1.1a.1b.2 St. Judas Thomas, Apostle 
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EDESSA, GREECE OR INDIA |
THOMAS--MEANING TWIN
A curious example, also from the Judaeo-Christian tradition, concerns the Apostle Thomas, who is called Didymus, 'the twin', in the New Testament, and who is traditionally regarded as the first missionary to India. According to late legend, Thomas was the twin of JESUS CHRIST, born to Mary shortly after JESUS The three Magi, when they brought their gifts to the infant JESUS, asked for his swaddling-band as a memento, but were given that of Thomas instead. JESUS and Thomas grew up together, making ploughs and yokes in their father's carpentry shop; the two were outwardly alike, but in reality JESUS was divine, Thomas human.
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: St. Thomas the Apostle
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= The Twelve: The Lives of the Apostles After Calvary By C. Bernard
Ruffin. Since the Twelve Apostles left behind no detailed
information about themselves, how is it possible to gather
information as to their fate? While you could search through
hundreds of books for information on these men, C. Bernard Ruffin
has collected all the data in this engaging book. He weaves together
Scripture, Tradition and historical documents to re-create the lives
of each of Christ's closest followers.
St. Thomas the Apostle
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 exhausts all our certain knowledge regarding the Apostle but
his name is the starting point of a considerable apocryphal
literature, and there are also certain historical data which suggest
that some of this apocryphal material may contains germs of truth.
The principal document concerning him is the "Acta Thomae",
preserved to us with some variations both in Greek and in Syriac,
and bearing unmistakeable signs of its Gnostic origin. It may indeed
be the work of Bardesanes himself. The story in many of its
particulars is utterly extravagant, but it is the early date, being
assigned by Harnack (Chronologie, ii, 172) to the beginning of the
third century, before A. D. 220. If the place of its origin is
really Edessa, as Harnack and others for sound reasons supposed
(ibid., p. 176), this would lend considerable probability to the
statement, explicitly made in "Acta" (Bonnet, cap. 170, p.286), that
the relics of Apostle Thomas, which we know to have been venerated
at Edessa, had really come from the East. The extravagance of the
legend may be judged from the fact that in more than one place (cap.
31, p. 148) 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 equivalant to didymos in Greek, and means twin.
Rendel Harris who exaggerates very much the cult of the Dioscuri,
wishes to regards this as a transformation of a pagan worship of
Edessa but the point is at best problematical. 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 carpender. 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 occurences followed
and Christ under the appearence 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
condemed 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,
but as Mr. Fleet urges in his severely critical paper "the names put
forward here in connection with St.Thomas are distinctly not such as
have lived in Indian story and tradition" (Joul. of R. Asiatic
Soc.,1905, p.235).
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, still it is difficult to discover
any adequate support for the long-accepted belief that St. Thomas
pushed his missionary journeys as far south as Mylapore, not far
from Madras, and there suffered martyrdom. In that region is still
to be found a granite bas-relief cross with a Pahlavi (ancient
Persian) inscription dating from the seventh century, and the
tradition that it was here that St. Thomas laid down his life is
locally very strong. Certain it is also that on the Malabar or west
coast of southern India a body of Christians still exists using a
form of Syriac for its liturgical language. Whether this Church
dates from the time of St. Thomas the Apostle (there was a
Syro-Chaldean bishop John "from India and Persia" who assisted at
the Council of Nicea in 325) or whether the Gospel was first
preached there in 345 owing to the Persian persecution under Shapur
(or Sapor), or whether the Syrian missionaries who accompanied a
certain Thomas Cana penetrated to the Malabar coast about the year
745 seems difficult to determine. 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. On the other hand the reputed
relics of St. Thomas were certainly at Edessa in the fourth century,
and there they remained until they were translated to Chios in 1258
and towards to Ortona. The improbable suggestion that St. Thomas
preached in America (American Eccles. Rev., 1899, pp.1-18) is based
upon a misunderstanding of the text of the Acts of Apostles (i, 8;
cf. Berchet "Fonte italiane per la storia della scoperta del Nuovo
Mondo", II, 236, and I, 44).
Besides the "Acta Thomae" of which a different and notably shorter
redaction exists in Ethiopic and Latin, we have an abbreviated form
of a so-called "Gospel of Thomas" originally Gnostic, as we know it
now merely a fantastical history of the childhood of Jesus, without
any notably heretical colouring. There is also a "Revelatio Thomae",
condemned as apocryphal in the Degree of Pope Gelasius, which has
recently been recovered from various sources in a fragmentary
condition (see the full text in the Revue benedictine, 1911, pp.
359-374).
HERBERT THURSTON
Transcribed by Mary and Joseph Thomas
In Memory of Ella Barkyoumb
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIV
Copyright ¬ 1912 by Robert Appleton Company
Online Edition Copyright ¬ 1999 by Kevin Knight
Nihil Obstat, July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
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