The Infancy Gospel of Thomas purports to describe the childhood of Jesus from age five to age twelve. It contains miracle stories that incorporate Egyptian religious beliefs and Syrian legends, many of which are interesting and amusing to read.
However, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas also contains material that was (and still is) highly offensive to traditional Christianity, possibly because the author that wrote it believed the God of Judaism to be a “lower god.”
Infancy Gospel of Thomas: Christ’s Birth and Childhood Miracles
Written in the 2nd century, possibly in Palestine, this document may have provided source material for the later Arabic Infancy Gospel. It was supposedly popular with the Nestorian Christians. In its first chapter, Christ is born in a cave where angels and shepherds come to adore him.
In later passages, the child Jesus exorcises a terrible demon from a small boy who grows up to be Judas Iscariot. He also cures his brother James of a snakebite. When Joseph cuts pieces of lumber too short, Jesus lengthens the boards so that his father’s carpentry project can proceed. He often makes clay figures of animals and birds and then brings them to life.
Offensive Material in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas
In Chapter XIX, Christ actually kills two other children, one of whom attempts to stop him from playing on the Sabbath; the second boy merely knocks him down accidentally. Jesus is also presented as a somewhat arrogant schoolboy who vociferously instructs his teachers on the true meaning of Greek letters and is eventually sent home from school.
For obvious reasons, these stories were excluded from the traditional Biblical canon. Why did the author portray the Child Jesus as so vindictive?
Possible Connection Between Christ and Egyptian Gods
It is fairly well-known that some early pagan converts considered Christ the incarnation of Osiris or Horus, and Mary Magdalene an incarnation of Isis. They believed there were mystical parallels between the Egyptian religion and the Christian Good News.
What is perhaps less well-known is that a number of Gnostic thinkers, including the Carpocratians, believed that the God of Judaism was a sort of fallen angel called Yaldobaoth or Nebro (“rebel”), also known as the Demiurge. Any rebel against this mutinous spirit and the evil world he created was therefore serving the good.
Thus figures portrayed negatively by the misguided Jews or formerly Jewish Christians were to be honored. Caan and Judas were revered, while traditional Biblical heroes were despised or ignored. If Osiris and Horus were the traditional heroes of Egyptian religion, then their nemesis Set or Seth was surely the real champion and savior of mankind.
The Jews, of course, had always had just the opposite idea, believing the Egyptian gods to be the offspring of the devil. These concept was made very clear in the non-canonical writing “Joseph and Aseneth,” which was written somewhere between 150 B.C.E. and 150 C.E. The formal title of Set-hen had been bestowed on Set; the Jews may have turned this into the word “Satan.”
The Set/Christ Belief System
While some Sethian Gnostic groups may have been named after Adam’s third son, it may be true that others conflated the dark Egyptian Lord with Christ. In writings influenced by such ideas, it is possible that the child murders in the Infancy Gospel would constitute an admirable action by a mighty infant god proving his rebellion against the evil creations of Yaldobaoth.
This type of thinking took awhile to die out. Horus had often been depicted as a falcon, and Set as a man with the head of an ass. Grasping at metaphorical straws, some later Gnostics pointed out that Christ had ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey, thereby proving his connection with Set.
If the author of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas did believe in such a connection, his ideas become less odious. In fact, they provide interesting evidence of how early Christians struggled mightily to blend their pagan beliefs with their new religion and reconcile the evil they often saw in the world with their personal conception of Christ’s teachings.
Readers of this article may also enjoy “The Christian and Egyptian Holy Families” in Suite 101’s History section, and “The Gnostic View of Christ’s Betrayer” in Suite 101’s Mind & Soul section.
Readers interested in modern-day Set-worship may enjoy “What the Left-Hand Path is all about” in Suite 101’s Mind & Soul section.
Sources
“The Sons of Snakes — The Biblical Seth,” bibliotecapleyades.net.
Porter, J.R., The Forgotten Bible, Watkins Publishing, 2001.
Kasser, Rodolphe, Meyer, Marvin, and Wurst, Gregor, editors, The Gospel of Judas, National Geographic Society, 2006.
Cornet, B., “ Esoteric Seth-Serpent,” sunstar-solutions.com, 2001.
Amy Sillup - I have a B.S. in Chemistry from Delaware Valley College and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. I have worked as a ...
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