St. Thomas - a little known history

THE APOSTLE ST. THOMAS ON THE AMERICAN CONTINENT
by Father P. De Roo, 1899

The belief that ... [the Apostle] St. Thomas penetrated as far as America, in the desire to propagate the teaching of Jesus Christ, is not devoid of foundation. ...[T]he old American traditions, so singularly consistent by their agreement, whilst originating in many different parts of this extensive continent, cannot be [lightly dismissed]. St. Thomas ... had not [here] lasting success..., but other Catholic missionaries followed in the course of time to renew the work, and to teach Catholic doctrine, morality, and worship, of which the Spaniards found so many clear vestiges in South America at the time of its discovery and conquest.
But, you may ask, how did he get to the Americas in order to evangelize them;[We should then by no means rule out the possibility] of a miraculous intervention of God for the purpose of spreading the true Faith.... [Let us consider] some prehistoric vestiges found in America, that would seem to indicate the actual presence of the Apostle St. Thomas on this continent.

It is especially amongst the oldest nations of Brazil that the memory of the Apostle has been religiously kept, ...preserv[ing] the tradition that he preached to them. Nieremberg (Historiae Naturae, l. xiv, c. cxvii) writes: "The East Indians [i.e., those of Brazil] still show a path followed by St. Thomas on his way to the kingdoms of Peru. ... It is related in particular that St. Thomas had gone to Paraguay (See Nieremberg, loc. cit., and Bancroft, Native Races, vol. V, p 26) along the Iguazu River; and afterwards to Parana on the Uruguay, on the bank of which is pointed out a spot where he sat down to rest. According to the ancient reports he foretold the later coming of men who would announce to their descendants the faith of the true God. This tradition is indeed a great consolation and encouragement to the preachers of our holy religion who suffer much in their labors for the faith among those barbarous nations." ... [A]nyone reading the chronicles of Brazil...must be impressed with the fact that in that country, down from ancient times, ...the name of St. Thomas, who preached there, is preserved. ...

[Concerning the above reference] stat[ing] that St. Thomas entered Paraguay and the neighboring provinces..., Sahagun (Historia General, p. iv) relates that the Commissary of the Franciscans, who, with four other religious, had been sent to La Plata, wrote on the first of May, 1533, ...a most remarkable letter, in which he states that the Christians had been received like angels by the natives, from whom he had learned that, four years before, a certain prophet...had announced to them that ere long Christians, brothers of St. Thomas, would come to baptize [them].... [T]he prophet...had [further] enjoined them to keep the Commandments and many other Christian teachings. This report is hardly more surprising than [what we learn] from the History of Paraguay by Charlevoix...: When, in the year 1609, the Fathers Cataldino and Moceta penetrated into the wilderness of America, to convert the Guaranis, [certain] chiefs of the tribe assured them that long ago, according to their ancestral traditions, a learned man, named Pay Zuma or Pay Tuma, had preached in their country the faith of heaven and had made many conversions amongst them. Yet, in leaving he had foretold them that they and their descendants would abandon the worship of the true God, whom he had made known to them; but that, after the lapse of centuries other messengers of the same God would come with a cross, like the one they saw him carrying, and would restore among their posterity the faith he was preaching. Some years later, when Fathers Montoya and Mendoza were in the district of Taiati, in the province of Santa Crux, the Indians, seeing them approach with crosses in their hands, received them with great demonstrations of joy. The missionaries, manifesting their astonishment, were told the same story as was told Cataldino and Moceta. These natives designated their ancient Apostle also by the name of Pay Abara, or the Celibate Father. Pay Zuma seems, however, to have been the more common appellation. In all these regions the first Christian missionaries of the sixteenth century were called Pay-zumas, by the aborigines (cf. Horn, De Originibus Americanis, l. 3, c. 19; and Bastian, Die Culturländer des Alten Amerika, b. II, s. 58-67). ... It will be noticed that [the form Zuma or Tuma] bears a striking resemblance to the Apostle's name. ...

Traditions similar to these are reported in other parts of South America, such as those of the Tupinambas, and along the Uruguay, where is shown still the resting-place of the Apostle during his sojourn among the tribe (Nieremberg, loc. cit.). ...

The most ancient traditions of the Peruvians tell of a white-bearded man, named "Thonapa Arnava," ...who arrived in Peru from a southern direction, clothed with a long violet garment and red mantle. He taught the people to worship ... the Supreme God and Creator, instead of the sun and moon; [he] healed the sick and restored sight to the blind. At his approach, wherever he went, the demons took to flight. ... Horn aptly remarks that proper names frequently undergo slight variations in their passage from language to language, so that Thonapa might easily represent Thoma-Papas. ... [The title Papas, or Father, is] evidently imported, as it is without meaning in the native tongue.... The surname "Arnava" is not unreasonably interpreted from the Peruvian Nechua dialect, in which arma or arna signifies to bathe or pour water, referring probably to the ceremonies of baptism administered by St. Thomas...; [thus the name seems to designate him as Father] Thomas the Baptist. Sahagun tells the curious fact that the Peruvians gave to their missionaries, after the Spanish conquest, the name of ... Padres Tomés.

The Chilians likewise have a tradition of a bearded and shod man, who had appeared to their forefathers, healing the sick and procuring for them, when their land was parched, abundant rains (Bastian, loc.cit.).

[Concerning] the northern half of our continent..., we find in one of [America's] most magnificent ruins, in the temple of the cross of Palenque, artistic relics, which many learned antiquarians have considered as unmistakable records of the early possession of the Catholic faith. ...

Sahagun...assures us that the famous Mexican high priest and civilizer, Quetzalcoatl, was none other than St. Thomas. "Cohuatl," he says, means not serpent, as it is often mistranslated, but "twin," that is, the name of the Apostle, who was called Didumos, which means "twin"; an interpretation confirmed by the fact that in Mexico there was no serpent-worship, and no serpent is represented on any altar. ... Bancroft (Ibid., vol. V, p 200) ... says: "During the Olmec period, that is, the earliest periods of Nahua power, the great Quetzalcoatl appeared. His teachings, according to the traditions, had much in common with those of Christ in the Old World; and most of the Spanish writers firmly believed him to be identical with one of the Christian Apostles, probably St. Thomas."

Thus the belief that ... [the Apostle] St. Thomas penetrated as far as America, in the desire to propagate the teaching of Jesus Christ, is not devoid of foundation. ...[T]he old American traditions, so singularly consistent by their agreement, whilst originating in many different parts of this extensive continent, cannot be [lightly dismissed]. St. Thomas ... had not [here] lasting success..., but other Catholic missionaries followed in the course of time to renew the work, and to teach Catholic doctrine, morality, and worship, of which the Spaniards found so many clear vestiges in South America at the time of its discovery and conquest.

It would not, therefore, have been such an extraordinary matter to have followed these nations in their migrations eastward to Polynesia, and even as far as the Americas. ... But suppose that, for the sake of argument, it be granted that human means of transportation from Palestine or from European coasts to America were unknown during the lifetime of the Apostle....

There are records to indicate that St. Thomas travelled through [regions of the ancient Near East such as] Parthia, Media, Persia, Hircania, and Bactria, and thence proceeded further east to India proper (Roman Breviary, Dec. 21). Greek-speaking Christian congregations still exist at Socotera [the island Socotra, in the Indian Ocean], the place in which the missionary Theophilus was preaching at the time of Emperor Constantine. It is well known that an entire Christian population was found here by Kosmas Indicopleustes in the sixth century, by Arabian freighters in the ninth, and finally by the Portuguese in the year 1507. According to the traditions of the Syrian Christians, the Apostle passed by Socotera and landed at Cranganor, where took place the first conversions of the Indian people. He established Christian communities all over the coasts of Coromandel and Malabar, until he shed his blood for the doctrine he was preaching -- in a place, since called Beit-Tuma, or house of Thomas. This tradition is related by St. Gregory of Nazianzen, and by a merchant of Alexandria who found Christians also in Ceylon (Peschel: Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, S. 5). Nicephorus, of Constantinople, and nearly all the authors referred to by Solorzano, state, moreover, that St. Thomas preached [not only] to the easternmost peoples of India, [but even to] the Chinese.

(Rev. P. De Roo, "The Apostle St. Thomas in America," American Ecclesiastical Review, vol. XX, Jan., 1899)