The Mystery: St Thomas and Thomas of Cana
The introduction of Christianity into Malabar and the subsequent history of the Christian Traditions about the Church, like the early history of the Jews, is buried in obscurity, and even the available information is to a great extent based on the legendary and disputable traditions of St. Thomas, one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ. According to the current traditions, the introduction of Christianity and the establishment of the original church in Malabar in the year 52 AD are ascribed to the Apostle St. Thomas to whose lot, after the division of the whole earth among the Apostles for evangelisation, fell Parthia.
He left Syria in 35 AD,went to his destination and built a palace for the king Gondophares who ruled over Afghanistan, Kandahar, Seistan, Northern and Southern Punjab. Though the Gospel was preached in the dominions of that king and many conversions made, there is no evidence to show that the Punjab was reached or any one was baptised in a single northern part of the actual Indian Empire. It seems that the Apostle then retraced his steps, announced the word of God to the Ethiopians, brought under the yoke of Christ, the inhabitants of the island of Socotra and arrived finally at Cranganur, a place which is now an obscure hamlet, but was in those days a nourishing sea-port called by the ancient geographers Mouziri (Muyiri Kotta). He founded seven churches and also founded eight bishoprics, of which Malabar was one. He gave priesthood to the families of Sankarapuri,Pakalomattam,Kalli,Kalikavu and Kolath.It is also said that after the death of the Apostle, the church fell into evil ways, and some of the clergy, either afraid of persecution or influenced by persuasion and advice, returned to Hinduism.
The apostacy was due to the revival of the Sivite worship advocated by the celebrated Manikyavachakar* who exercised great influence upon the new converts by exorcising devils and curing the diseases of the cattle by his prayers and incantations. He laboured among the Syrians of Kurkanikulam, and led away many of the faithful. These were henceforward called Manigramakar, and were shunned by the Syrians. They are scarcely distinguishable from the Nayars. Their descendants are to be found at Quilon, Kayamkulam and other places.
In AD 190, the Great Gnostic Pantaenus**, a Professor of Theology in the school of Alexandria, set sail from Bernice in the Red Sea and landed after the tedious coasting voyage of those days in one of the Cochin ports, where he found a colony of Christians in possession of the Aramaic version of the Gospel of St. Mathew, in Hebrew, which St. Bartholomew was supposed to have carried thither, and this is the earliest mention of the community now known as the Syrian Christians.
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| St Thomas |
In the Council of Nice, the first (Ecumenical Council held by the Emperor's order in 525 AD,the Christian interests in India were represented by Johannes, the Metropolitan of Persia and of the Great India, and this proves the existence of Christianity during the fourth century. Some critics, on the other hand, argue that India above referred to is not the Peninsular India, but Parthia, Ethiopia, and Arabia, ie., countries outside India. This council was held to discuss sectarian differences, to define the jurisdiction of the various ecclesiastical heads and to frame a code of general dogmas, doctrines, and rituals, and appointed four Patriarchs at Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch; and the Catholicos of Bagdad, likewise subject, to Antioch, was invested with the authority ol managing the affairs of the Eastern Churches. Thus, the Patriarch of Antioch was given the jurisdiction over the Indian Churches as early as the fourth century AD.
In 547 AD, Cosmos, an Alexandrian monk, who was called Indicopleustes on account of his voyages to India, went to Ceylon, and reported that there were churches there. "At Male (Malabar) where pepper grows and at Kalliana Kollam) — Quilon — there is a Bishop who is specially ordained in Persia. It is very probable that the church was founded in the fifth century by Nestorian Missionaries, from Babylon; for, in spite of the decision of the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD, the Nestorians flourished in the East, and the Patriarch of Babylon sent missionaries as far as Tibet and China between the sixth and seventh centuries.
As recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred the Great in 883 sent an embassy to India, headed by Sighelm, bishop of Shireburne, bearing the alms which the King had vowed to send to St. Thomas and to St Bartholomew.The embassy penetrated into India with great success, and brought thence many foreign, gems and aromatic liquors. Marco Polo, visiting the neighbourhood about 1259, describes the place of the saint's burial as a small city, which was a place of pilgrimage visited by a vast number of Christians. Miracles and signs were the order of things at Mylapore for many centuries.The miraculous lamp which Theodorus saw burning at St. Thomas shrine in the sixth century was followed by other marvels which attracted pilgrims. " The Christians, " says Marco Polo in the thirteenth century, " who perform this pilgrimage, collect a red coloured earth from the spot where the Apostle was slain and carry it away with them, and give it to the sick to cure their illness."
It is generally believed that St. Mark, the evangelist, founded the church of Alexandria. Historians are divided in opinion as to the time when he went to Egypt, some affirm that it was in the second, others, in the nineth year of Claudius, and others in the third of Caligula. This much is certain that he spent the latter years of his life in that country where he introduced the Gospel, and lived to see the Church under his superintendence.At this period Alexandria was the Emporium of the world, and had acquired an importance second to Rome herself. Like other mercantile towns, its population was composed of the inhabitants of all the nations with which they carried on trade. Of these, the Jews formed a very large portion. There were also large numbers of strangers, not only from Syria, Lybia, Cilicia, Ethiopia and Arabia, but also from Bactria, Scythia, Persia and India, who were drawn thither by the attractions of its mart.
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Here the Evangelist Mark assembled a numerous church which, like the first fruits of the Gospel at Jerusalem, could be composed of converts from all the nations which Divine Providence had thus brought together, that they might hear the glad tidings of salvation. They came for the sake of this world's traffic indeed; but they found the knowledge of the Gospel infinitely more than they sought, and returned home freighted with the merchandise of Heaven. It has also been known that the Indian trade was in his time the chief object of attraction at Alexandria, and the progress of Christianity in India at that early period might be traced with some probability.
There is also a romantic episode regarding the advent of Thomas Cana.
The Christians of Malabar were in a state of disorder for about 300 years from the time of Apostle Mar Thomas visiting Malayalam and establishing the true faith, as they had neither head nor shepherd. But, by the Grace of the Lord, the Episcopa of the Syrian land called Uraha had a vision in his sleep, in which a person appeared to him and said, "grieve ye not for the flock that suffer and collapse in Malayalam which I even won at the sacrifice of my life ?".
The Episcopa here on awoke, and at once announced the important tidings to the Holy Catholicos of Jerusalem. He there on called together the learned Malpans and others, and consulted them; and it was resolved that the respected Christian merchant called Thomas of Cana residing in Jerusalem should be sent to Malayalam, and particulars ascertained through him. And thereon, he was sent to Malayalam on a trading enterprise.This Thomas of Cana arrived at Cranganur, landed and saw and, from the cross then worn round the neck, recognized the Christians who were brought to follow Christ by the exertions of Apostle Mar Thomas, and who in spite of the oppression of the heathen and heathen sovereigns conti- nued to remain in the True Faith without any deviation. He struck their acquaintance and asked them for particulars, and learned that their grievance was very great on account of the want of priests and that the church was, owing to that reason, in a tottering condition.
On learning these particulars, he thought delay was improper, and loading his ship with the pepper, etc which he then could gather, sailed off, and by Divine grace, reached Jerusalem without much delay and communicated to the venerable, the Catholicos of Jerusalem in detail, all the facts he had observed in Malayalam. And thereon, with the sanction of the Kustathius, Patriarch of Antioch, four hundred and odd persons comprising men, women and boys, with Episcopa Joseph of Uraha, priests and deacons were placed under the orders of the "respectable merchant, Thomas of Cana, and sent off by ship to Malayalam with blessings.By the grace of Almighty God, all these arrived at Cranganur in Malayalam in the year 345 of Our Lord, without experiencing any inconvenience or distress on the way". On this, they were received by the people of Kottakayil community of the Christians called Dhariakkel of the sixty four families. They acknowledged allegiance to Joseph Episcopa who came from Jerusalem as their Metropolitan. And the affairs of the Church continued to be regulated by Thomas and others.
Thomas went and obtained an interview of King Cheraman Perumal, the then ruling sovereign of Malayalam, and made presents to him and represented to him the sufferings and weakness of the Christians: and the sovereign was pleased, and said that he, the Lord of the land, would undoubtedly render all help. Not only was command issued to have all aid rendered to the Christians, but privileges of honour were also bestowed under title deeds with Sign Manual and embossed on copper-plates, the sun and moon being witnesses to be enjoved without any demur from any quarter as long as the sun, the moon, etc., shall exist. Further, King Cheraman Perumal made a grant of a tract of land in Cranganur. 144 koles in extent by the Anakolc, comprising land on which a parah of paddy was scattered, and conveyed it to the Christian Thomas with the then usual rite of dropping water and flowers into the hands of the donee. This grant was obtained at Karkadagam rasi, the Sapthami (seventh day, Saturday, the 29 th Kumbham of the above year, and called Mahadeva pattanam, and (Thomas) lived there in the enjoyment of great power.
The traditions as to who exactly Thomas of Cana was, and as to the date of his arrival in India are very conflicting. Visscher, in his letters of Malabar, gives the date of his advent as 745. Hough says, "About the year , the Church in India was again under the authority of the Patriarch of Selucia to whom its bishops were subject, and consequently they were Ncstorians.Not many years after, an Armenian merchant took up his abode in Malabar who is said to have been the first to obtain for the Christians in those parts immunities of considerable importance. His name was Thomas of Cana or as he is usually called "Mar Thomas." Hough says, that the accounts of the Mission are so uncertain that it appears that Thomas of Cana has been confounded with Thomas the Apostle.
Assemanus regards him not as an Armenian merchant but as a Nestorian bishop sent by a Nestorian Patriarch. Paoli gives the date of his arrival as 825 AD. Assemanus says about the year 800 AD. Gouvea says it is generally believed that Thomas of Cana arrived in Malabar in the fourth century.The arrival of Thomas of Cana and the reign of Cheraman Perumal have been placed by some writers four centuries after this date, perhaps because the usual legend is, that Cheranum Perumal went to Arabia, and there he became a Muhammadan. But Day, in His Land of the Perumals, says that Cheraman Perumal reigned from 341 to 378, and then went on pilgrimage. De Faria, in his Portuguese Asia, I,100, saws that the pilgrimage was to Mylapur. Visscher, in his Letters from Malabar , says," Like Charles V, the aged monarch, weary of the cares of State, retired to console his declining years with religion and solitude and taking up his abode within the precincts of a sacred pagoda in the Cochin territory died full of years A D 382."
There is also a romantic episode regarding the advent of Thomas Cana.
The Christians of Malabar were in a state of disorder for about 300 years from the time of Apostle Mar Thomas visiting Malayalam and establishing the true faith, as they had neither head nor shepherd. But, by the Grace of the Lord, the Episcopa of the Syrian land called Uraha had a vision in his sleep, in which a person appeared to him and said, "grieve ye not for the flock that suffer and collapse in Malayalam which I even won at the sacrifice of my life ?".
The Episcopa here on awoke, and at once announced the important tidings to the Holy Catholicos of Jerusalem. He there on called together the learned Malpans and others, and consulted them; and it was resolved that the respected Christian merchant called Thomas of Cana residing in Jerusalem should be sent to Malayalam, and particulars ascertained through him. And thereon, he was sent to Malayalam on a trading enterprise.This Thomas of Cana arrived at Cranganur, landed and saw and, from the cross then worn round the neck, recognized the Christians who were brought to follow Christ by the exertions of Apostle Mar Thomas, and who in spite of the oppression of the heathen and heathen sovereigns conti- nued to remain in the True Faith without any deviation. He struck their acquaintance and asked them for particulars, and learned that their grievance was very great on account of the want of priests and that the church was, owing to that reason, in a tottering condition.
On learning these particulars, he thought delay was improper, and loading his ship with the pepper, etc which he then could gather, sailed off, and by Divine grace, reached Jerusalem without much delay and communicated to the venerable, the Catholicos of Jerusalem in detail, all the facts he had observed in Malayalam. And thereon, with the sanction of the Kustathius, Patriarch of Antioch, four hundred and odd persons comprising men, women and boys, with Episcopa Joseph of Uraha, priests and deacons were placed under the orders of the "respectable merchant, Thomas of Cana, and sent off by ship to Malayalam with blessings.By the grace of Almighty God, all these arrived at Cranganur in Malayalam in the year 345 of Our Lord, without experiencing any inconvenience or distress on the way". On this, they were received by the people of Kottakayil community of the Christians called Dhariakkel of the sixty four families. They acknowledged allegiance to Joseph Episcopa who came from Jerusalem as their Metropolitan. And the affairs of the Church continued to be regulated by Thomas and others.
Thomas went and obtained an interview of King Cheraman Perumal, the then ruling sovereign of Malayalam, and made presents to him and represented to him the sufferings and weakness of the Christians: and the sovereign was pleased, and said that he, the Lord of the land, would undoubtedly render all help. Not only was command issued to have all aid rendered to the Christians, but privileges of honour were also bestowed under title deeds with Sign Manual and embossed on copper-plates, the sun and moon being witnesses to be enjoved without any demur from any quarter as long as the sun, the moon, etc., shall exist. Further, King Cheraman Perumal made a grant of a tract of land in Cranganur. 144 koles in extent by the Anakolc, comprising land on which a parah of paddy was scattered, and conveyed it to the Christian Thomas with the then usual rite of dropping water and flowers into the hands of the donee. This grant was obtained at Karkadagam rasi, the Sapthami (seventh day, Saturday, the 29 th Kumbham of the above year, and called Mahadeva pattanam, and (Thomas) lived there in the enjoyment of great power.
The traditions as to who exactly Thomas of Cana was, and as to the date of his arrival in India are very conflicting. Visscher, in his letters of Malabar, gives the date of his advent as 745. Hough says, "About the year , the Church in India was again under the authority of the Patriarch of Selucia to whom its bishops were subject, and consequently they were Ncstorians.Not many years after, an Armenian merchant took up his abode in Malabar who is said to have been the first to obtain for the Christians in those parts immunities of considerable importance. His name was Thomas of Cana or as he is usually called "Mar Thomas." Hough says, that the accounts of the Mission are so uncertain that it appears that Thomas of Cana has been confounded with Thomas the Apostle.
Assemanus regards him not as an Armenian merchant but as a Nestorian bishop sent by a Nestorian Patriarch. Paoli gives the date of his arrival as 825 AD. Assemanus says about the year 800 AD. Gouvea says it is generally believed that Thomas of Cana arrived in Malabar in the fourth century.The arrival of Thomas of Cana and the reign of Cheraman Perumal have been placed by some writers four centuries after this date, perhaps because the usual legend is, that Cheranum Perumal went to Arabia, and there he became a Muhammadan. But Day, in His Land of the Perumals, says that Cheraman Perumal reigned from 341 to 378, and then went on pilgrimage. De Faria, in his Portuguese Asia, I,100, saws that the pilgrimage was to Mylapur. Visscher, in his Letters from Malabar , says," Like Charles V, the aged monarch, weary of the cares of State, retired to console his declining years with religion and solitude and taking up his abode within the precincts of a sacred pagoda in the Cochin territory died full of years A D 382."
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| Thomas of Cana |
There is also another explanation. The introduction of Christianity to India is very often attributed to Thomas, a Manichean, who is said to have arrived in India in 272 AD. He is also said to have been a heretic of the School of Manes. There seems however no ground to support the above statement . On the contrary the Syrian Christians have a tradition that this infant church was persecuted by the Manicheans. Some of the best authorities are inclined to accept this tradition. Romanist writers, in general, and Jesuit Fathers, in particular, like Emmanuel Anger, Martin Matine and others, do not reject the tradition as unworthy of belief. Among Protestants, the great Dr.Buchanan, Chaplain, Jacob Canter Visscher, the Dutch author of the well known Letters of Malabar, Dr. Kerr, and other illustrious men of his church, viz., Bishop Hiber, and Archdeacon Robinson — all attribute an apostolic origin to the Syrian Church of Malabar.
The Rev. Thomas Whitehouse is inclined to accept the tradition on proper and reliable grounds. He said that India could not have been such a "terra incognita' to St. Thomas as it was to the natives of Southern Europe. He must have traversed the regions after crossing the ancient overland route where the inhabitants must have been as familiar with India, the Indian commodities and Indian News, as the ordinary Natives of Suez, Cairo and Alexandria are at the present day. Further, the existence previous to the Christian Church, of a Jewish colony (the Jewish colony of Cochin on the West Coast of India) would very likely have attracted the Apostle who was himself of the stock of Abraham, and to whom the pilgrimage to this distant country commended itself as a fitting termination of a farcer which had threatened to end differently. The Rev. Alexander J D. Orsey in his Portuguese Discoveries And Dependencies, after a close examination of the Portuguese records, arrives at the conclusion that the" tradition concerning St. Thomas current in Malabar is true."There are also others who doubt and reject the tradition as unworthy of any credence. Among them are La Croze and Hough, who assign good reasons for regarding the whole story as legendary and mythical. Chaplain Trevor holds that "there is better evidence that the light of Christianity extended from Egypt, where it was kindled by St. Mark, through Persia towards the northern confines of India, and that Syrian Churches might have been planted in the fourth century by Thomas, a monk from that country, whose name must have been confounded with that of Thomas the Apostle.
The Rev. Mateer considers that there was in the first instance a colony from Antioch, perhaps driven thence by violent persecutions about the middle of the fourth century. Campbell, on the other hand, thinks that their colour, names, manners and customs, style of architecture, ignorance and non-employment of the Syrian language, except in churches, the rites and ceremonies used in their worship, and their subjection to the see of Antioch in modern times, confirm the truth of the views already advanced. Dr. Milne Kae, in his Syrian Church of Malabar, advances arguments to prove that, the Apostle St. Thomas never came to Malabar.
From the foregoing account of the introduction of Christianity in Malabar, it may be seen that the authorities differ in their views. In the palmy days of the Roman Empire, there was considerable trade between the East and the West. A force of two Roman cohorts was stationed at Mouziris (Cranganur) to protect their trade. In the second century a merchant fleet of one hundred sail steered regularly for Myoz Hurmuz on the Red Sea, Arabia, Ceylon and Malabar. Even a few centuries earlier there had been a great deal of commercial intercourse between the coasts of Malabar and Palestine, and the Jews had already settled in these parts. Judging from these historical facts (liturgical documents testimony of the Fathers of the Church, the account of the early European travellers) and from the traditions current among them, as also from the old numerous songs sung by the Syrians on marriage and other occasions, it is not unlikely that the Apostle St. Thomas came to these parts to spread the Gospel among the Hindus of Kerala. The Jewish and Syrian inscriptions on copper plate documents and the Christian inscriptions on stone in a language unwritten in India, for over a thousand years also confirm the truth of the tradition.
The Rev. Thomas Whitehouse is inclined to accept the tradition on proper and reliable grounds. He said that India could not have been such a "terra incognita' to St. Thomas as it was to the natives of Southern Europe. He must have traversed the regions after crossing the ancient overland route where the inhabitants must have been as familiar with India, the Indian commodities and Indian News, as the ordinary Natives of Suez, Cairo and Alexandria are at the present day. Further, the existence previous to the Christian Church, of a Jewish colony (the Jewish colony of Cochin on the West Coast of India) would very likely have attracted the Apostle who was himself of the stock of Abraham, and to whom the pilgrimage to this distant country commended itself as a fitting termination of a farcer which had threatened to end differently. The Rev. Alexander J D. Orsey in his Portuguese Discoveries And Dependencies, after a close examination of the Portuguese records, arrives at the conclusion that the" tradition concerning St. Thomas current in Malabar is true."There are also others who doubt and reject the tradition as unworthy of any credence. Among them are La Croze and Hough, who assign good reasons for regarding the whole story as legendary and mythical. Chaplain Trevor holds that "there is better evidence that the light of Christianity extended from Egypt, where it was kindled by St. Mark, through Persia towards the northern confines of India, and that Syrian Churches might have been planted in the fourth century by Thomas, a monk from that country, whose name must have been confounded with that of Thomas the Apostle.
The Rev. Mateer considers that there was in the first instance a colony from Antioch, perhaps driven thence by violent persecutions about the middle of the fourth century. Campbell, on the other hand, thinks that their colour, names, manners and customs, style of architecture, ignorance and non-employment of the Syrian language, except in churches, the rites and ceremonies used in their worship, and their subjection to the see of Antioch in modern times, confirm the truth of the views already advanced. Dr. Milne Kae, in his Syrian Church of Malabar, advances arguments to prove that, the Apostle St. Thomas never came to Malabar.
From the foregoing account of the introduction of Christianity in Malabar, it may be seen that the authorities differ in their views. In the palmy days of the Roman Empire, there was considerable trade between the East and the West. A force of two Roman cohorts was stationed at Mouziris (Cranganur) to protect their trade. In the second century a merchant fleet of one hundred sail steered regularly for Myoz Hurmuz on the Red Sea, Arabia, Ceylon and Malabar. Even a few centuries earlier there had been a great deal of commercial intercourse between the coasts of Malabar and Palestine, and the Jews had already settled in these parts. Judging from these historical facts (liturgical documents testimony of the Fathers of the Church, the account of the early European travellers) and from the traditions current among them, as also from the old numerous songs sung by the Syrians on marriage and other occasions, it is not unlikely that the Apostle St. Thomas came to these parts to spread the Gospel among the Hindus of Kerala. The Jewish and Syrian inscriptions on copper plate documents and the Christian inscriptions on stone in a language unwritten in India, for over a thousand years also confirm the truth of the tradition.
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*Manikkavacakar:Manikkavacakar or MaanikkaVaasagar was a 9th-century Tamil poet who wrote Tiruvasakam, a book of Shaiva hymns. He was one of the main authors of Saivite Tirumurai, his work forms volume eight of the Tirumurai, the key religious text of Tamil language Shaiva Siddhanta. A minister to the Pandya king Varagunavarman II (c. 862 C.E. – 885 C.E.) (also called Arimarthana Pandiyan), he lived in Madurai. His work is a poetic expression of the joy of God-experience, the anguish of being separated from God. Although he is a prominent saint in Southern India, he is not counted among the sixty-three nayanars.
**Saint Pantaenus the Philosopher (died c. 200) was a Greek theologian and a significant figure in the Catechetical School of Alexandria from around AD 180. This school was the earliest catechetical school, and became influential in the development of Christian theology.
***The early 3rd-century text called Acts of Thomas is one of the New Testament apocrypha. References to the work by Epiphanius of Salamis show that it was in circulation in the 4th century. The complete versions that survive are Syriac and Greek. There are many surviving fragments of the text. Scholars detect from the Greek that its original was written in Syriac, which places the Acts of Thomas in Edessa. The surviving Syriac manuscripts, however, have been edited to purge them of the most unorthodox overtly Encratite passages, so that the Greek versions reflect the earlier tradition.
Edited by Ramachandran
Dear Mr Ramachandran, I enjoyed reading this piece. Can you let me know the main sources/books that you have used? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThe books are mentioned in the article itself.
Deletethank you!
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