Saint Thomas the Apostle in America, According to Accounts of Early Jesuits of Brazil and Paraguay

Abstract

The history of Saint Thomas the Apostle preaching in America was debated from the time it became a widely discussed topic of conversation during the sixteenth century. Although there is reliable evidence that the story began with the arrival of Columbus to the supposed “Indies”, where the apostle did preach, the Jesuits are attributed for its invention. Undoubtedly, religious leaders arriving in 1549 embraced the story to justify and validate their evangelizing project, taking storytelling to the extreme. Even though Christian hagiographies had ruled it out, by the end of the eighteenth century the story was still being written about. Therefore, we will focus our analysis on the writings of the Jesuits; from internal documents and publications of Jesuit chroniclers - to the expelled; this, with the aim of demonstrating the importance given to a myth that facilitated the pastoral objective of religious-cultural intermixing.