authority to investigate into and settle the matter. The patriarch is described by Clement XI. as “a man whose well-known integrity, prudence, charity, learning, piety, and zeal for the Catholic religion made him worthy of the highest trust;” and, according to Crétineau, “a man who possessed the highest virtues and best intentions, which, however, should have been directed by a less intemperate zeal.”[103] He landed at Pondicherry on November 6, 1703, and immediately commenced a thorough and minute investigation of the whole affair. After eight months, he, on June 23, 1704, published the famous decree condemning and prohibiting all these idolatrous practices; although the noble prelate, a good Roman Catholic as he was, is not altogether free from superstition, as may be seen in the decree itself. Here are some extracts from it:— “Charles Thomas Maillard de Tournon, by the grace of God ... Legate _a latere_, &c.... having maturely examined all things, ... having heard the above mentioned fathers (the Jesuits), having by public prayers implored divine aid; we, ... in our capacity of Legate _a latere_, have enacted the present decree:—