| 词条 | Nestorianism and the church in India |
| 释义 |
}} According to tradition, Christianity was established in India in AD 52 with the arrival of Thomas the Apostle in Cranganore (Kodungaloor). Subsequently, the Christian community of the Malabar Coast established close ties with the other Christians of the Middle East in the Persian Empire. They eventually coalesced into the Church of the East centered on the Catholicos-Patriarch of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. The Church of the East was often separated from the other ancient churches due to its location outside the Roman Empire. When Archbishop Nestorius of Constantinople was declared a heretic by the Council of Ephesus, the Church of the East refused to acknowledge his deposition because he had stated the same christolical position which the Church of the East had always held. Later, the Anaphora of Mar Nestorius which he composed came to be used in Church of the East. For this reason, the Church of the East has been pejoratively labelled the "Nestorian Church" by some. However this is a misnomer as Nestorius was not the founder of the Church of the East, nor even a member of it. Nevertheless, some other Christian groups have historically used the term "Nestorian" to refer to the Church of the East in a derogatory manner. When the Portuguese arrived in India in the 16th century, they were very ignorant of other Christian Rites. Their ignorance led to the controversial Synod of Diamper forcing the Latin Rite on the Malabar Syriac Christians in 1599 even though the Syrian Church at Malabar was already in union with Rome.[1][2][3] Ironically, St. Francis Xavier praised bishops who provided leadership to this community, including Mar Jacob, Mar Joseph and Mar Abraham and acknowledged their communion with the Holy See. IntroductionWhen Pope Julius III on 6 April 1553 confirmed John Sulacca as Chaldean Patriarch, the Pope said that the discipline and liturgy of the Chaldeans had already been approved by his predecessors, Nicholas I (858-867), Leo X (1513–1521) and Clement VII (1523–1534). A Papal letter also mentions Patriarch Simon Mamma as a patriarch of the Christians in Malabar. This shows that at times Chaldean Patriarchs in communion with Rome presided over the Christians of Malabar. When the Portuguese arrived in Malabar, they assumed the four bishops present were Nestorian. Their report of 1504 was addressed to the Chaldean Patriarch. The Portuguese were startled by the absence of images and by the use of leavened bread, but these two points are in accordance with Chaldean usage. The Christians paid the expenses of Marignoli because he was Papal Delegate.[4] St. Francis Xavier, in a letter from Cochin to St. Ignatius Loyola, dated 14 January 1549, asks for indulgences for certain churches saying, "This would be to increase the piety of the natives who are descended from the converts of St. Thomas and are called Christians of St. Thomas." In another letter dated 28 January 1549 to Rodriguez, St. Francis Xavier asks for indulgences for a church at Cranganore, "which is very piously frequented by the Christians of St. Thomas, to be a consolation for these Christians and to increase piety." As saints are notoriously keen in detecting heresy and as indulgences cannot be granted to schismatics, these letters of St. Francis Xavier show that the Christians of Malabar were in communion with Rome, even before the arrival of Mar Joseph in 1555. When the Portuguese deported Mar Joseph to Portugal it was not the Nestorian Patriarch but the Chaldean Patriarch who sent Mar Abraham to take his place. This appears from Action iii, Decree X of the third provincial council at Goa in 1585, which recites that Mar Abraham came as Archbishop of Angamale, with a letter from Pope Pius IV. The letter of Pope Gregory XIII which was written on 29 November 1578 to Mar Abraham ask him not to convert his flock, but to convert non-Christians only. [5]The Synod of Diamper of 1599 marked the formal subjugation of the Malabar Syriac Christian community to the Latin Church. Mar John, Metropolitan of India (1122 AD)In 1122, Mar John, Metropolitan designate of India, with his suffragens went to Constantinople, and thence to Rome,and received the pallium from Pope Callixtus II.[6] He also narrated to the Pope and the Cardinals the miracles that were wrought at the tomb of St. Thomas at Mylapore.[7] These visits apparently from the Saint Thomas Christians of India cannot be confirmed, as evidence of both is only available from secondary sources.[8][9][10] Later, a letter surfaced during the 1160s claiming to be from Prester John. There were over one hundred different versions of the letter published over the next few centuries. Most often, the letter was addressed to Emanuel I, the Byzantine Emperor of Rome, though some were addressed to the Pope or the King of France. A Latin text with its Hebrew translation reads as follows:
Reading the Hebrew letters of Prester John shows that Prester John lived in India, or to be more precise, in Malabar (southern India).[11] Connecting Prester John with India is inevitable from the Hebrew text on the one hand, while data from the legend will support the Indian origin on the other. First of all, India is mentioned several times in these letters (pp. 41, 89, 107, 119, and more). Second, Kalicut which was one of the most important port-cities in Malabar in southern India (the place where Vasco da Gama was sent), is mentioned in one of the letters.Third, these facts would definitely suffice but further evidence appears in the form of statement[11] "In the large India is buried the body of St Thomas the Apostle."[12]That is, the author knew that St. Thomas was buried in India, a belief held by the Christians of southern India.[13] Not only that, but the author of the letters knew (p. 133) about 'St. Thomas holiday', that is, apparently, St. Thomas memorial day held by the same Christians on 3 July.[14] Fourth, the author of the letters mentioned that pepper grew in his land (pp. 55, 91, 131), vegetation typical to Malabar in southern India[15] Fifth, there are some stories in the letters concerning warriors riding elephants . It is well known that unlike the African elephant only the Asian elephant could be trained. That is to say that the letters include information about India.[11][16] Mar Ya'qob Metropolitan of India & Patriarch Yahballaha IIIAt the beginning of the fourteenth century the Indian church was again dependent upon the Church of the East. The dating formula in the colophon to a manuscript copied in June 1301 in the church of Mar Quriaqos in Cranganore mentions the patriarch Yahballaha III (whom it curiously describes as Yahballaha V), and the metropolitan Yaqob of India. Cranganore, described in this manuscript as 'the royal city', was doubtless the metropolitan seat for India at this time.[17] In the 1320s the anonymous biographer of the patriarch Yahballaha III and his friend Rabban Bar Sauma praised the achievement of the Church of the East in converting 'the Indians, Chinese and Turks'.[18] India was listed as one of the Church of the East's 'provinces of the exterior' by the historian {{transl|ar|DIN|ʿ}}Amr in 1348.[19] Yahballaha held contacts with the Byzantine Empire and with Latin Christendom. In 1287, when Abaqa's son and successor Arghun Khan sought an ambassador for an important mission to Europe, Yaballaha recommended his former teacher Rabban Bar Sauma, who held the position of Visitor-General. Arghun agreed, and Bar Sauma made a historic journey through Europe, meeting with the Pope and many monarchs, and bringing gifts, letters, and European ambassadors on his return. Via Rabban Sauma, Yahballaha received a ring from the Pope's finger, and a papal bull which recognized Yahballaha as the patriarch of all the eastern Christians.[20] In May 1304, Yahballaha made profession of the Catholic faith in a letter addressed to Pope Benedict XI. But the union was refuted by his Nestorian bishops. In 1439, Pope Eugene IV sent an apostolic letter through his legates to Thomas, the Villarvattom king in the following manner: "To our dearest son in Jesus the great king Thomas of India happiness and apostolic benediction. We have been often told that you and your subjects are true and faithful Christians”.[21] Udayamperoor (known as Diamper in Portuguese), the capital of this kingdom, was the venue of the famous Synod of Diamper of 1599 CE. It was held in the All Saints Church in Diamper. The venue was apparently chosen on account of the place having been the capital of a Christian principality.[22] Accounts of foreign missionariesFrancis Xavier wrote a letter from Cochin to king John III of Portugal on 26th january1549, in which he declared that s bishop of Armenia (Mesopotamia by the name of jacob Abuna has been serving God and Your Highness in these regions for forty·five years. He is a very old, virtuous,and saintly man, and, at the same time, one who has been neglected by Your Highness and by almost all of those who are in India. God is granting him his reward, since he desires to assist him by himself, without employing us as a means to console his servants. He is being helped here solely by the priests of St. Francis Y. H. should write a very affectionate letter to him, and one of its paragraphs should include an order recommending him to the governors, to the veadores da fazenda, and to the captains of Cochin so that he may receive the honour and respect which he deserves when he comes to them with a request on behalf oft the Christians of St. Thomas Your Highness should write to him and earnestly entreat him to undertake the charge of recommending you to God, since YH. has a greater need of being supported by the prayers of the bishop than the bishop has need of the temporal assistance of Y.H. He has endured much in his work with the Christians of St Thomas.[23][3]In that same year Francis Xavier also wrote to his Jesuit colleague and Provincial of Portugal, Fr. Simon Rodrigues giving him the following description: "Fifteen thousand paces from Cochin there is a fortress owned by the king with the name of Ctanganore. It has a beautiful college, built by Frey Wcente, a companion of the bishop, in which there are easily a hundred students, sons of native Christians, who are named after St. Thomas. There are sixty villages of these Thomas Christians around this fortress, and the students for the college as I have said, are obtained from them There are two churches in Cranganore, one of St Thomas, which is highly revered by the Thomas Christians."[24][3] This attitude of St. Francis Xavier and the Franciscans before him does not reflect any of the animosity and intolerance that kept creeping in with the spread of the Tridentine spirit of the Counter-Reformation which tended to foster a uniformity of belief and practice. It is possible to follow young Portuguese historians like joéo Paulo Oliveira e Cosca's line of argument, yet they seem to neutralize the Portuguese cultural nationalism in their colonial expansion and the treatment of the natives. However, documents brought out from the Portuguese national archives recently help to confirm a greater openness or pragmatism in the first half of the 16th century).[3][25] See also
Notes1. ^Encyclopaedia of sects & religious doctrines, Volume 4 By Charles George Herbermann page 1180,1181 2. ^COSTELLIOE,Letters 232-246 3. ^1 2 3 "Christen und Gewürze" : Konfrontation und Interaktion kolonialer und indigener Christentumsvarianten Klaus Koschorke (Hg.)Book in German, English, Spanish, 1998 Page 31,32 4. ^Father Nidhiry: A History of His Times by Prof. Abraham Nidhiry 5. ^Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier, by H.J. Coleridge, S.J., ii. 74 90. 6. ^The realm of Prester John,Silverberg, pp. 29–34. 7. ^"Raulin, op. cit., pp. 435-436. Counto. Asia Lisbonne, 1788, Dec. XII, p. 288." 8. ^Halsall, Paul (1997). "Otto of Freising: The Legend of Prester John". Internet Medieval Sourcebook. Retrieved 20 June 2005. 9. ^Silverberg, pp. 3–7 10. ^Bowden, p. 177 11. ^1 2 3 Prester John: Fiction and History by Meir Bar-Ilan[Senior Lecturer ,Talmud Department and Jewish History Department,Bar-Ilan University,Ramat-Gan, 52900 ISRAEL] 12. ^Actually, the Hebrew text reads 'the unclean Thomas', because the Hebrew translator did not want to admit the holiness of one of the apostles, and therefore changed the title. 13. ^On the Christians of southern India that relate their beginning to St. Thomas, see: L. W. Brown, The Indian Christians of St Thomas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956. 14. ^Brown. p. 50; Silverberg (n. 1), pp. 16-35. 15. ^Pepper was one of the exports of India from ancient times. See: R. H. Warmington, The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India, second revised edition, London: Curzon Press, 1974, pp. 180 ff. On the export of exotic animals from India, see there p. 145 ff. 16. ^Warmington, pp. 150-152. 17. ^MS Vat Syr 22; Wilmshurst, EOCE, 343 and 391 18. ^Wallis Budge, The Monks of Kublai Khan, 122–3 19. ^Wilmshurst, EOCE, 343 20. ^Phillips, p. 123 21. ^A. J. John, Anaparambil 22. ^http://www.synodofdiamper.com/mal/index.php 23. ^COSTELLIOE,Letters 232-246 24. ^COSTELLIOE,Letters 232-246 25. ^Arquivio Nacional torre do Tombo Lisbo:Nucleo Antigo N 875 contains a summary of letters from india written in 1525 and also the kings replay to it :Cf.OLIVERIA E COSTA,Portuguese,Apendice Documental 170-178 External links
2 : History of Christianity in India|Saint Thomas Christians |
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