Aramaic Peshitta
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page V
Dr.
Grant says also, "NAZAREANS is a term very commonly employed by themselves
and others to designate the Nestorians. It is never applied to other Christian
sects. The term Nazareans has been well defined to mean Christians converted
from Judaism,.....who adhered to the practice of the Jewish ceremonies.......
Jerome speaks of them as Hebrews believing in Christ. We have good reason from
Acts xv.5, to believe that the Gentiles never adopted the rites of the Jews, nor
the name of Nazareans, to whom these rites were peculiar. It must then have been
applied exclusively to the Jewish converts. Hence the conclusion that the
Nestorians must have been Jews," (pp. 153-4). By Jews, he clearly means
Israelites. Mosheim, in his "Christianity before Constantine," Cent.
II., chap. xxxix., says, "A small band of Christians, who joined Moses with
Christ, divided into two sects called Nazareans and Ebionites. The ancient
Christians did not class the Nazareans with heretical sects." Dr. Grant
says, "It is the simple fact, that the Nestorians are what they profess to
be--the children of Israel," (pg. 113).
Concurring proofs seem to make it certain that these Nestorian Christians
received the gospel from some of the apostles; that there has been a succession
of them from that time to this; that their copies of the Peshito-Syriac
Scriptures are derived from copies received at a very early date; that they have
been carefully made and preserved, and are of great value in determining the
true text and meaning of God's word.
A LIKE SETTLEMENT TO THAT IN COORDISTAN, of Christians and Hebrews dwelling near
to each other, has also existed from the time of the apostles until now, IN
TRAVANCORE AND THE MALABAR COAST OF INDIA. These Christians, as well as those of
Coordistan, use the ancient Peshito-Syriac Scriptures in their worship at the
present day. They believe they have had these Scriptures from before A. D. 325,
in which year their bishop signed his name at the council of Nicaea. There is
ancient testimony that the Gospel of Matthew in Syriac was left with them by the
apostle Bartholomew, and that the apostle Thomas preached the gospel among them.
The Hebrews, to whom these Apostles preached, must have been settled there at a
still earlier period. Dr. Asahel Grant said of the Christians of Travancore,
"They may be, in part at least, a branch of the present Nestorians of Media
and Assyria. We have good evidence that they were formerly of the Nestorian
faith, though they have more recently become connected with the Jacobite
Syrians. It is worthy of inquiry whether they have not traditions, rites,
customs, or other evidence of Jewish origin," (pg. 155). "That the
apostle Thomas preached in India, we have the testimony of numerous Greek,
Latin, and Syrian authors quoted by Asseman in his Bibliotheca Orientalis, vol.
iv., pp. 5-25, 435." Grant, pg. 156, note.