THOMAS
659
THOMAS
that St. Thomas laid clown his life is locally very
strong. Certain it is also that on the Malabar or west
coast of southern India a body of Christians still
exists using a form of Syriac for its liturgical lan-
guage. Whether this Church dates from the time of
St. Tnomas the Apostle (there was a Syro-Chaldean
bishop John "from India and Persia" who assisted
at the Council of Nicea in 325) or whether the Gospel
was first preached there in 345 owing to the Persian
persecution under Shapur, or Sapor, or whether the
Syrian missionaries who accompanied a certain Thomas
Cana penetrated to the Malabar coast about the year
745 seems difficult to determine. We know onlj' that in
the sixth century Cosmas Indicopleustes speaks of the
existence of Christians at Male (?Malabar) under a
bishop who had been consecrated in Persia. King
Alfred the Great is stated in the "Anglo-Saxon Chron-
icle" to have .sent an expedition to establish relations
with these Christians of the Far Ea.st. On the other
hand the reputed relics of St. Thomas were certainly
at Edessa in the fourth century, and there they re-
mained until they were translated to Chios in 125S
and afterwards to Ortona. The improbable sugges-
tion that St. Thomas preached in America (American
Eccles. Rev., 1899, pp. 1-18) is based upon a misun-
derstanding of the text of the Acts of the Apostles (i,
8; cf. Berehet "Fonte italiane per la storia della
scoperta del Nuovo Mondo", II, 236, and I, 44).
Besides the "Acta Thoma;" of which a different and notably shorter redaction exists in Ethiopic and Latin, we have an abbre\-iated form of a so-called "Go.spel of Thomas", originally Gnostic, but as we know it now merely a fantastical history of the child- hood of Jesus, without any notably heretical colour- ing. There is also a "Revelatio Thoma;", condemned as apocryphal in the Decree of Pope Gelasius,which has recently been recovered from various sources in a fragmentarj- condition (see the full text in the Revue btocdictine, 1911, pp. 359-374).
The most recent and thorough worki.s; Dahlmanx. Die Thomas- LcQciitic ^Freiburg, 1912). See aiso; Wecker in TbeoL Quartal- «c/.n// ■ xrll (Tubingen, 1910), 53S-565; Dahlmann, Indi.iche Fahrlen, II (Freiburg, 1908), 130 sqq.; Pick, The Apocryphal Ads of Paul, Peter and Thomas (Chicago. 1909) gives a tr. of the Ada Thoma; Wright, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (London, 1S7I). inSyriac, with tr.;LiPsius AND Bonnet, Actaapostol.apocr. (Leip- zig, 189 1-1903), the third part of this collection gives the full Greek text of the Acts of Thomas, critically edited; BtmKiTT in Jour, of Theol. Studies (I. 280 sqq.; Ill, 94 sqq.) has shown that the Syriac is probably the original language; Idem, Texts and Studies (Cam- bridge, 1897 and 1903), V; Malan, TheConflictsofthe Holy Apos- tles (Ixjndon. 1871), 187-220; Medlycott, India and the Apostle Thomas (London, 1905). a work written by a Catholic vicar Apostolic but uncritical in tone; Peeters in Analecta holland- iana (1906), 197, (1908), 207; Richards, Indian Christians of St. Thomas (London, 1908); Rendel Harris, CttU of the Heavenly Twins (1906), 105-25; Fleet in Jour, of R, Asiatic Society (London, 1905), 22.3-36, (1906), 706-11; Buhkitt-Preuschen, Vnchnstentum in Orient (Tubingen, 1907); Mii-ne Rae, The Syrian Church in India (Edinburgh, 1892) ; Wilhelm, Deutsche Legmden tind Legendare (Leipzig, 1907); Michel and Peeters, Erangiles apocryphes; I Etangile de Thomas (Paris, 1911); Tis- CHENDORF. BuoTijeiio apocr, (Leipzig, 1876); Hauler in l^'imcr Studien (Vienna, 1908), 308-340; Bihlmeyer in Revue binedic- line. XXVIII (Maredsous, 1911).
Herbert Thurston.
Thomas, Charles L. A., French composer, h. at Metz, 5 Aug,. 1811; d. at Paris, 12 Feb., 1896. He gained the Grand Prix at the Paris Conservatoire in 1832, having previously won first prize for piano and for harmony. Continuing his studies with Kalk- brenner, Barbereati, and Lesueur, he composed much during the years 1836-.")0, including three motets and a requiem ma.ss. Turning his attention to comic opera he produced a number of ballets, of which "Le Caid" showed great promise. In 1851 he became a member of the Institute, and in the following year was appointed profes.sor of composition at the ('onserva- toire. ,\l length he captured the opera-going public with "Mignon", produced on 17 Nov.. 18(16. This success he followed up with "Hamlet", a five-act opera first given on 9 March, 1868. In 1871, on the
death of Auber, he was appointed Director of the Con-
servatoire, a position he held till his death. Among
his sacred compositions, his "Messe Solennelle" was
given on 22 November, 1857, the feast of St. Cecilia,
at the Church of St. Eustache, for the benefit of the
Society of Artist Musicians. On the same feast, in
1865, his "Marche Rehgieuse" was performed. His
merit was recognized by several decorations including
the Grand Cro.ss of the Legion of Honour in 1894.
From a musical standpoint, Thomas holds a high
place by reason of his dramatic instinct, admirably
shown in "Mignon" and "Hamlet". He just falls
short of being in the first rank, but his "Mignon"
retains its popularity, after close on half a century.
Matthew. Handbook of Musical History (London, 1898): Grove's Diet, of Music and Musicians, ed. Maitland (London, 1904-10), s. v.; Lee, Story of Opera (London, 1909); Dunstan, A Cyclopedic Diet, of Music (London, 1909).
W. H. Grattan-Flood.
Thomas, Gospel op Saint. See Apocrypha, subtitle III.
Thomas Abel, Blessed (also Able, or Abell), priest and martyr, b. about 1497; d. 30 July, 1540. He was chaplain to Queen Catharine, and defender of the vaHdity of her marriage with Henry VIII, for which reason he was eventually put to death. He was a graduate of Oxford, and appears to have taught the queen modern languages and music. After a journey to Spain in her behalf, he received the parochial bene- fice of Bradwcll iii .'^ii.ssex. He soon published (May, 1532?) in defence of the queen's marriage a work en- titled: "Invicta Veritas, an answer to the determina- tion of the most famous LIniversities, that by no man- ner of law it may be lawful for King Henrj' to be divorced from the Queen's grace, his lawful and very wife". For this he was thrown (1532) into Beau- champ Tower, and after a year's liberation again iinprisoned. in December, 1533, on the charges of disseminating the prophecies of the Maid of Kent, en- couraging the queen "obstinately to persist in her wil- ful opinion against the same divorce and separation", and maintaining her right to the title of queen. He was kept in clo.'e confinement until his execution at Tyburn, two days after the execution of Cromwell himself. There is extant a verj' pious Latin letter written by him to a fellow-martyr, and another to Cromwell, begging for some slight mitigation of his "close prison" — i. e. "licen.se to go to church and say Mass here within the Tower and for to lie in some house upon the Green". It is signed "by your daily bedeman, Thomas Abell, priest". His act of atr- tainder states that he and three others "have most traitorously adhered themselves unto the bishop of Rome, being a common enemy unto your Majesty and this your Realm, refusing your Highness to be our and their Supreme Head of this your Realm of England". There is in Beauchamp Tower a rebus of the Martyr, probably executed by himself; the figure of a bell carved on the wall, the letter A in front and the word "Thomas" above. He is one of the fiftj-four Eng- lish martyrs beatified by Leo XIII 29 Dec, 1886.
Pollen. Lives of the English Martyrs, 1 (London. 1904). 462-83.
Thomas J. Suaha.v. Blessed Edward Powell. — With Blessed Thomas Abel there suffered Edward Powell, priest and mar- tyr, b. in Wales about 1478; M. A. Oxon.; Fellow of Oriel, 1495; D.D. 26 June, 1506 and styled perdocliLS vir by the university. He was rector of Bleadon, Somerset, and prebendary of Centiun Solidorum in Lincoln, which he exchanged for Carlton-cum-Thurlby in 1505, and the latter for Sutton-iii-Marisco in 1525. He also held the prebends of Lj'me Regis, Cal- stoc.k, Bedminster, and St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, and the living of .St. Edmond's Siilisbury. A court preacher in high f;ivour with Henry VIII, he was or- dered to publish a rejjly to Luther ("Propugnaculum summi Sacerdotii Evangelici, ac septem Sacramen-
