Note 54 — Chapter V

It is very singular to find people in the eighteenth century bringing forward evidence to prove that the apostle Thomas was stoned to death and interred, seventeen hundred years ago, at Mailapuri or St. Thomas. The Mar Thomas, of whom there are so many traditionary accounts in India, was probably Thomas Cana, an Armenian, who must have gone to India before the sixth century, and have there diffused the doctrines of Christianity among his own followers. In the year 822 two Nestorian priests from Syria, called Mar Sapor and Mar Parges, went from Babylon to India, and landed at Coulan. The Indian princes granted extensive privileges to the Christians of Mar Thomas, and to the two priests from Babylon, by which they were raised above the Nairs, or Malabar nobility. These privileges were engraven on plates of copper, and it is believed were not long ago extant somewhere in India. The archbishop of Goa, Alexis de Menezes, a despotic enthusiast, endeavoured, in 1599, in a synod at Diamper, to unite the Nestorian Christians with the Romish church, and burnt all their books and papers; but they still exist as a distinct sect. See La Crozes View of the State of the Church in India. The German translation is fuller than the French original, because the author supplied the translator with a great many important improvements and additions. F.