A handful of westerners in Thomas’ communities continued in the worship tradition he started near Kalash and Nuristan, and in Kashmir. Most westerners merged with local cultures.
Christians later referred to Thomas’ Wayists in the East as Church of the East. This was an error, because Wayist were never Christians, also the word church, was a willful error of translation of the Greek word ecclesia, which means ‘group’, ‘community’ or more correctly, ‘a group of elected people’.
From the 6th to 8th century, small ‘Church of the East’ communities were persecuted by Christians and suffered book-burning expeditions aimed at their so-called Eastern Bible—mostly those communities in China and Parthia. By the 10th century, under Islamic persecution, almost the entire group of several hundred families migrated from North India, West in search of a new home. Tradition has it that some of them are still homeless, still searching, and are now called Roma, or Gypsies.
The so-called “Eastern Bible” comprised Scriptures used by early Wayists in the East. After the 2nd Coming, the new era emphasized mysticism, which is personal, individual, direct experience of the presence of the Divine, over religious adherence to rite and dogma. For Wayists of the 2nd to 4th centuries, Scripture became unnecessary, and unfortunately became almost obsolete. For them, worship was all about experiencing the Divine in all things, anywhere, everywhere, and they attended their own home shrines. Many Wayist movements started within religions, as sects or divisions, or as reformation movements. Those, would maintain their old Scriptures, and simply try to ignore the bad parts—but in today’s life one cannot ignore it any more. Almost all people can read today, and children can read some of those terrible parts where the old God is said to order annihilation of neighbor, women, children and babies…etc.
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Annotations to the book Universal Gateway of Enlightenment: The second coming of Jesus as Lord of the World in c. 78AD, by author Jean du Plessis
