Which St. Thomas are you named after?

Funny question right?

A lot of people read that and they're like, "What, the only St. Thomas I know of is an island in the Caribbean."

I actually have had this question asked of me multiple times especially in my late elementary school-early middle school years when all my friends were home schooled Catholics like I was at the time.

You see, non-Catholics are probably only aware of one religious figure named Thomas, the Apostle Thomas a.k.a. "Doubting Thomas." But we Catholics have this annoying habit of naming our offspring after the saints. So, naturally over the course of 2,000 years as Catholics make their way through the Pearly Gates, the number of saints sharing the same name is going to increase exponentially. (It got to the point where the Catholic Church at one point actually lost count of its saints-I shit you not-and went on a spree, unceremoniously removing any saint that they couldn't find authentic proof of existence from the official list.) For this reason they are no less than five saints who share the name Thomas. In order to distinguish these servants of God from one another, the Church slaps descriptive monikers on the end of their names. (Some come ready made, Thomas Aquinas and Thomas More use their last names. Others are identified by their place of origin: Thomas of Canterbury and Thomas of Villanova. Others just describe in what capacity they served-Thomas the Apostle.)

I used to always identify with Thomas the Apostle but as I studied the Lives of the Saints I had a lot in common with all of them. Well not necessarily "in common"-more like attributes which I could relate to or virtues to emulate. Some of their patronages coincided with aspects of my own personality or something I wanted to be involved with later in life. So I now claim all the Saints (does anyone know the plural form of my name) Thomas (except Villanova) as my own. Here's why:

Thomas the Apostle
Feast: July 3
Nicknames: "Doubting Thomas"

Thomas wasn't even his real name! Thomas is the English translation of the Hebrew word for "Twin." (Didymus in Greek) His name was most likely "Judah" making him the third apostle named thus. (Jude Thaddeus and Judas Iscariot the others-both Jude and Judas are variants of the very common Jewish name of "Judah.) Second names such as "Thomas" were used frequently in Jewish culture because of the small number of first names available-someone had to be able to distinguish one Judah from the other 5,000 (rough estimate) running around Jerusalem in 30 A.D. In this way "Thomas" would be similar to "Kephas" or "Peter": the name Jesus gives to Simon bar Jonah, making him "Simon Peter."

Anyway, Thomas makes a small number of appearances in the Bible. He is virtually non-existent in the Synoptic Gospels-his only mention is the obligatory listing in the listing of the Twelve Apostles. He has a greater role in the Gospel of John. He is most famous for his appearance in Chapter 22. Thomas was away from the upper room on Easter Sunday, the reason is not given. Other passages in the Gospel give hints. Thomas is listed among the disciples who were fishing on the Lake of Tiberius when Jesus appeared to them after the Resurrection. As these men had been fishermen before meeting Jesus, perhaps Thomas was attempting to return his old life before Jesus as well. In any case, Thomas returned at some point and the other Apostles told him that "they had seen the Master." In what was to become his most enduring quotation, he says skeptically "Only if I touch the holes left by the nails in His hands, or place my hand in the wound in His side will I believe." The next Sunday, Jesus appears in the upper room and instructs Thomas to do just that. Thomas believes and falls to his knees saying "My Lord and My God."

Thomas is always remembered for being the "Doubter" in this situation but I think he gets a bad rap. The guy fell to his knees and worshipped Christ, right there. The Gospels say that at least some of the other Apostles "still doubted" (Matthew 28:18, Mark 16: 14) even up to the Ascension. But Thomas was willing right then and there, to put it on the line. This kind of faith should come as no surprise to readers of John's Gospel. In Chapter 11, Jesus is telling his disciples that Lazarus is ill and that they must go to Bethany to visit him. Now, that was a problem because Bethany was in Judea and about a days walk from Jerusalem. The Jewish authorities there at this point had decided that they had to "deal with" the carpenter from Nazareth…and by "deal with" they meant 'kill." The Apostles are a little perplexed that their Master would just walk back into the lion's den and point out that the number of times that Jews almost stoned Jesus. (John 11:7-8.) Thomas gets up and says to everyone, "Let us also go to die with him." (John 11:16) That statement sounds a bit pessimistic I know but it shows the depth of faith Thomas had in his Master. He was willing to follow the Lord anywhere, even if it seemed to point toward certain death. No wonder he felt lost after Christ died.

The final appearance of Thomas in Holy Writ is no where as dramatic but gives insight into his character. Jesus and His Apostles are at the Last Supper and Jesus has just said that He is going to prepare a place for them in His Father's house. He says "where I am going, you know the way." Thomas says, "Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?' which launches Jesus into His famous "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" dissertation. (John 14:4-6)

Here is "Doubting Thomas" again. Jesus has just said that He is going somewhere and that the Apostles are to follow. But this makes no sense to Thomas. He points that Jesus never mentioned where He was going so how are they supposed to follow Him there? This is why I identify with Thomas a lot. He does not take any statement on face value. He analyzes everything and must have proof for it. Things confuse him and he's not too proud or stubborn to say so and ask for clarification. (I need a lot of help in this area, so I've been praying to Thomas a lot for help in that area.) And he's courageous. He was probably 98% sure that the Jesus would be killed by a Jewish mob when He returned to Judea, but He was so loyal to his Master that he was willing to go with Him, instead of trying to convince Him to change course. When all the other Apostles were cowering in fear in a locked room, Thomas wasn't there. His faith may have faltered from time to time (nothing worse than Peter did) but in the end; he was more faithful than ever. He was like an ordinary skeptical man with doubts, but he did not let these get in the way of his faith in the Risen Christ. That is why I admire "Doubting Thomas."

***Whew…sorry that particular impassioned defense of my patron took so long-I just hate it that all he's remembered for is his doubting episode. All of the following has absolutely no basis in Scripture. Just a forewarning for all you "Scripture Alone" folks. If you are one of those, feel free to read one about three more amazing Servants of God. Just remember, I warned you. I don't want of those annoying idolatry accusations or necromancy attacks…***

Sir Thomas More and Thomas Becket (of Canterbury)
Feast: June 22 and December 28

These two saints from England have more in common than just their Christian names.
Both were friends with a young prince named Henry, who went on to be King of England. (More was close friends with Henry VIII and Becket had been the drinking buddy of Henry II.)
Both were appointed to be Lord Chancellor by their buddy.
Both were forced to choose between his friend; the King and his loyalty to his Church and her temporal ruler: the Pope. In both cases the king was attempting to build up his own power by wrangling it away from the Church. (Henry VIII was attempting to name himself "Head of the Church in England" while Henry II was attempting to take control of land that belonged to the Church.)
In each case, both kings expected the Lord Chancellor to support him against the Church and in each case the king felt extremely betrayed when the Chancellor opposed his plans
Both resigned their Chancellorship in order to remove themselves from the conflict of interest.
Finally, in each case, Thomas was killed by the dubious orders of the king and under false pretenses.

Now the details differed. Thomas More was never a cleric, although he considered becoming a monk upon his wife's death. Thomas Becket was a bishop of Canterbury before he became Chancellor, he had most likely been placed there so Henry would have a close ally in the church. More was legally executed after a long and protracted treason trial where he brilliantly defended himself against all charges and (like his Lord Jesus) convicted only on the basis of a pre-arranged perjured testimony. Becket's death on the other hand was a classic case of vigilante justice. Henry II was rumored to have said "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" in a moment of frustration. Whether or not he meant for someone to "deal with" the bishop is beside the point-four of Henry's knights galloped to the Cathedral of Canterbury and murdered Thomas at the altar.

Perhaps these parallels were fated to take place. Although the martyrdoms of the two men were separated by four centuries, there is no question that Chancellor More was carrying on the legacy of Chancellor Becket. Thomas More was most likely named after Thomas Becket. Almost immediately following his death, Thomas Becket was acclaimed as a hero. Everyone in England was still a Catholic and many were appalled at the acts of Henry's knights. He went on to become quite possibly the most famous English saint. His tomb became the greatest pilgrimage site in England, a sort of Mecca for English Christians. (Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are told by a group of pilgrims traveling along the road to Canterbury to visit Becket's tomb.) When More was born, Becket was the only English saint with the name of Thomas. More was one of many young English boys who were given the great archbishop to be his patron.

Thomas More is considered the patron saint of lawyers. I plan to become a lawyer so I pray to Saint Thomas mainly in order to help me along the path to law school. Thomas did what most politicians are astoundingly unwilling to do: he did not attempt to separate his religious beliefs from his political decisions. This is a pet peeve that really annoys me. I have promised to myself and to God that if I do become involved in politics, I will do my best to make all my decisions in line with my Faith and I pray to St. Thomas to help me with that and to stay strong.

However the greatest reason I admire both Thomas Becket and Thomas More is the same reason I admire Thomas the Apostle. All of them were courageous and all of them stood up to the powers of their day (the King of England, the Romans, and the Sanhedrin) in the face of certain death. I have this knack for being a bit of a rebel against the establishment and like all the saints named Thomas, I say what I mean most of the time, not afraid to cause a little conflict. Both Becket and More had cahones to openly defy the king.

Thomas Aquinas
Feast: January 28
Nickname: "Dumb Ox"

Unlike the other saints named Thomas, Thomas Aquinas is not a martyr. He did not make a courageous last stand against the enemies of his faith. He was a monk in the Dominican monastery in Italy. He is most famous for writing the Summa Theologica, which is considered the greatest work of Catholic Theology. Thomas is considered one of the greatest preachers of all time. He was named a Doctor of the Church and is considered the greatest of all thirty-three.

Thomas' genius was not evident at first during his studies. Thomas was a rather large and heavyset young man. He was also very quiet, shy and withdrawn. Many of his classmates took this as evidence that he was unintelligent or perhaps even unable to speak. (The original meaning of the word dumb is: "unable to speak.") As it turned out Thomas was quite possibly the smartest student in the class. He quickly began to impress his teacher Saint Albert the Great and he even grew to surpass his teacher. He loved the Lord in the Eucharist with every beat of his heart and wrote the songs Tantum Ergo, O Salutaris Hostia, and Pange Linqua to celebrate his devotion to the Eucharist. These songs are still used in the ceremonies of Adoration and Benediction.

I identify with Aquinas the most. The reason for this is the fact that Thomas demonstrated his faith through learning and writing about it. This is my favorite aspect of living my Faith, studying it and learning as much as possible from it. I know that God gave me a gift of knowledge and intelligence and I want to use it for His Glory as Thomas Aquinas did. Thomas also had difficulty in his studies in the beginning of his time at university as I have during my first year at the Naval Academy so I continue to pray to him in order to help me do better in my coming time here.

First Century Christian versus Twenty-First Century Catholic

My main interest in history is Ancient Rome, especially Imperial Rome. One of the most infamous aspects of this time period was the Ten persecutions that were carried out against the Christians of the Empire. Contrary to popular belief, the persecutions were not carried out due to an intense Roman hatred of strange religions. It was the result of the complicated relationship between religion and politics in the Roman state.

The Romans had gods for everything. The Romans initially had an animist religion that had more in common with the Native Americans than with the Greek gods of Olympus. They saw spirits everywhere, in the wind, the water, the forest; under the thresholds and over the doorposts. They worshipped the spirits of their ancestors and each household had its own set of gods, particular to that family alone. When the Romans conquered the Aegean peninsula in the 3rd century before Christ, they adopted many aspects of the Greek culture they found there. They identified the Olympian gods: Zeus, Poseidon, Hermes and Aphrodite with the most powerful of their own. They took on the identities and mythological back stories of their Greek counterparts. For the first time, the Roman state religion became organized, with temples and sacrifices and priests. A good Roman citizen was faithful to these “Gods of Rome”.

As the Romans conquered land after land, and country after country, they tried to adapt the customs of these nations to their own. They started with the gods. The Romans would tell the conquered tribe’s war god was the same as Mars, the Roman god of war. The Romans were very good at assimilating the religious practices of other nations into their own. The city of Rome became filled with temples to foreign gods. Romans worshipped gods like Isis, Serapis and Mithras alongside Jupiter, Mars and Minerva.

In 42 B.C., the Roman Senate, under pressure from the Second Triumvirate, deified Julius Caesar, starting the cult of divis Iulius. This allowed Caesar Octavian, who would later take the name Caesar Augustus, to refer to himself as divi filius “the son of a god.” (Divis being different from deus, in that divis referred to a demigod, or lesser god, usually a half-human or human elevated to godhood, while deus referred to an all powerful god such as Jupiter or Apollo.) Once Augustus officially took power as Emperor in 27 B.C. he was referred to as The Divine Emperor. This practice continued among all of Augustus’ successors within the Julio-Claudian line. Although, officially, a Roman emperor was not deified until after he had died, the emperor was treated as a divinity while still alive. Prayers were offered to him, statues and temples were erected in his honor. It is unlikely that the emperors Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius actually believed that they were gods. They used the cult of the divine emperor to cement control over a superstitious empire but they all had temples erected to them in their lifetimes (Augustus in Pergamum, Tiberius in Smyrna, and Claudius in Colchester, Britain). And one can be certain that the insane emperors Caligula and Nero fancied themselves as gods. (Caligula married his sister because that’s what Jupiter did.)

In the second chapter of the book of Revelation, John says to the church at Pergamum, “I know you live where Satan’s throne is.” He is referring to the cult of the divine emperor which was headquartered in Pergamum at the temple of Augustus. (Long since dead and deified.) At the time of writing, John was exiled to the Aegean island of Patmos by Domitian, since they could not figure out how to kill him in Rome. (Boiling oil didn’t work.) The entire book of Revelation is an apocalyptic masterpiece in the vein of the visions of Daniel. John is writing against pagan Rome primarily against the divine emperor cult. He uses thinly veiled language to describe Domitian as the “great Beast who rules the world.” He is described as having blasphemous names: while he was still alive Domitian had the titles Dominus et Deus (Lord and God) applied to him and had coins struck with that motto. He is described as having a mortal wound which was healed, arguing that he was the symbolic (or perhaps not so symbolic) return of Nero who had killed Peter and Paul. (Perhaps the Witnesses of Chapter 11?) He is described as having seven heads and ten horns to correspond to the Roman emperors who numbered ten not including Domitian at the time with only seven having any real import. Finally, John even names the Beast applying to him the infamous number 666 which can be applied to either Nero, Domitian or even Caligula depending on how one works the gematria.

The imperial cult itself is identified in the seventeenth chapter of Revelation as a scarlet woman named Babylon who rides the (seven headed, ten horned, blasphemous name covered) Beast, sits on seven hills and drinks the blood of the Christian martyrs. An angel says, “The kings of the earth have had intercourse with her and the inhabitants of the earth have become drunk on the wine of her harlotry. (17:2) She is identified as a harlot because it was common Roman practice to spread the imperial cult throughout the provinces of the Empire through specially ordained priests they set up as imperial agents. This was the main method of instilling loyalty among the subjects of the Empire, essentially whoring itself out to willing subjects.

The Caesar cult was the big problem facing Christians in the Roman empire and the main reason behind the persecutions in the first place. While it is true that Nero needed someone to blame after his pyromania consumed a third of Rome, he was able to scapegoat the Christians because they were already mistrusted by most. They meet in secret in dank underground tombs, were told to love their brothers and sisters, and eat the body and blood of the crucified Jew who they worshipped. Many Romans were willing to accept the different rituals- there was plenty of weird stuff going on in the various temples of the “eastern gods” that had made their way to Rome. What sealed the deal for the Christians was their refusal to worship the divine Caesar.

To most Romans, it didn’t matter what god you worshipped and what you did in your worship of said god. Most Romans didn’t worship every single god but picked certain ones as their “patron” and prayed to others as needed. Romans joined cults dedicated to one particular god and this was the god they worshipped. To the Romans, the new Christians were just such a cult. But every Roman, no matter what god he worshipped was required to render divine homage to the emperor in order to be a good Roman. Most Romans did not see a problem with worshipping the emperor-it was a civic duty. And very little was required for it. The ceremony required the citizen to drop a few grains of incense into a censer in front of an image of the emperor. Occasionally, this was followed by a salutation such as Salve Divis Caesar “Hail, the Divine Caesar.” That was it. All someone had to do was drop the incense than go on to worshipping whatever god he wanted. It didn’t even matter if he actually believed the Emperor was divine.

The Roman’s violent reactions to certain religions are the exceptions that prove the rule. They destroyed the power of the Druids in Britain by burning their sacred tree groves and killing as many Druids as they could find in the Black Year of 61 A.D. Nine years later in 70 A.D. they razed the Jewish Temple so that “a stone was not left atop another.” Like the Christians, these religions had defied the imperial cult by insisting that their god(s) were superior to those of Rome and that they would not bow to the emperor. The Romans could not understand why the Christians did not simply perform the duty required of them and than continue to worship Christ.

It became a question of separating one’s religion and personal morals from one’s political positions. This is the first example of a Christian who is pressured to abandon the principles of his faith for political expediency. One could easily separate his political views from his religious views. In public one could offer the incense to Caesar, and in private go to Mass in the catacombs and worship Christ. For him, the grain of incense meant nothing, we was just being a good Roman citizen. Why would a first century Roman Christian not say, “Well, I’m personally opposed to the worship of Caesar, but it’s not my place my own beliefs on Jesus of Nazareth on anyone else?” It’s not just because they thought that Jesus was en route for the second coming. They believed with an incredible faith that astounded even their tormentors and guards. Granted, Nero was so insane he would have probably killed them anyway but history shows that this was not the case with many of the persecutions. Hadrian told the prefect of Spain not to hunt out Christians but only to prosecute them when they refused to offer the incense. Marcus Aurelius only began his persecution when his co-emperor, Lucius Verus, convinced him that Christians not worshipping the emperor were the cause of the problems that the Empire was facing at the time. Aurelius was a Stoic and most likely did not even believe in his own divinity.

Now, in the 21st century, Christians, especially Catholics, so easily separate their religious views from their political ones. They support abortion or at least support politicians who support it. Catholic politicians like Nancy Reid, John Kerry, Kathleen Sebelius and Edward Kennedy offer their incense to Caesar and than state that they are devout Catholics who follow their faith very much. Right. It’s not like the first Christians had to sacrifice a baby to Jupiter in order to keep their heads attached to their shoulders. All the had to do was burn a tiny grain of incense before any image of the emperor. For not doing it they faced decapitation, being fed to lions, crucifixion or (my personal favorite) being tied to a stake, covered with oil and set on fire to illuminate Nero’s garden parties. We have not been called to give our lives for our religious beliefs (yet). All a person who stands up for the rights of the unborn is possible loss of an election (if a politician) and being lumped in with “those fanatical pro-lifers.” God forbid if it ever did come to a persecution, Catholics right and left would be renouncing Christ before they even showed them the implements of torture.

Christians, especially Catholics, need to look at the example of these early Christians. For the first three centuries of the Church, the only ones who were honored as saints were the Martyrs because their deaths were such a powerful witness to the truth of the Gospel of Christ. Martyrs during the later persecutions looked to the first Christians, men like Peter and Paul, Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna to inspire them to hold true to the Truth and the Faith. We should follow their example and pray to the martyrs (Lord knows there’s a lot of them) for moral courage in this age of less severe martyrdom but martyrdom nonetheless.