Hippolytus against Heresies, v. 7. The Naassenes speak of a nature of man at once hidden and manifesting itself, which they say is within man, and is the kingdom of heaven that is sought after: and they deliver this concerning it, expressly, in the Gospel entitled according to Thomas, in these words: He that seeketh me will find me in children from seven years old and upwards: for there am I manifested, who am hidden in the fourteenth age (aeon).
Our Gospel of Thomas tells of the acts of Jesus at five, six, and eight years of age: the naming of the age may originally have been significant. The fragment seems to indicate that the years from seven to fourteen were a period of mystic importance.
Cyril of Jerusalem (a.d. 848) speaks of this book as a Manichaean production. Very likely the Manichaeans used it, but it was older than their sect. He says (Catech. iv. 86):
And of the New Testament read the four Gospels only. The others are apocryphal (pseudepigraphic) and harmful. The Manichaeans also wrote a Gospel according to Thomas, which, though coloured with the fragrance of a gospel-name, corrupts the souls of the simpler.
ib. vi. 81. Let no one read the Gospel according to Thomas, for it is not by one of the twelve apostles, but by one of the three wicked disciples of Manes.
Eusebius names it among undoubtedly spurious books.
The Stichometry of Nicephorus assigns it 1,300 lines.
Irenaeus (i. 13. 1) says that the Marcosian sect support their doctrines by a vast number of apocryphal writings. ‘They adduce, too, this false invention, that when the Lord as a child was learning the alphabet, and his teacher said, as the custom is: Say Alpha; he answered: Alpha. But when the teacher bade him say Beta, the Lord answered: First tell thou me what Alpha is, and then will I tell thee what Beta is. And this they interpret as meaning that he alone knew the unknown mystery, which he manifested in the form of Alpha.’
It seems probable from Irenaeus’s language that the Marcosians took
original reading, and that if so, it might be interpreted as suggesting a connexion with the further East.
The case stands thus. The Greek text A calls the writer ‘Thomas the Israelite the Philosopher’. Greek B, ‘the holy apostle Thomas’, Latin, ‘Thomas the Israelite (or Ismaelite) the apostle of the Lord’. ‘Israelite’ is a curious and pointless designation, if the apostle is meant, and a very easy corruption of Ismaelite. ‘Philosopher’ is a strikingly unusual description. The combination of Ismaelite and Philosopher would serve to convey the idea of an Eastern sage.
From a somewhat different point of view, it is not to be forgotten that —Thomas the apostle was connected with India by a tradition probably a good deal older than the Acts of Thomas.
