in character, using the normal East Syrian rite and dependent on the Katholikos of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. It would seem that its nucleus consisted of Syrian refugees from Persia. The bishops, in the earlier period, appear to be all Syrians ordained and sent out by the Katholikos. There is, then, a certain similarity between Malabar and Abyssinia (dependent on the Patriarch of Alexandria). But at Malabar there was no attempt to adapt the liturgy to the language of the country. To the native converts in India Syriac was as foreign a language as Latin to converts in England. But they kept the liturgical language of the mother Church. Another parallel to Abyssinia is that there was only one bishop in Malabar. The Metropolitan of India, like Abūna in Abyssinia, had no suffragans. It may be that for a time the Manichees obtained a footing in this land. Some writers, notably Theodoret of Cyrus,[1] say that Mani sent a disciple to India. We shall not be surprised that this disciple is said to have borne the invariable name of all supposed early Indian missionaries. He, too, was called Thomas. Some see in this an explanation of the whole legend of the Apostle Thomas; it would be a Manichæan forgery;[2] there is a long story (complicated with Buddha[3]) to account for early Christianity in India. Certainly, the Manichæan idea suggests among other influences that of Hinduism; and there is evidence of Manichæism in Ceylon at an early date.[4] On the other hand, what we know of Malabar Christianity shows us no trace of Manichæism. All allusions show us a normal Christian Church of East Syrian type, and then Nestorianism. We have no indication when Malabar turned Nestorian. But that must have happened inevitably as soon as East Syria adopted the heresy. The missionary daughter Church simply followed her mother. Since the bishop was a Syrian sent out from the home of Nestorianism, he would bring the theology of his sect with him; the converts
- ↑ Hæret. Fab. Comp. i. 26 (P.G. lxxxiii. 381).
- ↑ So Tillemont, quoted by Assemani (Bibl. Or. III. ii. 28); Germann (op. cit. p. 100) and most writers now reject this idea.
- ↑ His name, Gautama, is supposed in some way to contain the name Thomas.
- ↑ So G. Flügel: Mani, seine Lehre u. seine Schriften (Leipzig, 1862), pp. 85, 174.
