After researching the various Christian relics that are still very much worshiped today, despite most of them being discredited, I began to think about the various places that claim to own pieces of these relics. After some further research I found that various churches claimed to have the same relics in their possession. St Thomas's doubting finger is supposedly simultaneously home to 4 churches! I found this very interesting as it made me wonder how these Christians can still worship a relic that is clearly not the real body part, perhaps they are aware of the many different fingers, but they may have hope that the particular finger that they are worshiping is that of Thomas; the others must be fabricated then?

Looking specifically at the finger of Saint Thomas, I have found that the Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, San Tommaso in Parione, San  Thome Basilica and Basilica di San Tommaso Apostolo all claim to have the doubting finger of Thomas! Now clearly Thomas had 10 fingers so why would it be strange for just 4 of them to be shown as relics? That is because the only finger that came into contact with Christ's wound (his right index finger) was of religious importance. This is expressed in Caravaggio's The incredulity of Saint Thomas 1601. Thomas doubts that Jesus has been resurrected, so to prove that this was a fact, Thomas placed his finger inside Jesus' wound, a wound that was inflicted by a Roman guard before his death.