Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/38

26 and afterwards king of Portugal, the authentic vouchers, attesting these facts; the historian Osorio had had them in his own hands, and the other Portuguese historians are unanimous concerning them.

After a tradition so steady and consistent, and such an amount of evidence to the same purport, it certainly does seem to us that there would be great temerity in denying the fact of the apostleship and martyrdom of St. Thomas in India. This legend of Abdias appears on examination to be fundamentally confirmed by as incontestable proofs as can be required for the most authentic facts of history.

The existence even of the king Gondaphorus, named in the legend, has recently been rendered indisputable. The discovery is due to M. Reinaud, member of the Institute, a learned Orientalist, whose writings have always been remarkable for erudition, perspicuity, and candour, and who expresses himself thus in a Memoire published in 1849:—

"Amongst medals recently discovered, may be mentioned some of the Indo-Scyihian kings, who reigned a short time after Kanerkes in the valley of the Indus, and especially those of a prince named Gondaphorus. There are medals of the same kind in the National Library at Paris; and, according to a tradition which ascends to the very earliest ages of the Christian era, the apostle St. Thomas went to preach the Gospel in India, and suffered martyrdom on the coast of Coromandel.

"Now the Acts of the life of St. Thomas, which are extant both in Greek and Latin, mention a king named Gondaphorus. According to these Acts, St. Thomas, being at Jerusalem, embarked at the nearest port, and