- . What great thing he is, either god or angel, or what I am to say, I know not.’ The shorter Greek recension represents Jesus as Saying: ‘I know more than you, for I am before the ages. . . » When you see my cross, then will ye believe that I speak the truth.’ When Joseph takes the child to another master, who tries ‘to flatter him into learning his letters,’ Jesus immediately reads a book that lies on the desk, and by the Holy Spirit teaches the Law to those that are standing round. The account of the child’s visit to the temple with His parents follows closely the narra- tive of Luke (241-52), Jt describes Him as ‘sitting in the midst of the teachers, both hearing the law and asking them questions,’ but adds: « And the were all attending to him, and wondering that he, being a child, was shutting the mouths of the elders and teachers of the people, explaining the main points of the law, and the parables of the prophets.’
(6) Some of the miracles ascribed to the child
Jesus are works of beneficence, but others are deeds of vengeance. When five years old He makes twelve sparrows out of clay, and as soon as He claps His hands they fly away. At the same age He raises to life a child killed by a fall ; and also a young man who, whilst splitting wood, cut the sole of his foot in two, and died from loss of blood. ‘And he said to the young man, Rise up now, split the wood, and remember me.’ When six years old He breaks a pitcher, but fills His cloak with water and carries it to His mother ; He stretches a short piece of wood, and makes it equal to the longer piece. At the same age He cures His brother James, who was dying from the effects of the bite of a viper; He also performs two more miracles of raising from the dead. But His miracles of vengeance make such an impression that the parents of a boy whom Jesus has killed say to Joseph: ‘Since thou hast such a child, it is impossible for thee to live with us in the village; or else teach him to bless, and not to curse, for he is killing our children.’ The son of Annas the seribe is ‘dried up’ at His word; a boy who runs up against Him is struck dead ; one of His teachers incurs His wrath, and at His curse swoons and falls to the ground; His accusers are smitten with blindness, and dare not provoke Him to anger lest His rebuke should maim them.
iv. CHARACTER AND TENDENCIES.—To the eyi- dence of Hippolytus that this Gospel was known to the Naassenes, and of Cyril of Jerusalem, who regards it as a Manichean work, should probably be added the witness of Irenzeus (c. 190) to its use amongst the Marcosians, a Gnostic sect, whose leader boasted that he had improved upon his master, Valentinus. It is true that Irenzeus does not name the ‘spurious writing’; but he accuses the Marcosians of pulling to piéces ‘the dispensa- tions of God, in themselves so striking, by means of Alpha and Beta,’ and of bringing forward ‘that false and wicked story’ that the Lord said to His teacher: ‘Do thou first tell me what Alpha is, and then I will tell thee what Beta is.’ ‘This they expound as meaning that he alone knew the Unknown, which he revealed under its type, Alpha’, (Her. I. xx. 1; ef. xvi. 3). The value of this passage consists in its testimony to a second- century Gnostic interpretation of an incident which is recorded in the extant Gospel according to Thomas. Harnack (Chron. i. 594) assigns to this apocryphal Gospel, in its original form, a saying of Jesus, which Irenzeus charges the Marcosians with misinterpreting: ‘I have often desired to have one of these words, and I had no one who could utter it’ (Her. 1. xx. 2). The saying may, however, be a loose quotation from the canonical Gospels (Lk 10"; cf. Lk 19%),
The question asked above may now be answered, If one sect of Gnostics found in the contents of this Gospel—not to assume that the Gospel itself was in their hands—support for their speculations, the Syrian Gnostics (Naassenes) may have used the same Gospel, though the passage quoted in Hippolytus is not found in the extant fragments, The saying (see § i.), whatever be its true mean- ing, is clearly a Gnostic interpretation of some of our Lord’s sayings about childhood, with Gnostic accretions (ct. Mt 78 185). Ropes (Die Spriiche Jesu, p. 100) expounds it as signifying that only when a child attains to full intelligence can the image of Christ be manifested in it. The saying is not so entirely out of harmony with this Gospel of the Childhood as to compel the ascription of it to an unknown Gospel of Thomas. The undoubted difference between this saying and the fabulous contents of the Gospel that has been preserved would be explained if the Gospel quoted in Hip- polytus was revised by an anti-Gnostic editor and
APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS
APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS 433
a a a ee
abbreviated in accordance with his views. Such an anti-Gnostic would be a heretic in the judg- ment of writers like Origen, for in the canonical Gospels the child Jesus works no miracles. It is probable, as Lipsius suggests, that this Gospel originated in an attempt ‘to enlist the miraculous stories of the Childhood on the Catholic side. . . . The child Jesus [it might be argued] must cer- tainly have worked some miracles in order to rebuke the Gnostic error, which made the Christ to descend upon Him for the first time at His baptism ’ (Dict. Christ. Biog. ii. 704).