Showing posts with label St Thomas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label St Thomas. Show all posts

Tuesday 23 June 2020

NOT St THOMAS, St BARTHOLOMEW CAME TO INDIA

He Was One of the Twelve Disciples; Came After Ascension

L K Ananthakrishna Ayyar, the father of Indian Anthropology, in his pioneering work, The Anthropology of Syrian Christians, states: "
As recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred the Great in 883 sent an embassy to India, headed by Sighelm, bishop of Shireburne, bearing the alms which the King had vowed to send to shrines of St. Thomas and to St Bartholomew in India."

It has been historically proved that St Thomas was never in India. But who was St Bartholomew?

He was one of twelve disciples of Jesus, like St Thomas. The exact statement in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is: "In the year 883, Alfred sent Sighelm and Athelstan to Rome, and likewise to the shrine of Saints Thomas and Bartholomew in India, with the alms which he had vowed." 

Two ancient testimonies of Eusebius of Caesarea (early 4th century) and of Saint Jerome (late 4th century) exist about the mission of Saint Bartholomew in India. Both refer to this tradition while speaking of the visit of Pantaenus to India in the 2nd century.

St Bartholomew Flayed, by Marco d'Agrate, 1562

Eusebius of Caesarea Ecclesiastical History (5:10) states that after the Ascension, Bartholomew went on a missionary tour to India, where he left behind a copy of the Gospel of Matthew. Other traditions record him as serving as a missionary in Ethiopia, Mesopotamia, Parthia, and Lycaonia. Popular traditions and legends say that Bartholomew preached the Gospel in India and then went to Greater Armenia. He has also been identified as Nathanael or Nathaniel, who appears in the Gospel of John when introduced to Jesus by Philip (who would also become an apostle, John 1:43–51) although many modern commentators reject the identification of Nathanael with Bartholomew.

The twelve disciples are:

Simon who is called Peter (buried in St Peter's Basilica, Rome)
Andrew, his brother (buried in St Andrew's Cathedral, Patras, Greece
James, son of Zebedee (buried in Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain)
John, brother of James (buried in the Basilica of St. John in Ephesus, Turkey)
Philip (buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Rome or possibly Hierapolis, near Denizli, Turkey)
Bartholomew (buried in the Basilica of Benevento, Italy, or Basilica of St. Bartholomew on the Island, Rome, Italy )
Thomas (Supposed to be buried in the San Thome Basilica in Chennai, India or in the Basilica of St. Thomas the Apostle in Ortona, Abruzzo, Italy)
Mathew the Publican ( buried in the Salerno Cathedral, Salerno, Italy)
James, son of Alphaeus (buried in the Cathedral of St. James in Jerusalem or the Church of the Holy Apostles in Rome)
Thaddaeus-Judas the Zealot (buried in St. Peter's Basilica under the St. Joseph altar with St. Simon; two bones (relics) located at the National Shrine of St Jude in Chicago, Illinois)
Simon, the Canaanite (buried in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome under the St. Joseph altar with St. Jude)
Judas Iscariot (remains located in Akeldama, near the Valley of Hinnom, in Jerusalem)

He is also Nathaniel

In the East, where Bartholomew's evangelical labours were expended, he was identified as Nathanael, in works by Abdisho bar Berika (often known as Ebedjesu in the West), the 14th-century Nestorian metropolitan of Soba, and Elias, the bishop of Damascus. Nathanael is mentioned only in the Gospel of John. In the Synoptic Gospels, Philip and Bartholomew are always mentioned together, while Nathanael is never mentioned; in John's gospel, on the other hand, Philip and Nathanael are similarly mentioned together. Giuseppe Simone Assemani specifically remarks, "The Chaldeans confound Bartholomew with Nathaniel". Some Biblical scholars reject this identification, however.

Bartholomew is English for Bar Talmai and comes from the Aramaic: bar-Tolmay native to Israel "son of Talmai" or "son of the furrows". Bartholomew is listed among the Twelve Apostles of Jesus in the three synoptic gospels: Matthew,[10:1–4] Mark,[3:13–19] and Luke,[6:12–16] and also appears as one of the witnesses of the Ascension; [Acts 1:4, 12, 13] on each occasion, however, he is named in the company of Philip. He is not mentioned by the name Bartholomew in the Gospel of John, nor are there any early Acta, the earliest being written by a pseudepigraphical writer, Pseudo-Abdias, who assumed the identity of Abdias of Babylon and to whom is attributed the Saint-Thierry (Reims, Bibl. mun., ms 142) and Pseudo-Abdias manuscripts.

Along with his fellow apostle Jude "Thaddeus", Bartholomew is reputed to have brought Christianity to Armenia in the 1st century. Thus, both saints are considered patron saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

One tradition has it that Apostle Bartholomew was executed in Albanopolis in Armenia. According to popular hagiography, the apostle was flayed alive and beheaded. According to other accounts, he was crucified upside down (head downward) like St. Peter. He is said to have been martyred for having converted Polymius, the king of Armenia, to Christianity. Enraged by the monarch's conversion, and fearing a Roman backlash, King Polymius's brother, Prince Astyages, ordered Bartholomew's torture and execution, which Bartholomew endured. However, there are no records of any Armenian King of the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia with the name Polymius. Current scholarship indicates that Bartholomew more likely died in Kalyan in India, where there was an official named Polymius.

The 13th-century Saint Bartholomew Monastery was a prominent Armenian monastery constructed at the site of the martyrdom of Apostle Bartholomew in Vaspurakan, Greater Armenia (now in southeastern Turkey).

Altar of San Bartolomeo Basilica in Benevento, with the relics of Bartholomew

The 6th-century writer in Constantinople, Theodorus Lector, averred that in about 507, the Byzantine emperor Anastasius I Dicorus gave the body of Bartholomew to the city of Daras, in Mesopotamia, which he had recently refounded. The existence of relics at Lipari, a small island off the coast of Sicily, in the part of Italy controlled by Constantinople, was explained by Gregory of Tours by his body having miraculously washed up there: a large piece of his skin and many bones that were kept in the Cathedral of St Bartholomew the Apostle, Lipari, were translated to Benevento in 838, where they are still kept now in the Basilica San Bartolomeo. A portion of the relics was given in 983 by Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor, to Rome, where it is conserved at San Bartolomeo all'Isola, which was founded on the temple of Asclepius, an important Roman medical centre. This association with medicine with time caused Bartholomew's name to become associated with medicine and hospitals. Some of Bartholomew's alleged skull was transferred to the Frankfurt Cathedral, while an arm was venerated in Canterbury Cathedral.

Of the many miracles claimed to have been performed by Bartholomew before and after his death, two very popular ones are known by the townsfolk of the small Italian island of Lipari.

The people of Lipari celebrated his feast day annually. The tradition of the people was to take the solid silver and gold statue from inside the Cathedral of St Bartholomew and carry it through the town. On one occasion, when taking the statue down the hill towards the town, it suddenly became very heavy and had to be set down. When the men carrying the statue regained their strength, they lifted it a second time. After another few seconds, it got even heavier. They set it down and attempted once more to pick it up. They managed to lift it but had to put it down one last time. Within seconds, walls further downhill collapsed. If the statue had been able to be lifted, all the townspeople would have been killed.

During World War II, the Fascist regime looked for ways to finance their activities. The order was given to take the silver statue of Saint Bartholomew and melt it down. The statue was weighed, and it was found to be only a few grams. It was returned to its place in the Cathedral of Lipari. In reality, the statue is made from many kilograms of silver and it is considered a miracle that it was not melted down.

Saint Bartholomew is credited with many other miracles having to do with the weight of objects.

The appearance of the saint has been described in detail in the Golden Legend: "His hair is black and crisped, his skin fair, his eyes wide, his nose even and straight, his beard thick and with few grey hairs; he is of medium stature..." Christian tradition has three stories about Bartholomew's death: "One speaks of his being kidnapped, beaten unconscious, and cast into the sea to drown. Another account states that he was crucified upside down, and another says that he was skinned alive and beheaded in Albac or Albanopolis", near Başkale, Turkey.

According to the Synaxarium of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Bartholomew's martyrdom is commemorated on the first day of the Coptic calendar (i.e., the first day of the month of Thout), which currently falls on September 11 (corresponding to August 29 in the Julian calendar). Eastern Christianity honours him on June 11 and the Catholic Church honours him on August 24. The Church of England and other Anglican churches also honour him on August 24.

Popular martyr

St Bartholomew is the most prominent flayed Christian martyr. During the 16th century, images of the flaying of Bartholomew were so popular that they came to signify the saint in works of art. Consequently, Saint Bartholomew is most often represented as being skinned alive. Symbols associated with the saint include knives (alluding to the knife used to skin the saint alive) and his skin, which Bartholomew holds or drapes around his body. Similarly, the ancient herald of Bartholomew is known for "flaying knives with silver blades and gold handles, on a red field." As in Michelangelo’s Last Judgement, the saint is often depicted with both the knife and his skin. Representations of Bartholomew with a chained demon are common in Spanish painting.

St Bartholomew is often depicted in lavish medieval manuscripts. Manuscripts, which are literally made from flayed and manipulated skin, hold a strong visual and cognitive association with the saint during the medieval period and can also be seen as depicting book production. Florentine artist Pacino di Bonaguida depicts his martyrdom in a complex and striking composition in his Laudario of Sant’Agnese, a book of Italian Hymns produced for the Compagnia di Sant’Agnese c. 1340. In the five scenes, narrative-based images of three torturers flay Bartholomew's legs and arms as he is immobilised and chained to a gate. On the right, the saint wears his own flesh tied around his neck while he kneels in prayer before a rock, his severed head fell to the ground. Another example includes the Flaying of St. Bartholomew in the Luttrell Psalter c.1325-1340. Bartholomew is depicted on a surgical table, surrounded by tormentors while he is flayed with golden knives.

Due to the nature of his martyrdom, Bartholomew is the patron saint of tanners, plasterers, tailors, leatherworkers, bookbinders, farmers, housepainters, butchers, and glove makers. In works of art, the saint has been depicted being skinned by tanners, as in Guido da Siena's reliquary shutters with the Martyrdoms of St. Francis, St. Claire, St. Bartholomew, and St. Catherine of Alexandria. Popular in Florence and other areas in Tuscany, the saint also came to be associated with salt, oil, and cheese merchants.

Although Bartholomew's death is commonly depicted in artworks of a religious nature, his story has also been used to represent anatomical depictions of the human body devoid of flesh. An example of this can be seen in Marco d'Agrate's St Bartholomew Flayed (1562) where Bartholomew is depicted wrapped in his own skin with every muscle, vein and tendon clearly visible, acting as a clear description of the muscles and structure of the human body.

The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew (1634) by Jusepe de Ribera depicts Bartholomew's final moments before being flayed alive. The viewer is meant to empathize with Bartholomew, whose body seemingly bursts through the surface of the canvas, and whose outstretched arms embrace a mystical light that illuminates his flesh. His piercing eyes, open mouth, and petitioning left-hand bespeak an intense communion with the divine; yet this same hand draws our attention to the instruments of his torture, symbolically positioned in the shape of a cross. Transfixed by Bartholomew's active faith, the executioner seems to have stopped short in his actions, and his furrowed brow and partially illuminated face suggest a moment of doubt, about the possibility of conversion. The representation of Bartholomew's demise in the National Gallery painting differs significantly from all other depictions by Ribera. By limiting the number of participants to the main protagonists of the story—the saint, his executioner, one of the priests who condemned him, and one of the soldiers who captured him—and presenting them half-length and filling the picture space, the artist rejected an active, lively composition for one of intense psychological drama. The cusping along all four edges shows that the painting has not been cut down: Ribera intended the composition to be just such a tight, restricted presentation, with the figures cut off and pressed together.

The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew by Aris Kalaizis, 2015

The idea of using the story of Bartholomew being skinned alive to create an artwork depicting an anatomical study of a human is still common among contemporary artists with Gunther Von Hagens's The Skin Man (2002) and Damien Hirst's Exquisite Pain (2006). Within Gunther Von Hagens's body of work called Body Worlds, a figure reminiscent of Bartholomew holds up his skin. This figure is depicted in actual human tissues (made possible by Hagens's plastination process) to educate the public about the inner workings of the human body and to show the effects of healthy and unhealthy lifestyles. In Exquisite Pain 2006, Damien Hirst depicts St Bartholomew with a high level of anatomical detail with his flayed skin draped over his right arm, a scalpel in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. The inclusion of scissors was inspired by Tim Burton's film Edward Scissorhands (1990).

Bartholomew plays a part in Francis Bacon's Utopian tale New Atlantis, about a mythical isolated land, Bensalem, populated by a people dedicated to reason and natural philosophy. Some twenty years after the ascension of Christ the people of Bensalem found an ark floating off their shore. The ark contained a letter as well as the books of the Old and New Testaments. The letter was from Bartholomew the Apostle and declared that an angel told him to set the ark and its contents afloat. Thus the scientists of Bensalem received the revelation of the Word of God.

The above biodata reveals that Bartholomew is a better person than St Thomas or Thomas of Cana, for the Syrian Christians of Kerala to venerate. The studies of Fr A.C. Perumalil SJ and Moraes hold that the Bombay region on the Konkan coast, a region which may have been known as the ancient city Kalyan, was the field of Saint Bartholomew's missionary activities. Quite unlikely. Both these priests are Jesuits, their inference could be termed as part of a Latin agenda. If Bartholomew had been to India, he would have been in Kerala, the stronghold of Syrian Christians.


© Ramachandran 

PANTAENUS AND INDICOPLEUSTUS IN KERALA

Not St Thomas,but St Bartholomew

L K Ananthakrishna Iyer,in his Anthropology of the Syrian Christians,records:

"In AD 190, the Great Gnostic Pantaenus, a Professor of Theology in the school of Alexandria, set sail from Bernice in the Red Sea and landed after the tedious coasting voyage of those days in one of the Cochin ports, where he found a colony of Christians in possession of the Aramaic version of the Gospel of St. Mathew, in Hebrew, which St. Bartholomew was supposed to have carried thither, and this is the earliest mention of the community now known as the Syrian Christians."

Who was Pantaenus?

Ayyar in his book states:

"In 547 AD, Cosmos, an Alexandrian monk, who was called Indicopleustes on account of his voyages to India, went to Ceylon, and reported that there were churches there. "At Male (Malabar) where pepper grows and at Kalliana Kollam) — Quilon — there is a Bishop who is specially ordained in Persia."

Who was Indicopleustes?

Ayyar states that,"As recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred the Great in 883 sent an embassy to India, headed by Sighelm, bishop of Shireburne, bearing the alms which the King had vowed to send to shrines of St. Thomas and to St Bartholomew in India."

Who was Sighelm?

Ayyar's book refers to The Acta Thomae.What is it?

Saint Pantaenus the Philosopher (died c. 200)was a Greek theologian and a significant figure in the Catechetical School of Alexandria from around AD 180. This school was the earliest catechetical school, and became influential in the development of Christian theology.
Pantaenus was a Stoic philosopher teaching in Alexandria. He was a native of Sicily. He converted to the Christian faith, and sought to reconcile his new faith with Greek philosophy. His most famous student, Clement, who was his successor as head of the Catechetical School, described Pantaenus as "the Sicilian bee". Although no writings by Pantaenus are extant, his legacy is known by the influence of the Catechetical School on the development of Christian theology, in particular in the early debates on the interpretation of the Bible, the Trinity, and Christology. He was the main supporter of Serapion of Antioch for acting against the influence of Gnosticism.

In addition to his work as a teacher, Eusebius of Caesarea reports that Pantaenus was for a time a missionary, travelling as far as India where, according to Eusebius, he found Christian communities using the Gospel of Matthew written in "Hebrew letters", supposedly left them by the Apostle Bartholomew (and which might have been the Gospel of the Hebrews). This may indicate that Syrian Christians, using a Syriac version of the New Testament, had already evangelized parts of India by the late 2nd century. However, some writers have suggested that having difficulty with the language of Saint Thomas Christians, Pantaenus misinterpreted their reference to Mar Thoma (the Aramaic term meaning Saint Thomas), who is currently credited with bringing Christianity to India in the 1st century by the Syrian Churches, as Bar Tolmai (the Hebrew name of Bartholomew). The ancient seaport Muziris on the Malabar Coast (modern day Kerala in India) was frequented by the Egyptians in the early centuries AD.

Ancient trade routes in Silk road map

Saint Jerome (c. 347 – 30 September 420), apparently relying entirely on Eusebius' evidence from Historia Ecclesiastica, wrote that Pantaenus visited India, “to preach Christ to the Brahmans and philosophers there.”It is unlikely that Jerome has any information about Pantaenus' mission to India that is independent of Eusebius. On the other hand, his claim that "many" of Pantaenus' Biblical commentaries were still extant is probably based on Jerome's own knowledge.

His feast day is July 7.

The Universalist Church of America historian J W Hanson (1899) argued that Pantaenus "must, beyond question" have taught Universalism to Clement of Alexandria and Origen.However, since it is now considered that Clement of Alexandria's views contained a tension between salvation and freewill,and that he and Origen did not clearly teach universal reconciliation of all immortal souls in their understanding of apokatastasis, Hanson's conclusion about Pantaenus lacks a firm basis.

Cosmas Indicopleustes (Cosmas who sailed to India; also known as Cosmas the Monk) was a Greek merchant and later hermit from Alexandria of Egypt.He was a 6th-century traveller, who made several voyages to India during the reign of emperor Justinian. His work Christian Topography contained some of the earliest and most famous world maps.Cosmas was a pupil of the East Syriac Patriarch Aba I and was himself a follower of the Church of the East.

Around 550 Cosmas wrote the once-copiously illustrated Christian Topography, a work partly based on his personal experiences as a merchant on the Red Sea and Indian Ocean in the early 6th century. His description of India and Ceylon during the 6th century is invaluable to historians. Cosmas seems to have personally visited the Kingdom of Axum in modern day northern Ethiopia, as well as Eritrea, India, and Ceylon.

"Indicopleustes" means "Indian voyager".While it is known from classical literature, especially the Periplus Maris Erythraei, that there had been trade between the Roman Empire and India from the first century BC onwards, Cosmas's report is one of the few from individuals who had actually made the journey. He described and sketched some of what he saw in his Topography. Some of these have been copied into the existing manuscripts, the oldest dating to the 9th century. In 522 AD, he visited the Malabar Coast (South India). He is the first traveller to mention Syrian Christians in present-day Kerala in India. He wrote, "In the Island of Taprobane (Ceylon), there is a church of the Christians, and clerks and faithful. Likewise at Malé where the pepper grows; and in the town of Kalliana, The present Day Kalyan where Comas used to rule, there is also a bishop consecrated in Persia.

A major feature of his Topographia is Cosmas' worldview that the world is flat, and that the heavens form the shape of a box with a curved lid. He was scornful of Ptolemy and others who held that the world was spherical. Cosmas aimed to prove that pre-Christian geographers had been wrong in asserting that the earth was spherical and that it was in fact modelled on the tabernacle, the house of worship described to Moses by God during the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. However, his idea that the earth is flat had been a minority view among educated Western opinion since the 3rd century BC.Cosmas's view was never influential even in religious circles; a near-contemporary Christian, John Philoponus, disagreed with him as did many Christian philosophers of the era.

David C. Lindberg asserts: "Cosmas was not particularly influential in Byzantium, but he is important for us because he has been commonly used to buttress the claim that all (or most) medieval people believed they lived on a flat earth. This claim...is totally false. Cosmas is, in fact, the only medieval European known to have defended a flat earth cosmology, whereas it is safe to assume that all educated Western Europeans (and almost one hundred percent of educated Byzantines), as well as sailors and travelers, believed in the earth's sphericity."

Cosmology aside, Cosmas proves to be an interesting and reliable guide, providing a window into a world that has since disappeared. He happened to be in Adulis on the Red Sea Coast of modern Eritrea at the time (c. 525 AD) when the King of Axum was preparing a military expedition to attack the Jewish king Dhu Nuwas in Yemen, who had recently been persecuting Christians. On request of the Axumite king and in preparation for this campaign, he recorded now-vanished inscriptions such as the Monumentum Adulitanum (which he mistakenly attributed to Ptolemy III Euergetes).

World map by Indicopleustus

Though containing no important information, it were unpardonable in an English collection of voyages and travels, to omit the scanty notice which remains on record, respecting a voyage by two Englishmen to India, at so early a period. All that is said of this singular incident in the Saxon Chronicle, is, "In the year 883, Alfred sent Sighelm and Athelstan to Rome, and likewise to the shrine of Saints Thomas and Bartholomew, in India, with the alms which he had vowed." (Bartholomew was the messenger of Christ in India, the extremity of the whole earth.) This short, yet clear declaration, of the actual voyage, has been extended by succeeding writers, who attribute the whole merit to Sighelm, omitting all mention of Athelstan, his co-adjutor in the holy mission. 

The first member of the subsequent paraphrase of the Saxon Chronicle, by Harris, though unauthorized, is yet necessarily true, as Alfred could not have sent messengers to a shrine, of which he did not know the existence. For the success of the voyage, the safe return, the promotion of Sighelm, and his bequest, the original record gives no authority, although that is the obvious foundation of the story, to which Aserus has no allusion in his life of Alfred. "In the year 883, Alfred, King of England, hearing that there existed a Christian church in the Indies, dedicated to the memory of St Thomas and St Bartholomew, dispatched one Sighelm, or Sithelm, a favourite ecclesiastic of his court, to carry his royal alms to that distant shrine. Sighelm successfully executed the honourable commission with which he had been entrusted, and returned in safety into England. After his return, he was promoted to the bishoprick of Sherburn, or Shireburn, in Dorsetshire; and it is recorded, that he left at his decease, in the treasury of that church, sundry spices and jewels, which he had brought with him from the Indies." 

Of this voyage, William of Malmsbury makes twice mention; once in the fourth chapter of his second book, De Gestis Regum Anglorum; and secondly, in the second book of his work; entitled, De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum; and in the chapter devoted to the Bishops of Shireburn, Salisbury, and Winchester, both of which are here added, although the only authority for the story is contained in what has been already given from the Saxon Chronicle42. "King Alfred being addicted to giving of alms, confirmed the privileges which his father had granted to the churches, and sent many gifts beyond seas, to Rome, and to St Thomas in India. His messenger in this business was Sighelm, bishop of Sherburn, who, with great prosperity, which is much to be wondered at in this age, penetrated into India; whence he brought on his return, splendid exotic gems, and aromatic liquors, of which the soil of that region is prolific." "Sighelm having gone beyond seas, charged with alms from the king, even penetrated, with wonderful prosperity, to Saint Thomas in India, a thing much to be admired in this age; and brought thence, on his return, certain foreign kinds of precious stones which abound in that region; some of which are yet to be seen in the monuments of his church."

In the foregoing accounts of the voyage of Sighelm, from the first notice in the Saxon Chronicle, through the additions of Malmsbury, and the amplified paraphrase by Harris, we have an instance of the manner in which ingenious men permit themselves to blend their own imaginations with original record, superadding utterly groundless circumstances, and fancied conceptions, to the plain historical facts. 

Thus a motely rhetorical tissue of real incident and downright fable is imposed upon the world, which each successive author continually improves into deeper falsehood. We have here likewise an instance of the way in which ancient manuscripts, first illustrated by commentaries, became interpolated, by successive transcribers adopting those illustrations into the text; and how many fabricators of story, first misled by these additaments, and afterwards misleading the public through a vain desire of producing a morsel of eloquence, although continually quoting original and contemporary authorities, have acquired the undeserved fame of excellent historians, while a multitude of the incidents, which they relate, have no foundations whatever in the truth of record. He only, who has diligently and faithfully laboured through original records, and contemporary writers, honestly endeavouring to compose the authentic history of an interesting period, and has carefully compared, in his progress, the flippant worse than inaccuracies of writers he has been taught to consider as masterly historians, can form an adequate estimate of the enormity and frequency of this tendency to romance. The immediate subject of these observations is slight and trivial; but the evil itself is wide-spread and important, and deserves severe reprehension, as many portions of our national history have been strangely disfigured by such indefensible practices. 

The early 3rd-century text called Acts of Thomas is one of the New Testament apocrypha. References to the work by Epiphanius of Salamis show that it was in circulation in the 4th century. The complete versions that survive are Syriac and Greek. There are many surviving fragments of the text. Scholars detect from the Greek that its original was written in Syriac, which places the Acts of Thomas in Edessa. The surviving Syriac manuscripts, however, have been edited to purge them of the most unorthodox overtly Encratite passages, so that the Greek versions reflect the earlier tradition.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Fragments of four other cycles of romances around the figure of the apostle Thomas survive, but this is the only complete one. It should not be confused with the early "sayings" Gospel of Thomas. "Like other apocryphal acts combining popular legend and religious propaganda, the work attempts to entertain and instruct. In addition to narratives of Thomas' adventures, its poetic and liturgical elements provide important evidence for early Syrian Christian traditions," according to the Anchor Bible Dictionary.

Acts of Thomas is a series of episodic Acts (Latin passio) that occurred during the evangelistic mission of Judas Thomas ("Judas the Twin") to India. It ends with his martyrdom: he dies pierced with spears, having earned the ire of the monarch Misdaeus because of his conversion of Misdaeus' wives and a relative, Charisius. He was imprisoned while converting Indian followers won through the performing of miracles.

Embedded in the Acts of Thomas at different places according to differing manuscript traditions is a Syriac hymn, The Hymn of the Pearl, (or Hymn of the Soul), a poem that gained a great deal of popularity in mainstream Christian circles. The Hymn is older than the Acts into which it has been inserted, and is worth appreciating on its own. The text is interrupted with the poetry of another hymn, the one that begins "Come, thou holy name of the Christ that is above every name" (2.27), a theme that was taken up in Catholic Christianity in the 13th century as the Holy Name.

Mainstream Christian tradition rejects the Acts of Thomas as pseudepigraphical and apocryphal, and for its part, the Roman Catholic Church declared Acts as heretical at the Council of Trent.

Thomas is often referred to by his name Judas (his full name is Thomas Judas Didymus), since both Thomas and Didymus just mean twin, and several scholars believe that twin is just a description, and not intended as a name. The manuscripts end "The acts of Judas Thomas the apostle are completed, which he did in India, fulfilling the commandment of him that sent him. Unto whom be glory, world without end. Amen.".
First page of the Gospel of Judas (Page 33 of Codex Tchacos)
First page of the Gospel of Judas

The Acts of Thomas connects Thomas, the apostle's Indian ministry with two kings, According to one of the legends in the Acts, Thomas was at first reluctant to accept this mission, but the Lord appeared to him in a night vision and said, “Fear not, Thomas. Go away to India and proclaim the Word, for my grace shall be with you.” But the Apostle still demurred, so the Lord overruled the stubborn disciple by ordering circumstances so compelling that he was forced to accompany an Indian merchant, Abbanes, to his native place in north-west India, where he found himself in the service of the Indo-Parthian king Gondophares. The apostle's ministry resulted in many conversions throughout the kingdom, including the king and his brother.

According to the legend, Thomas was a skilled carpenter and was bidden to build a palace for the king. However, the Apostle decided to teach the king a lesson by devoting the royal grant to acts of charity and thereby laying up treasure for the heavenly abode. But at least by the year of the establishment of the Second Persian Empire (226), there were bishops of the Church of the East in north-west India comprising Afghanistan and Baluchistan, with laymen and clergy alike engaging in missionary activity.

The Acts of Thomas identifies his second mission in India with a kingdom ruled by King Mahadeva, one of the rulers of a 1st-century dynasty in southern India. It is most significant that, aside from a small remnant of the Church of the East in Kurdistan, the only other church to maintain a distinctive identity is the Mar Thoma or “Church of Thomas” congregations along the Malabar Coast of Kerala State in southwest India. According to the most ancient tradition of this church, Thomas evangelized this area and then crossed to the Coromandel Coast of southeast India, where, after carrying out a second mission, he died in Mylapore near Madras. Throughout the period under review, the church in India was under the jurisdiction of Edessa, which was then under the Mesopotamian patriarchate at Seleucia-Ctesiphon and later at Baghdad and Mosul. Historian Vincent A. Smith says, “It must be admitted that a personal visit of the Apostle Thomas to South India was easily feasible in the traditional belief that he came by way of Socotra, where an ancient Christian settlement undoubtedly existed. I am now satisfied that the Christian church of South India is extremely ancient... ”.

Although there was a lively trade between the Near East and India via Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf, the most direct route to India in the 1st century was via Alexandria and the Red Sea, taking advantage of the Monsoon winds, which could carry ships directly to and from the Malabar coast. The discovery of large hoards of Roman coins of 1st-century Caesars and the remains of Roman trading posts testify to the frequency of that trade. In addition, thriving Jewish colonies were to be found at the various trading centers, thereby furnishing obvious bases for the apostolic witness.

Piecing together the various traditions, one may conclude that Thomas left north-west India when invasion threatened and traveled by vessel to the Malabar coast, possibly visiting southeast Arabia and Socotra en route and landing at the former flourishing port of Muziris on an island near Cochin (c. AD 51–52). From there he is said to have preached the gospel throughout the Malabar coast, though the various churches he founded were located mainly on the Periyar River and its tributaries and along the coast, where there were Jewish colonies.He reputedly preached to all classes of people and had about seventeen thousand converts, including members of the four principal castes. Later, stone crosses were erected at the places where churches were founded, and they became pilgrimage centres. In accordance with apostolic custom, Thomas ordained teachers and leaders or elders, who were reported to be the earliest ministry of the Malabar church.

Image of St Thomas

The text is broken by headings:

  • 1 - when he went into India with Abbanes the merchant. The apostles cast lots to see who will go where as a missionary. Thomas gets India, but refuses his mission, even after Jesus speaks to him. Jesus then appears in human form and sells Thomas to a merchant as a slave, since Thomas is skilled as a carpenter. Thomas is then asked if Jesus is his master, which he affirms. It is only then he accepts his mission.
  • 2 - concerning his coming unto the king Gundaphorus
  • 3 - concerning the servant
  • 4 - concerning the colt
  • 5 - concerning the devil that took up his abode in the woman
  • 6 - of the youth that murdered the Woman. A young couple begin to have relationship problems when the woman proves to be too keen on sex, while the male advocates being chaste, honouring the teachings of Thomas. So the male kills his lover. He comes to take the eucharist with others in the presence of Thomas, but his hand withers, and Thomas realises that the male has committed a crime. After being challenged, the male reveals his crime, and the reason for it, so Thomas forgives him, since his motive was good, and goes to find the woman's body. In an inn, Thomas and those with him lay the woman's body on a couch, and, after praying, Thomas has the male hold the woman's hand, whereupon the woman comes back to life.
The story clearly has the gnostic themes of death and resurrection, death not being a bad thing but a result of the pursuit of gnostic teaching, and the resurrection into greater life (and they lived happily ever after) once gnostic teaching is understood.
  • 7 - of the Captain
  • 8 - of the wild asses
  • 9 - of the Wife of Charisius
  • 10 - wherein Mygdonia receiveth baptism
  • 11 - concerning the wife of Misdaeus
  • 12 - concerning Ouazanes (Iuzanes) the son of Misdaeus
  • 13 - wherein Iuzanes receiveth baptism with the rest
  • The Martyrdom of Thomas
  • Leucius Charinus

The view of Jesus in the book could be inferred to be docetic. Thomas is not just Jesus' twin, he is Jesus' identical twin. Hence it is possible that Thomas is meant to represent the earthly, human side of Jesus, while Jesus is entirely spiritual in his being. In this way, Jesus directs Thomas' quest from heaven, while Thomas does the work on earth. For example, when the apostles are casting lots to choose where they will mission, Thomas initially refuses to go to India. However, Jesus appears in human form to sell Thomas as a slave to a merchant going to India, after which Jesus disappears.Also in line with docetic thinking is Jesus' stance on sex. In one scene a couple is married, and Jesus miraculously appears to the bride in the bridal chamber. He speaks against copulating, even if it is for the purpose of reproduction. This indicates that the spiritual world is more important than the earthly one, and therefore Christians should not be concerned with reproduction.

Sts-john-and-bartholomew-with-donor-dosso-dossi.jpg
St John with Bartholomew( right) /Dosso Dossi,1527

It is clear now that St Barthalomew was in India and maybe,Kerala.

Bartholomew was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus according to the New Testament. He has also been identified as Nathanael or Nathaniel, who appears in the Gospel of John when introduced to Jesus by Philip (who would also become an apostle,John 1:43–51) although many modern commentators reject the identification of Nathanael with Bartholomew.

In the East, where Bartholomew's evangelical labours were expended, he was identified as Nathanael, in works by Abdisho bar Berika (often known as Ebedjesu in the West), the 14th century Nestorian metropolitan of Soba, and Elias, the bishop of Damascus. Nathanael is mentioned only in the Gospel of John. In the Synoptic Gospels, Philip and Bartholomew are always mentioned together, while Nathanael is never mentioned; in John's gospel, on the other hand, Philip and Nathanael are similarly mentioned together. Giuseppe Simone Assemani specifically remarks, "the Chaldeans confound Bartholomew with Nathaniel". Some Biblical scholars reject this identification, however.

Eusebius of Caesarea Ecclesiastical History (5:10) states that after the Ascension, Bartholomew went on a missionary tour to India, where he left behind a copy of the Gospel of Matthew. Other traditions record him as serving as a missionary in Ethiopia, Mesopotamia, Parthia, and Lycaonia.Popular traditions and legends say that Bartholomew preached the Gospel in India, then went to Greater Armenia.

Two ancient testimonies exist about the mission of Saint Bartholomew in India. These are of Eusebius of Caesarea (early 4th century) and of Saint Jerome (late 4th century). Both of these refer to this tradition while speaking of the reported visit of Pantaenus to India in the 2nd century. The studies of Fr A.C. Perumalil SJ and Moraes hold that the Bombay region on the Konkan coast, a region which may have been known as the ancient city Kalyan, was the field of Saint Bartholomew's missionary activities.

Since it has been accepted that St Thomas was never in India,it is better to replace him with Bartholomew.

© Ramachandran 



Monday 22 June 2020

ANTHROPOLOGY OF SYRIAN CHRISTIANS 3

Privileges to Nairs Resented By Christians

The oppression of the Jesuits is the only cause to be assigned for the Syrians' separation from the church of Rome, and in support of the view the Carmelite Vincent published in 1666 and 1672 the first and second journeys of Bishop Joseph Sebastiani, the first Carmelite Vicar Apostolic. A different story is also given by another Carmelite Eustache de Pavily who published the life of Bishop Joseph in 1719. Regarding the various acts of the Synod of Diamper the learned Asseman says, "They were an outcome of misguided zeal of the ignorance of Syrian rite and language, and of the ancient oriental rites together with an excessive study of the Roman ceremonials." It is said in some of the recent publications that the Synod itself recognized the Syrians as Catholics who were to be reduced to the Latin rite and jurisdiction, as may be seen from the following paragraphs. 

In his circular for convening the Synod, Dom Menezes calls the Syrian Christians as pious people.He would have never styled them so, if they had not been Catholics. In the same circular he commanded the Rev. Archdeacon of the Diocese, all other priests of the time and the laity to attend the Synod "to approve, sign, and confirm whatever was to be determined therein." This also implied that he was calling upon a whole body of Catholics, clergy and laity under the heaviest penalty of the church. Had they not been Catholics, these threats of excommunication would certainly have been meaningless. The XVI decree reads thus:"The Synod commands in virtue of holy obedience and under pain of excommunication the priests and deacons and others whosoever of whatever dignity or rank in this Bishopric to hand over to the Most Illustrious Metropolitan, in person or through deputies, all hooks whatsoever written in Syriac, within two months after the publication of this decree has come to their knowledge. Under the same precept of obedience and excommunication it orders that no one in this Bishopric, of whatever rank he may be, shall dare to copy any book in Syriac unless the prelate has given him permission in writing to do it, the book, to copy which permission is granted being expressly mentioned". 

Again, in the IV decree of the VIII session we read: "The Roman Mass to be translated into Syriac". 

"For as much as the Syrian Mass is too long for priests that have a mind to celebrate daily, the synod doth grant license for translating the Roman Mass into Syriac, desiring the Rev. Fr. Ross S, J. to undertake the work. The Synod desires that the Bishops of these parts give license that the priests of this diocese having letters dimissory from their prelates, that do not know,how to say Mass in Latin, may be permitted to say the Syrian Mass in their churches or at least the Roman translated with all its ceremonies into Syriac  ". 
Front Cover

Further the profession of Faith read to the Archdeacon George who was then the head of the Syrian church, appointed by his Patriarch with the approbation of the Holy See, as 1 have already shown, has the following:" I do also promise, vow and swear to God on this Cross ana these Holy Gospels, never to receive into this church and Bishopric of the Serra (mountains), any bishop, archbishop, prelate, pastor or governor, whatsoever, but what shall be immediately appointed by the holy Apostolical See and Bishop of Rome, and that whomsoever he shall appoint, I will receive and obey as my true pastor, without expecting any message from or having any further dependance, upon the Patriarch of Babylon."

The Syrio-Chaldean Mass, called 'Kudasa dasleehe Kadeese' (Sacrum Beatoruni Apostolorutri ) has no connection with the Latin translation of the same lately published by the Rt. Rev. Mar Aloysius Paraparampil, the Vicar Apostolic of Ernakulam. He has made plain to certain distinguished persons who for certain ends contended that the Syrian Mass is none other than a translation of the Latin. The rites prescribed by the Synod of Diamper as  'impious, sacrilegious and a spontaneous outcome of the Nestorian heresy' are still in the Syrian Missal used today, which was printed at Rome, at first in 1775 and again in 1884, until the approbation of the Holy See. Fortunately, then, the Syrian Mass of today is substantially the same as was before the Synod. 

Until a short time before the Synod of Diamper the Syrian priests were using for mass leavened bread and vestments proper to the Oriental Church. It was Mar Joseph and Mar Abraham, who, owing to irresistible pressure from the Portuguese, introduced un leavened bread and vestments according to the Roman style, which are retained even today. Asked for an explanation by his Patriarch for introducing these novelties. Mar Abraham excused himself by saying that his position was that of an "anvil under the hammer,"; The principal thing the Synod of Diamper achieved was that the church of Malabar was forcibly and arbitrarily severed from its time honoured and legitimate dependence upon the Patriarch of Babylon and brought under Latin prelates.

 The first of these prelates was Dom Francis Roz S. J., who became the first Latin Archbishop of the Apostolic See of Cranganur, and stands at the head of the long list of Latin Bishops who have governed the Syrians. The Christians of St. Thomas had to acquiesce before Superior power, but never ceased to protest against the injury done to them. Even after this synod they continued to humbly submit their grievances to their supreme Pastor. But owing to the presence of an opposing force far stronger and far more influential than they were, these did not begin to be redressed before three long centuries had rolled away, when in the memorable year 1896 the great Leo XIII, so remarkable for his singular solicitude for the Oriental Churches, entrusted the government of the St. Thomas Christians to three Syrian Bishops selected from the indigenous clergy. For preserving the ancient Syrio- Chaldean rite in Malabar the wise Pontiff deemed it necessary to take this important step, nor did he do so before he had ascertained the real slate of things in Malabar through the Apostolic Delegates Mgrs, (afterwards Cardinals) Agliardi and Ajuti and from the report of Dr. L. Maurin S,Vicar Apostolic of Bombay, whom Pius IX had sent as his special envoy to the Christians of St. Thomas.

The news of the revolt at Coonen Cross reached Rome, when Pope Alexander VI I sent a party of Carmelite monks to win hack the Syrians to the Roman fold. They came by the Persian Gulf and arrived at Palur near Chavakad on the 22nd February 1657. They succeeded in their attempts to a considerable extent. Eighty four churches returned to their protection, and only thirt two remained under the Syrian Archdeacon Thomas ; but the capture of Cochin by the Dutch in January 1663 completely changed the situation. These new masters ordered all Roman ecclesiastics out of their territory and the Syrian clergy and their followers were left unmolested on condition that they would pay no allegiance to the King of Portugal. Gradually, the Carmelite fathers returned to work among the Syrian Christians, but the Dutch took no notice of them. Permission was given to erect a church at Chakkiat near Ernakulam, and this was the first church of the Carmelite fathers in Cochin.

 According to a decree dated 1st September 1698, from the Senate of Amsterdam, Peter Paul, the nephew of Pope Innocent II, and the Bishop of Ancyra, who entered the Carmelite order, got through the influence of the Emperor Leopold I, permission for one Bishop and twelve Carmelite priests to reside in the territory, but not in Cochin.By this arrangement other bishops were also allowed to reside at Verapoly. From this time for the next two centuries the Carmelite mission prospered, and the Vicar Apostolic of Verapoly has since then practically governed the Roman Catholics and the Romo-Syrian communities in Malabar, Cochin and Travancore. In virtue of the Jus patronable the King of Portugal still appointed Archbishops of Cranganur and Bishops of Cochin but their jurisdiction was confined only to the Portuguese territory, and with the rise of the Dutch power it virtually ceased to exist. 

Synod at Diamper, India
Diamper Church

With the beginning of the British supremacy the struggle between the Portuguese and the Jesuit Archbishops of Cranganur and the Carmelite Vicars of Verapoly broke out again, and this was brought to a head by the Papal Bull Mulla Preclare of 1838 which practically abolished the Portuguese Padroado (patronage) jurisdiction of Sees of Verapoly, Cranganur, Cochin, and Colombo. This bull was not obeyed by the Portuguese clergy who contended that the Pope had no power to make these alterations without the consent of the King of Portugal, and they themselves were not bound to receive any orders from Rome except through the Court of Lisbon. Matters were finally settled by the Concordat of 1886 between Pope Leo XIII, and the most faithful king. This defined the limits of the jurisdiction of the rival priests, and gave the rule of the Romo-Syrian community of Malabar to the Archbishop of Verapoly. In 1868 Archbishop Leonard became Vicar Apostolic of Verapoly.He thought that the Latin Catholics would form a sufficient charge, and he obtained a Co-adjutor, Bishop Marcellinus, for the separate charge of the Syrian Catholics. He was replaced by two European Vicars Apostolic, stationed at Trichur and at Kottayarn. For these posts were selected Father Medlycott, and Father Lavinge S. J., formerly secretary of Father Beckx, General of the Jesuits. This arrangement lasted till 1896, when the often repeated request of the Romo- Syrians to have bishops of their own community was at last granted to them by Rome. The two European Vicars were withdrawn, and three Syrian priests, Fathers John Menacheri, Aloysius Paraparambil and Mathew Makil, were consecrated by the Papal Delegate as Vicars Apostolics of Trichur, Ernakulam and Changanachery. Owing to a dispute between the Northists (Northerners) and Southists (Southerners) in Travancore in points of social status, a new bishopric was created in Changanachery, and the former bishop has his head-quarters at Kottayarn.

The Jacobites are the representatives of Monophysitism.They are named after Jacob Zenzalus, Jacobite Church,surnamed Al Bardai,which is derived from Barda, a city in Armenia or as is generally assumed from a "sort of felt which the Arabs called 'Barda' used for the saddle cloths which they wore as a beggar". He was born at Tela known also Constantania, fifty miles from Edessa, towards the close of the fifth century, and was brought up in a monastery, where he was educated in Monophysitic theo- logy, Greek, and Latin literature. Disciplined with severe asceticism, his fame as a monk-miracle worker rapidly spread. He had all along led the life of a shrinking recluse, when he was suddenly called to a career of great activity. 

Anciend bridge at Barda

He was ordained to be the Metropolitan of their church. He visited Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia, where he introduced his doctrines, and ordained the clergy for his party. For more than thirty years he continued his labours with great success till his death in 578 AD. He was an ambitious man, an enthusiastic evangelist, and an indefatigable peace maker. It was by his ordination of Sergius as successor to his master that the heretical succession was kept up. To give an account of the rise and progress of the Jacobite Syrians, it is necessary to go back to the great Eutychian controversy in the fifth century concerning the constitution of the person of Christ. The leader of the controversy was an old monk Eutyches, a man of no breadth of mind or depth of insight. He held that Christ, after his incarnation, had only one nature which was the nature of "God-become-man". In other words, it may be said that "God was born, God suffered, God was crucified and died". Dioscurus, Bishop of Antioch, (444 — 451 AD) was the leader of this Monophysite (one nature) party. Eutyches, attacked by Theodoret, was deposed by a Synod at Constantinople (448 AD) which declared that Christ after his incarnation consisted of two natures in one substance and one person. This belief was upheld by Leo I, Bishop of Rome, (440—461 A.D). 

In 449 AD, a council was held at Ephesus and it absolved Eutyches on repeating the Nicene creed, but deposed and excommunicated Theodoret and Leo, Its decrees were ratified by the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian. Atter further intrigues, the fourth Eccumrenical Council was held at Chalcedon in 451 A D, and was attended by 600 Eastern Bishops and by two delegates sent by Leo of Rome. The proceedings of the Synod at Ephesus were annulled. Dioscurus and Eutyches were banished, and the Nicenc creed was adopted with an addition which acknowledged Christ in two natures without confusion, without severance and without division.

The Chalcedon declaration was at once impugned widely, and its opponents, who maintained the oneness of Christ's nature though acknowledging that it was composite, were called Monophysites. They proclaimed that God has been crucified and altered that Catholic sanctus to this form ! : "Holy God! Holy Almighty ! Holy Immortal ! who has been crucified for us, have mercy upon us ! "This led to new commotions and divisions, and all attempts at compromise failed. This party gradually died out within the Empire though it actually remained active beyond it in the Coptic,  Syriac and Armenian churches with Jacobus Bardeus as the founder. The head of the church, called Patriarch of Antioch lives at Diarbekir. This title is claimed by no fewer than three church dignitaries. The members and the clergy are very illiterate and ignorant, but the Syro-Jacobite liturgies are very numerous. No fewer than forty one are described by Neale. Their superstition is more abject, their feasts more rigid, their internal divisions more numerous, and their doct- rines are remote from the precincts of reason.

The West Syrians or natives of Syria proper to whom the Syrians of these parts trace their origin became Monophysites through the influence of the Patriarch of Antioch.From the middle of the fourth century for about a thousand years the Christians of Malabar were in a state of spiritual distress and indiscriminately applied for bishops to one of the Eastern Patriarchs who were either Nestorian or Jacobite; so thai at the request of the Syrian Christians of Malabar, both Nestorian and Jacobite bishops seem to have come to Malabar,and their teaching was indiscriminately accepted by them.It may be said that these credulous Christians imbued with the primitive forms of Christianity were too ignorant of the doctrinal differences to be in a position to distinguish between Nestorian and Jacobite forms of Christianity. Reference is made to the arrival in India of a Jacobite bishop in 696 A D from Babylon, and they are said to have interviewed the native rulerc and travelled through the country, built churches and looked after the affairs of the Syrians.

But Paoli, quoting Le Quien, puts the arrival of these bishops a century later. He says, " In 925 Mar Sabor and Peroses, Nestorian bishops from Persia, came to Malabar," About 1129 they were followed by Mar Johannes Episcopa who was sent by the Catholic of Bagdad.

The account given by Hough (Vol. I, page 107) of the two bishops whom he calls Mar Sapores and Mar Phcroz is as follows :

" Some time after the foundation of Quilon in the beginning of the tenth century, there is an account of the Syrian Ecclesiastics arriving there from Babylon.The names were Mar Sapores and Mar Pheroz. It is nowhere explained for what purpose they came to India ; but it is probable that they were charged with some particular ecclesiastical commis- sion from the Metropolitan of Persia or that they came from him merely with the general intention of strengthening their eastern brethren in the faith and keeping up the communion already subsisting between them and their Patriarch.The Raja of Travancore permitted them to preach in his dominions and to build churches, wherever they desired. There can be no doubt that during this century the church in Malabar was in communion with the Nestorian Patriarch.

 "Prior to the Synod, however, there was trouble in Malankara owing to the intrigues of the Portuguese and their persecution of the Syrian church. The first attempts to bring the Syrians of Malabar into communion with Rome were made, according to Hough, (246), in 1546, by Cordaliers or Friars of the orders of St, Francis. But seeing the futility of all attempts hitherto made to turn them from their faith, and from their allegiance to their own Patriarch, and attributing failure to the presence of the Syrian bishop, they determined to remove him." (i, 250). Mar Thomas Joseph Metran was accordingly sent to Portugal. Soon afterwards a bishop named Abraham arrived in Cochin.

It is also said that when persecuted by the Portuguese he fled to Babylon and also subsequently sought to obtain a new Metran. It is clear from these writers that Mar Abraham was sent from Babylon, and at the request of the Malabar church. The history of the Metranship of this unfortunate Bishop is a series of plots and counterplots. He unsuccessfully tried to manage the two opposite authorities of Babylon and Rome and yet he failed to secure the approval of either. "At length", says Hough, 'beginning to bend under the weight of years, worn out by the long and unremitting persecution of his enemies, and probably afflicted with compunction for his various prevarications, Mar Abraham felt unequal to the duties of his office, and wrote to the Patriarch of Babylon to send them a Bishop to assist him while he lived, and to succeed him after his death." In answer to this request Mar Simeon was sent about the year 1758.

Tomb of Mar Abraham/Angamaly

Speaking of the Malabar church at this period, Gibbon says, "their separation from the western world had left them in ignorance of improvements or corruption of a thousand years; and this conformity with the faith and practice of the fifth century would equally disappoint the prejudices of a Papist or a Protestant"(Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire, Ch. XLVII). Whatever might have been the original connection between Babylon and Antioch, there is no doubt, that at the time of the advent of the Portuguese in India, it was not to Antioch but to Babylon that the church in Malabar looked for aid and advice in times of difficulty. After the rupture with Rome the Syrians elected Archdeacon Thomas, as their Metran under the title of Mar Thoma I. The Archdeacon was known as Mar Thomas I, and at the request of his flock, in spite of the fact that the Metropolitan was a member of another communion which stood in the relation of mutual excommunication with the Church, Mar Gregorius remained in the country administering the Church conjointly with Mar Thomas, Thus, the Nestorian Church in India passed under the Jacobite rule voluntarily and apparently without any consciousness of the irregularity of its action. " No plainer proof," says W. F. Adney, " could be had of the condition of indifference to which it had arrived." So things went on to the end of the century without any confusion or clashing of customs. Regarding him, Hough says, " Not only after his elevation Mar Thoma showed his zeal against the Roman Church and also against his rival Mar Gabriel, the Nestorian bishop, for, on the 8th June 1729, he wrote to the Dutch Commander at Cochin charging the other Syrian bishops with Nestorian heresy, with the assassination of two bishops of his sect, and with a murderous design of his late uncle. Then after inveighing against the Papal supremacy, the Romish doctrine, and mass, he concludes,  "we on the contrary acknowledge the Church of Antiochfor our head and that the Messiah has but one nature and one person." 

Mar Thomas I was a member of the Pakalamattom family held in high repute and veneration as one of the Brahman families, the members of which were believed to have been converted and ordained by St. Thomas himself. This family continued to supply Metrans till 1815, when it was supposed to have become extinct. This hereditary succession is, in the opinion of some, a relic of the Nestorian practice. The earliest converts were high-caste Hindus, among whom the succession of a nephew or brother might quite as well be a relic of the Hindu custom. The Metrans had properties, and they were careful in securing the succession for their brothers or nephews. Mar Thoma 1 had never received any regular imposition of hands. He died in 1669 and he was succeeded by his brother Mar Thomas II, who was killed by lightning in 1686. His nephew became Metran as Mar Thomas III and held office for two years. Mar Thomas IV, his successor, remained in office till 1728. The last two bishops are said to have been consecrated by Bishop John, a scholar of great repute, who with another Bishop Basil came from Antioch in 1685. Thus the Syrian Church was governed by a succession of prelates some of whom instituted practical reforms, but never excited any theological interest in their own peculiar tenets.

 Evidently, theology, says W F Adney, was dead in the Church, and the vitality of the Church was not vigorous. But a silent current was flowing towards the Jacobite position. This is proved by what happened in the 18th century, when Mar Gabriel, a Nestorian bishop, came to Malabar. Neither the Metrans, Mar Thomas IV, nor his successor Mar Thomas V, nor his people, would acknowledge him, nor permit him to preach in their churches ; for he was a man without any definite creed, and professed himself a Nestorian, Jacobite, or Romanist, according as the one or the other best suited his purpose. But this prohibition might have been more due to the polemical views than to any objection to his heresy, for he was an implacable enemy of the jacobites. He was nevertheless able to detach a small following of the Syrians whom he brought back to their own Nestorianism. The consecration of Mar Thomas V, by Mar Thomas IV, was held to be invalid, because it was opposed to the teachings of the Jacobite Church. The Christians looked to the Dutch for help, but were disappointed. They had then recourse to a Jewish merchant Ezekiel, who undertook to convey the message to the Patriarch of Antioch. 

Mar Ivanus, a man cf fiery temper, was brought from Bassorah. He interfered with the images in the Churches, and this led to violent quarrels from which followed his sudden departure from the country. Through the Dutch authorities of Cochin, a fresh requisition was sent to the Patriarch of Antioch, who sent three bishops, Basil, John, and Gregory. In 1761, Mar Thomas V, consecrated his successor as Mar Thomas VI. At this time one Kattumangat Ramban, resorting to a stratagem, got himself consecrated as Metran under the name of Mar Kurilos by Gregorius, one of the said Bavas. This again led to violent disputes and quarrels which came to an end by the flight of Kurilos, who founded the See of Anjur, about sixteen miles west of Trichur, and became the first bishop of Thoahayur . 

  Kurilos was succeeded there by his brother Kurilos II, who was followed by one Gevergese who too was called Philixonos. This Philixonos by unauthorised intrusion played an important part in the affairs of Malankara. Mar Thomas was consecrated by the bishops sent by the Patriarch of Antioch under the title of Dionysius, known also as Dionysius the Great, owing to his considerable influence, great administrative capacity and the long government of his diocese for more than thirty-seven years. It was on this occasion in 1770, that a Metran was ordained by a Jacobite Patriarch- Thus in regard to orders there are grave doubts concerning the state of priesthood of the Syrian Church in India. It would appear that ordination in many cases was irregular.  

A new chapter in the history of the Syrian church opens with the introduction of the English influences under the auspices of the Church Missionary Society. At first the native Metrans welcomed the co-operation of the Missionaries, but later on a hostile spirit was manifested towards the foreign intruders. In 1809, there was an interview between Dr, Buchanan and Mar Dionysius, when the former broached the question of union with the church of England. The proposal was rejected by the Metran and the congregation. Mar Dionysius died in 1808.Thomas Kathanar who succeeded him, as Thomas VIII, died in 1816.

 Regarding this Metran there was some dispute about the consecration. The hand of Thomas VII was laid on his head, but this act was apparently done, while the former was in an unconscious condition. He was never consecrated by delegates from Antioch, and this led to disputes .His successor Thomas IX was an old incapable man, and was replaced by Itoop Ramban known as Pulikot Dionysius or Dionysius II. There is nothing to show that Thomas IX received consecration either from the Patriarch or by delegates. He was consecrated by his predecessor Thomas VIII. He died in 1818. Philixonos, the successor of Kurilos as Bishop of Thozhayur, consecrated Punnathara Dionysius or Dionysius III. The Church Missionary Society has always had for its sole aim to make the Syrian church a missionary one, and as proposed by Dr Buchanan, the Society began their work under favourable conditions, and the most friendly relations existed between the Syrians and the Church Missionaries for some years to such an extent that the latter visited the Syrian churches and even preached sermons. It was also seen at the time that, what the Nestorian Church needed most, was education for the Syrian clergy and laity, who were found to have been sunk in gross ignorance. Accordingly, in 1813, a college was opened for the Syrian priests and deacons under the management of Rev. Joseph Fenn. The scriptures were translated. All this was done with the approval of the Metran, but the conservative party among them began to fear that the Syrian Church would be brought under Protestant control. The English missionries were disposed to think that if the Roman corruption could be removed, the Syrian Church would return to its original simplicity. But longer experience showed that it would require a radical reformation. 

Gibbon's book
On the death of Dionysius III in 1825, Cheppat Dionysius, who was consecrated by Mar Philixinos, succeeded him, as Dionysius IV. It must be remembered that the three foregoing Metrans were consecrated by Mar Philixinos who succeeded Kurilos. The former received consecration from Mar Gregorius. the Patriarch's delegate, and was presumably a Jacobite in faith. During his reign the missionaries were suspected of using the influence with the Metropolitan to win the Syrians over to the Protestant faith. The conservative party of the Syrians opposed this movement, and petitioned the Patriarch who sent a bishop named Mar Athanasius. lie had a large number of Syrian adherents, and was very much opposed to Mar Dionysius, whom he tried to excommunicate., but was deported by the Travancore Government at the instance of the British Resident.

The missionaries, who superintended the education of the Syrian youths, began to teach doctrines contrary to those of the Jacobite Church, and this gave rise to distrust and suspicion towards them. Bishop Wilson of Calcutta went to Kottayam to effect a reconciliation with them, but his attempts were not crowned with success, because they were reluctant to accept the important changes concerning the temporal and spiritual affairs, namely, doing away with prayers for the dead, revision of their liturgy, and the management of the church funds. The Church withdrew from all connection with the Syrian Church. Since their work for the Syrians was completely closed soon after, disputes arose in regard to the funds and endowments of the Seminary, and they were settled by arbitration in 1840, and the properties were divided between the Metropolitan and the missionaries. The latter had friends and sympathisers among the Jacobites, some of whom became members of the Church of England .

The Syrians were not satisfied with the consecration of the Metropolitan by Mar Philixinos, and they therefore petitioned the Patriarch of Antioch. Just then a party of the Syrians, hostile to the Metropolitan, sent a member of their community named Mathew to Antioch, and his arrival there was opportune, because the Patriarch was looking out for a proper man. He was welcomed and consecrated as Metropolitan of Malankara under the title of Mathew Athanasius. He put forward his claims to the headship of the church. Mar Dionysius resisted his attempts and appealed to the Patriarch denouncing him as one whose sympathies were inclined towards the Protestant missionaries. The Patriarch sent one Kurilos with powers to expel Mathew, and with the connivance of Mar Dionysius, Kurilos became the Metropolitan of Malabar, but his credentials were found to be forged, and this led to his flight. Mar Athanasius, finding himself duped by Dionysius and Kurilos, appealed to the Resident, pointing out how the people had been deceived by these two bishops and how his own position had been imperilled by their intrigues. After much deliberation, the Travancore Darbar, advised by the British Resident, appointed a committee which is known as the " Quilon Committee " to hold a searching enquiry and investigate the respective claims of Athanasius and Kurilos. Athanasius was, as the proper claimant, again installed in 1862. The Patriarch of Antioch himself visited Cochin and Travancore in 1874, and held a synod at Mulanthuruthi in which resolutions were passed affirming the supremacy of Antioch, recognising Mar Dionysius as the accredited Metropolitan of Malabar, and also condemning Mar Athanasius as a schismatic. The Patriarch returned to Mardin, but matters did not end there.

After the withdrawal of the Church Missionary Society from the Syrian Church, there were among the Syrians those who imbibed love for the missionaries, appreciated their teachings and expositions of the holy scripture and use of prayer in the vernacular. Fortunately for :hem there was a pious kathanar  priest known as Abraham, who, sympathising with the spiritual aims of the missionaries, returned to his Parish at Mararnannu, and resolved to carry out the principles which lie at the root of all religious reforms by conducting the worship of God and preaching in a tongue understood by the people. Among the changes introduced in his own Parish were the restoration of the Holy Communion in both kinds, dispensing communion to the people during service, protesting against masses performed for money, and abolition of prayers to the saints.Malpan Abraham became the Wickliff of the Syrian Church of Malabar  ; and the reform movement, having been started, gained more and more sympathisers. The clergy began to preach to the people in Malayalam, and the scriptures were read in their families. The students of the Kottayam college and elsewhere were awakened by the reformed Christianity, and were inspired with admiration for its life and liberty.
 
 After the death of Abraham the movement went on prospering under his nephew Mathew, who became Metropolitan of the Syrian Church in Travancore and Cochin, and was as such recognised by the British Resident and rulers of Travancore and Cochin;Before his death, he consecrated to be his suffragan, his cousin, Mar Thomas Athanasius, who succeeded to the Episcopal throne in 1877, and was loyally obeyed by the reformed clergy and the laity. He died in 1893, and Titus Mar Thoma who died in 1910 was the successor of the Metran of 1893 who bore the same name. The present Metran ( 1926) is his nephew and, consecrated likewise by his predecessor, presides over the reformed party of Jacobite Syrians who prefer to be called St. Thomas Syrians. The Jacobite Syrians were thus split up into two parties, one of which was the Bava's party under Mar Dionysius consecrated by the Patriarch of Antioch who led those who were opposed to the reformation, and the other (the Metran's party) under Mar Mathew Athanasius who headed the reformed party. The two parties were quite inimical to each other .The whole question turned mainly on the right of the Jacobite Patriarch to the supremacy over the Syrian Church in India. In fact he ordained only one Metran (Mar Athanasius) during the whole Jacobite period. The opposing party based their claims on the early history of the Church, when it was in communion with the Ncstorian Catholicos at Babylon, and had derived its ordination therefrom; as well as on its own habitual autonomy. But the judicial decision after ten years' protracted litigation handed the See over to the Jacobite nominee, Mar Dionysius Joseph.

Thus far has the history of the Jacobites been described. It may be that they have conducted the whole of the ecclesiastical business very loosely, that they were dependent on the services of foreign bishops, and that they very much liked to see a prelate from Asia among them. " The services of these prelates says Dr. Milne Rae, " were so given and received as to exhibit on both sides a ludicrous attempt to keep a show of apostolic succession, and the way in which it was done was enough to reduce apostolic succession ac least in Malankara to a farce."

Erzdiakon Thomas.jpg
Mar Thoma I

Further, many of the foreign bishops are said to be mere adventurers, and some of them unscrupulous men utterly unworthy of the position to which they aspired. Those who performed episcopal acts and those who received them left behind them no evidence to show that they were accredited representatives of the Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch. "The Syrian Church was closely connected with the Patriarch of Antioch for more than 200 years, and during the long period one Metran was consecrated by delegation of the Patriarch, and the other by the Patriarch's own hands. All the rest were, so far as documentary or legal evidence is concerned, without any authority, and there was no proof that they were bishops at all."

 There remains another branch of the present Jacobite Syrian sect, in which the bishops ordained their own successors without recognizing the necessity of ordination by the Patriarch. The members of this sect are found in the Ponnani taluk of South Malabar and in the northwest of the Cochin State. They are the adherents of the bishops of Anjur or Thozhiyur near Chavakad, a small See founded in the eighteenth century by Mar Cyril, who, quarrelling with the Jacobite Bishop Mar Thomas, got himself consecrated by one of the three bishops sent out by the Patriarch of Antioch to validate the consecration of Mar Thomas.

In order to understand the origin of the Chaldean Syrians and their leaning towards the Patriarch of Babylon,it is necessary to go back to the Portuguese period. At the arrival of the Portuguese on the West Coast, the Syrians had bishops sent by the Nestorian Patriarch of Babylon. The Portuguese were probably not aware of it, and within fifty years these bishops died out. At this time, there was a movement among the Nes- torians for reconciliation with Rome, and a large body of them submitted under the leadership of Sullaca who went to Rome, and in 1553 was proclaimed by Pope Julius III as John, Patriarch of the Chaldeans. "From that date the word 'Chaldean' has been applied to those Nestorians who have abjured the Nestorian heresy, and are in communion with Rome, and their Patriarch is called the Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon in distinction from the Nestorian Patriarch of Babylon." Syriac and Chaldean are sister languages as are Tamil and Malayalam- Syriac is spoken in the country about Antioch and Damascus, and Chaldean is spoken near Babylon and Bagdad. Roman Catholics in Syria use the Chaldean language, and Jacobites use the Syriac. "The second Chaldean Patriarch, Ebedjesus, who was present in the Council of Trent, sent Bishop Joseph to Malabar in 1655, and this Bishop Joseph was succeeded by Mar Abraham. These two bishops showed a tendency to return to the Nestorian heresy, and therefore from the date of the diocesan synod of Diamper, the diocese was severed from the Patriarchate of Babylon, and was placed under a bishop nominated by the King of Portugal, and afterwards under a Vicar Apostolic sent directly by propaganda, These are indications that the Romo-Syrians disliked this system. They had their own oriental rite, but they longed for an oriental bishop, and they looked to the Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon as their quarter from which this oriental bishop should come. There was one such movement in 1709, and another in 1787 under Thomas Pareamakal in the same direction (India, Orientalis Christiana)".

Under the government of Archbishop Bernardin at Verapoly, the desire to obtain an oriental bishop from the Chaldean Patriarch revived, and was fomented by a Chaldean priest named Denha Bar Jona who landed on the coast in 1852. After some months be returned to the Persian Gulf, carrying with him letters from various Syrians to the Patriarch with a request to send them a bishop. The leader of this movement was a Romo-Syrian priest named Thondanatta Antony. He was born in 1819, and was ordained in 1858 by Bishop Louis of Verapoly. He had inherited from his uncle the privilege of main- taining a domestic seminary, and had fifteen youths studying for priesthood. He took these candidates to Verapaly for ordination, and Archbishop Bernardin refused to ordain them. This refusal provoked Father Antony, who in 1868 set sail for the Persian Gulf with two priests, three clerics, and twelve seminarists. The two priests and some of the younger men died on the journey, but Antony and some of them returned in 1861 bringing with them a Chaldean bishop, Roccos or Mar Thomas.* The Bishop Roccos wrote to the Resident and signed the letter " Mar Thomas, Metropolitan and Commissioner of the Roman Catholic Chaldean Syrians in Malabar." It was clear from this that Bishop Roccos was a Roman Catholic and the only point in dispute was the claim of the Chaldean Patriarch for jurisdiction in Malabar. Bishop Roccos had a number of followers among the Romo-Syrians, but his advent to this country was denounced from Rome as a breach of ecclesiastical discipline. This led him to return to his country in 1862. 

The departure of Bishop Roccos from India did not bring the movement to an end. There was still a party of Romo- Syrians who still desired to get a Chaldean bishop, and some of them were influential and wealthy. The Chaldean Patriarch himself sympathised with their wishes. Meanwhile the party among the Romo-Syrians with a desire to have a Chaldean bishop selected Thondanatta Antony. Antony went a second time to the Persian Gulf, and applied to the Chaldean Patriarch for consecration. The Patriarch who had instructions from Rome was not bold enough to consecrate Antony but sent him to the Nestorian Patriarch of Babylon who consecrated Antony as bishop. Antony then returned to India under the name of Mar Abedjesus or Abdeso wearing the insignia of a bishop. But unfortunately he made his submission to the Vicar Apostolic of Verapoly. He laid aside his episcopal insignia, and worked as a Romo-Syrian priest. 

In 1874 the Chaldean Patriarch sent to the Malabar coast a bishop named Melius who was a Roman Catholic. The Pope then issued orders that Bishop Melius should quit India ,which he refused to obey. His disobedience in due course resulted in his suspension and excommunication, but yet retained a following at Trichur and elsewhere known as Chaldean Syrians, a sect that arose out of the split created among the Romo-Syrians of Trichur by the arrival of the said bishop, Antony joined Bishop Melius and acted as a bishop, conferring Holy Orders on some candidates. In 1877 the Chaldean Patriarch made formal submission to Rome and issued orders recalling Bishop Melius from India. In 1877 Bishop Melius left India appointing Mar Abedjesus or Mar Abdeso and a chorepiscopus in charge of the people who adhered to him. In 1889 Bishop Melius submitted to Rome but his lieutenant Mar Abedjesus or Abdeso was not reconciled, and kept the independent Syro-Chaldean Church of Malabar. Mar Abedjesus had consecrated more than, one bishop. He died at Trichur on the 16th November 1900. The chorepiscopas presided over the remnant of his flock, till 1908, when the most Rev. Mar Timotheus who was ordained as the Metropolitan of India and Malabar by Mar Simon, the Catholicos of the East, exercised his spiritual authority over the newly formed sect. The account given above is one version of the Chaldean Syrians of Trichur. There is also another version which is given below:

It is now held by all authorities that till the Synod of Diamper in 1599, churches in Malabar were Nestorian, and that thereafter they became Roman Catholic. The forced conversion of the Syrian Christians to the Romish faith by the Jesuit missionaries became so intolerable to them that it ended in a revolt in 1653, at Coonen Cross in Mattancherry. Thence forward there were two parties, one of which, a minority, owed its allegiance to the Pope, while the other, a majority, returned to its Nestorian faith. In 1657, the Carmelite missionaries succeeded in their attempts to convert some of the Nestorians into the Roman Catholic faith. For twelve years after 1653, the Nestorians were without a bishop from the East, but were governed by their own Archdeacons. In 1655, Mar Gregory, a Jacobite bishop, sent by the Patriarch of Antioch, came to Malabar, and soon after many of the seceders became Jacobites. 

Nevertheless there is evidence to adduce regarding the arrival of Nestorian bishops after 1665 for the government of the Nestorian churches of Malabar, and one of them was Mar Gabriel who was sent by the Patriarch of Mosul. He governed them for 23 years from 1708 AD. It is also said that after his death in 1731, his adherents returned to their old faiths. 

Tarisapally ( Quilon ) Copper plates,AD 849

For nearly two centuries after 1551 there were four Nestorian bishops, Mar Joseph, Mar Abraham, Mar Simon, and Mar Gabriel, and the rites in vogue were both Jacobite and Nestorian. The existence of Nestorian churches in Malabar, nine years after that, i e., 1796, which was 15 years before the foundation of the Trichur church was recorded by Paoli who was a Roman Catholic Divine. Besides the two parties mentioned above, there remained a body of the Syrian Christians who still adhered to the Nestorian faith, and their descendants are the Chaldean Syrians of Trichur who follow the same faith and rituals.

The existence of their having been a separate sect can further be substantiated by a number of documents presented by the members of the community in a suit filed in the local District Court in connection with the possession of the property of their church. The earliest document is dated 1058 (1882).The opening sentences in this document contain their past history, and refer to the preaching of Christianity in Malabar for the first time by the Apostle St. Thomas, the use of rituals in the Chaldean language from that time: for a. number of years, the absence of any faction amongst them till the advent of the Portuguese, the forced conversion of a portion of them by the Portuguese, the strength of their sovereign power, and by depriving them of the services of the bishops sent to them by the Patriarch of Babylon, either by murdering or cruelly persecuting them, the acceptance thereafter by some amongst them who remained faithful to their old religion of the Jacobite faith of their forefathers after the advent of the English .The next admission was in an original suit O. S- 24 of 1064, wherein they maintained that, after the Synod of Diamper, and after 1653, there existed and still existed on the date of the suit a number of churches subject to this spiritual and ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Nestorian Patriarchs of of Babylon.

This admission is quite consistent with the history of the community. The third paragraph in another document contains the history of the Syro-Chaldeans of Trichur. " It refers to the religious and political revolutions which occurred here. There have been the persecutions and conversions by the Portuguese and the revolt at the Coonen Cross. It is said that a few descendants of the early Syrians were left here and there as if to preserve the greatness and glory of " Our " race and speaks of the Syro-Chaleans as a small fraction of that noble remnant who had stood to that day firm and unshaken in their old faith and answciing in their loyalty to the Eastern Church.

DURING the first few centuries after the death of the Apostle Thomas, the Syrian Christians increased in numerical strength. New colonies were formed at various intervals. Fresh bands of immigrants made their appearance in the land not long before the granting of the Christian charters. According to the traditions of the Church, a company of Christians from seventy-two families, belonging to seven tribes from Baghdad, Nineveh and Jerusalem, under orders from the Catholic arch-priest at Urahai (Edessa), arrived along w ith the merchant Thomas, or Thomas of Cana, in 745 AD.It is also said that Thomas had two wives, and by each of them he had numerous descendants among whom his property was divided, those by his first wife receiving his northern estates and those by the second inheriting the southern. These descendants are called the Northists and Southists respectively, Though in religion they believe the same doctrines, and are ruled by the same bishop, they are usually distinct communities with no inter-marriage between them. The Southists are fairer in complexion and have finer features than the Northists, and boast of their descent from the parent church with the genuine Syrian blood in their veins.The account given above is not accepted by some who say that there were Christians here before the arrival of Thomas Cana, The Northerners may have been the Christians near Cranganur, reinforced by Thomas Cana and his party. The Southerners may have been the Christians living near Quilon reinforced by the party of Mar Xabro and Mar Prohd.

In 882 AD,another set of immigrants under Mar Sapor and Mar Peros, two Nestorian Persians, settled in the neighbourhood of Quilon. They made a deep impression upon the ruler of the land. These two immigrants, says Dr. Milne Rae,form the historical grounds for the division of the community into Northists and Southists, although the legends which have mingled with the history have obscured the facts ;and they are probably the last of the immigrations from "the mother church'' in High Asia to South India.

The Syrian Christians in former times were mostly merchants trading with foreign countries on a large scale. The rulers of the land conferred on them high privileges which were embodied in the two copper-plate charters, the date of the grant of one of which, according to Dr. Burnell's calculations, is 774 AD. It is said to have been granted by Vira Raghava Chakravarthi to Iravi Korttan of Cranganur, giving him, as the head of the Christian community there, the little principality of Manigramam, and elevating him to the position of sovereign merchant of Kerala. The other charter granted by Sthanu Ravi Gupta is supposed to be dated 824 A D. Scholars who have tried to fix the dates differ in their views. In a discussion of the subject in the Epigraphica Indica, Vol. IV, pp. 290—297, 1896-7, it is said that the subjoined inscription is engraved on both sides of a single copper plate, which is in the possession of the Syrian Christians at Kottayam. The plate has no seal, but instead a conch is engraved about the middle of the left margin of the second side. This inscription has been translated by Dr. Gundert.  Kookkal Kelu Nair has also attempted a version of the grant. Dr. Gundert's translation is here given:

 " Hari ! Prosperity ! Adoration to the great Ganapathy ! On the day of the (Nakshatra) Rohini, a Saturday after the expiration of the twenty-first day of the solar month Mina (of the the year during which) Jupiter (was) in Makara, while the glorious Vira Raghava Chakravathi (of the race) which has been wielding the sceptre for several hundred thousands of years in succession from the glorious king of kings, the glorious Vira Kerala Chakravarthin was ruling prosperously : 
" While (we were) pleased to reside in the great palace, we conferred the title of Manigramam on Iravi Korttan alias Cheraman-loka pperun-jetti of Magodaiyarppattinam." 

"We (also) gave (him the right of) festive clothing, house pillars, the income that accrues, the export trade, monopoly of trade (the right) of proclamation, forerunners, the five musical instruments, conch, a lamp in day time, a cloth spread (in front to walk on), a palanquin, a royal parasol, the Telugu? drum, a gateway with an ornamental arch, and monopoly of trade in the four quarters."

 " We also (gave) the oil-mongers and the five (classes of) artisans as (his) slaves." 

"We (also) gave, with the libation of water, (caused it to be) written on a copper-plate to Iravi Korttan, who is the Lord of the City, the brokerage on (articles) that may be measured with the (para), weighed by the balance or measured with the tape, that may be counted or weighed, and on all other (articles) between the river mouth of Kodungallur and the gate ( gopura), chiefly between the four temples (tali) and the privilege attached to (each) temple." 

"We gave this as property of Seramandoka-pperun-jetty, alias Iravi Korttan, and his children's children in due succession. 

"The witnesses who know this are:
We (gave) it with the knowledge of villagers of Panniyur and the villagers of Sogiram. We gave (it) with the knowledge (of the authorities) of Venadu and Odunadu. We gave (it) with the knowledge of ( the authorities) of Ernadu and Valluvanadu. We gave (it) for the time that the moon and the sun shall exist." 

 " The handwriting of Seraman-loka-pperum-dattan Nambi Sadayan, who wrote (this) copper-plate with the knowledge of these (witnesses)."

 Mr. Venkayya adds that "it was supposed by Dr. Burnell (Indian Antiquary, III, 1874) that the plate of Vira Raghava created the principality of Manigramam, and the Cochin plates that of Anjuvanum.The Cochin plates did not create Anjuvanum, but conferred the honours and privileges connected therewith on a Jew named Rabban". 

Similarly, the rights and honours associated with the other corporation, Manigramam, were bestowed at a later period on Ravikkoran. It is just possible that Ravikkoran was a Christian by religion. But his name and title give no clue in this direction, and there is nothing unchristian in the document except its possession by the present owners. 

On this name, Dr. Gundert first said " Iravi Korttan must be a Nazrani by name, though none of the Syrian priests whom I saw could explain it or had ever heard of it". Subsequently he added, "I was indeed startled by the Iravi Korttan, which does not look at all like the appellation of a Syrian Christian ; still I thought myself justified in calling Manigramam a principality — whatever their Christianity may have consisted in—on the ground that, from Menezes' time, these grants have been regarded as given to the Syrian colonists"'.

Kookal Nair considers Iravi Korttan a mere title, in which no shadow of a Syrian name is to be traced. The second charter was granted in 824 AD, to the Christians of St. Thomas with the sanction of the Palace Major or Commissioner of King Sthanu Ravi Gupta, who is believed to be Cheraman Perumal. It is a legal instrument which confers a plot of ground in the vicinity of Quilon, with several families of heathen castes, on Maruvan Sapor Iso, who transfers the same with due legal formality to the Teresa Church and comm unity. There was, " says Dr. Milne Rae, " a political necessity for this remarkable promotion for the Christian community in Malabar." 

At the respective dates of the two Christian charters, the Perumals had to fortify themselves against external enemies. They had to avail themselves of every resource by which their seats on the throne might be preserved. There were fears of invasions,  by the Rashtrakutas, and  by the Gangas or other feudatories or the Rashtrakutas from the East via the Palghat gap. At such times the Perumals might have been in need of large sums of money either to bribe or to fight the invaders, and it would not be an improper inference from these facts that the trading foreigners may have satisfied Perumal's wishes, and thus have scoured lor themselves a higher standing in the land of their adoption. 

 The two charters throw a good deal of light on the social condition of the Syrian Christians during the seventh and eighth centuries. The Christians like the Jews were incorporated into the Malayali people, and the position assigned to them and the jews was that of practical equality with the Nairs of the Six Hundred of the nad in respect of the two characteristic functions and privileges of protectors and superiors for a share of the produce of their land in compensation for their services. The duties of the Jewish and Syrian communities were also to protect the town of Palliyar or the church people in union with the Six Hundred and the nad and the church people had to render to them and the king trustworthy accounts of the shares of the produce of the land due to them. " Let them Anjuvanum and Manigramam act both with the church and the land, according to the manner detailed in the copper deed for the items that the Earth, Moon and Sun exist".

The Syrian Christians of Cochin and Travancore have been all along, and are even now, a flourishing community.Their prosperity is mainly due to the religious tolerance of the native Governments, and the protection and patronage of the early Hindu rulers of the two States as evidenced by the copper-plate grants granted by one of the Perumals of Kerala. Their social and military status in former times are very interesting and given below: 

They were numbered among the 'noble races of Malabar'. "They were preferred to the Nayars, and enjoyed the privilege of being called by no other name than that of the 'sons of kings'. They were permitted to wear gold tresses in the hair- locks in marriage feasts, to ride on elephants and to decorate the floor with carpets' (History of the Malabar Church by JoCundus Raulin, Chapter II). They were entrusted with the protection of the artisan classes. Their servants had the charge of cocoanut plantations, and if they were molested by any one, or if their occupation was otherwise interfered with they appealed to the Christians who protected them and redressed their grievances. The Christians were directly under the king, and were not subjects to local chiefs. A Hindu doing violence to a Christian had his crime pardoned, only in the case of his offering to the church, a hand either of gold or silver according to the seriousness of the offence, as otherwise the crime was expiated by his own blood. They never saluted any one below their own rank, because it was dishonourable to their status.

While they walked along the road they saluted others at a distance, and if anybody refused to reciprocate it, he was put to death and the Nayars who were of  the military clan regarded them as brethren, and loved them exceedingly. All communities had special men-at-arms called Amouchi who were bound on oath to safe-guard the people or places under their protection even at the cost of their lives. They were loving, faithful and diligent. They respected the Christians before whom they never ventured to sit unless invited to do so. They were very strong and powerful, and their bishops were respected and feared like kings. To erect a play-house (frascati) was the privilege of the Brahmans, and the same privilege was given to the Christians also. They were given seats by the side of kings and their chief officers. Sitting on carpets, a privilege enjoyed by the ambassadors, was also conceded to then:. In the sixteenth century when the Rajah of Parur wished to concede the privileges to the Nayars in his dominions, the Syrian Christians resented and immediately declared war against him if he persisted. Conscious of his inability to enforce his will, in opposition to theirs, he was obliged to leave the matters on their ancient footing. The immunities and honours above mentioned ren- dered the dignity of their bishop very considerable.

The Syrian Christians were almost on a par with their sovereigns. They were allowed to have a military force of their own, which was composed chiefly of Shanars. the caste that cultivated the palm tree, besides the Brahmans, they were the only inhabitants of the country who were permitted to have enclosures, in front of their houses.In front of their girdle they were accustomed formerly to carry a large knife like a poniard, highly tempered, and having a long metal handle; sometimes the handle was made of gold and beautifully worked. From the end of this handle were suspended chains of the same metal to one; of which was fastened a steel, with which to sharpen the poniard ; to another, a small metal-box which contained quicklime. This lime was prepared in a peculiar manner to in: prove the flavour of the betel leaf w hich they, in common with all the other natives of India both men and wo- men, were continually chewing. To the other chains were appended instruments for cleaning teeth and ears, and a pair of pincers with which they removed the thorns that often ran into their naked feet. All these implements were generally used by the members of Hindu castes of India also who were seldom provided with them.

The Italian Missionary Vincent Marie has testified that he was as highly esteemed as a king. It is therefore no wonder that the anxiety of the Jesuits to possess themselves of an office invested with such authority, and so calculated to exalt their order in the estimation of the native princes was very great. As in Japan and Abyssinia, so in India their consummate ambition and intolerance marred their design, and provoked the natives to expel them, before they had become firmly seated in the episcopal chair which they usurped.

One other interesting point connected with the early history of the Syrian Christians is, that they still cherish the tradition of having attained to the dignity of possessing a king of their own at Villayarvattam near Udayampcrur, and that at the death ot the last king without issue the kingdom lapsed to the Cochin royal family. Ever since that time, the Christians of St. Thomas have been loyal subjects of the rulers of Cochin and Travancore. Who the rulers were and how long the kingdom lasted, it is not possible to saw When the Portuguese landed in India, the Syrians, observing their conquests, and their zeal for the propagation of their faith, desired to make alliance with them and offered them with many demonstrations of fidelity the red staff mounted with gold and three silver bells of their last Christian ruler as marks of submission to them; but as they received from them no compensation, they continued the old form of government and lived in great union, scattered as they lived in distant communities all over the land.

With the exception of the Chittur taluk, the Syrian Christians are found all over the Cochin State, in the Ponnani taluk of South Malabar as well as in Travancore. The Syro- Romans are to be found mostly in the interior of the two States whence they have spread in great numbers in a westerly direction towards the sea, their chief centres in the Cochin State being the Cochin-Kanayanur, Trichur, Mukundapuram and Talapilly taluks ; and at Ettumanur, Minachil, Ambalapuzha, Changanassery and other northern taluks in Travancore. The Syrian Jacobites are numerous in the Talapilly and Kanayanur taluks of the former State, as also in Kuttanad and Muvattupuzha of the latter. In their head-quarters in the Kottayam taluk they are three times as numerous as the Syro-Romans. They have their strongest outposts in Tiruvella, Mavelikara, Chenganur, Kartikapilly and Kunnathur and appear to be extending in all directions.The Reformed Syrians are numerous in Chenganur and Tiruvalla. The Syro-Chaldeans live mostly in Trichur, and in the taluks of Changanassery and Shertallay. Syrian Christians belonging to the Anglican, Presbyterian, and Lutheran churches are found in small numbers in Trichur, Ernakulam in the Cochin State, as also in Kottayam in Travancore.
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* Bishop Roccos arrived in Kerala on May 9, 1861. Even though he arrived unlawfully, the real fact was hidden from people. He received a grand reception by Syrian Churches. Very soon majority of the Churches in Kerala stood behind Bishop Roccos. This unlawful Bishop and his companions caused a Schism like situation in the Kerala Church. It is known as ‘Roccos Schism’ in the history and Kuriakose Elias Chavara had qualified it as ‘religious rebellion’ (vedakalapam).Roccos and his companions travelled far and wide in Kerala with the support of Antony Thondanat and others and enjoyed the support of majority of the Churches.

**The Veeraraghava Pattayam is a copper plate inscription issued by Perumbadapu king Veeraraghava Chakravarthi who made Mahodayapuram as his capital after the Kulasekhara kings. It says about "Eravikotharthanaya Cheraman Lokaperum Chetti" of "Makothaipattanam" being given Manikkiramapattam (Manigramam, a village) and some other rights. Makothaipattanam means Mahodayapuram.Dr. Burnal and Dr. Keelhone, based on the "grahanila" (astrological chart) in the plate, estimated the age of the inscription as AD 774 and AD 775 respectively.Godavarma too shared the same view. Considering historic facts and "grahanila", Elamkulam Kunjan Pillai opined that the inscription dated back to 1225.The provinces of Venad, Odanad, Eranad, Valluvanad, Sukapuram and Panniyur are mentioned as witnesses in the pattayam. Also called Syrian-Christian copper plate, the inscription documented the trade rights, monopoly over foreign trade and several other rights accorded to a Christian trader named Eravi Korthan.Historians cite the title as an example for the communal harmony and minority rights ensured by the Kerala kings.

Edited By Ramachandran

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