Thomas of Cana
Thomas of Cana was a Syriac Christian merchant magnate who arrived to the Chera Dynasties capital city of Kodungallur between 345 A.D. and 811 A.D. Thoma brought with him Jewish-Christian families and clergymen from Persian Mesopotamia.
Thoma received copper-plates of socio-economic rights known today as the Thomas of Cana copper plates. The descendants of Thoma and the migrants who arrived with him are known as the Knanaya or Tekkumbhagar Christians, found among the Saint Thomas Christian community of Kerala, India. Scholars associate Thoma's migration with connecting the Church of Saint Thomas in India with the East Syriac liturgical tradition of the Persian Church of the East
Portuguese sources of the 17th century note that due to Thoma's deeds as a Christian merchant, the native Nasrani of Kerala venerated him as a saint. Thoma was officially canonized by the patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Ignatius Zakka I, in March 1990.
Epithet of Thomas
The meaning of the Cana epithet is unclear; it may refer to the town of Cana or the land of Canaan in the Bible, or it may be a corruption of a Syriac term for merchant. However, scholar Richard M. Swiderski states that none of these etymologies are entirely sound.Scholar Dr. Jacob Kollaparambil argues that the "Cana" form is a corruption formalized by European scholars in the 18th century based on the Malayalam form Knāi and its variants found in the folk tradition of the Knanaya and the common parlance and literature of the people of Malabar. This may be a reference to the Christian community of Kynai, in Bét Aramayé in Persia.
Thoma the "Armenian”
A number of Portuguese era sources labeled Knai Thoma as a Syriac Christian in religion but “Armenian” in nationality. In the 18th century Lebanese scholar J.S. Assemani expressed that the Portuguese likely interpreted the term Aramean as Armenian and dubbed him as such.Scholar Dr. Jacob Kollaparambil notes that while Assemani's rationale is plausible a more concrete explanation may be associated with the fact that many of the East Syriac Christian bishops who arrived to Kerala in the 15th and 16th century such as Mar Yohannan, Mar Thomas, and Mar Jacob Abuna were originally citizens of the territory known as Greater Armenia in the Middle East. The Portuguese labeled these bishops as citizens of Armenia in their own writings as well. Dr. Jacob Kollaparambil notes that because the Portuguese associated the East Syriac bishops in Kerala with Armenia, out of their own ignorance they likely extended this same nationality to Knai Thoma as well.
Thoma the "Bishop”
In the native traditions of Kerala as well as the early 16/17th century recordings during the Portuguese era, Thomas of Cana is always noted as a merchant.Lebanese scholar J.S. Assemani argued that Thomas of Cana was a 9th-century bishop, published in his text “Bibliotecha Orientalis”. In an attempt to trace Thomas’ origins, Assemani labeled Thomas of Cana as Bishop Thomas of Hadud, a 9th-century Nestorian bishop. Historian Dr. Jacob Kollaparambil calls Assemani's assertion a “counterfeit” creation not in line with earlier source work and native tradition.
History
Medieval Era
The native tradition places Thomas’ arrival in 345 A.D.; Reports by colonial officials give varying dates from 345 to 811 A.D. Thomas is said to have been a Syrian merchant, distinct from Thomas the Apostle, who preceded him in evangelizing in India. According to the traditions, Thomas of Cana led a group of 72 families, as well as clergymen, to the port city of Kodungallur in the Malabar coast. There they met and supplemented the Saint Thomas Christians, who had been evangelized by Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century.Thomas was granted a copper-plate grant by the Chera Dynasty which gave his party and all native Christians socio-economic privileges. The Thomas of Cana copper plates are noted to have existed in Kerala until the 17th century, after which point they were lost. The Kollam Syrian plates of the 9th century historically mentioned a brief of the arrival of Knai Thoma. This is believed to have been a notation of the previous rights given to the Kerala Syrian Christians.
Scholars state the arrival of Thomas of Cana reflects a historical migration of East Syriac Christians to India. This may have been the era in which the region's relationship with the Church of the East developed. Stephen Neill suggests that East Syriac Christians may have come to India specifically because there was already an established Christian community, to whom they imparted East Syriac traditions.
Historian Dr. Benedict Vadakkekara notes that the arrival of Thoma and the Knanaya community was not only a turning point for the St. Thomas Christians, but also exhibits that the native Christians were not entirely isolated from foreign Christian centers:
“Related with East Syriac Church: The spatial separateness of the St Thomas Christians from Christian centres in other lands was not in every way absolute, as at an early stage of their history they found themselves in rapport with the East Syriac Church. Neither their traditions nor their posterior documents exhibit any sign of constraint or bad blood occasioned by such a relationship. On the other hand everything goes to show that it was a happy working arrangement. Their being in dire straits early on in their history and the arrival on the scene of the progenitors of the present-day "Southists" as benefactors, appears to coincide with the Community's acceptance of fellowship with the East Syriac Church.”
Syrian Christian Township at Kodungallur
Through his copper plate grant, Thoma is noted to have acquired for the Christians land in Kodungallur upon which three churches dedicated to St. Mary, St. Thomas, and St. Kuriakose were built. It is noted that the native St. Thomas Christians had inhabited the northern side of Kodungallur centuries before the arrival of Thoma, while the Knanaya arrived and inhabited the southern side.Evidence of this township first emerged in the 14th century, when Zacharias, a young deacon of St. Kuriakose Church wrote a summary of the Church of Malabar and its relationship to the Church of the East archived today as Vatican Syrian Codex 22, the oldest surviving Syriac manuscript from India.
Subsequent sources of the township are exhibited in 16th-17th century Portuguese records. In 1578, missionary Francisco Dionisio noted that the St. Thomas Church built by Knai Thoma was still in existence and was currently in the possession of the Portuguese:
"After that came a Christian by name Quinai Thoma, native of Babylon, a merchant, who disembarked at Cranganor and began negotiating his merchandise. Being rich and known in the country, he became a friend of the King of Cranganor who gave him a plot of land of 500 square yards to build a Church in honour of St. Thomas, which is the one the Portuguese now have." - Francisco Dionisio, Amario Jesuitico, cod. 28, ff.34-38
Decades later in 1604, Francisco Ros, a Catholic bishop in Kerala, noted that he had read in old Chaldean texts in Kerala about the existence of the three churches of Kodungallur built by Knai Thoma:
..."I found written at the end how the said book was made and written at Cranganore, where it says there were three churches, one of St. Thomas, another of Our Lady, and another of St. Cyriac" - Francisco Ros, MS. ADD. 9853. British Museum Library
Northist and Southist
A number of Portuguese authors noted the existing ethnic division of the Syrian Christians of Kerala as the majority St. Thomas Christians or Vadakkumbhagar and the minority Knanaya or Thekkumbhagar. These designations traditionally associate the Northist as early converts of St. Thomas the Apostle in India and the Southist as the migrants who arrived with Thomas of Cana. Additionally, the designations are in reference to the Chera Empire's capital city of Kodungallur: the Thomas Christians having initially lived on its northern side and the Knanaya having arrived and settled on its southern side. The Oxford History of the Christian Church states the following about the division:"In time, Jewish Christians of the most exclusive communities descended from settlers who accompanied Knayil Thomma became known as ‘Southists’...They distinguished between themselves and ‘Northists’. The ‘Northists’, on the other hand, claimed direct descent from the very oldest Christians of the country, those who had been won to Christ by the Apostle Thomas himself. They had already long inhabited northern parts of Kodungallur. They had been there even before various waves of newcomers had arrived from the Babylonian or Mesopotamian provinces of Sassanian Persia."
- Historian of South Asian Studies Dr. Robert E. Frykenberg
Some Portuguese authors also associated the division of Northist and Southist to the two wives of Thomas of Cana. These versions generally present the Southern wife as a Syrian woman and the Northern as a native St. Thomas Christian woman. Additionally they portray one wife as superior and the other inferior and their children as legitimate or illegitimate. In 1579, Fr. Antonio Monserratte, a missionary in Kerala wrote that the stories associated with the two-wives legend were the “lie of the land”. In 1611, Archbishop Francisco Ros, a Latin Catholic clergymen in Kerala, called the two-wives legend a "fable" and instead accounts the division to some Christians descending from the missionary work of St. Thomas the Apostle and others from Knai Thoma.
Syrian Christian scholars generally view the two-wives stories as odious, stating that they emerged due to ethnic and or socio-economic tension between the St. Thomas Christians and the Knanaya. Scholar Dr. Mathias Mundadan expresses the following about the two-wives legend:
“Other details of each version and the reciprocal imputations as legitimate and illegitimate children of Thomas Cana might have been invented to express the odium and hatred each community bore against the other”
- Sixteenth Century Traditions of St. Thomas Christians