The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (also known as the Infancy of Jesus or Childhood of Jesus, the Paidika tou Iesou or Paidika (Greek), and abbreviated as Inf. Gos. Thom. or IGT) is an apocryphal gospel about the childhood of Jesus. Together with the Gospel of James, it was one of the earliest and most influential sources detailing the activities and life of the young Jesus, although neither are included in the New Testament canon. Its creation is generally dated to the second century. The oldest extant fragmentary manuscript dates to the fourth or fifth century, and the earliest complete manuscript containing the work is the Codex Sabaiticus from the 11th century. Variants flourished that expanded the work by combining it with other stories; the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew is one example that proved popular in the Latin-speaking Western Church during the Middle Ages.

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas depicts a young Jesus in full possession of divine power who is already dispensing wisdom with authority, even at an early age. It includes several miracles that appear in other sources and were apparently widely-spread, such as Jesus transforming clay sparrows into live sparrows. The way Jesus wields his power can read rather shockingly to a modern reader, such as where young Jesus curses and kills those who cross him. The Jesus depicted in this gospel still performs miracles and healing as well, though.

The author of the work is not known. Some versions include a pseudepigraphal attribution to "Thomas the Israelite", which might be a reference to Thomas the Apostle, but this attribution appears to date to the late medieval period and is only in some manuscripts. The work varies greatly in style from the canonical gospels. It was possibly distributed as an addition to the Gospel of Luke or as a stand-alone work that has a dependent association to the canonical Gospel texts. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas ends with the story of Jesus in the temple at age 12, and quotes parts of the Gospel of Luke.

Most scholars suggest that the Infancy Gospel of Thomas dates to the mid-to-late second century AD. The work and the stories within it appear to have been popular, with a wide geographical spread and many translations to new languages.^[2] At least some period of oral transmission of the source material is generally believed to have occurred, either wholly or as several different stories.^[3] Eventually it was transcribed, and over time redacted and adapted. The earliest evidence of the text comes from the late second century. Two 2nd-century documents, the Epistle of the Apostles (by an unknown author) and Against Heresies (by Irenaeus), refer to a story of Jesus's tutor telling him, "Say alpha," and Jesus replying, "First tell me what is beta, and I can tell you what alpha is."^[4] Irenaeus's work is dated to around 180 CE. Irenaeus did not give a name to the book he quoted from, but he condemned it as spurious and heretical.^[5] Further, Irenaeus was probably not condemning the Epistle of the Apostles, an anti-Gnostic work.^[6] An early form of the infancy gospel circulating would make sense for the era.^{[4][7][note 1]} There are further references that seem to indicate the spread of the stories; the Syriac form of the third-century Acts of Thomas contains a possible mention.^[10] In the fourth century, Epiphanius of Salamis's Panarion quotes Jesus's childhood miracles approvingly, while John Chrysostom condemns these stories of childhood miracles as false.^[11]

The author of the gospel is unknown. The author was probably a gentile Christian, as the work displays no knowledge of Judaism.^[12][13] The author was educated and knew some rare words in an era when literacy was uncommon, but wrote in a style that was overall simple and readable. The geographic origin of the author is also unknown, leaving scholars with little more than guesses. Jan Bremmer weakly suggests Alexandria in Roman Egypt as plausible, but cautions that nothing can be said with certainty on the matter.^[14] Tony Burke suggests it was a place where the Gospel of Luke was held in high regard: perhaps Asia Minor (modern Turkey) or Antioch in Roman Syria.^[15] Others such as Sever Voicu have suggested Roman Palestine.^[16] J.R.C. Cousland cautions that the safest, if least specific, suggestion is somewhere in the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire.^[16]

The early versions of the work were anonymous. No author is indicated in the earliest surviving manuscripts (Syriac, early Latin, Georgian, Ethiopic).^[17] In later manuscripts dating from the Middle Ages, the gospel opens with a prologue where "Thomas the Israelite" introduces himself as the author, but with no further explanation. It is possible that this was meant to hint that the author was Judas Thomas, better known as Thomas the Apostle, thought by some Christians to be a brother of Jesus and thus familiar with young Jesus's activities.^{[18][19][note 2]} The Latin version closes with an epilogue where the author claims to have been an eyewitness who witnessed these events personally, another claim that seems to have been added centuries after the original story's circulation.^[19] Two other later manuscripts claim authorship by some other figure: one Latin version by John the Evangelist, and one Greek version by James, brother of Jesus.^[17]

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas was written in the Koine Greek language, and was rapidly translated to Classical Latin and Syriac.^{[21][note 3]} Translations into other languages soon followed, including Armenian and Georgian.^[23][14] It proved a popular work, with a wide geographical reach. Translations spread from the Greek-speaking eastern Roman Empire far and wide: to the Latin-speaking Western half of the Empire; to Armenia and Georgia in the east; to Ireland in the north; to Ethiopia to the south.^[14] Classical- and medieval-era copies exist in thirteen different languages, an astonishing spread for a non-canonical work.^[21]

The many manuscripts, translations, shortened versions, composite versions, and references have differences, making an exact reconstruction of the original text (ausgangstext) difficult.^[24][25]

Hand-written manuscripts differ from each other significantly. While the invention of the printing press in the early modern period made it much easier to mass-produce identical copies of a text, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas circulated for centuries via manual transcription. Scholars of textual criticism classify groups of similar and related manuscripts into recensions. A scholar can then eclectically select the most common form of a sentence or chapter when manuscripts within a recension differ, resulting in a standard version that is close to all of them, even if no one manuscript matches the most-common reading of every verse.^[26]

Peter Lambeck rediscovered the work in 1675, examining a manuscript held in Vienna.^[27] The IGT became available to a wider audience with the publication of Johann Albert Fabricius's 1703 collection of Christian apocrypha.^[28] Fabricus also divided the work into chapters and verses.^[27] Constantin von Tischendorf published three versions in his influential 1853 book Evangelia Apocrypha, which he called Greek A, Greek B, and Latin.^[29] These have remained among the most popular for scholars to examine and translate.^[24][30]

Greek A is the most studied and well-known form in the modern era. Tischendorf based it on at least 2 manuscripts, and it is the longest Greek form. It consists of nineteen chapters. Scholars have updated this recension with other similar manuscripts, in particular for Tischendorf's chapter 6 where the manuscripts he consulted differed significantly from other manuscripts later found containing Greek A.^[31] A manuscript found by Tischendorf on a trip to Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai in 1844 was used as a basis for Greek B. It is shorter (11 chapters) and differs from the A text in several parts. Some chapters are abbreviated, other entire chapters left out, and there are a few new lines.^[32][21][33]

A Greek version of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas was found in Codex Sabaiticus, a manuscript created in 1089 or 1090. Sabaiticus is a good match in its details to Irenaeus's 2nd-century quotation, and its form of the text is called Greek S. It includes new material that distinguishes it and the other surviving Greek versions from the shorter recensions.^{[34][note 4]} The scholarship of Tony Burke and Reidar Aasgaard in 2001–2010 identified this as more likely to be closer to the original form than the Greek A and Greek B manuscripts of Tischendorf, a stance that has been corroborated by other scholars of the text.^[36]

Stemma of translations and versions of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas over time. The estimated chronology is left to right: the hypothesized Greek original is c. 2nd century; Syriac and Early Latin are c. 3rd century; the long Greek S form is c. 4th–7th centuries; Arabic, Irish, and Armenian are c. 6th–7th centuries; Slavonic was translated c. 10th–11th centuries; and Pseudo-Matthew acquiring the IGT content happened c. 11th century.^[37]

The Syriac translation is thought to originate from the 2nd–6th centuries. It was likely used as a source for an Arabic translation centuries later.^[38]

The work was translated into Latin twice into two distinct forms: Early Latin (c. 3rd century) and Late Latin (c. 11th–15th centuries). Parts of the early Latin version were translated into Old Irish poetry, probably around 700 AD according to James Carney.^[39][40] The Late Latin version was the first manuscript discovered with a prologue with stories set during the Flight into Egypt described in the Gospel of Matthew. Some Greek manuscripts also include the Egyptian prologue and were likely the source of the Late Latin translation, and have been organized into a recension called Greek D.^[41] The 'D' is a reference to Armand Delatte [de], who published in 1927 a 15th-century Greek manuscript with such a prologue.^[42]

The infancy gospel was translated into Armenian and Old Georgian by the 6th or 7th century, although the Armenian is lost and the surviving Georgian manuscripts only include the first half of the story.^[43][44]

It is unclear when exactly the work was translated into Ethiopic (Ge'ez). Some scholars suggest it was translated directly from Greek and fairly early, before the seventh century; others that it happened after the Early Muslim conquests and that the Ethiopic was translated from an Arabic or Syriac version that spread to Ethiopia. The surviving manuscripts are from later centuries, rendering the matter hard to say for sure, and often include the work as a chapter of larger collections of the miracles of Jesus.^[45]

The translation into Church Slavonic was from Greek and the longer recensions. It appears to have probably been translated in medieval Bulgaria, most likely around the 10th or 11th centuries. From there, it spread to Serbia, Ukraine, and Russia.^[46]

Just as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas may have collected individual stories already in circulation in the 2nd century, the gospel was combined with other works as it spread in later eras. The work was used as a major source for the 5th- or 6th-century Arabic Infancy Gospel, which likely was translated into Arabic from Syriac editions of the IGT. The Armenian Infancy Gospel from the 7th century also uses the work as a source, while adding new material and including more details.^[8]

The most influential was likely the Latin Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which combines the work with the Gospel of James and adds an introduction that claims pseudepigraphally the book was translated from a work of Matthew the Evangelist by Saint Jerome. It was popular throughout the Western church, and helped establish a number of common beliefs about the young Jesus.^[8][47] While early versions of Pseudo-Matthew from the 8th–10th centuries lack IGT material, many manuscripts from the 11th–15th centuries include it.^{[2][note 5]}

Up until 2024, the oldest manuscripts were a sixth-century Syriac recension and a Latin palimpsest from the fifth or sixth century housed in Vienna.^[50][29] In 2024, a Greek papyrus fragment from the fourth or fifth century was discovered, making this the new oldest surviving manuscript of the infancy gospel.^[51][52] The fragment largely matches the 11th century Codex Sabaiticus version, providing support for the theory that Sabaiticus is a good guide for the content of older Greek versions.^[1]

The work was generally called just the "Gospel of Thomas" in the 19th and early 20th centuries.^[29] This was largely due to Constantin von Tischendorf's influential collection of apocrypha first published in 1853; the versions Tischendorf published include an attribution to "Thomas the Israelite". Later developments complicated use of this title. The discovery of the Coptic Gnostic Gospel of Thomas and its publication in 1956 created ambiguity, resulting in the addition of "Infancy Gospel" to the title to refer to this work specifically.^[24] Later scholars sifting through older manuscripts found that the editions of the work were more diverse than believed before, and earlier manuscripts include no such attribution to Thomas, rendering "of Thomas" something of a misnomer for them.^[23] Even the manuscripts including the Thomas attribution do not appear to have called themselves "Gospel of Thomas", rendering this a title strictly of the modern era.^[53] Additionally, the stories do not cover just the "infancy" of Jesus, resulting in scholars suggesting other names for the group of recensions as a whole that descended from the lost original version. Names include:^[23]

• Infancy Gospel of Thomas (Inf. Gos. Thom.; IGT)
  • Euangelium Thomae de infantia Saluatoris (Latin)
• Childhood of Jesus (Infancy of Jesus; Paidika)
  • παιδικὰ του̂ κυρίου ήμώυ (Paidiká toú kyríou imón) (Childhood Deeds of our Lord)
  • Τά παιδικά μεγαλεία τού δεσπότου ήμών καί σωτήρος Ίησού Χριστού (Tá paidiká megaleía toú despótou ímón kaí sotíros Íisoú Christoú) (The Great Childhood Deeds of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ)

The text describes the life of the child Jesus from the ages of five to twelve, with fanciful, and sometimes malevolent, supernatural events. He is presented as a precocious child who starts his education early. This summary uses the order in the Greek A recension.

A five-year old Jesus is playing in the mud after rain near a river. He organizes the water into pools, and with a single word, he miraculously cleanses the water. He then crafts 12 sparrows from the clay while playing with other children. A Jew, displeased with seeing children work on the Sabbath, reports this to Jesus's father Joseph. Jesus gives life to the sparrows and they fly off. Another boy, the son of Annas, breaks the pools Jesus made, letting their water drain out. Jesus pronounces a curse upon the boy, and he instantly withers. The parents ineffectively complain to Joseph.^[54]

Later, another child either bumps into Jesus while running, throws a stone, or punches him (depending on the manuscript).^[55] Jesus kills the other boy via pronouncing a curse on him. The parents of the dead child complain to Joseph, and Joseph rebukes Jesus. Jesus curses the complaining parents with blindness. Joseph then pulls his ear.^[54]

Jesus starts receiving lessons from a teacher named Zacchaeus, but he ignores him. While Zacchaeus tries striking his recalcitrant student, Jesus replies by saying he should be teaching himself, makes statements of his superior power and mission, and expounds on the hidden meanings of the letter alpha. Zacchaeus is ashamed and acknowledges the child's wisdom as far superior to his own. Jesus decides to revoke his earlier cruel curses, but the rest of the town remains wary, knowing the risks in angering the boy whose every word becomes truth.^[54]

Jesus and some friends are playing on a roof, but a child named Zeno (or Zenon) falls off and dies. The other children flee, leaving just Jesus when the angry parents arrive again. Jesus resurrects Zeno to act as a witness, and Zeno tells the crowd that Jesus didn't push him off. In another story, Jesus heals a man who bled to death after cutting his foot with his ax.^{[54][note 6]}

Various stories from Jesus's family life are offered. His mother Mary sends him to fetch water, but the jar breaks; Jesus miraculously brings the water back anyway in his cloak. He sows wheat with his father Joseph, then reaps an extraordinary return, and shares the harvest with the poor and needy. At the age of eight, his father is working on a carpentry order for a bed, but the wood's size is wrong. Jesus miraculously stretches the wood, allowing his father to complete the bed.^[54]

Joseph once again tries to arrange a teacher for Jesus, without much success. The second teacher strikes Jesus after Jesus talks back to him and challenges him to explain the meaning of "beta", and Jesus curses and kills him. The third teacher attempts flattery, but soon finds Jesus himself doing the teaching. Because the third teacher correctly acknowledged Jesus's authority, Jesus relents in some versions and raises the second teacher back to life.^[54]

Jesus performs another three miracles. He heals Joseph's son James from a snakebite; resurrects a child who died of illness; and resurrects a man who fell and died in a construction accident.^{[note 7]} Finally, the text recounts twelve-year old Jesus teaching at the Second Temple, an episode also found in the Gospel of Luke.^{[54][note 8]}

A variety of stories appear in some manuscripts but not others that are not part of Greek A. A few examples include Jesus Riding the Sunbeam, Making Dead Fish Come Alive, and Jesus Playing with Lions.^[56]

Gnosticism was a variety of Christianity that flourished in the 2nd century, but attracted fierce opposition from early Catholic theologians. Before the discovery of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, it was thought by 19th-century and early 20th-century scholars that some anti-Gnostic denunciations made by early Christian writers might have referred to the infancy gospel. Early Christian theologian Origen of Alexandria condemns a gospel he calls "According to Thomas" in a homily on the Gospel of Luke, saying it is the work of heretics.^[57] However, the passages Origen quotes do not appear in the IGT. The third-century book Refutation of All Heresies associates a Gnostic group it calls the Naassenes with using a gospel called "According to Thomas". This evidence has since been discarded as misleading, in particular after an influential 1971 journal article by Stephen Gero both showing the lateness of the ascription to Thomas and attacking the plausibility of a connection to Gnosticism.^[58] It is now thought that Origen was referring to the Gnostic "Gospel of Thomas", not the infancy gospel which does not appear to have been known by the title of "Gospel of Thomas" in the classical era.^[53][57]

On similar grounds, scholarship has shifted on the work's length. The Stichometry of Nicephorus indicated a higher line count for a "Gospel of Thomas" than appropriate for the infancy gospel, resulting in speculation that a longer form of the work that included Gnostic material was denounced, but that this material was removed in orthodox revisions and lost. For the same reasons as above, it is now thought that the stichometry could not have been referring to the infancy gospel at all. No expurgation of Gnostic content happened.^[55][59][28]

There remains one possible link. Irenaeus condemned an unnamed work that included the story of the meanings of "Alpha" and "Beta", and thus potentially an early version of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. He wrote that this work used by a Gnostic group called the Marcosians, but his condemnation was seemingly on grounds of it being used for numerology and mystical secrets by them which Irenaeus found intolerable. It is possible that the creator of the story had no such intentions when writing the story, though.^[60] More generally, Gnostics cited material shared with proto-orthodox Christians in writings discovered at the Nag Hammadi library, so Gnostics using a particular work does not necessarily imply the work originated from Gnosticism. Additionally, it is possible that Irenaeus rejected any work he considered deviant by associating it with Gnosticism, rendering him a weak source on exactly how tied this story was with Gnosticism.^[7]

A few scholars such as Oscar Cullman still defended such a possible link after Gero's article. He writes that aspects of the work still seem to potentially fit within a Gnostic milieu, such as Jesus being a font of mystic wisdom from an early age. He cites the extended version of the dialogue between Jesus and his first teacher Zacchaeus in a Slavonic version as potentially representing an older and more Gnostic form of the text.^[12] Other scholars against a strong Gnostic connection have argued that stories of Jesus being superior and wise were common among all branches of early Christianity.^[21][61]

And Jesus, seeing what had happened, said to him, "Your fruit (shall be) without root and your shoot shall be dried up like a branch scorched by a strong wind". And instantly that child withered.

Many scholars see signs of tensions between Jews and Christians that would fit a 2nd–4th-century milieu. Similar to the Gospel of John, several antagonists are introduced simply as "a Jew" or "the Jews". In Chapter 3, Jesus curses the child of "Annas the High Priest" with charged words. The line in Isaiah 11 prophesying that "A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots" was well-known in the era; the Book of Jeremiah calls Israel a "righteous branch."^[63] The story can be read as Jesus essentially revoking this analogy to a thriving tree, and condemning not just the lineage of one child, but of all Israel.^[64]

Alternatively, Andries van Aarde and Sever Voicu have argued that the original version of the IGT may have come from authors who were Ebionites, a sect of Jewish Christians.^[23][65] Other scholars, including Tony Burke and J.R.C. Cousland, have been skeptical of such a connection, considering it more likely the author was a non-Jewish convert.^[17][66]

A medieval Jewish work, the Toledot Yeshu, contains the story of Jesus animating the birds, although Jesus's age is unspecified in it. The Toledot includes the story of Jesus and the sparrows and does not deny it; it instead attributes it to magic rather than divine power.^[67] Kristi Upson-Saia argues that the lost original version of the IGT might have drawn on a Jewish anti-Christian source akin to the Toledot, which portrayed Jesus as an intelligent yet disrespectful trickster and magician. In this view, this origin was lost and revised by later Christians, who kept the unusual depiction of Jesus but revised the tone more positively.^[23][68][69] Others, such as Stephen Davis, have argued that the reverse is more likely true: that the Toledot Yeshu is evidence that Jews were familiar with the infancy gospel traditions, and adapted them.^[70]

(Zacchaeus the teacher said:) What great thing this child is — whether a god, an angel, or whatever else — I don't know.

J.R.C. Cousland has argued that the author displays a high Christology that emphasizes Jesus's divine nature over his human one, and this was consistent with stories current in Roman society that depicted gods as unpredictable and fickle, yet ultimately benevolent.^[72][23] Jesus being in full possession of divine power at a young age also places the work against adoptionist versions of early Christianity that held Jesus became the Son of God at his baptism, rather than his birth or the beginning of time.^[19]

The older forms of the work generally eschew theologically charged titles of Jesus such as "Messiah" and "Savior" after the first chapter's introduction, instead referring to him usually as "Jesus, the child" and variants.^[73]

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas includes some parallels with canonical gospel stories, in particular the Gospel of Luke.^[74] Most scholars do not think references to canonical gospels are extensive.^[75] However, they do exist. For example, Jesus stays quiet in parts of Pilate's trial, and young Jesus remaining silent at the start of one of his confrontations with a teacher. Some of the miracles can be seen as "prefiguring" future gospel stories, such as the dispute on Jesus making the birds on the Sabbath being similar to adult Jesus healing on the Sabbath in the synoptic gospels, or creating the 12 birds being a loose reference to the calling of the 12 disciples. Others are more subtle as far as similar themes as Biblical stories, such as "turn the tables" type stories where the weaker side miraculously comes out victorious anyway.^[76]

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of James were both popular sources on the young Jesus, despite the Church councils not including them in the New Testament canon. Jan N. Bremmer argues the Infancy Gospel of Thomas seems to have come first (c. 150–175 CE), while the Gospel of James seems to date a little later (c. 175–185 CE).^[14]

The work is unusual in genre as the only work preserved out of antiquity that deals exclusively with the childhood of an individual. Other such works may have existed, but were not preserved if so.^[23]

Various surviving older literature makes references to miracles originating from the IGT. For example, one version of the Acts of Andrew and Matthias, a heroic romance involving Christian missionaries on an adventure in a city of cannibals, includes explicit references to Jesus transforming the clay sparrows and resurrecting the child Zeno from the roof incident. They are simply stated as past deeds of Jesus.^[77] Only two miracles of Jesus are recounted in the Quran. One of them is Jesus transforming clay into a bird, although it is described as just one bird, rather than twelve.^{[78][67][note 9]}

There is conflicting evidence of the gospel's status in the era of the Roman Empire. While the spread of manuscripts and casual mention of the miracles within suggest acceptance and popularity, the more explicit surviving references are from disapproving theologians. Due to the comparatively large number of manuscripts for a work of this type, Reidar Aasgaard argues that there likely was not any explicit ecclesiastical disapproval or active censoring of the text.^[2] He does grant that it seems some later 6th and 7th century documents attempting to codify the canon express disapproval of infancy gospels, such as the Gelasian Decree and Anastasius Sinaita's Hodegos.^[67] Stevan Davies argues that the work still seems to have been more popular with "ordinary" Christians than the educated church elite. For these Christians, legends of the active use of divine power in everyday life held great appeal. This would place the work as part of folk religion and folk literature.^[80] J.R.C. Cousland sees the Jesus of the IGT as a subversive figure whose smashing of polite custom and the establishment would appeal to a popular audience, but a more ambivalent reaction from Christian leaders after Christianity became an organized and majority religion itself.^[81]

While the depiction of Jesus can be seen as shocking to later readers,^[82] Tony Burke writes that this view of Jesus fit snugly into early Christian thought. Even when it is criticized, such as by John Chrysostom, it is on grounds of it contradicting the gospel of John saying when the first miracle of Jesus was, not on grounds that the character of Jesus was incorrect.^[83] More generally, to draw too sharp a distinction between a "popular" audience and a "common" audience was to invent a distinction that did not yet exist. As literacy was quite rare, works that were written down were inherently already a matter of a rare few, even if based on oral stories.^[84]

Reidar Aasgaard suggests that the compiler, the legends, or both may have credibly been from or circulated in a rural, non-elite milieu, and could have had children as an intended audience.^[23][85][86]

The large number of surviving manuscripts, in particular medieval manuscripts, attests to the general popularity of the work. Philip Jenkins writes that the Infancy Gospel of Thomas appears to have been among the most popular Christian writings for 1500 years.^[88] The many copies of it and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew found in monastery libraries suggest it was used devotionally. As an example, the work was held by the noblewoman Cecily Neville, known for her piety.^[89]

Life of the Virgin, a story that survives only in Georgian, is said to come from 7th century Palestine in Greek there. It seems to include a condemnation of an infancy gospel called The Infancy of Christ that might have been a lost compilation including the IGT, saying that "it is alien to the order of the Church and contrary to what the holy evangelists said and an adversary of truth that was composed by some foolish men and storytellers."^[43][90]

The Byzantine historian George Syncellus mentions "the childhood deeds of our Savior" approvingly and implies that Luke the Evangelist was aware of the work and used it as a source for his account of Jesus in the temple at 12, or at least referenced it.^[91] Vincent of Beauvais included details from the IGT in his book Speculum, although cautioned the authorship was unknown. As in the classical era, some medieval theologians condemned the infancy stories on account of them contradicting the gospels; Thomas Aquinas and Jean Gerson both harshly condemn them.^[92] As in the classical era, these condemnations do not appear to have been enforced; the text was at its most popular in the 15th century in the Late Middle Ages.^[93]

The popularity of Pseudo-Matthew, one of the main ways late medieval audiences read the work, declined during the Protestant Reformation as the printing press spread in the early modern period.^[48]

In general, reception in the modern era has been hostile. Christian writers in the 19th and 20th centuries, back when it was assumed the work was an expurgated descendent of a heretical Gnostic work, were especially unimpressed; Anglican Bishop Charles Ellicott wrote in the 19th century that the story contained only "pious fraud and disguised heresy" and that "The language is unusually barbarous, the style hopelessly bad, and the narrative itself unconnected and incoherent."^[28][94]

Oscar Cullman was unimpressed with the depiction of Jesus in the work. He writes that if the name "Jesus" had not been included, the reader would never have guessed that the capricious boy depicted in the gospel was the same as the Jesus of the canonical gospels. Cullman says that "the cruder and more startling the miracle, the greater the pleasure the compiler finds in it."^[12]

The book's reputation has somewhat improved as consensus has shifted that it was not the work of 'heretics', and that rather it was the pious themselves who seemed most drawn to a tale of flashy miracles in everyday life, with verification that the God they worshipped was exceptional and powerful.^[95] While the work's sense of ethics may not cohere with modern ethics, Reidar Aasgaard writes in its defense that it still complies with the old narrative law of "all's well that ends well". Everything turns out fine by the end in the story, which softens the problematic nature of Jesus's actions and invites a more sympathetic reading to Aasgaard.^[96]

Somewhat later he [Jesus] was going through the village, and a child ran up and banged into his shoulder. Jesus was aggravated and said to him, "You will go no further on your way". Right away the child fell down and died.

One element of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas found striking both by modern audiences is its depiction of a rather petty young Jesus. Jesus curses and kills those who cross him repeatedly in the work; perhaps the most striking is the incident where a five-year old Jesus curses and kills a child for the banal reason of running into him in what was presumably an accident, a cruel overreaction. The dead child's parents beg Joseph afterward to teach his child "to bless and not to curse" since Jesus is killing their children. After Joseph scolds his son and asks him why he is making trouble for the family, Jesus responds by miraculously causing those who complained, the parents of the deceased, to be struck blind. Joseph scolds Jesus again, but seemingly ineffectually; the roles of parent and child are reversed.^[55][98]

The story does have variants across manuscripts, seemingly motivated by a desire to better justify Jesus in it, rather than linguistic or translation difficulties. These revisions generally keep Jesus's behavior, but make the other child less sympathetic. For example, a version of the story in the Latin Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew adds that the other boy is a "henchman of injustice" and that he "threw himself on Jesus's shoulder, wanting to mock him or harm him if possible".^[55] One way that medieval readers might have thought on the revised versions is that just as Jesus struggles against enemies of God as an adult in the canonical gospels, young Jesus is depicted as already contending with anti-divine forces via cursing them, even if they are also only children to match him.^[55]

When Joseph observed the mind of the child and his age, and saw that he was starting to mature, he again resolved that he [Jesus] should not be unable to read, and so took him out and gave him over to another teacher.

The story makes quite a strong emphasis on Jesus's education and his literacy, making it the subject of three separate stories. This is distinctive in that 1st-century Christians do not seem to have emphasized a literate Jesus; there is only a single story in the Gospel of Luke where Jesus writes (Jesus and the woman taken in adultery), and none in the other three canonical gospels. It seems that the idea of a literate Jesus became more prominent in the 2nd century, when the work was likely composed. A literate Jesus might also have served as an apologetic defense against possible pagan or Jewish attacks on Christianity as a religion of the uncultured. The pagan philosopher Celsus disparagingly called Jesus's early followers as "most uneducated" as an example of the rhetoric that some Christians might have sought to counter.^[14]

While the story considers Jesus's education important, it also makes clear he doesn't actually need it, and in truth should already be the teacher himself even at a young age.^[25] The unwise second teacher who strikes Jesus is fitting for the time period; in the classical era, a teacher striking his student would not have been uncommon. The indoors setting is somewhat unusual, though; school buildings were rare, and education often happened outside.^[14] His first and third teacher are reduced to using "flattery" on young Jesus to get him to cooperate, which would be unusual and humiliating for a teacher to stoop to, but serves to emphasize how far superior Jesus is to Zacchaeus (the first teacher) and the third teacher.^[25]

While the work is a gospel in the sense that it is about Jesus, it is of a different variety than the four gospels that are included in the canon of the New Testament.^[100] It contains few allusions or quotes to them, barring the sequence of Jesus at the Temple.^[101] Stephen Gero notes that only the Arabic Infancy Gospel version explicitly uses the word "gospel" itself within it, and suggests that the work was only intended to supplement and not supplant the canonical gospels.^[18] It might have been intended to have been read as a companion with them, notably the Gospel of Luke and possibly the Gospel of John.^[100]

Ronald Hock has argued that the work is best classified as an "ancient biography".^[102][15] Works about the childhood of Jesus have generally been called infancy gospels or infancy narratives, even when they extend to Jesus's early childhood as well beyond his birth and infancy.^[103]

One disputed matter is if the work was a compiler taking a variety of independent circulating stories and making a written collection of them, or if it was a unified narrative with a plot. In favor of the former, very similar stories are included, suggesting only the most token of editing. For example, Jesus disputes with three teachers in the gospel; this suggests the compiler possibly recording three different variants of the same story. Tobias Nicklas, conversely, argues that while the work is clearly episodic storytelling, it does have character development in showing Jesus gradually becoming the Savior depicted in the canonical gospels, as he seems to grow and use his powers more productively in the later stories.^[100][104] This differs by revision, however; Tony Burke cautions that the Syriac version omits the healing miracles in chapters 10, 17, and 18 of Greek A, which weakens the idea of an implicit narrative where Jesus firms his character with age.^[15]

Joseph receives more attention in this work than many other Christian works, especially the preserved works of later eras. Mary has a comparatively minor role in the oldest versions of the text.^[105] The medieval manuscript tradition and its evolution is complex, but in general, later compilations including the IGT tended to pair the work with others that focused more on Mary and Mariology, in particular in the Latin-speaking Western Church. These compilations cover the Holy Family as a group, draw on the IGT for tales of Joseph, and also include stories of Jesus's grandparents Joachim and Anna, his aunt Mary Cleophas, and so on. The Latin Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew appears to have begun incorporating the Infancy Gospel of Thomas stories in manuscripts in the 13th century. In contrast, the medieval Greek-speaking Byzantine Church tended to keep separate texts, each focused on one particular saint.^[106]

While Joseph's role is prominent, he is not portrayed particularly positively in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. He is not depicted as understanding his own son's divine nature, and to the extent that the message of the book is that Jesus is Lord and acknowledging this promptly is a sign of wisdom, he does not live up to this.^[25] While Mary's role is minor, she is portrayed unambiguously positively.^[14]

Both the IGT and the Gospel of James can be seen as "family gospels" where the audience could relate their own life and problems with Jesus's family. They could reassure themselves the Holy Family had just the same triumphs and troubles, if on a magnified scale.^[23][107]

St. Martin's Church in Zillis, Switzerland was rebuilt in the 12th century. Its wooden ceiling features 153 panels of Romanesque paintings, of which 98 panels depict the life and miracles of Jesus. One panel shows young Jesus transforming clay into birds. The painter was probably familiar with the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which incorporates material from the IGT and was likely the source for the panel.^[108]

Episodes from Jesus's childhood as depicted in the Klosterneuburger Evangelienwerk, a 14th-century gospel translation:

• 
  Jesus is carrying water in his lap, after his water jar got broken; other children are watching in surprise.
• 
  Jesus hands the water in his lap over to Mary.
• 
  Jesus reassembles the water jars of the children who, in an attempt to imitate him, smashed their jars on purpose.
• 
  Jesus raises the clay birds of his playmates to life.
• 
  Jesus tells Joseph to raise a dead man.
• 
  Joseph raises the man on the stretcher from the dead.
• 
  During play, a child Zenon falls off the roof of a house; two Jews accuse Jesus of having pushed him.
• 
  Jesus raises the dead child from the dead, so he can testify that Jesus is innocent.
• 
  Together with other children, Jesus is catching fish on Sabbath.
• 
  A Jew who scolds the children dies on the spot.
• 
  The children complain about Jesus to adult Jews.
• 
  At Mary's and Joseph's request, Jesus raises the dead man.
• 
  Jesus plays with lions and guides them up to the town gates. The town people are scared.
• 
  Jesus quarrels with his teacher in front of other pupils about the nature of the letters.

Anne Rice wrote Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, a 2005 novel on Jesus's childhood. She includes material from the IGT: transforming the clay sparrows on the Sabbath as well as young Jesus killing another boy with stray words, although her version of Jesus also rapidly decides to raise the other boy from the dead afterward. In the afterword, Rice writes that she found the accounts in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of James compelling and containing a deep truth in that spoke to her, despite their non-canonical status.^[109][95] The novel was adapted as the 2016 film The Young Messiah.^[110]

The Carpenter's Son is a 2025 psychological horror and drama film covering Jesus's early life; according to directory Lotfy Nathan, it is inspired by the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.^[111]

Selected modern translations of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas into English are listed below. Translations of the Greek and Latin versions include:^[112]

• Aasgaard, Reidar (2009). The Childhood of Jesus: Decoding the Apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Cascade Books. pp. 233–242. ISBN 978-1-60608-126-6.
• Burke, Tony (2010). De Infantia Iesu Evangelium Thomae Graecae. Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum 17. Brepols. pp. 302–463. ISBN 9782503534190.
• Ehrman, Bart; Pleše, Zlatko (2011). The Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and Translations. Oxford University Press. pp. 3–29. ISBN 978-0-19-973210-4.
• Elliott, James Keith (1993). The Apocryphal New Testament. Oxford University Press. pp. 68–83. ISBN 0-19-826182-9.
• Hock, Ronald (1995). The Infancy Gospels of James and Thomas. The Scholars Bible 2. Polebridge Press. pp. 103–143. ISBN 0-944344-47-X.

Translations of other languages include:^[112]

• Burke, Tony (2017). The Syriac Tradition of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 48. Gorgias Press. pp. 123–227. ISBN 978-1-4632-0584-3. Includes a translation of an Arabic version by Slavomír Čéplö (pp. 229–243). (Syriac, Arabic)
• Cielontko, David; Halama, Ota (2025). "The Old Czech Version of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas". In Cielontko, David; Nicklas, Tobias; Bremmer, Jan N. (eds.). The Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Early Christian Apocrypha 23. Peeters. pp. 185–206. ISBN 978-90-429-5402-1. (IGT content in Old Czech versions of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew)
• Herbert, Máire; McNamara, Martin (2001). "A Versified Narrative of the Childhood Deeds of the Lord Jesus". Apocrypha Hiberniae: Evangelia infantiae, Volume 1. Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum 13. Brepols. pp. 443–483. ISBN 9782503410005. (Old Irish)
• Rosén, Thomas (1997). The Slavonic Translation of the Apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas. AUUSSU 39. Almqvist & Wiksell International. ISBN 91-554-3964-0. (Church Slavonic)
• Shoemaker, Stephen J. (2025). "The Georgian Version of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas: Text and Translation". In Cielontko, David; Nicklas, Tobias; Bremmer, Jan N. (eds.). The Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Early Christian Apocrypha 23. Peeters. pp. 169–184. ISBN 978-90-429-5402-1. (Old Georgian)
• Syroyid, Dariya (2025). "The Infancy Gospel of Thomas in Ukrainian Manuscripts: Peculiarities in Interpretation". In Cielontko, David; Nicklas, Tobias; Bremmer, Jan N. (eds.). The Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Early Christian Apocrypha 23. Peeters. pp. 147–168. ISBN 978-90-429-5402-1. (Church Slavonic, Ukrainian versions)

Transcriptions of untranslated Greek, Latin, and Syriac versions can be found at:^[112]

• Evangelia apocrypha (1876 second edition), Tischendorf's compilation of Apocrypha including the Greek A (pages 140–157), Greek B (pp. 158–163), and Latin (pp. 164–180) versions of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas
• Contributions to the apocryphal literature of the New Testament, collected and edited from Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum (1865), William Wright's transcription of a 6th century Syriac manuscript (pp. 128–121, right-to-left)

• Aasgaard, Reidar (2009). The Childhood of Jesus: Decoding the Apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Cascade Books. ISBN 978-1-60608-126-6.
• Burke, Tony (2010). De Infantia Iesu Evangelium Thomae Graecae. Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum 17. Brepols. ISBN 9782503534190.
• Burke, Tony (2017). The Syriac Tradition of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 48. Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-4632-0584-3.
• Cielontko, David; Nicklas, Tobias; Bremmer, Jan N., eds. (2025). The Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Early Christian Apocrypha 23. Peeters. ISBN 978-90-429-5402-1.
• Cousland, J. R. C. (2017). Holy Terror: Jesus in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-567-66817-2.
• Davies, Stevan (2009). The Infancy Gospels of Jesus: Apocryphal Tales from the Childhoods of Mary and Jesus. SkyLight Paths Publishing. ISBN 978-1-59473-258-4.
• Davis, Stephen J. (2014). Christ Child: Cultural Memories of a Young Jesus. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-14945-6.
• Dzon, Mary (2017). The Quest for the Christ Child in the Later Middle Ages. Middle Ages Series. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0812293708.
• Ehrman, Bart; Pleše, Zlatko (2011). The Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and Translations. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-973210-4.
• Gero, Stephen (1971). "The Infancy Gospel of Thomas: A Study of the Textual and Literary Problems". Novum Testamentum. 13 (1): 46–80. doi:10.2307/1560167. JSTOR 1560167.
• Hock, Ronald (1995). The Infancy Gospels of James and Thomas. The Scholars Bible 2. Polebridge Press. ISBN 0-944344-47-X.
• Vukovic, Marijana (2022). Survival and Success of an Apocryphal Childhood of Jesus: Reception of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas in the Middle Ages. Studies of the Bible and Its Reception 21. De Gruyter. ISBN 9783110752786.

• Infancy Gospel of Thomas, translations of most versions of the work by Tony Burke
• The full text of The Gospel of Thomas at Wikisource, translation and commentary by M. R. James in the 1924 book The Apocryphal New Testament; see also  Appendixes to the Gospel of Thomas.
• "Infancy Gospel of Thomas", overview and bibliography by Tony Burke. NASSCAL: e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha.