13. The Finger of Doubting Thomas, once shoved in the resurrected Christ’s wounded side, is in Rome.
Thomas the Apostle is the spiritual brother of all cynics, sceptics, and rational thinkers. He was the one who refused to believe the gossip from his fellow Apostles that Jesus had come back to life. Christ eventually physically appeared before his sceptical friend and allowed him to shove a finger into the wound in his holy side to make certain. This was sufficiently convincing for Tom, who hailed the man stood before him as Lord and God. Jesus forgave him, albeit with the admonishment: ‘blessed are they that have not seen and have believed’ (John 20:29).
As well as giving us the idiom, ‘Doubting Thomas’, for anyone incredulous, Thomas also brought into legend the most famous finger of all time. And you can see the offending digit for yourself at the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome. It’s unclear when they came by the bone, but it’s certainly holy: the finger of a saint, which touched both Jesus and his holy blood. It has unsurprisingly proved a big draw for centuries of pilgrims, who can also see fragments of the cross on which Christ was crucified when they tire of being pointed at.
