Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/720

 THMUIS

658

THOMAS

Droysen, Bprnhard von Weimnr (2 vols., 1885); Idem, Guslnv Adolf (2 vols., 1859-70). The period 1635-48 has been insuf- ficiently investigated on its diplomatic side; the bibliography on this point is to a large degree of little value. Odhneh, Die Politik Sckwedens im west/at. Friedenskongress (1887); Steinbebger, Die Jesuiten u. die Friedensfrage 1635-16.50 (1906). Of the works on the cession of Alsace cf. Jakob, Erwerbung des Elsass durch Frankreich (1897); Overmann, Die Abtretung des Elsass an Frankreich (1905).

Martin Spahn.

Thmuis, a titular see in Augustamnioa Prima, suf- fragan of Pelusium; a city of Lower Egypt, on the canal east of the Nile, between its Tanitic and Men- desian branches. Herodotus (II, 166) gives it as the capital of a nome bearing its name, and Ptolemy as that of the Mendesian nome. In the fourth century it was still important, having its own administration and being exempt from the jurisdiction of the Prefect of Alexandria. It was in existence at the time of the Arabian conquest, and was later called Al-Mourad or AI-Mouradeh; it must have disappeared after the Turkish conquest. Its ruins are at Tell el-Mei, about five miles north-west of SenbelaouJn, a station on the railway from Zagazig to MansoArah. Le Quien ("Oriens Christ.", II, 537) names nine bishops of Thmuis, the last three being Monophysites of the Middle Ages. The others are St. Phileas, martjT (in the Martyrology, 4 Feb.); St. Donatus, his successor, martyr; Liberius (not Caius), at the Council of Nicsea in 325; St. Serapion, d. shortly before 360, the author of various works, in part preserved; PtolemEeus, at the Council of Seleucia (359) ; Aristobulus, at the Council of Ephesus (431).

Smith, Diet. Greek and Rom. geog., s. v.; de Rodg^, Geog. an- cienne de la Basse-Egypte (Paris. I89I) ; AMfeuNEAU. Geog. de VEgypte d Vcpoque copte (Paris, 1893), 286, 500 sq.

S. PETRIofes.

Thomas, Saint, the Apostle. — Little is recorded of St. Thomas the Apostle, nevertheless thanks to the fourth Gospel his personality is clearer to us than that of some others of the Twelve. His name occurs in all the Usts of the Synoptists (Matt., x, 3; Mark, iii, 18; Luke, vi, 15, ef. Acts. 1, 13), but in St. John he plays a distinctive part. First, when Jesus an- nounced His intention of returning to Judea to visit Lazarus, "Thomas", who is called Didymus [the twin], said to his fellow disciples: "Let us also go, that we may die with him" (John, xi, 16). Again it was St. Thomas who during the discourse before the Last Supper raised an objection: "Thomas saith to him: Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?" (John, xiv, 5). But more espe- cially St. Thomas is remembered for his incredulity when the other Apostles announced Christ's Resur- rection to him: "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not beheve" (John, xx,25); but eight days later he made his act of faith, drawing down the kindly rebuke of Jesus: "Beeau.se thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed" (John, xx, 29).

This exhausts all our certain knowledge regarding the Apostle but his name is the starting-point of a considerable apocryphal literature, atid there are also certain historical data which suggest that some of this apocryjihal material may contain germs of truth. The principal document conccniiiig him is the "Acta Thonia>", preserved to us with some vari- ations both in ( ireek and in Syriac, and bearing unmi.s- takable signs of its (iiiostic origin. It may indeed he the work of Bardesancs himself. The story in many of its particulars is utterly extrav;igant, hut it is of early date, being assigned by Ilariiaek iClironoIogie, ii, 172) to the beginning of the third century, before A. D. 220. If the i)lace of its origin is rciilly Kdessu, as Harnack and others for sound reasons siipi)ose(l (ibid., p. 176), this would lend considerable probabil- ity to the statement, explicitly made in the "Acta"

(Bonnet, cap. 170, p. 286), that the relics of the Apos- tle Thomas, which we know to have been venerated at Edessa (" PeregrinatioSilviEe", ed. Geyer, p. 60), had really come from the East. The extravagance of the legend may be judged from the fact that in more th;m one place (cap. 31, p. 148) it representsThomas (Judas Thomas, as he is called here and el-sewhere in Syriac tradition) as the twin brother of Jesus. The word Thomas in Syriac is equivalent to 5(5i///os in Greek, and means twin. Rendel Harris who exaggerates very much the cult of the Dioscuri, wishes to regard this as a trans- formation of a pagan worship of Edessa but the point is at best problematical. The story itself runs briefly as follows: At the division of the Apostles, India fell to the lot of Thomas, but he declared his inabihty to go, whereupon his Master Jesus appeared in a super- natural way to Abban, the envoy of Gundafor, an Indian king, and sold Thomas to him to be his slave and to serve Gundafor as a carpenter. Then Abban and Thomas sailed away until they came to Andrap- olis, where they landed and attended the marriage feast of the ruler's daughter. Strange occurrences followed and Christ under the appearance of Thomas exhorted the bride to remain a virgin. Coming to India Thomas undertook to build a palace for Ciunda- for, but .spent the money entrusted to him on the poor. Gundafor imprisoned him, but the Apostle escaped miraculously and Gundafor was converted. Going about the country to preach, Thomas met. with strange adventures from dragons and wild asses. Then he came to the city of King Misdai (S\Tiac Mazdai), where he converted Tertia the wife of Mis- dai and Vazan his son. After this he was condemned to death, led out of the city to a hill, and pierced through with spears by four soldiers. He was buried in the tomb of the ancient kings but his remains were afterwards removed to the West.

Now it is certainly a remarkable fact that about the year a. d. 40 a king was reigning over that part of Asia south of the Himalayas now represented by Afghanistan, Baluchistan, the Punjab, and Sind, who bore the name Gondophernes or Guduphara. This we know both from the discovery of coins, some of the Parthian tj-pe with Greek legends, others of the Indian type with legends in an Indian dialect in Kharo.shthi characters. Despite sundry minor vari- ations the identity of thename with the Gundafor of the "Acta Thoma"" is unmistakable and is hardly dis- puted. Further we have the evidence of the Takht- i-Bahi inscription, which is dated, and which the best speciahsts accept as establishing that the King Guduphara probably began to reign about A. D. 20 and was still reigning in 46. Again there arc excel- lent reasons for believing that Misflai or Mazdai may well be a transformation of a Hindu name made on Iranian soil. In this case it will probably represent a certain King Vasudeva of Mathura, a successor of Kanishka. No doubt it can be urged that the Gnostic romancer who wrote the "Acta Thonue" may have adopted a few historical Indian names to lend verisi- militude to his fabrication, but as Mr. Fleet urges in his severely critical pajier "the names put forward here in connexion with St. Thomas are distinctly not such as have lived in Indian story and tradition" (Jour, of R. Asiatic Soc, 1905, p. 235).

On the other hand, though the tradition that St. Thomas preached in "India" was widely spread in both East and West and is to be found in such writers as E])hraem Syrus, Ambrose, Paulinus, Jerome, and, later, in Gregory of Tours and others, still it is diffi- cult to discover any adi'qu;itc supjiort for the long- acce))tcd belief that St. Tliom:is puslied his missionary journeys as f:ir .south iis Myliiiore, not far from Ma- dras, :ind there suffered nuutyrdom. In that region is still to he found a granite bas-relief cross with a Pahlavi (ancient Persian) inscription dating from the seventh century, and the tradition that it was here