[This form of voluntary itinerant agency was still in operation in the second century, when, as Eusebius describes it, "many of the then disciples, whose souls were inflamed by the divine word, and with a more ardent desire of wisdom, first fulfilled our Saviour's commandment, by distributing their substance to those who were necessitous; then, after that, travelling abroad, they performed the work of evangelists to those who had not yet at all heard the word of faith; being very ambitious to preach Christ, and to deliver the books of the divine gospels. And these persons having only laid the foundation of faith in remote and barbarous places, and constituted other pastors, committed to them the culture of those they had perfectly introduced to the faith, and departed again to other regions."[1]]
Of the company of the apostles themselves, St. Thomas was, without controversy, the great messenger of the gospel to the East. From Syria to the Indies, and away to the confines of China, there are traces of his evangelic progress; and several of the communities of Christians subsisting in those regions, have always described themselves as the seals of his apostleship. The traditionary testimonies to this have been exhibited by Stephen Asseman, in his valuable Bibliotheca Orientalis, from which we select the following.[2]
THE SYRIAN CHRONICLE OF BAR HEBRÆUS.
"Thomas preached to the Parthians and Medes … The apostle Thomas was the first pontiff of the East … We are taught from the book of the preaching of the holy apostles, that the divine apostle Thomas announced the Christian message to the eastern region in the second year after our Lord's ascension. As he passed through
- ↑ Euseb. Hist. Eccles. iii. 37.
- ↑ Compare Yeates's "Indian Church History."
