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ST. THOMAS IN SOUTH INDIA
DECEMBER, 1926 1
221
ST. THOMAS IN SOUTH INDIA. (A Critical Review of the Legend.)
By T. K. JOSEPH, B.A., L.T. The accompanying letter has been received by me from a scholar, who is himself a St. Thomas Christian of Southern India. It is published here in order to assist in the elucidation of the difficulties surrounding the much disputed legend that the Apostle St. Thomas preached and diod at Mylapore near Madras. The writer's remarks are of greater value from the fact that he is so far from being didactic as to be perfectly willing to be convinced that he is wrong in believing that St. Thomas never went to South India. He is thus placing him. self in no real antagonism to those who hold the opposite opinion. In view of the forthcoming works of Dr. Farquhar and Fr. Hosten on the St. Thomas legend, his observations may prove to be of much importance. In any case it is worth while from the point of view of an honest search for tho trhuth to have them on record.-R. C. TEMPLE.]
"I am a St. Thomas Christian and I have long studied closely the South Indian tradition, both aral and recorded, about St. Thomas. The more I study it, the more I am confirmed in my belief that St. Thomas, the Apostle, never went to South India. I ask leave to set forth my argument to you, but I am quite ready to be beaten and convinced by those who believe in the truth of the statement that St. Thomas was in South India and died at Mylapore. Briefly, my position is as follows:
1. There is nothing in The Acts of Judas Thomas to indicate that the journey of St. Thomas by cart from the kingdom of Gondophares was to South India.
2. St. Thomas, according to The Acts, was martyred in Mazdai's kingdom (which, I suppose, was somewhere in North-West India) close to that of Gondophares.
3. The saint who lies buried in Mylapore-- I call him the Calamina saint-died in circum. stances quite different from those of St. Thomas's martyrdom. Vide Medlycott's India and Thomas, London, 1905, pp. 122-126, where unadulterated pre-Portuguese versions recorded by Marco Polo and Marignolli are given. The author's 'saving face' theory (pp. 129, 131) does not commend itself to me.
4. The bones of St. Thomas were removed from Mazdai's kingdom to Edessa, but those of the Calamina saint have been believed by us and our ancestors to have remained in his tomb at Mylapore entire and intact. True, the Portuguese who opened the tomb in the sixteenth century did not find the bones, but only debris. Quite naturally. Bones kept in a tomb for about fifteen centuries will not be converted into fossils, but will crumble into drust,
5. If St. Thomas it was that died at Calamina near Mylapore, we should have celebrated the feast of 21st December. We do not observe it, but instead oelebrate the feast of the 3rd day of the month of Tommûs, which this year corresponds to the 16th of July. It is with us a márândya or great festival, called tho dukránd in Syriac, which means commemoration. This 3rd July, or rather 3rd Tômmus, is the day of the deposition of the relics in Edessa (Medlycott, op cit., p. 27, footnote 1).
6. Our tradition says that St. Thomas set up seven crosses in Malabar. There seems to be an anachronism here, which nobody has yet looked into. According to the canonical Acts of the Apostles, none of the apostles mentioned therein set up crosses, not even the one who said, " let me not glory save in the cross."
7. Now, as to our (Malabar) tradition, which nobody before me has carefully scrutinized. no recorded pre-Portuguese version has come down to us, although pre-Portuguese versions of the Mylapore tradition are extant (cf. Marco Polo and Marignolli).
8. The earliest recorder Portuguese versions contain no dates, neither 52 A.D. for the ad. vent of St. Thomas, nor 72 A.D. for his martyrdom, nor any other. These, therefore must be regarded as inventions of the Portuguese period. The date 52 A.D. must have been pitohed upon. because it is just subsequent to the year 51 A.D. in which, acacrding to some historians, all the
