BOOK when she came to the university in 1566, that it was Oxford, and Oxford only, which could truly boast the earliest foundation. Wars, horrid wars! became then the business and the amusement of every student. Cantabs and Oxonians arranged themselves to battle; and every weapon of polemical erudition and polemical fury was raised against each other. Caius, one of the leaders in this discussion, published a quarto, in defence of Cambridge, in 1574. He said, he came to restore peace ; as if, by assuring the world that Cambridge was in the right, he could ever give tranquillity to Oxford. Oxford denied the right of an insidious partisan to be a peacemaker; and at last Brian Twyne appeared, with a book as large and as full as that of Caius, in which the glory of Oxford was sturdily and angrily maintained. Many combatants at various intervals succeeded, and the conflict became as ardent as, from the fragility of the materials, it was ineffectual. Some of the friends of Cambridge managed to see the first stones of their university laid in the 173d year after the flood. Others, however, who were not blessed with optics which had the faculty of seeing what had never been visible, very wisely postponed the existence of their favourite till about four centuries before the Christian At that period, they found out that one Cantaber, a royal Spanish emigrant, who came to England in the days of Gurguntius, had sent for Greek philosophers from Athens, and given to Cambridge a local habitation, and a name. æra. It was easy for Oxford to object, that Cantaber was but one of those airy nothings which the poet or the antiquary, in his frenzy, discerns. It was not more difficult to laugh at the wise and learned giants, who were placed as the aborigines of our island, and who first cultivated letters. But the Oxonian champion did not content himself with destroying all the superstructures of Cambridge vanity. The heralds of national ancestry are as fond of their own chimeras as they are intolerant of the antiquarian progeny of others. Hence, though the advocate of Oxford denied to Cambridge its Cantaber, he conceived it to be just to claim for Oxford a colony of Greek philosophers, who came into the island with Brutus, and established a college at Cricklade, which was afterwards translated to Bello Situm, where Oxford now stands. See Caius Ant. Cantab., and Twyne's Antiq. Acad. Oxon. The fame of Oxford was, however, not wholly intrusted to phantoms. A basis more secure was found for it in a passage printed under the name of Asser; and it is this unfortunate passage which has connected the dispute with the history of Alfred. An edition of Asser was published from a MS. of Camden, in 1603; in which a paragraph appeared, stating, that in 886, a discord arose at Oxford between Grymbold and his learned friends whom he had brought with him, and those ancient schoolmen whom he found there, and who refused to obey entirely his institutions. Three years the dissension lasted. Alfred, to appease it, went to Oxford. The ancient schoolmen contended, that before the arrival of Grymbold, letters had flourished there, though the scholars had been fewer; and they proved, by the indubitable testimony of ancient annals, that the ordinations and institutes of this place had been established by some pious and erudite men, as Gildas, Melkin, Nennius, Kentigern, and others, who there grew old in letters; and that St. Germain, who resided half a year at Oxford, had also approved of them. The king recommended peace; but Grymbold, dissatisfied, withdrew to Winchester. Such is the import of this contested paragraph. If it had been genuine, it gave the evidence of Asser, that there had been public schools at Oxford, at least in the fifth and sixth centuries, when Germain and others lived. Now Cambridge had no such plausible document as this. Its friends had indeed talked of Arthur's charters, but these were soon descried as surreptitious. The most ancient historical dress that it could assume, with any decorous attention to probability, was Bede's paragraph, about Sigebert establishing schools in East Anglia; and Sigebert lived above a century after Gildas. But unfortunately for the fame of Oxford, Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, had published, in Saxon types, an edition of Asser, in 1574, from a MS. in which this passage was not to be found. The ancient MS. of Asser, in the Cotton Library, which has been thought to have been written within a century after its author's death, was also without this clause. It was Otho. A. 12., since burnt. Here, then, was the point of an elaborate controversy; was this passage written by Asser? Did Parker insidiously omit it, or did Camden surreptitiously insert it, or was it really wanting in the one MS. and really existing in the other? The controversy had begun before Parker published his Asser, but it was then in its infancy. When Camden's Asser appeared, it was raging in all its violence. Camden's MS., which he thought to have been of the age of Richard II., was never produced after it was printed; and no other MSS. can now be obtained to determine the question. See Wood, Hist. Oxf. p. 9. Oxford and Cambridge have since produced such great scholars in every department of knowledge, and such distinguished men in the most honourable paths of active life, that controversies like these are felt to be unworthy of their attention, and are not now even thought of. The point of emulation is known to be, which can now produce the ablest men; not which first began their formation. CHAP. VI. BOOK APPENDIX ΤΟ BOOK V. CHAP. VI. In considering Alfred's Indian embassy, we are led at the outset to inquire whether Saint Thomas ever had been in India; whether in the age of Alfred he was believed to have died there; and whether at that time there were Christians living there. Our scepticism may also desire to know if such journies were in those days attempted, because if these four questions can be answered affirmatively, the assertions of our chroniclers will not be counteracted by any improbability in the circumstance which they attest. THAT St. Thomas the Apostle extended his annunciations of Christianity into India, is asserted by several fathers, by the Syrian authors 2, and by the Christians, who have lived and are living in the Indian peninsula. 3 1 Fabricius remarks, that vulgo India Thomæ tribuitur, and cites Ambrosius, in Ps. 45. Hieronymum Epist. 148. and Nicetas, with others, Codex Apocryph. i. p. 687. Assemanni, in his elaborate Bibliotheca Orientalis, quotes most largely on this subject. Origen, Eusebius, Rufinus, Socrates, and others, assign Parthia to Thomas. To this India is added by Gregory Nazianzen, Hippolytus, Sophronius, and all the Martyrologists. Tom. iii. pars 2. p. 25. ed. Romæ 1728. 2 The collection of Assemanni is peculiarly valuable for its introducing to the knowledge of Europe many Syrian authors, from whose works he translates copious extracts out of the Syriac into Latin. He asserts of the Syrians, that Thomam Indis prædicasse ubique affirmant, p. 30. — Again, non Indiarum Christiani sed etiam Assyriæ ac Mesopotamia Nestoriani affirmant eum Indorum, Sinensiumque Apostolum fuisse, p. 436. He adds his Syriac authorities. The Orientalist Du Guignes says, "Une foule des auteurs tant Grecs que Syriens paroissent ne pas douter que St. Thomas n'ait penetré dans l'Inde pour y prêcher la religion Chrétienne." Acad. des Inscript. v. liv. p. 323. 3 Mr. Gibbon says, "When the Portuguese first opened the navigation of India, the Christians of St. Thomas had been seated for ages on the coast of Malabar, and the difference of their character and colour attested the mixture of a foreign race. In arms, in arts, and possibly in virtue, they excelled the natives of Hindostan," vol. iv. quarto. p. 599. It is not of great importance to our subject to ascertain whether Saint Thomas really taught in India; we know of the circumstance only from tradition, and tradition is a capricious sylph, which can seldom be allowed to accompany the dignified march of authentic history; but it is essential to inquire, if in the time of Alfred it was believed that the Apostle had been there, because if it had become an article of the popular creed, (whether rightly or not) that Saint Thomas had died in India, this persuasion would have been the motive which operating on Alfred's curiosity, may have suggested the Indian embassy. THAT the opinion had been afloat before, is obvious, from the assertions of the fathers; that it was accredited in the west of Europe, in the sixth century, is proved by a curious passage of Gregory of Tours, the parent of Frankish history, who has transmitted to us the narration which he had received from one Theodore. This man professed to have travelled to India, and described the monastery which had been erected there, over the body of St. Thomas. That the same notion remained to the days of Alfred, is as clear; because the account drawn up by Elfric, who lived at the close of the tenth century, states at length the romance which the respected fables of preceding ages had preserved concerning the Indian journey of St. Thomas." It was 4 What Hippolytus states of Thomas is the epitome of every other tradition. It is that he perished in the Indian city of Calamine, and was buried there. Fab. Cod. 689. 5 Odericus Vitalis says of Gregory, whom he quotes, "Scribit quod a Theodoro quodam de Sancto Thoma audivit qui tunc temporis in Indiam peregrinatus fuerat et inde revorsus hæc inter cætera narravit," p. 414. As Gregory of Tours accredited Theodore, it is obvious that his narration, whether true or false, was admitted in our hemisphere in the sixth century. The narration of Elfric has been noticed before in note 22, of this chapter, p. 147., and its substance quoted. He says, he translated it on the importunity of the venerable Dux Ethelwold; that he had himself doubted for some time whether he ought to put it into English, because St. Austin objected to one part of the narration; but that at last he determined to omit this, and to translate the rest concerning St. Thomas's death. This Anglo-Saxon history of St. Thomas contains an abridgement of the Apos tolical History ascribed to Abdias. The amiable Melancthon says of this, "Legat has qui volet. Ac suaserim potius ne legant omnino. Sunt enim illa scripta mirifica et referta falsitate manifesta." See Fabricius Cod. Apoc. 393. and 687. for the Legend. CHAP. VI. Appendix. BOOK V. in full credit in the twelfth century, for Odericus makes it a part of his ecclesiastical history. 7 BUT were there any Christians at that time living in India? Because, if not, the embassy was ridiculous. The generally diffused tradition may have suggested to Alfred the idea of the scheme; but unless there was the local truth of Christians residing in a particular part of India, the king must have been a dreamer. To have delegated a mission to wander over the extensive district of India, till they had found a city called Calamine, and the shrine of St. Thomas, without any previous topographical indication of a particular district, was too wild a thought to have been countenanced by an Alfred. BUT on investigating ancient remains, we find the fact to be as authentic as it is curious, that there were Christians then flourishing in the Indian peninsula. THE Syriac letter of Jesujabus Abjabenus the Nestorian patriarch, to Simeon the metropolitan of the Persians, written in the seventh century, yet exists, and satisfactorily expresses the fact. It calls to the metropolitan's recollection, that he had "shut the doors of the episcopal imposition of hands before many people of India.” It states that "the sacerdotal succession is interrupted among the people of India, nor in India only, which, from the maritime borders of Persia, extends to Colon, a space of above 1200 parasangs, but even lies in darkness in your Persian region." 9 THAT Christianity had in these times obtained footing in India, is a reasonable inference, from the larger fact of its existence in China, in the seventh and eighth centuries.10 7 See it p. 410-414. Hic in Anglia natus est, 1075. Du Chesne præfatio. 8 Jesujabus died 660. Assemanni Bib. Or. T. ii. p. 420. and T. iii. p. 615. Assemanni gives the Syriac, with a Latin version. 9" Quod sicuti fores impositionis manus Episcopatus coram multis Indæ populis occlusistis." Tom. iii. pars 2. p. 27. "Interrupta est ab Indiæ populis sacerdotalis successio nec India solum quæ a maritimis regni Persarum finibus usque ad Colon spatio ducentarum supra nulle parasangarum exten、 ditur, sed et ipsa Persarum regio vestra in tenebris jacet." Ibid. 10 On this subject I follow, as I think I ought, the guidance of the learned Assemanni. He says, "Sub cognomine Gadalensi An. Ch. 633, prædicatores Evangelii in ipsarum Sinarum regnum penetrasse, ex monumento lapideo, anno 781, erecto compertum est," p. 28. |