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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JULY, 1890.
the aborigines of Soķotra, we come, in the natural order of events, to the rise and progress of Christianity in the island.
It is the universal belief of the Eastern Churches that St. Thomas the Apostle, after visiting Mesopotamia, Ethiopia, and many other countries, preached in Soķotra on his way to India (about A.D. 50); and the peculiar veneration in which that saint was held by the Christians of Soķotra (a fact noticed by Francis Xavier and other early European visitors) tends to qorroborate the tradition. Abdias, who lived at the end of the first century, and whose work was published by Zazius at Basle in 1552, says he remembered a book in which the voyage of St. Thomas to India was described.23
The preaching and martyrdom of this Apostle in India are recognized by most authorities as historical oocurrences, although the various accounts differ in many particulars. The favourite tradition of St. Thomas' death is thus related by Marco Polo;
"Now I will tell you the manner in which the Christian brethren who keep the Church relate the story of the Saint's death,
They tell that the Saint was in the wood outside his hermitage saying his prayers; and round about him were many peacocks, for these are more plentiful in that country than any. where else. And one of the idolaters of that country, being of the lineage of those called Govi that I told you of, having gone with his bow and arrows to shoot peafowl, not seeing the Saint, let fly an arrow at one of the peacocks; and this arrow struck the holy man in the right side, insomuch that he died of the wound, sweetly addressing himself to his Creator. Before the came to that place where he thus died, he had been in Nubia, where he converted mach people to the faith of Jesus Christ."
Cosmos (6th century) says that the Ptolemies, as well as their predecessor, Alexander. sent colonists to Soķotra, and that there was in the island a bishop appointed from Persia, also clergy ordained and sent from Persia to minister among the people of the island. He relates that having landed there he was entertained by some of the inhabitants who at that time spoke the Greek language, and he adds that he found there a great number of Christians. 25
As to the sect to which these Christians belonged, Sir H. Yule quotes nearly all available authorities on the subject :
"Abulfeda says the people of Sokotra were Nestorian Christians and pirates. Nicolo Conti, in the first half of the 15th century, spent two months on the island (Sechutera). He says it was for the most part inhabited by Nestorian Christians.
“Some indications point rather to a connexion of the island's Christianity with the Jacobite or Abyssinian Church. Thus they practised circumcision, as mentioned by Maffei in noticing the proceedings of Albuquerque at Soķotra. De Barros calls them Jacobite Christians of the Abyssinian stock.''26
De Faria says that at the time of Don Francisco de Almeyda's visit to the island in 1505, the inhabitants were Christians of the Jacobite Church, similar in its ceremonies and belief to that which is established in Ethiopia. The men generally use the names of the Apostles, while most of the women are named Maria. They worship the Cross, which they set up in all their charches, and wear upon their clothes, worshipping thrice a day in the Chaldean language, making alternate responses as we do in choirs. They have but one wife, use circumcision, pay tythes, and practise fasting.27
Francis Xavier, the first of the Jesuit missionaries sent to India, visited the island in the latter end of 1541, and found distinct traces of the Church. The people reverenced the Cross,
28 Murray's Hand-book of Madras, by Prof. Eastwick, 2nd Ed., p. 162. Yule, 2nd Ed., Vol. II. p. 340.
25 Topographia Christiana, Book III., p. 178-79, quoted in Gillain's Documents sur l'Histoire, la Géographie et le Commerce de l'Afrique Orientale, Vol. I. Chap. VIII. According to Sir H. Yule's quotation of the same Passage, Cosmos did not actually land on the island. Yule, Marco Polo, Vol. II. p. 101, 2nd Ed. » Yule. Marco Polo, Vol. II, p. 401 notes.
Kerr's Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VI. p. 96.
