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3 2
JARL CHARPENTIER
not at all certain about the date of Manikka Vasakar even if
some authorities ascribe him to the 4th or even the 3d century
A.D.
Nor am I aware of the reasons on which Labourt’ asserts
that in the 4th century A.D. there was in Ceylon a monastery
of St. Thomas. But on the other hand we know for absolutely
sure that about 500 A.D. there were wide-spread Christian
communities in Malabar and Ceylon. This is proved by the
witness of cosmas, surnamed indicopleustes2, who had himself
visited these places and wrote his work at Alexandria in about
525—530 after having turned monk himself. He also tells us
that these communities consisted of ’Persian’, i.e. Nestorian,
Christians, and that at Kalyäna in Malabar there was a bishop
who had been ordinated in Persia. Such communities, of course,
could not have sprung into existence just recently. And the
legitimate inference seems to me to be this that the South
Indian Church was chiefly founded by Nestorian Christians from
Persia who fled to India during the violent and cruel
persecutions of Shähpur II (309 — 379) during the first half of the
4th century. But already at this time it was an established
tradition of the Churches that St. Thomas was the Apostle of
India; and in a few hundred years the tradition became
absolutely established that he himself was the founder of Christianity
in South India, and thus the Christians in that part of the world
began to designate themselves as Christians of St. Thomas.3
Perhaps they did not yet do so in about 500 when cosmas
visited them as otherwise it seems remarkable that he should
not tell us anything about it. If they had come to Malabar in
about 350 and to Ceylon somewhat later the tradition of their
origin may in about 500 A.D. still have been living amongst
them.
My opinion concerning the Christians of St. Thomas may
thus be summed up as follows.
There is so far absolutely not the shadow of a proof that
an Apostle of our Lord — be his name Thomas or something
1 Le Christianisme dans I’Empire Perse p. 306.
2 Cp. Xpca-ciavixv] Tonoyptxylot ed. wlnstedt pp. 119, 322.
3 In this opinion I very nearly agree with Milne Rae.
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