Many
Christians in India would, normatively, believe that the Apostle Thomas, a
disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, visited, ministered, and died as a martyr in
India. The Christian tradition is the source of this belief.
However, a
vast majority of western scholarship rejects this belief. They claim that
Thomas never visited India.
How should a
lay Christian understand this dilemma and respond?
This article
is divided into two sections:
(1) The
Dogmatic View: The Certainty of Apostle Thomas’ ministry in India (Jacobite
Syrian Christian narrative & Dr. Sarah Abraham Knight’s research findings).
(2) The
Probabilistic View: It is more probable than not! (Dr. Sean McDowell’s research
findings).
The Dogmatic View: The
Certainty of Apostle Thomas’ ministry in India
Dr. Sarah
Knight is a scholar in the history of the Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church in
Kerala, India. Her doctoral research was the study of the history of the Syriac
Orthodox Church both in Syria and in Kerala, from the School of Oriental and
African Studies (SOAS), University of London.1
Dr.
Sarah Knight’s website “Malankara Research” cites the Jacobite Syrian Orthodox
Church’s narrative. “They believe that St. Thomas the Apostle arrived in their
Malayala-country by ship, landing in Kodungalloor in 52 CE. Here, by the amazing miracles he worked and
the Gospel of Christ he preached, he was able to convert small pockets of
people to Christianity. This work was
centred in 7 locations, namely, Kodungalloor, Palayur, Paravur, Gokkamangalam,
Niranam, Nilackal and Kollam. An 8th one
in Tiruvithamcode is also included, but it is accorded only a ‘1/2-church’
status for some obscure reason. In all
these places the Apostle established churches and erected crosses, and
eventually he was martyred in 72 CE in Mylapore on the east coast of India.
Although his
relics were removed to Edessa in Mesopotamia sometime in the late 3rd-early 4th
century, this did not alter the Kerala Christians self-articulated narrative of
their first conversion.”2
Dr. Sarah
Knight refutes several assertions by western scholarship to categorically
affirm the presence of Apostle Thomas in India:3
Just as in the case of all Syrian
Christians, to the Malankara Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church of Kerala the
arrival of St. Thomas the Apostle in Kerala and the evangelisation of their
ancestors in the 1st c.AD is an integral and irrefutable fact which forms the
key foundational narrative of their historical origin.
However, this is refuted by most
Church historians especially in Western academic circles, a trend that appears
to have originated in the early decades of the 18th century. Countless analyses of the Syrian Christian
tradition, its rejection, and proposals of alternative theories and their
amplifications have been attempted over the past three hundred years. With the proliferation of books and treatises
written in this vein, these have gained strength to the point where these new
theories are presented as ‘facts’ by scholars.
The main argument is that the St.
Thomas tradition in India is a ‘myth’, and a product of ‘imagined and
artificially created tradition’. They
based this on the ‘evidence’ that long-distance travel at the time was difficult
to the point of improbability, that when early Church writers mentioned St.
Thomas’ mission field as Parthia, Medea and India, the ‘India’ referred to was
not South India but perhaps Afghanistan or Arabia, that according to Eusebius,
St. Thomas was martyred in Calamina and not Mylapore, thus placing the Apostle
in Mesopotamia to the end of his life,
and that of finding inconsistencies in the account given in the 2nd
century Gnostic book called Acts of Thomas.
They then proceed to put forward many theories on how Christianity
probably arrived in S. India, such as that it was introduced gradually by
intermittently arriving un-named merchants in the 3rd or 4th century.
However, it can be seen that not a
single one of these new theories is reliable or standing on good evidence. One
of the striking points is that there is no other place in the world that link
their Christian origin to the evangelical work of St. Thomas in such detail as
that of the Kerala Christians, and no other place that claims this Apostle’s
martyrdom and entombment except Mylapore in India. In fact, after critically examining each of
these new theories with an open mind, the reader is compelled to conclude that
the new theories stand on even weaker ground than the St. Thomas tradition of
S. India.
It is significant that European
missionaries and travellers from the 14th to the 17th century in their accounts
had never doubted or questioned the St. Thomas tradition of South India. Historians and doctors of the JSOC, from St.
Ephrem of the 4th c. to the late Patriarch Moran Mor Ignatius Yacoub III in
1948, and many others in between reaffirm the tradition of India regarding St.
Thomas.
Details and citations can be seen in
the following talks:
St. Thomas Part 1: the Blessed City
of Edessa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WeK858UTKc
St. Thomas Part 2: A critical
evaluation and refutation of Western scholarly arguments rejecting the SC
tradition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR_gYZhSTLQ
St. Thomas Part 3: the Kerala
Jacobite Syrian Christian tradition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqXXKbmlH9A
The Probabilistic View:
It Is More Probable Than Not!
Dr. Sean
McDowell is well known for his research on The
Fate of the Apostles, which is also
the title of his book. In his book, he has examined the martyrdom accounts of Christ’s
disciples. He is a Professor of Christian Apologetics at Biola University and a
best-selling author of over 15 books.
Dr. Sean
McDowell asserts that it is more probable that the Apostle Thomas ministered in
India than not. He writes:4
The Eastern Church has consistently
held that Thomas ministered in India. Alphonse Mingana notes:
It is the constant tradition of the Eastern Church that the Apostle
Thomas evangelized India, and there is no historian, no poet, no breviary, no
liturgy, and no writer of any kind who, having the opportunity of speaking of
Thomas, does not associate his name with India. Some writers mention also
Parthia and Persia among the lands evangelized by him, but all of them are
unanimous in the matter of India. The name of Thomas can never be dissociated
from that of India.[1]
But how reliable is the evidence?
Can We Trust the Historical Record?
Perhaps the biggest challenge in
assessing the Thomas tradition is that the historical record is unconventional
on Western standards. No written history of India exists until the arrival of
the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. As a result, many critics have claimed
that since India lacked historical writing it also lacked a sense of history.
Only recently has this assumption been challenged. While early India may have
lacked extensive historical writings, it does not follow that it also lacked a
historical consciousness.[2]
The Thomas Christians, for instance,
still strongly hold to oral traditions that claim they were founded by the
apostle Thomas. In place of written documentation are songs and poems, such as
the Thomma Parvam, which was not
written down until the early seventeenth century. This is not a good reason to
glibly dismiss their historical value.[3] In fact, Gillman and Klimkeit note a
double standard among Western scholars who dismiss apostolic roots in India,
because the tradition is deemed too late and legend-filled, and yet are ready
to overlook the fact that the earliest record of Patrick of Ireland comes from
the late eighth century, roughly three centuries after his death.[4]
Was Travel to India Possible in the First Century?
In the first century, an apostolic
mission from Jerusalem to India was entirely physically possible. India may
have been more open to direct communication with the West during the first two
hundred years of the Common Era than during any other period before the coming
of the Portuguese in the seventeenth century.[5] Trade between Rome and India
flourished in the first and second centuries, at least from the time of
Claudius (c. AD 45) to the time of Hadrian (d. AD 138). Significant routes and
gaps through the mountains could be traversed quite efficiently.[6] There is no
good reason to doubt that a trip by the apostles Thomas to India was entirely
possible.
But the key question is whether it is
probable.
Did Thomas Minister in India?
Early church writings consistently
link Thomas to India and Parthia.[7] Three points stand out regarding their
witness to Thomas. First, the testimony that he went to India is unanimous,
consistent, and reasonably early. Second, we have no contradictory evidence stating
Thomas did not go to India or Parthia or that he went elsewhere. Third, fathers
both in the East and in the West confirm the tradition. Since the beginning of
the third century it has become an almost undisputable tradition that Thomas
ministered in India. In addition to the traditions about Thomas in India, there
is additional evidence that Christianity made it to India by at least the
second century, if not earlier.[8]
While the evidence is not conclusive,
a few reasons seem to indicate that it is at least probable that Thomas
ministered in India. First, we have no doubt a mission from Jerusalem to Rome
was physically possible in the first century. Second, Thomas had seen the risen
Jesus (John 20:26-29), was zealous in his willingness to suffer and die for him
(John 11:16), had received the missionary call from Jesus (Matt 28:19-20; Acts
1:8), and, given all we know of him, fits the profile of someone who would
partake of such an endeavor. While the case for Thomas in India is more
provisional than for Peter and Paul in Rome, it does seem more probable than
not that he ministered in India.
To conclude,
two views are presented in this article. The dogmatic view claims that Thomas
certainly ministered in India, and the other view - a more moderate view -
claims that it is more probable than not that Thomas ministered in India.
As for me,
my thought process aligns with the probabilistic view for the simple reason
that my personal research in this subject is not deep enough to affirm or
negate the dogmatic view.
Endnotes:
1https://urhotheway.com/lectures-on-st-thomas-and-the-syrian-christians-of-kerala/
2https://malankararesearch.org/the-faith-and-tradition-regarding-st-thomas/
3https://malankararesearch.org/2021/10/13/answers-some-questions-on-the-official-position-of-the-sc-on-st-thomas-whether-the-apostle-made-bishops-in-kerala-and-why-bishops-came-from-antioch/
4https://seanmcdowell.org/blog/did-the-apostle-thomas-minister-in-india
Websites last accessed on 18th November 2021.
