Note 186 — Chapter II · THE CONTRIBUTION OF WESTERN CHRISTENDOM BEFORE 1100 A. D.

The Apocryphal Acts arose out of attempts of early heretical sects to provide apostolic authority for their beliefs. Ecclesiastical authorities complained most bitterly of a certain Manichaean, Lucius (or Leucius) Charinus, as the author of these documents. We do not possess any of Charinus’ writings in the original. The most important collection of Apocryphal Acts was probably made in the seventh century and was commonly, though mistakenly, ascribed to Abdias, said to have been one of the Apostles who established himself as the first bishop of Babylon. Pseudo-Abdias drew from Charinus for the Acts of Andrew and Matthew. See Rudolf Hoffman’s article on the New Testament Apocrypha in Realenzyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, begründet von S. S. Herzog, 3rd edit., by Albert Hauck, vol. i, Leipzig, 1896, pp. 664–668.

The account of the Acts of St. Thomas in the Pseudo-Abdias version was probably originally composed in Syriac, translated later into Greek, and from Greek into Latin. From an analysis of the details of the story (particularly the plants and animals mentioned in it) Philipps concludes that the legend originated in the Euphrates valley and that St. Thomas was apostle of the Parthian empire and of India in the limited sense of that part of India which includes the Indus valley only (Philipps, St. Thomas, 1903). These conclusions are in the main borne out by Dahlmann in the latest and most satisfactory examination of the legend of St. Thomas. Dahlmann believes that within the story, to which many legendary elements became attached, may be found a kernel of fact. 380He maintains that connections by sea were in existence in the first century after Christ between the Roman province of Syria and northern India and that by this route St. Thomas reached the court of Gundophorus, a Parthian king of the Kabul valley and of Peshawar. The second part of the story relates the martyrdom of Thomas at the court of a King Mazdai, or Mazdeus. Some have thought that the kingdom of Mazdeus may have been situated in southern India, where subsequently there grew up a large colony of Nestorian Christians who claimed that their church was founded by St. Thomas himself. What little evidence there is, Dahlmann believes, is against this identification. He holds that the death of Thomas occurred in northwestern India (Dahlmann, Thomas-Legende, 1912, passim).