Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete

CHAPTER 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, Glo­ry to God,

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 said 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 ABC; 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!”

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.