The Apocryphal Gospels_A Very Short Introduction

by Paul Foster

  Most notably, the form – or maybe forms – of the text require further clarification. A manuscript (subsequently lost) of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas was first described, briefly, in a modern scholarly work in a catalogue of 1675. A second manuscript was then published by J. B. Cotelier in his 1698 edition of the Apostolic Constitutions, but this was a fragmentary version of the text. Over the next 150 years, further manuscripts of the text were found. The colossus of 19th-century textual criticism, Constantin von Tischendorf, published in 1853 what has become the standard scholarly edition of the text. He actually published two versions of the text. The first, based primarily on two 15th-century manuscripts and known as Greek A, presented a 19-chapter version of the text. Today this represents the better-known form of the text. Alongside this he published a shorter form, Greek B, based on a manuscript he found during his visit to St Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai. He also drew attention to several Latin witnesses to the text. These demonstrate the wide circulation and popular appeal of the narrative. Since Tischendorf’s day, the body of manuscripts of the text has increased, with at least 11 extant Greek manuscripts now known. Most significantly, in 1927 Delatte published a 15th-century manuscript which, while closer to the form of Greek A than Greek B, showed greatest affinities with the Latin witnesses and was seen as a witness to another textual form labelled as Greek D. Further discoveries have demonstrated that this text was translated into languages other than Latin, including Syriac, Georgian, Ethiopic, Slavonic, and Irish. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas certainly has not been a ‘hidden text’ down through the centuries.

  The prologue to the text opens with a self-attribution of authorship to a ‘Thomas, the Israelite’ and presents itself as sharing details of Jesus’ childhood with non-Jewish believers.

  I, Thomas the Israelite, am reporting to you, all my non-Jewish brothers and sisters, to make known the extraordinary childhood deeds of our Lord Jesus Christ – what he did after his birth in my region. This is how it all started:

  (Inf. Gos. Thom. 1.1)

  After this brief description of author and purpose, this racy narrative rapidly moves on to relating the spectacular and at times lurid miracles of the boy Jesus.

  The first is innocuous enough. At the age of 5, Jesus fashions 12 clay sparrows beside a flowing stream, and as part of this process he makes ponds of water from the stream and then instantly purifies the water with ‘a single word’. This innocent narrative then introduces a dark side which both foreshadows later confrontations in Jesus’ life and at the same time stigmatizes Jewish attitudes to the law. The narrator notes that Jesus’ actions took place on the Sabbath and that what he had done was observed by a Jew. This unnamed figure calls Joseph, the father of Jesus, and informs him that his son ‘has violated the Sabbath’. Joseph joins in haranguing his son for this Sabbath transgression. Jesus does not address the two adults, but instead speaks to the clay sparrows: ‘Be off, fly away, and remember, you who are now alive.’ The compliant birds do as they are instructed, and although amazed the Jews (now plural) report these happening to their leaders.

  Three features which are common to many later Christian texts are immediately apparent. First, the miraculous elements of the Jesus tradition are heightened. In a pre-Enlightenment age, a more miraculous Jesus was seen as being able to attract more followers. The story perhaps was not understood as straining credulity, but rather as a way of commending faith. Second, anti-Jewish sentiments are also increased and there is a greater divide between ‘Jews’ and Jesus, to whom that label is not applied. It is noteworthy that at this stage in the story Joseph is

  8. The infancy gospels had widespread impact on popular piety and artistic representations of scenes from the life of Christ. Here, drawing upon the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the boy Jesus brings to life clay he had fashioned on the Sabbath

  an ambiguous character, who although siding with the Jewish informer is not labelled as a Jew himself. The text should be classified as anti-Jewish rather than anti-Semitic since it appears that there is no racial or ethnic prejudice against Semitic people as a whole. Rather, the Jews, who are viewed as a religious grouping opposed to the claims of Jesus’ messiahship, are seen as recalcitrant and deserve whatever judgments are visited upon them. Third, it should be observed that while the category ‘Jewish’ is viewed negatively, the notion of being an ‘Israelite’ is taken over as a way of identifying the putative author of this text. There is, therefore, an implicit ‘supersessionary’ theology at work whereby Christians see themselves as inheritors of the covenantal promises made to the nation of Israel, but conveniently deny any link between historic Israel and the contemporary Jewish people.

  The next two stories take a macabre turn. Following the narrative of the story about the vivified clay sparrows, a young boy named as the ‘son of Annas the scholar’ drains the pools of water that were made by Jesus. An enraged Jesus responds with bitter invective, ‘Sodomite, ungodly and ignorant. What harm did the pools of water do to you? From this moment you too will dry up like a tree, and you will never produce leaves or root or bear fruit’ (Inf. Gos. Thom. 3.2). In response to this curse, the boy withers up and dies.

  Next in this episodic drama, while Jesus is going through his village another boy running along innocently bumps him on the shoulder. For the second time the petulant Jesus is angered. He shouts, ‘You will not continue your journey’, and another child drops dead. The people of the village and the parents of this dead boy speak in similar confused and fearful tones:

  Some people saw what had happened and said, ‘Where has this boy come from? Everything he says happens instantly!’ The parents of the dead boy came to Joseph and blamed him saying, ‘Because you have such a boy, you cannot live with us in the village, or else teach him to bless and not curse. He is killing our children!’

  (Inf. Gos. Thom. 4.3–4)

  There is no doubt that the stories are fascinating, but what motivated the creation of narratives that portray the young Jesus as insolent, uncontrolled, and murderous? Later in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas Jesus’ behaviour is transformed from that of being a life-taker to that of a life-restorer. Perhaps the message stems from this reversal in Jesus’ character. It may be intended to encourage the reversal of uncontrolled behaviour in other people, but it would appear unusual to present Jesus as a character who was in need of personal reform. Chapter 5 of the text offers a slightly different perspective through a dialogue between the boy Jesus and his father Joseph. In response to questioning, Jesus declares that the words he has spoken are not his own and also that the people must take their punishment. When an exasperated Joseph grabs the ear of Jesus, the child responds ‘It is one thing for you to seek and not find; it is quite another for you to act this unwisely. Do you not know that I do not really belong to you? Do not make me upset’ (Inf. Gos. Thom. 5.5–6). From the perspective of the narrative, the stories seem more concerned to reveal something about the hidden identity of Jesus. The stories are somewhat reminiscent of Old Testament stories where people die for infringing the holiness of God. In particular, there is an incident when a certain man called Uzzah touched the Ark of the Covenant when he thinks it is about to topple off the cart on which it is being transported. His punishment is that ‘God struck him down there for his irreverence’ (2 Sam. 6.7). The Infancy Gospel of Thomas may want readers to identify the boy Jesus with the holiness of the God of the Old Testament.

  Choice of school is often a hard decision, and at the best of times teacher–pupil relations can be strained. With such a dangerous and petulant child, the problems, as the narrative now makes clear, become even more unpredictable. There are three scenes that depict the schooling of Jesus. The first is an extended story in the narrative when an unfortunate school master by the name of Zacchaeus mistakenly believes he can both teach and discipline the child (Inf. Gos. Thom. 6.1–8.4). When Zacchaeus attempts to teach Jesus letters, the child launches forth on the mystical meaning of each letter. Here the text shows its close
st point of contact with the esoteric learning of mystery cults or Gnostic forms of religion. However, these similarities are slight and their purpose is to show the superiority of Jesus’ learning, not to promote Gnostic forms of Christianity. Perplexed, the confused Zacchaeus makes a number of insightful comments about Jesus. He states, ‘this child is no ordinary mortal … perhaps he was born before the creation of the world’. Later he goes on to say, ‘what great thing he is – god or angel or whatever else I might call him – I do not know’ (Inf. Gos. Thom. 7.4, 11). The type of faith being offered to readers is highly miracles-based. The wonder-working Jesus is the one in whom followers should place their trust.

  On two other occasions there are attempts to school Jesus. The story in chapter 14 is really a doublet and shorter version of the early story. Jesus is unresponsive to the instruction to write out the alphabet. After a period of silence, he challenges the unnamed school master to explain the meaning of the letters. The exasperated teacher strikes Jesus and as a result is cursed and left unconscious (Inf. Gos. Thom. 14). The third time Joseph agrees to Jesus attending school, the new school master recognizes that Jesus already possesses more knowledge than he himself does. Adopting a more deferential attitude, this third teacher gains an irenic response from Jesus. This results in a promise to heal the second teacher, who had been struck down because of his confrontation with Jesus earlier in the narrative (Inf. Gos. Thom. 15.7). It is interesting that the tradition about Jesus learning letters and then displaying superior esoteric knowledge of their intrinsic meaning is known outside of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.20.1). Thus a variant of the story, which is closer to the shorter form contained in Inf. Gos. Thom. 14, was in circulation at least by the second half of the 2nd century. This does not demonstrate that the Infancy Gospel of Thomas was composed by this time, since it may have incorporated this tradition into its text, but it does show that such stories of Jesus’ childhood were already of interest to certain Christians by this stage.

  Jesus’ hyperactive behaviour does not always result in acts that terrorize those around him. Admittedly from mixed motives, in chapter 9 Jesus raises a child who had fallen from a roof and died. This occurs after the dead boy and other children including Jesus were playing on the roof. Since the other playmates have run away, in order to defend himself against the accusation that he pushed the child from the roof, Jesus brings the boy back to life so he may witness to his innocence. In chapter 10, Jesus miraculously heals a young man who has died of blood loss after cutting his foot with an axe. Next, when a water pitcher accidentally breaks, Jesus carries water home in his cloak (Inf. Gos. Thom. 11). Jesus causes super-abundant harvests (Inf. Gos. Thom. 12); makes short planks of wood extend to help his father (Inf. Gos. Thom. 13); saves James, the son of his father – interestingly not described as Jesus’ brother – from a viper bite (Inf. Gos. Thom. 16); runs to the aid of an infant who has died and brings him back to life (Inf. Gos. Thom. 17); and returns to life a man who falls to his death on a construction site (Inf. Gos. Thom. 18).

  There is little doubt that the longer form of the text (Greek A) presents a positive progression and development in the behaviour of Jesus. His behaviour as one who maims and murders is transformed as he becomes a healer and restorer of life. However, it has recently been suggested that the shorter form (Greek B) is closer to the original form of the text. Stories contained in chapters 10, 17, and 18 are thus seen as attempts to ameliorate the unpalatable portrait of Jesus as he changes from one who curses to one who blesses. If the shorter form is indeed original, then the text presents a cursing wonder-worker and maintains this characterization more uniformly throughout the narrative. It is not totally obvious why this would have been an attractive understanding of the boy Jesus. Perhaps this develops a Christology of Jesus as judge. This proposal is supported by the observation that in chapter 5 Jesus sees it as his role to mete out ‘punishment’ on the inhabitants of the village.

  The text of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas ends by narrating a revised form of the story of the visit to Jerusalem (Luke 2.42–51). This provides strong evidence for seeing the text as post-Lukan, and therefore as being written no earlier than the 2nd century. Many details are embroidered in such a way as to emphasize the astounding wisdom of Jesus. In the Infancy Gospel of Thomas Jesus is not only ‘sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions’ (Luke 2.46), but is more actively engaged in legal debate, and there is greater detail provided about the nature of the material under discussion.

  After three days they found him in the temple area, sitting among the teachers, listening to the law and asking them questions. All eyes were on him, and everyone was astounded that he, a mere child, could interrogate the elders and teachers of the people and explain the main points of the law and the parables of the prophets.

  (Inf. Gos. Thom. 19.4–5)

  This expansion of the Lukan description more emphatically presents Jesus as an authoritative teacher and as a Torah expert. The other striking feature about this final chapter is that here for the first time Mary is explicitly introduced into the narrative. In contrast to the negative representation of Joseph, Mary is presented in a positive way and receives the veneration of the Pharisees through the blessing they address to her. Here is the most obvious place where the pious veneration of emerging 2nd-century Mariology replaces the more negative aspects of the biblical text. At this juncture in Luke (2.50), it is stated that the parents ‘did not understand what he [Jesus] was talking about’. This is replaced by the beatitude addressed to Mary, which draws upon the doxology uttered to Mary by Elizabeth in chapter 1 of Luke’s account. Thus she is told, ‘You are first among women because God has blessed the fruit of your womb, for we have never seen or heard of such glory and such virtue and wisdom’ (Inf. Gos. Thom. 19.10).

  The Infancy Gospel of Thomas radically expands and supplements the one story known about Jesus from the canonical accounts during the period after his infancy until the start of his public ministry. Covering the years in Jesus’ life between the ages of 5 and 12, the text creates a storyline that is rich in folkloric details, resulting in a narrative that is both fantastic and fanciful. To assess the value of the text in historical terms concerning the actual events it describes will obviously result in a particularly low estimate of its worth. However, the text is valuable not for revealing facts about the life of Jesus, but for providing a more complete picture of one of the various ways that Christians of the 2nd and 3rd centuries expanded the Jesus story in line with their own pious beliefs and theological concerns. While the Infancy Gospel of Thomas is an entertaining text, it is also definitely theologically challenging. There are no easy or obvious answers to the question concerning what motivated an author to present the young Jesus in such an uncongenial manner, at least to modern ears. The longer recension accommodates the problem by showing development in the character of Jesus; the shorter (and perhaps earlier) form makes few attempts to solve such problems. In that textual version the young Jesus is a figure of cursing and judgment.

  The Protevangelium of James

  The problems of defining the term ‘gospel’ in relation to a literary genre have already been highlighted both by general discussion and through consideration of specific texts that have had that label applied to them. Since a large amount of the material in the Protevangelium pertains to events prior to the birth of Jesus, it is correct to ask whether this text should be classified as a gospel. Although the usual title of this work contains the Latinized word -evangelium meaning ‘gospel’, not only is this qualified by the prefix proto-, showing that the events are prior to the usual starting point of the gospel story, but even more importantly it should be recognized that the title Protevangelium of James is in fact a modern construct and not actually the title provided by the text.

  Like so many ancient books, the title of this work is not found at the beginning, but at the end. In the final verse of the brief epilogue, the twin-title �
��Birth of Mary, Revelation of James’ is supplied. While these twin ancient titles may be preferable to the modern construct of Protevangelium of James, these are not without their own problems. In comparison with other ancient texts labelled as ‘Revelations’ or ‘Apocalypses’, this writing is devoid of much of the apocalyptic imagery that is a feature of that literary genre. The description ‘Birth of Mary’ is perhaps more useful, but this text is far more than a simple birth-story of Mary, since it tells of events down to the early years of Mary’s own mother. So one is left with the conventional title, the Protevangelium of James, as the accepted way to describe this text.

  It is sometimes suggested that a fundamental difference between canonical and non-canonical gospels is that whereas the former enjoyed widespread circulation throughout the early Church, the latter were read only in small isolationist conventicles that were themselves representative of aberrant forms of Christianity. Not only is such an understanding historically anachronistic, retrojecting the 4th-century structure of a dominant orthodoxy into the 2nd century, when there were multiple expressions of Christianity struggling to define beliefs, but it is just plain wrong in representing the use of at least some of the non-canonical gospels as being highly limited. The Protevangelium of James was a particularly widely read document in many branches of Christianity. Based on the evidence of surviving manuscripts, the wide circulation of this document is amply attested. To date, more than 140 Greek manuscripts have been catalogued. The text is also witnessed in numerous translational versions, including Sahidic, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic, Slavonic, and Arabic. In fact, the Arabic text may have influenced Qur’anic and later Islamic understandings of the place of Mary in the Christian tradition.