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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
358
MARCO POLO BOOK III.
~ fi
Iii
Marco, as we see, speaks of certain houses belonging to the church, and of certain Christians who kept it. Odoric, some thirty years later, found beside the church, " some 15 houses of Nestorians," but the Church itself filled with idols. Conti, in the following century, speaks of the church in which St. Thomas lay buried, as large and beautiful, and says there were 1000 Nestorians in the city. Joseph of Cranganore, the Malabar Christian who came to Europe in 1501, speaks like our traveller of the worship paid to the Saint, even by the heathen, and compares the church to that of St. John and St. Paul at Venice. Certain Syrian bishops sent to India in 1504, whose report is given by Assemani, heard that the church had begun to be occupied by some Christian people. But Barbosa, a few years later, found it half in ruins and in the charge of a Mahomedan Fakir, who kept a lamp burning.
There are two St. Thomas's Mounts in the same vicinity, the Great and the Little Mount. A church was built upon the former by the Portuguese and some sanctity attributed to it, especially in connection with the cross mentioned below, but I believe there is no doubt that the Little Mount was the site of the ancient church.
The Portuguese ignored the ancient translation of the Saint's remains to Edessa, and in 1522, under the Viceroyalty of Duarte Menezes, a commission was sent to Mailapúr, or San Tomé as they called it, to search for the body. The narrative states circumstantially that the Apostle's bones were found, besides those of the king whom he had converted, etc. The supposed relics were transferred to Goa, where they are still preserved in the Church of St. Thomas in that city. The question appears to have become a party one among Romanists in India, in connection with other differences, and I see that the authorities now ruling the Catholics at Madras are strong in disparagement of the special sanctity of the localities, and of the whole story connecting St. Thomas with l\Iailapúr. (Greg. Thron. Lib. Illirac. I. p. 85 ; Tr. R A. S. I. 761 ; Assemani, III. Pt. II. pp. 32, 45o ; Noma Orbis (ed. 1555), p. 210 ; Maffei, Bk. VIII. ; Cathay, pp. 81, 197, 374-377, etc.)
The account of the Saint's death was no doubt that current among the native Christians, for it is told in much the same way by Marignolli and by Barbosa, and was related also in the same manner by one Diogo Fernandes, who gave evidence before the commission of Duarte Menezes, and who claimed to have been the first Portuguese visitor of the site. (See De Couto, Dec. V. Liv. vi. cap. 2, and Dec. VII. Liv. x. cap. 5.)
As Diogo de Couto relates the story of the localities, in the shape which it had taken by the middle of the
V,7/1 16th century, both Little and Great
II / Mounts were the sites of Oratories
lo~vn which the Apostle had frequtnted ;
g prayer during
, I -er on the Little Mount
te
,/ , ~
I Kant - ,~
,r ~lor•t he was attacked ar d wounded, but
fit. C e o r ry r fled to the Great Mount, where he
e is k expired. In repairing a hermitage
Nei I ~ i I which here existed, in 1547, the
workmen came upon a stone slab
4y ,;C with a cross and inscription carved
~~, .\~ ri,r,~. upon it. The story speedily de-
sydrarettit ~ ;t
f ark . y
LITTLE dying Apostle, and its miraculous
St. Thomas Localities at
Madras.
GREAT MO U N T MOUNT ' í` virtues soon obtained great fame.
It was eventually set up over an
Miles 1 f f altar in the Church of the Madonna,
1 a 3 4 5
which was afterwards erected on
the Great Mount, and there it
still exists. A Brahman im-
postor professed to give an interpretation of the inscription as relating to the death
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