St. Thomas the Apostle in the Armenian Church Tradition

Of numerous and various legends recounted in the Apocryphal Acts, the Armenians have chosen that of Thaddeus and Bartholomew to connect their country with the origin of Christianity and to stress the apostolicity of their Church.[1] Consequently, the career and death of these apostles in Armenia soon became the basis of ecclesiastical history and was firmly integrated in the local Christian tradition. Therefore, while in general the Armenian apocrypha have rarely been the focus of interest, the acts/martyrdoms of the founders of the Armenian Church—which, in fact, were not considered ‘apocryphal’ in medieval times—can boast of being at the center of great interest for scholars.[2] Meanwhile, once the apostles of the Armenian Church had been chosen and their traditions deeply rooted through the centuries, the missionary lives associated with ‘other apostles’ have received rather less and somewhat sporadic attention and have so far scarcely attracted the interest of scholars. Therefore, this short essay intends to shift our attention to the activity of one of those ‘seemingly marginal’ figures: the apostle Thomas. Who was Thomas for the Armenians, and what kind of role did he have in the formation and further development of the local Christian tradition in general? A deep investigation based on all the available sources is lacking, thus, the primary purpose of this project is to fill this gap and reconstruct Thomas’ image in the medieval Armenian milieu.

The name of Thomas was primarily linked to Syriac Christianity, and the city of Edessa had been always mentioned as an important worshiping center of this apostle.[3] The veneration of his relics in Edessa is attested already from the second half of the fourth century (by Ephrem the Syrian); furthermore, by the time of the pilgrimage of Egeria to Edessa (in 384), Thomas was himself considered the missionary of that city.[4] Similarly, recent studies of ‘Thomasine literature’ such as the Gospel of Thomas, The Book of Thomas the Contender and the Acts of Thomas have led many scholars to conclude that all these ‘gnostic’ or ‘semi-gnostic’ writings are products of a specific brand of Syriac Christianity that could be labeled 'Thomasine'.[5] The existence of such a community can still be debated; nevertheless, there is no doubt that Thomas became firmly rooted in Syriac tradition from the very early stage of Christianity.

One could expect that the highly prestigious image of Thomas in Edessa could be easily transferred into Armenia because the Armenian Church had very strong ties with Syriac Christianity, and Edessa was claimed as a cultural center for both Armenians and Syrians.[6] On the one hand, interestingly enough, except for the Acts of Thomas, none of the other writings ascribed to Thomas were translated/preserved in Armenian;[7] unlike in other traditions, none of the Armenian Infancy narratives is ascribed to Thomas. Moreover, by the time (5th c.) when the Armenian translator of the ‘Doctrine of Addai’[8] ‘brought’ Thaddeus to Armenia to make him the ‘apostle’ of this region, Thomas already seems to have conceded his primacy to Thaddeus.[9] In the ‘Doctrine of Addai’[10] as well as in Eusebius’ History his role is minimized to the messenger of Addai/Thaddeus who was sent to Edessa to preach Christianity.[11] In the Armenian martyrdom of Thaddeus, there is no word about Thomas at all – a strange fact, as elsewhere in other apocryphal narratives Thomas is the twin brother of Thaddeus. On the other hand, the Armenian historian Movses Khorenac’i, who seems to follow these traditions quite accurately, innovatively magnifies Thomas by attributing to him the role of the scribe of Jesus to write the letter to the king Abgar.[12] Some time later, Step’anos Asołik, who wrօte his History up to 1004, mentioned Thomas as one of the missionaries of Armenia; apart from that, in his list he placed Thomas’ name prior to Bartholomew.[13] Similarly, Thomas (and not Bartholomew) was mentioned as the Apostle of the Armenians in one of the medieval compilations of the Abgar legends attributed to John the Chrysostom. As opposed to the Martyrdom of Thaddeus, Thomas plays an important role in the Martyrdom of Bartholomew.

On the background of or in parallel to what the Armenians knew about Thomas, we should consider also the Armenian translation of the Apocryphal Acts of Thomas (hereafter ATh) which also included some elements linking Thomas directly to Armenia.[14]

A vast number of Armenian manuscripts represent the Armenian ATh in multiple versions. At the very beginning of the 20th c. Fr. K. Tchrak’ean published five of them (including the Martyrdom and the Discovery of relics of Thomas) based on the manuscripts of the Mekhitarist congregation of Venice. Soon thereafter, G. Garitte translated the Armenian version of the Martyrdom of Thomas (text b in Tchrak’ean’s edition) and proved its close relation to the Greek text in Vat. 1608.[15] The entire text of the Armenian ATh was first presented to the western audience at the beginning of 1990s when L. Leloir translated this text into French and published it with comprehensive commentaries.[16] In this edition Fr. Leloir compared the Armenian ATh with Syriac and Greek texts[17] and pointed out the essential similarities and differences.[18] Particularly, Leloir showed that a) the Armenian ATh considerably shortened and modified the original text of the ATh; b) it is distinguished by a strong tendency to omit and summarize especially speeches and prayers c) it completely left out three acts, the Hymn of the Pearl,[19] as well as the long prayers of Thomas, d) most of the acts are preserved just in a few sentences. e) all five versions published by Chrak’ean derive from a common source and somehow relate to each other.

As already have been mentioned above, one of the important additions in the ATh that links Thomas closer to Armenia is the Discovery of relics of Thomas, which was basically written on the basis of the ATh (with considerable abbreviations), though the core motif of this legend was an Armenian invention. The epilogue of the transformation of Thomas’ relics from India ‘to the West’ or ‘to Mesopotomia’ was added to the ATh to explain the existence of Thomas’ tomb in Edessa.[20] The Armenian translator of the ATh was well aware of this tradition but he went further and brought Thomas’ relics to Armenia, and had them deposited in Reshtunik’, a region in the state of Vaspurakan, where a new monastery was built soon afterwards.[21] According to Leloir, this legend most probably originated in the 10th century, during the reign of the Arcruni dynasty, when monasticism was flourishing in this state. There are two versions of this story, and they were both included in the first and fourth redactions of the Armenian Synaxarion. It is worth mentioning that, while the first redaction avoids including the missionary activity of Thomas in India and refers only to his death, the fourth redaction seems use the ATh more openly.

It is not clear when this legend started to circulate and became popular. What we know is that the historian Thomas Arc’runi, who wrote about the noble house of Vaspurakan during the 10th century, seems to be unfamiliar with the ‘apocryphal’ story of the transmission of St. Thomas’ relics to Armenia. It is interesting to note, however, that the story of the discovery of the relics of St. Thomas was known to another historian of the same period, Movses Kalankatuaci: his story, however, has nothing to do with our ‘apocryphal’ narrative. His ‘History of Aluank’ includes an account by the monk Hovsep’ from Artsax of his pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the era of Heraclius. Motivated by the desire to find the relic of St. John the Baptist, he made his way to Jerusalem with two companions. And though he returned discouraged as there ‘everyone was pleased of (հաւանեալ) and dipped (ներկեալ) in world devastating Council (i.e. Chalcedon)’, at Pahuvank’ in Gelark’unik’ he found a relic of the Baptist, as well as relics of St. Stephen and Apostle Thomas.[22] This explicitly refers to a tradition of transmission of Thomas’ relics from Jerusalem to Armenia preceding the seventh century.

[1] Pavstos makes a clear hint of awareness of Thaddeus’ activity in Armenia: in the prologue of his History he says: ‘from the time of Thaddeus preaching until the death of Gregory, from the Martyrdom of that apostle to the reception of the faith’. Meanwhile, none of the earliest Armenian historians speaks of St. Bartholomew, for details see M. van Esbroeck ‘Rise of Saint Bartholomew's Cult in Armenia from the Seventh to the Thirteenth Centuries’ (1983) - in: Medieval Armenian Culture, 161-178.

[2] For the comprehensive analysis on this topic see Calzolari Bouvier, Les apôtres Thaddée et Barthélemy. Aux origines du christianisme arménien, Apocryphes 13 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 258.

[3] See particularly, Klijn A. F. J., Edessa, die Stadt des Apostels Thomas: das älteste Christentum in Syrien, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verl., 1965; J. B. Segal, Edessa, the Blessed City (Oxford, 1970).

[4] S. F. Johnson, “Reviving the Memory of the Apostles: Apocryphal Tradition and Travel Literature” in Late Antiquity, in Revival and Resurgence in Christian History vol. 44, (2008): 1-26.

[5] For the general survey on this topic see P. Sellew P., “Thomas Christianity: Scholars in Quest of a Community” in J. N. Bremmer (Ed.), The Apocryphal Acts of Thomas (2001), 11-35. Though the author does not necessarily connect these writings to the name of St. Thomas, as the common ideas are to be found in other, non ‘Thomasine’ writings, such as the Gospel of Philip and Pistis Sophia.

[6] The thesis according to which in its early stage the Armenian Church adopted Syriac Christianity is still relevant; however, that kind of Christianity had been Adoptionist in its doctrine [for more details see Conybeare [1898]; Garsoian [1999], etc.

[7] Though it is worth noting that gospel of Thomas is mentioned in the medieval lists of forbidden books. On these lists, see Zahn Th., Forschungen zur Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, Vol. 5.1, 1893.

[8] Թուղթ Աբգարու Թագաւորի Հայոց, եւ քարոզութիւնք Սրբոյն Թադէի Առաքելոյ 1868.

[9] H. Koester holds an opinion that Thaddeus was deliberately substituted for Thomas as the founder of Christianity in Edessa at a time when the emergent orthodox church of the Mediterranean world was establishing itself in that city, [Koester 1965].

[10] Philips, 1804.

[11] Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 1.13. Elsewhere Eusebius claims that Thomas is the apostle to Parthia.

[12] Khorenac’i, ch. 2, 32.

[13] Մատենագիրք Հայոց, էջ 667.

[14] ATh is one of the five major and ancient apocryphal Acts, and rightly has attracted strong scholarly attention: countless studies have been undertaken by different specialists to explore these Acts from linguistic, social, religious and historical perspectives. As a standard resource on this Acts see Klijn, The Acts of Thomas: Introduction, Text, and Commentary [1962, re-edition 2003].

[15] For the details see Garitte, G., ‘La Passion arménienne de s. Thomas l'apôtre et son modèle grec’, Le muséon, 84 (1971). For the Georgian Martyrdom see idem: 1972. According to the author, the Georgian version was translated from Armenian.

[16] L. Leloir, 1992.

[17] The original language, Greek or Syriac, of the ATh has been highly debated, though recent studies incline to claim the Greek as the original see for example L.R. Lanzillotta, A Syriac Original for the Acts of Tomas? The Hypothesis of Syriac Priority Revisited (2015); for the opposite opinion see for example F. C. Burkitt, The Original Language of the Acts of Judas Thomas (1900), Е. Н. Мещерская, Деяния Иуды Фомы, культурно-историческая обусловленность раннесирийской легенды (1990).

[18] The comparison was based on Lipsius - Bonnet II, 1959 and Wright 1871.

[19] For this hymn see for example Poirier 1981, 1986; Russel 2001-2002.

[20] R. Wiśniewski, The Beginnings of the Cult of Relics (Oxford University Press, 2019).

[21] In medieval times there have been many monasteries in Rshtunik, though, to best of my knowledge, none of them was devoted to Thomas. Instead, according to a tradition, during his visit to Armenia St. Bartholomew built a monastery in name of Thomas in Agulis, not too far away from Rshtunik.

[22] See R. Ervine, “The brotherhood of the Sts. James Monastery and the Symbolism of Armenian Jerusalem,” in Monastic Life in the Armenian Church: Glorious Past - Ecumenical Reconsideration, ed. Jasmine Dum-Tragut and Dietmar W. Winkler (Verlag, 2020), 88; “Our forefathers had brought them here from the [then] Orthodox [clerics] of the holy city of Jerusalem,” Պատմութիւն Աղուանից (429-430).

Mari Mamyan is a Junior Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Studies "Beyond Canon" at the University of Regensburg, From 2013–2019 she was a researcher at the Institute of Ancient Manuscripts Mashtots' Matenadaran, Yerevan/Armenia.