Alexandria.[1] The order in which these names stand suggests that the Indians who come last were from the most remotely eastern of all the nationalities mentioned, and since they follow the Persians we should infer that their country was farther off than Persia. If we could be sure of Jerome's information and accuracy, we should have a clear proof that India proper was the country to which Pantænus went, for he says in his letter to Magnus, an orator at Rome, "Pantænus, a philosopher of the Stoic school,"—he had been a Stoic previous to his conversion to Christianity,—"was on account of his great reputation for learning sent by Demetrius, bishop of Alexandria, to India to preach Christ to the Brahmins and philosophers there."[2] It would be very interesting to think that a man who had passed from Greek philosophy to Christianity had been selected as a missionary to the Indian Brahmins and had actually attempted the conversion of the caste which our missionaries find almost unapproachable, though apparently without satisfactory results, or he would hardly have abandoned the work to resume his chair at the Alexandrian theological school. But unfortunately Jerome is notoriously inaccurate, being often proved guilty of rushing at conclusions on insufficient evidence, and filling in the lacunar of information with the creations of imagination, though no doubt these are shaped with regard to certain degrees of verisimilitude. We must not attach much weight to his assertions when they go beyond Eusebius and other earlier writers. It would be enough that Jerome knew that Pantænus had been sent to some place called "India," for him to conclude as a matter of course that the Stoic had gone to evangelise the Brahmins. His assertion may be taken, however, as valuable to a certain extent. It shows that early in the fifth century it was believable to a scholarly man with large knowledge of the world, that India itself might have been visited by a Christian missionary before the end of the second century. Therefore in Jerome's
- ↑ Smith, Dict. Christ. Biog. vol. iv, p. 182a, note a.
- ↑ Epist. lxx.
