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Author: Fr George Nedungatt S.J.
³Thomas first evangelized
Syria and Persia and then penetrated as far as western India from where Christianity reached
also south India´ ± Said Pope Benedict XVI.
Pope Benedict XVI has recently spoken of the Apostle Thomas during a series of Wednesday
catechesis on the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ. He had started the series with St. Peter on 7
June 2006. He spoke of St. Thomas the Apostle on Wednesday 27 September, seemingly
taking away from him the traditional title Apostle of India. Though the pope did not actually
use the expression ³Apostle of Pakistan,´ what he said may seem to imply it. This matter must
surely be of interest to Christians in India, especially the Thomaschristians who traditionally
venerate St. Thomas as their father in faith.
1. Pope Benedict on St Thomas the Apostle
Pope Benedict may seem to distance himself from his predecessors, especially Pope John Paul
II, who on several occasions has referred to St. Thomas as the Apostle of India. According to
Pope Benedict XVI, however, the area St. Thomas evangelized was not south India, but what
he called ³western India,´ corresponding roughly to Pakistan today. Addressing a vast crowd
gathered in St. Peter¶s square, the pope first sketched the New Testament figure of Thomas as
the daring disciple, ready to go and die with the Master and made the explicit profession of
faith in the risen Christ as Lord and God. And then the pope went on to add:
In his name were then written the Acts and the Gospel of Thomas, both apocryphal but still
important for the study of Christian origins. Let us recall finally that, according to an ancient
tradition, Thomas first evangelized Syria and Persia (thus states already Origen, as cited by
Eusebius of Caesarea, Hist. Eccl. 3, 1) and then penetrated as far as western India (cf. Acts of
Thomas 12 and 17ss), from where Christianity reached also south India.1
For a clearer understanding of this catechetical teaching of the pope, it may be helpful to
articulate the following five points he made.
1) Pope Benedict recognizes that the Acts of Thomas (ATh), though an apocryphal work, is
³important for the study of Christian origins.´
2) The pope cites the ATh in support of his statement that the Apostle Thomas evangelized
³western India.´
3) By ³western India´ what is meant is northwestern India of former times, or IndoParthia, the
realm of King Gundaphar of the first century A.D.
4) The pope clearly distinguishes between the evangelization of ³western India´ and that of
south India: whereas the Apostle Thomas himself brought the gospel to western India, he did
not ³penetrate´ beyond to south India or Malabar.
5) Finally, it was from western India that ³Christianity reached also south India.´
Thus, according to Pope Benedict, while northwestern India was evangelized by St. Thomas,
south India was not evangelized by him. He does not specify who first preached the gospel in
south India: whether some disciple or disciples of the Apostle himself or others in the
postapostolic age or later. As the pope sees it, south India was not evangelized by St. Thomas
but by Christians coming from northwestern India, seemingly at a later period. The Thomas
christians of south India, both Catholic and others, are not likely to be thankful for this papal
statement. This is a clear departure from the pronouncements of his predecessors.
2. Former Popes on St. Thomas as the Apostle of India
Several popes have asserted the origin of south Indian Christianity from the Apostle Thomas.
For example, Pope Paul V in 1606 erected the diocese of San Thome of Mylapore ³because
there lay buried the body of St. Thomas.´ Establishing the hierarchy of the Latin Church in
India in 1886, Pope Leo XIII referred to India as having first received the light of the gospel
from the Apostle Thomas. On the occasion of the centenary celebrations in honour of St.
Thomas the Apostle and of St. Francis Xavier, Pope Pius XII declared in his radio message on
31 December 1952 as follows:
Nineteen hundred years have passed since the Apostle [Thomas] came to India and in word
and deed and utter selfsacrifice bore witness to Christ in your land. « The Christian
community formed by the Apostle conserved intact the legacy he left them«. This Apostolic
lineage, beloved sons and daughters, is the proud privilege of many among you who glory in
the name of Thomas Christians, and We are happy on this occasion to acknowledge and bear
witness to it.2
In 1986, during his apostolic visit to India, Pope John Paul II made it a point to visit the
Mylapore tomb and in a brief discourse, in which he cited the words of the Apostle Thomas to
his companions, ³Let us also go and die with him´ (Jn 11: 16), the globetrotting pope said:
According to tradition, at this very place, which is now called Saint Thomas Mount, the great
Apostle of India fulfilled his own exhortation. Out of love for Jesus, here in Madras, Saint
Thomas died for Christ. He gave his life as a martyr for the sake of Christ and the gospel.3
Again, in his discourse to the bishops of the SyroMalabar Church and the SyroMalankara
Church on 25 August 1990, on the occasion of their ad limina visit, Pope John Paul II said:
³Truly it may be said that, through you, your father in the faith, Thomas, meets Peter and
exchanges with him the µholy kiss¶ (2 Cor 13: 12), so as to be comforted and confirmed in the
service of the gospel.´4 In the same year, raising the SyroMalabar Church as a Major
Archiepiscopal Church, he wrote that this Church ³as the constant tradition holds, owed its
origin to the preaching of the Apostle St. Thomas.´5 And later in his apostolic exhortation
Ecclesia in Asia, published on 6 November 1999 from New Delhi, Pope John Paul II spoke in
particular of Churches founded in south India by the Apostle Thomas.
From Jerusalem the Church spread to Antioch, to Rome, and beyond. It reached Ethiopia in
the south, Scythia in the north, and India in the east, where tradition has it that Saint Thomas
the Apostle went in the year 52 A.D. and founded Churches in South India.6
Finally, and beyond statements of primarily local interest, Pope John Paul II wrote in his
apostolic letter Tertio millennio adveniente, addressed to the whole Church in view of the
Great Jubilee Year 2000, as follows:
As far as Asia is concerned, the Jubilee will remind us of the Apostle Thomas, who,
according to tradition, brought the proclamation of the gospel at the very beginning of the
Christian era to India.7
After all these clear statements of his predecessors about St. Thomas being the Apostle of
India, the recent pronouncement of Benedict XVI may sound like striking a dissonant note. It
may be ungainly to pit one pope against another, but his position needs to be understood
properly.
3. Understanding Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict seems to have stepped on unfamiliar ground. First of all, for his statement that
³Thomas first evangelized Syria and Persia´ let us look at the authority of Origen whom he
cites. Actually Origen does not mention either Syria or Persia but Parthia.
The holy Apostles and disciples of our Saviour were dispersed throughout the inhabited
world. For, as tradition has it, Thomas got Parthia by lot, Andrew Scythia, and John Asia,
who stayed on for some time in Ephesus and died there. As for Peter, he preached in Pontus,
Galatia, Bithynia «.(«was crucified in Rome, where Paul also was martyred under Nero).
This is what is related word for word in the third volume of Origen¶s exegetical Commentary
on Genesis.´8
Origen¶s work on Genesis has not survived. Instead, what we have is a citation of Origen by
the church historian Eusebius of Caesarea. Origen himself is citing a tradition that the Apostle
Thomas got Parthia by lot. Pope Benedict makes out from this that the Apostle evangelized
³Syria and Persia.´ This is not quite exact. The Parthian Empire included modern Iran and
Iraq (ancient ³Persia´) but not Syria. Moreover, what Origen says about Parthia is the same as
what the ATh narrates about the Apostle Thomas converting the King Gundaphar of India,
that is, of IndoParthia or northwestern India. Hence it is a doubleton to state ³and then
penetrated as far as western India´ and cite as source ³Acts of Thomas 12 and 17ss.´
Finally, the Pope makes no attempt to cite any authority for his final statement that it was
from northwest India that Christianity reached south India. This is quite surprising, since he
was so careful to cite sources in support of his previous statements about the evangelization of
³Persia´ and ³west India.´ As a matter of fact there is no known, extant, ancient text or
tradition that explicitly or implicitly supports the evangelization of south India by Christians
coming from northwest India. Certain savants who deny the evangelization of India by the
Apostle Thomas have put forward the theory that it was missionaries coming from the
Edessan Church or the Persian Church that first preached the gospel in India. But the
evangelization of south India by north Indian Christianity is a new theory. Here, Pope
Benedict not only ignores the Indian tradition about the evangelization of south India by the
Apostle Thomas, and sets aside the clear and repeated statements of his predecessors
supporting this tradition. In short, he denies the apostolic origin of the churches of the
Thomaschristians by excluding the Apostle Thomas from the evangelization of south India.
From a methodological standpoint, it is odd that on the one hand Pope Benedict attributes
much historical value to the apocryphal Acts of Thomas, while on the other hand he ignores
that the same work also probably hints at the evangelization of south India by the Apostle
Thomas: the Apostle leaves the realm of Gundaphar in India to go to another realm. Benedict
seems to be aligning himself with the majority of the German savants as well as other western
scholars today, who do not think that the Apostle Thomas evangelized India. That is a larger
issue, which will be addressed in a forthcoming book of mine, of which this article is an
extract.
4. Conclusion
According to Church magisterium at least since Galileo, papal teaching is said to be
authoritative in matters of faith and morals, but not outside it in the areas of science,
astronomy or history unrelated to the core mission of the Church. This mission is to proclaim
the good news and to teach all nations whatever Jesus has commanded. This mission is
realized and expressed in the pastoral charge of the bishops and in a unique manner in the
authority of the popes. Popes can be and have been also theologians, canonists, historians, etc.
For example, a predecessor and namesake of the present Pope, namely Benedict XIV, was a
great canonist, Prospero Lambertini, who wrote the monumental work De Servorum Dei
Beatificatione et Canonizatione published after he was elected Pope. Pope Benedict XIV¶s
authority as canonist in the area of the beatification and canonization of the Servants of God is
of the highest order, comparable to that of St. Thomas Aquinas in western theology. That is,
not his authority as Pope but as canonist.
Pope Benedict XVI has the reputation of being a great theologian, but this is not the same as
competence in church history. The Catholic faithful should distinguish the authority value of
papal pronouncements or of Vatican documents that are pastoral or administrative in nature
but not magisterial. The negative stand of Pope Benedict XVI does not erode the merit of the
Indian tradition about St. Thomas as the Apostle of India, including south India. Indeed,
according to this tradition, St. Thomas is the Apostle of India in as much as he evangelized
south India. According to Pope Benedict, it was ³western India´ that the Apostle evangelized,
today Pakistan.
In support of the apostolic origins of Christianity in India certain Indian writers cite the
statements of politicians like the Presidents of the Republic of India, whether Dr. Rajendra
Prasad or Sankar Dayal Sharma, made on the occasion of some particular Christian
celebrations. For example, President Rajendra Prasad stated: ³St. Thomas came to India,
when many of the countries of Europe had not yet become Christian«. And it is a matter of
pride to us that it so happened.´ India has also issued a postal stamp of the Apostle Thomas,
thus claiming him as her own.
When the authority of Popes is invoked in favour of the Indian apostolate of St. Thomas, it is
important to be clear about its precise value. We may mention here a precedent. With his bull
Deus Omnipotens (1884) Pope Leo XIII confirmed the apostolic origin of Santiago da
Campostella in Spain and exhorted the faithful to resume the tradition of pilgrimage to the
holy tomb of the Apostle James. But this papal bull has not served to swing scholarly opinion,
which is against the apostolic credentials of Santiago da Campostella.
Pontifical or presidential pronouncements or postal initiatives can have some pastoral or
political value; but they do not necessarily contribute to the historical argument. When a papal
statement is cited in favour of the Indian apostolate of St. Thomas, it is not to be given undue
value, as if it were historical evidence, certainly not as if it were a dogmatic definition. The
same applies also to a papal statement in favour of the opposite thesis. In this light may be
read the latest papal pronouncement on St. Thomas the Apostle.
(Endnotes)
1 Pope Benedict VI, ³Tommaso,´ L¶Osservatore Romano, 28 September 2006, p. 4.
2 Pius XII, ³Nuntius Radiophonicus,´Acta Apostolicae Sedis 45 (1953) 9699, at 9697.
3 Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, vol. IX, 1, Vatican city, 1986, p. 325.
4 L¶Osservatore Romano, 26 August 1990; AAS 83 (1991) 198.
5 John Paul II, apostolic constitution Quae maiori, dated 16 December 1990, AAS 85 (1993)
398399.
6 John Paul II, apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in Asia, n. 9, AAS 92 (2000) 460.
7 John Paul II, apostolic letter Tertio millennio adveniente, § 25 (10 November 1994): AAS
87 (1995) 21.
8 Origen, In Genesim 3 (PG 12, 92). In Genesim 3 (PG 12, 92), cited by Eusebius, HE III, 1
(PL 20, 213216). See note 196 above.
9 Fernando López Alsina, ³Santiago da Compostella,´ LTK, 3rd ed., IX, Freiburg: Herder,
2000, col. 6164, at col. 64. The tradition of
St.Thomas Christians of Kerala that the Apostle came to Malabar Coast is questioned.
But on what authority,
asks Fr. Nedungatt SJ