Acts of Thomas
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The Acts of Thomas is arguably is one of the New Testament apocrypha describing the life of the Apostle Thomas, whom it portrays as Jesus' twin brother. It survived in several manuscripts in various language, despite its Gnostic depiction of Christ.
The work provides romantic narratives of Thomas' miraculous evangelistic adventures, especially in India, where he traveled after being sold as a slave by the resurrected Jesus. The book ends with Thomas' martyrdom, in which he dies as a result of being pierced with spears because he had earned the ire of the monarch Misdaeus, whose wives and other relatives Thomas converted to an ascetic form of Christianity. Its liturgical elements, narrative, and poetry provide important insights into early Christian traditions, escpecially in Syria, where it was widely circulated and possible written.
Embedded in the Acts of Thomas at different places according to differing manuscript traditions is a Syriac hymn, The Hymn of the Pearl, (or Hymn of the Soul), a poem that gained a great deal of popularity in mainstream Christian circles. The Hymn is probably older than the Acts into which it has been inserted, and is worth appreciating on its own.
Fragments of four other cycles of romances about the figure of the apostle Thomas survive, but this is the only complete one. It should not be confused with the Gospel of Thomas.
Text
References to the work by Epiphanius show that it was still in circulation in the fourth century. The complete versions that survive are Syriac and Greek, and there are many surviving fragments of the text. Some scholars detect from the Greek that its original was written in Syriac, which places author of the Acts of Thomas in Syria.
The surviving Syriac manuscripts, however, have been edited to purge them of the most unorthodox overtly Gnostic passages, so that the Greek versions reflect the earlier tradition. Some scholars argue that the Acts of Thomas were originally composed in Greek and soon translated rendered into Syriac.
Though no less an orthodox saint than Gregory of Tours made a version of the text, mainstream Christian tradition rejects the Acts of Thomas as pseudepigraphical, apocryphal, and heretical. The Roman Catholic Church did not officially confirmed the Acts as heresy, however, until the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century.
Content
The text is broken by headings:
- 1 - when he went into India with Abbanes the merchant
The apostles gather in Jerusalem, where each of them is assigned as an evangelist to a different regions of the world. Thomas is assigned to India, but refuses to go, pleading weakness of health, and also that, as a Jew, he cannot live among Gentiles. Despite a vision from Jesus that night, encouraging him to make the journey, but Thomas still refuses, saying: "Whither thou wouldest send me, send me, but elsewhere, for unto the Indians I will not go." Jesus then sells Thomas, who, like Jesus, is a carpenter, as a slave to merchant named Abbanes, the agent of King Gundaphorus of India. Sailing to the royal city of Andrapolis, Thomas attends the wedding feast of the king's daughter with his master. He declines food and drink, and refuses to gaze at a lovely flute-girl who dances for him. For his rudeness, he is struck by a royal cup-bearer. Thomas responds by bursting into a hymn of praise to the dancer and God, in which he prophesies in Hebrew: "I shall now see the hand that hath smitten me dragged by dogs." The cup-bearer is soon killed by a lion at the local well, after which he is eaten by dogs. The flute-girl immediately breaks her flute and becomes Thomas' disciple.
Tthe king hears of the miracle and asks Thomas to pray for his daughter, who is an only child, and her marriage. At the bridal chamber, Thomas prays to Jesus as "the ambassador that wast sent from the height... who didst open the doors and bring up thence them that for many ages were shut up in the treasury of darkness, and showedst them the way that leadeth up unto the height." He blesses the couple, asking that God will show them what "will expedient and profitable" for them. However, when the groom enters the chamber, he sees a vision of Jesus, "bearing the likeness of Thomas" and speaking with the bride. Jesus declares "if ye abstain from this foul intercourse, ye become holy temples," and argues against procreation, since "children become useless, oppressed of devils... for they will be caught either in adultery or murder or theft or fornication, and by all these will ye be afflicted." The couple are immediately converted, committing themselves to "abstain from foul desire." In the morning, she tells her parents: "I am yoked unto a true husband."
15 And while the bride was saying yet more than this, the bridegroom answered and said: I give thee thanks, O Lord, that hast been proclaimed by the stranger, and found in us; who hast removed me far from corruption and sown life in me; who hast rid me of this disease that is hard to be healed and cured and abideth for ever, and hast implanted sober health in me; who hast shown me thyself and revealed unto me all my state wherein I am; who hast redeemed me from falling and led me to that which is better, and set me free from temporal things and made me worthy of those that are immortal and everlasting; that hast made thyself lowly even down to me and my littleness, that thou mayest present me unto thy greatness and unite me unto thyself; who hast not withheld thine own bowels from me that was ready to perish, but hast shown me how to seek myself and know who I was, and who and in what manner I now am, that I may again become that which I was: whom I knew not, but thyself didst seek me out: of whom I was not aware, but thyself hast taken me to thee: whom I have perceived, and now am not able to be unmindful of him: whose love burneth within me, and I cannot speak it as is fit, but that which I am able to say of it is little and scanty, and not fitly proportioned unto his glory: yet he blameth me not that presume to say unto him even that which I know not: for it is because of his love that I say even this much.
16 Now when the king heard these things from the bridegroom and the bride, he rent his clothes and said unto them that stood by him: Go forth quickly and go about the whole city, and take and bring me that man that is a sorcerer who by ill fortune came unto this city; for with mine own hands I brought him into this house, and I told him to pray over this mine ill-starred daughter; and whoso findeth and bringeth him to me, I will give him whatsoever he asketh of me. They went, therefore and went about seeking him, and found him not; for he had set sail. They went also unto the inn where he had lodged and found there the flute-girl weeping and afflicted because he had not taken her with him. And when they told her the matter that had befallen with the young people she was exceeding glad at hearing it, and put away her grief and said: Now have I also found rest here. And she rose up and went unto them, and was with them a long time, until they had instructed the king also. And many of the brethren also gathered there until they heard the report of the apostle, that he was come unto the cities of India and was teaching there: and they departed and joined themselves unto him.
- 2 - concerning his coming unto the king Gundaphorus
- 3 - concerning the servant
- 4 - concerning the colt
- 5 - concerning the devil that took up his abode in the woman
- 6 - of the youth that murdered the Woman. A young couple begin to have relationship problems when the woman proves to be too keen on sex, while the male advocates being chaste, honouring the teachings of Thomas. So the male kills his lover. He comes to take the eucharist with others in the presence of Thomas, but his hand withers, and Thomas realises that the male has committed a crime. After being challenged, the male reveals his crime, and the reason for it, so Thomas forgives him, since his motive was good, and goes to find the woman's body. In an inn, Thomas and those with him lay the woman's body on a couch, and, after praying, Thomas has the male hold the woman's hand, whereupon the woman comes back to life.
- The story clearly has the gnostic themes of death and resurrection, death not being a bad thing but a result of the pursuit of gnostic teaching, and the resurrection into greater life (and they lived happily ever after) once gnostic teaching is understood.
- 7 - of the Captain
- 8 - of the wild asses
- 9 - of the Wife of Charisius
- 10 - wherein Mygdonia receiveth baptism
- 11 - concerning the wife of Misdaeus
- 12 - concerning Ouazanes (Iuzanes) the son of Misdaeus
- 13 - wherein Iuzanes receiveth baptism with the rest
- The Martyrdom of Thomas
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Klijn, A.F.J. (2003). The Acts of Thomas: Introduction, Text, and Commentary. Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 978-9004129375.
See also
- Leucius Charinus
External links
- Medlycott India and Apostle Thomas Acts of Thomas
- Early Christian Writings: Acts of Thomas
- Geoff Trowbridge's introduction to Acts of Thomas
- The Gnostic Society Library: From the translation and notes by M. R. James in The Apocryphal New Testament, Oxford 1924.
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