from Calicut down to Cape Comorin. These people had a hierarchy under a Metropolitan, churches and shrines. Their services were in Syriac. They said that they descended from Christians converted by the Apostle Thomas; they called themselves with pride the "Christians of St. Thomas."
This is the local tradition, still firmly held by all the Malabar Christians, whether Catholic or schismatical. They hold, as a point of honour, that they are an apostolic Church; they show still the tomb of St. Thomas, and are exceedingly offended by the other account of their origin, namely, that their Christianity comes from Nestorian missionaries. This brings us to a much-discussed legend, that of the alleged Indian mission of St. Thomas. There is a considerable literature, Syriac in source, which tells (with variants) a detailed story of the journeys of St. Thomas the Apostle throughout Asia. Some versions make him go as far as Pekin and found a Church in China. In all, he appears as an Eastern parallel to St. Paul in Europe.[1] As his companion, in many versions, St. Bartholomew appears. The constant root of the story is that St. Thomas came to Parthia, converted a Parthian king named Gondophares, or Gundaphor, who reigned over part of India, that he established a flourishing Church in this king's domain. There are many additions; the story is full of fantastic details. As far as we are now concerned, the points to mention are that the Apostle is said to have preached the gospel in the island of Socotra, to have then passed over to Cranganore on the western coast of India, where there were many Jews, to have converted Jews and heathen, built churches, and left a hierarchy ordained by himself. Then he went across India to Mailapur (now a suburb of Madras), preached there, was attacked by the Brahmins, martyred by being stoned and pierced by a javelin on a hill still called St. Thomas's Mount, and was
- ↑ Among the many sources of this legend of St. Thomas the chief is a Gnostic document (originally in Syriac) known as the Acta Thomæ. It was apparently composed in the middle of the 3rd century. Eusebius quotes it (Hist. Eccl. iii., 25), also Epiphanius (Hær. xlvii. 1; P.G. xli. 852), and many others, down to Gregory of Tours (Miracul. liber. i. 32; P.L. lxxi. 733). See Bonnet: Acta Thomæ (Leipzig, 1883), Germann: Die Kirche der Thomaschristen (Gütersloh, 1877), pp. 11-47, and Harnack: Gesch. der altchristl. Literatur, i. (Leipzig, 1897), 545-549, for an account of the legend.
