THE FIRST MALAYALI (MALE) TRAVELLER

Theophilus came to Kerala in 354 AD

Who was the first Malayali traveller to go abroad? It is commonly believed that it was Joseph Kathanar or Josephus the Indian. It is a blunder because Joseph was part of a three-member delegation. But why can't it be Theophilus the Indian? The problem seems to be that Theophilus is considered (not confirmed) a man from Maldives by Western historians. When we look at him from Kerala, there is every chance that he was a Keralite; Of course, he was in Kerala in AD 354. Even if Theophilus is ruled out, Josephus will not be promoted because there is Daniel the Indian.

Constantine

Cabral

The story of Joseph Kathanar, the Nestorian priest of Cranganore, begins in the 15th century, before the Portuguese arrival when he was a layman. He was born in 1461; he was part of a three-member delegation which went to meet the Patriarch of Babylon, Mar Simeon(1437-1497) seeking native Bishops, in 1490, eight years before the arrival of Vasco da Gama. Till then, the Bishop of Persia was in charge of India, or a foreigner was sent. One delegate died en route. Joseph and George reached safely. Both were ordained priests by Simeon at the Holy Church of St George at Gazarta. Gazarta is modern Cizre, the town founded by Noah at the foot of Mount Judi, where the Ark came to rest. It is located on river Tigris; the historical Jazirat Ibn Umar, which connected Upper Mesopotamia to Armenia. It is known in Syriac as Gazarta d' Beth Zabdai town in the Anatolia region of Turkey, bordering Syria. It was the seat of the East Syrian Bishops of Beth Sabdai as early as the fourth century. Chaldean Bishops of Gazarta were there till the early 20th century.

Gazarta (Cizre) and Mosul

To Hormuz

Joseph went there via the island of Hormuz on a ship with Arab traders. Joseph and George were sent to the Monastery of Mar Awgin in Merda, Nusaybin or Nisibis in modern Turkey. Mar Awgin of Clysma or Saint Eugenius (died in 363) founded the first Cenobitic Monastery of Asia and is regarded as the father of monasticism in Mesopotamia. He was a pearl fisher on the island of Clysma near Suez in Egypt. After working for 25 years, he joined the monastery of Pachomius in Upper Egypt, where he worked as a baker. He, it is said, had the power to do miracles; when he left Egypt for Mesopotamia, about 70 monks followed him. He founded the monastery in Mount Izla above the city of Nisibis, in the Mardine province of Turkey. Nisibis was on the Eastern edge of the Roman Empire, where Christianity was the official religion.

Ruins of Mar Awgin's monastery

It was where Josephus had the sojourn. Two priests in the monastery, foreigners, Thomas and John were ordained as Bishops and were sent to Malabar with Josephus. After return, Josephus accompanied Bishop Mar Thomas in 1492 (or 1498), when he returned, to submit offerings of the Saint Thomas Christians to the Patriarch. In 1502, Mar Elias, successor to Mar Simeon, sent again the same Thomas along with three other Bishops: Mar Juballa, Mar Denha and Mar Jacob. Josephus had travelled thus to Aramea and Syria. On 10, January 1501, Joseph and his elder brother Mathias boarded the 12-fleet Armada of Pedro Alvarez Cabral from Cranganore. 

Cabral (C.1467/1468-C.1520), the Portuguese Commander had reached Calicut on September 13,1500 following the first expedition of Vasco da Gama in 1498. He was forced to leave a smouldering Calicut after a massacre on December 24(a Christmas in a bloodbath!) to Cochin and Cranganore.In Cranganore the Joseph brothers approached him. They boarded the armada on January 10. Fine. History tells us that Alvarez had to leave Cranganore on January 16, after he got intelligence that the Zamorin had sent 80 ships against him. It was a practice then to have a few noble hostages reciprocally when you reach a new land. When the Zamorin ships were on their way, the exhausted Cabral disanchored his ship with the two noblemen of Cochin, Idikkala Menon and Parangode Menon. Another act of cruelty which he inherited from Vasco da Gama. Cabral's mission was to cement the trade relations by bypassing Arab, Turkish and Italian merchants. He was the first Captain to touch four continents, Europe, Africa, America and Asia and is credited with the discovery of Brazil, though Brazil was actually discovered by Vincente Pinzon in 1499. He fell out with the King Manuel of Portugal on his return and led a private life. We do not know whether it had anything to do with the death of Mathias, Joseph's brother, en route. The Kerala clergy was part of the trade and intelligence network. The book, Itinerarium Portugallensium (1508) has recorded Cabral's trip to Malabar.

The plan of Josephus and his brother was to go to Portugal, Rome, Venice and return via Armenia and reach Babylon to meet the Patriarch at Mosul. Mathias died en route.Their final destination in the pilgrimage was Sao Tome. The very idea of visiting Sao Tome was brilliant because it was a newly discovered country. Sao Tome Principe is an African island, northeast of Trinidad, founded by Alvaro Caminha in 1493 (Caminha was later Secretary to King Manuel; maybe he fell out with Cabral). The Portuguese had gone to the uninhabited island in search of a place to grow sugar, in 1470. Sao Tome was right on the equator, wet enough to grow sugar cane in abundance. Its proximity to the Kingdom of Kongo guaranteed slave labour. Sao Tome is Portuguese for St Thomas. It has a Presidential palace, a cathedral and a cinema. Maybe Josephus wanted to see Sao Tome, with the idea of having his own sugar cane plantation. That is the Syrian Christian psyche. In his travels, Josephus met  Pope Alexander VI. He was interviewed in Venice, Lisbon and Rome and we have those accounts as a book, Josephi Indi/Navigationes, published in 1555, making him the first Malayali travel writer.

 Upon his arrival in Lisbon, Joseph the Indian spent a couple of years intensely interviewed by the Portuguese Court and the Casa da India, the India House that managed all overseas territories in the 16th Century. It is likely that the detailed depiction of the East Indian Coast and the Bay of Bengal in the Cantino Planisphere of 1502 owed in large part to Joseph. Cantino Planisphere (Cantino World Map) is the earliest surviving map showing the Portuguese geographic discoveries in the East and the West. It is named after Alberto Cantino, an Agent for the Duke of Ferrara who smuggled it from  Portugal to Italy in 1502.

Cantino Planisphere, 1502. Bibliotheca Estense, Modena, Italy

Joseph went to meet the Pope around 1503 and reported on the Malabar Syrian Church. It was on this trip he dictated his narrative on India to an Italian scribe which was published in 1507 in Italian as part of a collection, Paesi Novamente Retrovarti, edited by Francanzano da Montalboddo (I take this Italian as correct; he is mentioned as Frananzio/Fracanzono/Facanzio/Fracanzano etc). Montalboddo is the present Ostram in the Central province of Ancona in Italy. It includes Joseph's own account of the Cabral expedition. The copy of the German translation of Paesi (1508) was sold at $ 1,10,500 at Christie's. The feat of Joseph is amazing.

Cover of Paesi, German

This anthology, published on November 3,1507 became a huge success because it was for the first time an account of Cabral's discovery of Brazil was published. The book documented the journeys undertaken by the Portuguese, Spaniards and Italians at the service of the Iberian Monarchs. It described Alvise Cadamosto's (Italian slave trader and explorer, C.1432-1483. He was hired by the Portugal Prince Henry the Navigator to explore west Africa in 1455 and '56) voyage to Cape Verde and Senegal, the pioneering voyage from Lisbon to Calicut, Pedro de Sinta's expedition to Senegal, Gama's Voyage, Columbus' three voyages, Alonso Nino, Pinzon travels, Giocondo's version, Vespucci's letter to Lorenzo de Medici about his third voyage, documents of peace treaty between Kings of Portugal and Calicut and and Cabral's voyage to India and Brazil. Josephus is here mentioned as Jose' Indico.

Paesi Novamente Retrovarti, First Edition, 1507

Daniel the Indian was a priest sent from Kerala (?) to Syria for Ecclesiastical training, around 425. He translated the Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans from Greek to Syriac while at Edessa. He signed it as Daniel the priest, Indian. The Ecclesiastical language of the Indian Church then was Greek and Syriac. The travels of Theophilus (who died in AD 364) are recorded by Philostorgius, an Arian Greek Church historian. Theophilus, it is recorded, was taken hostage by the Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great, so that the people of Male would not plunder the Roman ships that passed by. This means that Theophilus, whose original name we do not know, was a pirate in Male. In Rome, he became a Christian and a Bishop. He was ordained first as a Deacon by the Arian Bishop, Eusebius of Nicomedia. Eusebius was distantly related to Constantine the Great and he was the one who baptised Constantine on May 22, AD 337. During his time at the Imperial court, major positions in the Eastern Church were held by Arians. He was a tutor of Emperor Julian. When he signed the confession in the First Council of Nicaea in 325, he said, he"subscribe with hand only, not with heart." He died in 341, at the peak of glory.

Gallus Coin

Theophilus, also called the "Ethiopian," was alternately in and out of favour with the Roman Emperor Constantius II, who succeeded Constantine. He was exiled because Constantius believed him to be a supporter of his rebellious cousin, Gallus. Since Theophilus was famed as a healer, he was later recalled to heal the wife of Constantius, Empress Eusebia. She was cured and Theophilus was in favor again. He was once again exiled for supporting the disfavored Theologian, Aetius, whose Anomoean doctrine was an offshoot of Arianism.

Eusebius

Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius(CA AD 250/256-336), a Christian presbyter in Alexandria, Egypt concerning the relationship of God the Father to the Son of God, Jesus. Arius asserted that the Son of God was a subordinate entity to God the Father. He was born in Libya and became a priest in Alexandria of the Church of Baucalis. His opposition to Trinitarian Christianity and his theory of the Father's divinity over the Son made him the cynosure at the Ecumenical first Council of Nicaea of 325. Deemed a heretic by that Council (The Indian Church was represented in it by the Persian Bishop Johannes), Arian was later exonerated in 325 at the regional First Synod of Ture; after his death, he was pronounced a heretic again at the Ecumenical First Council of Constantinople of 381. Emperors Constantius II (337-361) and Valens(364-378) were Arians or Semi-Arians.

Arius

Arian concept of Christ is that the Son of God didn't always exist, but was created by -and is therefore distinct from the Father. It is grounded in the Gospel of John(14:28): You heard me say, "I am going away and I am coming back to you".If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.
When they were friendly, around 354 AD, Constantius sent Theophilus on a mission to Asia via Arabia where he is said to have converted the Himyarites and built three churches in Southwest Arabia. It was on this trip he reached Kerala, maybe his own country (Thomas of Cana had arrived in Cranganore, just nine years back, in AD 345). A very interesting period: the seat of the Patriarch was vacant during 346-363. It was also vacant during 317-329. In simple terms, the Cana trip and the Theophilus trip were free; they had nothing to do with the Patriarch. The Patriarch Papa Bar Aggai died in 317; The Patriarch Darba'sh min(343-346)was there for three years; The Patriarch Tomasa was there during 363-371.

Himyarite Kingdom (110BC-520s), also referred to as Homeric Kingdom was in ancient Yemen. Its capital was the modern city of Sana'a, after the ancient city of Zafar. It fell to Christian invaders in 525 AD. The Kingdom was the major intermediary linking East Africa and the Mediterranean world. The export of ivory from Africa was taking place there to be sold in the Roman Empire. Ships from Himyar travelled regularly to the East African Coast. Periplus has described the trading Empire of Himyar and its ruler Charibael (KarabII Watar Yuhna'em II), who was friendly with Rome. Himyar was the dominant polity in Arabia until 525. Foreign trade centred on the export of frankincense and myrrh. It conquered the Kingdoms of Saba' and Qataban during 115 BCE-300 AD and took Raydan/Zafar as its capital instead of Ma'rib. Saba' was finally conquered by Himayar in the late third century AD. Zafar's ruins are still there on Mudawwar mountain near Yarim. Their trade failed because of the reasons being the Roman superiority over the naval trade route after the Roman conquest of Egypt, Syria and Northern Hijaz. Aksumites invaded Tihmah and Najran in 340 AD. The occupation lasted till 378.

Himyar Coins

Constantius

After fulfilling his mission in Himayar, Theophilus sailed to his Island home. Then he visited Other parts of India, reforming many things. They sang songs, read the Gospel, and heard liturgy sitting. He found this outrageous. Perhaps the worship in the church's standing became a rule from that period onwards.

The Catholic Encyclopedia suggests the place he visited as Malabar(Kerala). The reference of Theophilus in India is to a place where a body of Christians had the church, priest, and liturgy near Maldives can only apply to a Christian church on the adjacent coast of India, not Ceylon because Ceylon was known by the name Taprobane at that time. The people referred to have their liturgy in the Syriac language and they inhabited the west coast of India, Malabar.

Sao Tome Cathedral

The area in India where Theophilus worked finds a mention later in history in Universal Christian Topography written by Cosmas Indicopleustes who visited India around AD 522. He wrote: "We have found the church not destroyed, but very widely diffused and the whole world filled with the doctrine of Christ, which is being day by day propagated and the gospel preached over the whole earth. This I have seen with my own eyes in many places and have heard narrated by others. I as a witness of truth relate: In the land of Taprobane (Srilanka), inner India, where the Indian sea is, there is a church of Christians, with clergy and congregation of believers, though I know not if there be any Christians further in this direction. And such also is the case in the land called Male(Malabar), where the pepper grows. And in the place called Kallia (Kollam), there is a Bishop appointed from Persia, as well as in the island called Dioscores(Socotra) in the same Indian sea. The inhabitants of that island speak Greek, having been originally settled there by Ptolemies, who ruled after Alexander of Macedonia. There are clergy there also ordained and sent from Persia to minister among the people of the island and the multitude of Christians..."

Catholic Encyclopedia finds Kallia is Kalyan in Mumbai, whereas authentic interpretations say it is Kollam. Kalyan seems to be utter nonsense. I have seen a few texts where Male is spoken of as Kollam or Quilon.

If it is agreed that Male in the account of Cosmas is Malabar, why Male in the case of Theophilus is Maldives?Only because, Westerners connect it with Male, the capital of modern Maldives.A case of mixing past with present.My suspicion that Theophilus was a Malayali has roots in this regard. It is only a suspicion, I reiterate. I don't have the equipment of a historian.

Cosmas was a rich Christian merchant from Alexandria, Egypt.

Now we have to answer an important question: Since there were many Indias in that period, were the visits of Theophilus and Cosmas actually to subcontinent India?
In a brilliant article, A Confusion of Indias: Asian India and African India in the Byzantine Sources, Philip Mayerson of New York University refutes the claim that both of them had been to subcontinent India.

World picture of Cosmas

It is not well known that after the fourth century, the region called India varied in Byzantine texts. It was subcontinental India, Ethiopia/Axum or South Arabia. I had written earlier that Theophilus the Indian was also called "Ethiopian", reinforcing this confusion. Mayerson points out that in the dictionaries, there is only one India. But historians dealing in trade between Rome and the East knew several Indias. E H Warmington in The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India writes: "It was in reality trade with the Ethiopians and even under Justinian in the 6th century Byzantine subjects visited not India so much as Arabia and Axumite realms(particularly Adulis) and the ignorance now shown about India was truly prodigious".

Though Warmington opines thus, confusion is still there as to what India meant-Ethiopian, Arabian or subcontinental. Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium states that Theophilus was sent to India, "where he found some Christian followers of the Apostle Bartholomew".Mayerson categorically dismisses it and says that Theophilus was sent to work among Homerites in Arabia Felix. He questions the veracity of the account of Philostorgius; he is of the view that several writers like Ammianus Marcellinus(c.330-395), Procopius of Caesaria (c.500-post 565) had a perception of the geographical India in South Asia. But Procopius in Buildings has reverted to the conventional wisdom of his age in connecting India with Ethiopia when he states, "the Nile river, flowing out of India into Egypt, divides that land into two parts as far as the sea".Mayerson states that subcontinental India receives more than a digression in A Christian Topography, a work of an unknown Alexandrian merchant and aspiring Theologian who was later given the name Cosmas and the sobriquet of Indicopleustes.' Mayerson says Cosmas knew the Red Sea region and there is consensus among historians that he didn't visit India.

Title page, Itinerarium Portugallensium

Grant Parker who wrote The Making of Roman India doesn't dismiss the visit of Cosmas to India. He admits there is an eastern Indian Ocean paradigm where there is an overlap in elements associated with India and Africa. The Indian Ocean then was considered a connected zone; North Eastern Africa and Ethiopia were considered within the same geographical unit as the subcontinent. Parker requests us to make a virtue of the conflation/confusion of India and Africa. So, according to Parker, Cosmas gives India a sense of specificity, lacking in other writers. For Cosmas, like that in the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, India was part of a trading zone that stretched all the way to the Red Sea and the African coast. Cosmas himself was a trader who travelled to the subcontinent as well as along the east coast of Africa. His India is not the marvellous India.

Cosmas

We have seen Theophilus was out of favour with Constantius for two reasons: his support to the cousin of Constantius, Gallus and the Theologian, Aetius.

Aetius of Antioch was born into a poor family in Coele-Syria and worked as a vine-dresser and goldsmith in Antioch to support his widowed mother and family. He was a slave of a woman called Ampelis. Having obtained his freedom in some disgraceful manner, he became a travelling tinker and a goldsmith. He was convicted for substituting copper for gold in an ornament entrusted to him for repair. He gave up the trade, attached himself to an itinerant quack, and picked up some knowledge of medicine. Still, his interest in Theology made him study under Paulinus, Bishop of Antioch, Athanasius, Bishop of Anazarbus and Presbyter Antonius of Tarsus. He was ordained a Deacon in 350 and exiled for propagating Arianism. Banished by Constantius, he went to Alexandria in 356. He died as a Bishop, living in private, in 367.

Flavius Claudius Constantius Gallus(ca 325/326-354), commonly known as Constantius Gallus was paternal half-brother of Constantine I, so half-first cousin of Constantius. The elder sister, whose name is not known, was the wife of Constantius and he married the sister of Constantius, Constantina. He was raised to the rank of Caesar on March 15, AD 351 and was made a Consul of the East at Antioch in 352. Antioch was one of the four cities of the Syrian metropolis. There he had to face a Jewish revolt at first and then a famine. He turned the mob fury against the Consularis Syriae, Theophilus. The mob killed Theophilus. Maybe this Theophilus is different because Gallus was brought to Croatia in 354 and was sentenced to death. In that year we know, Theophilus was in Kerala. But if the dates are not correct, Theophilus is one and the same as the characters were at Antioch. The history of Maldives too mentions Theophilus. From Himyar/Arabia, he went to his homeland; then he returned to Arabia, visited Axum and settled in Antioch.

During his time or afterwards, Christianity was never the religion in Maldives. Of Course, he got converted in Rome. Maldives is the smallest nation in Asia.

Maldives was never the name of the island. It got that name when it was a British Protectorate from 1887-1965. So it was not Maldives during the time of Theophilus.

What was it before? In the mid-16th century, it was with the Portuguese for 15 years. It was with the Dutch(Malabar) for just four months in the middle of the 17th century. For natives, it was never the Maldives. Still not. Ibnu Batuta called it Mahal Dibiyat, which is there in the state emblem. For us, it was always Male.

The first settlers of Male (Maldives!) were Dravidian people from Kerala in the Sangam Period(377 BC-300 AD. The substratum of the language of Maldives, Dhivehi is Malayalam. The ancient Srilankan chronicle, Mahawamsa calls Maldives Mahiladiva in Pali. But during the period under discussion, Maldives didn't have that name as part of Lakshadweep.

World map of Cosmas

After people from Kerala, Male history says, the inhabitants were the Sinhalese descendants of the exiled Magadha prince Vijaya from an ancient city known as Sinhapura (543-483 BC). There is a legend that Vijaya went to Male from Western India. The story says Vijaya visited Bharukachha/ Bharuch in Gujarat on his ship down the voyage south. Philostorgius speaks of a hostage from the island called Diva.

We think Westerners are wise; I have quoted Mayerson here who dismisses the theory that Theophilus and Cosmas have come to India. Has he been to all these areas? Isn't he on the same ship as Theophilus?

In ancient texts, Malabar was called Male; in the story I recounted, Theophilus was definitely an Ayurvedic. Male still has no Ayurvedic/Christian tradition. It will do some good if we believe Theophilus started his journey from Kerala. I do not know why the church, which has invented several stories is not trying to place Theophilus in a positive time and space. Finally, I have read Christography a lot; Arius seems to be an original mind.

Reference:
Ecclesiastical History/Philostorgius/Alexander Kazhdan & Leslie Mac Coull/Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
A Timeline for Eastern Church/Catherine Tsai
A Confusion of Indias: Asian India and African India in the Byzantine Sources/Philip Mayerson, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol 113
The Commerce Between the Roman Empire and India/E H Warmington
The Making of Roman India/Grant Parker 
India in 1500 AD: The Narratives of Joseph the Indian/Anthony Vallavanthara/Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press,2001
Syro Malabar Catholic Diocese of Kanjrapally/Rev Dr Antony Nirappel
The Kerala Church: Changanacherry, Kerala, India 

© Ramachandran


See my post, WITH JASWANT SINGH IN ISRAEL & PALESTINE