A Syriac history of the St Thomas Christians of India in its earliest Latin translation

Assemani, Giuseppe Simone (transl.), Lebanese Maronite linguist, librarian, and Titular Archbishop of Tyre (1687-1768). Indorum benedictorum historia, deque ipsorum in urbem Gazartam Zebedeam adventu.

€ 65.000,00

A unique contemporary history of the St Thomas Christians in southwest India at a time when the beginnings of Portuguese colonialism were unleashing a new wave of religious unrest. Written in Syriac, the liturgical language of the Church of the East (often commonly referred to as the "Nestorian" Church), the account is here preserved alongside its first Latin translation by Giuseppe Simone Assemani, a pioneering linguist and scholar of Syriac. This manuscript represents an apparently unique augmented edition of Assemani's edition and translation, featuring notes that do not appear in the printed version, probably produced in his circle during his lifetime.

The account describes how the Christian population of Malabar sent envoys to the Catholicus of the Church of the East, also known as the Mar, requesting him to ordain bishops for them as they had been without them for some time. We then hear of the different bishops and holy men of the community. The majority of the text consists of a letter from the Indian bishops to the Mar, describing the progress and size of the Malabar Christian community, which is stated to comprise some 30,000 families, and the incidents following the arrival of the Portuguese: the Indian Christians welcome them as co-religionists, but the text blames the Muslims for inciting the Hindu king of Kozhikode (Calicut) against them, resulting in an outbreak of violence. The years covered are AD 1490 to 1504, or 1801 to 1815 in the Seleucid Calendar ("Anno Graecorum" or "Anno Alexandri"), which was commonly used by the Church of the East. The letter was composed shortly after the events described.

This manuscript differs from the version published by Assemani in his Bibliotheca orientalis through a different and more comprehensive selection of notes: this version has six extra ones (and is missing one from the printed edition), while the other notes show differences in wording. The text is otherwise apparently identical with that published by Assemani, which was copied from a Syriac manuscript of 1533, thus shortly after the original composition of the work. The additional notes gloss terms such as "Mar" and "Catholicus", suggesting this copy was created for use by readers less familiar with the Church of the East, possibly students of the Syriac language in Rome.

Assemani was a Lebanese Christian who became a leading scholar of Syriac and Arabic at the Vatican and translated numerous texts. His magnum opus was the "Bibliotheca orientalis Clementino-Vaticana", intended to contain all texts relating to Eastern Christianity in the original and in Latin translation. From 1739 he was also First Librarian of the Vatican Library, and in 1766 he was consecrated as Titular Archbishop of Tyre. His work was essential in expanding the Vatican collections of Syriac and Arabic manuscripts and in promoting the study of these languages in Rome, as well as relations with the Christian communities that spoke them.

The arrival of the Portuguese was a crucial turning-point for India's Christian community, which traces its origins to the Apostle Thomas, said to have come to India in AD 52 and to have preached there for 20 years before his martyrdom. From him, they take the name Saint Thomas Christians, and are also called Nasrani (Nazarenes). They historically followed the Syriac rite of the Church of the East, but the Portuguese presence brought them increasingly into the orbit of the Roman Catholic Church.

Following the 1552 schism in the Syriac church, the Portuguese colonial forces increased pressure on the St Thomas Christians, ultimately forcing them under Catholic dominance with the 1599 Synod of Diamper and purging their liturgy of non-Roman practices. Ongoing tensions led to the Coonan Cross Oath of 1653, in which many St Thomas Christians reasserted their liturgical and hierarchical independence from Rome.

A rare contemporary document of one of the world's most ancient Christian communities at a crucial period of change brought on by the age of European exploration and colonialism.