Gospel of St Thomas

[Seraphim]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone could tell me if the Orthodox Church accepts the authenticity of the Gospel according to St. Thomas. I can't seem to find a satisfactory answer believe it or not! Please allow me to clarify that I am not asking if the Orthodox Church accepts the Gospel of St. Thomas within the Church (because of course it does not) but does it actually accept it as an authentic scripture. This may seem strange, but the reason the Roman Catholic church DOES NOT, is simply due to the fact that it is not needed, (since the 4 gospels suffice) and regardless of its content, is ignored within the church. I was wondering the Orthodox Church's opinion on this.

If the church does accept it in any way shape or form then this is worrying, because in "Saying 14" of St. Thomas' Gospel, we are prohibited from fasting and praying! There are also other worrying teachings in this Gnostic gospel and in such others.

Any advice for my research would be great! Thank you for your time!

In Christ,
Seraphim

[Olga]

Further to your query on the Gospel of Thomas, how does the Church regard other "apocryphal" writings such as the Protoevangelium (written by one of the Evangelists) which has much of what we know about the early life of the Mother of God? (such as her being fed by an angel once she entered the Temple). Much of the imagery in her iconography and in the hymnody in the services dedicated to her is apparently derived from this document. Also are some writings more "authentic" than others?

[John Curtis Dunn]

no the Orthodox Church does not recognize the Gospel of St. Thomas as Apostolic.

[Clement Alexander]

There are two Gospels attributed to St Thomas. One is a saying Gospel that has some 114 sayings attributed to the Lord Jesus Christ. The other is a Gospel that tells stories about the Childhood of the Lord Jesus.

The Saying Gospel is a very interesting book that has a lot of sayings that are identical with the synoptic Gospels and other sayings that are very obviously Gnostic in nature and others that are perhaps taken from pagan philosophers. In general this Gospel is not a harmful book to read but is most probably than not a fabrication that was written by one of the numerous Gnostic sects around the second century AD. And for that very reason the Orthodox Church does not include it in the Canon.

The other Gospel is what some call (the infantile Gospel) is an obvious fabrication that was written in Syria most probably around the middle of the second century and most probably was written in Syriac and then translated to Greek and Coptic and Latin. This Gospel tells stories about the infancy and early childhood of the lord Jesus Christ. It was most probably written to satisfy the curiosity of the faithful about that period of our lord’s life, especially that none of the Canonical Gospels addressed that subject, of course the exception of that is the story told in Luc’s Gospel about our Lord’s visit to Jerusalem when he accompanied his Mother and Joseph and other family members. The writer of that Gospel picked up that story and included it in his book. The other stories that he told are mainly fables about the interaction between the child Jesus and his teacher and other children. One interesting story to note is a story about the child Jesus who was playing near a water stream and then taking mud and making with it a likeness of twelve birds and then breathing on it and turning the mud birds to live ones!! The story is interesting because it found its way to the Koran of the false prophet of Mecca Mohamed!!!

In summary these two Gospels attributed to St Thomas are not included in the Church’s Cannon for an obvious reason, and that is they are late fabrication and have no apostolic origin. And while one can make arguments about the sayings Gospel as a not so bad and perhaps beneficial book the infantile Gospel is really really a useless fabrication.

In Christ Clement A