The introduction, rise, progress, declension, and extirpation of Christianity in India, is, with some partial exceptions, wrapped in profound obscurity, yet many historians of abundant information and unimpeachable veracity are unanimous in supposing that India received the gospel probably before Great Britain.

Rev. C. Buchanan says, "There have lately been discovered Sanscrit writings containing testimony of Christ. They relate to a prince who reigned about the period of the Christian era, and whose history, though mixed with fable, contains particulars which correspond, in a surprising degree, with the advent, birth, miracles, death, and resurrection of our Saviour." The same testimony is given by Sir William Jones, whose acquaintance with Oriental literature has never been surpassed. Another learned historian declares, "That it may be proved by the Syriac records, that in the fourth century Christianity was flourishing in the provinces of Chorasin and Mavaralhara; and from a variety of learned testimony, that the gospel was introduced by the Apostle Thomas himself into India and China, within thirty years subsequent to the ascension of our Saviour." La Croze in the clearest manner proves the antiquity of Christianity in those countries. In the epitome of the Syrian canons, St. Thomas is styled the Apostle of the Hindoos. He is uniformly styled, in the Syrian Chronicles, the first bishop of the East. Ebed Jesus says, "India and all the regions around received the priesthood from him." Amru, the Syriac historian, traces both Thomas and Bartholomew through Arabia and Persia into India and China. Many of the Syrian writers quoted by Asseman agree in stating that a few of the twelve, and many of the seventy disciples went far and wide preaching the gospel through Northern Asia.

The Bishop of Calcutta, Dr. Wilson, says, "That the Christians of the Malabar Coast are the remnants of the ancient church of India, preserved in the midst of idolatry from the days of the Apostles."

These Christian settlements are located on the Malabar coast, in the south of India, and contain a population of probably 200,000. They are agricultural in their mode of life, and occupy a fertile and healthy territory. They are spread along the Cunara. In Mangalore, Onore, Barcelore, and Carwar, they have flourishing churches. A large settlement of these people were discovered by Dr. Buchanan in the interior of Travancore. Their intelligence, the virtuous liberty of the female sex, and the whole aspect of society, seemed to indicate a Protestant country.

For the compilation of a history of this people we have scant materials. Unknown to the world they seem to have been most happily preserved from its troubles and dissensions. Their obscurity was the preservative of their peace and the badge of their purity. Yet we are informed by William of Malmsbury, that these Christians were visited, towards the conclusion of the ninth century, by ambassadors from Alfred of England, who paid their homage at the shrine of St. Thomas, in the vicinity of Madras, and whose return, loaded with a cargo of pearls and the richest gums and spices, amply rewarded the enterprising sovereign, who entertained the noblest projects of discovery and commerce.[4] They asserted that the pepper coast of Malabar, and even the islands of Ceylon and Socotara, were peopled with Christians, who were in happy ignorance of the quarrels of princes and ecclesiastics. And that the bishops who presided over this multitude of churches were unambitious of worldly honours, and received ordination from the patriarch of the East. This account, however, was received as an imposition upon the credulity of mankind, and was treated as such until the progress of modern discovery established the fact. The Portuguese, who circumnavigated Africa, and dared the dangers of unknown seas, in order to gather the Indian spoils of gold and gems, found, not indeed the boundless wealth they sought, but these companies of Christians who still preserved their faith in its pristine purity. Superior in arts, and arms, and virtues, to the idolaters of Hindostan, they appeared to the astonished adventurers like another race. They occupied extremely neat and convenient dwellings, shaded by the palm-tree, and contiguous to fields of tropical productions. The husbandman lived in peace and plenty, the merchant grew rich by the pepper trade, the young men were admitted to the service and society of the nobility of Malabar; and their simple virtues demanded and insured the respect of the king of Cochin, and the Zamorin himself. They were in allegiance to a Gentoo sovereign, but the real administration of their laws, even in temporal concerns, was lodged in the hands of the bishop of Angumala, who could trace an uninterrupted succession of prelates to the apostle himself. He still asserted his ancient dignity as metropolitan of India, and his jurisdiction extended over fourteen hundred churches, and embraced the spiritual care of 250,000 souls. He was assisted by a sufficient number of priests and spiritual teachers, who administered consolation to the dying, and reproof or correction to the living. Their meeting-houses were not different from ordinary dwellings. They had neither pictures nor images. The doctrine of purgatory, the invocation of saints, the merit of relics, and the observation of the first day, was unknown among them. On the contrary, they rested and attended to divine worship upon the seventh day of the week, administered baptism to adults, and by immersion, were not ignorant of the great doctrines of regeneration and justification, and possessed authentic manuscript copies of the Holy Scriptures, which were publicly read in the churches every ensuing Sabbath. They were not degenerated into that softness, effeminacy, and licentiousness of manners, which generally distinguish the natives of Southern India. They were chaste, and observant of their conjugal relations; adultery was a crime unknown. Their priests were permitted to enter into wedlock once, with a pure virgin; they were scandalized and disgraced by a second marriage, and a third could only be consummated at the expense of excommunication.

The Portuguese were no less surprised at their profession than offended by their simplicity; but, what appeared most unaccountable, they were unacquainted with the spiritual and temporal majesty of Rome, and were ignorant that, to St. Peter's successor, all the kings and prelates of the earth owed subjection and allegiance. They adhered, like their ancestors, to the communion of the Nestorian Patriarch; their bishops had for ages been ordained by him at Mosul, and thence had traversed the dangers of sea and land to their dioceses on the coast of Malabar. Their liturgy and sacred books were in the Syriac idiom. They were acquainted with the names of Theodore and Nestorius, were strenuous advocates of the doctrine of the two persons of Christ, but they manifested a pious horror, when they heard the appellation "Mother of God" applied to the Virgin Mary. When her image was first presented to receive their adoration, they indignantly refused, exclaiming, "We are Christians, not idolaters; we worship God." It was the first care of the Romish emissaries to intercept all correspondence with the Nestorian Patriarch, to forbid their observance of the Sabbath, and to compel them to admit the baptism of infants. Their bishops and leaders were thrown into the dungeons of the Holy Office, which, under the auspices of Alexis de Menezes, had been established, and was in full operation. Their towns were filled with Portuguese soldiers, their churches with images, and their pulpits by shaven monks. All the mighty engines of ecclesiastical authority were brought to bear upon these defenceless people; all the passions of the human heart were alternately assailed, in order to consummate their conversion to the faith of Rome. Is it a wonder that the shepherdless flock succumbed, at least, for a time? that where, for ages, the Sabbath had been observed, strange sounds of secular employment should be heard upon that holy day? and that the communion, hitherto regarded as a symbolic memorial of the Saviour's passion, was accepted as a vicarious sacrifice? "We confess our sins in prayer to God," they exclaimed, when commanded to appear, for auricular confession, before the priesthood. "We keep the Sabbath," they replied, when told to observe the Dominical day. But ecclesiastical tyranny prevailed. Menezes, archbishop of Goa, announced to the synod of Diamper, over which he presided, that a union between the heretics of St. Thomas and the Holy Church had been piously consummated, the memories of Theodore and Nestorius anathematized, and the see of Angumala bestowed upon a Jesuit, his minion and the worthy associate of such a prelate. For sixty years servitude and hypocrisy prevailed. For sixty years the mass was chanted on the Lord's day, and in an unknown tongue, in the chapels of Malabar. But the day for their liberation arrived. The Portuguese empire in the East was overthrown by the courage and constancy of the Dutch. Of the latter, the Nestorians proved the most valuable of allies; and no one acquainted with human nature can wonder that they were implacable enemies of the former. The Jesuits, though loth to resign it, were incapable of defending the power they had abused. Forty thousand Christians in arms asserted, by the most powerful arguments, their rights, and their attachment to the creed of their ancestors. The Jesuits, with their minions, fled. The Indian archdeacon was brought from a dungeon to the episcopal chair, which he filled until a new primate could be solicited and obtained from the Nestorian patriarch of the East.

The churches were immediately purged of images and relics. The observation of the first day was forbidden, and that of the Sabbath restored. And to crown the whole, a great procession was formed, in which multitudes bearing palm-branches, and with all the ensigns of victory and triumph, repaired to their chapels, singing the Trisagion,[5] where the service was performed in the ancient manner.

Since the expulsion of the Jesuits the Nestorian creed has been fully professed on the coast of Malabar, and these ancient Christians have engaged the speculations of Europe and the civilized world. Dr. Buchanan represents their episcopal establishment to be equally respectable with that of the English in India, and says, moreover, that they maintain the solemn worship of God in all their churches upon the seventh day.

Another eminent author says, that "their doctrines are those of the Bible, and that they have been sorely tried in times past for keeping the commandments of God."[6]