that empire, and over all the East. Sophronius (9) mentions, that by his apostolic labours he established the faith among the Medes, Persians, Carmanians, Hyrcanians, Bactrians, and other nations in those parts. Modern Greeks mention also the Indians and Ethiopians; (10) but these appellations were sometimes given by the ancients to all the Eastern nations. The modern Indians and Portuguese tell us, that St Thomas preached to the Bracmans, and to the Indians beyond the great island Taprobana, which some take to be Ceylon, others Sumatra. They add, that he suffered martyrdom at Meliapor, or St Thomas's, in the peninsula on this side the Ganges, on the coast of Coromandel, where his body was discovered, with certain marks that he was slain with lances: and that such was the manner of his death is the tradition of all the Eastern countries. Eusebius affirms (11) in general, that the apostles died by martyrdom. Theodoret (12) and St Asterius of Amasea (13) mention St Thomas among the principal martyrs of the church. St Nilus says, that he received the crown of martyrdom after SS. Peter and Paul. (14) St Gaudentius mentions, (15) that he was slain by the infidels, and that the miracles which were performed through him shew that he still lives with God. The same father and Sophronius testify; that he died at Calamina in India. This city the modern Indians suppose to be Meliapor. But Tillemont and many others think it was not far from Edessa, and that it is not clear that he ever preached beyond the isle of Taprobana. Beausobre (16) thinks he never preached far beyond Parthia and Persia. For the name of king Gundaphore, mentioned by Leucius, in his false Acts, and his copier Pseudo Abdias, seems corruptly written for the king of Gundschavur, or Gandisapor, which city was rebuilt by Artaxerxes, who founded the second Persian monarchy, and called from

(9) Sophron. ap. S. Hier. in Cat. de S. Thomâ. Theodoret de leg. Serm. 9. (10) Niceph. Hist. 1. 2. c. 40. (11) Eus. in Ps. Ixxi, in collectione Patr. Græc. See Montfaucon, Proleg. ib. c. 9. p. 36. (12) Theodoret de curand. Græc. Affect. c. 8. Aster. Serm. 10.

Gaud. Serm. 17.

(13) S.

(14) S. Nilus ap. Phot. cod. 276. (15) S. (15) Hist. de Manichée, 1. 2. c. 5. p. 40, 406.

his son Schavar, whom the Greeks name Sapor I. who made it his residence. The author of these false Acts gave to the city the name which it bore when he wrote. All the false Acts, and the Greek Menæa, agree, that the infidel king was incensed against the apostle for having baptized some persons of his court (some say his wife and son), that he delivered him over to his soldiers, in order to be put to death, and that he was conveyed by them to a neighbouring mountain, and there stabbed with a lance. It is certain that his body was carried to the city of Edessa, where it was honoured in the great church with singular veneration, when St Chrysostom, Rufin, Socrates, Sozomen, and St Gregory of Tours (17) wrote. St Chrysostom says, (18) that the sepulchres only of SS. Peter and Paul, John and Thomas, among all the apostles were then known: and it is mentioned to have been at Edessa in the oration on this apostle compiled in the year 402, published among the works of St Chrysostom. The church of Edessa was certainly most numerous and flourishing in the second, third, and fourth ages (19).

Many distant churches in the East ascribe their first foundation to St Thomas (b), especially that of Melia

(17) S. Greg. Tour. 1. de glor. Mart. c. 32. (18) S. Chrys. hom. 26. in Hebr. T. 12. p. 237. Rufin Hist. Eccl. 1. 2. c. 5. (19) See Eus. 1. 5. c. 23. Chron. Edessenum ap. Jos. Assem. T 1. Bibl. Orient. p. 422. Le Quien, Orien. Christ. T. 2. p. 655.

(b) The Moguls, and some other nations of Great Tartary, are said to have received the seeds of our holy faith by the preaching of St Thomas. That it was formerly planted both about Tibet, and in some Eastern parts of Great Tartary toward the borders of China is unquestionable. The great princes called Prester-John (the lase of whom that reigned with great power was conquered and slain by Gingiscan) certainly reigned in Eastern Tartary, in Asia, as Otto Frisingensis (1. 7. c. 38.), Martinus Polonus, Albericus, Vincent of Beauvais, Sanutus, James of Vitri, Paulus Venutus, &c. assure us; consequently not in Africa, as Renaudot would make us believe (Hist. Patr. Alex. p. 233. & 337.) an author in accuracy and judgment much inferior to Herbelot, though the collection of the latter is not digested, nor did the compiler compare the parts together. Catrou (Hist. general de l'emp. du Mogol, T. 1. p. 7.) is. willing to believe, that even Tamerlane leaned to Christianity: but Herbelot (p. 888.) with more reason thinks that he favoured chiefly Mahometanism.

Some

por: but many of them probably received the faith only from his disciples. The use of the Chaldæan language in the churches, and the depnedence on the patriarch of Mosul, which the church of Meliapor, and all the Christians of St Thomas in the East profess, seem to shew, that their first teachers came from the churches of Assyria in which the prtriarchs of Mosul (a city built upon the ruins of Seleucia, erroneously called Babylon) exercise a jurisdiction, and have been for many ages the propagators of the Nestorian heresy, with which they are tinctured. The Portuguese, when they came into the East Indies, found there the St Thomas Christians, it is said to the number of fifteen thousand families, on the coast of Malabar. For a detail of the Nestorian phrases, and other errors, abuses, and superstitions, which prevail among them, see the synod held at Diamper, in the kingdom of Cochin, in 1599, by Alexius de Menezes archbishop of Goa: in the preface it is shewn, that these Christians were drawn into Nestorianism only in the ninth century, by means of certain Nestorian priests who came thither from Armenia and Persia. On two festivals which they keep in honour of St Thomas, they resort in great crowds to the place of his burial; on Low Sunday, in honour of his confession of Christ, which gospel is then read, and chiefly on the 1st of July, his principal feast in the churches of the Indies. John III. king of Portugal, ordered the 'body of St Thomas to be sought for in an old ruinous chapel which stood over his tomb without the walls of Meliapor. By digging there in 1523, a very deep vault in form of a chapel was discovered, in which were found the bones of the saint, with a part of the lance with which he was

Some of these Tartars were Catholics: but many were Nestorians, and obeyed the patriarch of Mosul. Nestorianism was distinguished by several privileges under the Mahometans. (See Renaudot, Not. in vet. Latin. Itiner. in Indian. n. 310. Assemani Bibl. Orient. T. 3. p. 108, 215. & vol. 4. p. 94.) The Eutychians were not less encouraged by the same masters. (See Renaud, Hist. Patr. Alex. p. 168. Jos. Assemani, T. 3. &c. and among the Protestants Mosheim, Hist. Eccl. Tartar. &c.) From the Tartars it seems that the Chinese had formerly some acquaintance with our holy religion, of which the late missionaries found certain monuments. See Mama-* chi, 2. p. 373.

slain, and a vial tinged with his blood. The body of the apostle was put in a chest of porcelain, varnished and adorned with silver. The bones of the prince whom he had baptized, and some other of his disciples, which were discovered in the same vault, were laid in another less precious chest (20). The Portuguese built a new town about this church, which is called St Thomas's, inhabited by Christians of several denominations, and situate hard by Meliapor, which is inhabited by the Indians. Many of the Christians of St Thomas have been brought over to the Catholic faith and communion; but many continue in the Nestorian errors, and in obedience of the Nestorian patriarch of Mosul. Since the Dutch have taken or ruined most of the Portuguese settlements on that coast, the Indian king of Golcond has taken possession of the town of St Thomas; but the Portuguese missionaries continue to attend the Catholics there. The Latins keep the feast of St Thomas on the 21st of December, the Greeks on the 6th of October, and the Indians on the 1st of July.

The apostles were mean and contemptible in the eyes of the world, neither recommended by birth, riches, friends, learning, nor abilities. Yet totally destitute as they were of all those advantages on which men here set so high a price, they were chosen by Christ, made his friends, replenished with his graces and holy charity, and exalted to the dignity of spiritual princes of his kingdom, and judges of the world. Blind and foolish are all men who over-rate and eagerly pursue the goods. of this life; or who so enjoy them as to suffer their hearts to be wedded to them. Worldly pleasures, riches, or honours, if they become the object of our affections, are as it were fetters which fasten us to the earth, and clog our souls: and it is so hard to enjoy them with perfect indifference, to consider them barely as a dangerous stewardship, and to employ them only for the advancement of virtue in ourselves and others, that many saints thought it safer utterly to renounce them, and others

(20) See Maffei, Indic. 1. 2. p. 85. and Lafitau Hist. des Conquestes des Portuguais dans le nouveau Monde, i. 1. 11. T. 1. p. 327. Univ. History, vol, 20. c. 31. p. 106.

rejoiced to see themselves removed from what it is diffi cult to possess, and not be entangled by. Are not the maxims of the gospel, and the example of Christ, our king and leader, and of all his saints, sufficient to inspire those who enjoy the advantages of this world with a saving fear, and to make them study the various obligations of their stewardship, and by watchfulness, voluntary humiliations, mortification, compunction, assiduous prayer, and conversing on heavenly things by holy meditation or reading, to stand infinitely upon their guard, lest the love of the world, or the infection of its pride, vanity, or pleasures, seize their hearts. Faith must be extremely weak and inactive in us, if we look upon the things of this world in any other light than that in which the gospel places them: if we regard any other goods as truly valuable but those of divine grace and charity, or if we set not ourselves with our whole strength to pursue them by the road of humility, patience, meekness, and piety, in imitation of the saints. The apostles are herein the objects of our veneration, and our guides and models. We honour them as the doctors of the law of Christ, after Him the foundation-stones of his church, the twelve gates and the twelve precious stones of the heavenly Jerusalem, and as the leaders and princes of the saints. They also challenge our gratitude, inasmuch as it is by their ardent charity for our souls, and by their labours and sufferings, that we enjoy the happiness of holy faith, and are ourselves Christians; through them we have received the gospel.

St EDEURGE, V. King Alfred projected the foundation of the New-Minster at Winchester, and his queen Alswide began there a monastery of nuns, over which she appointed Etheldreda abbess. Neither living to finish these houses, their son Edward the Elder completed them both. This king's daughter Edburge" (which name signifies happy city) from her cradle despised all things beneath God and eternity as unworthy all regard. She was yet a child when her father king Edward laid before her on one hand precious royal ornaments, on