Many people, especially those who are far from the
Church and its many-sided life often blam the Church of Christ for the fact that it does not
accept and include in the Holy Scripture numerous so-called “gospels”
and “letter of the apostles”, considers them false, calls them apocrypha and
the works of gnostics. The fathers of the Church and ancient Christians, who
denied such books as false and spiritually danger ones, are accused of dull
thinking, religious fanaticism, and intolerance towards other views and disrespect
towards other people’s opinion. However, is it really? We can easily check this
with the example of apocryphal “Childhood Gospel of Thomas”, the book that is
not accepted by the Church and falsely attributed to Apostle Thomas, whom we
commemorate on October 6 (October 19).
It will be enough for us to mention just several
episodes from this pseudo-Christian work. In the very beginning of the apocryphal
story, it is described how little Jesus was playing with water and clay, when He decided to make some small birds figures of clay. That was happening on Sabbath. One boy,
the son of the scribe, saw that. Then he took a branch of a willow and dispersed
all the water. “And when Jesus saw what
was done, he was wroth and said unto him: O evil, ungodly, and foolish one,
what hurt did the pools and the waters do thee? behold, now also thou shalt be
withered like a tree, and shalt not bear leaves, neither root, nor fruit. And
straightway that lad withered up wholly, but Jesus departed and went unto
Joseph's house. But the parents of him that was withered took him up, bewailing
his youth, and brought him to Joseph, and accused him for that thou hast such a
child which doeth such deeds” (The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, III).
As we can see, this short episode speaks for itself –
its nonsense is not even worthy to be discussed. Any loving heart that confesses
Jesus Christ as our Lord and God will never accept such story and will never believe
in such controversial and cruel miracles that contradict the spirit of the
Gospel of Christ.
There is another episode that only confirms the strangeness
of the apocrypha in relation to the Christian tradition. “After that again he went through the village, and a child ran and
dashed against his shoulder. And Jesus was provoked and said unto him: Thou
shalt not finish thy course (lit. go all thy way). And immediately he fell down
and died. But certain when they saw what was done said: Whence was this young
child born, for that every word of his is an accomplished work? And the parents
of him that was dead came unto Joseph, and blamed him, saying: Thou that hast
such a child canst not dwell with us in the village: or do thou teach him to
bless and not to curse: for he slayeth our children” (The Infancy Gospel of
Thomas, IV).
Even the most cursory examination of the text of this apocryphal
“gospel”, which contains no Good News at all, lets us understand at once why
the Apostolic Church did not recognize that text as the one that related to the Holy Scripture of our tradition, and what is more, proclaimed it a fiction distorting the elementary
understanding of good and evil. This is why Apostle Thomas just cannot be
the author of this story, although his name is mentioned in its title.
Christians were taught long ago by Apostle Paul that they had to recognize and differentiate
the Word of God from fictive stories. Apostle Paul appealed to us then and appeals today as well: “not to be soon shaken in mind
or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though
the day of Christ had come” (2 Thessalonians 2:2).
By John Nichiporuk, a Bachelor of Theology,
specialized in Biblical Studies.
The Catalog Of Good Deeds
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