Thomas the Apostle

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Thomas the Apostle : biography

1st century AD – AD 72

Image:Gondophares19.jpg|Coin of Gondophares IV Sases (mid-1st century). Obv: King on horseback, corrupted Greek legend. Gondophares monogram. Rev: Zeus, making a benediction sign (Buddhist mudra). Kharoshthi inscription MAHARAJASA MAHATASA TRATARASA DEVAVRADASA GUDAPHARASA SASASA "Great king of kings, divine and saviour, Gondophares Sases", Buddhist trisula symbol. Image:ShrineOfSaintThomasAtMeliapore18thCentury.jpg|Shrine of Saint Thomas in Mylapore, 18th century print. Image:St Thomas Stamp.jpg|Stamp issued in the honor of St. Thomas by India Post

Tomb

The Indian tradition, in which elements of the traditions of Malabar, Coromandel and the Persian Church intermingled, held that Thomas the Apostle died near the ancient town of Mylapore, where the San Thome Basilica is now sited. In the thirteenth century, what was said to be his relics were moved to the town of Ortona, in Abruzzo, Italy, where they are now buried in the church of St. Thomas the Apostle. On 27 September 2006, Pope Benedict XVI recalled that "an ancient tradition claims that Thomas first evangelized Syria and Persia (mentioned by Origen, according to Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 3, 1) then went on to Western India (cf. Acts of Thomas 1–2 and 17ff.), from where also he finally reached Southern India."General Audience in St Peter’s Square on 27 September 2006 http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20060927_en.html retrieved 01/05/2011

Thomas in the Gospel of John

Thomas speaks in the Gospel of John. In , when Lazarus has just died, the apostles do not wish to go back to Judea, where Jews had attempted to stone Jesus. Thomas says: "Let us also go, that we may die with him" (NIV).

He speaks again in . There, Jesus has just explained that he is going away to prepare a heavenly home for his followers, and that one day they will join him there. Thomas reacts by saying, "Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" (NIV)

tells how Thomas was skeptical at first when he heard that Jesus had appeared to the other apostles, saying, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe." (NIV, v.25) But when Jesus appeared later and offered to let Thomas see and touch his wounds, Thomas showed his belief by proclaiming, "My Lord and my God!" (NIV, v.28)

Writings attributed to Thomas

[[Russian Orthodox icon of St. Thomas the Apostle, with scroll, 18th century (Iconostasis of Transfiguration Church, Kizhi Monastery, Karelia, Russia).]]

Let none read the gospel according to Thomas, for it is the work, not of one of the twelve apostles, but of one of Mani’s three wicked disciples."

—Cyril of Jerusalem, Cathechesis V (4th century)

In the first two centuries of the Christian era, a number of writings were circulated. It is unclear now why Thomas was seen as an authority for doctrine, although this belief is documented in Gnostic groups as early as the Pistis Sophia In that Gnostic work, Mary Magdalene (one of the disciples) says:

Now at this time, my Lord, hear, so that I speak openly, for thou hast said to us "He who has ears to hear, let him hear:" Concerning the word which thou didst say to Philip: "Thou and Thomas and Matthew are the three to whom it has been given… to write every word of the Kingdom of the Light, and to bear witness to them"; hear now that I give the interpretation of these words. It is this which thy light-power once prophesied through Moses: "Through two and three witnesses everything will be established. The three witnesses are Philip and Thomas and Matthew"

Pistis Sophia 1:43

An early, non-Gnostic tradition may lie behind this statement, which also emphasizes the primacy of the Gospel of Matthew in its Aramaic form, over the other canonical three.

Besides the Acts of Thomas there was a widely circulated Infancy Gospel of Thomas probably written in the later 2nd century, and probably also in Syria, which relates the miraculous events and prodigies of Jesus’ boyhood. This is the document which tells for the first time the familiar legend of the twelve sparrows which Jesus, at the age of five, fashioned from clay on the Sabbath day, which took wing and flew away. The earliest manuscript of this work is a 6th-century one in Syriac. This gospel was first referred to by Irenaeus; Ron Cameron notes: "In his citation, Irenaeus first quotes a non-canonical story that circulated about the childhood of Jesus and then goes directly on to quote a passage from the infancy narrative of the Gospel of Luke (). Since the Infancy Gospel of Thomas records both of these stories, in relative close proximity to one another, it is possible that the apocryphal writing cited by Irenaeus is, in fact, what is now known as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Because of the complexities of the manuscript tradition, however, there is no certainty as to when the stories of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas began to be written down."

The best known in modern times of these documents is the "sayings" document that is being called the Gospel of Thomas, a noncanonical work whose date is disputed. The opening line claims it is the work of "Didymos Judas Thomas" – whose identity is unknown. This work was discovered in a Coptic translation in 1945 at the Egyptian village of Nag Hammadi, near the site of the monastery of Chenoboskion. Once the Coptic text was published, scholars recognized that an earlier Greek translation had been published from fragments of papyrus found at Oxyrhynchus in the 1890s.