Chapter 2
St. Thomas in other Early Testimonies
As we have seen several Fathers of the Church conscientiously
recorded their comments on the missionary situation of the early
Church and hence enthusiastically included the role of the Apostle
Thomas in India. Their testimonies are not only praiseworthy but
are also to be commended for their pastoral trustworthiness. We
shall now look into other testimonies of the period immediately
following that of the Fathers of the Church.
i. An Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (883 A.D)
There is a report from the Anglo-Saxon chronicle regarding the
tomb of the Apostle Thomas in India. In an entry of the year 883
it is stated that King Alfred of England had sent offerings to St.
Thomas in India. It reads as follows: “And in the same year,
Singhelm and Aesthalstan conveyed to Rome the alms which the
King had vowed to send thither and also to India to St. Thomas...”
A similar information is found also in the writings of William of
Malmesbury who states as follows: “Beyond the sea, to Rome and
to Saint Thomas in India he (Alfred) sent many gifts. The legate
employed for this purpose was Sigelinus the Bishop of Sherborne,
who with great success arrived in India, at which every one of this
age wonders. Returning thence he brought back exotic gems and
aromatic liquors which the land there produces”18 The meaning of
sending alms to a person who did not certainly exist at that time can
only mean that an offering was sent to his tomb for the purpose of
maintaining it or to be used for the poor of the locality in the name
of the saint buried there.
ii. Mar Solomon, Bishop of Bosra (1222)
In the year 1222, Mar Solomon Bishop of Bosra in Mesopotamia,
wrote the following in his “Book of Bee”, a precious Syriac
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manuscript which is preserved in the archives of the Metropolitan
Palace, Trichur, with this explicit note: “Habban the merchant
brought the body of Thomas and laid it in Edessa, the holy city. But
there are others who maintain that he was buried in Mahlup
(Mylapore), a city in the land of the Indians”19. In all probability this
Bishop and writer is giving his information based on two popular
traditions of his time: the first on the translation of the body of the
Apostle Thomas to Edessa (as reported in the apocryphal work,
The Acts of Thomas, the second that he died in India and lies
buried in a tomb at Mylapore which could have been known in his
locality as Mahlup.
iii. Marco Polo (1292)
Marco Polo was a well-known traveler from Venice who made a
visit to India in the year 1292. He has given some information in his
writings pertaining to St. Thomas. He says, “The body of St.
Thomas .the Apostle lies in this province of Malabar at a certain
little town having no great population”. Probably Marco Polo was
of the opinion that Mylapore was part of the province of Malabar,
since it lay on the coast continuing the stretch from the Malabar
Coast. Elsewhere he states that the Apostle Thomas was buried in
the tomb at Mylapore. He says further, “Before he came to that
place (Mylapore) where he died, he had been in Nubia, where he
converted many people to the faith of Jesus Christ...” This
distinguished traveler from Europe also states, “The Saracens
respected the Apostle as a prophet and saint of their own and
venerated his tomb by frequenting it in pilgrimage. The Hindus too
did venerate the tomb”20.
We could not have expected a better assessment of a Christian
shrine than what this great traveler has given. His impressions that
the tomb was sacred not only to Christians’ but also to Muslims as
well as Hindus is quite commendable.
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iv. Blessed Odoric of Pordenone (1324)
Blessed Odoric21 was a pilgrim who visited the tomb of Thomas in
Mylapore in the year 1324 after having first reached Malabar. He
records, “From this realm (he calls it ‘Minibar’) it is a journey of
ten days to Mobar (possibly Mylapore); and this is very great and
has under it many cities and towns. And in this realm is laid the
body of the Blessed Thomas the Apostle. His church is filled with
idols, and beside it are some fifteen houses of Nestorians....”
The Nestorians were the followers of Nestorius, Patriarch of
Constantinople who was condemned by the third Ecumenical
Council at Ephesus (431). Nestorius held that there was no
hypostatic union of divinity and humanity in Jesus Christ but only a
moral union of a divine person and a human person. He refused to
accept the title “Mother of God” to the Blessed Virgin Mary and
hence his condemnation. But the Nestorians continued to flourish
and even went over the world as missionaries. Hence the presence
of some Nestorian Christians around the tomb of the Apostle
Thomas in the 14th century is quite understandable.
v. Bishop John de Merignolli (1349)
Bishop John de Merignolli, Papal Legate to China visited Mylapore
in the year 1349. It was his pilgrimage to the sacred site hallowed
by the mission and death of the Apostle. And he makes the
following remark about the presence and death of the St. Thomas
there: “The third province of India is called Maabar (This word
Maabar could mean Mylapore and not Malabar, since the latter
never claimed the possession of the tomb of St. Thomas!), and the
church of St. Thomas which he built with his own hands is there,
besides another church which he built with the agency of
workmen”. With regard to the death and burial of the Apostle he
adds, “The priests gathered up the earth with which the blood had
mingled and buried it with him”.
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vi. Nicolo de Conti (1425-30)
Another traveler to India in the Middle Ages, Nicolo de Conti of
Italy has recorded the following statement about his visit to the
tomb of St. Thomas the Apostle: “Proceeding onwards the said
Nicolo arrived at a maritime city, which he named Malepur, situated
in the second gulf beyond the Indus (Bay of Bengal). Here the
body of St. Thomas lies buried honourably in a large and beautiful
church, it is worshipped by heretics, who are called Nestorians and
inhabit the city to the number of a thousand.” Except for the fact
that the Nestorians refused to accept the title “Mother of God” to
the Blessed Virgin Mary, they were quite orthodox about several
other aspects of the doctrines of the Church and seem to have
showed much interest in the spreading of the Gospel in the far
away missions.
There are two traditions attested to by the testimony of Bishop John
de Merignolli: the first is that St. Thomas himself built a church in
Mylapore, referred to as “the very narrow chapel built by St.
Thomas himself”22. The second tradition which had also been long
believed by the people in Mylapore was that the earth mingled with
the blood of the Apostle was buried with his body.
vii. Bishops from Bagdad (1504)
Around the year 1504 four Bishops from Bagdad in Mesopotamia
did visit South India and places hallowed by the apostolate of the
Apostle Thomas and they wrote back to their Patriarch the
following: “As to the monastery of St. Thomas the Apostle, some
Christian men have gone into it, have inhabited it and are now busy
restoring it; it is on the shore of the sea in a town called Mailapore,
in the country of Silan (Solan, Cholan, Chola), one of the Indian
countries”23.
It is for the first time that we have a reference to Mylpaore as
being located in the country of the Cholas mistakenly mentioned as
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Solan by the bishops from Bagdad. As for the monastery it is
possible that they are referring to the very edifice of the church
around the tomb of Thomas, which by then was getting ruined and
was badly in need of restoration.
viii. Duarte Barbosa (1515)
This Portuguese traveler and pilgrim made a visit to the tomb of the
Apostle and has made the following statement: “Going yet farther
and leaving behind Choramandal and the lands, there is on the sea
strand a city which is right ancient and almost deserted, called
Mailalpur, which erewhile was great and fair, pertaining to the
Kingdom of Narasyngua. Here lies buried the body of the Blessed
Saint Thomas in a church near the sea”24
And elsewhere Duarte Barbosa describes the condition of the same
church as follows: “...The Moors and other heathens used to burn
lights in it, each one claiming it as their own. The church is
arranged in our fashion with crosses on the altar and on the summit
of the vault and a wooden grating and pea**** as devises, but it
is now very ruinous and all around it covered with brushwood. A
poor Moor holds charge of it and begs alms for it, from which a
lamp is kept burning at night and on what is left they live. Some
Indian Christians go there on pilgrimage and carry away many
relics, little earthen balls from the same tomb of the Blessed Saint
Thomas and also give alms to the aforesaid Moor, telling him to
repair the said house”.
It is clear that from the writings of Duarte Barbosa some calamity
had fallen on the Christians of Mylapore already in the late 15th
century and the church which housed the tomb of the Apostle had
been dilapidated and left to the care of a Moor!
ix. Diogo Fernandes (1517)
Diogo Fernandes another Portuguese pilgrim seems to have visited
the tomb of St. Thomas at Mylapore together with Bastio
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Fernandes, and some Armenians. By this time, the body of the
Church which housed the tomb, 26 feet in length and 17 feet in
width was already in ruins. The walls were standing surrounded by
high bushes all around. The grave, which was the monument in
honour of St. Thomas was to the right side of the altar and it was
quite intact.
Diogo Fernandes is also remembered as the one who spent quite
some time in and around Mylapore as a very devoted pilgrim. It
was he who took the initiative to put up a small oratory in honour
of the saint in the Mount of St. Thomas, that is, the hill where he
was believed to have suffered his martyrdom. He should have
spent time in prayer and meditation around this oratory.
x. St. Francis Xavier (1545)
St. Francis Xavier was among the most illustrious pilgrims who
visited the St. Thomas shrine in Mylapore during the Portuguese
period. It is recorded that the saint visited Mylapore in 1545 and
stayed there for a few months as the guest of Fr. Gaspar Coelho.
The purpose of the visit was to pray to the Apostle Thomas at the
shrine and to obtain his help to resolve his doubts and anxieties
about his plans to travel to the East and continue his apostolic
labours in Malacca and thereafter to China. It is also reported that
St. Francis Xavier spent long hours in prayer in front of a statue of
Our Lady placed in the garden adjacent to the Church of St.
Thomas. This statue of Mary in a seated position has been known
even till today as Our Lady of Mylapore.
Following St. Francis Xavier, a century or more later, St. John de
Britto, another Jesuit, too visited the shrine of St. Thomas at
Mylapore in June 1681. It was a hard time for the people of the city
due to some recent wars and this saint seems to have been with
the people in their time of distress. St. John de Britto is reported to
have visited the shrine for a second time in 1691 in his official
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capacity as the Visitor of the Madurai Jesuit mission and prayed
there.
xi. The Roman Martyrology (1584)
The Roman martyrology begun to be written in 1584 by the order
of Pope Gregory XIII contains the following message25:.
“On the twelfth of the Kalends of January. At Calamina. The
Martyrdom of St. Thomas the Apostle, who preached the Gospel to
the Parthians, the Medes, the Persians and the Hyrcanians. Then
he went to India where after having instructed the people in the
Christian faith, he died pierced with a lance by order of the King”
The people who are mentioned in the martyrology as well as in
other writings, as having benefited from the preaching of Thomas,
namely the Parthians, the Medes, the Persians, the Hyrcanians and
the Bactrians formed a compact group, who were part of the later
Persian Kingdom, in the northern part of India.
