The Forgotten Gospels and Epistles of the Original New Testament. Various
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also of the body, its humours, and their effects.
15 Also the number of its members, and bones, veins, arteries, and nerves;
16 The several constitutions of body, hot and dry, cold and moist, and the tendencies of them;
17 How the soul operated upon the body;
18 What its various sensations and faculties, were;
19 The faculty of speaking, anger, desire;
20 And lastly the manner of its composition and dissolution; and other things, which the understanding of no creature had ever reached.
21 Then that philosopher arose, and worshipped the Lord Jesus, and said, O Lord Jesus, from henceforth I will be thy disciple and servant.
22 While they were discoursing on these and such like things, the Lady St. Mary came in, having been three days walking about with Joseph, seeking for him.
23 And when she saw him sitting among the doctors, and in his turn proposing questions to them, and giving answers, she said to him, My son, why hast thou done thus by us? Behold I and thy father have been at much pains in seeking thee.
24 He replied, Why did ye seek me? Did ye not know that I ought to be employed in my father's house?
25 But they understood not the words which he said to them.
26 Then the doctors asked Mary, Whether this were her son? And when she said, He was, they said, O happy Mary, who hast borne such a son.
27 Then he returned with them to Nazareth, and obeyed them in all things.
28 And his mother kept all these things in her mind;
29 And the Lord Jesus grew in stature and wisdom, and favour with God and man.
CHAP. XXII.
1 Jesus conceals his miracles, 2 studies the law, 3 and is baptized.
NOW from this time Jesus began to conceal his miracles and secret works,
2 And gave himself to the study of the law, till he arrived to the end of his thirtieth year;
3 At which time the Father publicly owned him at Jordan, sending down this voice from heaven, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased;
4 The Holy Ghost being also present in the form of a dove.
5 This is he whom we worship with all reverence, because he gave us our life and being, and brought us from our mother's womb.
6 Who, for our sakes, took a human body, and hath redeemed us, that so he might embrace us with everlasting mercy, and shew his free, large, bountiful grace and goodness to us.
7 To him be glory and praise, and power, and dominion, from henceforth and for evermore. Amen.
¶ The end of the whole Gospel of the Infancy, by the assistance of the Supreme God, according to what we found in the original.
REFERENCES TO THE FIRST GOSPEL OF THE INFANCY OF JESUS CHRIST
Mr. Henry Sike, Professor of Oriental Languages at Cambridge, first translated and published this Gospel in 1697. It was received by the Gnostics, a sect of Christians in the second century; and several of its relations were credited in the following ages by other Christians, viz., Eusebius, Athanasius, Epiphanius, Chrysostom. &c. Sozomen says, he was told by many, and he credits the relations, of the idols in Egypt falling down on Joseph, and Mary's flight thither with Christ; and of Christ making a well to wash his clothes in a sycamore-tree, from whence balsam afterwards proceeded; which stories are from this Gospel. Chemnitius, out of Stipulensis, who had it from Peter Martyr, Bishop of Alexandria, in the third century, says, that the place in Egypt where Christ was banished is now called Matarea, about ten miles beyond Cairo; that the inhabitants constantly burn a lamp in remembrance of it; and that there is a garden of trees yielding a balsam, which were planted by Christ when a boy. M. La Crosse cites a synod at Angamala, in the Mountain of Malabar, A. D. 1599, which shows this Gospel was commonly read by the Nestorians in the country. Ahmed Ibu Idris, a Mahometan divine, says, it was used by some Christians in common with the other four Gospels; and Ocobius de Castro mentions a Gospel of Thomas, which he says, he saw and had translated to him by an Armenian Archbishop at Amsterdam, that was read in very many churches of Asia and Africa, as the only rule of their faith. Fabricius takes it to be this Gospel. It has been supposed, that Mahomet and his coadjutors used it in compiling the Koran. There are several stories believed of Christ, proceeding from this Gospel; as that which Mr. Sike relates out of La Brosse's Persic Lexicon, that Christ practised the trade of a dyer, and his working a miracle with the colours; from whence the Persian dyers honour him as their patron, and call a dye-house the shop of Christ. Sir John Chardin mentions Persian legends concerning Christ's dispute with his schoolmaster about his A B C; and his lengthening the cedar-board which Joseph sawed too short.]
Note on the Miracles of Christ in the preceding Gospels.
A great void in the early life of the Saviour is filled up by these Gospels. In none of the Canonical Evangelists is any mention made of the childhood of Jesus. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, more rapidly than satisfactorily, pass over the period intervening between His birth and ministry. It is natural to suppose that the Infant Redeemer's earliest days were spent in the society of other young children, and it is quite consistent with every sincere Christians faith to believe that He had the power to perform the miracles here ascribed to him; otherwise, a limit will be set to His divine attributes, doubts raised against His performance of the miracles related by the four Evangelists, in the authorised version of the Testament, and a denial given of the declaration therein, "With God nothing is impossible!"
1 In this and the previous Gospel we are told Christ was born in a cave, and not in a manger, for he was only laid therein, "because there was no room in the inn." Luke ii. 7.
The Second, Or St. Thomas's Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ.
¶ An Account of the Actions and Miracles of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in his Infancy.
CHAP. I.
2 Jesus miraculously clears the water after rain. 4 Plays with clay sparrows, which he animates on the Sabbath day.
I THOMAS, an Israelite, judged it necessary to make known to our brethren among the Gentiles, the actions and miracles of Christ in his childhood, which our Lord and God Jesus Christ wrought after his birth in Bethlehem in our country, at which I myself, was astonished; the beginning of which was as followeth.
2 ¶ When the child Jesus was five years of age, and there had been a shower of rain, which was now over, Jesus was playing with other Hebrew boys by a running stream; and the water running over the banks, stood in little lakes;
3 But the water instantly became clear and useful again; he having smote them only by his word, they readily obeyed him.
4 Then he took from the bank of the stream some soft clay, and formed out of it twelve sparrows; and there were other boys playing with him.
5 But a certain Jew seeing the things which he was doing, namely, his forming clay into the figures of sparrows on the Sabbath day, went presently away, and told his father Joseph, and said,
6 Behold, thy boy is playing by the river side, and has taken clay, and formed it into twelve sparrows, and profaneth the Sabbath.
7 Then Joseph came to the place where he was, and when he saw him, called to him, and said, Why doest thou that which it is not lawful to do on the Sabbath day?
8 Then Jesus clapping together the palms of his hands, called to the sparrows, and said to them Go, fly away; and while ye live