5 The reader will find in the Appendix A Critical Analysis of the Acts of Thomas. We would suggest that whenever the Acts are referred to in the text he should turn to the Appendix for further information, and consult the list of contents for same, given to facilitate such reference.

6 Cunningham here styles Abdagases the nephew of King Gondophares. One of the bi-lingual coins proclaims this relationship in both legends-Greek and Indian. By good luck, coin No. 5 on the plate, which is a coin of Abdagases, gives this reading in Greek incorrectly, but yet sufficiently clear to indicate the reading basileu [-]Y[ud]ifero adelfidewz. The name of Abdagases is given in an incorrect abbreviated form, Aoa [for Aba], representing (if we rightly surmise) the Indian form the name bears on the reverse legend Avadagasa (see also Silvain Lévi’s Notes, ut infra, p.35). The Indian legend leaves no room for doubt.

7 This should be regarded as a purely personal opinion of the writer. The question of the capital of Gondophares’ kingdom has yet to be decided. The royal cities that then existed in Northern Afghanistan and North-Western India, and have since been identified, are: (1) Kabul, alias Ortospana (Cunningham, Ancient Geography of India, London, 1871, pp. 32-36), to the Chinese Kao-fu (a mistake for Tou-mi] (Vincent A. Smith, the Kushan, or Indo- Scythian Period, ut infra, p.21). (2) Chinese Ki-pin identified with Kapisa, Northern Afghanistan, where the king of the kingdom of Kapisa-Gandhara passed the summer, while the winter was spent in the latter province Gandhara), possibly at (3) Pushkalavati or Peukelaotis, the former, the Sanscrit, the latter the Greek form of the name; also Prokalis (in Periplus Maris Erythraei, and Ptolemy’s Geography), now known as Hastinagar (Cunningham, ut supr., pp.49-51; also Beal’s HiuenTsiang, i.p. 109; cf. Vincent A. Smith, ut supr., pp. 24-29). (4) Taxila or Takshasila, captured by Alexander the Great. If Gondophares’ capital be removed to the south, there would be Kandahar.

The shorter Latin version of the Acts offers the following variants of the names of Gondophares’ capital: Elioforum, Hienoforum, Hyroforum, Yroforum, Inforum; nothing, of course, can be made out of this medley.

8 We omit what follows, as we are unable to agree with what the learned archaeologist says-‘That the Indo-Parthian Abdagases was the same as the Parthian chief whose revolt is recorded by Tacitus and Josephus.’ On careful examination of the texts referred to, it appears there is no ground to assume identity of person in the two cases. Tacitus, Annales, xv. 2, quoted, refers to A.D. 62-65 and not A.D. 44, and has no mention of Abdagases. But bk. vi., A.D. 32-37, mentions Abdagases only incidentally. In A.D. 35 (chap. xxxi.), Sinnaces, son of Abdagases, is mentioned; he caused some Parthian nobles to be sent secretly to Rome, to have Artabanus, their king, deposed; and the same Sinnaces drew Abdagases into open revolt (chap. xxxvi.). Under a new king, Tiridates, Abdagases became practically the ruler of the country; Tiridates was soon turned out (chap. xliii.),and Abdagases fled with him, when Artabanus, the lawful king, was restored. All this would seem to have occurred in A.D. 36. Beyond a similarity of name, it is doubtful if there was any connection between this Abdagases and the nephew of King Gondophares.

The second quotation from Josephus’ Antiquities, xxiii. 2, is equally faulty. Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews has but twenty books; the only mention of Abdagases occurs in bk. xviii. chap. ix. sec. 4,p.71, where Artabanus, the King of Parthia, is mentioned in connection with ‘Abdagases, one of the generals of his army,’ who asked to be allowed to kill Asineus and his brother Anileus, Jews, who had succeeded in establishing a sort of independent position around Babylon; but this the king would not allow, as they were his guests, and he had pledged his word to them for their safety (see The Works of Flavius Josephus, translated from the Greek by William Whiston, in 2 vols., London, 1838, vol. ii.). Here there would also seem to be only a coincidence of names, and no connection between the two Abdagases.

9 M. Sylvain Lévi (ut supr., p.36), draws attention to another variant of the name Gondophares offered in the Indian legend of a Berlin coin, with the termination Gudu/Pharna; the reading is also found in the Indian legends (Plate) in our coins Nos. 2,3,6, and 7.

10 Not conscious of this earlier discovery by the French savant of the connection between the newly-discovered coins of the king and the record of the Acts, Cunningham thought himself justified in supposing that he ‘was the first to draw attention in 1854’ (his coins of the Indo-Scythians, p.16) to that connection.

11 The history of the origin of the singing of St. Ephraem’s hymns is as follows. The saint had noticed that the people were in the habit of singing the hymns composed by Harmonius, the son of Bardaisan, and he feared that, attracted by the melody, they would gradually imbibe the errors of father and son. He therefore set himself to master the art of poetical composition in his mother tongue, and in the rhythm of Harmonius. Eventually he became so great an adept in the art, that the bulk of his numerous writings are actually in metre. In the composition of the Madrashas, or hymns, St. Ephraem adapted his to suit the tunes already in popular use—juxta numeros harmonii alios composuit libros(odas); cujusmodi sunt ea quae in Hymnis et Encomiis Sanctorum virorum ab illo sunt elaborata—Ex eo tempore Syri juxta numeros canticorum Harmonii scripta Ephraem psallere solent (Sozomen, Hist. Eccl., lib. iii. cap.xvi.).

Theodoret, after saying that Ephraem successfully refuted the writings of heretics, adds (Hist. Eccl., lib.iv.cap.xxix.): ‘Et quoniam Harmonius Bardesanis filius cantica quaedam olim composuerat, et modorum suavitate impietatem admiscens, auditorum animos demulcebat et ad exitum pertrahebat; ipse modorum compositione ab illo mutuatus pietatem canticis permiscuit et suavissimum simul ac utilissimum medicamentum audientibus exhibuit. Atque haec cantica festos martyrum dies laetiores ac splendidiores etiamnum efficiunt. St.Jerome subjoins (De viris illustr., cap. 115): ‘Ad tantam venit claritudinem ut post lectionem Scripturarum, publice in quibusdam ecclesiis ejus [Ephraemi] scripta recitentur.’ See also Assemani, Bibl.Or.,i. pp.47-48. For further proof that St. Ephraem taught the singing of hymns in the churches, see Lamy, S.Ephr., Hymni et Sermon.,iv.,praef.,p.xx. See also Rubens Duval’s La Littérature Syriaque, paris, 1900,pp.18-21 of 2nd ed.

12 That the removal of the Relics of Thomas from India to Edessa was effected by a merchant is asserted not only in this hymn but also repeatedly in the quotations that follow. St. Ephraem does not give us the name of the merchant, but it is found in the Chaldean Martyrology, preserved by the Nestorians. The Rev. A.J. Maclean in the last chapter of his book, The Catholicos of the East and his People (London, 1892), treating of the ‘Kalendar, Fasts and Festivals, Sundays’ of the ‘Eastern Syrian Christians (Known also as Nestorians),’ gives at pp.346-352 the contents of the ‘East Syrian Kalendar.’ We reproduce from the feasts of saints (p.350)the first section of the Kalendar to enable the reader the better to judge of the antiquity and authority of the same:—

January 24. — St. George’s companions, martyrs (obsolete).

March. — First Wednesday. St. George, martyr.

April 15. — Mar Shimun Barseba’i, Catholicos (obsolete).

April 24. — St. George, martyr. A great festival.

April 27. — St. Christopher, martyr, and St. George (obsolete).

May. — First Tuesday. Sons of Shmuni (2 Macc. vii). Universally observed.

May 15. — St. Mary.

July 3. — St. Thomas, who ‘was pierced with a lance in India. His body is at Urhai (Edessa), having been brought there by the merchant Khabin.’ A great festival.

July 15. — St. Cyriac (‘Mar Quriaqus, whom Halinus killed in Persia, and Diuliti, his mother.’) Ruinart in his ‘Acta Martyrum Sincera’ (p. 477) says that Cirycus and Julitta died at Tarsus about 305 a.d. The Greeks keep their festival on this day, but the Latins on June 16.

July 29. — St. Peter and St. Paul (obsolete).

The reader will understand that the remarks between brackets are those of the editor, and the dates in italics represent the Syriac dates of the MS., while those bearing the sign of quotation, as at July 3 and 15, are verbatim quotations of the MS. in the extract given above three festivals bear the note ‘a great festival’— (1) that of Thomas the Apostle, (2) that of St. George, and (3) that of St. Cyriac. SS. George and Cyriac are both greatly venerated among Syrians, and their names are very commonly borne by the Christians. The extract, we venture to think, will of itself disclose the fact, that these festivals are those of primitive martyrs venerated in the East, for only such were entered in the earliest Church Calendars. The MS used by Mr. Maclean is dated a.d. 1443, 14th May, but it is obviously a copy of an ancient Kalendar.

Mention is also made of the removal of the Apostle’s Relics from India to Edessa by Solomo (Solomon), bishop of Bassorah c. 1222 (The Book of the Bee, edited with English translation by E.A. Wallis Budge, Clarendon Press, 1886, being part ii. vol. i. of Semitic Series of ‘Anecdota Oxoniensia’). He writes (chap. 48, p. 105): ‘Thomas ....because he baptised the daughter of the King of the Indians, he (the king) stabbed him with a spear and he died. Hâbban, the merchant, brought his body and laid it in Edessa.’ This is the name of Gondophares’ messenger, who is said in the Acts of Thomas to have taken him to India, and likely enough wrongly introduced in place of Khabin. In such matters the reading given by a Martyrology must carry greater weight; besides, the similarity in sound may have induced a transcriber to make the substitution.

13 Regarding the removal of the bones of Joseph (see Gen. 1. 24,25; Exod. xiii. 19; Josh. xxiv. 32, referred to in Acts vii. 16), the authority of Moses is brought forward in support of the practice of the Church in venerating the remains of God’s martyrs and saints, and the words of St. Ephraem disclose the early practice and belief of the Syrian Church.

14 This is a reference to the institution of the annual festival at the church of Edessa in honour of the Apostle: from Edessa the celebration of this festival spread over the whole Christian world. The feast kept by the Syrian churches is not the festival of the martyrdom, but that of the translation of his Relics to Edessa, and this feast is kept on the 3rd of July, the same day as in former times, as is shown by the Nestorian Calendar quoted above, and by others that will follow. It cannot be supposed that this festival is the commemoration of the translation of the Relics under Bishop Cyrus, when they were, as will be shown later, removed from the old church, in which they had previously reposed, to the great new church erected in honour of St. Thomas. The Chronicon Edessenum assigns the translation to a.d. 394, and gives the day of the month as the 22nd of August. So the feast of the ‘Translation,’ kept on the 3rd of July by the Syrian churches, must refer to the first arrival, or the ‘Deposition’ of the Apostle’s Bones in that city.

15 This possibly refers to the concluding statement in the Acts of Thomas. King Mazdai (Misdeus) is there stated to have opened the grave of the Apostle, and not finding his bones, took some of the dust and applied it to his son, and thus delivered him from the devil’s possession. After this the king may perhaps have become a Christian, and have joined the brethren under Sifur. If so, he would probably be the founder of the first church built over the original tomb of the Apostle at the town now known as Mylapore. It is to some such tradition that Ephraem appears to refer.

16 From this it would appear that in Ephraem’s time merchants who had visited the Indian shrine brought back reports of miracles wrought there, and of favours obtained: this is also implied in the Nisibine hymn quoted above. Thus also Marco Polo and others bear witness to similar occurrences at a later period, as will be seen in a subsequent chapter. Ephraem moreover expressly affirms that the inhabitants of Edessa were aware of miracles and favours granted in their city, and that the fame of St. Thomas had spread far and wide.

17 Ephraem refers to a vision related in the Acts of Thomas. It was the vision of a beautiful building in heaven which the Apostle had erected by his preachings and good works in India. See Wright’s translation of the Syriac Acts, p. 162; and pp. 141- 142 of Max bonnet’s Acta. In the Acts the building to be erected is called a palace, while Ephraem speaks of a dwelling; the reader will keep in mind that while Thomas saw a palace in heaven in a dream, he was asked by the king to build him a mansion for his dwelling.

It is hardly probable that stone houses existed in Southern India in those days. There seem, however, to have been stone temples, and possibly there may have been some of these even in Malabar. Buildings of burnt brick are of comparatively recent date. Prior to the arrival of the Portuguese on the Malabar coast the houses of a superior class were built of teak-wood, and used to last upwards of 400 years when kept well tarred on the outside, in spite of the very heavy annual rainfall (120 inches) in that part of India. In support of our statement we may quote two authorities — Jarric (Indicarum Rerum, tom. iii. lib. ii. cap. v. pp. 50-51) gives part of a letter by James Fenicio, a Jesuit missionary in the Zamorin’s territory. This letter is our earliest authority; as quoted above it has no date, but evidently belongs to the period between 1600 and 1607. The missionary had obtained permission to erect four Churches in the Zamorin’s territory: ‘I devoted all the remaining available time to the erection of these churches, and to the Christian inhabitants of this village [Palur]. I used to give them instructions as I chanced to meet them. As the church of Palur dedicated to Saint Cyriac [Syr. Quriaqus], which was the oldest (primus) among all the churches in Malabar, and renowned for favours and graces obtained, and for this reason much frequented, I devoted myself more especially to it. The stone church which I began two years ago [enclosing, apparently, within it the primitive building] had risen to the height of the windows. At this stage no one would dare to pull down the old wooden building, fearing to be struck down by sudden death : it stood surrounded by the walls of the new erection, but after I had prayed and removed their timidity, the old structure was pulled down, and the new building stood out in such fine proportions that the Hindus, the Mahomedans, and the Jews flocked to see it.’ This is one of the Seven churches traditionally assigned to the time when Saint Thomas preached in Malabar. The wooden structure must undoubtedly have been very old, and constructed no doubt of teak, which formerly grew all over the country, even in comparatively recent times: at that early age the supply must have been very plentiful. Our second authority is the Carmelite missionary Paulinus a Sancto Bartholomaeo (often wrongly quoted as Poli) in his Viaggio alle Indie Orientali (Roma, 1796, pt. i. chap. viii. p. 112 f.): ‘The greater part of the houses in Malabar [this was written at the close of the xviiith century] are built of teak-wood, which in weight and durability excels oak. This wood is imperishable. I have seen many houses built 400 years back, which showed no signs of decay.’

18 In these words Ephraem brings us practically face to face with realities. There is no longer anything vague or general as in the preceding reference to the ‘building’ the Apostle was erecting : but now we come to the realities of his martyrdom, his preachings, his conversion of the Indians, his miracles after death. No wonder, then, that St. Ephraem exclaims : ‘Who dares doubt the truth of his Relics ?’

19 The following are some of the recent editions of these documents :— Syriac — The Didascalia Apostolorum, edited from a Mesopotamian MS, with Readings and Collations of other MSS, by Margaret Dunlop Gibson, Cambridge University Press, London, 1903; the translation in English by the same lady (ibid.), 1903; the Syriac text of the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, Journal of Theol. Studies, vol. iii. pp. 59-80, with notes — the text is taken from the Mesopotamian MS of the Syriac Bible recovered from Malabar by Rev. Claud Buchanan, and left to the Cambridge University. Ethiopic — Didascalia AEthiopum desumptum ex Londinensi, Thomae Pell Platt, 1834, new edition, London, 1879. Boharic text, edited by Tattam ; Sahidic, by Lagarde; Latin (fragment), by Hauler; Arabic — by Rev. G. Horner, The Statutes of the Apostles, or Canones Ecclesiastici, translation and collation from Ethiopic and Arabic MSS ; also a translation of the Sahidic, &c., London, 1904.

20 A later British Museum Add. MS 14531, ‘written in a good clear Estrangelo of the viith or viiith century,’ says Cureton, also contains the text.

21 Gregory was born a.d. 330, and ordained priest in 361; he was consecrated bishop by his friend St. Basil; he did not take up the work of a bishop, but retired into solitude. In 372, however, his father, the bishop of Nazianzus, induced him to share his charge; his father died soon afterwards, and the death of his mother followed in 375. Gregory then quitted Nazianzus, and in 379 the people of Constantinople called him to be their bishop. In 381 he resigned his see and returned to Nazianzus. There he again exercised the episcopal office till 383, when Eulalius was named bishop. Gregory died between 389-390. By the Greeks he is emphatically termed the ‘Theologian’ (Bardenhewer, Les Pères de l’Eglise, French transl., in 3 vols., Paris, 1898, ii. pp. 90-105).

22 Ambrose, the son of a Pretorian Prefect of Gaul, was born c 340, and was chosen bishop of Milan, while acting in his official capacity as Governor of Aemilia and Liguria in maintaining order between the Catholics and Arians then assembled in the church for the election of a bishop. He was then only a catechumen, but was forced to accept the office; he received baptism on the 30th of November 374, and was consecrated bishop on the 7th of December following. He sold his patrimony, and on assuming episcopal charge distributed the proceeds among the poor. There were two important incidents in his life. The first was the conversion and baptism of Augustine in 387, who was destined to become the great light of the Western Church, and whose conversion was largely due to the prayers of his mother, St. Monica. The other incident occurred in 390, when St. Ambrose forbade the great Theodosius to enter the church, and made him humbly do public penance for the massacre of the people of Thessalonica, which had been ordered by him in revenge for the murder of some imperial officers by the populace, during a tumult. St. Ambrose died on the 4th April 397 (Bardenhewer, ut supr., ii. pp. 317 ff.).

23 Jerome was born at Stridon, a small village on the frontier between Dalmatia and Pannonia, either in 331, or, more probably, in 340; he went to Rome at the age of twenty to commence his literary studies; he received late baptism at the hands of Pope Liberius. From Rome he went to Treves, then renowned for its school of theology; later he was at Aquileia, whence he went to the East, and arrived at Antioch in 373. On the death of an intimate friend he retired into solitude. During this period he studied the Hebrew language. He was ordained priest at Antioch c. 378. Called to Constantinople by St. Gregory of Nazianzus, he went there before the close of 379. ‘Ecclesiastica necessitas,’ as he terms it, made him give up his exegetical studies, and he went to Rome, where he attended the council held on account of the schism of Antioch, and acted as the Pope’s secretary. It was during this stay at Rome that he commenced the revision of the old Latin text of the Scriptures, and this formed the turning-point of his life. On the death of Pope Damasus he decided to quit Rome, which he left in August 385 for Antioch ; thence in company with the noble Roman ladies, Paula and Eustochium, he went to Palestine, and settled down the next year at Bethlehem, where he wrote most of his works and letters, till his death in 420 (Bardenhewer, ut supr., ii. pp. 364-394).

24 A friend once wrote to us : ‘All I know at present is that St. Paulinus had relics of St. Thomas at Nola, and St. Gaudentius at Brescia, but I could not find anything to show how they obtained these relics, which they placed in their respective churches.’ No doubt many another among the readers of these pages would feel inclined to ask the same question. An excellent little essay was written for academical honours by Mathias H. Hohlenberg of Copenhagen, entitled, De originibus et fatis Ecclesiae Christianae in India Orientali, disquisitio historica ad finem saeculi decimi quinti perducta, Havniae, 1822. The title is rather high-sounding, but his effort to establish that the first evangelisation of India was by the Apostle Thomas, is not only commendable, but on the whole is the best thing yet published on the subject, and we have found it often suggestive. The writer (p. 82), referring to Bolland. Acta SS., die 18 Febr. et 22 Jan., adds that, besides at Nola and Brescia, the relics of Thomas were also deposed in the ‘basilica Apostolorum’ at Milan. There are thus three places, all in upper Italy, where relics of this Apostle appear at about the same time. The mention of the relics of Thomas at Milan will be found also in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum [details of this important Martyrology will be given presently] (p. 1xxiv. and p. 57, first col., bottom): vii. id. Mai, Mediolano, de ingressu reliquiarum Apostolorum Johannis Andreae et Thomae in basilica ad portam Romanam. If we bear in mind that in the year 394, as mentioned above, the relics of the Apostle Thomas were, at Edessa, removed from the old church to the new magnificent basilica erected in his honour, it will be noticed that an opportunity would then offer itself to extract from the urn or sarcophagus that held them some portion of the relics, and morsels or fragments from these could be obtained by pious pilgrims and conveyed to Italy, where precisely they are found in the cities of Nola, Brescia, and Milan, in the possession of their bishops, Paulinus, Gaudentius, and Ambrose, after 395.

25 Paulinus was born at Bordeaux in 353; his devotion to St. Felix of Nola led him to that city, to which he was accompanied by his wife, who was now a sister to him ; he was made bishop of Nola in 409, and died in 431 (Bardenhewer, ut supr., ii. pp. 344 ff.).

26 John, the son of a general of the Eastern empire, born at Antioch in 344 (or perhaps as late as 347), was surnamed ‘Chrysostom’ or ‘Golden-mouthed,’ because of his great eloquence. As deacon and as priest he occupied the pulpit at Antioch from 387 to 397, during which time his most famous homilies were preached. He was chosen for the Patriarchal see by the people of Constantinople, and consecrated by Theophilus of Alexandria in 398. After a few years he incurred the displeasure of Eudoxia, and was exiled by the feeble Arcadius, but again soon recalled by the Emperor and Empress, owing to a tumult among the people. Exiled a second time in 404, through intrigues of Theophilus and others, he died 14th September 407 (Bardenhewer, ut supr., ii. pp. 164 ff.).

27 The following are the passages from his works as they appear in a Latin version (S. Joan. Chrysost., Opera omnia, edit. Montfaucon, Parisiis, 1735, tom. i., Quod Christus sit Deus, § 6, p. 566):-

I. Tunc pascentur simul lupus cum agno. On this he writes : De feris hominibus id dictum est, de Scytis, Thracibus, Mauris, Indis, Sauromatis, Persis. Quod autem omnes illae gentes sub uno jugo futurae essent, alius propheta declaravit his verbis : Et servient ei sub jugo uno, &c.

II. (p. 567) : Et quomodo illos omnes, dicit quispiam, attraxerunt Apostoli ? Qui nonnisi unam linguam habebant, nempe Judaicam, quomodo Scytam, Indam et Sauromatam docere potuit ? Accepto nempe per Spiritum Sanctum linguarum multarum dono.

III. (pp. 574-575). Speaking of the preaching of the Apostles he says: Ubique altaria excitarent, in regione Romanorum, Persarum, Scytharum, Maurorum, Indorum; quid dico ? vel extra orbem nostrum.

IV. (Tom. xii., Commentar. in Epist. ad hebr., homilia xxvi., § 2, p.237): Aaronis autem, Danielis, Jeremiae, et Apostolorum multorum, nescimus ubi sita [ossa] sint. Nam Petri quidem et Pauli et Johannis et Thomae manifesta sunt sepulcra. Aliorum autem cum sint tam multi, nusquam sunt nota.

28 For full particulars regarding this ancient document the reader is referred to the following authors who have ably and fully discussed it in recent years : De Rossi, Roma Sott., tom. i. p. iii; tom. ii. p. vi; Mgr. Duchesne in his edition of Liber Pontificalis, tom. i. pp. vi. and 10; and Mommsen, Monumenta Germaniae: Scriptores Antiquissimi, tom. ix. p. 13, Berolini, in 4to, 1891; articles ‘Calendar’ and ‘Martyrology’ in the Dict. of Christ. Antiquit. Philocalus’Calendar will also be found in Bolland. Acta SS., June, vol. vii. pp. 178-184; and Migne, P.-L., vol. xiii., col. 675, where it is printed side by side with the Calendar of Polemeus Silvanus, dated 448, but these two publications contain only the civil portion of the Calendar, and not what is termed the Roman feriale.

29 The ancient custom in this matter is stated by St. Cyprian of Carthage (Epist. xxxvi.), when he asks the clergy to make known to him the day on which each confessor suffered; Dies eorum quibus excidunt nuntiate ut commemorationes eorum inter memorias martyrum celebrare possimus. Quamquam Tertullus....scripsit et scribat et significet mihi dies quibus in carcere beati fratres nostri ad immortalitatem gloriosae mortis exitu transeunt, et celebrentur hic a nobis oblationes et sacrificia ob commemorationes eorum.

30 For the three Sacramentaria of the Roman Church see Muratori, Liturgia Romana Vetus, in 3 vols., published with his Opere, Arezzo, 1771; or separate in one vol.

31 With reference to a similar double entry of the two Apostles occurring in the Martyr. Hieron., Duchesne makes the following remarks (p.1xxvii) : Jacobus qui hic cum Philippo jungitur .... neque aliquo vinculo cum Philippo conjunctus est, ut pronum fuerit ambos simul uno festo celebrari. Sed Jacobi pariterque Philippi basilicam Romae aedificaverunt pontifices Pelagius I. et Johannes III. circa annum 561 ; hic fuit initium festi communis, ea causa Jacobi post Philippum in Kalendaria inserendi. Quod quidem in hieronomyano factum est, sed non ubique ; nam neque in Indice Apostolorum Philippo Jacobus sociatur neque, &c. For the principal statement he gives a reference in a note to his Lib. Pontif., tom. i. p. 306, No. 2. The inference to be drawn is that the insertion of the double feast is posterior to the issue of this Calendar.

32 The following is the entry ad diem : Sancti Jacobi Apostoli, fratris beati Joannis Evangelistae, qui prope festum Paschae ab Herode Agrippa decollatus est. Ejus sacra ossa ab Jerusolymis ad Hispanias hoc die translata, et in ultimis earum finibus apud Gallaeciam recondita, celeberrima illarum gentium veneratione, et frequenti christianorum concursu, religionis et voti causa illuc adeuntium pie coluntur. (Martyrol. Roman., Romae, typis de Propaganda Fide, 1878, editio noviss.,SS. D.N. Pio Papa IX., auspice et patrono, a S. Rituum congregatione ad haec usque tempora adprobata.)

33 Edited by the Bollandists, ‘Propyleum ad Acta SS., November, Bruxelles, 1902, e codice Sirmondiano, nunc Berolinensi, Opera et Studio Hippolyti Delehaye.’

As to the value of the text, we reproduce for the reader’s information some of the remarks of the editor ex prolegomenis, col. i.-ii. : ‘Licet enim archetypum nequaquam dicendum sit Sirmondianum Synaxarium, caeteris omnibus quae inspeximus, tot commodis praestare visum est, ut facile palmam tulerit. Etenim vel hac sola ratione multis antecellit quod uno volumine duodecim menses complectitur, cum in aliis plerisque vel dimidia tantum vel etiam minor contineatur; nec ita raro contingat ex genuinis fratribus alterum in nostris regionibus, puta Parisiis, commorari alterum non interierit in locis multum dissitis, puta Hierosolymis vel penes monachos Athonenses peregrinari. Integritate quoque alia pleraque superat ... esto inter vetustissima non connumeretur, antiqua tamen ex stirpe procul dubio ortum est, simulque uberrimum, ita ut sanctorum nominibus festorumque commemorationibus affluet.’

34 Jussu Basilii Imper. Graece olim editum, munificentia et liberalitate SS. D.N. Benedicti XIII. nunc primum Graece et Latine prodit, studio Hannibalis Card. Albani, Urbini, 1727.

35 Commentarius ad suam Historiam Aethiopicam, Francofurti, 1691, pp. 389-436.

36 Basnage was amongst the first to deny the Indian Apostolate and martyrdom of Saint Thomas, and Assemani (Bibliotheca Orientalis, tom. iv.p.25 ff.) gives a full refutation to his statements. La Croze (Histoire du Christianisme des Indes, Lahaye, 1724) rejects the tradition summarily. Tillemont (Mémoires Hist. Eccl., Venice, 1732, tom. i.p. 359), on the erroneous supposition that the entire body of the Apostle was at Edessa, declines to accept the tradition; in his additional Note 4 (p.613) he accepts a statement of Theodoret, and thereupon builds a further supposition that Thomas, one of Manes’ disciples, may have given occasion to the supposition that the Apostle had visited India; a refutation of this will be found in chapter VI. the Rev.J.Hough (History of Christianity in India, London, 1859, vol.i.p.30 ff.) denies that any Apostle was ever in India. Sir John Kaye (Christianity in India, London, 1859) considers it a worthless legend. The Rev. G. Milne-Rae (The Syrian Church in India, London, 1892) rejects the tradition; while Dr. George Smith (The Conversion of India, 1903) ignores the subject altogether, dating the first conversion of India from a.d 193.

As a sample of some of the absurdities put forward regarding the Apostle Thomas’s connection with India, we take the following from this last writer’s work, Geography of British India, by Dr. George Smith, London, 1882, pp.370-371: ‘The southern suburb of Saint Thomé, two miles south of the Fort [of Madras], with an old Roman Catholic church, is identified by Heber and by H.H.Wilson with the Mailapoor, or Mihilapoor, where the Apostle Thomas is said to have been martyred on 21st December 58 a.d. The rocky knoll of the Little Mount, five miles south-west of the Fort, with church dedicated to St. Thomas, attracts crowds, under the belief that the Apostle perished there. A cave in which he concealed himself and a cell in which he worshipped are shown; but it has been proved that it is Thomas Aquinas whose name was given to this place.’ The gross absurdity of the last sentence, from a historical point of view, passes conception; and yet this is the sort of stuff that is put before the rising generation in the Government and Protestant missionary schools in India, and, for all we know, it may yet be the text-book for geography in those schools! The italics are ours.

37 The now accepted form of writing the name in English is Mylapore; but this to a foreigner would not convey an idea of the right pronunciation of the word. The Tamil, or current native form, is given in English by Colonel Yule as Mayilâppûr; with the Latin sound of vowels, termed the Italian, we would write Mailãpur.

38 The Roman Calendar year, said to have been introduced by Romulus, consisted of ten months—1, Martius; 2, Aprilis; 3, Maius; 4, Junius; 5, Quintilis (afterwards Julius, in honour of Julius Caesar); 6, Sextilis (afterwards Augustus, from Octavianus Augustus); 7, September; 8, October; 9, November; 10, December. The year so reckoned agreed neither with the solar period of the earth’s rotation, nor with the lunar course; so Numa Pompilius is said to have added the two months that head the present calendar—Januarius and Februarius. It was Julius Caesar who fixed the calendar, named after him ‘Julian,’ on an astronomical basis.

39 Gregorii Tvronensis Opera, ediderunt W. Arndt et Br. Krusch, Hannoverae, 1884 (in two parts, and forms tomus primus of Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum, belonging to the series in 4to of Monumenta Germaniae Historica), part ii. pp. 507-508, Liber in Gloria Martyrum, cap. 31-32:—

‘Thomas apostolus secundum historiam passionis eius in India passus declaratur. Cujus beatum corpus post multum tempus adsumptum in civitatem quam Syri Aedissam vocant translatum est, ibique sepultum. Ergo in loco regionis Indiae, quo prius quievit, monasterium habetur et templum mirae magnitudinis diligenterque exornatum atque compositum. In hac igitur aede magnum miraculum Deus ostendit. Lignus etenim inibi positus, atque inluminatus, ante locum sepulturae ipsius perpetualiter die noctuque divino nutu resplendet, a nullo fomentum olei scirpique accipiens: neque vento extinguitur, neque casu dilabitur, neque ardendo minuitur; habetque incrementum per Apostoli virtutem, quod nescitur ab homine, cognitum tamen habetur divinae potentiae. Hoc Theodorus qui ad ipsum locum accessit, nobis exposuit. In supra dicta igitur urbe, in qua beatos artus diximus tumulatos, adveniente festivitate, magnus adgregatur populorum coetus, ac de diversis regionibus cum votis negotiisque venientes vendendi, comparandique per triginta dies sine ulla thelonii exactione licentia datur. In his vero diebus qui in mense habentur quinto, magna et inusitata populis praebentur beneficia. Non scandalum surgit in plebe, non musca insedet mortificatae carni, non latex deest sitienti. Nam cum ibi reliquiis diebus plusquam centinûm pedum altitudine aqua hauriatur a puteis, nunc paululum fodias, affatim lymphas exuberantes invenies: quod non ambigitur virtute haec beati Apostoli impertiri. Decursis igitur festivitatis diebus, theloneum publico redditur, musca quae defuit adest, propinquitas aquae dehiscit. Dehinc emissa divinitus pluvia ita omne atrium templi a sordibus et diversis squaloribus qui per ipsa solemnia facti sunt, mundat, ut putes eum nec fuisse calcatum.

40 Dr. R. Pauli in his Life of Alfred the Great (translated from the German, London 1893, pp. 146-148) says it is uncertain when the Pagans were before London, 880 or even later.

41 See The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle according to the several Original Authorities, edited with a translation by Benjamin Thorpe, London, 1861, vol.ii.p.66. Vol. i. contains the Anglo- Saxon texts, seven in number, in parallel columns; vol.ii., the translation. Of this passage there are six Anglo-Saxon texts (vol.i.pp.150-153); all are dated 883. Four of the texts are practically identical, and translate as above; a fifth makes no mention of Sighelm and Aethalstan, and ends at ‘Bartholomew’; the remaining sixth omits everything after ‘sat one year.’

42 Forester appends the following note: ‘Asser did not die till 910 (see Saxon Chronicle), and he continued his life of Alfred to the forty-fifth year of that prince’s age, a.d. 893. Ethelward, not Swithelm, appears to have been Asser’s successor as bishop of Sherborne. See the list of bishops at the end of this work.’ The lists of bishops are considered to be by Florence of Worcester, as they are in all the MSS. In the Sherborne list (p.421) Asser is No.11, Ethelward No.12, and Sighelm No. 15; no dates are given. Pauli wrote his Life of Alfred about 1850; on pp.146-148, dealing with the mission of Sighelm and Aethalstan to Rome and India, he says, ‘they were probably distinguished laymen. Except on one occasion (890) Alfred’s ambassadors to Rome were always laymen, so far as we know.’

43 See the Chronicle of Florence of Worcester, translated by Thos. Forester, London 1854, p.73.

44 Willelmi Malmesbiriensis, de gestis regum Anglorum libri quinque, edition of T.D. Hardy, London, 1840, vol.i.p.187: [Elfredus] Eleemosiniis intentus privilegia ecclesiastica, sicut pater statuerat, roboravit; et trans mare Romam et ad Sanctum Thomam in India, multa munera misit. Legatus in hoc missus Sigelinus Scireburnensis episcopus, cum magna prosperitate, quod quivis hoc seculo miretur, Indiam penetravit; inde rediens, exoticos splendores gemmarum et liquores aromatum, quorum illa humus ferax est, reportavit. William of Malmesbury dedicated his history to Robert, Earl of Gloucester, who died in 1147. The book itself is supposed to have been written between 1114 and 1123, and subsequently much improved; the author died 1142-1143.

45 We have since had occasion to ascertain that Pope Martin, elected in 1281, though only the second of that name, took the name of Martin IV., as the two Popes bearing the name of Marinus were enumerated in the list of Popes under the name of Martin.

46 Colonel Yule (The Book of Ser Marco Polo, 2nd edition, London, 1875, vol. i., Introduction, p.22) says in the text that the party sailed from the port of Zayton (Southern China) in the beginning of 1292; according to Persian history, as given in the note, the Princess Kokachin and party arrived in the north of Persia in the winter of 1293-1294; that would fix the date of their passage through Southern India c. 1293.

47 Yule (ibid., p.21), giving the personal history of Marco Polo, says: ‘At one time we know that he held for three years the government of the great city of Yangchou, &c.; on another occasion we find him with his uncle Maffeo passing a year at Kanchau in Tangut; again, it would appear, visiting Kara Korum, the old capital of the Kaans in Mongolia; on another occasion in Champa, or Southern Cochin China; and again, or perhaps as part of the last expedition, on a mission to the Indian Seas, when he appears to have visited several of the southern states of India.’ The party, with the Princess, left China in 1292; the occurrence mentioned above in the text is definitely fixed by Marco Polo at 1288, of which he seems to have personal knowledge of some sort; hence it is about that year the earlier visit to India may be placed. Polo probably did not visit Mylapore when travelling in the suite of the Princess, but must have seen the place on some previous occasion. The whole tenor of what he writes and the minute details given imply it. These details are such as to bespeak personal knowledge: ‘the body lies at a certain little town having no great population’; ‘it is a place not very accessible’; the mention of the practice of ‘taking of the earth,’ and the important detail, ‘the earth, I should tell you, is red,’ an observation that would not occur to one who had not visited the locality. Then again his statement, ‘a very fine miracle occurred there in the year of Christ 1288, as I will now relate,’ the emphatic manner in fixing the date, and the interest he takes in narrating what occurred, still further prove a personal acquaintance with these facts.

48 In Native States in Southern India the tax on cocoanut and other fruit trees is fixed at so much per tree per annum according to age and yield; and valuation of groves is based on the same data; these are ancestral usages. The text here appears faulty; we should substitute ‘year’ for month.

49 M. Henri Cordier, whom we had the pleasure of meeting at Paris, and of discussing with him the date of Friar John’s visit to China, told us he held to the view he had expressed in a previous work, that the year could not be definitely fixed. We here reproduce the opinion expressed by this learned Chinese scholar in his edition of Oderic de Pordenone, Paris, 1891, Introduction, p.xviii.: ‘We learn from a letter of Monte Corvino, dated from that city (Khan-bâliq) in 1305, that he had been alone in China for eleven years; and that two years before that letter a lay-brother named Arnold of Cologne had come and joined him: he would thus have arrived in China in 1292; that is to say, during the lifetime of Kubilai.’ ‘These figures,’ M. Cordier observes, ‘do not quite agree with the rest of his letter; for he tells us that he had left Tauris in 1291, that he stayed thirteen months in India at the church of Saint Thomas (Mylapore), where he lost his travelling companion, the Dominican, Nicholas of Pistoia.’ We would suggest the date of arrival as being between 1292 and 1293; it might even have been the beginning of 1294 when he entered China.

50 This is the Prince, the Khan of Persia and Kublai’s grandnephew, who in 1286 lost his favourite wife, the Khatun Bulughan, who left him her dying injunction ‘that her place should be filled only by a lady of her own kin.’ Hence ambassadors were sent to the court of Kaanbaligh (the Cambalec of our Italian travellers) to seek such a bride. ‘The message was courteously received, and the choice fell on Lady kokachin, a maiden of seventeen moult bele dame et avenant,’ as Marco says; in whose suite, on her way to meet Prince Arghun, Marco and his uncles left China (Yule’s Marco Polo, vol. i., Introduction, p.21).

51 This letter was sent from the Coromandel coast by a bearer, no doubt a European and probably an Italian traveller who met John and his companion Nicholas at the tomb of the Apostle, and in whose arms the latter is said to have expired (see Friar Menentillus’ covering letter, Cathay, vol. ii. p.210). As no mention of this death occurs in this letter, and as it seems to be entire, it may have been written prior to the occurrence: it is therefore legitimate to infer that another letter, which has not come down to us, must have contained the announcement of his companion’s death. Besides this homeward-bound traveller, John mentions in his second letter a ‘gentleman of Lucolongo, a faithful Christian man and great merchant,’ who was the companion of his journey from Tauris, who ‘bought the ground for an establishment, and gave it to him for the love of God,’ whereon he built a church separated only by a street from the great khan’s palace. All this goes to show that, during the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century, intercourse between India and even China and Europe was not of such rare occurrence as people are sometimes led to suppose; and that besides the polo family, a not inconsiderable number of Europeans journeyed to and fro between Europe and the Far East, though their letters and correspondence are only forthcoming in a few cases. See Angelo De Gubernatis: Storia dei Viaggiatori Italiani nelle Indie Orientali, Livorno, 1875; also his earlier Memoria intorno ai Viaggiatori Italiani nelle Indie Orientali dal Secolo XIII. al XVI., Firenze, 1867.

52 This date is obtained from the letter of the Christian princes at the great Khan’s court addressed to the Pope, asking for a successor to their late lamented archbishop , whom they describe as ‘a man of weighty, capable, and holy character.’ See their letter, dated about July 1336, in Yule’s Cathay, vol. ii. p. 314.

53 From the island of Ormuz he passes to Tana in twenty-eight days (Yule’s Cathay, vol. i. p. 57), where the four friars had suffered martyrdom. ‘The land (of Tana) is under the dominion of the Saracens, who have taken it by force of arms, and they are now subject to the Empire of Dile’ (Delhi), ibid., vol. i. p. 58. The Kiji kings of Delhi overran the West Coast and the Deccan in the early years of the fourteenth century, and these were more or less subject to that empire at this period. The Sultan of Delhi at the time must have been Gheiass-Uddin Toghlak, who ascended the throne in 1320 according to the best chronology (Yule).

54 The Holy See sanctioned the cultus of the Martyrs of Tana by a decree of July 10, 1894; by another, of August 14, 1894, the Congregation of Rites granted the recital of an approved Office and Mass for the feast of Blessed Thomas of Tolentino. The addition authorised for insertion in the Martyrologium Romano- Seraphicum Sanctorum et Beatorum trium Ordinum S.P.N. Francisci is the following:—

Aprili 6.—Tanae in India beati Thomae a Tolentino Ordinis Minorum, qui cum tribus sociis ejusdem ordinis glorioso pro fide Christi martyrio coronatus est.

From the Lesson of the Breviary, which we subjoin, the date on which the martyrdom took place was the 2nd of April 1321:—

Ayton rex Armenorum sacerdotes aliquot a Ministro General Ordinis Minorum expostulavit, qui in ipsius regno catholicam religionem propagarent ac tuerentur. Thomas igitur quatuor addictis sodalibus, illuc est missus; exceptique a populo summa veneratione innumeros schismaticos ad Ecclesiae unitatem reduxerunt, et infidelibus quamplurimis persuasere ut christiana dogmata profiterentur. Accidit autem ut Ayton ab armis Saracenorum premeretur; quamobrem Thomas cum binis sociis ad Nicolaum quartum Romanum Pontificem et ad reges Gallorum et Angliae ab eo legatus auxilia petiturus venit; qua legatione perfunctus in Armeniam reversus est, abductis secum duodecim religiosis viris ex eodem Franciscalium ordine in aeternam earum gentium utilitatem. In Persiam transgressus, inde iterum a sodalibus suis in Europam mittitur docturus Pontificem de christianae religionis provectu in Tartarorum imperio. Erat is Clemens eo nomine quintus; qui Thomae nuntiis usque adeo delectatus est, ut Joannem a Monte Corvino illic strenue operantem, Archiepiscopum Cambalicensem primumque Sedis Apostolicae Legatum apud Orientalium gentes creaverit eique Franciscales septenos addiderit suffraganeos Episcopos, quibus ecclesiastica hierarchia constitueretur. Thomas his feliciter gestis in Orientem tertio redit. Dum vero novam apud Tartaros et Indos expeditionem cogitans Colam contendit, adversa navigatione Tanam deducitur, ubi gloriosum cum tribus suis sociis martyrium fecit. Nam a Saracenis comprehensus ac de religione multa interrogatus, fidei catholicae veritatem praedicans, Mahumetis falsitatem libero sermone corripuit. Vinculis propterea, conviciis ac verberibus affectus, tum soli ardentissimo diu objectus, denique quarto nonas Aprilis millesimi trecentesimi vigesimi primi truncato capite vitam finivit. Eius sacrum corpus a beato Oderico in templum Fratrum Minorum civitatis Zaitonensis elatum est; abscissum vero caput Tolentinum delatum, magna ibidem pietate colitur. Cultum autem beato Thomae ab immemorabili tempore praestitum Leo decimus tertius Pontifex Maximus ex Sacrorum Rituum Congregationis consulto ratum habuit et confirmavit.

55 Blessed Oderic went on to China with his treasure and landed at Zayton: he stayed three years with Archbishop John of Cambalec, and returned home, Yule says, viâ Tibet through Lhassa, Khorassan, and by the south of the Caspian to Tabriz and thence to Venice. In the month of May 1330, while attached to the Convent of St. Anthony of Padua, in compliance with the request of Friar Guidotto, the minister of the Province, he related his story, which was taken down, or turned into homely Latin, by William of Solagna of his Order. On his way to the Papal court at Avignon he fell sick and was taken back to his province of Udine, where he died on the 14th of January 1331. He was abroad fourteen and a half years. The decree of his beatification was issued by Clement XIII. in 1755.

56 The quotation given above is from R.H. Major’s India in the Fifteenth Century, Hakluyt Society, London, 1857, p.7 of text. While at Paris we were able to see, through M.Cordier’s kindness, the primitive Latin text published long after the narrative had been taken down in writing by Poggio. It is to be found in Poggii Bracciolani, Historiae de varietate fortunae, libri quatuor, published at Paris, 1723, by one ‘Joanne Oliva (Rhodigiano)’; the travels form the fourth book of the ‘Historiae,’ and occupy pp.126-153, but bear no separate heading to indicate what they are. We reproduce the text of the passage above quoted from the Latin original, p.129:—

Malpuria deinde maritima civitas in secundo sinu ultra Indiam sita, Nicolaum excepit. Hic corpus Sancti Thomae honorifice sepultum est in amplissima, ornatissimaque basilica, colitur a haereticis. Hi Nestoritae appellantur qui ad mille hominum in ea urbe habitant: hi per omnem Indiam tanquam Iudaei inter nos sunt dispersi.

57 The length of the journey from Malabar to Mylapore, fixed at twenty-five days, denotes the time it took travellers on foot to go across the hills from Malabar to the Coromandel coast. Indians did not make the journey by sea owing to danger, delays, and cost; and up to recent years the pilgrimage to Saint Thomas’s Shrine used to be made on foot by the Saint Thomas Christians. But on the extension of railways they may also, like their fellow-pilgrims in Europe, journey by rail in future. See Paulinus à Sto. Bartholomeo, India Oriental., pp.240-241, on land journeys in India.

58 Bibl. Oriental., vol. i.p. 388 ff.; re-edited by Guidi, Chronica Minora, tom. iv. of third series of ‘Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium,’ 1903, versio, p.6, No. xxxviii.

59 The Edessan Chronicle supplies the following data in support of the persecution of Catholics (Guidi, Chronica Minora, Scriptores Syri, series 3a, tom. iv., Parisiis, 1903, versio, p.5 seq.). After mentioning, No. xxx, the death of St. Ephraem, which occurred on the 9th of June, a. Seleuc. 684-311=a.d. 373, in the following entry, No. xxxi., it recites: ‘In the month of Sept. of the same year the church of Edessa because of the Arian intrusion had to be surrendered by the people.’ The entry of the Arians thus took place three months after the death of the Saint; at No. xxxiii., ‘the same year,’ that is, the year A. Sel., given previously, 689-311 = A.D. 378-79, ‘on the 27 of Kanun (December) the Catholics re-entered and occupied the church of Edessa.’

60 It must be taken for granted that the church was not completed at the time of the emperor’s visit, and certainly did not then hold the relics of the Apostle. The reader is referred to the date given above of their transfer to this new church, a.d. 394.

61 His visit is mentioned in the eighth chapter. After describing what he had seen of the disciples of St. Anthony in Egypt, he adds what he had himself seen in the neighbourhood of Edessa (ibid., col. 517) : Habuit autem per idem tempus Mesopotamia viros nobiles iisdem studiis pollentes. Quorum aliquantos per nos apud Edessam et in Carcarum partibus vidimus; plures autem auditione didicimus.

62 Oper. S. Joan. Chrysost., tom. viii., Sermo in sanctum Thomam apostolum, col. 497-500, Migne, P. Gr.-L., tom. lix.; ed. Montfaucon, Parisiis, 1836, tom. viii.p.625.

63 Italia Sacra, Ferdinandi Ughelli, Abbatis SS. Vincentii et Anastasii ad aquas Salvias; editio secunda cura Nicolai Coleti, Venetiis, 1720, tom. vi. col. 773 seq.

64 The principal sections of the deed are as follows:—

‘Deposuerunt, declaraverunt, et confessi et testificati fuerunt cum juramento in vulgari sermone:

‘Che al primo del mese di Agosto dell’ anno di N.S. 1566, giorno di Giovedi, essendo brugiata la detta Venerab. Chiesa di S. Tommaso Apostolo nella detta città di Ortona dall’ armata Turchesca, essi D. Bartolomeo, &c., &c., ed andando per vedere il danno di detta Chiesa, la ritrovarono tutta brugiata, e rivoltandosi verso il sacrato Altare, ove riposavano 1' Ossa del Glorioso Apostolo Tommaso, 1o ritrovarono tutto in terra spezzato, e la gran feriata riversata sotto sopra, ed entro, dove era la casetta delle Sante Reliquie, uno grandissimo fuoco, e carboni accesi, &c., &c. Con alcuni legni incominciarono a levare il fuoco da detto Altare, e incominciarono a ritrovare le sante Ossa immacolate e intatte, come se non state fossero nel fuoco, e lustravan come vetro; il che vedendo essi Don Bartolomeo e Luca in presenza di essi Giovanni, Bernardino, Leonardo, Bernardo, Sebastiano ed altri, cominciarono a pigliare dette sante Ossa, e porle in una tovaglia, e in alcuni fazzoletti, non senza grandissima effusione di lagrime di tutti, e cosi ne ricuperaron una gran quantità, facendo il simile esso Don Bartolomeo e Luca il sabato sequente in presenza di detti D. Giov. Aloisio, Giov. Bernardino, Giov. Leonardo, ed altri. Poscia la Domenica sequente, quarto di detto mese di Agosto 1566 detto Giov. Antonio con detto Luca ed altri ritornarono in detto luogo e compitamente ricuperarono tutte le sante Reliquie di detto Apostolo dalli carboni e sassi, &c., poi non potendo ritrovare il Glorioso capo d’esso Apostolo, detti D. Giovanni Anto, Luca ed altri sudetti stavano malinconici, e piangendo, sempre pregando Nostro Signore G.C. loro volesse ispirare dove stava detto capo, e così cominciarono tutti con gran fatica a muovere detta feriata; e Iddio lodato, ritrovarono la testa di detto Glorioso Apostolo di Cristo sotto alcune pietre di detto santo Altare, rimasta sotto detta feriata illesa dal fuoco, ma però rotta per il peso che 1' era caduta sopra; e così divotamente con lagrime pigliarono la detta testa e fù ricomposta per le mani di essi D. Bartolomeo, D. Giovanni, ed alcuni altri sacerdoti, con 1' intervento del quondam D. Muzio de Sanctis allora Vicario di detta Chiesa, in presenza del Magnifico Giovan Battista de Lectis Fisico [anglice, Physician] e detti Giov. Tommaso de Summa e Giuseppe Masca ed altri, ricomponendola di modo come se mai rotta stata fosse, con tutto il martirio, senza mancarvi pur un minimo osso, &c., &c., e di pui li sopradetti dichiarano che ivi erano conservate altre sante reliquie, ed essi tutti dicono ed affermano che 1' Ossa del Glorioso Apostolo Tommaso riconobbero da quelle altre dallo splendore e lucidezza che avvevano quell’ Ossa, le quali erano negre come ebano, 1' altre erano bianche.’

65 The Archdeacon writes : ‘Thrice in the year feasts are kept in honour of the Apostle. On the first Sunday of May, the day fixed for the celebration of the solemn transfer to Ortona; the 6th of September, the day of the arrival of the Relics at Ortona; and on the 21st of December, the day of the Apostle’s martyrdom. The feast day in May is the occasion when the Head of the glorious Apostle, enshrined in a rich silver bust, is exposed to public veneration, and is carried in solemn procession through the city. This is not done at the other festivals. The May festival is kept up for three days.

66 Theodoret, born 387-396, was made bishop of Cyrus near the Euphrates in 423, died c. 458 (Bardenhewer’s Les Pères de l’Eglise). The passage of Theodoret given above is quoted by Card. Baronius in his essay prefacing the Martyrologium Romanum, and by Ruinart in the general introduction to his Acta Sincera Martyrum.

67 Among modern writers who contest the martyrdom of the Apostle Thomas are Dr. James Murdock in his Notes to Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History, 11th ed., London, 1878, p.21; R.A. Lipsius, Dict. of Christian Biography, art. ‘Acts of the Apostles (Apocryphal),’ pp.26-32, &c.

68 In the Gospels Levi is Matthew ; compare Luke v. 27 and Mark ii. 14 with Matthew ix. 9.

69 These passages are quoted from Bardenhewer’s Les Pères de l’Eglise, vol. i.p.241, Paris, 1898.

70 There are two Mounts St. Thomas in the vicinity of Mylapore, the ‘great’ and the ‘little’ mount. The former is the one generally designated as Mount St. Thomas. The following topographical details will enable the reader to form a clear idea of the localities reputed to be connected with the memory of the Apostle at Mylapore (consult Map of Mylapore and its Environs, and Illustrations):—

1. Mount St. Thomas (‘the Great’). —The church which now crowns the summit was erected by the Portuguese; there had been one probably before. When the writer visited the place, on climbing the hill, he was struck by noticing, halfway up the hill, an artificially levelled spot - the hill itself is an abrupt, insulated hill of protruding granite. On inquiry he was informed that in former ages the Nestorians had a bishop’s residence on the spot. He has since learned that there exists an old record in the archives of the diocese of Mylapore — undated and unsigned — stating that at the time the Portuguese arrived at Mylapore (subsequently named San Thomé) the Mount St. Thomas was wooded, and was the resort of Nestorian hermits [say, monks]; the church and monastery that had stood on the mount had crumbled and was in ruins. The mount is about six miles from Mylapore, and is traditionally reputed to be the site of the Apostle’s martyrdom. It stands out conspicuously by its towering height in a flat country.

2. The Little mount is only two miles from the town of San Thomé; it is an outcrop of granite some eighty feet high. Local tradition points to it, not as the site of the martyrdom — it is made the centre of the peacock legend — but as the place where the Apostle sought refuge from his persecutors, and probably it was the place he would resort to for prayer and contemplation; it has a small cave at the summit, now enclosed in the church crowning the knoll. The Jewish custom should here be remembered, practised by our Lord as well, of resorting to hill tops for prayer and seclusion (Luke vi. 12; xxii. 39, &c.); further, all the shrines of Israel were situated on hill tops. The most prominent hill on the Malabar coast, a table-top mountain in appearance, named Maleatur, is also traditionally connected with the Apostle. Near the summit of the granite outcrop of the ‘little’ mount, there is a cleft in the rock which always holds some water, though it is difficult to say whence it comes.

3. The Apostle’s Tomb. — This traditional site, now adjacent to the seashore, has recently come to be enclosed in the crypt of the new Cathedral of San Thomé. We have said ‘now adjacent,’ because there is an old tradition that the sea was at one time some miles, say two or three, farther to the east, that extent of foreshore having been gradually cut away — even now on a calm day portions of older Mylapore can be seen lying in the bed of the sea; and further there is evidence that when St. Francis Xavier visited the place and spent a month there, he lived with the Portuguese priest stationed there. Then there was a house and a garden to the east of the tomb; the house has since disappeared, engulfed in the sea with what land once stood between it and the shore. The erosion still continues.

71 The name signifies peacock town. The etymology given by Yule is Mayiláppur : Mayila, peafowl, and pur, the Indian suffix denoting place. Burnell gives a different derivation, and thinks it was probably Malaippuram, mount-town; but Mylapore lies on a flat seashore. The mount mentioned in the Acts, as the spot where the Apostle was executed by the king’s order, now called the Great Mount St. Thomas, never held a town. The Catalan map of 1375 gives the name Mirapor.

72 Vol. i. chap. xv. p.85 f. of the edition by Dr. Arthur Coke Burnell, Voyage of Linschoten to the East Indies, Hakluyt Society, London, 1885, of A.D. 1584-1589. Burnell reproduces an early English translation, placing within brackets interpolations and redundancies. These have been omitted.

73 It will not appear surprising if the learned Assemani looked upon the statement put forward by some Portuguese and other writers, wrongly informed, that the Relics of the Apostle Thomas were discovered and found in the Indian tomb, Mylapore, on the arrival of the former. To those who have followed the historical and traditional course of the story of the Relics thus far narrated, the meaning to be attached to Assemani’s rejection of the story referred to below, will be quite clear and self-evident, viz., the bones (not to use the misleading term corpus, body), could not have been found by the new European arrivals at Mylapore, when it was known, on undoubted evidence, that these Relics were in the fourth century deposited at Edessa. If no other inference is drawn from the statement there would be no further question. Mr. W.R. Philipps, dealing with the ‘Connection of St. Thomas the Apostle with India,’ reprint from Indian Antiquary, vol. xxxii., 1903, p. 151, expresses himself as follows :‘The opinion of Assemani, mentioned by Bickell ... is of great weight in such a matter as this. Assemani, who wrote at Rome early in the eighteenth century, was perfectly well informed; and no one could be more competent to pass judgment on the facts. He deemed these Indian relics of St. Thomas a Nestorian fabrication.’ Now this short statement, which does not inform the reader what was Assemani’s opinion as to St. Thomas and his connection with India, is misleading. It has been construed to mean that Assemani denied the Apostle’s connection with India; and the change of type in the text adopted by the printer to enforce the conclusion has added an external weight to the passage. If the inference is drawn that, in Assemani’s opinion, the Relics of St. Thomas were never in India, it would not only be misleading, but would directly oppose the learned Orientalist's emphatic statement. In the fourth volume of his learned work, Bibliotheca Orientalis, Rome, 1728, the author covers ten folio pages with his proofs in defence of the Indian apostolate of Thomas, which he establishes on the authority of the Fathers in reply to Besnage’s cavillings. He further adduces evidence from the Liturgical Books of the Syrian churches, including the Nestorian section, and of Syrian writers, both in proof of his apostolate as well as of his martyrdom in India. The corpus—or Bones—he points out, were transferred from India to Edessa; and he lays emphasis on the fact that Syrian, Greek, and Latin writers ‘write of the body of Thomas, from the fourth century, as having been removed to Edessa of Mesopotamia.’ What then does Assemani deny? He denies that the body was found by the Portuguese in India; and quite rightly. In mentioning the Nestorians in this connection Assemani was misled by statements published in Europe. The Nestorians in India knew perfectly well that the Relics had been long before removed elsewhere, for they had annually celebrated in India the festival of the Removal of these Relics on the 3rd of July. Read note p. 134; pp. 60-62; also Theodore’s statement, text and note, pp. 74- 80.

74 We give a summary of the traditions found prevailing in India at the arrival of the Portuguese from their early writers in support of what we say:—

Maffei, Hist. Ind. (1st ed. 1588 ; p.85 of reprint, Coloniae, 1590): In Socotram insulam ... fertur adisse primum [Apostolus Thomas], deinde multis ibi factis christianis trajecisse Cranganorem... Colanum petiit.. trans juga montium ad oram orientalem contendit....christiana re bene gesta perrexit in Sinas... In Coromandelem ad revisendos ... neophytos rediit. Coromandelis caput et regia tunc erat urbs Meliapor.... Inusitatae magnitudinis truncum in litus jecerat mare quod eo tempore leucas fere decem ab urbe distabat... apostolus regi conditionem tulisse fertur si truncum illum sibi ad templum vero Deo aedificandum daret... sese protinus ad urbem attracturum...Cum rex annuisset... Thomas zona quo erat praecinctus.... immanem stipitem facili ductu sequentem... in ipso poemerio statuit, &c.; he is killed by the Brahmins, first stoned, then pierced by a lance.

Du Jarric, Thesaurus rerum Indicar., Coloniae, 1615, tom.i.pp. 579-583, repeats similar details.

Gouvea, Jornada, Lisbon, 1606, has a similar account, with some reference to Nestorian archives of Angamale in regard to bishops sent to Socotra and China.

A Portuguese Report on the Serra, written in 1604, Brit. Mus. Add. MS., 9853, leaf 86 in pencil and 525 in ink, supports the tradition of the Apostle’s preaching at Socotra, Malabar, and Bisnaga. [Bisnagar, now in ruins and called ‘Hampe,’ in the present Bellary district, is the name of the capital of the kings who, at the arrival of the Portuguese in India, ruled over the Coromandel coast and held Meliapor, 1490—1508; hence that portion of the eastern coast was by them called Bisnaga.]

The Malabar Christian tradition of the arrival of St. Thomas in their country is upheld by Colonel Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither, vol. i.p.75, note. After quoting the different names Cranganore had borne at different periods—in the Apostolic age it was known as Muziris—he says: ‘Cranganore is the seat of one of the old Malabar principalities, and famous in the early traditions of both Jews and Christians on that coast. It was there that, according to the former, the black Jews of the tribe of Menasseh first settled and abode for more than one thousand years; it was there that St. Thomas is said to have first preached on the shores of India, and there also the Mahommedans were first allowed to settle and build a mosque.’

McCrindle, in his Ptolemy, London, 1885, p.51, repeats :‘Mouziris may unhesitatingly be taken to represent the Muyri of "Muyri-Kodu," which, says Yule, appears in one of the most ancient of Malabar inscriptions as the residence of the King of Kodangalur or Kranganur, and is admitted to be practically identical with that now extinct city. It is to Kranganur, he adds, that all the Malabar traditions point as their oldest seaport of renown; to the Christian it was the landing-place of St. Thomas the Apostle,’ &c.

75 To the European scholar it may appear paradoxical that the Saint Thomas Christians on the west coast, Malabar, kept the feast of the Translation of the Relics of the Apostle Thomas from India to Edessa on the 3rd day of July in accordance with the Syriac Calendar; yet it is so to this day. That the festival had also been kept in India in ancient times we have the authority of the Hieronymian Martyrology, quoted in a preceding chapter. The Christians of the Syrian rite to this day call it the dohârana, i.e. the ‘translation.’ They keep no feast of the Saint on the 21st of December; this latter feast is kept in India by the native Christians on both coasts, the converts of our Latin missionaries subsequent to the establishment of the Portuguese on the two coasts. To the European mind this seems inexplicable, and in consequence the doubt has been raised by some whether the statement be true; while others have thought this offered an argument to reject the Indian apostolate of St. Thomas. Those who have taken either view have only looked at the question superficially. The question is, What regulates the Liturgy and the Calendar of a Church? We answer unhesitatingly, the Rite to which it belongs. If the rite of the missionary be the Latin, he will, as the missionaries of the present day practise, introduce everywhere the Latin Missal, Ritual, and Calendar. If Greek, that of the Greek Church will be adopted. If Anglican, that of the Church of England as by law established. So, if Syrian, that of the respective section of the Syrian Church to which he belongs will be introduced. The first Christianity established by the Apostle on the eastern coast, according to an ancient tradition of the Christians of the west coast (reported by Portuguese writers and mentioned in the Report of 1604, Brit. Mus.), was exterminated at an early date by persecution, and many went across and joined their brethren on the west coast. So there remained no permanently established continuous Church at Mylapore. When at a later age Nestorianism forcibly captured the episcopal sees of Mesopotamia and Persia, the clergy and bishops coming from there to India and Socotra brought with them their own Rite (if it had not already pre-existed) as well as their heretical tenets. This is how the ancient Christians in India came to adopt the Syrian Calendar and Liturgy of the Nestorians; and this is how, followed by the priests they then had, they came to keep the feast of the Apostle not on the day of his martyrdom — which they no doubt would have done had their Church continued autonomous with a regular succession of clergy; but the case not being so, and they having become a part of the extreme eastern section of the Church of the Syrian Rite, the Calendar and Liturgy found among them by the Portuguese was naturally that of the Nestorian Church. It is a safe axiom — Liturgy and Calendar follow the Rite. See Paulinus à S. barthol., India Oriental. Christ., Romae, 1794, pp. 132-33.

76 Elias, the author of the list, is styled the bishop of Damascus by Assemani, Bibl. Or., vol. ii. p. 391, and in Index ad verb., but at p. 458 he calls him the archbishop of the see. For further details regarding the see of Socotra, see vol. iv. p. 602, of same work.

77 An unsupported tradition says also that the Apostle visited the Magi who, guided by the mysterious star, came to Bethlehem to pay their adoration to the new-born Saviour, and baptized them. The passage is found in ‘Opus imperfectum incerti auctoris’ apud Chrysost., tom. vi., ut supr., p. xxviii., Commentar. in Matth., now held to be the work of an Arian of the fifth century: Denique cum post resurrectionem Domini Thomas apostolus isset in provinciam illam ubi reges stella Bethlehem ducti degebant adjuncti sunt ei, et baptizati ab eo facti sunt adjutores praedicationis illius.

78 The first persecution against the Church raised by the Emperor Nero, during which the Apostles Peter and Paul and a host of first converts to the faith suffered martyrdom, may here be briefly told:—

Under secret orders from Nero, and for his personal gratification to witness a great scene of horror and tragedy, it was devised to set fire to a part of the city of Rome. The scene occurred on the 19th of July,a.d. 64; the fearful conflagration lasted some nine days, and it consumed the greater portion of the city. Gibbon says that of the fourteen regiones, or quarters into which the city was divided, four only escaped the fire, three were levelled to the ground, the other seven presented a melancholy scene of ruin and desolation. The monuments of Greek and Roman art, the trophies of the Punic and Gallic wars, the most sacred temples, with their shrines, votive offerings, and paraphernalia for the services of the state religion, were all consumed. The people, burnt out of house and home, crowded in the vicinity of the Campus Martius, where, under the tyrant’s orders, sheds were erected to shelter them, and bread and provisions distributed. But, angered and enraged as the populace were at the loss and destruction of their property, the rumour that the emperor had purposely come from Antium to witness the scene and that it had been got up for his amusement, excited them to such a pitch that they threatened the emperor. Hence every step was taken to appease the popular rage; an inquiry was set on foot to ascertain the origin of the fire, and thus to divert attention from the suspicions that had been raised against the emperor.

The inquiry established that the fire originated at the covered stalls of the Circus Maximus frequented by Eastern traders and that the quarter in the vicinity of Porta Capena, occupied by the Jews, had escaped the conflagration. These circumstances would tend to throw suspicion on the Jews, the more so because of their irreconcilable attitude to the national worship. This, coupled with the destruction of the fanes and temples by the fire, was exploited to fix the blame more definitely on this alien element of the population. The Jews held important positions in the court of the emperor, and exercised great influence in the city; so, to divert adroitly all suspicion from their body, they cast it on the believers of the new faith, whom they hated most intensely. The cry was thus turned against the Christians—people of an unknown, mysterious faith, who seemed, even more than the Jews, to keep aloof from Roman life, its social intercourse and amusements. The cry once raised was taken up rapidly, the most absurd popular rumours regarding Christians, their practices and beliefs, were spread and accepted by the exasperated multitude. the emperor, glad of the opportunity to divert all suspicion from his own person, and anxious to throw a victim to popular fury, did his best to appease and conciliate the people. He, in consequence, threw open the imperial gardens, which occupied the present sites of the Vatican and the adjoining Borgo, and ordered games and sports to be got up there for the people’s amusement. It was then that the alleged guilt of the Christians offered the opportunity of making them subjects of popular sport. In the morning sports they were brought out covered with the skins of wild beasts, and pushed into the arena to be torn to pieces by the dogs set at them. In the evening the park was lit up by a novel feature of horror, never heard of before or since. Christians were covered with skins or other absorbent wrappings steeped with oil and tar, tied to posts, and set on fire.

This is what Tacitus tells us of these inhuman scenes (Annales, xv.44):‘The confession of those who were seized (viz., the Christians) disclosed a great multitude of their accomplices, and they were all jointly, not so much for the crime of setting fire to the city as for their hatred of human kind, condemned to death. They died in torments, and their torments were embittered by insult and derision. Some were nailed to crosses, others, sewn in skins of wild beasts, were exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared with inflammable materials, served the purpose of torches to illuminate the darkness of night. The gardens of Nero were utilised for the melancholy spectacle,’ &c. these are the circumstances under which the first general persecution broke out against the Church, and this is how the first martyrs were done to death.

Let us now hear what some witness from the body of these Christians, and a chief amongst them, has to tell us as to the cause and motives of this outbreak of ferocity. St. Clement of Rome, Epist. l, cap. v-vi, referring to the cause of the persecution, says it was dià zhlon caì fqónon —‘owing to envy and animosity ;’ indicating thereby the feelings and the motive which guided the Jews to cast the blame of the conflagration on the Christians. Of peter he says: ‘Because of this (envy and hatred) Peter suffered not once or twice but often, and so through martyrdom passed to his crown of glory.’ On account of the same envy and hatred, ‘Paul, under the prefects [ sub Tegelino et Nymphidio Sabino ] suffered martyrdom.’ Then, passing to the great body of the faithful, he adds: ‘To these holy men who showed the way to life was joined a great multitude of the elect who suffered executions and tortures, leaving unto us a noble example. Because of this animosity women [ dressed up as] Danaides and Dirces, after suffering dreadful and monstrous indignities, persevered to the end; and though feeble of body secured the great reward.’ This persecution broke out at the beginning of August, a.d. 64. The martyrdoms of St. Peter and St. Paul, A.D. 64-66, were but separate incidents in the long course of its events. See Tacitus, ut supr.; Dom H. Leclerq, Les Martyrs, vol. i., Les Temps Néronniens: Paris, 1902.

In the days of the Apostles there stood prominent in the vicinity of the Coliseum a huge statue of Nero. the site was not exactly known, but during recent excavations and researches made in the vicinity of the present church of Santa Francesca Romana, the site of the statue appears to be ascertained. The campanile of the church is said to occupy almost exactly the spot where had stood that statue of ‘Nero-Helios,’ a standing bronze-gilt figure, 120 feet high, placed in the centre of the atrium of the ‘Golden-House.’

79 This occurred when the persecution of Domitian was at its height, and he suffered at Rome in the year 95 near the site named afterwards, when enclosed within the walls commenced by Aurelian in 271, ‘Porta Latina.’ These are the words in which Tertullian (De Praescil Haeres., 36) describes the occurrence: ‘ O glorious Church of Rome !... where John plunged in boiling oil suffered no harm, and was immediately sent into exile to an island’[ Patmos]. St. Jerome, De viris illustr., cap. ix., adds: ‘After the death of Domitian and the cancelling of the cruel edicts of his reign in that of Nerva, John was able to return to the city of Ephesus,’ in A.D. 97. Eusebius has the same (Hist. Eccl., iii.18); here he organised the churches in Asia, and survived till the time of Trajan (Euseb., H.E.,iii.23, quoting Irenaeus). St. Epiphanius, Haeres., li., n. 12, says he was past ninety years when he returned from exile. Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, writing to Pope Victor, c. a.d. 180, says that John died and was buried at Ephesus. The Council of Ephesus, a.d. 431, in their letter also attest the burial at Ephesus. Tillemont, Mémoir. Hist. Eccl., i, article x. p. 350, ed. ut supr., maintains that his body yet reposes in the church dedicated to his honour at Ephesus [perhaps now a mosque]. Nothing, at any rate, is now known regarding it.

80 The tradition that the Apostles, by some supernatural intervention, received intimation to assemble at the dwelling of the Blessed Virgin, Mother of Jesus, before her demise, is , like other sound ecclesiastical traditions, based on a solid foundation. The undermentioned are some of the authorities in support of it:—

I.— St. Gregory of Tours, a.d. 590, In Gloria Martyrum, lib. I.C. 4, p. 489, pars ii. vol. I, ed. Arndt et Krusch, Hannoverae, 1885: Denique impleto beata Maria hujus vitae cursu, cum jam vocaretur a saeculo, congregati sunt omnes apostoli de singulis regionibus ad domum eius.

II. — Modestus, Archbishop of Jerusalem, a.d. 631-634, Migne, P. Gr.-L., tom. Ixxxvi., col. 3300, Encomium in dormitionem Deiparae Virginis Mariae, sec.ix.: Divini Apostoli ex omni terra, quae sub sole est, properarunt vi superna ducti et impulsi, ut eam invenirent sanctissimam matrem, per quam electi a Christo digni facti sunt, qui in Spiritu Sancto apostolatum, sanctissimam omnium quae a Deo tribuuntur, dignitatem assequerentur: quae prope erat ut consequeretur et perciperet in caelis ipsius bona, quae nec oculus vidit nec auris audivit nec in cor hominis ascenderunt (1 Cor. ii.9), quae per ipsam humano generi sunt donata.

III. — Andrew, Archbishop of Crete. He is said to be the author of the new style of hymns called Canons, introduced in the Liturgy of the Greek Church. He appears to have lived a long life; first known as secretary to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, promoted in 711 to the see of Crete, and died c.720 (lived 668- 720). He has left three homilies in Dormitionem Deiparae Virginis Mariae, Migne, P. Gr.L., tom. xcvii.; they are marked xii., xiii., and xiv., col. 1045-1110. The quotation is taken from col. 1066: Significat ergo verbis suis vir admirabilis (Dionysius Areopagita) totum fere apostolorum sacratum chorum, ad venerabile illud magnumque Dei Matris coactum Spectaculum discipulosque per universam terram dispersos una tunc fuisse congregatos.

IV. — St. John of Damascus was the great light of the Eastern Church during the eighth century. The date of his birth is unknown. He came forth as the great defender of sacred images, c.726; was ordained priest by the Patriarch John, who died in 735. The iconoclast pseudo-Council, held at Constantinople in 754, hurled no less than four anathemas against him, but says he was then dead. The year of his death is unknown. This doctor of the Greek Church has left three homilies in Dormitionem B.V. Mariae, Migne, P. Gr.-L., tom. xcvi., Operum Damasceni iii. col. 699 seq. In the second Oration, sec. 9(col. 735), the presence of the Apostles at the demise of the Blessed Virgin is implied. At sec. 11 (col. 738) it is said: Deinde puris linteis purum corpus involvitur, lectoque rursus regina imponitur: Angelis utique linguis suis hymnum sibi gratissimum concinentibus; apostolis autem, Deoque plenis Patribus divinas quasdam cantiones a Spiritu Sancto inspiratas modulantibus Sec. 12. Ac tum sane, tum arca Domini e monte Sion abiens, venerandisque apostolorum humeris gestata, in caeleste templum per interjectum sepulchrum effertur.

81 T. & T. Clark’s Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Edinburgh, 1869, vol. ix., or vol. ii. of Hippolytus, appendix to part ii.; also Migne, P. Gr.-L., tom. cxvii.

82 See Du Fresne and Du Cange’s edit. of the Chronicon Paschale, Parisiis, 1688, p. 435, and Migne, P. Gr.-L., tom. xcii. col. 1071, Ecclesiastical History concerning the Seventy Disciples of the Lord, by Dorotheus, bishop of Tyre; No. vii., Of the Apostle Thomas.

83 Vol. i., Parisiis, 1630, and placed before Commentar. in Acta Apostolor., who wrote the Enarratio de duodecim Apostolis et locis ubi Evangelium praedicaverunt.

84 In Brit. Mus. Syr. Add. Cod. 17193, folio 80, of the year 874, published by the joint editors of the above Chron. Eccl., vol. iii. cols. 9-10.

85 In the signatures to the Decrees of the first Council of Nice, registered according to provinces and reproduced by Gelasius Cyzicenus (Migne, P. Gr.-L., tom. lxxxv., col. 1342 seq.), we find the following entry: Joannes Persa, Ecclesiis in tota Persia et magna India — ‘John the Persian [presiding over the] churches in Persia and Greater India.’ The signature implies the control he, as Primate, or Metropolitan, the term then in use, held over all the churches in Persia and Greater India. It is in perfect conformity with the style of signatures appended by other Metropolitans present at the Council. Some writers have gone the length of denying the presence of a Persian bishop, while others have objected that Persa must imply the name of a town. These latter have read the signature in the light of those appended by bishops within the empire, who affix the title of their see after their name. But here, it should be considered, we have the case of a solitary Persian in an assembly composed chiefly of Greek bishops; he rightly puts forward his nationality as the proper designation of himself—‘John the Persian.’ The denial of his presence at the Council is quite unpardonable. Eusebius of Caesarea, the father of Church history, was present at this Council, and he writes as follows (De vita Constantini, lib. iii. cap. vii., Migne, P. Gr.- L., tom. viii., col. 51): Etenim ex omnibus ecclesiis quae universam Europam, Africam atque Asiam impleverant, ii qui inter Dei ministros principem locum obtinebant simul convenere, &c. After enumerating those who had come from Syria, Cilicia, Phoenicia, Arabia, Palestine, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, he continues: Quidam etiam ex Perside episcopus synodo interfuit. What further can be demanded to prove the presence of Bishop John the Persian? Eusebius appropriately notes that there was but one bishop from that country, for if there had been others they would have affixed their signatures after that of their Metropolitan, as was done in the case of those provinces of the empire whence more than one bishop was in attendance. Somehow this important point of early Church history has never been clearly brought forward.

86 This passage is thus rendered by Yule (Hobson-Jobson): ‘Kalah is the focus of the trade in aloeswood, in camphor, in sandal- wood, in ivory, in the lead which is called Kala-i,’ &c.

87 See Abu Dolef Misaris ben Mohalhal, De Itinere Asiatico, edidit Kurd de Scholoezer, Berolini, 1845; also Yule’s Cathay, vol. i. p. cxi., No. 84, and p. cxci.; and Gildemeister, ut supr., p.211.

88 While at Paris we made personal inquiries to trace the missing MS, and having learned that the Société de Géographie, Paris, was the possessor of some of M. Vivien de Saint-Martin’s unedited MSS, we inquired there, but ascertained that the missing MS was not among the few the Society possessed; nor were we able to trace it elsewhere. We then made special research to obtain further information bearing on this point. After producing what McCrindle has to say, we place before the reader the result of our further investigations carried out in Rome and Paris.

89 It bears the title, ‘Claudi Ptolemaei viri Alexandrini... Geographicus novissima traductione e Graecorum archetipis castigatissime pressum. I. Cl. Ptolomaei Geographiam per octo libros partitam, &c. On the verso of folio 74 the following data are given: Anno Christi Opt. Max. mdxiii, Martii xii, Pressus hic Ptolomaeus Argentinae vigilantissima castigatione industriaque Joannis Scholti urbis indigenae.’ The work is dedicated to the emperor Maximilian: it is a combined Greek and Latin text (of the Bibl. de la Société de la Géographie, Paris).

89a N.B.—This sign indicates that the editor has supplied in the next column what he considers the present-day name of the place.

90 The claim for Pantaenus has been recently urged by Rev. George Milne-Rae, The Syrian Church in India, London, 1892, ch. v. p. 62; and by Dr. George Smith, The Conversion of India, London, 1893, ch. ii. p.11.

91 St. Jerome (De viris illustr., cap. xxxvi. col. 651, Migne, P.L., tom. xxiii.) has the following notice on Pantaenus: Pantaenus Stoicae sectae philosophus, juxta quamdam veterem in Alexandria consuetudinem, ubi a Marco evangelista semper Ecclesiastici fuere Doctores, tantae prudentiae et eruditionis tam in Scripturis divinis, quam in saeculari litteratura fuit, ut in Indiam quoque rogatus ab illius gentis legatis, a Demetrio Alexandriae episcopo, mitteretur. Ubi reperit, Bartholomaeum de duodecim Apostolis, adventum Domini nostri Jesu Christi juxta Matthaei evangelium praedicasse, quod Hebraicis litteris scriptum revertens Alexandriae secum detulit. It will be noticed that Jerome states Pantaenus brought back with him to Alexandria the copy of Matthew’s gospel left among the people by Bartholomew, while Eusebius makes no mention of the sort. Rufinus, in his translation into Latin of Eusebius’ history (text quoted from Avtores Historiae Ecclesiasticae per Beatum Rhenanum apud Basileam, anno mdxxiii, an early print, lib. v.c. 10, p.113) reads : Quem [vid. Pantaenum] ferunt cum ad Indos pervenisset, reperisse quod Bartholomaeus apostolus apud eos fidei semina prima condiderit, et Matthaei evangelium Hebraicis scriptum literis dereliquerit: quod per idem tempus supradictus Pantaenus inibi repertum detulerit. This is an important detail added by the translator; anyhow there is no further mention anywhere of this codex of the original text of Matthew, lost after its work had been completed. Pantaenus is supposed to have returned to Alexandria by a.d. 205. Rufinus, in continuation of the passage quoted, says : apud Alexandriam claram et satis nobilem vitam optimo et mirabili fine conclusit.

92 Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., lib. iii. cap. 24) treating of St. Matthew says : Evangelium suum patrio sermone conscribens ... relinquebat. He quotes (lib.vi.c.25) Origen’s words : Evangelium scriptum esse a Matthaeo... qui illud Hebraico sermone conscriptum ludaeis ad fidem conversis publicavit. St. Jerome, writing of the codex of the gospel, kept at the Library collected by Pamphilus Martyr, says (De viris illustr. de Matthaeo): Evangelium Christi Hebraicis litteris verbisque composuit. This is said in opposition to the other books of the New Testament, which were written in Greek. It becomes apparent from these different statements that the term ‘in Hebrew,’ as we would express it in English, should be taken in the wider sense as mentioned above. Perhaps it may not be inappropriate to support this view by further authority. Mgr. Lamy (Introd. in Sacr. Script., Pars ii., ed. quarta, mechliniae, 1887, c. ii. No. 5, p.215) writes: Omnes novi Testamenti libri Graece exarati fuerunt, excepto S. Matthaei Evangelio, cujus tamen textus graecus ad instar textus primigenii evasit.... Omnia porro antiquitatis documenta testantur S. Matthaeum hebraice, id est in lingua aramaica palaestinensi, quae etiam syrochaldaica vocatur pro popularibus suis fidem Christi amplexis suum primitus conscripsisse Evangelium. Then follows a list of Fathers who have written on the subject. The learned Professor of Syriac takes for granted that the expression ‘St. Matthew’s gospel was written in Hebrew,’ used by some of the Fathers, does not imply that the language of the text was the Hebrew idiom, but on the contrary expressly asserts the same to have been the Aramaic or Syro- Chaldaic.

93 We insert here the important witness borne by Flavius Josephus (Opera omnia, Graece et Latine recognovit Guill. Dindorf, Parisiis, 1845, vol. i., De Antiquitate Judaeorum, lib. i.c. vi. n.2) on the bearing of the name kus: Ex quatuor enim chamae [Cham] filiis, Chuso [Chus, Kus] nihil detrimenti tempus attulit: nam Aethiopes, quorum princeps fuit, nunc quoque tam a se ipsis quam ab Asianis omnibus Chusaei [Kus] nominantur.

94 An echo of those early traditions regarding St. Matthew’s preaching of the Gospel, as reported by Rufinus and Socrates, has been handed down by the missionary Friar, afterwards Archbishop of Cambalec, John of Monte Corvino. In his second letter dated from Cambalec, Quinquagesima Sunday, 1306 (13th February), which has come down to us in two separate sections, as explained in our Chapter III. p. 89, he writes in the second section recovered more recently, that during his stay in India ‘a solemn deputation had come to him from a certain part of Ethiopia, begging him either to go thither to preach, or to send other good preachers; for since the time of St. Matthew the Apostle, and his immediate disciples, they had had no preacher to instruct them in the faith of Christ, and they had an ardent desire to attain to the true Christian faith (Yule’s Cathay and the Way Thither, vol. i. pp. 208-209).

We add the following from Wadding’s Annales Minorum, tom. vi. p. 91, anno 1307, n. vi. In margin B.Oder. ad an. 1306 mittunt ei nuncios Aethopes—Ultra ea quae scripsit anno superiori frater Johannes a Monte Corvino, inquit beatus Odericus, hoc anno narrat in alia a se scripta Epistola, quod solemnes Nuncii venerunt ad eum de quadam parte Aethiopiae, rogantes, ut illuc pergeret ad praedicandum, vel mitteret Praedicatores bonos, quia a tempore beati Matthaei Evangelistae, et discipulorum ejus, praedicatores non habuerunt, qui eos instruerent in fide Christi, et multum desiderant ad veram Christi fidem pervenire; et si Fratres illuc mitterentur, omnes converterentur ad Christum et fierent veri Christiani; nam sunt plurimi in civitate qui solo nomine Christiani dicuntur et Christum credunt, sed de Scripturis et sanctis doctrinis aliud non sciunt, simpliciter viventes, cum non habeant praedicatores et doctores.

95 Epistola lxx. ad Magnum Oratorem urbis Romae, Migne, P.l., vol. xxii. col. 667, n. 4, Scriptores Ecclesiastici saecularibus litteris eruditi : Pantaenus Stoicae sectae philosophus, ob praecipuae eruditionis gloriam, a Demetrio Alexandriae episcopo missus est in Indiam, ut Christum apud Brachmanas et illius gentis philosophos praedicaret.

St. Jerome has another passage in his writings bearing on India, which may be reproduced here for the information of the reader (oper. ut supra., tom. xxii, Epistola cvii. ad Laetam, n.2, col.870): De India, Perside, Aethiopia monachorum quotidie turbas suscipimus. The letter is written from Palestine; the reference to ‘India’—whence also almost daily crowds of monks arriving were entertained by him, will appear quite inexplicable if it be applied to India proper. The other countries specified, whence they came in large numbers, are Persia and Ethiopia; but no mention is made of Arabia the nearest to Palestine, whence they could easily have come in large bodies as he says. May not Southern Arabia be the India he refers to? If this be so, as appears most probable, may not the India of the first quotation also refer to Southern Arabia? This would show that while both passages referred to the same country, Jerome erroneously transferred the Brahmans from India proper to E1 Yemen.

96 Tillemont (ut supr., tom. vii., chapter on Frumentius, p.287) fixes the date of his consecration and return to Abyssinia at c.330. But since he wrote, the ‘Paschal’ or Festal Letters of St. Athanasius have been recovered in a Syriac translation; a summary was translated in English and edited by Cureton, London 1848; a full Latin translation was published by Cardinal Mai in Nova PP. Bibliotheca, Romae, 1853, tom. vi. 1st pt., and is also to be found in Migne, P. Gr.-L., vol. xxvi. col. 1351-1444. These letters make it certain that Athanasius succeeded St. Alexander in the see of Alexandria in May 328 (see Cureton, op. cit. praef. xxxvii.). He died after a very stormy episcopate, full of exile and persecution, but at the close of his career, as the Lesson of the Breviary aptly remarks, ‘ ex tot tantisque periculis divinitus ereptus, Alexandriae mortuus est in suo lectulo,’ 2nd of May 373, having governed his see for just forty-five years. If we adhere closely to what Rufinus says, ‘Athanasius who had been recently ordained to the office [episcopate],’ we can take for the consecration of Frumentius the year 329, i.e. a year earlier than that assigned by Tillemont, in whose time the exact year of Athanasius’ election was disputed. The death of Constantine the Great occurred in 337. With these settled dates before us, it becomes clear that there was no reason to question, as some have done, Rufinus’ statement that in the days of Constantine the first seeds of the faith were sown by Frumentius, whether as a captive or a bishop.

97 Rufinus, in his narrative, speaks of one prince, whereas the emperor addresses two princes of Auxum; we do not pretend to explain the discrepancy, but we must take it to be the fact that two princes were then holding power in the country.

98 Sancti Athanasii Apologia ad Constantium (Migne, P. Gr.-L., vol. xxv. 631-635):-

29. Itaque hi cum rumores essent, ac sus deque omnia abirent, ne sic quidem meam minui alacritatem, sed pergebam ad tuam pietatem; eoque diligentius quo confiderem ea praeter pietatis tuae sententiam perpetrari; atque ubi res gestae humanitati tuae compertae forent, te, ne in posterum ea fierent, curaturum, ratus nequidquam id religiosi esse imperatoris, ut episcopos exsulare, virgines nudari, aut ullo modo ecclesias turbari patiatur. Sed haec nobis animo versantibus, ecce testis quidem increbuit rumor litteras Auxumeos tyrannis esse datas ut curarent Frumentium Auxumeos episcopum illinc abduci; me quoque perquirerent usque ad barbarorum terras, et ad praefectorum commentaria, ut vocant, transmitterent: populos ac clericos omnes adigerent ad communicandum cum Ariana haeresi; si qui non morem gererent, illos interficiendos satagerent.

31. Constantius Maximus Augustus Aezanae et Sazanae.

Maximae nobis curae et studio est, ut Deus cognoscatur; hoc in negotio enim arbitror, parem pro communi hominum genere sollicitudinem gerendam esse, ut ad Dei notitiam deducti, vitam cum spetransigant, in nulloque discrepent circa justi ac veri disquisitionem. Cum tali igitur nos providentia dignos habeamus, unam eamdemque doctrinam apud utrosque in Ecclesiis vigere praecipimus. Quare Frumentium episcopum quamprimum mittite in Aegyptum apud honoratissimum Georgium episcopum et alios Aegypti episcopos, quibus in primis ordinandi ac ejusmodi res dijudicandi auctoritas inest. Nostis enim et meministis, nisi quae apud omnes in confesso sunt, soli ignorare simulatis, Frumentium in hunc vitae gradum promotum esse ab Athanasio sexcentis criminibus obnoxio; qui cum nullam e sibi illatis accusationibus probe diluere potuisset, statim quidem cathedra excidit: ac cum nullibi vivendi locum reperiat, errabundus ab alia in aliam regionem vagatur, quasi eo pacto se malum esse effugere possit.

Si igitur sponte Frumentius obtemperet universi rerum status rationes redditurus, compertum omnibus erit eum ab Ecclesiae legibus et a fide, quae jam obtinet, nullatenus discrepare; cumque judicatus fuerit, totiusque vitae suae experimentum dederit, ejusque rationem apud eos reddiderit ad quos pertinet hujusmodi negotia judicare, ab eis constituatur; si tamen verus episcopus juxtaque leges ordinatus haberi velit. Quod si procrastinaverit ac judicium subterfugerit, palam certe erit ipsum scelestissimi Athanasii sermonibus seductum impie de Deo sentire, ita nempe affectum ut ille affectus declaratus est scelestus cum sit. Verendumque est ne Auxumim praefectus vestrates nefariis et impiis sermonibus corrumpat; nec solum ecclesias confundat et turbet, in Deumque blasphemet, sed etiam singulis nationibus hinc vastationis et excidii auctor sit. Caeterum habeo ipsum Frumentium non pauca edoctum, magnamque in publicum bonum utilitatem consecutum venerabilissimi scilicet Georgii consortio, nec non reliquorum, qui in iis docendis apprime versati sunt ad suas sedes reversurum in omnibus ecclesiasticis rebus apprime eruditum.

Deus vos custodiat, fratres honoratissimi.

In the admonitum prefixed to this Apologia, col. 593-594, it is stated of the Apologia:... ad annum 356 eam haud dubianter referimus. Cf. Cod. Theodos., tom. ii. De Legatis, where a decree of Constantius is found regarding the expedition of imperial messengers to the Auxumitae and Homeritae, rightly supposed to have been enacted on the occasion of the despatch of this imperial letter. The law bears the date of 15th January 356. Theophilus’ mission should then be placed earlier, in c.354, as the imperial letter to the Auxumite princes followed upon the failure of that mission.

99 At the close of his letter the emperor styles these princes— fratres honoratissimi—‘most honoured brethren,’ an appellation he would not have bestowed upon them had they not become Christians. This discloses the success of Frumentius’ apostolate among the Auxumitae. Rufinus also says that ‘an immense number of these people were converted to the faith.’ The early Arab narratives tell a similar tale. D’Herbelot, Biblioth. Orientale, ad verb. ‘Habasch,’ says: ‘The bishop whom St. Athanasius sent them, Salamah, who was the first to baptize them,’ &c. The Abyssinian Church keeps the feast of St. Frumentius on the 26th July and 18th December. In both entries, as Ludolf (Calendar. Aethiopicum, in his Histor. Aethiop.) observes, ‘mutato nomine’ he is styled ‘Salama’; he also mentions Codex Paris Bibl. Regiae, No. 796 (ibid., p. 74), which contains a life of Frumentius, and produces from the same an extract in support of the change of name. St. Athanasius’ feast is also kept by the Abyssinian Church, 7th of January, and he is styled ‘St. Athanasius the Apostle.’

Another passage of the imperial letter demands a word of comment: ‘For you know indeed and remember, unless you alone pretend to be ignorant of what is known to all, that Frumentius was raised to this grade of life by Athanasius, guilty of more than six hundred crimes.’ Constantius shows full knowledge of how things stood at Auxum. In spite of the emperor’s emphatic language Frumentius retained the support of the princes. But how came the emperor to be so accurately informed of the state of matters ecclesitical there but by Theophilus—of whom we shall presently treat—on his return after the failure of his mission to Auxum? The expression ‘and remember’ points to some intimation made to the princes and known to the emperor. The letter would thus offer internal evidence that it was written after the return of Theophilus’ mission.

100 This author wrote his history in twelve books, a.d. 423, the first letter heading the commencement of each book formed his name —Philostorgius. The original has not come down to us, but we have a compendium (Photius, Bibliotheca), and a few extracts, chiefly contained in Suidas’ Lexicon. Photius (ibid.) thus briefly expresses his opinion on the work: ‘It is an eulogium of heretics and an accusation of the orthodox; a vituperation rather than a history’; the writer was an Arian. The Compendium and Extracts are to be found in the Corpus of Greek Ecclesiastical Historians with notes and Latin translation by Valesius, reproduced by Migne, P.G.-L., tom. lxv.

101 This city is named in Periplus Saphar, a variation of Taphar, Tapharon; it is there, § 23, styled ‘the Metropolis of Karibael, the rightful sovereign of two contiguous tribes, the Homeritai and the Sabaitai.’ McCrindle (in his ed. of the Periplus Maris Erythraei, London, Bombay, and Calcutta, 1879, p.80), adds the following comment: ‘Saphar, the metropolis of the Homeritai—i.e. the Himeryi—the Arabs of Yemen, whose power was widely extended not only in Yemen, but in distant countries to the east and west.’ Saphar is called Sapphar by Ptolemy; it is now Dhafar, Dsoffar, and Zaphar. In Idrisi it appears as Dhofar, and he thus writes of it; ‘It is the capital of the district of Jahssel. It was formerly one of the greatest and most famous cities. The Kings of Yemen made it their residence, and there was to be seen the palace of Zeddan. These structures are now in ruins, and the population has been much decreased, nevertheless the inhabitants have preserved some remnants of their ancient riches.’ The ruins of the city and palace still exist in the neighbourhood of Jerim. The place is mentioned in the Ming Annales of China as Tsafarh, and as being a Mahommedan country. Marco Polo (Yule’s 2nd ed., vol. ii. p. 441) gives the following description of the place: ‘Dufar is a great and noble and fine city, and lies 500 miles to the north-west of Esher. The people are Saracens and have a Count (Sheik) for their chief, who is subject to the Soldan of Aden; for this city belongs to the Province of Aden. It stands upon the sea and has a very good haven, so that there is a great traffic of shipping between this and India (viz., the Kingdom of Ma’bar, p.324), and merchants take hence great numbers of Arab horses to that market, making great profit thereby. This city has under it many other towns and villages.’ It was pre- eminently ‘the frank-incense land’ of the ancients.

102 Adane in the Periplus, § 26, is called, ‘Eudaimon Arabia, a maritime village subject to that kingdom of which Kharibael is sovereign. It is called Eudaimon, "rich and prosperous," because in bygone days, when the merchants from India did not proceed to Egypt, and those from Egypt did not venture to cross over to the marts farther east, but both came only as far as this city, it formed the common centre of their commerce, as Alexandria receives the wares which pass to and fro between Egypt and the ports of the Mediterranean. Now, however, it lies in ruins, the emperor [Augustus] having destroyed it not long before our own times.’ It will hardly be necessary to tell the reader that Adane is the well-known port of Aden. During the Middle Ages it regained its former commercial importance and prosperity. It was found by Marco Polo in this flourishing state, and he says that all the Indian trade was landed there, and thence merchants trading with Egypt would convey it in small vessels for a journey of seven days, when it would be landed, loaded on camels, and conveyed to the Nile, a distance of thirty days’ journey, and thence by river to Alexandria. The Portuguese under Albuquerque captured the place and destroyed it later on. But owing to the natural advantages of its situation, though placed on a barren rock, it has in our days under British sway more than regained its former importance.

103 The emporium localised in ostio maris Persici but not named, is Oman, our present Sohar; the gulf in front still retains the older name and is marked in charts ‘the Gulf of Oman.’ The following is from Colonel Miles (J.R.A. Soc., new series, vol. x., 1878, p.164): ‘The city of Oman is Sohar, the ancient capital of Oman, which name, as is well known, it then bore; and Pliny seems to be quite right in correcting former writers who had placed it in Carmania.’ The Periplus, § 36, says: ‘If you coast along the mouth of the gulf, you are conducted by a six days’ voyage to another seat of trade belonging to the Persis called Omana.’ Philostorgius has called it ‘Persicum emporium.’ It is difficult to say for what reasons it came to be known as the ‘Persian’ emporium. It would perhaps not be amiss to suppose that the appellation may be due to a prior supremacy of Persia over that portion of Arabia; anyhow this was not the case in Philostorgius’ time, for the port then formed part of the territories of the prince ruling at Tapharon who erected there the third Christian church. Pliny (vi. 32) writes of it: Homana quae nunc maxime celebrari a Persico mari negotiatores dicunt; here the reason assigned is that it lies in the Persian Gulf. Idrisi calls it ‘one of the oldest cities of Oman and one of the richest. It was in ancient times frequented by merchants from all parts of the world, and voyages to China used to be made from it.’ Marco Polo mentions it under the name of Soar, as one of the ports that exported horses to southern India. In modern times it has been superseded by Muscat situated farther south.

104 Exstat autem ea in insula (quae ab Indis Sielediva, a Graecis Taprobona vocatur) Ecclesia Christi advenarum ex Perside, ac presbyter in Perside ordinatus eoque missus, diaconus item cum reliquo ecclesiastico ministerio: indigenae vero et una reges alieni cultus sunt.

105 Besides the passages given in the text, Cosmas makes mention in another (Topographia, ut supr., col., 170) of the churches in Ceylon and India : In Taprobana insula ad interiorem Indiam, ubi Indicum pelagus exstat, ecclesia christianorum habetur, ubi clerici et fideles reperiuntur, an ulterius etiam ignoro—that these were foreign Christians consisting probably of traders we have already learnt from him, and he adds, ‘whether also farther [East], I know not.’ He then continues: Similiter in Male, ut vocant, ubi gignitur piper. In Caliana vero (sic nuncupant) episcopus est in Perside ordinari solitus: similiterque in insula quae Dioscoridis vocatur in eodem mari Indico. This is followed up by an extensive enumeration of churches in Asia, Africa, and some parts of Europe. Commenting on this passage the learned Assemani (Bibl. Or., tom. iv. p.91) writes : Cosmas Indicopleustes in sua Topographia christianae religionis in Perside, Indiaque faciem saeculo sexto ejusmodi exhibet. Omnes, inquit, quotquot in perside, India et Arabia Felice christiani degebant Catholico Persidis subditi erant, a quo etiam ordinabantur earum regionum episcopi. Ipsius Cosmae, aevo, hoc est anno circiter 530 Patritius Thomae Edesseni magister ad Archiepiscopales totius Persidis thronos evectus est. Catholicus Persidis in Calianam episcopum ab se ordinatum mittere solebat. In Male, sive Malabar, aderat christianorum ecclesia; similiterque in Sieldiva insula (Silan) ecclesia christianorum, cum presbytero et diacono in Perside ordinatis ac reliquo ecclesiastico ministerio. Item apud Bactros, Hunnos, reliquos Indos, &c. Persidis autem Archiepiscopus, ut notat cl. Montfaucon, Nestorianus erat, ut alii omnes episcopi et presbyteri ejusdem subditi; then follow quotations from Cosmas’ work. This shows clearly that the churches comprised in Cosmas’ enumeration were addicted to the Nestorian heresy. Consequently by the year 530 the Christians in Male, Malabar, had been captured in the Nestorian net. The credit of detecting that Cosmas himself was a Nestorian is due to La Croze; see his Histoire de Christianisme des Indes, La Haye, 1724, pp. 27-37. Assemani also (ut supr., pp. 405-406) gives him full credit for it.

106 The usage of standing while the gospel is read during mass has probably come down from Apostolic times, like most principal rites connected with the Liturgy. Mention of this custom is made in the Apostolical Constitutions, which, though apocryphal, drawn up by one or more authors, is admitted by all scholars to record the early practices of the Church and its discipline (lib. ii. cap. 57): ‘When the gospel is being read let all the presbyters, the deacons, and all the people stand in perfect stillness.’ St. Anastasius I., Pope (398-402), is reported in the Breviary Lessons to have ‘ordained that whenever the holy gospels are read presbyters be not seated but stand with heads bent (curvi).’ St. Isidore of Pelusium (died c. 440), Epist. Hermino Comiti., writes: ‘When the True Shepherd becomes present through the opening of the adorable gospels, the bishop both rises and lays aside the omophorion which he wears symbolical of him.’ The omophorion is one of the sacred vestments used by Greek and Eastern bishops. It consists of a band of woollen material ornamented with crosses and gold braiding; it can be raised over the head or dropped on the shoulders, the ends falling forward. It symbolises the idea of carrying a sheep on one’s shoulders, and the reference is to this. Amalcarius, a priest of Metz and Chorepiscopus, writing about 836 (de Eccl. Offic., lib. iii. cap. 18), of the gospel, says: ‘Up to this time we sit; now we must stand at the words of the gospel.’

The practice of keeping a sitting posture, observed by Theophilus among the peoples of ‘the other parts of India,’ is not the only known instance of deviation from the ecclesiastical usage. Sozomen (Hist. Eccl., lib. vii. cap. 19) tells us that ‘among the Alexandrians this new and unbecoming custom, that while the gospels were read the bishop did not rise’ prevailed; and he adds, ‘which I have neither seen nor heard done elsewhere.’

107 Epiphanius, Adversus Haereses seu Panarium, Haeres. 66, Migne, P. Gr.-L., tom. xlii. col. 30 seq.

108 Acta disputationis Archelai episcopi Mesopotamiae et Manetis heresiarchae, published by Laurentius Alexander Zacagnus in his Collectanea Monumentorum veterum graece et latine quae hactenus in Vaticana Bibliotheca delituerunt, Romae, 1698, pp. 1-102. This old Latin translation is now the only form in which the complete work exists, with the exception of Greek fragments preserved in Epiphanius’ text, Haeres. 66; and in St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesi Sexta. The Acta were also published by Gallandus, Bibl. Patrum, tom. iii. pp. 569-610; by Mansi, Concilia, tom. i. p. 1129 seq.; by Routh, Reliquae Sacrae, 2nd ed., Oxford, tom.v. Zacagnus states in his preface that the work must have been originally written in Syriac, and gives internal reasons; he also adduces the authority of Jerome, who says (De viris illustr., cap. lxxii.): Archelaus episcopus Mesopotamiae librum disputationis suae, quam habuit adversus Manichaeum exeuntem de Perside, Syro sermone composuit, qui translatus in Graecum habetur a multis. Claruit sub imperatore Probro qui Aureliano et Tacito successerat (a.d. 276-282).

An important doctrinal treatise against Manes’ error has survived in a Greek translation written by Titus, bishop of Bostra, c. 360, published in the Thesaurus monumentor. eccl. et historicor. sive Henrici Canisii lectiones antiquae, edit Jacobus Basnage, Amsterdam, 1725, vol. i. pp. 56-62. St. Jerome (De viris, cap. ciii) has the following: Titus Bostrensis episcopus sub Juliano et Joviano principibus fortes adversus Manichaeum scripsit libros et nonnulla volumina alia. Moritur autem sub Valente (between 364-378). Bostra, the metropolitan see of Arabia, to the Jews Bosra, was a former city of the Moabites (Lequien, Oriens Christiana, tom. ii. col. 853).

109 Socrates, Hist. Eccl., lib. i. cap. xxii., ed. Henrici Valesii: Rex Persarum comperto quod Manichaeus in illis partibus moraretur, inde abrepto cutem detrahi jussit eamque paleis oppletam ante civitatis portas appendit. Atque haec nos nequaquam commentati sumus, sed ex disputatione quadam Archelai Cascharorum urbis in Mesopotamia episcopi, a nobis lecta excerpsimus. Hic enim Archelaus ait se cum Manichaeo ipso coram disputasse, et ea quae superius a nobis relata sunt de illius vita commemorat.

110. Epiphan. Haeres. 66, ut supr., § xxv., col. 71-72, in a note to his Latin translation of the above work.

111 Theodoretus episcopus Cyrensis, Compendium Haereticar. Fabular., Migne, P. Gr.-l., tom. lxxxiii., Theodor., oper. iv. col. 379.

112 Even such a scholar as Tillemont, misled by Theodoret’s passage, writes in his Mémoires Hist. Eccl. (Venice, 1732, tom. i., note 4, p. 613): ‘There is reason to fear that an apostle of Manes (Thomas) was mistaken for Thomas the Apostle of Jesus Christ.’ He failed apparently to consult St. Epiphanius, and was unaware of the existence, or of the publication by Zacagnus, of the Acta disputationis. Backed by the opinion of Tillemont, Theodoret’s misreading was made much of by certain Protestant writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in their attacks on the Jesuits. Having Theodoret’s authority for saying that Thomas the disciple of Manes went to India, they affirmed this had given rise to the notion that the Apostle of the same name had preached the faith there. The suggestion occurs passim in a certain class of writings, and thence it has crept into works of a more serious stamp.

113 Bardenhewer, in his Les Pères de l’ Eglise (French translation, Paris, 1899, vol. ii. pp. 59-60), on a statement of Photius (Bibliotheca, cod. 85, cols. 287-288, Migne, P.Gr.-L., tom. ciii.) would make the Acta disputationis Archelai an ingenious piece of forgery of a later date. Let us see what Photius says. While giving a summary of the writings of Heraclian, bishop of Chalcedon (between 491-518) against Manichaeans, he says: Recensit item eos qui ante se in Manichaeorum impietatem calamum strinxerunt. Hegemonium, nimirum, qui disputationem Archelai adversus ipsum (Manetem) perscripsit (anagrafanta - recorded). From the evidence of earlier writers produced, the passage cannot be reasonably taken in the sense assigned by the learned professor. The Latin copy and the Greek extracts attest the Acta to be of Aramaic origin, apart from the authority of St. Jerome—no mean authority on a question of Eastern literature. Nor should the fact be overlooked that Epiphanius, a native of Judea though he wrote in Greek, knew besides, according to Jerome ( Adv. Ruf., ii. n. 22; Migne, P.L., xxiii. col. 446), Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, and had also some knowledge of Latin, quoted long passages from these Acts; he wrote his Adversus Haeres. between 374-377. Surely all these authorities cannot be set aside. The only plausible meaning that can be assigned to the passage of Photius is that Hegemonius may have been the author of the Greek translation. Finally, Harnack, writing on these Acta and Tatian’s Diatessaron, considers himself justified in concluding that the Acta, of which he made a special study, reproduced quotations of the Gospels from the Diatessaron. This offers additional internal evidence that the writing originated in Mesopotamia and was the work of Syrian, not a Greek, author, and was written in the Aramaic tongue.

Since writing the above we have consulted Dom Remy Ceillier, who discusses (L’ Histoire générale des auteurs sacrés et ecclésiastiques, new ed., Paris, 1868, vol. ii.p.453) the passage quoted from Photius. The opinion he arrives at is the following: On peut concilier ces deux versions en supposant que cet Hégémone traduisit en grec les Acta de la dispute d’Archelaus, ou qu’il les publia de nouveau en y ajoutant plusieurs circonstances dont Archelaus n’avait pas fait mention; car il est certain que ces Actes sont de deux auteurs—more probably were slightly supplemented, if at all; this may also account for the discrepancies of the later citation with the earlier discussed above.

114 These texts are now incorporated in Part II. of vol.ii. of the Leipsic edition of the Acta Apostolorum apocrypha, 1903.

115 Liber in Gloria Martyrum, cap. 31,p. 507, opera Gregorii Tvronen. tom. i., scriptores rerum merovingicarum, of the series Monumenta Germaniae Historica, in quarto, Hanover edition; this gives a critical edition of the text for all the works of the Bishop of Tours.

116 Carl Schmidt, Acta Pauli (infr.), styles him, p. 148, bishop of Olympus in Lycia.

117 The reader may usefully refer to Dom Leclercq’s article, ‘Ad Bestias,’ Diction d’ Archéologie Chrétienne et de Liturgie, Paris, 1903, cols. 449-462, for an elaborate account of such Roman sports, including the condemnatio ad bestias, and the incident of St. Thecla.

118 Under Roman rule there existed sacerdotes provinciae and flamines; the former presided over public sports, the latter were priests of the emperor in the sense of the divine honours rendered to them in municipal functions. Alexander is thus the ‘Sacerdos provinciae’ presiding at the games, and is invested with (pagan) sacerdotal office; see Diction. d’ Archéol. Chrét. et de Liturg., ut supr., article ‘Adoratio,’ col. 542 f.

119 It should be known he had been a frequent host of the Apostle elsewhere and had visited St. Paul while in captivity, and Paul showed himself very grateful for such kindness and attention, 2 Tim. i. 16; iv. 19.

120 The Greek narrative of Andrew’s voyage to the relief of his fellow- Apostle gives the name ‘Mathias,’ while the Syriac text all through shows that the visit was made to relieve the Evangelist Matthew. The country is in Africa, and we know from traditions reported in Chapter V. that it must have been to Matthew, who was preaching the Gospel in Ethiopia of old. The Syriac form of Matthew is Matthai, and in familiar form, Matthu. Perhaps Matthai has been erroneously turned into Mathias.

121 The prologue in Cod. 4b bears the heading ‘Praefatio Gregorii episcopi Turonensis in libro miraculorum beati Andreae apostoli,’ at the close, ‘Incipit textus ipsorum miraculorum.’

122 Several codices here mark the end of the book; 4b closes, ‘Finit Gregorii Turonensis episcopi liber de virtutibus et miraculis beati Andreae apostoli.’

123 A reference to in Glor. Martyr., of the same edition, c. xciv., shows that the new text reads: Quod passio eorum quam Syro interpretante in latinum transtulimus, plenius pandit.

124 See R. Schröter’s two papers in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, vols. xxv. and xxviii.; vol. xxv., p. 349, verse 20.

125 See text, pp. 146-47, last and first line, and De Mir, p. 97 1.5 f.

126 Chronica Minora, of Scriptores Syri, series 3a, tom. iv., Paris, 1903, 2nd Chron. parvum, p. 17, 1. 18 seq.—‘Corpus Scriptor. Christianor. Orientalium.’

127 These are (i.) St. Augustine Opera omnia, edit. Benedict. Venetiis, 1730, tom. iii., pars ii.col. 194, De sermone Domini in monte secundum Mattheum, lib. i.c.xx. n. 65; (ii.) tom. viii., ejusd. edit., Contra Adimantum Manichaei discipulum, c. xviii. n. 2; and (iii.) tom. viii. Contra Faustum, lib. xxii. c. lxxix. col. 409.

128 The original text of the Diatessaron, the Syriac, has not been yet discovered, but the work exists in an Arabic form and was published with a Latin translation by the late Cardinal Ciasca from a Vatican codex and a more complete Egyptian copy; an English translation was given by the Rev. J.H. Hill, Edinburgh, 1894, see Introduction, pp. 6-7.

129 See Assemani, Bibl. Oriental., i. p. 47, and Chron. Edessen., ibid.; also No. viii. of same in Guidi’s Chron. Minor., p.4, Scriptores Syri, ut. supr.

130 See article, ‘Bardesane,’ in new Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, Paris, 1903, by Mangenot, now in course of publication. The article treats very fully the history and teaching of this early leader of a sect, and reproduces the result of the latest researches.

131 S. Ephraem Syrii Commentarii in Epistolas D. Pauli, nunc primum ex Armeno in Latinum sermonem a Patribus Mekitharistis translati, Venetiis, 1893.