The Apostle Thomas has, over time, become almost universally identified with the name "Doubter," because of his notorious initial refusal to believe in Christ's Resurrection. Although this was undoubtedly a key and defining point in Thomas' lifetime, the concentration on this event can also have the unfortunate effect of obscuring the rest of Thomas' apostolic life. There is actually a substantial amount of information on his work, which seems primarily to have been done in India. This essay will first review some of what can be learned about Thomas personally, particularly from the biblical references to him, and summarize a few of the stronger points of evidence for the historical reality of his apostolate in India, and then concentrate on giving as accurate as possible an account of his mission there and its significance.

There is little personal background information to be given about Thomas outside the gospels, so it is necessary to rely heavily on scriptural evidence to form an idea of what kind of person he was. Tradition indicates that he was a Jew born in Galilee and an architect or carpenter, probably close in age to Jesus. He might have been a follower of John the Baptist before his call to be an Apostle.[1] His full name was Judas Thomas, and he was sometimes referred to as Didymus, the Greek synonym for the Syriac word Thomas, both words meaning "twin."[2]

Only John out of the four evangelists wrote anything in his Gospel concerning Thomas other than his name. John referred briefly to statements by Thomas three times. The first of these was when Jesus had just told the Apostles of the death of Lazarus and was insisting that He would go into Judea. The Apostles were generally resistant because it was recognized that Judea would be a dangerous place for Jesus and for them. However, Thomas said simply "Let us also go, that we may die with him."[3] On the surface, this might be considered a pessimistic attitude, but in reality it merely reflected a realistic practicality and a certain amount of courage, since Jesus was essentially walking into His death by going anywhere near Jerusalem, and everyone around Him would have understood the seriousness of the danger.[4] The second quote from Thomas was at the Last Supper, where he said to Jesus "Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?"[5] This question, though understandable, and probably something that was in the minds of the other Apostles as well, indicated a lack of understanding that one can suppose might have caused the later disbelief in the Resurrection that would become Thomas' most famous action.

On the occasion of Christ's first appearance to his Apostles after His Resurrection, Thomas was the only Apostle not present. No reason was given for his absence, but it would seem that he must have been a somewhat solitary person by nature to cut himself off from the group in this way after the Crucifixion. When the rest of the Apostles told him that they had seen Jesus, he replied "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe."[6] This statement in itself implies through the mention of physical tests that Thomas' problem was not an outright lack of belief in Christ but a stubborn insistence on absolute proof for everything. It would have been more impressive, of course, if he had believed immediately, but before condemning his attitude it should be remembered that the rest of the Apostles already possessed the physical evidence he was demanding. They too had not believed until they actually saw Jesus. Thomas, like the other Apostles, was probably very depressed before he actually saw the risen Jesus. He had based his entire life around Jesus, only to have all the meaning and hope in his life devastated by the death of Jesus. Thomas probably did not want to allow himself to believe that all that could be restored, fearing that his hopes would only be painfully dashed again if the other Apostles were wrong about having seen Jesus. With this in mind Thomas' requirements for his belief do not appear entirely unreasonable and his stubborn realism, while perhaps a fault, also has a positive aspect in it. One must also always remember that Thomas, when he actually saw the Lord, immediately abandoned his disbelief and demands for physical tests, and recognized the truth about Jesus, responding to Him in faith as "My Lord and My God."[7]

From the scripture passages mentioning Thomas a faint idea of his personality can be gained. While the individual personality traits of a given person might not have had a great deal of historical significance in themselves, trying to get at least some faint idea of personality is not unimportant. The character of a person is central to an understanding of his accomplishments and his aptness for his mission in life. The sketch of the character of Thomas that is perceivable shows a solitary man who obstinately insisted on basic proof for anything and questioned anything which had not been proven to him, or had not been proven in a way that he understood.[8] These characteristics, whether good or bad, were in a certain sense adapted to his mission. Almost all of his evangelizing would be done in India, an area with a completely different cultural history. He would probably be expected to support his teaching more effectively and on a more fundamental level than if he had at least been preaching to people with similar backgrounds to his own. Furthermore, on his mission to this land of completely foreign ideas, Thomas, the Apostle who was cut off from the other Apostles when Jesus appeared to them, would be once again alone, though this time with his faith to sustain him.[9]

It is necessary to recognize the fact that the question of whether this mission to India ever even occurred is still considered unsettled by some historians. However, the traditions of the Saint Thomas Christians in India, the written records that are intact concerning Thomas' apostolate, and the entire tradition of the early Church all support the contention that Thomas' evangelization did take place principally in India. In this light, it would seem that the burden of proof lies more with those who would wish to disprove the traditions held for centuries by the Christians in India, and there simply is no contradictory evidence to support such a disproof, unless one considers as evidence the idea that the traditions are improbable in and of themselves, which is unreasonable.[10] Even Leslie W. Brown, one of the principal modern opponents of these traditions and therefore perhaps not entirely impartial in his view, indirectly supported this conclusion by admitting, in connection with his questioning of the traditional placement of the death of Thomas in south India, that this tradition was not disproven: "The tradition of St Thomas's death in south India is not entirely disproved, and no other place in the world claims the event . . . the presence of Christians of undoubtedly ancient origin holding firmly to the tradition may for some incline the to belief that the truth of the tradition is a reasonable probability."[11] In the absence of real indications to the contrary, however, the mission of Thomas to India is more than just "a reasonable probability," and so it is not only possible but also entirely reasonable to try to gain a more detailed idea of the events of this mission.

The story of Thomas' apostolate insofar as some type of record of it is available really began at about the time of the dispersion of the Apostles in 42 A.D. Up until that time he had presumably been preaching in the area of Jerusalem like the other Apostles. There are somewhat vague traditions linking Thomas to evangelization in Osroene, a region to the north of Palestine, as well as Armenia and Syria, and stronger traditions in areas in and around Mesopatamia. Such evangelization by Thomas, to whatever extent it actually occurred, likely was done during this approximate time period. It could have been done either before he actually started for India or on his way to India, if that journey was made over land. In any case, none of these areas was his final goal, and Thomas probably did not spend a great deal of time in any of them before the beginning of his Indian mission.[12]

It is not clear exactly when, but at some point after the dispersion of the Apostles Thomas came in contact with a merchant named Habban, in all probability a Jew. This merchant was looking for a carpenter for King Gundofarr, a Parthian king in Taxila in what is now northwestern India, and Thomas offered to go with him. Legend indicates that Thomas was very reluctant to go to India, which apparently had been assigned to him in some manner, but this is not at all well established and may be only an attitude assigned to him because of his earlier lack of faith.[13]

It is a matter of some question whether Thomas reached the kingdom of Gundofarr by land or by sea. The apocryphal "Acts of Thomas," an important source of information about Thomas' preaching, record that he went by sea, stopping at a city named Sandaruk-Adranopolis on the way to attend a wedding feast where he converted the new husband and wife.[14] However, some of the communities of Christians that appeared in areas his land route would have passed through have always traced their origins to Thomas, suggesting that perhaps he did go by land. The most likely explanation is that he did both, traveling by land part of the way but also crossing the Persian Gulf from Mesopatamia to get to Gundofarr's kingdom.[15] In any case, Thomas must have actually arrived at Taxila, the capital of Gundofarr's kingdom in northwestern India, in the late 40s. Thomas might have purposely decided to make his main start for his apostolate specifically in Taxila because it had a significant Jewish community, and the Apostles generally started by preaching to the Jews and then moved on to the Gentiles. Taxila would also have been advantageous in that it was, relative to that time and place, an almost cosmopolitan trade city, and it was ruled by Gundofarr, a Parthian and culturally a Westerner.[16]

Thomas had actually come to Taxila as a carpenter for Gundofarr, who soon appointed Thomas to build a palace for him. According to the "Acts of Thomas," however, Thomas spent the money he was given to build the palace in order to preach and to help the poor, with the justification that he had built Gundofarr a great palace in heaven. Gundofarr was enraged by this and imprisoned Thomas and Habban, but later relented, allegedly because his dead brother Gad returned to tell him of the great palace he had seen built for him in the afterlife. If this story is true, it might have been the occasion for the conversion of Gundofarr, who was originally a follower of the evil goddess Shiva.[17] Other than this account, nothing further is known about Thomas' time in Taxila except that he made some converts and established a Christian community there. This time would also conveniently have given him an opportunity to develop a familiarity with the culture, language, and religion of India without yet isolating himself too much from Western civilization. This is important because Thomas doubtless intended from the first eventually to go deeper into India.[18]

In or shortly before the year 50 Thomas left Taxila. Thomas likely did not intend ever to return, considering a quote attributed to his final sermon there: "I am now departing from you, and it appears not if I shall again see you according to the flesh." He put the Christian community there under the care of the deacon Xantippus, or Gaurasva, a name meaning "auburn horse." Unfortunately, Kushan invaders out of China came down into the kingdom of Gundofarr shortly afterward and their destruction of Taxila left no trace remaining of the newly formed Christian community there.[19]

Thomas probably left Taxila in order to go to Jerusalem, the occasion being the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the subsequent holding of the Apostolic Council in Jerusalem in the year 50. There is no written record or tradition from that time precisely mentioning such a journey to Jerusalem, but it is simply hard to imagine why Thomas would not have attended the Apostolic Council, at which all the living Apostles were probably present.[20] It would even seem that the Apostolic Council, in that it dealt principally with the question of whether Gentile converts should be forced to follow Jewish law, would have been of special importance to Thomas, who was trying to gain converts among people in India, many of whom would have no familiarity with Judaism. In addition, it was around this time that Thomas changed his area of evangelization to southern India, and it would have been logical for him to return to Jerusalem before proceeding on this new phase of his mission in that area.[21]

After the Apostolic Council Thomas once again set out for India, but this time his goal was southern India, an area with far less Western contact than Taxila. On this journey the "Acts of Thomas" again seems to say that he went by land, but the account in that text seems somewhat confused at this point. It also indicates that he went straight to southern India from northern India and was killed their soon afterwards by an Indian king, which is quite clearly a false chain of events considering other evidence.[22] In reality, there is virtually no doubt that he traveled primarily by sea. It might have been on this journey that he stopped in Ethiopia, since tradition also holds that he preached in that area.[23] More significantly, the sea route he took brought him by the island of Socotra, where he stopped for some unknown amount of time. There was little or no permanent record made of specific actions of Thomas on Socotra, and there was not a large enough gap in his life at this point to allow for a very long time there. Nevertheless, he must have been quite active, because he left a significant number of Christians on the island when he continued on to the coast of India itself.[24]

Thomas arrived in India on the Malabar coast in the year 52, probably late in that year if one assumes that he remained about a year in Socotra. The Malabar coast is the southwest coast of India. Thomas landed at Cranganore, the major port in that area at the time. From then until the year 69 he remained in the area of the Malabar coast, traveling from town to town and preaching with spectacular results considering the completely foreign environment he was attempting to penetrate with the message of Christ.[25] He converted the king in Cranganore, who took the new name Andrew and whose nephew Keppa was eventually ordained a priest by Thomas, and traditions indicate the conversion of some other rulers as well.[26] In these seventeen years Thomas is thought to have converted approximately twenty thousand people, including quite a substantial number of Brahmins. His success was so great that there was apparently some fear among the Brahmins that Christianity would supplant Hinduism as the principal religion in that area of India.[27] He is credited with the founding of seven churches. There is some dispute about the locations of these churches, but they were probably placed in the towns of Cranganore, Palayur, Kottakkavu, Kokkamangalam, Niranam, Chayal and Quilon. All of these places were near enough to Cranganore to make it very practical to preach there, although Niranam, Chayal, and Quilon were not in the kingdom of Keralaputra that contained Cranganore, but rather in the neighboring kingdom of Pandian.[28]

It has been suggested that the number seven in reference to the churches founded was only used here symbolically, as it has been in other contexts, and the cities were selected to meet that number. However, the specific stories from some of these communities make that unlikely. For example, in Palayur, one of the nearest towns to Cranganore, so many people were converted, particularly among the Brahmins, that the remaining unconverted Brahmins decided to leave. They fled to the nearby town of Vemmanat and cursed the Palayur locality. Similar events took place in Niranam. These cases are especially noteworthy because they were recorded by the Hindu Brahmins as well as the Christians, with very specific mention of Thomas.[29] In Quilon, a small town the precise location of which has never been discovered in Pandian, and which may now be covered by the Indian Ocean, the specific number of converts was given as fourteen hundred.[30] In addition to these stories, each of the towns, except those that no longer exist, have individual traditions about the actual building of the church itself by Saint Thomas. In fact, it is said that the remains of his churches can still be seen in some places, specifically at Kottakkavu and Niranam.[31]

Not surprisingly, countless legends about Thomas, mostly unreliable, have been found in the Malabar coast, the only place where original Saint Thomas Christians have always remained in significant numbers. These generally concern miracles performed by Thomas, places visited by Thomas and structures set up by Thomas. Despite their individual unreliability, there is one interesting theme that is stressed strongly enough in some stories of buildings and miracles by Thomas to be considered probably true, that being that he apparently used a cross as a symbol.[32] The cross was not adopted for widespread use in Christianity until Constantine banned punishment by crucifixion in the fourth century. This fact has been pointed to by some as proof that these legends, and therefore the Christian communities holding to them, must be of a later date than was originally thought.[33] This is not a reasonable conclusion though, because these same people were also calling themselves "Nazrani," the name believers in Jesus used for themselves during the apostolic period, centuries after the term "Christians" had come into almost universal use, so their conversion clearly did take place during the apostolic period.[34] It must be assumed, then, that Thomas really did use the cross regularly as a symbol. The remarkable point, worthy of special mention in discussing his evangelization on the Malabar coast, is that he did this over two hundred years before others took up the practice. It is possible that he would have felt more free than other early Christians to use the cross as a symbol in his area of work, so far from the influence of the Roman Empire, where crosses were associated with criminals.

In the year 68 a Jewish community was established in Cranganore. They were probably the first substantial group of Westerners permanently established in India that Thomas had come in contact with since his arrival in southern India in the year 52, and he did succeed in gaining some converts among them. The very next year, however, Thomas left the Malabar coast. He placed Keppa, the king's nephew who had been ordained, in charge of the Christian community on the Malabar coast.[35] There is some evidence that at this point Thomas moved out of India itself and preached for a short time in the area of Burma and Malaysia. There is even speculation that Thomas actually penetrated deep into China, perhaps as far as Peking.[36] The idea that he reached Peking, while it cannot perhaps be disproven, is highly improbable given the small amount of time that remained in Thomas' life at this point, and the tradition that he spent most of that time in southeastern India.

When Thomas finally crossed over to the Coromandel coast of southeastern India, he was at least sixty years old and probably older. That made him a fairly elderly man, especially for that time period, but despite his age he immediately started his attempt to build up a Christian community in that area just as he had on the Malabar coast. He did not fully succeed in that goal, although he did convert at least one king in that region, and presumably many other people as well. Unfortunately, few specifics are known as to even approximately how many he converted in this area, and there are not even any reliable anecdotal stories like those found in his other areas of work to give an idea of his impact. However, his preaching must have once again been successful, because the Hindu Brahmins in the area became very angry over the large amount of the conversions from Hinduism to Christianity. Thomas continued to work in and around Mylapore until the year 72, when the anger and fear of the Brahmins climaxed in his martyrdom twenty years after he began his work in southern India.[37]

Thomas probably was not particularly surprised at his martyrdom. In retrospect it is almost surprising that it did not happen sooner. A man preaching a strange religion the principles of which were so radically different from Hinduism could not possibly be so successful without arousing the jealousy of the Brahmins. It is true that the Brahmins had a reputation for tolerance of preachers of other religions, and local traditions also indicate that even many Hindus in India respected Thomas, but it was still almost inevitable that some Brahmins would act, as they probably saw it, to defend their power and prestige. The fury of these Brahmins at some point rose to such an extent that Thomas considered it prudent to temporarily remove himself from Mylapore until their tempers cooled. He therefore withdrew a few miles out of town to hide in a cave on a small hill called the Little Mount.[38] However, some of the Brahmins from the nearby temple of Kali, the goddess of death, discovered his hiding place. They, along with those of the populace whom they could rouse against Thomas, went out to kill him. Finding Thomas in his cave praying, one of the Brahmins ran a spear through his heart.[39] According to one account, at the moment of his death Thomas said, with a partial echo back to the last words of Jesus before death, "Lord, I thank Thee for all Thy mercies. Into Thy hands I commend my spirit."[40]

Saint Thomas was buried at Mylapore. This is not by any means a universally accepted fact among academics studying the issue, but it is accepted on the Malabar coast, and that alone almost establishes its truth. A.E. Medlycott summed up the reasoning behind this conclusion:

If the claim of Mylapore to be the place . . . of the burial of the Apostle was not based on undeniable fact, the Christians of Malabar would never have acknowledged their neighbours' claim to hold the tomb of the Apostle, neither would they ever be induced to frequent it by way of pilgrimage. Had this been a case of a fictitious claim put forth to secure public notoriety and importance, they would as probably have, anyway, set up one for themselves, and would have certainly ignored the claim of the former.[41]

This is more especially the case since a persecution shortly after Thomas' death forced most of the converts he had made on the Coromandel coast to flee to the Malabar coast, thus consolidating the community of Saint Thomas Christians in that area.[42] Yet, the southern Indian tradition still places his burial at Mylapore. At Mylapore his tomb was in a church, and Christians have constantly venerated it from the time of his burial. He was doubtless originally entombed complete, and apparently also with the lance head that killed him and some earth soaked with his blood. However, parts of his body were later removed, sometime before the year 393, and quite possibly much earlier than that, and placed in the church dedicated to him in Edessa.[43]

One rather strange, although perhaps not particularly significant, effect following upon Thomas' life should be mentioned here. There was an astonishing amount of apocryphal literature attributed to Thomas or about his life, considering that he was not even one of the best-known Apostles. There was never any evidence that Thomas ever did in fact write anything at all, but that did not prevent his name being put on various writings. Some of these writings, although apocryphal, are still valuable. The "Acts of Thomas" was written by a gnostic and is filled with gnostic tendencies, but the events described in a general way, except those that hint at gnostic beliefs, probably really occurred. The writer, if he had fabricated the whole story, presumably would have been ridiculed at that time by others who knew the truth.[44] Other examples of writings falsely attributed to Saint Thomas are the gnostic "Gospel of Thomas" and the apocalyptic "Epistle of Our Lord Jesus Christ to the Disciple Thomas." There has also been a legend that Thomas, at the direction of Christ, wrote the "Epistle of the Lord to King Abgar of Edessa." This is not impossible, but even the letter itself is of doubtful historical authenticity.[45]

Although it seems that none of the writings left in his name were authentic, the conversions made by Saint Thomas were authentic. The sincerity of his converts is evident in the very fact that India did not simply swallow them up, leaving no trace of his work, as that country has a tendency to do to any movement. Sadly, as was mentioned earlier, the community around Taxila was destroyed by Kushans and most of the community around Mylapore was driven out by persecution, both events occurring relatively soon after his ministry in those places. Later visitors to India, however, including the famous Venetian traveler Marco Polo, the Franciscan missionary to China Friar John of Corvino, and eventually Saint Francis Xavier, who maintained and expanded the effects of Thomas, all testified to the continued existence of Christianity on Socotra and a flourishing Christianity on the Malabar coast.[46] The descendants of Thomas' converts on Socotra were eventually wiped out by the Muslims.[47] Only on the Malabar coast did his community survive. It is there to this day, and while some of the Saint Thomas Christians are separated from the Catholic Church, many are in full union with the Church, including seven hundred thousand who were reunited in 1937.[48]

It should be obvious that Thomas the Apostle was far more than just the "Doubter." One can hardly imagine a nation in which Christianity in the first century would have seemed less likely to have an impact than India, but nevertheless, as has been shown, Thomas' apostolic work there had a profound impact that continues to this day. Not only was his work effective, but Thomas also probably traveled further than any other Apostle in spreading the message of Christ. Not only did he cover three areas of India and an island off the coast, but also he apparently stopped in northern Africa for a short time, traveled through parts of the Middle East, and possibly even penetrated Southeast Asia. It seems almost as if Thomas, having once doubted, was, after he believed, consumed with a zeal for his apostolic work that only gained strength from the fact of his original doubt. Motivated by this zeal and being a man uniquely fitted in character for his area of work, Saint Thomas the Apostle completely fulfilled his apostolic mission and, despite the remoteness of his area of work, became a tremendously successful missionary in the early Church.

Bibliography

Brown, Leslie. The Indian Christians of St. Thomas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956.

Carroll, Warren H. The Founding of Christendom. Vol. 1, A History of Christendom. Front Royal, VA: Christendom Press, 1985.

George, V.C. Apostolate and Martyrdom of St. Thomas. Bombay, India: St. Paul Publications, 1964.

Hophan, Otto. The Apostles. London: Sands & Company, 1962.

Howard, George Broadley. The Christians of St. Thomas and Their Liturgies. Oxford: John Henry and James Parker, 1864.

Medlycott, A.E. India and the Apostle Thomas. London: David Nutt, 1905.

Moraes, George Mark. A History of Christianity in India, A.D. 52-1542. Bombay, India: P.C. Manaktala and Sons, 1964.

Mundadan, A. Mathias. Sixteenth Century Traditions of St. Thomas Christians. Bangalore, India: Dharmaram College, 1970.

Perumalil, A.C. The Apostles in India. Bangalore, India: Xavier Teachers' Training Institute, 1971.

Podipara, Placid J. The Thomas Christians. Bombay, India: St. Paul Publications, 1970.

Ruffin, C. Bernard. The Twelve: the Lives of the Apostles After Calvary. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1984.

Notes

[1] V.C. George, Apostolate and Martyrdom of St. Thomas (Bombay, India: St. Paul Publications, 1964), 17.

[2] Otto Hophan, The Apostles (London: Sands & Company, 1962), 202.

[3] John 11:12-16 RSV.

[4] C. Bernard Ruffin, The Twelve: the Lives of the Apostles After Calvary (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1984), 120.

[5] John 14:5 RSV.

[6] John 20:24-25 RSV.

[7] Ruffin, 121-122; John 20:28 RSV.

[8] Hophan, 205.

[9] Warren H. Carroll, The Founding of Christendom, vol. 1, A History of Christendom (Front Royal, VA: Christendom Press, 1985), 378.

[10] A.E. Medlycott, India and the Apostle Thomas (London: David Nutt, 1905), 149-150.

[11] Leslie Brown, The Indian Christians of St. Thomas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), 59.

[12] George, 63-65.

[13] George Mark Moraes, A History of Christianity in India, A.D. 52-1542 (Bombay, India: P.C. Manaktala and Sons, 1964), 25.

[14] Ibid., 26.

[15] George, 70.

[16] Moraes, 28-29.

[17] Ibid., 26.

[18] Carroll, 407-408.

[19] Moraes, 32-34.

[20] Carroll, 414.

[21] Moraes, 34.

[22] Ibid., 26.

[23] George, 102.

[24] A.C. Perumalil, The Apostles in India (Bangalore, India: Xavier Teachers' Training Institute, 1971), 93.

[25] George Broadley Howard, The Christians of St. Thomas and Liturgies (Oxford: John Henry and James Parker, 1864), 9.

[26] Brown, 49.

[27] Ruffin, 132-133.

[28] Perumalil, 99-101.

[29] Ibid., 94-95.

[30] Brown, 49.

[31] Howard, 9.

[32] A. Mathias Mundadan, Sixteenth Century Traditions of St. Thomas Christians (Bangalore, India: Dharmaram College, 1970), 97-98.

[33] Brown, 52.

[34] Perumalil, 97.

[35] Brown, 62.

[36] George, 132.

[37] Moraes, 41.

[38] Howard, 12.

[39] Carroll, 419.

[40] Ruffin, 133-134.

[41] Medlycott, 134.

[42] Ibid.

[43] Placid J. Podipara, The Thomas Christians (Bombay, India: St. Paul Publications, 1970), 23-25.

[44] Moraes, 27.

[45] Hophan, 214.

[46] Medlycott, 84-87.

[47] Carroll, 418.

[48] Hophan, 212.