After the Crucifixion Jesus goes East again
According to Persian sources, while Jesus was living in Damascus, he received a letter from the King of Nisibis, near Edessa (today Nusaybin, on the Turkish side of the border to Syria; see illustration). The king asked Jesus to come to Nisibis to cure him of an illness. Jesus allegedly sent his close disciple Thomas with the message that he would soon follow. Shortly after this, Jesus is indeed supposed to have travelled there with his mother. In jami-ut- Tawarik, the Persian scholar Faquir Muhammed wrote that the king had already been healed by Thomas when Jesus arrived with his retinue in Nisibis. Imam Abu jafar Muhammed wrote in his famous work Tafsir-Ibn-ijarir at- Tabri that Jesus' stay in Nisibis became dangerous; apparently the Nazarene even risked his life by appearing in public (Volume 3, page 197). In Leh this author met an ethnologist from Luxembourg who had spent several years among Kurdish tribes in eastern Anatolia. He told me that a number of stories continue to circulate among the Kurds about Jesus residing in what is now eastern Turkey after the resurrection. Until today, no one seems to have expressed much interest in such stories.
After leaving Nisibis, Jesus continued to move towards the northwest; and the Apocryphal Acts of Thomas relate that Jesus suddenly appeared at the marriage festivities of The Princess at the court of the King of Andrapa. Andrapolis was in Paphlagonia (today's Iskilip in the extreme north of Anatolia), and had belonged to the Roman province of Galatia since 7 B.C. The apostle Thomas and his master met once again at the wedding festivities, having arrived separately. The apostle had been commissioned by Jesus to go to India. "But he did not want to go and said he could not travel because of weakness of the flesh, and moreover: How can 1, a Hebrew, travel and preach the truth to the Indians? And when he considered and said this, the Messiah appeared to him in the night and spoke to him: Do not be afraid, Thomas, go to India and preach the word there, for my Grace is with you. But he would not obey and said: Send me anywhere you want, but somewhere else! For I shall not go to India." (A. Th. 1, p. 101).'According to the Acts of Thomas, Jesus then sold the reluctant Thomas as a slave to the Indian merchant Abban who had been commissioned by his King Gundafor (Gondapharos) to find a carpenter. Old coins confirm that King Gundafor did indeed rule Parthia and India in the first century A.D. . Jesus signed a contract with Abban "parting with a sum of three pounds of unstamped silver". Jesus could only be sure that Thomas would arrive in India by resorting to such unusual means.
The Acts of Thomas, like the apocryphal gospel of Thomas, are of Syrain origin, and can be traced back to the missionary work of Thomas himself in Edessa (in the fourth century, after the apostle's demise in southern India near Madras, his bones were conveyed back to Edessa). The Acts of Thomas and the gospel of Thomas are closely related. Both were gnostic scriptures of esoteric content, and used at the beginning of the third century by the Manichacans (Mani was born in 217). A gospel of Thomas was first mentioned and quoted by Hippolyte (Ref. V 7,20) in his report on the "Naassenes" of c. 230 A. D. .
The name of the apostle, "Didymos Judas Thomas", means "Judas the Twin" (from the Aramaic word for twin, toma), and it suggests a particularly close relationship with Jesus. In coptic texts, the word "twin" is often replaced by "fellow companion". The Acts of Thomas are a testimony to Thomas' special relationship to Jesus. As his confidant, Thomas was priveleged to know Jesus' most profound secrets. In Chapter 39 of the Acts of Thomas, the apostle is addressed with his special title, "Twin brother of Christ, apostle of the Highest who shares in the knowledge of the hidden word of Christ, recipient of his secret pronouncements. Another version addresses him as "you who have partaken of the secret word of the Giver of Life, and who have received the hidden Mysteries of the Son of God." Thomas is thus the keeper (= Nazarene, see page 94) of Jesus' most secret and esoteric words, revealed uniquely to him. In the gospel of Thomas (one of the finds of Nag Hammadi), one can read the following: "Jesus said to his disciples, 'Compare me to someone and tell Me whom I am like.' Simon Peter said to Him, 'You are like a righteous angel.' Matthew said to Him, 'You are like a wise philosopher.' Thomas said to Him, 'Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom You are like.' Jesus said, 'I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out.' And He took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, 'What did Jesus say to you?' Thomas said to them, 'If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up."' (11,2, Logion 13)'. Thomas had evidently attained a profound state of consciousness and seemed to be almost an equal of Christ.
The conversion of the apostles plays a major role in the Acts of Thomas. One repeatedly comes across descriptions of initiations complete with sacred ritual. The conversion was finalized by anointing with oil, and the sacrament of the Eucharist. Only bread was taken at Holy Communion, and the chalice contained just water. In the second part of the Acts of Thomas, Misdai, an Indian king, noted that oil, water and bread were a part of the apostles' "magic". The initiate was called a servant or handmaid of God, was said to enjoy divine power, and was considered a member of the fold. Thus one can reinterpret the Thomas story. Jesus "sold" Thomas as a "slave" to Abban (Abba = father). The initiate was elevated from common brother of the Essene Order to a Nazarene of higher Status, by having consecrated oil poured over his head, and by having his naked body anointed with balm.
All the Nazarenes were easily mistaken for one another, because they all wore the same white robes , with their hair and beard in the same manner. Hence it is possible that the term "twin", when applied to Thomas, was simply an allusion to the similarity between the two men. Accounts of mistaken identity in the Acts of Thomas read like a comedy of errors, although Thomas was a good ten years younger than Jesus. On the wedding night referred to above, the King of Andrapa showed the apostle Thomas into the bridal suite, so that he might convert the newly wedded couple. After Thomas had prayed with the couple, everyone present left the bridal suite. "But after everyone had left and the doors had been closed, the bridegroom raised the
curtains in the bridal suite in order to join his bride. And he saw the Lord Jesus speaking with the bride, resembling Judas Thomas, who had just blessed them and left them. The groom said to Jesus: 'Did you not just leave? How did you get back in?'But the Lord replied: 'I am not Judas called Thomas, 1 am his brother.' And the Lord sat down upon the bed, ordering them to sit down on the chairs, and proceeded to tell them: 'Remember, my children, what my brother said to you and unto whom he recommended you . . . " (A. Th. 8, 1 1). The anecdote is preceded by the account of an encounter between Thomas and a Hebraic woman who had played the flute at the wedding festivities.
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