A visitor named Justine recently made a major contribution to our ongoing discussion of the traditions of St. Thomas the Apostle in India. “I picked up this story travelling through Kerala,” she writes. “I think it is worth researching.” I’m pasting her entire message below. Justine adds: “The credit for writing this article should go to Ms. Paula Gruber, a German tourist who visited India/Kerala in 2005. I was responsible for translating it from German to English.”

THONDACCHAN AND THE FOUR SILVER COINS

The worship of Thondachan, a Hindu family deity, by a particular lineage of Nairs (native martial clan) of Malabar, Kerala, and especially the manner and ritual of this worship is noteworthy. Though a family deity, Thondachan is never worshipped within the Nair household. Nor has this deity been ever given a berth among the pantheon of Hindu gods at any of the Hindu temples presided over by the Brahman priests (called Namboodiris). Thondachan has a special altar built outside the Nair family compound, where non-Brahmin priests perform rituals. While Chaamundi, Vishnumoorthy, Pottan, Rakteshwari and Bhagavathi became the non-Aryan non-Brahmin deities for the village folk of Kolathunaad (an ancient province of North Kerala) along with other primitive spirits and folk-heroes, Thondachan has an even smaller following among a select Nair clan. It is believed, that up to the present day, altars for Thondachan’s worship exists in the Cherukunnu area in Kannur (Cannanore) district, especially in the lands surrounding old tharavad houses (ancestral mansions) of the Nairs.

When Thomachan (the apostle St. Thomas, – achan, signifying ‘father’) came ashore, landing at Maliankara near Moothakunnam village in Paravoor Thaluk in AD 52, (this village located 5 kilometers from Cranganoor (Kodungallur), Muziris, on the coast of Kerala), some of his followers as well as other sailors and merchants were suffering from a severe form of scurvy. Thomachan himself suffered from a sore throat which he chose to ignore, and which grew steadily worse, until no voice emanated from his lips for many days. A local Jew named Matan took the weary travelers to a local Nair tharavad (locally known as Kambiam Vallapil), in the province of Kolathunaad, a territory comprising the present Cannanore District and Badagara Taluk of Kerala State.

It is said that at the time of Thomachan’s arrival at the Nair tharavad, the Nair karnavar (landlord or head of family) lay injured from a grievous wound that had been inflicted upon him in a feudal duel. Upon seeing this, Thomachan sat beside the injured man and meditated, laying his hands on the man’s head, his throat, his chest and his groin. Immediately the karnavar felt relieved from pain, and his healing was hastened. Within a day he was up and about, his wounds nearly healed.

In return, the Nair household offered shelter to the strangers and called upon their family physician to cure the scurvy that the travelers suffered from, as well as Thomachan’s severely infected throat. Nellikaya (Emblic Myrobalan or Indian Gooseberry) based potions prepared by the tharavad was used to cure the sea-worn voyagers. In an act of gratitude, Thomachan is said to have blessed them, and gave them four silver coins saying, ‘May these coins bestow my guru’s blessings upon you and your household, for take heed when I tell you that the money I pay you today is anointed with the blood of my guru’.

This holy man, Thomachan, is believed to have related a curious story to the members of the tharavad, which has been passed down the ages.

Before he set sail from a seaport in the region called ‘Sanai’ somewhere in the western seas, he had witnessed the persecution of his guru, who was tortured and nailed to a wooden cross and left to die. He spoke of how his guru returned from his ordeals three days later, fully cured. His guru handed him the silver coins saying, ‘my body was sold with these, and now they have been returned to me, all thirty pieces. Put them to good use, as I have. Though you shall choose to travel by sea, I shall meet you again in the mountains of the land where you will finally arrive.’

The Nair tharavad later migrated further north to the Cherukunnu area of present day Kannur. They referred to the four silver pieces as ‘rakta velli’ (blood silver) or ‘parindhu velli’ (parindhu for eagle, as one face of all these four ancient coins bear the figure of an eagle). They also decided never to utilize the silver as it was the custom then not to part with the gift of a guest.

Over time, and with the advent of Christianity, the significance of the four silver coins received by the tharavad was understood, but family history is still obscure as to whether Thomachan possessed, or what he did with the remaining twenty-six pieces of silver his guru gave him.

This Nair family never converted to the Christian faith as did many others in that region. Subsequent migrations of Nair clans continued throughout history, but the story of the four rakta velli pieces was passed down the generations, as did their veneration for the holi sanyasi Thomachan, (later called Thondachan, a nickname perhaps coined from the story of his sore throat, -thonda for throat. Another story goes that the name Thondachan was adopted in the early 16th century to avoid persecution by the Portugese). Thus by a curious turn of events, the apostle St. Thomas was transformed into a Hindu deity for an ancient Nair clan of Kerala.

A present day member of this family is still in possession of the four pieces of silver. i have seen the four pieces and have identified them as the Shekels of Tyre, a common coinage of Judea of the time of Christ.

My alma mater, Penn State, has published Icons And Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium. I haven’t read it, but it’s reviewed in Bryn Mawr Classical Review.

While we’re on the subject of icons of the Blessed Virgin … Kevin Edgecomb reviewed another volume, Mother of God: Representation of the Virgin in Byzantine Art, which includes a preface by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.

Yours Truly is speaking once again this year at Franciscan University’s Defending the Faith Conference, July 27-29. I’ll be talking about the perennial appeal of the Church Fathers — drawing, at least in part, from my experience with this blog!

I’ll also be signing my books. If all goes well, I’ll go home with some repetitive-motion problem in my signing hand.

As usual, the conference will be preceded by intensive educational opportunities at the Applied Biblical Studies Conference, July 25-27.

Any chance I’ll see you there?

The Vatican has released the preparatory document (lineamenta) for the 2008 Synod of Bishops on the Word of God in the Church. The event will, I think, be of interest to all Christians. Readers of this blog will appreciate the decidedly patristic cast of the document:

In the times of the Church Fathers, the Scriptures were the centre and source of theology, spirituality and the pastoral life. The Fathers are the masters, without equal, of what is called the “spiritual” reading of the Scriptures, which, when done faithfully, does not destroy the “letter,” that is, the concrete, historical sense, but allows a reading of the “letter” in the Spirit.

The Fathers are everywhere in this document. My friend David Scott took the time to pull out every patristic quote and send them my way. Take a look:

“The Lord’s flesh is real food and his blood real drink; this is our true good in this present life: to nourish ourselves with his flesh and to drink his blood in not only the Eucharist but also the reading of Sacred Scripture. In fact, the Word of God, drawn from the knowledge of the Scriptures, is real food and real drink.”
— St. Jerome

“Scripture comes down to our level in using our poor words, so as to allow us gradually to climb, step-by-step, from what is seen near-at-hand to things sublime.”
— St. Gregory the Great

“I considered the Creator-Word, and likened it to the Rock that accompanied the people in the wilderness. It was not from any reservoir of water within the Rock that it poured forth glorious streams for them: there was no water in the Rock, yet oceans sprang forth from it. In like manner, the Word created things out of nothing. Blessed is that person accounted worthy to inherit your Paradise! In his book, Moses described the creation of the natural world, so that both Nature and Scripture might bear witness to the Creator: Nature, through man’s use of it, Scripture, through his reading of it. These are the witnesses which abound everywhere; they are to be found at all times, present at every hour, confuting the unbeliever, who is ungrateful towards the Creator.”
— St. Ephrem

“Christ brought us all that could possibly be new, by bringing himself.”
— St. Irenaeus

“The Word of God, who was in the beginning with God, is not, in his fullness, much talk or a multiplicity of words; but a single Word, which embraces a great number of ideas (theoremata), each of which is a part of the Word in its entirety… and if Christ refers us to the Scriptures in testifying to himself, it is not to one book that he sends us to the exclusion of another, but to all, because all speak of him.”
— Origen

“The New is in the Old concealed, and the Old is in the New revealed.”
— St. Augustine

“What the Old Testament promised is brought to light in the New Testament; what was proclaimed in a hidden manner in the past, is proclaimed openly as present. Thus, the Old Testament announces the New Testament; and the New Testament is the best commentary on the Old Testament.”
— St. Gregory the Great

The Scriptures are then in the heart and hands of the Church as the “Letter sent by God to humankind.”
— St. Gregory the Great

“Whoever has experienced the spiritual sense of the Scriptures knows that the simplest word of Scripture and the most profound are uniquely one, both having the salvation of humankind as their purpose.”
— St. Peter Damascene

“Your prayer is your word addressed to God. When you read the Bible, God speaks to you; when you pray you speak to God.”
— St. Augustine

“Diligently practice prayer and lectio divina. When you pray, you speak with God; when you read, God speaks with you.”
— St. Cyprian

“We should clearly understand that the fulfilment and goal of the Law and all Holy Scripture is the love of an object which is to be enjoyed and the love of an object which we can enjoy in fellowship with others. No one needs to be commanded to love himself. The whole temporal dispensation was framed for our salvation by the Providence of God that we might know this truth and be able to act upon it….Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but interprets them in a way not leading to building up this twofold love of God and neighbor, does not yet understand them as he should.”
— St. Augustine

“Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ himself.”
— St. Jerome

“The Words of God, if pronounced by rote and not heard, have no resonance in the actions of those who merely speak them. But rather, if they are pronounced and put into action, they have the power to dispel demons and help people build God’s dwelling in their hearts and make progress in works of justice.”
— St. Maximus the Confessor

Dave notes also that Ambrose is paraphrased, saying that when a person begins to read Sacred Scripture, God walks with him in an earthly paradise.

Expect great things from the Synod. Seed time is not too soon to pray for an abundant harvest.

Happy feast day! It’s the day of the Ascension of Our Lord. This is one of the Ascension homilies included in the book Living the Mysteries: A Guide for Unfinished Christians, which I co-authored with Scott Hahn.

Pope St. Leo I (the Great)
Ascend with Jesus

Christ’s ascension marked the exaltation of our human nature. We saw ourselves divinized when our nature rose to glory in the person of Jesus.

Amidst these miracles, when the disciples were troubled by anxieties, the Lord appeared in their midst and said, “Peace be with you” (Jn 20:26). So that what was passing through their hearts might not remain. For they thought they saw a ghost, but He showed that their thoughts were wrong. He showed their doubting eyes the marks of the cross still in His hands and feet, and invited them to touch Him with careful scrutiny. For the traces of the nails and spear had been kept in order to heal the wounds of unbelieving hearts. Thus, not with wavering faith, but with steadfast knowledge, they might understand that the nature that had lain in the tomb was soon to sit on God the Father’s throne.

So, dearly beloved, throughout this time that passed between the Lord’s resurrection and ascension, God’s providence had this in mind, taught this, and impressed it upon both the eyes and hearts of His people: that the Lord Jesus Christ might be recognized as truly risen, just as He was truly born, truly suffered, and truly died. That’s why the blessed Apostles and all the disciples — fearful as they had been at His death on the cross, and hesitant in believing His Resurrection — were so strengthened by the clear truth that, when the Lord entered the heights of heaven, not only were they untouched by sadness, but were even filled with great joy.

The cause of their rejoicing was truly great and indescribable when, in the sight of the heavenly multitude, our human nature ascended above the dignity of all heavenly creatures, passing the ranks of the angels and rising beyond the archangels’ heights. This ascension was unlimited by any elevation, till our nature was received to sit with the Eternal Father, joined to the throne of His glory, as His divine nature was joined to human nature in the Son.

Since then, Christ’s ascension is our exaltation. For there is hope that the body will be raised to the glory where the head has gone before. So, dearly beloved, let us rejoice with delight in our holy thanksgiving. For on the day of the ascension we have not only been confirmed as possessors of paradise, but in Christ we have even pierced through to the heights of heaven. We have gained much greater things through Christ’s indescribable grace than we had lost through the devil’s malice. Those whom our raging enemy had driven away from the bliss of our first home, the Son of God has made members of Himself and placed at the right hand of the Father, with whom He lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen.

Take It to Prayer

• We have gained much greater things through Christ’s indescribable grace than we had lost through the devil’s malice.

• When Jesus ascended to heaven, our human nature rose above the dignity of all heavenly creatures, passing the ranks of the angels and archangels.

• Our nature was received to sit with the Eternal Father, joined to the throne of His glory, as His divine nature was joined to human nature in the Son.

Learn It by Heart

• Christ’s ascension is our exaltation. For there is hope that the body will be raised to the glory where the head has gone before.

Apply It to Your Life

• Meditate often on heaven. Now that you are divinized in Christ, it is your one true home. A child of God, you can find rest only in the life of the Trinity. Yet that life begins now, in mystery, in the sacraments. You rise to heaven when you confess the sins that weigh you down. Your Communion is in heaven when you go to Mass.

Insight Scoop has posted, free of charge, Henri de Lubac’s lovely introduction to his book History and Spirit: The Understanding of Scripture According to Origen. I hope you own the book. It goes a long way in helping us understand why Pope Benedict XVI spent not one, but two audience talks praising the work of Origen (here and here).

Absolutely free of charge: Insight Scoop has posted the beautiful chapter What Is Tradition? from Yves Congar’s The Meaning of Tradition.

Critical scholars make much of the apparent conflict between the way the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) portray the events leading up to the Lord’s Passion and John’s account. The synoptics describe the Last Supper as a Passover meal, but John doesn’t. The synoptics place the crucifixion on the day after Passover, while John places it on the day before, at the hour when the lambs were sacrificed.

As if to complicate matters, some of the Syriac Fathers — those who were closest to the Jewish milieu of Jesus and the Apostles — spoke of the Last Supper taking place on a Tuesday, with the crucifixion on Friday.

Pope Benedict made something of a splash this year in his homily for the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. He proposed what some theologians and reporters called a “novel approach” to the problem. But it’s not really so novel. It was proposed in the mid-twentieth century by French scholar Annie Jaubert, who found in the Dead Sea Scrolls a key to reconciling the accounts of the Synoptics, John, and the Syriac Fathers. Here’s the Pope’s summary of the problem and solution:

It was on the eve of his Passion that Jesus together with his disciples celebrated this meal with its multiple meanings. This is the context in which we must understand the new Passover which he has given to us in the Blessed Eucharist.

There is an apparent discrepancy in the Evangelists’ accounts, between John’s Gospel on the one hand, and what on the other Mathew, Mark and Luke tell us.

According to John, Jesus died on the Cross at the very moment when the Passover lambs were being sacrificed in the temple. The death of Jesus and the sacrifice of the lambs coincided.
However, this means that he must have died the day before Easter and could not, therefore, have celebrated the Passover meal in person – this, at any rate, is how it appears.

According to the three Synoptic Gospels, the Last Supper of Jesus was instead a Passover meal into whose traditional form he integrated the innovation of the gift of his Body and Blood.

This contradiction seemed unsolvable until a few years ago. The majority of exegetes were of the opinion that John was reluctant to tell us the true historical date of Jesus’ death, but rather chose a symbolic date to highlight the deeper truth: Jesus is the new, true Lamb who poured out his Blood for us all.

In the meantime, the discovery of the [Dead Sea] Scrolls at Qumran has led us to a possible and convincing solution which, although it is not yet accepted by everyone, is a highly plausible hypothesis. We can now say that John’s account is historically precise.

Jesus truly shed his blood on the eve of Easter at the time of the immolation of the lambs.
In all likelihood, however, he celebrated the Passover with his disciples in accordance with the Qumran calendar, hence, at least one day earlier; he celebrated it without a lamb, like the Qumran community which did not recognize Herod’s temple and was waiting for the new temple.

Consequently, Jesus celebrated the Passover without a lamb – no, not without a lamb: instead of the lamb he gave himself, his Body and his Blood. Thus, he anticipated his death in a manner consistent with his words: “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (Jn 10: 18).

At the time when he offered his Body and his Blood to the disciples, he was truly fulfilling this affirmation. He himself offered his own life. Only in this way did the ancient Passover acquire its true meaning.

In his Eucharistic catecheses, St John Chrysostom once wrote: Moses, what are you saying? Does the blood of a lamb purify men and women? Does it save them from death? How can the blood of an animal purify people, save people or have power over death? In fact, Chrysostom continues, the immolation of the lamb could be a merely symbolic act, hence, the expression of expectation and hope in One who could accomplish what the sacrifice of an animal was incapable of accomplishing.

My friend Scott Hahn agrees with the pope on this question. Scott touched on the Jaubert solution in his essay The Fourth Cup, which I heartily recommend:

I find the supposed conflict between the synoptics and John is resolved to my satisfaction by Annie Jaubert, The Date of the Last Supper (Staten Island: Alba House, 1965). She argues two calendars were operative in Christ’s time and accepts the ancient Syriac testimony of a “Holy Tuesday” institution of the Eucharist. Granted, there are difficulties in that, but her work helps harmonize the five trials of Jesus (Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate, Herod, and Pilate), which fit much easier into a Tuesday to-Friday time frame than in a Thursday-midnight-to-morning frame.

This article points to some excellent online patristic and biblical resources: The Wired Scholar: Five Free Tools You May Not Know About.

Unless you’ve been living in the fourth century, you’ve certainly heard by now that Francis Beckwith resigned this week as president of the Evangelical Theological Society. A week earlier, the philosopher had returned to full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. But since there are certainly readers of this blog who have applied for permanent-residency visas in the fourth century, I figured I’d better post the news. Dr. Beckwith spoke with Christianity Today about the whys and wherefors. Of course the Fathers played an important role:

I do think we have to admit that the way that we read Scripture is through the ideas and concepts that have been passed down to us by a great tradition.

Look, you’re not going to come up with the Nicene Creed by just picking up the Bible. Does the Bible contribute to our understanding? Absolutely it does; the Nicene Creed is consistent with Scripture. But you needed a church that had a self-understanding in order to articulate that in any clear way. I am not saying that necessarily means that you have to be a Catholic. But we have to understand that the Reformation only makes sense against the backdrop of a tradition that was already there. Calvin and Luther did not go back and re-write Nicea. They took it for granted. There’s nothing wrong with conceding that and celebrating it and reading those authors.

Looking at tradition would also help evangelicals learn about Christian liturgical traditions, like Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism, that many evangelicals reject because they say liturgy is unbiblical. When did these practices come to be? It turns out many of them came to be very early on in church history when people were close historically to the apostles themselves. There must be something to these practices that the early Christians thought was perfectly consistent with what they had received from the apostles.

That may not convince them that it is right, but at least it would show them that it was widely held and that Christians who were right there on top of the early church practiced them. That was quite liberating for me, when I became aware of the writings of some of the church fathers and especially the liturgical aspects. Some of the folks who have read my blog post on my return to the church have misunderstood my reading of the church fathers. They think I went back and tried to find theology, and that really wasn’t it for me. It was the practices of the church that were more important. I did some research years ago on the relationship of Greek philosophy and the Christian doctrine of God, and that was very helpful. But that’s when I first began reading the fathers. One finds the practice of penance very early on during the times in which Christians were being persecuted. Some of the Christians who had denied their faith had to publicly repent for their sins and suffer penance. This was considered to be perfectly consistent with a doctrine of faith.

We want to reward people who promote the reading of the Fathers so well. So buy the man’s books!

Politically Correct Death: Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights

Are You Politically Correct?: Debating America’s Cultural Standards

Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air

Ben C. Smith has posted another installment in his series on the ancient canons of the New Testament. This one covers the list in the Apostolic Constitutions — which includes many of the familiar books, plus the works attributed to Clement of Rome.

Archaeology magazine directs our attention to the latest on the discovery of King Herod’s tomb: news with photos from AFP; a drawing of the old guy’s sarcophagus; and a monumental staircase built especially for Herod’s funeral.

In what do we find Herod’s greatness? His buildings, of course, like the grand, reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem. But he was truly prodigious in his cruelty. The gospels are not the only record of his perverted deeds. Many of his contemporaries noticed. The old Catholic Encyclopedia provides a rap sheet, largely compiled from Josephus. (I’ve further condensed it here.)

During the first period he secured himself on the throne by removing rivals of the Hasmonean line. He put to death Hyrcanus, grandfather of [Herod’s wife] Mariamne, and Aristobulus her brother, whom though but seventeen years old he had appointed high-priest. Their only offence was that they were very popular. Mariamne also was executed in 29 B. C.; and her mother Alexandra, 28 B. C. He put to death even his own sons, Aristobulus and Alexander (6 B. C.), whom Antipater, his son by Doris, had accused of plotting against their father’s life. This same Antipater was himself accused and convicted of having prepared poison for his father, and put to death. The last joy of the dying king was afforded by the letter from Rome authorizing him to kill his son; five days later, like another Antiochus under a curse, he died. In the hot springs of Callirrhoe, east of the Dead Sea, the king sought relief from the sickness that was to bring him to the grave. When his end drew near, he gave orders to have the principal men of the country shut up in the hippodrome at Jericho and slaughtered as soon as he had passed away, that his grave might not be without the tribute of tears.

The Emperor Augustus — on hearing that Herod killed his children, but strove to keep kosher — observed that he’d rather be Herod’s pig than his son.

So, you see, St. Matthew was actually pretty kind to the guy. Here’s St. Peter Chyrsologus again:

[Herod told the Magi] “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him bring me word.” Appropriately did Herod say, “Bring me word,” for the one who hastens to come to Christ always brings a word of renunciation to the devil.