95 Account of the Christians on the Malabar Coast. [Januarv 



Indian churches had no other ecclesiastic than a single deacon, 

 whom they compelled to admniister the Sacraments, as well as the 

 other offices of religion, until they were supplied with a regularly 

 ordained clergy. They sent accordingly to the church of Babylon^ 

 then famous for its learning and piety, and obtained from the Patri-* 

 arch three bishops, one for themselves, one for Socotra, and the third 

 for southern China. Two of these prelates, on their arrival at Cran- 

 ganore, were disgusted with the country and returned. Whether 

 Seleuciay or Bagdad, is intended by Babylon in this passage, is 

 doubtful and therefore the time of this event is left uncertain. But 

 t appears that the christians of Malabar, always gave their primate 

 the title of Patriarch of Babylon,* which is founded on the anti- 

 quity of the city of Seleucia, which according to the testimony of 

 Sozomen, was from the 4th century, the residence of the bishops 

 of Persia, the primates of India, and which was antiently called 

 Babylon, according to the testimony of Stephen of Byzantium. 



" Under the reign of the Caliphs (says Gibbon,) the Nestorian 

 church was diffused from China to Jerusalem and Cyprus. Twenty- 

 five metropolitans, or archbishops, composed their hierarchy, but 

 several of these were dispensed, by the distance and danger of the 

 way, from the duty of personal attendance, on the easy condition 

 that every six years they should testify their faith and obedience to 

 the Catholicos orPatriarch of Babylon, a vague appellation which 

 has been successively applied to the royal seats of Seleucia, Ctesi- 

 pJion and Bagdad. These remote branches are long since withered, 

 and the old Patriarchal trunk is now divided by the Elijahs of 

 Mosul, the representatives almost in lineal descent of the genuine 

 and primitive succession, the Josephs of Amida who are reconciled 

 to the church of Rome, and the Simeons of Van or Ormia, whose 

 revolt at the head of 40,000 families, was promoted in the sixteenth 

 century by the Sophis of Persia." Gibbon viii. 345. 



At what time these churches received the Nestorian heresy ,t 

 it is impossible to determine ; probably in the early part of the sixth 

 century, when the Nestorian clergy were sole masters of the Persian 

 church, t and would of course diffuse their doctrine throughout 

 their dependencies in the E^st. Certain it is that when the Portu- 



(*) It is plain from the 33d of the Arabic canons of the Council of Nice 

 (which tho' not genuine are very antient and of great authority) that the 

 church of Seleucia, or Babylon, was antiently subject to the Patriarch of Anti' 

 och, who of all the Patriarchs, was their nearest neighbour. See Geddes 

 page 16, and Gibbon viii. 339 note. 



(t) For a full account of the doctrines of Nestorians, condemned by the 

 3d general Council (of Ephesus. A. D. 431.) See Mosheira's Eccles. Hist, le 

 40. &c. X Gibbon viii. 341. 



