________________
214
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ NOVEMBER, 1928
there were only 5 priests left. Cf. Fr. Bernard, op. cit., p. 32. By 'Greek Patriarch' do Couto understood a Nestorian Patriarch. According to him the Greek Patriarch who sent Mar Xabro and Mar Prodh was a Nestorian.
John de Marignolli met the Patriarch of the St. Thomas Christians (c. 1348), but whether at Mylapore or in Malabar or at Bagdad, which he also visited, is not stated.
Gouvea (Jornada, 1606, fol. 76r) states that, in the Church of Diamper in which the Council of 1599 was held, lay buried a Nestorian bishop.140 He does not however give his name or his period. He only remarks that Diamper had been the see of some Nestorian bishops. In 1599 they showed still at Diamper some of the things which had belonged to the said bishop, among them a very short and narrow bed on which he slept for penance. "Going to sieep on it one night, he did not rise for Matins." Possibly, his name is still remembered at Diamper, and his grave shown.
Le Quien, quoting many weighty authors (Tom. II, Paris, 1740, pp. 1086-87-88) Beye that the Patriarch of Antioch used to appoint 'Catholicoses' who had not the title of Patri. arch, although they were in authority above the Bishops, and that these Catholicores were consecrating Bishops to govern the above-mentioned countries [India, Persia, etc.). The same Le Quien in the same place says that in A.D. 1000 the Nestorian Patriarch Abraham II. of Babylon sent up a petition to the Caliph of Bagdad, stating that a Catholicos under the Patriarch of Antioch was during night time consecrating bishops for the territories under his jurisdiction. Thereupon the consecrating Catholicos and the consecrated bishops were seized and imprisoned. A letter of Peter, Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch in communion with Rome, written about 1050 A.D. to Dominic of Graden, throws further light on the subject (Le Quien, ib.). The Patriarch claims that his actual jurisdiction extends to the far East, including India, that he appoints Catholicoses for Babylon, and other regions, and that these Catholicoses have supervision over several bishops, but that they do not take the title of Patriarch. Cf. Bernard of St. Thomas, op. cit. p. 12. Nilos Doxopatrios, notary of the Patriarch of Constantinople, who wrote (c. A.D. 1143) a history for King Roger of Sicily, states that the Patriarch of Antioch still appoints and sends a Catholicos to Romogyris141 in India. Cf. Germann, Die Kirche der Thomaschristen, Gütersloh, 1877, p. 163, n. 1. Several Portu. guese writers note that at times Jacobite bishops as well as Nestorian bishops came to India before the arrival of the Portuguese. [Has Peter in communion with Rome, c. 1050?]
We have purposely included this list of bishops in this study. It must prove that Malabar itself can help in the reconstruction of its Christian history. If in 1820 the Syrians could look back 1000 years, up to A.D. 825, it was possible for them, who never passed from barbarism into civilisation, to do the same in A.D. 825, and to reach down to St. Thomas himself, Chronology was a tradition in the East. It had a cult for genealogies. In 1599, Menezes met a man in Malabar who was 123 years old, and who could give not only the years, but the months and days he had lived. He had scored on sticks the days and the months and the years. (Gouvea, Jornada, fol. 108r.) Our list ought to stimulate further research in Malabar for the period 825-1500. For the earlier period we look for help chiefly to Mesopotamia. A considerable amount of facts and dates has been gathered already for the period 300-825. More must exist. Even here Malabar can help, when it can give us in a MS. of c. 1700, discovered by Mr. T. K. Joseph, the dates 293 for Måņikka Vachakar's persecution of the Christians of Kaveripattanam, and 315 for his coming to Quilon. [In spite of Menezes', Van Goens' and Tippu's holocaust of Malayalam and Syriac MSS. it is extremely gratifying to see that several valuable historical records still survive among us in Malabar. They have yet to be published,]
140 Perhaps Mar Sapor or Mar Prodh of A.D. 825.
141 Romogyris seems to be formed from (Kolţungalore (Crangapore) by aphesis, mutation of 1 intor (the reverse of lambdaciam) and the addition of a Greek suffix, Cerebral is by Europeans sometimes represented by
