"Gregory Bar Hebreus says that Thomas preached to the Parthians and Medes. The apostle Thomas was the first pontiff of the East. We are taught, from the book of the preaching of the holy apostles, that the divine apostle Thomas first preached the Christian faith in the East, in the second year from the ascent of our Lord. . . . . He preached to different people, viz., Parthians, Medes, and Persians," &c.* "It seems sufficiently demonstrated that Christians, laymen, deacons, priests, and bishops, have always been in Persia from the apostolic times, and forward in an uninterrupted succession . . . . The Magi, who had adored Christ, first introduced the seed of the Gospel."+ "The Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and those who inhabited Mesopotamia, and wondered at the apostles speaking with various tongues, after they had received the Holy Ghost, doubtless introduced the faith of Christ into their own regions."‡ "Thaddeus, Thomas, and other disciples in person taught in Syria, Chaldea, and Persia. Finally, the martyrs of every sex, age, and condition, confirmed with their own blood the faith that was everywhere propagated." "He (i. e., Mares) received his clerical office from Ades and Thomas, for they two made him patriarch of all the East. These three disciples and their successors taught the whole region of the East, from the passage of Euphrates even to the farthest parts of the East."|| Amrus. * Assem., Bib. Orient., v. iv, § Ibid., p. 36. p. 33. III. The ten tribes were in a state peculiarly favourable to the reception of the Gospel. They were not hardened by rejecting the personal ministry of Christ, or by aiding in the work of crucifixion. Consequently, they were free from the curse which has, to the present day, rested with fearful weight upon those who uttered the imprecation, "His blood be on us and on our children!" But there was no such cause operating upon the captive Israelites to imbitter them against the Saviour. Nor have we any evidence that they were expecting a mere temporal king in the promised Messiah. For a thousand years they had held very little intercourse with the two tribes; and their national antipathies would naturally render them averse to the idea of political union; while, on the other hand, the report they received from the "wise men, who went expressly to worship the Messiah, must have favoured the expectation of a spiritual rather than a temporal head. And what they saw and experienced on the day of Pentecost was also calculated to prepare them, and those who heard their report, to welcome the Gospel. Their hearts, too, were probably softened by their long captivity. In a word, their circumstances appear to have been altogether favourable to their conversion. IV. History furnishes evidence of the conversion of the ten tribes to Christianity under the preaching of the apostles and their immediate successors. Some of * The Nestorians say that the "wise men" took with them gold as an acceptable present for the Messiah as an earthly king; but, knowing that he was also a Divine personage, they brought frankincense and myrrh to burn as incense in their adorations before him. the proof has been given incidentally in our preceding quotations. I shall introduce one or two passages more from the pages of the learned Assemani, to whose volumes the curious reader is referred. "The Adjabena (i. e., inhabitants of Adiabene), Elamites, Persians, and Medes," says Assemani, "were brought over to the faith by the apostles Thomas, Thaddeus, Simon, Matthew, and Bartholomew, and by the disciples Ade, Mares, and Agheus, as has been shown above from Greek, Latin, and Syrian authors. After those first apostles of the Persians, the prelates subject to the archbishop of Seleucia aided either in imbuing the same people with the sacred rites of the Christians, or in confirming them in the faith which they had embraced." And again he says, "First of all beyond Mesopotamia, as it appears, Adjabena (Adiabene) and Elamites, two of the provinces of the Persian kingdom, very quickly embraced the Christian faith, viz., in the very commencement of the infant church.”* Here we are told that the inhabitants of the very places where the captive Israelites then lived were converted to the Christian faith under the preaching of the apostles, who went everywhere preaching the word several years before the disciples preached to the Gentiles. Eusebius,† the earliest of our ecclesiastical historians, expressly informs us that the apostles "were not yet in a situation to venture to impart the faith to the nations, and, therefore, only announced it to the * Assemani, Bib. Orient., vol. iv. p. 414. † Hist. Eccl., lib. ii. c. 1. Jews." This was after the dispersion of the disciples and before the conversion of Cornelius, which is mentioned subsequently. Eusebius states, on the authority of Origen, that Parthia was assigned to Thomas; and he sums up the general success of the Gospel among the Israelites in the following graphic language: "Thus, then, under a celestial influence and co-operation, the doctrine of the Saviour, like the rays of the sun, quickly irradiated the whole world. Presently, in accordance with Divine prophecy, the sound of his inspired evangelists and apostles had gone throughout all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. Throughout every city and village, like a replenished garner, churches were seen abounding and filled with members."* At length he mentions the conversion of Cornelius, and the first Gentile converts under Peter and Paul, as an act of the special, "gratuitous benevolence of God;" making it evident that the success of the Gospel among the Jews was prior to its reception by the Gentiles. And hence we infer that the numerous converts in the country of the ten tribes must have been the captive sons of Israel. *Hist. Eccles. lib. ii. c. 3. CHAPTER XX. Scriptural Proof of their Conversion-Speech of Paul-Epistle of James. BUT the inquiry may be made, why, if the ten tribes were so early converted to the Christian faith, is there no mention made of it in any of the apostolic writings? In reply, I ask, why is there no mention made of the labours of the zealous Thomas and others, who carried them the Gospel? Is not the silence of Scripture in relation to them presumptive evidence that they were labouring at a distance from the writers of the New Testament? And why is there no mention made of the extensive spread of the Gospel recorded by Eusebius? That the word should be preached thus extensively before the destruction of Jerusalem (Luke xxi. 32), or, at least, during the lifetime of some of the apostles (Mat. xvi. 28; Mark ix. 1), we are expressly told by our Lord himself, and we cannot doubt that his word was accomplished. Its verity is found in history. With this proof before us, it is sufficient to know that there is no intimation in the writings of the New Testament that the ten tribes were not brought into the Gospel covenant. Paul, in speaking of the rejection of the Jewish nation, tells the Romans that they must not think that all Israel was cast away; for, as |