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HOME> St. Thomas, The Apostle
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St. Thomas, the Apostle
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Little is
recorded of St. Thomas the Apostle, nevertheless thanks to
the fourth Gospel his personality is clearer to us than
that of some others of the Twelve. His name occurs in all
the lists of the Synoptists (Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke
6, cf. Acts 1:13), but in St. John he plays a distinctive
part. First, when Jesus announced His intention of
returning to Judea to visit Lazarus, "Thomas" who is
called Didymus [the twin], said to his fellow disciples:
"Let us also go, that we may die with him" (John 11:16).
Again it was St. Thomas who during the discourse before
the Last Supper raised an objection: "Thomas saith to him:
Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know
the way?" (John 14:5). But more especially St. Thomas is
remembered for his incredulity when the other Apostles
announced Christ's Resurrection to him: "Except I shall
see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger
into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his
side, I will not believe" (John 20:25); but eight days
later he made his act of faith, drawing down the rebuke of
Jesus: "Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast
believed; blessed are they that have not seen, and have
believed" (John 20:29).
This is all the knowledge we have about the apostle, but
his name has influenced a lot of apocryphal literature,
the most notable one being the 'Acta Thomae'. It is
preserved with slight variations in the Greek and the
Syriac editions, clearly bearing resemblance to it's
Gnostic origin. It is extravagant in its text. The
extravagance of the legend may be judged from the fact
that in more than one place it represents Thomas (Judas
Thomas, as he is called here and elsewhere in Syriac
tradition) as the twin brother of Jesus. The Thomas in
Syriac is equivalent to didymos in Greek, and means twin.
The story itself runs briefly as follows: At the division
of the Apostles, India fell to the lot of Thomas, but he
declared his inability to go, whereupon his Master Jesus
appeared in a supernatural way to Abban, the envoy of
Gundafor, an Indian king, and sold Thomas to him to be his
slave and serve Gundafor as a carpenter. Then Abban and
Thomas sailed away until they came to Andrapolis, where
they landed and attended the marriage feast of the ruler's
daughter. Strange occurrences followed and Christ under
the appearance of Thomas exhorted the bride to remain a
Virgin. Coming to India Thomas undertook to build a palace
for Gundafor, but spend the money entrusted to him on the
poor. Gundafor imprisoned him; but the Apostle escaped
miraculously and Gundafor was converted. Going about the
country to preach, Thomas met with strange adventures from
dragons and wild asses. Then he came to the city of King
Misdai (Syriac Mazdai), where he converted Tertia the wife
of Misdai and Vazan his son. After this he was condemned
to death, led out of city to a hill, and pierced through
with spears by four soldiers. He was buried in the tomb of
the ancient kings but his remains were afterwards removed
to the West.
Now it is certainly a remarkable fact that about the year
A.D. 46 a king was reigning over that part of Asia south
of Himalayas now represented by Afghanistan, Baluchistan,
the Punjab, and Sind, who bore the name Gondophernes or
Guduphara. This we know both from the discovery of coins,
some of the Parthian type with Greek legends, others of
the Indian types with the legends in an Indian dialect in
Kharoshthi characters. Despite sundry minor variations the
identity of the name with the Gundafor of the "Acta
Thomae" is unmistakable and is hardly disputed. Further we
have the evidence of the Takht-i-Bahi inscription, which
is dated and which the best specialists accept as
establishing the King Gunduphara probably began to reign
about A.D. 20 and was still reigning in 46. Again there
are excellent reasons for believing that Misdai or Mazdai
may well be transformation of a Hindu name made on the
Iranian soil. In this case it will probably represent a
certain King Vasudeva of Mathura, a successor of Kanishka.
No doubt it can be urged that the Gnostic romancer who
wrote the "Acta Thomae" may have adopted a few historical
Indian names to lend verisimilitude to his fabrication.
On the other hand, though the tradition that St. Thomas
preached in "India" was widely spread in both East and
West and is to be found in such writers as Ephraem Syrus,
Ambrose, Paulinus, Jerome, and, later Gregory of Tours and
others. Although it is difficult to prove historically
that he preached and was martyred as far south as Mylapore
(a little distance away from modern day Chennai), the
traditions in these lands till this day are very strong.
In that region is still to be found a granite bas-relief
cross with a Pahlavi (ancient Persian) inscription dating
from the seventh century conforming that. Moreover the
body of Christians on the west coast of India still uses
Syriac in its Liturgy. Now whether this Church was started
by St. Thomas himself ( which tradition asserts) or
whether it was really established ( infused as tradition
says) by a certain Thomas from Cana in the year 345AD
under Persian persecution under the king Shapur II is
again impossible to be proved conclusively. (there was a
Syro-Chaldean bishop John "from India and Persia" who
assisted at the Council of Nicea in 325).
We know only that in the sixth century Cosmas
Indicopleustes speaks of the existence of Christians at
Male (?Malabar) under a bishop who had been consecrated in
Persia. King Alfred the Great is stated in the
"Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" to have sent an expedition to
establish relations with these Christians of the Far East.
The relics of St. Thomas were reputed to have been
transferred to Edessa in the 4th century where it remained
till it was transferred to Chios in 1258 and then to
Oronta. Now besides the existence of shorter redactions of
the 'Acta Thomae' in Geez (Liturgical language of the
Ethiopians) and Latin, there also exists a originally
Gnostic Gospel (considered not canonical), the 'Gospel of
Thomas', which is focusing much on the early childhood of
Jesus. Tradition also establishes Thomas to have traveled
as far as China. He is also ascribed to be the apostolic
forefather of the Persians or the Chaldeans (The Assyrian
Church of the East).
To conclude, for us, the Christians of Malankara,
historical or archaeological evidence may not not be
sufficient to clearly establish the apostle as our early
father, but faith and tradition and our mighty legacy
clearly make us a body of Christ through the apostolic
tradition of St. Thomas, the most widely traveled apostle,
the apostle of the East.
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Biblical reference extracts from the Catholic encyclopedia |
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