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ST. THOMAS THE APOSTI.E AND INDIA
2 5
by sea. Now the Roman seaports on the Eastern side were all
on the Red Sea; and Dr. Farquhar has built up his St. Thomas
romance wholly on the assumption that the Apostle went to
Alexandria and from there proceeded to one of the Red Sea
ports where he took ship for India. But Thomas was at
Jerusalem, and if a merchant from Gondopharnes’ realm really came
there it is the far more natural suggestion that he had come
either by caravan through Persia and Syria — which is the most
probable — or that he may have arrived by ship along the
Persian coast to the mouth of the Euphrates and then through
Mesopotamia have reached Syria and Palestine — which is
perhaps a degree less probable. However, we keep to the
information that the voyage of Habbän and St. Thomas was partly by
sea; and as that voyage most probably was simply the return
journey of the merchant we may assume that he had arrived
by way of the Persian Gulf.
At the time we are talking of the interrelations between
the Roman Empire and Parthia were not too bad. If then a
Christian Jew in Jerusalem, who was consequently a Roman
subject, wanted to accompany a merchant from the Far East
to his native land he may have passed unresisted through the
Parthian province of Mesopotamia and taken ship at one of the
ports situated at the head of the Persian Gulf. From there he
went towards the East and landed, according to the Acts, at a
place called Andrapolis or something like that. The name
conveys nothing at all to us although several more or less wild
speculations have been built upon it. But if our theory is right
it most probably was situated somewhere near the Indus delta,
perhaps in the neighbourhood of the modern Karachi. To find
one’s way from there along the Indus towards the realm of
Gondopharnes would not have been an impossible.undertaking;
however, I admit that I should with pleasure like to see
explained away the passage in the Acts concerning the sea-voyage.
For, the whole thing would be considerably much simpler if
we were allowed to believe that St. Thomas and Habbän went
by caravan through Persia towards Afghanistan.
One of the capitals of Gondopharnes was Taxila (Takshäsilä),
a very old city where recent excavations have brought to light
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