ソコトラ島のキリスト教について

Abstract

The island of Socotra--today part of the Yemen Arab Republic--lies near the main shipping route from the Red Sea to India and East Africa, and it has been famous since remote antiquity for its exotic products. Many ships and traders visited it and their reports were included in the books of classical, Islamic, and modern European authors to constitute our historical sources. In this article I examine such reports particularly for references to Christianity on Socotra. Cosmas Indicopleustes, author of The Christian Topography, confirms for us that Socotra was already Christianized by the first half of the sixth century, so Christianity had reached the island even earlier. We do not know exactly when or by whom it was introduced, though a traditional account attributes it to St. Thomas, legendary Apostle of Parthia and India. By the end of the thirteenth century at the latest, Christian islanders were generally under the authority of a Nestorian bishop ordained in Persia or Iraq. But after that time they were secluded from the outside Christian world, and in complete subjugation to the Muslim invaders from Mahra or Oman. Under these conditions the Christianity on Socotra was inevitably corrupted. Today there are not only no Christians but even almost no trace of Christianity remaining on the island. At the end of the article, I propose a new interpretation of the Arabic name "dam al-akhwayn" ("dragon's blood"). It probably means "the blood of St. Thomas"; it may also refer to Christ himself, as some Christians believed St. Thomas and Christ to have been twin brothers.