Chapter 1

The country called India lies far from Egypt, being large and densely peopled. On the side toward Egypt it is washed by seas and by waters that ships can sail; from the mainland it draws near to the borders of Persia. In ancient times it was darkened by the gloom of idol-madness, barbarous in the extreme and given over to lawless practices. But when the only-begotten Son of God, who is in the bosom of the Father, could not bear to see his own handiwork enslaved to sin, and was moved by his own inward compassion concerning it, he appeared among us in our likeness, yet without sin; and, without leaving the throne of the Father, he dwelt for our sake in a Virgin, that we might come to dwell in the heavens, and be called back from the ancient fall, and be delivered from sin, receiving back the adoption we had at first.

And when he had accomplished the whole dispensation in the flesh on our behalf — taking upon himself the cross and death, and, beyond all wonder, making one the things of earth with the things of heaven — and had risen from the dead and been taken up in glory into the heavens, and had sat down at the right hand of the majesty of the Father, he sent forth the Spirit, the Comforter, upon those who had been eyewitnesses of him and initiates of his mysteries, according to the promise, in the form of fiery tongues; and he sent them out into all the nations to give light to those sitting in the darkness of ignorance, and to baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. So it was that some of them, having received the regions of the east as their portion and others those of the west, went about, and ran through the northern and southern climes, fulfilling the command laid upon them. At that time the most holy Thomas also, who was one of the company of twelve disciples of Christ, was sent out to the land of the Indians, proclaiming to them the saving message.

And as the Lord worked together with him and confirmed his word through the signs that followed, the darkness of their superstition was driven away; and, freed from the libations and abominations of the idols, they were joined to the unerring faith. Thus reshaped by the apostolic hands, they were made the household of Christ through baptism, and, growing by additions made little by little, they advanced in the faultless faith and built churches throughout all the regions. And when in Egypt too the monasteries began to be established and the multitudes of monks to be gathered together, and the fame of their virtue and their angelic manner of life spread to the ends of the inhabited world and came also to the Indians, it stirred these as well to the like zeal, so that many of them, leaving all things behind, took to the deserts and, in a mortal body, took up the way of life of the bodiless ones.

While matters stood thus well, and many, as the saying goes, were flying up to heaven on golden wings, there arose a certain king in that same country, Abenner by name. He had become great in wealth and in power and in victory over his adversaries; he was noble in war, and prided himself on the stature of his body together with the comeliness of his face, and gloried in all those advantages of the world that swiftly wither. But in his soul he was pressed by the utmost poverty and choked by many evils, for he belonged to the Greek party and was greatly excited about the superstitious error of the idols. Living in great luxury and in the enjoyment of the pleasant and delightful things of life, and deprived of nothing of his wishes and desires, he had one thing that cut short his gladness and struck his soul with anxieties: the evil of childlessness. For being without children, he was greatly concerned how, freed from such a bond, he might be called the father of children — a thing most to be prayed for by most men. Such was the king, and such was the state of his mind. But the most glorious race of the Christians and the multitudes of monks counted the king's worship as nothing, and, not fearing his threat at all, advanced by the grace of Christ, increasing to a number beyond words. They made little account of the king, but held fast above all to the things that lead to the service of God; and for this reason many of those who had taken up the monastic order spat alike upon all the delights of this place, and yearned with love for this one thing alone, godliness, and thirsted for death on behalf of Christ, and reached out for the blessedness that comes from thence.

They proclaimed, therefore, not with any fear or shrinking back, but with the fullest boldness of speech, the saving name of God; and nothing was on their lips but Christ. They plainly showed to all the fleeting and quickly-withering nature of present things, and the firm and incorruptible nature of the life to come, and they furnished, as it were, beginnings and seeds toward becoming the household of God and being counted worthy of the life that is hidden in Christ. From this many, enjoying that most sweet teaching, withdrew from the bitter darkness of deceit and were added to the sweet light of the truth; so that even some of the men of renown and of the senate laid aside all the burdens of life and became monks thereafter. But the king, when he heard these things, was filled with the greatest wrath and, boiling over with rage, at once set forth a decree to compel every Christian to forswear godliness. Hence he devised and practised new kinds of tortures against them, and threatened new manners of death. And letters were sent throughout all the country subject to him, to rulers and governors, pronouncing punishments and unjust slaughters against the godly. But raging most of all against the chosen ones of the monastic habit, he raised against them a truceless and herald-less war.

By this means many of the faithful were shaken in their mind, and others, unable to bear the tortures, yielded to his unlawful command. But the leaders and chiefs of the monastic order — some, reproving his lawlessness, endured the end that comes through martyrdom and attained the blessedness that never ceases; others hid themselves in deserts and mountains, not from fear of the tortures that were threatened, but by some more divine dispensation.