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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[APRIL, 1908.
"Arachosis, and its date the times of Gondophorus." (R. A. Lipsius: article "Acts of the "Apostles, Apocryphal," in Smith and Wace's Dictionary of Christian Biography, eto., Vol. 1, London, 1877.) Further, "Gutschmid shows that Gaspard, one of the three Kings of the "Christian legend, is identical with Gondophares" (quotation from Gardner, p. xliii.).
All this seems fanciful. And Lipsius' easy acceptance, in 1877 or before, of the positive statements made by Gutschmid in matters which were then and still are uncertain, must continue to diminish the value of the former's criticism of the Acts of St. Thomas. Lipsins appeared to ignore the existence of the Syriac Version, which must be our starting-point. These Acts of St. Thomas should also be treated as an independent work, complete in itself, as Mr. Burkitt has treated it; not merely as a chapter in a work dealing with all the apostles, as scholars were inclined to treat it when only the Latin version of Pseudo-Abdias was available. The publication of the Syriac has made some criticism obsolete. And if we are to use these "legends," we must go to the Acts of St. Thomas, in the Syriac version, first of all, and not, as Cunningham, Yule, and others have done, to Psendo-Abdias and to so very late a compilation as the "Legenda Aurea" of Jacobus de Voragine (c. 1280-1298), Archbishop of Genoa.
VII. Note on the Legenda Aures.
As mentioned just above, the Legenda Aurea has been quoted by some writers in dealing with Gondophares. It therefore seems desirable to say something about it, although it is too modern. a work to be of much use for our purposes. It is one of the numerous works of the Dominican friar Jacobus a Voragine, or as we should say in English, Friar James of Varazze. Varazze or Voragine is a small seaport town in the Italian Riviera, and was the birthplace of the author, who ultimately. became archbishop of Genoa, and died in 1298.
The work in question is an explanation of the offices celebrated by the Church during the ecclesiastical year, beginning with Advent. The Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th edition, 1888, describes it, not correctly, as a collection of legendary lives of the greater saints of the medieval church. It is a work which obtained a large circulation, and it was translated from the Latin into several languages. Caxton published three English versions, 1483, 1487, and 1493.
The Latin text may be seen in the edition published by Dr. Th. Graesse at Dresden and Leipzig in 1846 under the title "Jacobi a Voragine Legenda Aurea vulgo Historia Lombardica dicta." A new French translation has been published recently by the Abbé J. B. M. Roze: La légende dorée de Jacques de Voragine nouvellement traduite: Paris, 1902: 3 volumes.
The festival of St. Thomas, 21st December, falling as it does in Advent, is dealt with in an early part of the work; and an account is there given of the life of the apostle, from which the following points of interest are extracted.
When St. Thomas was at Caesarea "rex Indiae Gundoferus misit praepositum Abbanem quaerere hominem architectoria arte eruditum ut romano opere sibi palatium construatur." The apostle consented to go; and our Lord, Who had appeared to him and to Abbanes, "tradidit ei Thomam .. Navigantes autem ad quandam civitatem venerunt, in qua rex filiae suae nuptias celebrabat." The name of the city is not given, but what took place there is described.
"Post haec autem apostolus et Abbanes ad regem Indiae pervenerunt," i. e, to Gundoferus, though the name is only mentioned once, namely as above at the beginning of the narrative.
The king gave St. Thomas much treasure with which to build a palace, and went away to another province for two years. Meanwhile the apostle gave the money away, preached to the people, and made innumerable conversions. On his return, learning what had been done, the king imprisoned St. Thomas and Abbanes, intending to put them to death.
