The suppressed Gospels and Epistles of the original New Testament of Jesus the Christ, Volume 3, Infancy of Jesus Christ

20 Dost thou not know that I am thine? Trouble me no more.

CHAPTER III

1 Astonishes his schoolmaster by his learning.

A CERTAIN schoolmaster named Zaccheaus, standing in a certain place, heard Jesus speaking these things to his father.

2 And he was much surprised, that being a child he should speak such things; and after a few days he came to Joseph, and said,

3 Thou hast a wise and sensible child, send him to me, that he may learn to read.

4 When he sat down to teach the letters to Jesus, he began with the first letter Aleph;

5 But Jesus pronounced the second letter Mpeth (Beth) Cghimel (Gimel), and said over all the letters to him to the end.

6 Then opening a book, he taught his master the prophets but he was ashamed, and was at a loss to conceive how he came to know the letters.

7 And he arose and went home, wonderfully surprised at so strange a thing.

CHAPTER IV

1 Fragment of an adventure at a dyer's.

AS Jesus was passing by a certain shop, he saw a young man dipping (or dyeing) some cloths and stockings in a furnace, of a sad colour, doing them according to every person's particular order;

2 The boy Jesus going to the young man who was doing this, took also some of the cloths ……

(Here endeth the fragment of Thomas's Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ.)

REFERRENCE TO ST. THOMAS'S GOSPEL OF THE INFANCY OF JESUS CHRIST

[The original in Greek, from which this translation is made, will be found printed by Cotelerius, in his notes on the constitutions of the Apostles, from a MS. in the French King's Library, No. 2279.—It is attributed to St. Thomas, and conjectured to have been originally connected with the, Gospel of Mary. Unfortunately this ancient MS. was found torn at the second verse of the fourth chapter.]