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1,20 BAGHDAD.
of Antioch, who was indeed considered the spiritnal head of all the Christians in Asia, certainly
before the schism in 498 A. D., when the adherents of Nestorius (f 440) established their own
church in Chaldsea. According to the T'ang-shu, 198 (see Hirth, op. cit., 55 and 60) the king of
Fu-lin called Po-to-li ('^ ^ ^ Canton dialect and probable old sound: Po-to-lik), sent
5 ambassadors to the Chinese court in 643 A. D. This name lends itself admirably as a transcription
of the Syriac form for «patriarch», viz. hatriJc. In Chou K'u-fei's account, as copied by Chau
Ju-kua, the king of Ta-ts'in in the twelfth century is styled i. e., (^ he is addressed by the
title of) Ma-lo-fa (^ ^ ^ Canton dialect: Ma-lo-fat, probable old sound Ma-lo-pat, oir
Ma-lo-ba, since fit [^] may stand for iha in Sanskrit transcriptions, see Julie n, Methode pour
10 dechiffrer, 104, As 309). This again is an excellent transcription for Mar Aba, one of the titles by
which the Nestorian patriarch could be addressed. Mar is a title of honour given to learned devotees
among the Syrian Christians, somewhat like our «Venerable» (Ducange, Glossarium, etc., ed:
L. Favre, s. v. Mar). Aba means afathera. Mar-Aba may thus be translated by «Venerable
Father*). Its Latin and Greek equivalent was Patricius (itarpixto;). (Assemani, Bibl. Orient.,
15 III B, 92: «Quem enim Graeci Latinique Patricium vocant, is dicitur Syriace Aba, et praefixo Mar,
seu Domini titulo, Mar-Aba»). In the Syriac portion of the Nestorian inscription of Si-an-fu the
patriarch Hannanjesus II, who died in 778 A. D. three years before the erection of the monument
in 781, is referred to under the title Abad Abahotha Mar Hanan Isua Qatholiqa Patrirkis («Pfere
des Peres, le Seigneur Hanan-Jesus, etant le Patriarche universel.i) Pauthier, L'inscription de
20 Si-ngan-fou, Paris, 1858, 42). This does not exclude the possibility of all the patriarchs mentioned
jn Chinese records up to the time of Chou K'u-fei as kings of Ta-ts'in or Fu-lin being patriarchs
of Antioch. Still we may entertain doubts as to whom the title should be applied in Ch6u K'u-
fei's Ta-ts'in chapter, at the end of which it is stated that «T'icn-chu (India) is subordinate to
Ta-ts'in» (^^ Afc 1^ H JH ffti), and that the sacred water by which the waves of the sea
25 can be stilled is found there (see infra, p. HI). It would seem that Chau Ju-kua has built up his
account of T'ien-chu on little more than this information, which in Chou K'ii-fei's original
merely refers to the Indian Christians, and not to India generally, by adding all possible notes
referring to non-Christian India from older records. Since we are in the possession of ample
evidence showing that the Indian Christians of the St. Thomas church were Nestorians and that
30 their chiefs were appointed by the Chaldsean patriarch in Baghdad (see Assemani, op. cit., 435,
et seqq.: Christiani S. Thomae in India), it must seem strange that, according to Chou K'u-fei at
some time preceding the appearance of his bopk in 1178, it was the eking of Ta-ts'in», if this
means the Patriarch of Antioch, who appointed the chief of T'ien-chu, i. e. the Indian Christians,
and that this statement seems to correspond with that of a Byzantine author, the archimandrite
35 NilosDoxopatres, a notary in the service of the Patriarch of Constantinople, who wrote in 1143,
for kino' Rogers II of Sicily, a short treatise on the patriarchal thrones (Krumbacher, Gesch.
derbyzantin. Litteratur, 2'' ed., Munchen, 1897, 415 et seqq.). Doxopatres says in unmistakable
Greek that «the Patriarch of Antioch was in charge of all Asia and Anatolia, and even India,
whither he had sent a 'katholikos' ordained by himself, styled the one of Komogyris, and also of
40 Persia and Babylon, called Baghdad at his time, and that he had under him altogether thirteen
metropolitans)). (See Varia Sacra Stephani le Moyne, Leiden, 1685, II, 211 et seqq.; cf. Renaudot,
Ancient Accounts of India and China, London, 1733, 119). It seems to follow from this that,
whatever the relations of the Nestorians in India were to their immediate chief on the patriarchal
throne in Baghdad, the one of Antioch was looked upon as a still higher authority. Assemani
45 (III, 289) admits that the Melchite, Maronite and Jacobite Syrians gave their chiefs the title
{(Patriarch of Antioch)), but he emphatically denies it for the Nestorians. For materials regarding
this crux of patriarchal history, see Assemani, passim; W. Germann,Die Kirche der Thomas-
christen, Gtttersloh, 1877; Richter, Indische Missionsgeschichte, Gtttersloh, 1900, where the
Greek passage referred to is quoted on p. 163, note; and Charles Swanston, A memoir of the
50 Primitive Church of Malaya, or the Syrian Christians of the Apostle Thomas, etc., in J. R. A. S.
London, I, 172— 192, and II, 54—62 and 243 — 247; La Croze, Histoire du Christianisme des
Indes La'naye, 1758. Swanston says among other things: ((Whatever credit may be thought
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