would know nothing else. Now, we are reduced to one or two chance allusions to Malabar. Kosmas Indikopleustes, in the 6th century, found "Persian Christians" in India ruled by a Persian bishop (p. 104). About the same time another traveller, a Jacobite Syrian monk, Bud Periodeutes,[1] also found Christians in India established for a long time.[2] Their dependence on the Nestorians is undoubted. We have seen the letter in which Yeshu'yab, the Nestorian Katholikos, complains that Simon of Yāḳut neglects the missions under his care (7th century, p. 104). Among these is that of India.[3] The Katholikos Timothy I (728-823, see pp. 94-96) refers on several occasions to the flourishing Church of India, subject to himself.[4] Barhebræus tells us that in the time of this Timothy the Metropolitan of Persia would not obey him as Katholikos, and said: "We are the disciples of Thomas the Apostle, and have nothing to do with the See of Mari." So Timothy, to humble his pride and weaken his power, took away India from his jurisdiction, and made it a Metropolitan see independent of anyone but himself.[5] Assemani thinks that the Thomas whom Timothy ordained with others and sent out as missionaries was for India.[6] But already the Malabar people had begun that strange practice, in later years characteristic of them, of sending to the hereditary enemies of their Church, the Monophysites, for bishops. We shall see this astonishing proceeding on a much larger scale later (p. 365). Meanwhile already, in the 6th century, they made approaches to the Monophysites, which, however, at first produced no result.[7] In the 7th century the same thing happened again. An Indian priest came to the Coptic Patriarch Isaac (686-689) asking him to
- ↑ Bud is Bā'uth; Periodeutes is an office of the Nestorians and Jacobites; a "visitor" (sâ'aurâ, p. 134).
- ↑ Assemani: Bibl. Orient, III. part i. 219..
- ↑ Ib. p. 438.
- ↑ Labourt: De Timotheo, i. pp. 41-42.
- ↑ Chronic. Eccl. ii. 172.
- ↑ Bibl. Orient. III. part ii. 444-445. The inevitable name Thomas could, in this case, easily be explained. Nestorian bishops took new names at their ordination (pp. 130, 132). A bishop for India would naturally choose Thomas. This Thomas is mentioned among those ordained at that time in Thomas of Margâ: Book of Governors (see p. 112), iv. 20 (ed. Wallis Budge, vol. ii. p. 447).
- ↑ Germann: op. cit. 148-149.
