The Syrian Churches/Traditions of early oriental Missionaries

by John Wesley Etheridge

 

TRADITIONS OF EARLY ORIENTAL MISSIONARIES.

 

1. There is a prevailing and by no means ill-founded belief that the Magi, of whom we read in the second chapter of St. Matthew, communicated the first, though indistinct, evangelic tidings to the Gentiles of the East. It is impossible to dispel the obscurity which rests upon the questions of the country, station, and subsequent career of those devout and highly-favoured men, or to settle the titles of contending peoples who have laid claim to them as their countrymen. According to an Armenian tradition, the Magi came to the Holy Land from a part of Tartary called Tanguth, where, after their return, they prepared the way for the gospel. The Chaldeans, on the other hand, claim them as natives of, and the first evangelists to, their own land. "That they came from Chaldea," says Yeates, "agrees with the best accounts; and if we may conjecture from the names of three of them recorded in the Ethiopic church-books, one at least was a Chaldean, whose name, they say, was Chesad." It is true that Chesadim, or Chesdim, is the Old-Testament name for the nation of the Chaldeans; but the circumstance thus pointed out, it must be confessed, furnishes but a dubious evidence in settlement of this question. The Nestorians have a legend, that the Magi went from Ooroomiah, or Urmiah, a city of Media, instructed by a prophecy of Zoroaster, who, at the time of the captivity, had been a disciple of the prophet Jeremiah. Zoroaster, or Zerdushta, was the great reformer of the old fire-worship, which prevailed so extensively in those countries. He was a worshipper of the one true God, or, as Sir William Jones says, "a pure theist, who strongly disclaimed any adoration of the fire or other elements, and denied the favourite doctrine of two coeval independent principles, supremely good and supremely bad." The long sojourn of the Jews in the state of their captivity; their steadfastness, in general, in the true worship; the teachings of their prophets; and the remarkable interpositions of the divine power in their favour; tended to prepare the way for such a reform in the popular religion, as is affirmed was effected by the instrumentality of Zoroaster. Now it is highly probable that these Magi (whether Chaldeans, Persians, Medes, or Arabians, as some conjecture, from the interchange of the words Arabi and Magi by Ptolemy and Pliny, and the nature of the oblations presented by them,—gold, frankincense, and myrrh, the productions of Arabia,) were Sophoi, "Wise Men," or students of the True and the Good, who retained the principles of the reformed Magian theology, with some measures of divine truth, derived either from converse with the dispersed of Israel, the possession of parts of their scriptures, or, which is not impossible, from revelations vouchsafed to themselves, and had entered into the Jewish expectation of the advent of the great Deliverer. We see in them at once the representatives of the antique faith of the patriarchs, the first-fruits of Gentile adorations at the feet of Christ, and the unconscious forerunners of those messengers of peace, who, half a century later, announced far and wide to the oriental nations the wonders of his name.^[1]

2. Nor can it be imagined that the numerous proselytes who, on the day of Pentecost at Jerusalem, had been brought under the power of the truth, should have so received the grace of God in vain, as to neglect to become witnesses for the Saviour, and, to some extent, preachers of his gospel, on their return to their respective countries. Hence, within the first year from the Ascension, Christianity found a voice among "Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene," in Rome, and Crete, and Arabia.^[2]

3. So, shortly after, "they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen, travelled as far as Phenice and Cyprus and Antioch; preaching the word," though "to none but to the Jews only. And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which when they were come to Antioch spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus; and the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned unto the Lord."^[3]

[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."^[4]]

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.^[5]

 

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 on his journey to India, he preached to divers nations; the Parthians, Carmanians, Bactrianians, Margües, and Indians."—Assem. tom. iv. p. 33.

 

THE EDESSENE TABLES.

"Thomas was not only apostle of the Syrians and Chaldeans, but also of the Parthians, Medes, and Indians."

 

SOPHRONIUS (of Jerusalem).

"Thomas, the apostle, preached the gospel of the Lord in Parthia, Media, Persia, Carmania, Hyrcania, Bactria, and Margæ."

 

EBED JESU (of Soba).

"India, and all the regions round about, received the priesthood from Thomas, who presided and ministered in a church which he built there."

With this apostle tradition associates, in some portions of his labours, Bartholomew, or Nathanæl Eb'n Tolmai, and Jude, or Thaddeus.

 

ELIAS OF DAMASCUS.

"The regions of Sind and India, and adjacent parts of the East, as far as the Indian ocean, became Christian by the preaching of the apostle Thomas, one of the twelve. With him joined afterwards Jude, the son of James, also of the twelve."

 

THE SYRIAN CANONS.

"The fifth seat is Babylon, in honour of the three constituted apostles,—Thomas, the apostle of the Hindoos and Chinese; Bartholomew, who also is Nathanæl, of the Syrians; and Adæus, one of the Seventy, who was master to Agæus and Mares, the apostle of Mesopotamia and all Persia. Jude, the son of James, was one of the twelve; and he also is called Lebbeus and Tbaddeus. He preached the gospel in Antarus and Laodicea. Then went he unto Thadmor, and Raca, and Circesum, and Temun, and certain parts of the East; and there followed him Thomas into India."

"If at any time," says Assemannus, "Matthew the evangelist visited any of the eastern regions, he did not go beyond the bounds of Nisibis and Assyria; but, when he had passed over those regions, soon returned. Bartholomew also travelled over these and other lands, and preached in Greater Armenia."

The apostle Thomas, there is strong evidence to believe, finished his course by martyrdom. This occurred in Coromandel, where the place of his sepulture is still shown. He had preached in Syria, Mesopotamia, Chaldæa, and Persia. The inhabitants of Malabar had heard the gospel by his voice. He had planted the standard of the cross on the coast of Coromandel, and had pressed onward, in the fulfilment of his divine commission, so far as to the confines of China.

Of the seventy disciples commissioned by our Lord, one, named Adæus, is commemorated in the East as the founder of many churches. He had two efficient fellowlabourers in his disciples, Agæus, or Achæus, and Mares. "Adæus preached at Edessa, and in Athur, (Assyria,) and at Mosûl, and in Persia … At length Mares went to announce the gospel in all parts of the land of Babylon, and of both the Arachæ," namely, Persia and Assyria. "Nor did he cease to visit all these regions, and also the places in which Thaddeus, or Adæus, had preached the faith, and to visit, to catechize, to baptize, to teach, and to build up churches, to cure diseases, and to perform signs and wonders, until he had converted very many to the faith, and wonderfully propagated the Christian religion in those parts."

"All Persia, Assyria, Armenia, and Media, the regions about Babylon, Huz, and Gala, to the borders of India, and as far as Gog and Magog " (the country north of the Caucasus,) "received the priesthood from Agæus, a weaver of silk clothing, the disciple of the apostle Thaddeus." So Bar Hebræus, Marus of Soba, and Elias of Damascus, apud Asseman. vol. iv.

The Syrians hold that Thaddeus, whom they style "the chief and greatest of the assembly of the Seventy and two," was the founder of the church of Edessa. "When he came to that city," says their tradition, "they received him with great joy. He blessed Abgarus and his entire household and the whole city.^[6] He healed their sicknesses by the word of our Lord, and declared the miracles and signs he had wrought in the world, confirming his words by miracles … He discipled Edessa and Mesopotamia, and taught them the ordinances of the gospel. With the assistance of Agæus, his disciple, he converted and baptized all the region of the East, as far as the Eastern Sea. When he was grown old and venerable, he improved his talent more than double; he rooted out from the hearts the thorns and thistles, and sowed them with the purest wheat, and entered the joy of his Lord."

To the same effect the historian Amrus. "Mar Adæus, one of the Seventy, came to Edessa, and healed king Abgar of his leprosy. At Nisebin, Mosul, Hazath, and in Persia, there were with him, preaching the gospel, Mar Marus and Bar Tholmai. lie built a church at Caphar Uzel, in Adjabena,^[7] where is the inscription of his name to this day. He built another church in the city of Arzan, which also bears his name at the present time. St. Thomas assembled with him, and remained with him some time before his departure for India. They both ordained Marus … Mar Adæus, having fulfilled the office of preaching twelve years and some months, departed, … and was buried in the great church at Edessa."

Bar Hebræus writes concerning Aghæus, that "he laboured fifteen years in the work of the gospel, and survived his master Adæus only three years." And of Marus, that, "when, after the martyrdom of his companion Aghæus, he could no longer continue in Edessa, he went into the East, and preached in Athur and in the land of Shinar." … And again, "Marus first discipled some of the people of Beth Garmi.^[8] He afterwards endured great trials from them. He then came to Seleucia … When he entered the city, there was a sick man there, who, having been signed by him with the sign of the life-giving cross, opened his eyes, and said unto his men, 'I saw a vision of this stranger, as one descended from heaven; and he took me by the hands and raised me up; and as soon as I opened my eyes, I saw him sitting with me.' Then the men of that city received Marus as an angel of God, and he taught and baptized many of them, and began to build churches in that city, where he abode fifteen years, confirming them in the faith. Afterwards he went and passed through all quarters, working miracles and wonderful works; and, having fulfilled his preaching for thirty and three years, he departed to his Lord in a city named Badaraja, and was buried there in a church which he had built."

 

1. Compare what Suetonius, in the Life of Vespasian, says on the expectation of a Saviour King, which had become almost universal in the East.
2. Acts ii. 9—11.
3. Acts xi. 19—24.
4. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. iii. 37.
5. Compare Yeates's "Indian Church History."
6. See further on, article Edessa.
7. Adjabena, Athur, or Atyria, q. d. Assyria, are names for the same legion. The modern name, Koordistan, is derived from the Karduchi, a nation which once inhabited the district bordering on Armenia.
8. Beth Garini, or Beit Germe, "the place of bones," a district of Koordistan, watered by the rivers Gomela and Hazir. It derives its name from the battle fought there between Darius and Alexander. It became a considerable Nestorian bishopric.