Indian Antiquary Vol 32

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 16

10
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JANUARY, 1903.
This is not particularly intelligible. It is taken from The wrilings of Clement of Alexandria translated by the Rev. William Wilson, Edinburgh, 1869, Vol. 2, pp. 170 to 171. It seems, however, to agree with the Greek in Migne's Patrologia Graeca, Vol. 8, Paris, 1857, cols. 1281-2.
R. A. Lipsius refers to it as meaning that St. Thomas, with the other apostles named, died natural death; and be attaches importance to it as the early testimony of one of the gnostics, among whom originated, according to his view, the Acts of St. Thomas, which contain the details of the apostle's martyrdom. See his article “ Acts of the Apostles (Apocrypial)" in Smith and Wwe's Dictionary of Christian Biography, etc., Vol. 1, London, 1877. Lipsius calls Heracleon a "perfectly “trustworthy witness," and adds :-"This witness deserves all the more attention, inasmuch as it comes " from a Gnostic source, i.e., from one of those circles in which afterwards sprang up the legends of the "martyrdom of St. Matthew by fire, the crucifixion of St. Philip, and the impaling of St. Thomas." It is not necessary to adopt Lipsius' ideas. His theories were sometimes impossible.
The sense of the passage from Clement of Alexandria is perhaps better given, than by Wilson, in an article on Heracleon by G. Salmon, in the dictionary above quoted, Vol. 2, 1880, as follows:
"Men mistake in thinking that the only confession is that made by the voice before the "magistrates; there is another confession made in the life and conversation, by faith and works “corresponding to the faith. The first confession may be made by a hypocrite, and it is one not "required of all; there are many who have never been called on to make it, as, for instance, Matthew, "Philip, Thomas, Levi (Lebbaeus]; the other confession must be made by all."
.- The Clementine Recognitions. In book 9, chapter 29, we read :• "Denique apud Parthos, sicut nobis Thomas, qui apud illos Evangelian prædicat, scripsit, non "multi jam erga plurima matrimonia diffundantur, nec multi apud Medos canibus objicient mortuos "Suos, neque Persae matrum conjugiis aut filiarum incestis matrimoniis delectantur, nec mulieres " Susides licita ducunt adulteria ; nec potuit ad crimina genesis compellere, quos religionis doctrina "prohibebat."
See Migne : Patrologia Graeca, Vol. 1, Paris, 1857, col. 1418.
We only possess the Clementine Recognitions in the Latin translation made probably not long after 400 by Rufinus, who is supposed to have subjected them to some mild expurgation. We do not know the date of the original writing. F. J. A. Hort (Notes Introductory to the Study of the Clementine Recognitions: London, 1901) considered that it and the Clementine Homilies were both derived from a common original, which may probably be dated in the first or second decade of the 3rd century, and was probably written in Palestine, east of the Jordan, or in the region running northward thence between the mountains and the desert.
4.- Clement of Alexandria ; died about 220. His testimony must, I think, be taken to be the same as that of Heracleon (above-mentioned No. 2), whom he quotes apparently with approval. In other words, he seems to allege that St. Thomas died a natural death.
6. Origen; born 185 or 186, died about 251 to 254. He was a native of Alexandria, and most of his life was spent in Egypt and Palestine. We have his testimony, as will be seen in the next place, only through the medium of Eusebius, who quotes his Commentary on Genesis, an elaborate work, of which we only possess some fragments. According to Origen, Parthia was the region allotted to St. Thomas.
6.- Eusebius, surnamed Pamphilus; born in Palestine abont 264, Bishop of Caesares 315, died about 340. Extract from his Ecclesiastical History, book 3 :
" Chapter I. - The parts of the world where Christ was preached by the apostles. — Such, " then, was the state of the Jews at this time. But the holy apostles and disciples of our
Saviour, being scattered over the whole world, Thomas, according to tradition, received Parthis " as his allotted region; Andrew received Scythia, and John, Asia; where, after continuing for
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