If There Is Some Possibility Of Admitting A
Voyage Of The Apostle To N.W. India (And The Flourishing State Of Buddhism
In This Part Of India Is Not In Favour Of Christian Evangelization), It Is
Impossible To Accept The Theory Of The Martyrdom Of St. Thomas In Southern
India.
The late Mr. J.F. FLEET, in his paper on St. Thomas and Gondophernes
(Journ.
Roy. As. Soc., April, 1905, pp. 223-236), remarks that "Mr.
Philipps has given us an exposition of the western traditional statements
up to the sixth century." He gives some of the most ancient statements;
one in its earliest traceable form runs thus: "According to the Syriac
work entitled The Doctrine of the Apostles, which was written in perhaps
the second century A.D., St. Thomas evangelized 'India.' St. Ephraem the
Syrian (born about A.D. 300, died about 378), who spent most of his life
at Edessa, in Mesopotamia, states that the Apostle was martyred in 'India'
and that his relics were taken thence to Edessa. That St. Thomas
evangelized the Parthians, is stated by Origen (born A.D. 185 or 186, died
about 251-254). Eusebius (bishop of Caesarea Palaestinae from A.D. 315 to
about 340) says the same. And the same statement is made by the Clementine
Recognitions, the original of which may have been written about A.D. 210.
A fuller tradition is found in the Acts of St. Thomas, which exist in
Syriac, Greek, Latin, Armenian, Ethiopic, and Arabic, and in a fragmentary
form in Coptic.
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