VII
THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS. (III.)
The Latin text of this contains at the commencement certain details which are not in either of the Greek texts. It commences with the flight into Egypt, the account of which occupies chaps, i.–iii. The fourth chapter begins with an introduction answering to that at the head of the Greek copies. The Latin writer has taken no small liberty with his original, if we may judge from the longer Thomas, and has made it an object to paraphrase and expand his materials in some of the stories, while he has condensed and abbreviated others, omitting altogether two or three of them. The conclusion is not in the Greek at all. It was first published by Tischendorf from a manuscript in the Vatican library. The editor has found some fragments of another Latin text, of probably the fifth century, and more nearly agreeing with the Greek. We translate the Latin Thomas, to illustrate more fully the nature and extent of the variations to be found in the Christian Apocrypha.
