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Rh to early Christian associations with India, they all melt into vagueness, or indicate some other region than that of the present Christians of St. Thomas. We have here six persons who are apparently carrying on Christian work in India, and yet to none of them can we assign our present India as the scene of their labours. Thomas, Bartholomew, Pantænus, John of the large episcopate, Frumentius, Theophilus—all of these men, when their Indian claims are examined, seem to be associated with other regions. South Arabia, Abyssinia, the neighbourhood of the Bosphorus, the country immediately east of Persia, all these parts have borne the name or have been mistaken for India, and it is among them that the work of the early missionaries is distributed. Of course it cannot be denied that Christianity may have reached India proper, or at all events the South India of the later Church, at an earlier time than we know. That is another matter. We have no evidence to indicate that it was so, and all our available evidence points in other directions. There we must leave the question.

We come out of these mists of legend into clear daylight in the Nestorian period. There is no doubt that the great wave of missionary enthusiasm that swept over so large a part of Central Asia poured down into Southern India, or, more probably, came direct across the sea to the region of Travancore, then passed over to Ceylon, and ultimately reached China. The ancient Christian community in India is known as the "Syrian Church" of India. This name should not lead us to suppose that it is composed of Syrian colonists. Its members consist of the native people of their province. But the name reminds us that their Christianity sprang from the activity of the Syrian Church in these parts. The consequences of its origin are seen in many customs, notably in the use of the Syrian liturgies. Its theology is Nestorian, after the pattern of Syrian Nestorianism.

The earliest distinct witness to the existence of the Syrian Christian in India is afforded by the Alexandrian