Chaldaean breviary of the Malabar Church in its
office of St. Thomas contains such passages as this: "By St. Thomas were
the Chinese and the Ethiopians converted to the Truth;" and in an Anthem:
"The Hindus, the Chinese, the Persians, and all the people of the Isles of
the Sea, they who dwell in Syria and Armenia, in Javan and Romania, call
Thomas to remembrance, and adore Thy Name, O Thou our Redeemer!"

The Roman Martyrology calls the city of Martyrdom _Calamina_, but there is
(I think) a fair presumption that the spot alluded to by Gregory of Tours
was Mailapur, and that the Shrine visited by King Alfred's envoy, Sighelm,
may have been the same.

Marco, as we see, speaks of certain houses belonging to the church, and of
certain Christians who kept it. Odoric, some thirty years later, found
beside the church, "some 15 houses of Nestorians," but the Church itself
filled with idols. Conti, in the following century, speaks of the church in
which St. Thomas lay buried, as large and beautiful, and says there were
1000 Nestorians in the city. Joseph of Cranganore, the Malabar Christian
who came to Europe in 1501, speaks like our traveller of the worship paid
to the Saint, even by the heathen, and compares the church to that of St.
John and St. Paul at Venice. Certain Syrian bishops sent to India in 1504,
whose report is given by Assemani, heard that the church had _begun_ to be
occupied by some Christian people. But Barbosa, a few years later, found it
half in ruins and in the charge of a Mahomedan Fakir, who kept a lamp
burning.

There are two St. Thomas's Mounts in the same vicinity, the Great and the
Little Mount. A church was built upon the former by the Portuguese and
some sanctity attributed to it, especially in connection with the cross
mentioned below, but I believe there is no doubt that the _Little Mount_
was the site of the ancient church.

The Portuguese ignored the ancient translation of the Saint's remains to
Edessa, and in 1522, under the Viceroyalty of Duarte Menezes, a commission
was sent to Mailapur, or San Tome as they called it, to search for the
body. The narrative states circumstantially that the Apostle's bones were
found, besides those of the king whom he had converted, etc. The supposed
relics were transferred to Goa, where they are still preserved in the
Church of St. Thomas in that city. The question appears to have become a
party one among Romanists in India, in connection with other differenc