Antiquitates apoitolicæ, or, The history of the lives, acts and martyrdoms of the holy apostles of our Saviour and the two evangelists SS. Mark and Lvke to which is added an introductory discourse concerning the three great dispensations of the church, patriarchal, Mosiacal and evangelical : being a continuation of Antiquitates christianæ or the life and death of the holy Jesus / by William Cave ...

THE LIFE OF S. THOMAS.

[illustration]

S^t. Thomas.

By the command of an Indian King he was thrust through with lanees. Baron. Martyrolog. Dec. 21

[illustration]

S^t. Thomas his Martyrdom.

Joh. 11.16.

Thomas which is called Didimus said unto his fellow-desciples, Let us also goe, that we may die with him.

The custom of the Jews to have both an Hebrew and a Roman name. S. Tho∣mas his name the same in Syriack and Greek. His Country and Trade. His call to the Apostleship. His great affection to our Saviour. Christ's discourse with him concerning the way to Eternal life. His obstinate refusal to believe our Lord's Resurrection, and the unreasonableness of his Infidelity. Our Lord's convincing him by sensible demonstrations. S. Thomas his deputing Thaddaeus to Abgarus of Edessa. His Travels into Parthia, Media, Per∣sia, &c. Aethiopia, what, and where situate. His coming into India, and the success of his Preaching there. An account of his Acts in India from the relation of the Portugals at their first coming thither. His converting the King of Malipur. The manner of his Martyrdom by the Brachmans. The Miracles said to be done at his Tomb. His Bones dug up by the Portugals.

A Cross, and several Brass Tables with Inscriptions found there. An account of the Indian or S. Thomas-Christians, their Number, State, Rites, and way of life.

1. IT was customary with the Jews, when travelling into foreign Coun∣tries, or familiarly conversing with the Greeks and Romans, to as∣sume to themselves a Greek or a Latin name, of great affinity, and sometimes of the very same signification with that of their own Country. Thus our Lord was called Christ, answering to his Hebrew title Mashiach, or the Anointed; Simon stiled Peter according to that of Cephas, which our Lord put upon him: Tabitha called Dorcas, both signifying a Goat: Thus our S. Thomas according to the Syriack importance of his name, had the title of Didymus, which signifies a Twin. Thomas which is called Didymus. Ac∣cordingly the Syriack Version renders it, Thauma, which is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Thamae, that is, a Twin: The not understanding whereof imposed upon Nonnus the Greek Paraphrast, who makes him 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, to have had two distinct names,

— 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.* 1.1 —

it being but the same name expressed in different Languages. The History of the Gospel takes no particular notice either of the Country or Kindred of this Apostle. That he was a Jew is certain, and in all probability a Galile∣an: He was born (if we may believe * 1.2 Symeon Metaphrastes) of very mean Parents, who brought him up to the trade of Fishing, but withall took care to give him a more useful education, instructing him in the knowledge of the Scriptures, whereby he learnt wisely to govern his life and manners. He was together with the rest called to the Apostleship, and not long after gave an eminent instance of his hearty willingness to undergo the saddest fate that might attend them. For when the rest of the Apostles disswaded our Saviour from going into Judaea (whither he was now resolved for the raising his dear Lazarus lately dead) lest the Jews should stone him, as but a little before they had attempted it, S. Thomas desires them not to hinder Christ's journey thither, though it might cost their lives, Let us also go that we may die with him,* 1.3 probably concluding, that instead of raising Lazarus from the dead, they themselves should be sent with him to their own Graves. So that he made up in pious affections, what he seemed to want in the quickness and acumen of his understanding, not readily apprehending some of our Lord's discourses, nor over-forward to believe more than him∣self 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 go∣ing to prepare, that they might follow him, that they knew both the place whither he was going,* 1.4 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 li∣ving way, the person whom the Father had sent into the World to shew men the paths of Eternal life, and that they could not miss of Heaven, if they did but keep to that way, which he had prescribed and chalked out before them.

2. OUR Lord being dead, 'tis evident how much the Apostles were di∣stracted between hopes and fears concerning his Resurrection, not yet fully satisfied about it: Which engaged him the sooner to hasten his appearance, that by the sensible manifestations of himself he might put the case beyond all possibilities of dispute.* 1.5 The very day whereon he arose he came into the house where they were, while for fear of the Jews the doors were yet fast shut about them, and gave them sufficient assurance that he was really risen from the dead. At this meeting S. Thomas was absent, having probably ne∣ver recovered their company, since their last dispersion in the Garden, when every ones fears prompted him to consult his own safety. At his return they told him that their Lord had appeared to them; but he obstinately refused to give credit to what they said, or to believe that it was he, presuming it rather a phantasm or mere apparition, unless he might see the very prints of the Nails, and feel the Wounds in his hands and sides. A strange piece of infidelity! Was this any more than what Moses and the Prophets had long since foretold? had not our Lord frequently told them in plain terms that he must rise again the third day? could he question the possibility of it, who had so often seen him do the greatest miracles? was it reasonable to reject the testimony of so many eye-witnesses, ten to one against himself, and of whose fidelity he was assured? or could he think that either themselves should be deceived, or that they would jest and trifle with him in so solemn and serious a matter? A stubbornness that might have betrayed him into an eternal in∣fidelity. But our compassionate Saviour would not take the advantage of the mans refractory unbelief, but on that day sevennight again came to them, as they were solemnly met at their devotions, and calling to Thomas, bad him look upon his hands, put his fingers into the prints of the Nails, and thrust his hand into the hole of his side, and satisfie his faith by a de∣monstration from sense. The man was quickly convinced of his error and obstinacy, confessing that he now acknowledged him to be his very Lord and Master, a God omnipotent, that was thus able to rescue himself from the powers of death. Our Lord replied no more, than that it was well he believed his own senses, but that it was a more noble and commendable act of Faith to acquiesce in a rational evidence, and to entertain the doctrines and relations of the Gospel upon such testimonies and assurances of the truth of things, as will satisfie a wise and sober man, though he did not see them with his own eyes.

3. THE Blessed Jesus being gone to Heaven, and having eminently gi∣ven gifts and miraculous powers to the Apostles, S. Thomas moved thereto by some Divine intimation, is * 1.6 said to have dispatched Thaddaeus, one of the Seventy Disciples to Abgarus Toparch of Edessa, (between whom and our Saviour the letters commonly said to have passed are still extant in Euse∣bius) whom he first cured of an inveterate distemper, and after converted him and his subjects to the Faith. The Apostoli∣cal Province assigned to S. Thomas (as * 1.7 Origen tells us) was Parthia, after which ‖ 1.8 Sophronius and others inform us, that he preached the Gospel to the Medes, Persians, Carmans, Hyrcani, Bactri∣ans, and the neighbour Nations. In Persia, one of the * 1.9 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 baptized, and took along with him as his compa∣nions and assistants in the propagation of the Gospel. Hence he preached in and passed through ‖ 1.10 Aethiopia, that is, (that we may a little clear this

by the way) the Asian Aethiopia, conterminous to, if not the same with Chaldaea, whence ‖ 1.11 Tacitus does not only make the Jews descendents from the Aethiopians, as whose Ancestors came from Ur of the Chaldeans; but * 1.12 Hesychius makes the inhabitants of Zagrus, a mountain beyond Tygris, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, a people of the Aethiopians; this is the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 mention∣ed by Benjamin the Jew in his ‖ 1.13 Itinerary, the land of Cush or Aethiopia, the inhabitants whereof are stiled by * 1.14 Herodotus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the oriental Aethiopians, by way of distinction from those 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, who lived South of Aegypt, and were under the same military Prefecture with the Arabians, under the command of Arsames, as the other were joyn∣ed with the Indians, and in the same place are called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the Asian Aethiopians. Having travelled through these Countries, he at last came to India. We are told by ‖ 1.15 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 deformed, 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 Prachmans, preaching every where with all the arts of gentleness and mild * 1.16 perswa∣sives, not flying out into tart invectives, and furious heats against their ido∣latrous practices, but calmly instructing them in the principles of Christiani∣ty, by degrees perswading them to renounce 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 be∣lief and entertainment of Religion.

4. IN want of better evidence from Antiquity, it may not be amiss to enquire, what account the Portugals in their first discoveries of these Coun∣tries, received of these matters, partly from ancient Monuments and Wri∣tings, partly from constant and uncontrolled Traditions, which the Christi∣ans whom they found in those parts, preserved amongst them. They tell * 1.17 us, that S. Thomas came first to Socotora, an Island in the Arabian Sea, thence to Cranganor, where having converted many, he travelled futher in∣to the East, and having successfully preached the Gospel, returned back into the Kingdom of Cormandel, where at Malipur, the Metropolis of the King∣dom, not far from the influx of Ganges into the Gulph of Bengala, he began to erect a place for Divine worship, till prohibited by the Priests, and Saga∣mo, 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 sub∣jects. 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 arm∣ed 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 fabrick of great stateliness and magnificence. Gregory of * 1.18 Tours relates many miracles done upon the annual solemnities of his Mar∣tyrdom, 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 any Fewel to feed and nourish it, the light whereof was never diminished, nor by wind or any o∣ther 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 enquire. Some will have his Body to have been after∣wards 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 ‖ 1.19 relations) it was after dug up with great cost and care at the command of Don Emmanuel 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 first Vice Roys in India under John the Third, King of Portugal, resided in these Parts,* 1.20 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 con∣tain nothing but a donation made to S. Thomas, whereby the King, who then reign'd, granted to him a piece of ground for the building of a Church. They tell us also of a famous Cross found in S. Thomas his Chappel at Mali∣pur, wherein was an unintelligible Inscription, which by a Learned Bramin (whom they compelled to read and expound it) gave an account to this ef∣fect, 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 bloud had been left as a memorial of these matters. An interpretation that was afterwards confir∣med by another 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 themselves, which for my part as I cannot certainly affirm to be true, so I will not utterly conclude them to be false.

6. FROM these first plantations of Christianity in the Eastern India's by our Apostle, there is said to have been a continued series and succession of Christians (hence called S. Thomas-Christians) in those Parts unto this day. The Portugals at their first arrival here found them in great numbers in seve∣ral places, no less, as some tell us, than fifteen or sixteen thousand Families. They are very poor, and their Churches generally mean and sordid, wherein they had no Images of Saints, nor any representations but that of the Cross;* 1.21 they are governed in Spirituals by an High-Priest (whom some make an Armenian Patriarch, of the Sect of Nestorius, but in truth is no other than the Patriarch of Muzal, the remainder, as is probable, of the ancient Selencia, and by some, though erroneously, stiled Babylon) re∣siding North-ward in the Mountains, who, together with twelve Cardinals, two Patriarchs, and several Bishops, disposes of all affairs referring to Religi∣on; and to him all the Christians of the East yield subjection. They pro∣miscuously admit all to the Holy Communion, which they receive under both kinds of Bread and Wine, though instead of Wine, which their Coun∣try affords not, making use of the juice of Raisons, steep'd one Night in Water, and then pressed forth. Children, unless in case of sickness, are not

baptized till the Fortieth day. At the death of Friends, their kindred and relations keep an Eight-days feast in memory of the departed. Every Lord's day they have their publick Assemblies for Prayer and Preaching, their de∣votions being managed with great reverence and solemnity. Their Bible, at least the New Testament, is in the Syriack Language, to the study where∣of the Preachers earnestly exhort the People. They observe the times of Advent and Lent, the Festivals of our Lord, and many of the Saints, those especially that relate to S. Thomas, the Dominica in Albis, or Sunday after Easter, in memory of the famous confession which S. 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 soveraign against Diseases. They have a kind of Monasteries of the Religious, who live in great abstinence and cha∣stity. 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 S. Thomas, and with the greatest care and diligence do observe them at this Day.

The End of S. Thomas's Life.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Nonn. Panop. in Joan. c. 11.
• * 1.2

  Apud Sur. ad diem 21. Decemb. n. 2.
• * 1.3

  John 11.16.
• * 1.4

  John 14.5.
• * 1.5

  John 20.19.
• * 1.6

  Euseb. lib. 1. c. 13. p. 32. & lib. 2. c. 1. p. 39.
• * 1.7

  Lib. 3. in Gen. ap. Euseb. lib. 3. c. 1. p. 71. Socr. lib. 1. c. 19. Clem. Recognit. lib. 9. p. 101. fac. 2.
• ‖ 1.8

  Ap. Hier. de Script. in Thoma. Theod. de Leg. Serm 9.
• * 1.9

  Auth. Oper. Imperf. in Matth. ap. Chrysost. Hom. 2. p. 776.
• ‖ 1.10

  Chrysost. Serm. in XII. App. T. 6. p. 269.
• ‖ 1.11

  Hist. lib. 5. c. 2. p. 534.
• * 1.12

  Hesych. in voc. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• ‖ 1.13

  Itin. D. Benj. Tud. p. 98.
• * 1.14

  Lib 7. c. 69, 70, p. 408.
• ‖ 1.15

  H. Eccl. l. 2. c. 40. p. 201.
• * 1.16

  S. Metaphr. ad 21. Decem. n. 8, 9.
• * 1.17

  Mass. Histor. Indic. lib. 2. p. 85.
• * 1.18

  De glor. Martyr. lib. 1. cap. 32. p. 41.
• ‖ 1.19

  Mass. ib. lib. 8. p. 363.
• * 1.20

  Osor. de reb. Emman. lib. 3. p. 120.
• * 1.21

  Osor. ibid. p. 119. & seq. Mass. lib. 2. p. 88. Jo∣seph. Ind. Navig. inter Relat. Nov. Orb. c. 133, 134 p. 204. vid. M. Paul Ven. lib. 3. c. 17. ibid. p. 394.