The First Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas

The Suppressed Gospels and Epistles of the Original New Testament of Jesus The Christ

Translated from the Original Tongues, With Historical References to their authenticity, by

Archbishop Wake and other Learned Divines

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas is a biographical gospel about the childhood of Jesus, that is believed to date to the 2nd century. Later references (by Hippolytus of Rome and Origen of Alexandria) to a "Gospel of Thomas", are more likely to be referring to this Infancy Gospel, than to the wholly different Gospel of Thomas with which it is sometimes confused.

The earliest leaders of the Church also recognized the Gospel of Thomas was a late, inauthentic, heretical work. Hipploytus identified it as a fake and a heresy in "Refutation of All Heresies" (222-235AD), Origen referred to it in a similar way in a homily (written around 233AD), Eusebius resoundingly rejected it as an absurd, impious and heretical "fiction" in the third book of his "Church History" (written prior to 326AD), Cyril advised his followers to avoid the text as heretical in his "Catechesis" (347-348AD), and Pope Gelasius included the Gospel of Thomas in his list of heretical books in the 5th century.

Name notwithstanding, this Infancy Gospel appears to be unrelated to the Canonical Gospels, and is thought to be Gnostic in origin. The oldest known copy of the Infancy Gospels (discovered with the Nag Hammadi), was written in Coptic, not Greek as would have been expected of an authentic Apocryphal text or "lost gospel".