Posts made in June, 2013

St. Thomas Christians The Syrian merchant Thomas Cana arrives in Malabar

Posted by on Jun 29, 2013 in Library | Comments Off on St. Thomas Christians The Syrian merchant Thomas Cana arrives in Malabar

There is one incident of the long period of isolation of the St. Thomas Christians from the rest of the Christian world which they are never tired of relating, and it is one of considerable importance to them for the civil status it conferred and secured to them in the country. This is the narrative of the arrival of a Syrian merchant on their shores, a certain Mar Thoma Cana — the Portuguese have named him Cananeo and styled him an Armenian, which he was not. He arrived by ship on the coast and entered the port of Cranganore. The King of Malabar, Cheruman Perumal, was in the vicinity, and...

Read More

Land of Two Rivers The Gnostic Apostle Thomas / chapter 8 / Herbert Christian Merillat

Posted by on Jun 18, 2013 in Library | Comments Off on Land of Two Rivers The Gnostic Apostle Thomas / chapter 8 / Herbert Christian Merillat

Between the upper Tigris and Euphrates, whose waters nourished one of the first civilizations on our planet, we find Sanli Urfa, Turkey. Here is the homeland of Thomas lore, the native ground of the principal Thomas traditions and writings. Arising in the Caucasus mountains, then making its way southwestward across the Anatolian plateau, the Euphrates describes a huge bend, about l00 miles across, as it turns south. Then it crosses from present-day Turkey into Syria, and then southeastward to meander the length of Iraq to the Persian Gulf. Within that bend lay, in ancient times, the...

Read More

Go Ye Into All the World The Gnostic Apostle Thomas: Chapter 14 / Herbert Christian Merilla

Posted by on Jun 10, 2013 in Library | Comments Off on Go Ye Into All the World The Gnostic Apostle Thomas: Chapter 14 / Herbert Christian Merilla

The Great Commission, as it is often called, was the instruction by Jesus to his close followers to spread his message to all peoples. It appears in various forms in the bible now accepted by Christian churches. In the evangelist Mark’s version it is found (among final verses added some time after the original text was written) in the words, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” Of the books regarded by mainstream churches as authoritative, only the Acts of the Apostles has much to say about what the apostles actually did to spread the new...

Read More