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ST. THOMAS THE APOSTLE AND INDIA
SI
the time of Origen and his sources was simply known as Parthia,
to understand that the two traditions far from invalidating do
rather corroborate each other.
The immediate results of the suggested mission of St.
Thomas are not visible through any known monument and
tradition, and perhaps there were not even any. Much has been
made out of the silence of Bardesanes concerning Christianity
in India" but I fail to see the weight of this argument. On the
other hand Clement of Alexandria and Origen as well as
Eusebius2 tell us that a certain Pantænus, the teacher of Clement,
went to India in about 190 A.D. whence he brought back a
Gospel of St. Matthew written in Hebrew characters. Already
Assemanni3 and Tillemont concluded, on insufficient reasons, that
’India’ here meant Arabia Felix, and this curious assertion has
been repeated by later writers without further reasons. It would
be far more natural to suggest that Pantænus went by land to
Afghanistan and North-Western India, and that there he found
some Christian communities who possessed a Pahlavi translation
of the Gospels in Aramaic script, part of which he brought home
with him.4 That Christianity should at that time have spread
through Persia towards the Kabul and Indus valleys does not
seem very remarkable.
At a somewhat later date (325) we find that a certain
John, who styled himself ’Bishop of Persia and Great India’,
attended the Council of Nicea. It has been quite correctly
suggested5 that ’Great India’ here means North-Western India,
the Indian part of the sometime realm of Gondopharnes. Later
on this country obviously fell to the missions of the Nestorians.
For, we have it that the White Huns who about 450 A.D.
invaded Bactria, Afghanistan and North-Western India were
partly made Christians; and there is little doubt that Christians
here means Nestorian Christians. It seems quite possible that
if Nestorianism had not been condemned and chased out by the
1 Cp. Mingana Bulletin of the John Rylands Library X, 448.
2 Historia eccl. V, 10.
3 Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana IV, 602.
4 This is an ingenious suggestion of my friend Dr. Nyberg.
5 Cp. e.g. Kennedy Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1907, 958 etc.
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