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{{short description|Christian bishop}}
{{Infobox Christian leader
| honorific-prefix = [[Mar (title)|Mar]]
| name = David of Basra
| honorific-suffix = Metropolitan
| title = Metropolitan of Basra, Bishop of India
| bishop_of = Church of the East
| image =
| imagesize =
| diocese = [[India (East Syriac ecclesiastical province)|India]]
| ordination = by [[Shahlufa]]
| ended =
| predecessor =
| successor =
| birth_name =
| birth_date =
| birth_place =
| death_date =
| death_place =
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| nationality =
| signature =
}}
'''David of Basra''', sometimes rendered '''Dudi of Basra'''<ref name="BaumWinkler"/> or '''David of Charax''',<ref name="Bremmer">{{Cite book |first=Jan N. |last=Bremmer |title=The Apocryphal Acts of St. Thomas |isbn=90-429-1070-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k20p2Shi20cC |page=145 |publisher=Peeters Publishing |year=2001 }}</ref> was a 3rd- and 4th-century CE Christian [[metropolitan bishop]] who undertook missionary work in India around the year 300<ref name="BaumWinkler">{{Cite book |first=Wilhelm |last=Baum |author2=Dietmar W. Winkler |title=The Church of the East: A Concise History |publisher=Routledge |year=2003 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sRO4soRjVkYC |page=53 |access-date=2 March 2009 |isbn=0-415-29770-2 }}</ref> (295 in some sources).<ref>{{Cite book |publisher=Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum |title=Symposium Syriacum 1972: Célébré Dans Les Jours 26-31 Octobre 1972 à L'Institut Pontifical Oriental de Rome : Rapports Et Communications |year=1974 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IBBiAAAAMAAJ&q=%22david+of+basra%22 }}</ref> He is among the earliest documented Christian missionaries in India,<ref name="BaumWinkler"/><ref name="Piepkorn">{{Cite book |first=Arthur Carl |last=Piepkorn |title=Profiles in Belief: The Religious Bodies of the United States and Canada |publisher=Harper and Row |year=1977 |url=https://archive.org/details/profilesinbelief00piep |url-access=registration |quote=david of basra. |isbn=978-0-06-066580-7 }}</ref><ref name="Moffet">{{Cite book |first=Samuel H. |last=Moffet |title=A History of Christianity in Asia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z1usVC77H7UC&q=%22david+of+basra%22 |page=266 |publisher=Orbis Books |year=1998 |isbn=1-57075-162-5 }}</ref> perhaps later only than the [[Thomas (apostle)#Thomas and India|apostle Thomas]], who may have visited India in the 1st century,<ref name="Irvin"/> though sources for the period are fragmentary and sometimes confused.<ref name="BaumWinkler"/>

==Sources==
The account of David's mission comes from an originally [[Syriac language|Syriac]]-language source that appears in the [[Arabic language|Arabic]]-language ''[[Chronicle of Seert]]'', a history of the [[Nestorian Church]]. The ''Chronicle'' was compiled some time after the 9th century from a number of Syriac sources,<ref name="BaumWinkler"/> and constitutes a major early source on the history of eastern Christianity.<ref name="Wilmshurst">{{Cite book |first=David |last=Wilmshurst |title=The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jB8ir0ek8bgC |isbn=90-429-0876-9 |publisher=Peeters Publishers |year=2000 |page=89 }}</ref> The original document was also translated by the Assyrian historian [[Alphonse Mingana]] in his ''Woodbrooke Studies'' collection of early Christian Documents in Syriac, Arabic, and Garshuni.<ref name="Neill"/> It states that, during the patriarchate of Shahlupa and Papa, David visited and travelled throughout India, rather than settling there, and that he won converts to the Christian church.<ref name="Neill"/><ref>{{Cite journal |first=Stephen Andrew |last=Missick |title=Mar Thoma: The Apostolic Foundation of the Assyrian Church and the Christians of St. Thomas in India |journal=Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies |volume=XIV |issue=2 |year=2000 |access-date=2 March 2009 |pages=33–61 |url=http://www.aina.org/articles/missick.pdf }}</ref>

[[Alphonse Mingana]] quotes from the '''Chronicles of Seert''' in his book, ''Hand Book of Source Materials for Student of Church History'': {{blockquote|During the Patriarchate of [[Shahlufa]] and [[Papa bar Aggai|Papa]], Dudi (David), Bishop of Basra, Persia (291 - 325) and an eminent physician, renounced his bishopric and came to India and preached to many people.}}

Historians have suggested that David's mission may have targeted communities in Southern India, on the assumption that an existing church there - either descended from the missionary work of the apostle Thomas, or founded by migrant Christians from elsewhere in the region - was in difficulties and required support.<ref name="Bremmer"/><ref name="Neill">{{Cite book |first=Stephen |last=Neill |title=A History of Christianity in India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dbVNvsZWH5EC |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2004 |page=41 |isbn=0-521-54885-3 }}</ref>

==Mission context==
Some sources describe David as an [[Arab]];<ref name="Shirin">{{Cite book |first=Wilhelm |last=Baum |title=Shirin: Christian, Queen, Myth of Love |publisher=Gorgias Press |year=2004 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bgdRHNpHLeIC |page=9 |isbn=978-1-59333-282-2 }}{{Dead link|date=January 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> others characterize him as a [[Persian people|Persian]] doctor.<ref name="Irvin">{{Cite book |first=Dale T. |last=Irvin |title=History of the World Christian Movement |publisher=Continuum International |year=2001 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C2akvQfa-QMC |page=203 |isbn=0-567-08866-9 }}</ref> He came from the [[Sassanid]] empire, then a young and expanding polity under the rule of [[Narseh]]. Researchers have argued that David's mission should be seen in the context of that empire's expansionist political activities.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Alan |last=Kreider |title=The Origins of Christendom in the West |publisher=Continuum International |year=2001 |isbn=0-567-08776-X |page=130 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hUJ0p0viVlUC }}</ref> Though David's mission indicates the extension of the Persian church into India,<ref name="Shirin"/> the Seert chronicle is the only surviving reference to David's activities and there is no evidence that his mission led to the establishment of a lasting Indian church in contact with Christianity elsewhere in the region.<ref name="Irvin"/> Later evidence of a sustained Christian church on the subcontinent dates instead to at least 50 years after David's mission, with the somewhat contradictory reports of a Christian settlement on the [[Malabar coast]] led by the Syrian merchant [[Thomas of Cana]].<ref name="Irvin"/> This settlement is dated in some sources to around 350 CE, but in others is attributed to the 8th century.<ref name="BaumWinkler"/> Later in the 4th century, Byzantine sources attest to the dispatch, under [[Constantius II|Emperor Constantius]], of one Theophilus as a missionary to India after 354.<ref name="BaumWinkler"/> David's mission was, though, an early sign of the nascent role of the diocese of Basra as a hub of missionary activity extending into southern Asia.<ref>{{Cite book |first=David B. |last=Barrett |title=World Christian Trends, AD 30 - AD 2200 |isbn=0-87808-608-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IMRsJ1gnIYkC |publisher=William Carey Library |year=2001 |page=114 }}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Christianity in India]]

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==Sources==
* {{Cite book|last1=Baum|first1=Wilhelm|authorlink1=Wilhelm Baum (historian)|last2=Winkler|first2=Dietmar W.|title=The Church of the East: A Concise History|year=2003|location=London-New York|publisher=Routledge-Curzon|isbn=9781134430192|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CnSCAgAAQBAJ}}
* {{Cite book|last=Wilmshurst|first=David|title=The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318–1913|year=2000|location=Louvain|publisher=Peeters Publishers|isbn=9789042908765|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jB8ir0ek8bgC}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:David Of Basra}}
[[Category:Christian missionaries in India]]
[[Category:Christians in the Sasanian Empire]]
[[Category:3rd-century archbishops]]
[[Category:4th-century archbishops]]
[[Category:Bishops of Fars (East Syriac ecclesiastical province)]]
[[Category:Church of the East in India]]
[[Category:Church of the East in Iran]]

David of Basra - Revision history

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