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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

CHAP. XVIII. p. 356.

ST. THOMAS.   117

part of India is not in favour of Christian Evangelization), it is

impossible to accept the theory of the martyrdom of St. Thomas

in Southern India.

The late Mr. J. F. FLEET, in his paper on St. Thomas and

Gondophernes (Journ. Roy. As. Soc., April, 1905, pp. 223-236), re-

marks that " Mr. Philipps has given us an exposition of the western

traditional statements up to the sixth century." He gives some

of the most ancient statements ; one in its earliest traceable form

runs thus : " According to the Syriac work entitled The Doctrine

of the Apostles, which was written in perhaps the second century

A.D., St. Thomas evangelized ` India.' St. Ephraem the Syrian

(born about A.D. 300, died about 378), who spent most of his life

at Edessa, in Mesopotamia, states that the Apostle was martyred

in ` India,' and that his relics were taken thence to Edessa. That

St. Thomas evangelized the Parthians, is stated by Origen (born

A.D. 185 or 186, died about 251-254). Eusebius (bishop of

Cesarea Palwstinæ from A.D. 315 to about 340) says the same.

And the same statement is made by the Clementine Recognitions,

the original of which may have been written about A.D. 210. A

fuller tradition is found in the Acts of St. Thomas, which exist in

Syriac, Greek, Latin, Armenian, Ethiopic, and Arabic, and in a

fragmentary form in Coptic. And this work connects with St.

Thomas two eastern kings, whose names appear in the Syriac

version as Gūdnaphar, Gundaphar, and Mazdai ; and in the

Greek version as Goundaphoros, Goundiaphoros, Gountaphoros,

and Misdaios, Misdeos ; in the Latin version as Gundaforus,

Gundoforus, and Misdeus, Mesdeus, Migdeus ; and in the remain-

ing versions in various forms, of the same kind, which need not be

particularized here." Mr. Fleet refers to several papers, and

among them to one by Prof. Sylvain Lévi, Saint Thomas,

Gondopharés et Mazdeo (Journ., As., Janv.-Fév., 1897, pp. 27-42),

who takes the name Mazdai as a transformation of a Hindū

name, made on Iranian soil and under Mazdean influences, and

arrived at through the forms Bazodēo, Bazdēo, or Bäzodēo,

Bäzdēo, which occur in Greek legends on coins, and to identify

the person with the king Väsudēva of Mathurā, a successor of

Kanishka. Mr. Fleet comes to the conclusion that : " No name,

save that of Guduphara Gondophernès, in any way resembling

it, is met with in any period of Indian history, save in that of

the Takht-i-Bahi inscription of A.D. 46 ; nor, it may be added,

any royal name, save that of Vāsudēva of Mathurā, in any way

resembling that of Mazdai. So also, as far as we know or have

any reason to suppose, no name like that of Guduphara--

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