The Myth of St Thomas and the Mylapore Temple
The Story Begins
If St. Thomas was a carpenter slave, then Diogo Fernandez is the gentleman architect who laid the foundation stone for his church on the Mylapore beach. He was Albuquerque's attendant at Goa and is described by N. Figuerdo, in St. Thomas the Apostle in Mylapore, as "a virtuous old man of good conduct'. Very probably he was?so long as the virtue did not interfere with the demands of his Roman Catholic faith. He arrived at Mylapore in 1517 in the company of some wealthy Armenian merchants who were coming from Malacca. They knew Marco Polo's story and knew, too, that the "Thomas" revered by Syrian Christians at Mylapore was not a martyr. This was not a very satisfactory circumstance for them or the Portuguese. Their passionate nature and martyrolatrous religion required a sacrifice.[51] All the apostles had suffered martyrdom except St. John,[52] and St. Thomas was not going to get away with an accidental death in Portuguese territory. Moreover, if the Portuguese knew Marco Polo's story, they knew better the Latin fables Passio Thomae and De Miraculis Thomae, which had been circulating in Europe for a thousand years. Both legends deviated from the Acts of Thomas, in which St. Thomas had been executed by king's men with spears, and described his death as being at the hands of a Pagan priest of the Sun?or Zoroastrian?who, in one, had stabbed him with a lance, and in the other, with a sword. The Portuguese preferred De Miraculis Thomae, in which the priest used a lance, and had the romance published in Portugal in 1531 and 1552 to substantiate the "discovery" they had made at Mylapore in 1523. It did not matter to them that this European story, too, had St. Thomas buried on a mountain, while they had in their possession only a seashore tomb.
Interested in this topic? Continue reading at this site: http://hamsa.org/17.htm
If St. Thomas was a carpenter slave, then Diogo Fernandez is the gentleman architect who laid the foundation stone for his church on the Mylapore beach. He was Albuquerque's attendant at Goa and is described by N. Figuerdo, in St. Thomas the Apostle in Mylapore, as "a virtuous old man of good conduct'. Very probably he was?so long as the virtue did not interfere with the demands of his Roman Catholic faith. He arrived at Mylapore in 1517 in the company of some wealthy Armenian merchants who were coming from Malacca. They knew Marco Polo's story and knew, too, that the "Thomas" revered by Syrian Christians at Mylapore was not a martyr. This was not a very satisfactory circumstance for them or the Portuguese. Their passionate nature and martyrolatrous religion required a sacrifice.[51] All the apostles had suffered martyrdom except St. John,[52] and St. Thomas was not going to get away with an accidental death in Portuguese territory. Moreover, if the Portuguese knew Marco Polo's story, they knew better the Latin fables Passio Thomae and De Miraculis Thomae, which had been circulating in Europe for a thousand years. Both legends deviated from the Acts of Thomas, in which St. Thomas had been executed by king's men with spears, and described his death as being at the hands of a Pagan priest of the Sun?or Zoroastrian?who, in one, had stabbed him with a lance, and in the other, with a sword. The Portuguese preferred De Miraculis Thomae, in which the priest used a lance, and had the romance published in Portugal in 1531 and 1552 to substantiate the "discovery" they had made at Mylapore in 1523. It did not matter to them that this European story, too, had St. Thomas buried on a mountain, while they had in their possession only a seashore tomb.
Interested in this topic? Continue reading at this site: http://hamsa.org/17.htm
posted by Roydon Domnic at 5:48 PM
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