Eusebius, another apostle, Bartholomew, had preached to the Indians.[1] But it seems not unlikely that the historian was misled by the name of the Sindians in the region of the Bosphorus, over whom kings of the house of Ptolemy ruled, because Bartholomew's traditional field of labour was the district of the Bosphorus.
We have more definite information about Pantænus, the head of the theological school at Alexandria, who gave up his pleasant work in that centre of culture and luxury to go as a missionary to "India."[2] Eusebius identifies this "India" with the scene of Bartholomew's activity. That, however, is most improbable, if the locality assigned to the apostle is correct. Since there can be no doubt that the name is "India" in this case, there is here no possibility of confusion with the Sindians. But the question is what "India"? Eusebius tells us that Pantænus found a copy of the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which he calls "the Gospel according to Matthew," written "in the Hebrew language." Therefore there must have been Christians in the place before him, and in all probability these were Jewish Christians. The Jews travelled far in their trading journeys, and it is quite possible that this distant Christian movement was in the country we now know as India. On the other hand, we have no definite trace of Christianity there before the arrival of the Nestorians. It is therefore more probable Pantænus's "India" was one of those parts nearer to Egypt to which the name was sometimes given.
It is also conceivable that natives of India learnt about Christianity through their own visits to Alexandria, and carried the gospel back to their country on their return home. Among the many nationalities represented in that cosmopolitan centre of trade much earlier than this were people who bore the name "Indian." Dion Cassius, whose date is about a.d. 100, writes of Ethiopians, Arabians, Bactrians, Scythians, Persians, and Indians flocking to
- ↑ Hist. Eccl. v. 10.
- ↑ Ibid.; also Jerome, De vir. ill. 36.
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