THOMAS, ST., one of the twelve apostles. The name means "twin" in Aramaic, as is recognized in John xi. 16 ("called Didymus"). Eusebius (H .E. iii. 1, 1) says Thomas was the evangelist of "Parthia," probably because Edessa (q.v.), where some of his bones were preserved, is sometimes called "Edessa of the Parthians." These bones were reputed to have been brought to Edessa from India, and a work known as the Acts of Thomas relates his missionary labours and martyrdom there. This work was originally composed in Syriac ; it is indeed one of the oldest and most idiomatic monuments of Syriac literature, though it is very doubtful whether it is based on any historical facts. In the 4th century it was translated into Greek, and thence into Latin, almost certainly as part of the Manichaean propaganda. The Manichaean taint was soon recognised (e.g., by Augustine) and the Acta Thomae in their original form branded as heretical. The view taken was that the framework, recounting the journeyings of the apostle, was historical, while the speeches and sermons con tained the heresy. In consequence most mss., both Greek and Latin, contain very little of the speeches while retaining the framework. Even Wright's Syriac ms. has been occasionally con ventionalized, and the original form is only to be found in the ancient (4th or 5th century) palimpsest fragments at Sinai.
The Acts of Thomas is a leading authority for the earliest Christianity in the countries east of the Euphrates : it was ascetic, marriage being discountenanced and all preoccupation with the things of this world discouraged. In the Acts Eucharistic prayers are given, but (according to the Sinai fragments and the best Greek) only bread and water were used. . The Lord's Prayer is quoted in full. A curious feature is that the name of the apostle is given as Judas Thomas, and it is expressly set forth that he was the twin of Jesus Christ. As a tale the Acts of Thomas is remark able for the real religious emotion that pervades it and for careful delineation of character, but above all for the hymn chanted by the apostle when in prison. This, commonly known as the "Hymn of the Soul" (Wright, pp. 238-245), is a metrical Syriac poem describing, under the parabolic form of the journey of a prince from his Eastern home to Egypt, the descent to earth and the return to its heavenly home of the soul. It is often supposed to be an independent composition inserted into the Acts, but for this there is no real evidence. In any case it is the great gem of Syriac literature.
"Christians of St. Thomas" is a name often applied to the ancient Christian churches of southern India ; the view taken of their history is so intimately connected with the historicity of the Acts of Thomas that it is convenient to treat of them here. According to the tradition, St. Thomas founded the Christian churches in Malabar (south-west coast), and then crossed to Mylapur, now a suburb of Madras, where the shrine of his martyr dom, rebuilt by the Portuguese in 1547, still stands on Mt. St. Thomas, where a cross is shown with a Pahlavi inscription which may be as old as the 7th century. We know from Cosmas Indi copleustes that there were Christians of Persian (East Syrian) origin, and doubtless of Nestorian creed, in Ceylon, in Malabar, and at Caliana (north of Bombay) before 55o. In 1490 they sent to the Nestorian patriarch Simeon, who gave them fresh bishops (Assemani, Bib. Or. iii. 1,590-f., J. Theol. Stud. xxix.
155). Hard pressed by the Muslims they welcomed the Portu guese and, after much controversy, a formal union with Rome was carried through in the Synod of Diamper (1599). Syriac was to remain the ecclesiastical language, but the service books were "purified from error." Dom R. H. Connolly proved in 1914 that this revision was slight in extent, and that the Mali .bar liturgy remained essentially a form of the Nestorian rite. After a century and a half of Jesuit rule a great schism took place in 1653, those who thus became independent of Rome organizing themselves under Jacobite (Monophysite) influence. (The ms. of the whole Syriac Bible and the Clementine literature [12th century] then sent to Malabar from Mesopotamia was brought to Europe by Claudius Buchanan [18i 1] and is now in the Cambridge university library.) Both this Church and the Roman obedience still flourish in Malabar. From what has been said, the ancient Christian communities of southern India would be naturally regarded as a surviving branch of the extensive Nestorian missions, parallel to those which once flourished in Turkestan and China. But the Christians in India have come to regard St. Thomas as their founder and appeal to the Acts of Thomas, or documents derived from that work, in support. It may be remarked that their whole knowl edge of this work seems to be derived from the Latin form of the Acta Thomae. It is claimed that the Acta are historical; and further, that the scene of the Acts is laid in southern India. Un fortunately for this view, the details in the Acts which point to any acquaintance with India at all are connected with the north west and the country between India and Mesopotamia. The Indian King Gundaphar of the Acts is certainly meant for the historical Gondophares, whose dynasty was Parthian, though his realm included regions loosely reckoned to India. But the use of such names does not prove historicity ; the name Ahasuerus does not establish the historicity of the book of Esther. Moreover the greater part of the names in the Acts of Thomas are Mesopo tamian, e.g., the heroine, Mygdonia, is named after the river on which Nisibis stands. In any case there is nothing in these Acts about caste or other prominent features of Indian life. The real value of the Acts of Thomas, as indicated above, is to illustrate the ideas and aspirations of the Christianity, not of India but of upper Mesopotamia, in the 3rd century A.D.
Wright, Apocryphal Acts (Syriac and English), 1871 ; M. Bonnet, Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, ed. 2, 1903 (Greek; E. trans. by M. R. James in The Apocryphal New Testament, pp. 365 438, 1924) ; for the Sinai fragments, A. S. Lewis, Appx. to Acta Myth ologica Apostolorum, pp. 1904. On the "Hymn of the Soul": A. A. Bevan, Texts and Studies v. 3, 1897 ; F. C. Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity (metrical English version, p. 218ff.), 19o4; C. W. Mitchell, St. Ephraim's Refutations, vol. ii., p. cxxix.ff., 1921. On the "Christians of St. Thomas": W. R. Philipps, Indian Antiquary, 1903, xxxii.I-15, 145-160 ; G. Milne Rae, The Syrian Church in India, 1892 ; Bishop Medlycott, India and the Apostle Thomas, 1905 (wholly uncritical) ; T. K. Joseph, Was St. Thomas in South India? 1927 (reprinted from The Young Men of India, July, 1927: a temperate statement from an Indian point of view). On the Malabar Liturgy: R. H. Connolly, J. Theol. Stud. for 1914, xv. 396f., 569f. (F. C. B.)