1. When Thomas is not called the doubting disciple, he is singled out as the despondent disciple. As the evidence for his doubt is found in the saying, “Except I see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe”; so the evidence for his despondency is found in the previous saying, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
Accordingly Prebendary Calthrop speaks of his “despondent character,” and “what we may perhaps call his pessimistic bias.” And even Dr. A. B. Davidson says: “The prevailing character of the man was this proclivity to despond, a certain want of buoyancy of mind, coupled perhaps with a feminine tenderness and sensitiveness, and, it may be, not without that self-will and obstinacy and love of solitude which many times go along with too great delicacy of feeling. He was the kind of man whom one often observes in the East, of a gloomy dark exterior, to appearance emotionless and with a bent to melancholy, yet fervid and fiery within, like a stream of lava over which there gathers a hard black crust, but within there rolls a red molten stream of fire.”
“The doubt of Thomas,” says Dr. W. J. Dawson, “is the despondence of a great spirit. It breathes like a gentle sigh through that other saying of his: ‘Lord, we know not whither thou goest; how know we the way?' He was, perhaps, one of those men through whose natures a vein of tender melancholy runs. Such men are like delicate musical instruments, the brilliance of whose tone suffers by the slightest change of temperature; they often suffer by the physical oppression of the robust, who little know how their unsympathetic brusqueness sets sensitive nerves jarring, and how their rough touch sets old bruises aching; their life moves in an orbit where transitions are rapid and frequent; they have their bright moments and their dark; they are of unequal temperament; they receive all impressions acutely because they are acutely sensitive; their joy is ecstasy, their suffering is agony, their disheartening is despair. Think of such men as Dr. John Brown, the author of Rab and His Friends, in whom humour and melancholy lay so close together; of Charles Lamb, whose laughter is the foil to such unutterable despair; of Coleridge with his gleams of celestial light breaking out of bitter darkness; of Johnson, with his sturdy faith ever struggling through the inertia and gloom of hypochondriac fancies; of Cowper, who can write with such delicate humour, such freshness of touch, such inspired faith and joy, and yet can die saying, ‘I feel unutterable despair.' Think even of a man of action, and heroic action, like Abraham Lincoln, whose laughter was the relief of hereditary brooding melancholy, and was, as he said, ‘the vent,' which saved him from a frenzied brain or broken heart. Such men may furnish us with a hint of what Thomas called Didymus may have been. I think that his, too, was a tender, brooding, intensely sensitive nature. He dwelt in the exceeding brightness or the blackness of darkness. His quick intelligence perceived things with an infinite clearness of vision, and they were things which often he would rather not have seen. He had none of the blindness of Peter to the shadow of coming events. He never debated as John did who should be the first in the Kingdom. He followed Christ because he could not help it; but he knew it was to judgment and death. He doubted, not because he would, but because he must; and it was out of that cloud of unutterable misgiving that he sent forth this heroic cry, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.' ”
There are two classes of minds which habitually stand in the post of outlook-the man of the laurel and the man of the cypress. The first sees the world as rose-coloured. It is all brightness, all beauty, all glory-a scene of splendid possibilities which is waiting to open for him its gates of gold. The second, on the other hand, approaches it with dismay. To him the prospect looks all dark. He is a pessimist previous to experience. He is sure he will never succeed. He is sure the gate will not open when he tries it. He feels that he has nothing to expect from life. He hangs his harp upon a willow, and goes forth to sow in tears.
And each of these has a representative in the New Testament. I think the man of the laurel is the evangelist John. From the very beginning he is optimistic. Even when Christ was on the road to that martyrdom of which He had warned His disciples, John is so sanguine of success that he applies for a place in the coming kingdom. And through life this optimism does not desert him. His very power to stand beside the cross was a power of hope. It was not that he excelled his brotherdisciples in the nerve to bear pain. It was rather that to him the spectacle conveyed an impression of less pain-that he saw in it elements of triumph as well as trial, signs of strength along with marks of sacrifice.
But if the man of the laurel is John, the man of the cypress is assuredly Thomas. There are men whose melancholy is the result of their scepticism; Thomas's scepticism is the result of his melancholy. He came to the facts of life with an antecedent prejudice; he uniformly expected from the banquet an inferior menu. It is a great mistake to imagine that the collapse came with the Crucifixion. Strictly speaking, there was no collapse. If I understand the picture aright it represents the figure of a man who could never stand at his full stature but was always bent towards the ground. It was not from timidity. He was a courageous man, ready to do and dare anything even when he was most downcast. It was not from a mean nature. He was a man of the noblest spirit-capable of the most heroic deeds of sacrifice. That which gave him a crouching attitude was simply a constitutional want of hope-a natural inability to take the bright view. It was this which made him a sceptic.1 [Note: G. Matheson, The Representative Men of the New Testament, 137.]
2. Thomas's melancholy is given as the explanation of his absence when first the risen Lord appeared to the disciples. “When the last terrible tragedy came,” says Hough, “Thomas sank into misanthropy and despair. It was not so much a reaction with him as with the others. He had had his deep misgivings, and lately they had grown stronger. Now his sober judgment was vindicated. His Master had failed. He had been killed. Thomas would never see Him again. It was small comfort, however, that Thomas had expected some tragic end to the ministry of his Master. He had loved Jesus, and now that face of glowing, eager friendliness and lofty love would never be seen again. His heart bled at the thought. He had nothing to look forward to. He had only wonderful memories. He sat nursing them in silent gloom. He had not heart enough to meet with the disciples as in mutual fellowship they tried to comfort one another. Thus he missed the first appearance of Jesus to the company of the disciples.”
The character of Thomas is an anatomy of melancholy. If “to say man is to say melancholy,” then to say Thomas, called Didymus, is to say religious melancholy. Peter was of such an ardent and enthusiastical temperament that he was always speaking, whereas Thomas was too great a melancholian to speak much, and when he ever did speak it was always out of the depths of his hypochondriacal heart.2 [Note: A. Whyte, Bible Characters, 159.]
In that Inferno of his, which is simply the subterranean chambers of the soul thrown upon a screen, Dante places the doubters, the deniers, next to the slothful, on the side farther from the light, nearer to the uttermost state of darkness. In his view, that is to say once again, doubt or denial may creep upon the human soul and harden over it like a crust, not so much in consequence of this or that particular incident in the man's intellectual life, but as the last result of his permitting the disheartening things in human experience to weigh unduly upon him, to dwell habitually with him. According to Dante, one may sink into an invincible attitude of doubt or denial, by simply encouraging within oneself the sad or dismal view of things, by refusing to entertain the evidence on the other side, giving it equal weight: nothing worse than that. But there is not anything which could be worse for beings such as we are, who have been sent into the world, not to hesitate about things, but to live our life once for all, with all our strength.1 [Note: J. A. Hutton, Pilgrims in the Region of Faith, 24.]
3. Now these despondent men are sometimes lifted to the mountain-tops of faith and confidence by the surprising joys which come to them. Their moods change rapidly. From the deep Valley of Humiliation and the grounds of Giant Despair they are raised to the Delectable Mountains and the height of celestial vision. So it was with Thomas, when the risen Christ was truly revealed to him and proved. He who had believed not at all believed most then, and passed into a radiant confidence and joy; and we may well suppose that the pessimism of the man was thoroughly cured by the sweet medicine which had been administered to it, and that afterwards his love and courage and faith were brightened and strengthened by a hopefulness and cheerfulness as great as any other of the disciples showed.
Not only did Stevenson diligently seek out the encouraging and bright aspects of experience as he actually found them. Jesus Christ once said to a doubting apostle, “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” Stevenson believed through many an hour when he had not seen, and so was blessed. When all was dark, he pointed his telescope right into the blackness, and found a star. It is thus that faith may imitate the Master's work, calling things which are not as though they are, and find that the dark world has no power to resist faith's command when it boldly says, Let there be light.2 [Note: J. Kelman, The Faith of Robert Louis Stevenson, 253.]
So now, thy Lord, thy God confess,
Believe and worship, too,
And first adore,-yet they have more
Who deem the witness true.
Thy faith has seen but what was seen,-
Blest they who still believe
What eye nor ear shall see or hear,
Nor heart of man conceive.
O, in my body, not in Thine,
Lord Jesus, let me see
The blessed marks of love divine,
Which Thou hast borne for me;
Compunction sweet on hands and feet,
The pierced, the open heart;
Or e'er, without one faithless doubt,
I see Thee as Thou art.1 [Note: Herbert Kynaston.]
