for 1000 years. Asiatic coast of the Arabian Sea, the Malabar Christians would follow the Asiatic forms of faith. When, therefore, in the 5th century, Nestorianism, driven forth from Europe and Africa, conquered the allegiance of Asia, the Church of Southern India would naturally accept the Nestorian doctrine. It should be remembered that during the thousand years when Christianity flourished in Asia, from the 5th to the 15th century, it was the Christianity of Nestorius. The Jacobite sect dwelt Side by in the midst of the Nestorians; and for nearly a thousand side with Buddhism years, the Christianity of these types, together with Buddhism, formed the two intelligent religions of Central Asia. How far Buddhism and Christianity mutually influenced each other's doctrine and ritual still remains a complex problem. But Christianity in western Central Asia appears to have offered a longer resistance than Buddhism to the advancing avalanche of Islám; and in the countries to the west of Tibet it survived its Buddhist rival. Under the reign of the Caliphs,' says Gibbon, the Nestorian Church was diffused from China to Jerusalem and Cyprus; and their numbers, with those of the Jacobites, were computed to surpass the Greek and Latin communions.'1 Its wide The marvellous history of the Christian Tartar potentate, Prester John, king, warrior, and priest, is a mediæval legend based on the ascendancy of Christianity in some of the Central Asian States. The travellers in Tartary and China, from the 12th to the 15th century, bear witness to the diffusion. extensive survival, and once flourishing condition, of the Nestorian Church, and justify Pierre Bergeron's description of it as 'épandue par toute l'Asie.' The term Catholicos, which the Nestorians applied to their Patriach, and the Jacobites to their Metropolitan, survives in the languages of Central India. The medieval travellers preserve it in various forms; and the British Embassy to Yarkand, in 1873, still 1 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, p. 598, vol. iv. (quarto ed. 1788). Gibbon quotes his authorities for this statement in a footnote. The whole subject of early Christianity in Central Asia and China has been discussed with exhaustive learning in Colonel Yule's Cathay, and the Way Thither. Hakluyt Society, 2 vols. 1866. 2 'Voyage de Rubruquis en Tartarie,' chap. xix., in the quarto volume of Voyages en Asie, published at the Hague in 1735. Guillaume de Rubru quis was an ambassador of Louis IX., sent to Tartary and China in 1253 A. D. Colonel Yule also gives the story of Prester John in Marco Polo, vol. i. pp. 229-233 (ed. 1875). 3 Traité des Tartares,' par Pierre Bergeron, chap. iii. in the Hague quarto of Voyages en Asie, above quoted (1735). 4 Játhalik, Jatolic, Jatelic; originally Gáthalik. ST. THOMAS OF MADRAS. 237 came upon a story of 'a poor and aged Játlik, or Christian priest.'1 Whether the Christians on the coast of Malabar were a direct 'Thomas Christians' offshoot of the Nestorian Church of Asia, or the result of an of Persia; earlier seedling dropped by St. Thomas or St. Bartholomew on their apostolic travels, it is certain that from their first appearance in local history, the Malabar Christians obeyed bishops from Persia of the Nestorian rite.2 By the 7th century, the Persian Church had adopted the name of Thomas Christians, and this title would in time be extended to all its branches, including that of Malabar. The early legend of the and of Manichæan Thomas in the 3rd century, and the later labours of the Armenian Thomas, the rebuilder of the Malabar Church, in the 8th, had endeared that name to the Christians of Southern India. In their isolation and ignorance, they confounded the three names, and concentrated their legends of the three Thomases in the person of the Apostle. Before the 14th century, they had completed the process by believing that St. Thomas was Christ. India. Thomas The fitness of things soon required that the life and death Legend of the Apostle should be localized by the Southern Indian of St. Church. Patristic literature clearly declares that St. Thomas localized; had suffered martyrdom at Calamina, probably in some country east of Persia, or in Northern India itself. The tradition of the Church is equally distinct, that in 394 A.D. the remains of the Apostle were transferred to Edessa in Mesopotamia. The attempt to localize the death of St. Thomas on the south- in spite of western coast of India started, therefore, under disadvantages. difficulties, A suitable site was, however, found at the Mount near Madras, one of the many hill shrines of ancient India which have formed a joint resort of religious persons of diverse faiths,— Buddhist, Muhammadan, and Hindu (ante, p. 203). at Madras. Marco Polo, the first European traveller who has left an 13th cenaccount of the place, gives the legend in its undeveloped form tury form 'Dr. Bellew's History of Kashgar,' in the Official Report of Sir Douglas Forsyth's Mission, p. 127. (Quarto, Foreign Office Press, Calcutta, 1875.) 2 Mr. Campbell's Bombay Gazetteer, Thána District, chap. iii. (Bombay, 1882.) 3 The Jacobites, or followers of Jacobus Baradaeus, prefer in the same way to deduce their name and pedigree from the Apostle James. Gibbon, iv. 603, footnote (ed. 1788). 4 For the authorities, see Dr. Kennet's Madras monograph, St. Thomas, the Apostle of India (1882); and Colonel Yule's critical note, Marco Polo, vol. ii. p. 342 (2nd edition, 1875). of the legend. Mixed worship at the shrine. The legend as developed in the 13th century. The Apostle had, it seems, been acci- Brighter days, however, now dawned for the Madras legend. Portuguese zeal, in its first fervours of Indian evangelization, felt keenly the want of a sustaining local hagiology. Saint Catherine had, indeed, visibly delivered Goa into their hands; and a parish church, afterwards the cathedral, was dedicated to her in 1512. Ten years later, the viceroy Duarte Menezes became ambitious of enriching his capital with the bones of an apostle. A mission from Goa despatched to the Coromandel coast in 1522, proved itself ignorant of, or superior to, the well-established legend of the translation of the Saint's remains to Edessa in 394 A.D., and found his sacred relics at the ancient hill shrine near Madras, side by side with those of a Relics at king whom he had converted to the faith. They were brought with pomp to Goa, the Portuguese capital of India, and there they lie in the Church of St. Thomas to this day." by the Portuguese. Goa. Final form of the legend. The finding of the Pehlvi cross, mentioned on a previous page, at St. Thomas' Mount in 1547, gave a fresh colouring to 1 Colonel Yule's Marco Polo (2nd edition, 1875), vol. ii. p. 340. ▲ Ibid. 5 Ibid. Colonel Yule's Cathay (2 vols. 1866) should also be referred to by students of the legend of St. Thomas, and his alleged labours in Asia and India. KING ALFRED'S EMBASSY. 239 the legend. So far as its inscription goes, it points to a Persian, and probably to a Manichæan origin. But at the period when it was dug up, no one in Madras could decipher its Pehlvi characters. A Bráhman impostor, knowing that there was a local demand for martyrs, accordingly came forward with a fictitious interpretation. The simple story of Thomas' accidental death from a stray arrow, had before this grown into a cruel martyrdom by stoning and a lance-thrust, with each spot in the tragedy fixed at the Greater and Lesser Mount near Madras. The Bráhman pretended to supply a confirmation of the legend from the inscription on the cross—a confirmation which continued to be accepted until Dr. Burnell and Professor Haug published their decipherments in our own day. In the 16th and 17th century,' says Colonel Yule, 'Roman Catholic ecclesiastical story-tellers seem to have striven in rivalry who should most recklessly expand the travels of the Apostle.' Alfred's Embassy, The lying interpretation of the Bráhman, and the visible King relics in the church at Goa, seem to have influenced the popular imagination more powerfully than the clear tradition of the early Church regarding the translation of the Apostle's relics to Edessa. Our own King Alfred has been pressed into the service of St. Thomas of Madras. 'This year,' 883 A.D., says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 'Sighelm and Athelstane carried to Rome the alms which the king had vowed to send thither, and also to India to St. Thomas and to St. Bartholomew.' 1 Gibbon suspects that the English ambassadors collected their cargo and legend in Egypt.' 2 There is certainly no evidence to show that they ever visited the Coromandel coast, but to and much to indicate that the 'India' of Alfred was the India of the early Church, and far north-west of the Madras exploits of the Apostle. The legend of St. Thomas' Mount has in our own century been illustrated by the eloquence and learning of bishops and divines of the Anglo-Indian Church. But,' concludes Colonel Yule, 'I see that the authorities now ruling the Catholics at Madras are strong in disparagement of the special sanctity of the localities, and of the whole story connecting St. Thomas with Mailapur,' the alleged scene of his martyrdom.3 1 Hough, i. p. 104 (1839); Dr. Kennet's Madras monograph, St. Thomas, the Apostle of India, pp. 6, 7 (1882). 2 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. iv. p. 599, footnote 123 (ed. 1788); Hough, vol. i. pp. 105–107. 3 Colonel Yule's Marco Polo, ii. p. 344 (ed. 1875). which shrine Troubles of the Indian The St. caste; As a matter of history, the life of the Nestorian Church in India has been a troubled one. A letter from the Patriarch Jesajabus to Simeon, Metropolitan of Persia, shows that before 660 A.D., the Christians along the Indian coast were destitute of a regular ministry. In the 8th century, the Armenian friar Thomas found the Malabar Christians driven back into the recesses of the mountains. In the 14th century, Friar Jordanus declared them to be Christians only in name, without baptism. They even confounded St. Thomas with Christ.2 A mixed worship, Christian, Muhammadan, and Hindu, went on at the old high place or joint hill shrine near Madras. In some centuries, the Church in Southern India developed, like the Sikhs in the Punjab, into a military sovereignty. In others, it dwindled away; its remnants lingering in the mountains and woods, or adopting heathen rites. The family names of a forest tribe3 in Kánara, now Hindus, bear witness to a time when they were Christians; and there were probably many similar reversions to paganism. The downfall of the Nestorian Church in India was due, however, neither to such reversions to paganism nor to any persecutions of native princes; but to the pressure of the Portuguese Inquisition, and the proselytizing energy of Rome. Before the arrival of Vasco da Gama in 1498, the St. Thomas Christians had established their position as a powerful military caste in Malabar. The Portuguese found them firmly organized a military under their spiritual leaders, bishops, archdeacons, and priests, who acted as their representatives in dealing with the Indian princes. For long they had Christian kings, and at a later period chiefs, of their own.4 In virtue of an ancient charter ascribed to Cherumal Perumal, Suzerain of Southern India in the ninth century A.D., the Malabar Christians enjoyed all the rights of nobility. They even claimed precedence of the Nairs, who formed the heathen aristocracy. The St. Thomas Christians 1 Assemani Bibliotheca, quoted by Bishop Caldwell, Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages, p. 27, footnote (ed. 1875). Jesajabus died 660 A.D. * Jordanus, quoted in Mr. J. M. Campbell's Bombay Gazetteer, vol. xiii. part i. p. 2co (ed. 1882). 3 The Maráthí Sidis. For an interesting account of them, see Mr. J. M. Campbell's Bombay Gazetteer, Kánara District, vol. xv. part i. p. 397 (ed. 1883). Histoire du Christianisme des Indes, par M. V. La Croze, vol. i. p. 72, ii. p. 133, etc. (2 vols. 12mo, The Hague, 1758). ' Idem, i. p. 67. For details, see The Syrian Church of Malabar, by Edavalikel Philipos, p. 23, and footnote (Oxford, 1869). Local legend vainly places Cherumal Perumal and his grant as far back as 345 A.D. |