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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
356
MARCO POLO BOOK III.
judiciously explained by Joseph Scaliger to be the Arabic Hawáriy (pl. Hawáriyún), " An Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ." Scaliger somewhat hypercritically for the occasion finds fault with Marco for saying the word means " a holy man." (De Enaendatione Temporum, Lib. VII., Geneva, 1629, p. 680.)
NOTE 3.—The use of the earth from the tomb of St. Thomas for miraculous cures is mentioned also by John Marignolli, who was there about 1348-1349. Assemani gives a special formula of the Nestorians for use in the application of this dust, which was administered to the sick in place of the unction of the Catholics. It ends with the words : " Signatur et sanct ficatur hic Hanana (pelvis) cum liac Taibutha (g,-atiâ) Sancti Tliomae Apostoli in sanitatenz et medelam corporis et animae, in no/lien P. et F. et S.S." (III. Pt. 2, 278.) The Abyssinians make a similar use of the earth from the tomb of their national Saint Tekla Haimanot. (J. R. G. S. X. 483.) And the Shíahs, on solemn occasionq, partake of water in which has been mingled the dust of Kerbela.
Fa-hian tells that the people of Magadha did the like, for the cure of headache, with earth from the place where lay the body of Kasyapa, a former Buddha. (Beal, p. 133.)
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The Little Mount of St. Thomas, near Madras.
NOTE 4.—Vague as is Polo's indication of the position of the Shrine of St. Thomas, it is the first geographical identification of it that I know of, save one. At the very time of Polo's homeward voyage, John of Monte Corvino on his way to China spent thirteen months in Maabar, and in a letter thence in 1292-1293 he speaks of the church of St. Thomas there, having buried in it the companion of his travels, Friar Nicholas of Pistoia.
But the tradition of Thomas's preaching in India is very old, so old that it pro-
bably is, in its simple form, true. St. Jerome accepts it, speaking of the Divine Word as being everywhere present in His fulness : "cum Thoind in India, cum Petro Romae, cum Paulo in Illyrico," etc. (Scti. Hieron. Epistolae, LIX., ad lilarceila»m.) So dispassionate a scholar as Professor H. I-I. Wilson speaks of the preaching and martyrdom of St. Thomas in S. India as " occurrences very far from invalidated by any arguments yet adduced against the truth of the tradition." I do not know if the date is ascertainable of the very remarkable legend of St. Thomas in
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