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The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (also known as the Infancy of Jesus or Childhood of Jesus, the Paidika tou Iesou or Paidika (Greek), and abbreviated as Inf. Gos. Thom. or IGT) is an apocryphal gospel about the childhood of Jesus. Together with the Gospel of James, it was one of the earliest and most influential sources detailing the activities and life of the young Jesus, although neither are included in the New Testament canon. Its creation is generally dated to the second century. The oldest extant fragmentary writing dates to the fourth or fifth century; Latin and Syriac attestations to a short form exist from the fifth or sixth century; and an 11th-century manuscript in Greek (Codex Sabaiticus) contains the earliest extant long form of the work. Variants flourished that expanded the work by combining it with other stories in larger works and anthologies; the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew is one example that proved popular in the Latin-speaking Western Church during the Middle Ages.

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas depicts a young Jesus in full possession of divine power who is already dispensing wisdom with authority, even at an early age. It includes several miracles that spread widely and appear in other sources, such as Jesus transforming clay sparrows into live sparrows. Jesus sometimes wields his power in a capricious way, such as where young Jesus curses and kills those who cross him. While the Jesus depicted in this gospel can be an "enfant terrible", he balances this with performing miracles and healing, as well.

The author of the work is not known. Some versions include a pseudepigraphal attribution to "Thomas the Israelite", which might be a reference to Thomas the Apostle, but this attribution appears to date to the medieval period and is only in some manuscripts. The work varies greatly in style from the canonical gospels. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas ends with its account of Jesus in the temple at age 12, a story originally from the Gospel of Luke.

Most scholars suggest that the Infancy Gospel of Thomas dates to the mid-to-late second century.^[2] The work and the stories within it appear to have been popular, with a wide geographical spread and many translations to new languages.^[3] At least some period of oral transmission of the source material is generally believed to have occurred, either wholly or as several different stories.^[4] Eventually it was transcribed, and over time redacted and adapted. The earliest evidence of the text comes from the late second century. Two 2nd-century documents, the Epistle of the Apostles (by an unknown author) and Against Heresies (by Irenaeus), refer to a story of Jesus's tutor telling him, "Say alpha," and Jesus replying, "First tell me what is beta, and I can tell you what alpha is."^[5] Irenaeus's work is dated to around 180 CE. Irenaeus did not give a name to the book he quoted from, but he condemned it as spurious and heretical.^[6][7] An early form of the infancy gospel circulating would make sense for the era.^{[5][8][note 1]} There are further references that seem to indicate the spread of the stories; the Syriac form of the third-century Acts of Thomas contains a possible mention.^[12] In the fourth century, Epiphanius of Salamis's Panarion quotes Jesus's childhood miracles approvingly, while John Chrysostom condemns these stories of childhood miracles as false.^[13]

The author of the gospel is unknown. The author was probably a gentile Christian, as the work displays no knowledge of Judaism.^[14][15] The author was educated and knew some rare words in an era when literacy was uncommon, but wrote in a style that was overall simple and readable. The geographic origin of the author is also unknown, leaving scholars with little more than guesses. Jan Bremmer weakly suggests Alexandria in Roman Egypt as plausible, but cautions that nothing can be said with certainty on the matter.^[16] Tony Burke suggests it was a place where the Gospel of Luke was held in high regard: perhaps Asia Minor (modern Turkey) or Antioch in Roman Syria.^[17] Others such as Sever Voicu have suggested Roman Palestine.^[18] J.R.C. Cousland cautions that the safest, if least specific, suggestion is somewhere in the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire.^[18]

The early versions of the work were anonymous. No author is indicated in the earliest surviving manuscripts (Latin, Syriac, Georgian, Ethiopic).^[19] In some later manuscripts dating from the Middle Ages, the gospel opens with a prologue where "Thomas the Israelite" introduces himself as the author, but with no further explanation. It is possible that this was meant to hint that the author was Judas Thomas, known as Thomas the Apostle, thought by some Christians to be a brother of Jesus and thus familiar with young Jesus's activities.^{[20][21][note 2]} The Latin version closes with an epilogue where the author claims to have been an eyewitness who witnessed these events personally, another claim that seems to have been added centuries after the original story's circulation.^[21] Two other figures have been attributed claims of authorship: John the Evangelist in some early Latin translations, and James, brother of Jesus in some Greek versions.^[19]

The text describes the life of the child Jesus from the ages of five to twelve, with fanciful, and sometimes malevolent, supernatural events. He is presented as a precocious child who starts his education early. This summary uses the order in the Greek A recension.

A five-year old Jesus is playing in the mud after rain near a river. He organizes the water into pools. With a single word, he miraculously cleanses the water. He then crafts 12 sparrows from the clay while playing with other children. A Jew, displeased with seeing children work on the Sabbath, reports this to Jesus's father Joseph. Jesus gives life to the sparrows and they fly off. Another boy, the son of Annas, breaks the pools Jesus made, letting their water drain out. Jesus pronounces a curse upon the boy, and he instantly withers. The parents ineffectively complain to Joseph.^[23]

Later, another child either bumps into Jesus while running, throws a stone, or punches him (depending on the manuscript).^[24] Jesus kills the other boy via pronouncing a curse on him. The parents of the dead child complain to Joseph, and Joseph rebukes Jesus. Jesus curses his accusers with blindness. Joseph then pulls his ear.^[23]

Jesus starts receiving lessons from a teacher named Zacchaeus, but he ignores him. While Zacchaeus tries striking his recalcitrant student, Jesus replies by saying he should be teaching himself, makes statements of his superior power and mission, and expounds on the hidden meanings of the letter alpha. Zacchaeus is ashamed and acknowledges the child's wisdom as far superior to his own. Jesus decides to revoke his earlier cruel curses, but the rest of the town remains wary, knowing the risks in angering the boy whose every word becomes truth.^[23]

Jesus and some friends are playing on a roof, but a child named Zeno (or Zenon) falls off and dies. The other children flee, leaving just Jesus when the angry parents arrive again. Jesus resurrects Zeno to act as a witness, and Zeno tells the crowd that Jesus didn't push him off. In another story, Jesus heals a man who bled to death after cutting his foot with his ax.^{[23][note 3]}

Various stories from Jesus's family life are offered. His mother Mary sends him to fetch water, but the jar breaks; Jesus miraculously brings the water back anyway in his cloak. He sows wheat with his father Joseph, then reaps an extraordinary return, and shares the harvest with the poor and needy. At the age of eight, his father is working on a carpentry order for a bed, but the wood's size is wrong. Jesus miraculously stretches the wood, allowing his father to complete the bed.^[23]

Joseph once again tries to arrange a teacher for Jesus, without much success. The second teacher strikes Jesus after Jesus talks back to him and challenges him to explain the meaning of "beta", and Jesus curses and kills him. The third teacher attempts flattery, but soon finds Jesus himself doing the teaching. Because the third teacher correctly acknowledged Jesus's authority, Jesus relents in some versions and raises the second teacher back to life.^[23]

Jesus performs another three miracles. He heals Joseph's son James from a snakebite; resurrects a child who died of illness; and resurrects a man who fell and died in a construction accident.^{[note 4]} Finally, the text recounts twelve-year old Jesus teaching at the Second Temple, an episode also found in the Gospel of Luke.^{[23][note 5]}

A variety of stories appear in some manuscripts but not others that are not part of Greek A (see episodes not in Greek A). A few examples include Jesus Riding the Sunbeam, Jesus and the Dyer, Making Dead Fish Come Alive, and Jesus Playing with Lions.^[25]

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas was written in the Koine Greek language, and was rapidly translated to Classical Latin and Syriac.^{[27][note 6]} Translations into other languages soon followed, including Armenian and Georgian.^[29][16] It proved a popular work, with a wide geographical reach. Translations spread from the Greek-speaking eastern Roman Empire far and wide: to the Latin-speaking Western half of the Empire; to Armenia and Georgia in the east; to Ireland in the north; to Ethiopia to the south.^[16] Classical- and medieval-era copies exist in thirteen different languages, an astonishing spread for a non-canonical work.^[27]

The many manuscripts, translations, shortened versions, composite versions, and references have differences, making an exact reconstruction of the archetype text impossible.^[30][31]

Manuscript types and recensions

Hand-written manuscripts differ from each other significantly. While the invention of the printing press in the early modern period made it much easier to mass-produce identical copies of a text, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas circulated for centuries via manual transcription. Scholars of textual criticism classify groups of similar and related manuscripts into recensions. A scholar can then eclectically select the most common form of a sentence or chapter when manuscripts within a recension differ, resulting in a standard version that is close to all of them, even if no one manuscript matches the most-common reading of every verse.^[32]

Peter Lambeck rediscovered the work in 1675, examining a manuscript held in Vienna.^[33] The IGT became available to a wider audience with the publication of Johann Albert Fabricius's 1703 collection of Christian apocrypha.^[34] Fabricius also divided the work into chapters and verses.^[33] Constantin von Tischendorf published three versions in his influential 1853 book Evangelia Apocrypha, which he called Greek A, Greek B, and Latin.^[35] These have remained among the most popular for scholars to examine and translate.^[30][36]

Greek A is the most studied and well-known form in the modern era. Tischendorf based it principally on 2 manuscripts, and it is the longest Greek form. It consists of nineteen chapters. Scholars have updated this recension with other similar manuscripts, in particular for Tischendorf's chapter 6 where the manuscripts he consulted differed significantly from other manuscripts later found containing Greek A.^[37] A manuscript found by Tischendorf on a trip to Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai in 1844 was used as a basis for Greek B. It is shorter (11 chapters) and differs from the A text in several parts. Some chapters are abbreviated, other entire chapters left out, and there are a few new lines.^[38][27][39]

A Greek version of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas was found in Codex Sabaiticus 259, a manuscript created in 1089 or 1090 in Cyprus.^{[note 7]} Sabaiticus is a good match in its details to Irenaeus's 2nd-century quotation, and its form of the text is called Greek S.^[41] The scholarship of Sever Voicu, Tony Burke, and Reidar Aasgaard in 1991–2010 identified this as more likely to be closer to the original form than the Greek A and Greek B manuscripts of Tischendorf, a stance that has been corroborated by other scholars of the text.^[42][43][44]

Stemma of translations and versions of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas over time. The estimated chronology is left to right: the hypothesized Greek original is c. 2nd century; Syriac and Early Latin are c. 3rd century; the long Greek S form is c. 4th–7th centuries; Arabic, Irish, and Armenian are c. 6th–9th centuries; Slavonic was translated c. 10th–11th centuries; and stories of the IGT are incorporated into Pseudo-Matthew c. 11th century.^[45]

Early translations

The Syriac translation is thought to originate from the 2nd–6th centuries. It was likely used as a source for an Arabic translation centuries later.^[46][47] They are both examples of shorter recensions; the surviving Greek texts contain material not in Syriac nor related versions.^[41]

The work was translated into Latin twice into two distinct forms: Early Latin (c. 3rd century) and Late Latin (c. 11th–15th centuries). Parts of the early Latin version were translated into Old Irish poetry, probably around 700 CE according to James Carney.^[48][49] The Late Latin version was the first manuscript discovered with a prologue with stories set during the Flight into Egypt described in the Gospel of Matthew. Some Greek manuscripts also include the Egyptian prologue and were likely the source of the Late Latin translation, and have been organized into a recension called Greek D.^[50] The 'D' is a reference to Armand Delatte, who published in 1927 a 15th-century Greek manuscript with such a prologue.^[51]

The infancy gospel was translated into Armenian and Old Georgian by the 6th or 7th century, although the Armenian is lost and the surviving Georgian manuscript only includes the first half of the story.^[52][53]

It is unclear when exactly the work was translated into Ethiopic (Ge'ez). Some scholars suggest it was translated directly from Greek and fairly early, before the seventh century; others that it happened after the Early Muslim conquests and that the Ethiopic was translated from an Arabic or Syriac version that spread to Ethiopia. The surviving manuscripts are from later centuries, rendering a dating of the origin imprecise. It is included as a chapter of larger collections of the miracles of Jesus.^[54]

The translation into Church Slavonic was from Greek and the longer recensions. It appears to have probably been translated in medieval Bulgaria, most likely around the 10th or 11th centuries. From there, it spread to Serbia, Ukraine, and Russia.^[55]

Composite works

Just as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas may have collected individual stories already in circulation in the 2nd century, the gospel was combined with other works as it spread in later eras. The Syriac version was used as a source for the Arabic Infancy Gospel, which likely was translated into Arabic from Syriac in the 7th, 8th, or 9th century.^[3][47][56] The Armenian Infancy Gospel from the 7th century includes a few parallel stories that originate from this work.^[9] The Syriac versions are generally found as a chapter within another work; both the West Syriac Life of Mary and some copies of the East Syriac History of the Virgin contain it.^[57]

The most influential was likely the Latin Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which combines the work with the Gospel of James and adds an introduction that claims pseudepigraphically the book was translated from a work of Matthew the Evangelist by Saint Jerome. It was popular throughout the Western church, and helped establish a number of common beliefs about the young Jesus.^[9][58][59] Many copies of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew contain a claim to have been approved of and translated by Jerome himself, the translator of the Vulgate, and thus an apparent stamp of orthodox approval.^[60] While early versions of Pseudo-Matthew from the 8th–10th centuries lack IGT material, many manuscripts from the 11th–15th centuries include it.^{[3][note 8]}

The original manuscripts contain a variety of titles. Johann Albert Fabricius called the work Evangelium Thomae ("Gospel of Thomas") in his 1703 collection, and Constantin von Tischendorf's influential 1853 collection of apocrypha spread the title "Gospel of Thomas" further, resulting in that being the standard title in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The manuscripts Fabricius and Tischendorf consulted included an attribution to "Thomas the Israelite".^[43][35]

Later developments complicated use of this title. The discovery of the Coptic Gnostic Gospel of Thomas and its publication in 1956 created ambiguity, resulting in the addition of "Infancy Gospel" to the title to refer to this work specifically.^[67][30] Later scholars sifting through older manuscripts found that the editions of the work were more diverse than believed before, and earlier manuscripts include no such attribution to Thomas, rendering "of Thomas" something of a misnomer for them.^[29][30] Even the manuscripts including the Thomas attribution do not appear to have called themselves "Gospel of Thomas", rendering it a title strictly of the modern era.^[68] Additionally, the stories do not cover just the "infancy" of Jesus. Various scholars have been unhappy with the "Infancy Gospel of Thomas" title and have suggested alternative names that better describe the topic.^[29]

Some titles include:

• Infancy Gospel of Thomas (Inf. Gos. Thom.; IGT)
  • Θωμᾶ Ἰσραηλίτου φιλοσόφου ῥητὰ εἰς τὰ παιδικὰ τοῦ κυρίου Thomá Israilítou filosófou ritá eis tá paidiká toú kyríou (Greek: "The accounts of Thomas the Israelite, the Philosopher, concerning the childhood of the Lord.")^[27]
  • Euangelium Thomae de infantia Saluatoris (Latin: "Gospel of Thomas about the infancy of the Savior")^[29]
• Childhood of Jesus (Infancy of Jesus; Paidika)
  • παιδικὰ του̂ κυρίου ήμών Paidiká toú kyríou imón (Greek: "Childhood Deeds of our Lord")^[29]
  • Τά παιδικά μεγαλεία τού δεσπότου ήμών καί σωτήρος Ίησού Χριστού Tá paidiká megaleía toú despótou ímón kaí sotíros Íisoú Christoú (Greek: "The Great Childhood Deeds of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ")^[69]
  • ܛܠܝܘܬܗ ܕܡܪܢ ܝܫܘܥ Ṭalyūteh d-Maran Īšō‘ (Syriac: "The Childhood of the Lord Jesus")^[70]