Appendix 2
The Bleeding Cross
One of the most important attractions for pilgrims and tourists, who
visit the Mount of St. Thomas, is the so-called Bleeding Cross39,
which adorns the wall behind the altar of the church on the Mount.
It is a great stone in which a cross has been carved, of a form and
shape which is not known in Europe. It has been named as “the
cross of Thomas” or “the Persian Cross”.
According to Indian tradition it was made by St. Thomas himself.
This is in accordance with the view that Thomas was a carpenter,
a stonemason or simply a builder by trade, as we found it stated
earlier in the Acts of Thomas. To carve out and set up such a cross
would have been a delightful pastime for Thomas, when he chose
and laid out a place for the faithful to come and worship. Similar
crosses are found in several places where Thomas is said to have
preached, as in Socotra and Kerala.
In Christian tradition, the cross once a sign of cruel punishment had
become a symbol of redemption thanks to Jesus’ crucifixion and
death on it. The cross has become an important element in our
Liturgy. And St. Thomas who was quite aware of the suffering and
death of Jesus on the cross knew its value for Christian worship.
It is still said of the cross kept in the main altar of the church in
St. Thomas Mount, that he was assassinated as he was kneeling
before it in deep prayer and that his blood poured out over it. A
monument came up in the place where the cross was found. And
the Portuguese who found it in its present site laid the foundations
of for a new church around it in 1547.
Let us follow the report made by Bishop Frei Andre de Santos
Maria of Cochin, under whose jurisdiction the territory of Mylapore
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once had been, before it became a separate diocese: “This stone is
as big as a mill-stone and was lying with the cross carved on it
turned down, and the reverse upwards. As the whole appearance
of the stone on the reverse was rough and unpolished, it looked just
a rough stone lying about. Those who were digging the foundations
were about to leave it there without taking much notice of it. But
moved by God, they turned it face upwards and noticed the
beautiful cross carved on it with an inscription around it. There was
a streak of blood on one side of the cross, and the blood looked to
be so fresh, as if it had been shed at that very moment. In the
course of time the blood went on disappearing, but the cross
continued to exude water as if like a sweat and people have been
wiping it away. Even now the cross has traces of what had once
been there, not withstanding that already fifty years had elapsed
since the stone was discovered and placed there on the altar”.
The miraculous sweating of the stone is said to have taken place
for the first time during a Mass on 18th December, 1558, the feast
of the Expectation of our Lady. It occurred at the singing of the
Gospel. After that the sweating took place every year, then every
two or three years, and then after a long period. The last sweating
took place in 1704. The stone took on a dark colour, and gave off
so much water that handkerchiefs could be moistened with it. For
this and other reasons it was given the Latin name Crux Mirabilis,
the miraculous cross.
Already then several Protestants seem to have challenged the
veracity of the miracle of the sweating cross. Fr. Tachard, S.J.,
wrote in 1711: “Several Protestants, not being able to deny what
they saw with their own eyes, examined the altar and its
surroundings within and without. They even climbed on the top of
the church on that side and examined it carefully to see if there was
any trickery by which the credulity of the people was being
imposed upon them. But after much useless search they were
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forced to admit that there was nothing normal in that event, but that
it was something divine and extraordinary. They were certain of
what they saw but they were not converted”60.
Can this sweating stone have a natural explanation? At a time when
even the miracles narrated in the Gospels are critically evaluated,
it is good that this miracle too is respectfully examined further. The
matter grows even more mysterious if we turn our attention to the
inscription on the stone. The inscription is in very ancient characters
which no one can decipher. The king of Portugal seems to have
pressed for someone to be found who could do so. Finally an old
Brahmin was discovered, who was prepared to make an attempt.
At first he refused to go up to the altar to read the inscription, but
at length he yielded to the pressure put upon him. He made a fine
rigmarole of it! Each sign was, so he claimed, supposed to
represent ten, fifteen or twenty words, as the hieroglyphs of the
Egyptians taught. His translation is said to have read thus:
In the time of the law of Sagamo, a man of God, Thomas, was sent
to this part of the world by the son of God, whose pupil he was,
to bring the knowledge of God to the people. He built a temple
there, performed miracles, and was finally martyred by a lance,
thrown by a Brahmin when he was on his knees in prayer. The
cross was coloured by the blood of the saint, as a memory of him61.
It is very doubtful if the Brahmin really gave such a translation,
which is also in conflict with the Indian tradition chat Thomas
himself made the cross and the inscription on it. In any case, before
the translation reached Europe, it had already undergone so many
changes that we can no longer recognize this reading in it. In 1667
Athanasius Kircher gave a version, attributed to the Brahmin,
which differs completely from the translation which we have cited
earlier.
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There has been some further study made on the inscription on the
cross on St. Thomas Mount; studies have also been comparing this
cross with the similar crosses found in Kerala. The result has been
that they were all just imitations of the original cross on the Mount,
which has been made by the person of St. Thomas himself62.
