But The Tradition Of Thomas's Preaching In India Is Very Old, So Old That
It Probably Is, In Its Simple Form, True.
St. Jerome accepts it, speaking
of the Divine Word as being everywhere present in His fullness:
"Cum Thoma
in India, cum Petro Romae, cum Paulo in Illyrico," etc. (Scti Hieron
Epistolae, LIX, ad Marcetlam.) So dispassionate a scholar as Professor
H.H. Wilson speaks of the preaching and martyrdom of St. Thomas in S.
India as "occurrences very far from invalidated by any arguments yet
adduced against the truth of the tradition." I do not know if the date is
ascertainable of the very remarkable legend of St. Thomas in the apocryphal
Acts of the Apostles, but it is presumably very old, though subsequent to
the translation of the relics (real or supposed) to Edessa, in the year
394, which is alluded to in the story. And it is worthy of note that this
legend places the martyrdom and original burial-place of the Saint upon a
mount. Gregory of Tours (A.D. 544-595) relates that "in that place in
India where the body of Thomas lay before it was transported to Edessa,
there is a monastery and a temple of great size and excellent structure and
ornament. In it God shows a wonderful miracle; for the lamp that stands
alight before the place of sepulture keeps burning perpetually, night and
day, by divine influence, for neither oil nor wick are ever renewed by
human hands;" and this Gregory learned from one Theodorus, who had visited
the spot.
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