frequently to him, asked his advice in affairs of importance, and had always reason to repent when he did not follow it. Popes, bishops, and princes, often sent messages to him. Such was his tenderness for the poor, that he gave them every part of his own coarse meat and clothes which it was in his power to retrench and once he would have sold himself for a slave to procure assistance for certain persons in deep distress, had he not been prevented. Towards the end of his life he drew up rules for his Laura. On the (th of December, in 956, foreseeing that his death drew near, he came down from his cell to his Laura, said mass more early than usual, then took to his bed, being seized with a violent fever. He spent his last moments in prayer, and in repeating tender instructions to his monks, till his happy death, which fell out on the 15th of December, on which day he is commemorated in the Greek Synaxarium Papebroke tells us, he found his name in some Greek calendars on the 21st of December. See his life, which is well wrote, quoted by Leo Allatius, and Jos. Assemani in Cal. Univ. T. 5. p. 467. abridged by Fleury, 1. 55 n. 52. T. 12. p. 101, &c.

See Tillemont, T. 1. p. 35. Ant. Pagi, Critiça, vol. 1. p 421.. The false Acts of St Thomas are rejected by pope Gelasius, S. Austin, 1. contra Adimant. c. 12 Contra Faust. 1. 22 c. 9. and 1. 1. de serm. D. in Monte, S Athan. in Synopsi, S. Epiph. hær. 47. and S. Cyril, cap. 6. This last ascribes these Acts to Thomas a Manichean. Those in Metaphrastes are taken from them.

FIRST AGE.

Ir was not unusual for the Jews, and other Orientals,

when they conversed with other nations, to assume names in the language of those countries of the same import with those which they bore in their own, that the sound might be less uncouth or harsh to such foreigners. For, where languages, though there is always some general

analogy, differ too widely, as those of the Orientals, on one side, and on the other the Sclavonian, do from ours, names in the one appear disagreeable in pronunciation, unless they are softened, and brought to some affinity. Thus Tabita was in Greek called Dorcas, a doe: Cephas Peter, Thomas and Didymus, Thauma, or Thama, in Chaldaic signifying a Twin. St Thomas was a Jew, and probably a Galilæan of low condition, according to Metaphrastes, a fisherman. He had the happiness to follow Christ, and was made by him an apostle in the year 31 (1). If he appears to have been slow in understanding, and unacquainted with secular learning, he made up for this by the candour and simplicity of his heart, and the ardour of his piety and desires. Of this he gave a proof when Jesus was going up to the neighbourhood of Jerusalem in order to raise Lazarus to life, where the priests and Pharisees were contriving his death. The rest of the disciples endeavoured to dissuade him from that journey, saying: Rabbi, the Jews but now sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again? But St Thomás said to his fellow-disciples: Let us also go, that we may die with him (2). So ardent was his love of his divine master, even before the descent of the Holy Ghost.. When our Lord at his last supper acquainted his disciples that he was about to leave them; but told them, for their comfort, that he was going to prepare a place for them in his Father's house, our apostle, who vehemently desired, to follow him, said: Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way? (3) Christ presently rectified his misapprehension, by returning this short, but satisfactory answer: I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No man cometh to the Father but by nie. By which he gave to understand, that by his doctrine and example he had taught men the path of salvation, and that he is the author of the Way that leadeth to life, which he hath both opened and discovered to us; that he is the teacher of that Truth which directs to it; and the giver of that Life of grace here, and of a glorious eternity hereafter, which is to be obtained by walking in this way, and according to this truth.

(1) Mat. x. 3. 3) John xi. 16. (3) John xiv. 5, 6.

After our Lord had suffered, was risen from the dead, and on the same day had appeared to his disciples, to convince them of the truth of his resurrection, Thomas, not being with them on that occasion, refused to believe upon their report that he was truly risen, presuming that it was only a phantom, or mere apparition, unless he might see the very prints of the nails, and feel the wounds in his hands and side. On that day sevennight, our merciful Lord, with infinite condescension to this apostle's weakness, presented himself again, when he and his colleagues were assembled together, probably at their devotions; and, after the usual salutations of, Peace be unto you, he turned to Thomas, and bid him look upon his hands, and put his finger into the hole of his side, and into the prints of the nails. St Austin, and many others, doubt not but this apostle did so; though this be not mentioned by the Evangelist, and some think, that, being convinced, he refrained out of modesty and respect. It is observed by St Austin and others, that he sinned by obstinacy, presumption, and incredulity; for the resurrection of Christ was no more than Moses and the prophets had long before foretold. Nor was it reasonable in him to reject the testimony of such eyewitnesses. And this stubborness might have betrayed him into infidelity. However, his refractoriness was not a sin of malice, and the mercy of our Redeemer not only brought him to saving repentance, but raised him to. the summit of holy charity and perfect virtue. St Thomas was no sooner convinced of the reality of the mys tery, but, penetrated with compunction, awe, and tender love, he cried out; My Lord and my God (4), Prostrating to him all the powers of his soul, he acknowledged him the only and sovereign Lord of his heart, and the sole object of all his affections, Nothing is more easy than to repeat these words; but to pronounce them with a sincere and perfect disposition, is a privilege, reserved to those who are crucified to the world, and in whose affections God only reigns by his pure and perfect love. So long as pride, envy, avarice, sensuality, or other passions, challenge to themselves any shares in our (4) John xx. 28.

affections, Christ has not established in them the empire of his grace; and it is only in lving and hypocrisy that we call him our God and our king. Let us at least labour without ceasing, by compunction and holy prayer, to attain to this happiness, that Christ may establish his reign in us, and that we may be able to say with our whole hearts: My Lord and my God. These words St Thomas spoke with an entire faith, believing him truly God, whose humanity only he saw, confessing him omnipotent, in overcoming death and hell, and acknowledging his omniscience, who knew the doubts and scruples of his heart The apostle also expressed by them the ardour of his love, which the particle my God clearly indicates. If we love our God and Redee per, can we cease sweetly, but with awe and trembling, to call him our Lord and our God, and to beg, with torrents of tears, that he become more and more perfectly the God and king of our hearts? From this apostle's incredulity,Christ mercifully drew the strongest evidence of his resurrection for the confirmation of our faith beyond all cavil or contradiction. Whence S: Gregory the Great says: (5) By this doubting of Thomas we are more confirmed in our belief, than by the faith of the other apostles." Some other fathers take notice, that our apostle, by this confession, shews himself a perfect theologian, instructed in the very school of truth, declaring in Christ two distinct natures in one and the same person, his humanity by the word Lord, and his divinity by the word God. Faith in the beginning stood in need of miracles, by which God impressed the stamp of his authority upon his holy revelation. But such are the marks and cha.acteristics of his truth herein, that those who can still stand out against all the light and evidence of the Christian revelation, would bar their heart against all conviction from miracles. There were infidels amidst the dispensation of the most evident miracles as well as So true it is, that he who believeth not Moses and he prophets, would not believe the greatest of all miracies, one risen from the dead.

now.

56

(5) S. Greg. hom. 26. in Evang.

After the descent of the Holy Ghost, St Thomas commissioned Thaddeus to instruct and baptize Abgar, king or toparch of Edessa. This prince, according to the records kept in the church of Edessa, transcribed by Eusebius (6) and mentioned by St Ephrem, (7) had wrote to Christ to invite him into his kingdom, and begging to be cured by him of a distemper with which he was afflicted. Christ, in his answer, told him, that he must accomplish the things for which he was, sent, and then return to him who sent him: but that immediately after his ascension he would send one of his disciples. to the king, to heal him, and give life to him and all his family (a). This promise of our Lord was made good by St Thomas, who, by a special direction of the Holy Ghost, sent Thaddeus, one of the seventytwo disciples, and, according to some, his own brother, to Edessa, who restored the king to his health, baptized him and many others, and planted Christianity in that country. This disciple Thaddeus is distinct from St Judas the apostle, and is honoured by the Greeks, who tell us that he died at Berytus in Phoenicia, on the 21st of August. As for St Thomas, Origen (8) informs us, that in the distribution made by the twelve, Parthia was particularly assigned to him for his apostolic province, when this nation held the place .of the Persian empire, and disputed the sovereignty with the Romans. After preaching with good success in the particular province of Parthia, he did the same in other nations subject to

(6) Hist. 1. 1. c. 13. p. 36. ed. Cantabr. -tam. T. 2. p. 235. ed. Vatic. Anno 1743. Hist. 1. 3. c. 1. p. 87.

(7) S. Ephr. in Tes(8) Orig. ap. Eus.

(a) This letter of Abgar to Christ, and our Lord's answer, are rejected as counterfeit by Erasmus, Coster, Melchior Cano, Bellarmin, Dupin, Rich. Simon, and Natalis Alex. sæc. 1. diss. 3. Among the Protestants, by Rivet, Hornbeck, the younger Spanheim, &c. But are stiffly maintained to be genuine by Tillemont, I. 1. Reading (not. in Eus. p. 36.) &c. See Grabe, Spicilegium Patrum, T. 1. p. 1.& 6. James Basnage Hist. des Juifs, T. 1. c. 18. p. 500. Theoph. Sigf. Bayer, Hist. Edessena et Osroena, 1. 3. p. 104. Jos. Simon Assemani, Bibl. Orient. T. 1. p. 318, 420, 554. Joan. Albert. Fabricius, Codex Apochryphus N. Test. F. 1. p. 317. Le Quien, Orien. Christ. T. 2. p. 624. Mamachi, Orig. Eccles. 1. 2. T. 1.

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