There are few more touching stories in the Gospel narrative than that of St Thomas, the devoted disciple who longed to believe, yet could not ; who was ready to die for the Master even before he was fully convinced of His divinity, and was never afraid to reveal his want of faith by his eager questioning of Christ or of his fellow-disciples, thus showing an honesty of purpose which compels respect.
St. Thomas was a Jew, probably a native of Galilee, and a fisherman. It has been taken for granted by many writers that he was of lowly birth, but nothing is really known of him beyond the fact that he was called Didymus, or, rather, that his name Thauma and Didymus signified the same thing, a twin. That he was present at the Resurrection of Lazarus is implied, though not actually stated, by St. John, for it was when Christ was about to start on His journey to Bethany, in spite of the fact that the last time He was in Judea the Jews had tried to stone Him, that St. Thomas uttered the memorable words: ‘Let us also go, that we may die with Him.’ In any case, he must have heard of the miracle from those who witnessed it, which makes his difficulty in accepting the Resurrection of Christ the more remarkable. The second distinct reference to him other than in the mere lists of Apostles occurs in the account of the farewell discourse after the betrayer had gone forth to do his evil work. St. Peter had just heard the terrible prophecy that he should deny the Lord, and St. Thomas, bewildered by all that had happened, interrupted the comforting words which followed it with the despairing cry: ‘Lord, we know not where you are going, and how can we know the way?’ Whether the answer, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,’ satisfied the doubter or not, it is impossible to tell, but he must have suffered greatly in the next few days, hoping against hope that the Master would prove Himself the God He claimed to be by saving Himself ‘om death.
St. Thomas was not present with the other disciples on the first Easter day, when Jesus came and stood in their midst and, much as he must have desired to believe their story, he could not accept it without further proof than their mere word. He knew their enthusiasm and their faith, which enabled them to accept mysteries far beyond their understanding, and there was deep humility in the confession that he wanted to put the reality of the Resurrection to a tangible test. That Christ Himself understood and did not blame this hesitation is proved by the opportunity He gave for that test a few days later, when St. Thomas, convinced at last, exclaimed for the first time, ‘My Lord and my God,’ acknowledging in those few words the whole doctrine of the Cross. With the reserve which characterizes his narrative, St. John refrains from saying whether St. Thomas actually touched the wounds as the Master bade him, but the probability is that he did not venture to do so. One look from Christ was enough, and henceforth there was no more eager teacher of the troth than he who had been the last to accept it. The next time Jesus appeared to His disciples St. Thomas was with them; he shared the last meal on the shore of Tiberias and heard the farewell charge to St. Peter. He was present at the Ascension; took part in the prayers in the upper room after that great event; listened to the charge of St. Peter to the new converts, who already numbered more than a hundred; and received the gift of the Holy Ghost with the other eleven.
It is related that when the Apostles met to draw up the Creed, which was to be, as it were, the rallying-point of their teaching of the heathen, St. Thomas suggested the clause, ‘The third day He rose again from the dead,’ thus setting the seal on his belief, and removing from his companions’ minds the last shadow of their fear of his full acceptance of the doctrine. At the dispersion he is said to have been sent to the far East — that is to say, to India — and he is supposed to have gone as far South as Ceylon. According to tradition, he met on his travels the three Magi who had brought gifts to the Infant Savior, related to them all the wonderful events of the life of Christ, and received them into the Church by baptism. This is, however, but one of the many legends which have gathered about the name of St. Thomas, who, on account of the very faults of his character so nobly conquered, was greatly loved amongst the early Christians.
According to one of these legends, St. Thomas received his orders to go to India from Christ Himself, who appeared to him in a dream soon after the Ascension, and told turn to go to Gondoforus, the King of the Indies, who had sent for one who should be able to build him a palace grander than that of the Emperor of Rome. So, St. Thomas went, for he knew that the palace he was to build was a spiritual one, whose ‘builder and maker’ would be God. When he arrived at the Court of Gondoforus the monarch welcomed him eagerly and gave him large sums of money with which to pay his workmen. Troubles in some distant part of his dominions unfortunately compelled the King to go away immediately after his interview with the Apostle, so that no opportunity occurred to explain what was something very like a raise position. With the simple naivete peculiar to legendary narratives, the story goes on to say that St. Thomas, left to his own devices, distributed the money given to him amongst the sick and needy, but made no attempt to build the palace.
At the end of two years the King came back, and was not unnaturally very wroth at finding that nothing had been done. The architect was seized, thrown into prison, and told to prepare for death. Then the brother of the King was taken ill and died; Gondoforus ordered a magnificent tomb to be built for him, but one day, before it was ready and the King was weeping beside the bier, the dead man sat op and said: ‘Knowest thou that he whom thou hast cast into prison is a servant of God? In Paradise, where I now dwell, the angels showed me a beautiful palace of gold and silver and precious stones, which they said had been built for thee by Thomas the architect.’ Then something of the hidden troth became clear to Gondoforus. He would fain have inquired further of his brother, but the dead man spoke no more, and, fearing he knew not what, the King hastened to the dungeon, where a remarkable conversation took place. St. Thomas quickly convinced the King of his mistake in wishing for an earthly palace, explained to him bow much better it would be to lay op treasure in heaven, where there were many mansions far more beautiful than anything here below, and finally converted him to Christianity.
Soon after this interview the Apostle left the country to teach and baptize elsewhere, but the legend is very vague as to his further wanderings. It is supposed, however, that there is some foundation of truth in the belief current in India that St. Thomas was martyred at Meliapur, on the Coast of Coromandel, for the Portuguese discovered an inscription there to the effect that he had been slain with spears at a certain spot in that town, where he had set up a cross in token of his having won the district over to the kingdom of God. It is related, further, that after this inscription had been found, vigorous search was made for the Martyr’s remains, and they were found in 1523, together with those of many whom St. Thomas had converted, in a deep vault outside the walls of the city. The bones of the Saint were identified by part of a broken lance embedded in them. Others assert that the martyrdom took place at Edessa, and that the body was buried by the Christians where the celebrated church afterwards arose, so often referred to by writers of the first four centuries of the Christian era.
In any case, it seems certain that there were many believers in the true faith in India when the Portuguese first arrived there, and to them was given the name of the ‘St. Thomas Christians.’ The new town which rose up near the ancient city of Meliapur was named after the Apostle, and he is still greatly venerated in the whole of the peninsula.
A legend current amongst the Chinese seems to point to the conclusion that St. Thomas also visited their country, and a certain sect which may possibly have degenerated from Christianity claim as their founder a teacher named Ta-mo, who, they say, dwelt long amongst their ancestors, but was compelled to leave them on account of the illness of his mother. Eager to receive her last blessing, and unable to get a boat, be made a raft of bamboo and crossed the sea on it, but he was not in time, for his own land was so very far off. When he arrived his mother was dead, and he had not even the satisfaction of weeping over her bier, for she was already buried.
In this tradition there will be recognized a slight resemblance to that accepted in the Roman Catholic Church, to the effect that St. Thomas was the only one of the Apostles absent at the death of the Virgin, a fact which has led to the growth of the touching legend that the glorified Madonna herself appeared to him to give him comfort in his disappointment. The witnesses of her Assumption bad told him not to grieve, for she whom they had all loved so well was now in heaven with her Son; and St. Thomas, unable to believe in the wonderful account without proof, entreated that the tomb should opened. This was done, and behold! it was empty; but the weeping Apostle could not accept even this as final, for might not the body have been taken away? Raising his eyes to heaven, he prayed that some sign might be given him, if indeed he long-parted Mother and Son were together, and lo! in the clouds above Mary herself appeared, holding in her hand a gleaming girdle, such as she bad worn on earth. This girdle she let fall, and St. Thomas, all his fears and doubts removed, received it in his hands. In the early days of the Church the absence of St. Thomas on the glorious occasion of the Assumption of the Virgin was looked upon as a penance imposed upon him for his want of belief in the Resurrection of Christ, and in Italy and Spain it is still the custom on St. Thomas’s Day for children to shut their father out of the room in which the family meet, not admitting him till he has paid a ransom of some kind. The father falls into the plot, and knocks humbly at the door, which is held against him by the laughing little ones, who have probably no idea of the origin of what to them seems a mere game.
The chief attributes of St Thomas in art are the scroll with the words, ‘I believe in the resurrection of the dead,’ and the builder’s rule, in allusion to the legend related above of the Apostle having gone as architect to King Gondoforus, for which reason he has been chosen as patron by architects, builders, and all workers in stone. This tool must not, however, be looked upon as the exclusive property of St. Thomas, for it is also sometimes given to those of the Apostles the manner of whose death is unknown. It is also supposed to have reference to the fact that the twelve first disciples built up the Church of which the corner-stone was Christ, and were in their turn, after the dispersion, the spiritual architects of new temples of the living God.
Occasionally the rule is replaced by a small building held in the hand of St. Thomas, and now and then he has a lance; the supposed instrument of bis martyrdom. In some old calendars the 21st of December, the day on which he is commemorated by the Latin Church, is marked by a small hand, in remembrance of the Apostle’s words: ‘Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails’; in others the hand is associated with a spear, and in yet others a lance or a pickaxe is the sign of the day.
St. Thomas is supposed to have been a man of middle height, with handsome features, curling hair, and a short beard. He was a very favorite Saint with religious painters, probably because the various legends connected with him lend themselves to picturesque treatment. As a single figure holding a lance or a builder’s rule he is constantly introduced in rood-screens, on fonts and pulpits, and the whole story of his life, with the supplementary traditions respecting it, is told again and again in stained-glass windows, notably in one of those in Bourges Cathedral, given by the builders of that city.
Devotional pictures in which St. Thomas is introduced, generally with his girdle in his hand, are numerous, and amongst them may be mentioned as especially characteristic the ‘ Risen Christ’ of Bassano, the ‘Madonna in Glory’ by Bonifazio III., both in the Venice Academy, the ‘Madonna and Child’ by Piero di Cosimo in S. Spirito, Florence, and the great fresco of the ‘Assumption of the Virgin’ by Correggio in the Cathedral of Parma.
The martyrdom of St. Thomas, though it was, of course, introduced on the door of S. Paolo fuori le Mura, and in the series of frescoes of the Deaths of the Apostles in SS. Nereo e Achilleo at Rome, has seldom been treated as a separate subject. This is, however, made up for by the numerous fine representations of the Incredulity of St. Thomas and his Reception of the Girdle of the Virgin. The former subject is given on the bronze door just referred to in a very dramatic manner, the Savior standing on a pedestal with His Apostles around Him, and St. Thomas pressing forward holding out his hand; it was beautifully rendered by the neat sculptor Andrea del Verrochio on the facade of S. Michele, Florence, and in a retable by Luca della Robbia in S. Tomaso, Montebottolino. Fine representations of the same theme are the paintings by Giovanni da Conegliano in the Academy, Venice; that by Angelo Gaddi in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence; the fresco by Luca Signorelli, in the Santa Casa at Loreto; the Risen Savior and St. Thomas, in the great Passion and Crucifixion fresco by Bernardino Luini, in S. Maria degli Angioli at Lugano; the large oil-painting by Van Dyck, in the St. Petersburg Gallery; that by Rubens at Antwerp; and the small picture by Rembrandt in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg.
The legendary incident of the giving of the girdle is, perhaps,
even more popular than the historical Incredulity of St. Thomas, and amongst the many fine renderings of it may be named the two paintings by Francesco Granacci, one in the Uffizi Gallery, the other in the Academy, Florence; the ‘Assumption of the Virgin,’ by Palma Vecchio, in the Academy, Venice; the same subject by Sodoma, in the Oratory of S. Bernardino, Siena, in which the other Apostles are witnessing the gift with varying expressions of astonishment; the ‘Coronation of the Virgin,’ by Raphael, in the Vatican Gallery, in which St. Thomas holds the girdle whilst another Apostle kisses it; and a painting by an unknown master in the Cathedral, Viterbo, in which the Holy Child is unfastening His Mother’s girdle to give it to St. Thomas, with the fine bas-relief long ascribed to Jacopo della Quercia, but now supposed to be by Nanni Antonio di Banco, on the facade of the Cathedral of Florence. Very beautiful also is the so-called Pulpito della Cintola, with its charming bas-reliefs of dancing children, by Donatello and Michelozzo, erected on the facade of the Cathedral of Prato, in honor of the girdle of the Virgin said to be preserved in that church.
Adapted from: The Saints in Christian Art: The Evangelists, Apostles, and Other Early Saints, By Mrs. Arthur Bell, (London: George Bell & Sons, 1901)