ST. THOMAS.

διωνυμος εννεπε Θωμας, Ον Δίδυμον καλευσι

that way which he had prescribed and chalke out before them.

It was customary with the Jews, when travelling the apostles were distracted between hopes an 2. Our Lord being dead, it is evident how much into foreign countries, or familiarly conversing fears concerning his resurrection, not yet fully sa with the Greeks and Romans, to assume to them-tisfied about it; which engaged him the sooner t selves a Greek or a Latin name, of great affinity, hasten his appearance, that by the sensible mani and sometimes of the very same signification festations of himself he might put the case beyon with that of their own country. Thus our Lord was called Christ, answering to his Hebrew title, all possibilities of dispute. The very day whereo Mashiach, or the anointed; Simon, styled Peter, while for fear of the Jews the doors were yet fas he arose he came into the house where they were according to that of Cephas, which our Lord put shut about them, and gave them sufficient assur upon him; Tabitha, called Dorcas, both signifying a goat: thus our St. Thomas, according to ance that he was really risen from the dead.* A the Syriac importance of his name, had the title this meeting St. Thomas was absent, having pro of Didymus, which signifies a twin; Thomas bably never recovered their company since the which is called Didymus. Accordingly the Syriac last dispersion in the garden, when every one version renders it Thauma, which is called Tha- fears prompted him to consult his own safety. A ma; that is, a twin': the not understanding his return, they told him that their Lord had ap whereof imposed upon Nonnus the Greek parapeared to them; but he obstinately refused to giv phrast, who makes him avopa diwvvpov, to have had credit to what they said, or to believe that it wa two distinct names, he, presuming it rather a phantasm or mere app rition, unless he might see the very prints of th nails, and feel the wounds in his hands and side A strange piece of infidelity! Was this any mor than what Moses and the prophets had long sinc it being but the same name expressed in different foretold? Had not our Lord frequently told ther languages. The history of the gospel takes no in plain terms, that he must rise again the thir particular notice either of the country or kindred day? Could he question the possibility of it, wh of this apostle. That he was a Jew is certain, had so often seen him do the greatest miracles and in all probability a Galilean. He was born Was it reasonable to reject the testimony of (if we may believe Symeon Metaphrastes) of very many eye-witnesses, ten to one against himse mean parents, who brought him up to the trade and of whose fidelity he was assured? or could b of fishing; but withal took care to give him a more think that either themselves should be deceive useful education, instructing him in the knowledge or that they would jest and trifle with him in of the Scriptures, whereby he learned wisely to solemn and serious a matter? A stubbornne govern his life and manners. He was together that might have betrayed him into an eternal i with the rest called to the apostleship; and not fidelity. But our compassionate Saviour would n long after gave an eminent instance of his hearty take the advantage of the man's refractory unb willingness to undergo the saddest fate that might lief, but on that day seven-night came again to the attend them. For when the rest of the apostles as they were solemnly met at their devotions, a dissuaded our Saviour from going into Judæa, calling to Thomas, bade him look upon his hand (whither he was now resolved for the raising his put his fingers into the prints of the nails, a dear Lazarus, lately dead,) lest the Jews should thrust his hand into the hole of his side, and satis stone him, as but a little before they had attempt- his faith by a demonstration from sense. ed it, St. Thomas desires them not to hinder man was quickly convinced of his error and obs Christ's journey thither, though it might cost their nacy, confessing that he now acknowledged hi lives: "Let us also go, that we may die with to be his very Lord and master; a God omnip him;"* probably concluding, that instead of raising tent, that was thus able to rescue himself from t Lazarus from the dead, they themselves should be powers of death. Our Lord replied no more, th sent with him to their own graves. So that he that it was well he believed his own senses, t made up in pious affections what he seemed to that it was a more noble and commendable act want in the quickness and acumen of his under-faith to acquiesce in a rational evidence, and standing, not readily apprehending some of our Lord's discourses, nor over-forward to believe more than himself had seen. When the holy Jesus, a little before his fatal sufferings, had been speaking to them of the joys of heaven, and had told them that he was going to prepare, that they might follow him, that they knew both the place whither he was going, and the way thither; our apostle replied, that they knew not whither he went, and much less the way that led to it. To which our Lord returns this short but satisfactory answer, that he was the true living way, the Person whom the Father had sent into the world to show men the paths of eternal life; and that they could not miss of heaven, if they did but keep to

T

entertain the doctrines and relations of the gos upon such testimonies and assurances of the tru of things, as will satisfy a wise and sober m though he did not see them with his own eyes.

3. The blessed Jesus being gone to heaven, a having eminently given gifts and miraculous po ers to the apostles, St. Thomas moved thereto some divine intimation, is said to have despatch Thaddeus, one of the seventy disciples to Abg rus, toparch of Edessa, (between whom and Saviour the letters commonly said to have pass are still extant in Eusebius,) whom he first cu of an inveterate distemper, and after conver him and his subjects to the faith. The apostoli province assigned to St. Thomas, (as Origen te

John xx. 19.

Is,) was Parthia; after which Sophronius and
others inform us, that he preached the gospel to
the Medes, Persians, Carmans, Hyrcani, Bactrians,
and the neighbor nations. In Persia, one of the
ancients (upon what ground I know not) acquaints
us, that he met with the magi, or wise men, who
came that long journey, from the east, to bring
presents to our new-born Saviour, whom he bap-
tized and took along with him as his companions
and assistants in the propagation of the gospel.
Hence he preached in and passed through Ethio-
pia; that is, (that we may a little clear this by the
way,) the Asian Æthiopia, conterminous to, if not
the same with Chaldæa; whence Tacitus does not
only make the Jews descendants from the Æthio-
pians, as whose ancestors came from Ur of the
Chaldeans; but Hesychius makes the inhabitants
of Zagrus, a mountain beyond Tigris, "a people
of the Ethiopians;" this is mentioned by Benja-
min the Jew, in his Itinerary, the land of Cush, or
Ethiopia; the inhabitants whereof are styled by
Herodotus, "the oriental Æthiopians," by way of
distinction from those who lived south of Egypt,
and were under the same military prefecture with
the Arabians, under the command of Arsames, as
the other were joined with the Indians; and in
the same place are called οι εκ της Ασίας Αιθίοπες,
the Asian Ethiopians. Having travelled through
these countries, he at last came into India. We
are told by Nicephorus, that he was at first un-
willing to venture himself into those countries,
fearing he should find their manners as rude and
intractable as their faces were black and deform-
ed, till encouraged by a vision, that assured him
of the divine presence to assist him; he travelled
a great way into those eastern nations, as far as
the island Taprobane, since called Sumatra, and
the country of the Brachmans, preaching every
where with all the arts of gentleness and mild
persuasives; not flying out into tart invectives,
and furious heats against their idolatrous practices,
but calmly instructing them in the principles of
Christianity; by degrees persuading them to re-
nounce their follies, knowing that confirmed habits
must be cured by patience and long forbearing, by
slow and gentle methods: and by these means he
wrought upon the people, and brought them over
from the grossest errors and superstition to the
hearty belief and entertainment of religion.

4. In want of better evidence from antiquity, it may not be amiss to inquire, what account the Portugals, in their first discoveries of these countries, received of these matters, partly from ancient monuments and writings, partly from constant and uncontrolled traditions, which the Christians, whom they found in those parts, preserved amongst them. They tell us, that St. Thomas came first to Socotora, an island in the Arabian sea; thence to Cranganor, where having converted many, he travelled further into the east; and having successfully preached the gospel, returned back into the kingdom of Cormandel; where, at Malipur, the metropolis of the kingdom, not far from the influx of the Ganges into the gulf of Bengala, he began to erect a place for divine worship, till prohibited by the priests and Sagamo, prince of that country. But, upon the conviction of several miracles, the work went on, and the Sagamo himself embraced the Christian faith,

whose example was soon followed by great numbers of his friends and subjects. The Brachmans, who plainly perceived that this would certainly spoil their trade, and in time extirpate the religion of their country, thought it high time to put a stop to this growing novelism; and resolved in council, that some way or other the apostle must be put to death. There was a tomb not far from the city, whither the apostle was wont to retire to his solitudes and private devotions; hither the Brachmans and their armed followers pursue the apostle; and while he was intent at prayer, they first load him with darts and stones, till one of them coming nearer, ran him through with a lance. His body was taken up by his disciples, and buried in the church which he had lately built, and which was afterwards improved into a fabric of great stateliness and magnificence. Gregory of Tours relates many miracles done upon the annual solemnities of his martyrdom; and one standing miracle, an account whereof, he tells us, he received from one Theodorus, who had himself been in that place, viz. that in the temple where the apostle was buried, there hung a lamp before his tomb, which burnt perpetually, without oil or fuel to feed and nourish it; the light whereof was never diminished, nor by wind or any other accident could be extinguished. But whether travellers might not herein be imposed upon by the crafty artifices of the priests, or those who did attend the church; or if true, whether it might not be performed by art, I leave to others to inquire. Some will have his body to have been afterwards translated to Edessa, a city in Mesopotamia; but the Christians in the east constantly affirm it to have remained in the place of his martyrdom, where (if we may believe relations) it was after dug up, with great cost and care, at the command of Don Emanuel Frea, governor of the coast of Cormandel; and together with it was found the bones of the Sagamo, whom he had converted to the faith.

5. While Don Alfonso Sousa, one of the viceroys in India under John the Third, king of Portugal, resided in these parts, certain brass tables were brought to him, whose ancient inscriptions could scarce be read, till at last, by the help of a Jew, an excellent antiquary, they were found to contain nothing but a donation made to St. Thomas, whereby the king, who then reigned, granted to him a piece of ground for the building of a church. They tell us also of a famous cross, found in St. Thomas's chapel at Malipur, wherein was an unintelligible inscription, which, by a learned Bramin, (whom they compelled to read and expound it,) gave an account to this effect; that Thomas, a divine person, was sent into those countries by the Son of God in the time of king Sagamo, to instruct them in the knowledge of the true God; that he built a church, and performed admirable miracles; but at last, while upon his knees at prayer, was by a Brachman thrust through with a spear; and that that cross, stained with his blood, had been left as a memorial of these matters: an interpretation that was afterwards confirmed by anothor grave and learned Bramin, who expounded the inscription to the very same effect. The judicious reader will measure his belief of these things by the credit of the reporters, and the rational probability of the things them

selves, which, for my part, as I cannot certainly affirm to be true, so I will not utterly conclude them to be false.

ST. JAMES THE LESS.

BEFORE we can enter upon the life of this apostle, 6. From these first plantations of Christianity some difficulty must be cleared relating to his in the Eastern Indies by our apostle, there is said person. Doubted it has been by some, whether to have been a continued series and succession of this was the same with that St. James that was Christians (hence called St. Thomas-Christians) bishop of Jerusalem, three of this name being prein those parts unto this day. The Portugals, at sented to us; St. James the Great, this St. James their first arrival here, found them in great num- the Less, (both apostles,) and a third, surnamed bers in several places, no less, as some tells us, the Just, distinct (say they) from the former, and than fifteen or sixten thousand families. They bishop of Jerusalem. But this (however pretendare very poor, and their churches generally mean ing to some little countenance from antiquity) is and sordid, wherein they had no images of saints, a very great mistake, and built upon a sandy botnor any representations but that of the cross: tom: for besides that the Scripture mentions no they are governed in spirituals by a high-priest, more than two of this name, and both apostles, (whom some make an Armenian patriarch, of the nothing can be plainer, than that that St James sect of Nestorius, but in truth is no other than the apostle, whom St. Paul calls our Lord's the patriarch of Muzal; the remainder, as is pro- brother, and reckons with Peter and John, one of bable, of the ancient Seleucia, and by some, the pillars of the church, was the same that prethough erroneously, styled Babylon,) residing sided among the apostles, (no doubt by virtue of northward in the mountains; who, together with his place,) it being his episcopal chair, and detertwelve cardinals, two patriarchs, and several mined in the Synod at Jerusalem. Nor does bishops, disposes all affairs referring to religion; either Clemens Alexandrinus, or Eusebius out of and to him all the Christians of the east yield him, mention any more than two: St. James, put subjection. They promiscuously admit all to the to death by Herod, and St. James the Just, bishop holy communion, which they receive under both of Jerusalem, whom they expressly affirm to be kinds, of bread and wine; though instead of wine, the same with him whom St. Paul calls the brother which their country affords not, making use of the of our Lord. Once, indeed, Eusebius makes our juice of raisins, steeped one night in water, and St. James one of the seventy, though elsewhere then pressed forth. Children, unless in case of quoting a place of Clemens of Alexandria, he sickness, are not baptized till the fortieth day. At numbers him with the chief of the apostles, and the death of friends, their kindred and relations expressly distinguished him from the seventy diskeep an eight-days' feast in memory of the de- ciples. Nay, St. Jerome, though when representparted. Every Lord's day they have their public ing the opinion of others, he styles him the assemblies for prayer and preaching, their devo- thirteenth apostle, yet elsewhere, when speaking tions being managed with great reverence and his own sense, sufficiently proves that there were solemnity. Their Bible, at least the New Testa- but two, James the son of Zebedee, and the other ment, is in the Syriac language, to the study the son of Alphæus; the one sirnamed the greatwhereof the preachers earnestly exhort the peo-er, the other the less. Besides that the main supple. They observe the times of Advent and Lent, the festivals of our Lord, and many of the saints; those especially that relate to St. Thomas, the Dominica in Albis, or Sunday after Easter, in memory of the famous confession which St. Thomas on that day made of Christ, after he had been sensibly cured of his unbelief; another, on the first of July, celebrated not only by Christians, but by Moors and Pagans, the people who come to his sepulchre on pilgrimage, carrying away a little of the red earth of the place where he was interred, which they keep as an inestimable treasure, and conceit it sovereign against diseases. They have a kind of monasteries of the religious, who live in great abstinence and chastity. Their priests are shaven in fashion of a cross, have leave to marry once, but denied a second time: no marriages to be dissolved, but by death. These rites and customs they solemnly pretend to have derived from the very time of St. Thomas, and with the greatest care and diligence do observe them at this day.*

* In the learned work of La Croze, "Historie du Chistianisme des Judes," much curious information is given on the subject of the first planting of Christianity in those countries which are said to have been converted by the apostles. La Croze himself, however, inclines to the opinion that the Thomas whose memory is received as the first teacher of

port of the other opinion is built upon the authority of Clemen's Recognitions, a book in doubtful cases of no esteem and value.

2. This doubt being removed, we proceed to the history of his life. He was the son (as we may probably conjecture) of Joseph, (afterwards husband of the blessed virgin, and his first wife, whom St. Jerome, from tradition, styles Escha; Hippoletus, bishop of Porto, Salome; and further adds, that she was the daughter of Aggi, brother to Zacharias, father to John the Baptist: hence reputed our Lord's brother, in the same sense that he was reputed the son of Joseph. Indeed we find several spoken of in the history of the gospel, who were Christ's brethren; but in what sense, was controverted of old. St. Jerome, Christianity in the region of Malabar, was not the disciple of Christ, but a certain Manichæan, who obeying the zealous spirit which appears in many instances to have inspired the followers of that great heresiarch, conveyed the doctrines of his Master, as so much of Christianity as was conformable to those doctrines to this distant region. But, after all, there is no improbability in the tradition respecting the journeys of the apostle; and it is on the whole far more reasonable to ascribe the first planting of the gospel in so remote a part of the world to an inspired and divinely appointed, and divinely protected minister of Christ, than to an obscure and bewildered heretic.-ED.