The Acts of Thomas.

        Early in the third century some Christian novelist, probably at Edessa, wrote the thirteen Acts of Thomas, completing them with his martyrdom. Tatian had carried the gospel in Syriac into eastern Syria with his Diatessaron, or interweaving of the Four Gospels, about A.D. 172, and Bardaisan, A.D. 154-222, had developed some Christian Syriac literature with his poems. Whether the Acts of Thomas owes anything directly to him is questionable, but poems of Syriac origin have certainly been wrought into it, for it is rich in liturgical and poetical passages. Most scholars think it was written in Syriac, our numerous Greek manuscripts being a translation from that language, although James and Bonnet argue for a Greek original, now lost. The work, which seems to be complete, is much the most extended of all the really ancient apocryphal Acts. Besides the Syriac and Greek forms of it, it is preserved also in Latin, Ethiopic, and Armenian versions.

        The Acts of Thomas is strongly ascetic, describing Thomas as laboring to separate wives from their husbands and to abolish the marriage relation. It is full of strange echoes of Gnostic, Mandaean, and Manichean religions. There is some reason to believe Christianity had reached southern India early in the third century, and some of the names in Thomas are known to history, such as King Gundafor (Hyndopheres), who ruled a part of India in the first Christian century; but there is no reason to suppose there is anything historical about these Acts. They are, in fact, full of the ancient popular religious vocabulary of demon and marvel. The dead are raised, animals speak, devils are cast out, relics cure.