The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c28.13

c28.13

The earliest testimony to the existence of a Christian Church in Socotra, derived from Persia, is that of Cosmas Indicopleustes, who wrote in A. D. 535. About a thousand years later (1542), St. Francis Xavier found nominally Christian congregations in the island, who claimed descent from the converts made by St. Thomas. The belief that Theophilus, the missionary sent out by Constantine about A. D. 354, visited Socotra appears to be erroneous (Medlycott, pp. 136, 138, 196–201).² Bishop Medlycott is, I think, right in holding that Theophilus visited Malabar and found Christians in that region.