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JARL CHARPENTIER
value has so far come out of the discussion between him and
his opponent, Mr. THOMA, even if I have perhaps not been able
to follow that discussion in all its details.
I have already given it as my humble opinion that no
authentic proofs whatsoever can be found for the South Indian
Apostolate of St. Thomas, and that the Christians of St. Thomas
are mainly a Nestorian community that immigrated from Persia
in the 4th century A.D. On the other hand it seems to me
that sound historical opinion must take into the most serious
consideration the undisputable identity of Güdnaphar, king of
India, and Gondopharnes, king of Kabul and the Punjaub about
19—45 A.D. His identity forms sufficient proof that an early
Christian missionary must have visited North-Western India and
Afghanistan shortly after the death of Jesus though no traces
of his labours in that field have so far been made known or
will perhaps ever be. This missionary is known by tradition
as Judas Thomas, an Apostle and the twin brother of our Lord.
This, however, leads to what is in my opinion the punctum
saliens of the whole problem, viz. who was this Thomas, the
Apostle of whom the Gospels have indeed very little to tell
except the well-known story in St. John XX, 23 sqq.? Why is
it that the apocryphal Acts make him the twin brother of Jesus
and call him Judas Thomas while the Gospels know nothing of
this and only give his name as Thomas and Didymus? Was
he possibly the twin brother of the Lord and was this fact
concealed by the authors of the Gospels owing to the spread
of the legend of the miraculous and divine birth of Jesus? Did
this Thomas play a greater part in the history of the earliest
Church than is now discernible to us? Was the tradition of
Thomas at one time in special favour with some schismatics,
e.g. the Nestorians?
These are simply the idle questions of a layman and,
besides, questions which with every probability will never be solved.
But it seems to me that could we ever, in one way or other, prove
that St. Thomas the Apostle was a real historical person then
the problem of the early mission to India would also be brought
nigh to its solution. For, in that case only a pervert criticism
would doubt it that even this Thomas did at one time visit the
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