last chronicle

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your thoughtful review of Alistair Bornkamm’s important book The Thirteenth Disciple. [See our own review on p.29] Perhaps I may add a little something of my own to Professor Bornkamm’s cogent argument.

When I was British Resident in Madras in the period immediately before independence, I was privileged to accompany Sir Matthew Powell on a Cambridge University archaeological expedition to Cybe, one of the sites associated in Southern Indian legend with the Apostle Thomas.

There, in ruins long since occupied by Hindu priests, we uncovered a fresco which Matthew was convinced was a painting of two people – a man and a woman – concelebrating the Holy Communion.

The fresco is undoubtedly very ancient. Could it, I wonder, have shown the apostle celebrating with his twin sister Salome? Bornkamm’s thesis makes such an interpretation more than likely.

Yours sincerely,

I.O.W. Osborne, RN