Hamburg, June 19, 2024.
Papyrologists [scientists who study ancient manuscripts on papyrus - ed. have deciphered a fragment of a manuscript that went unnoticed for decades in a German university library.
Dr. Lajos Berkes of the Institute of Christianity and Antiquity at the Humboldt University of Berlin (Germany) and Professor Gabriel Nokki Macedo of the University of Liège (Belgium) carefully studied the fragment from the University of Hamburg and concluded that it belongs to the so-called "Childhood Gospel of Thomas".
Scientists date it to the fourth to fifth centuries AD. Thus, it is currently the earliest surviving fragment of this apocryphal text. Prior to this, the earliest Greek copy was considered to be the codex from the 11th century, reports the Humboldt University of Berlin.
The "Childhood Gospel of Thomas" includes stories of miracles performed by Jesus Christ as a child. According to the university, although these stories are considered apocryphal, they were very popular in antiquity and the Middle Ages.
The Holy Fathers and other authors of the early Church repeatedly referred to this text as apocryphal and even heretical. The holy martyr Irenaeus of Lyons (2nd century) called the "Childhood Gospel of Thomas" a forgery, the "father of Church history" Eusebius of Caesarea (3rd-4th centuries) condemned this work as "heresy" and "fiction", and Pope St. Gelasius I (+ 496) held the same opinion.
"Our findings regarding this fragment of a Late Antique Greek manuscript confirm the now-dominant view that the 'Childhood Gospel of Thomas' was originally written in Greek," said Gabriel Nocchi Macedo.
The 11 x 5 centimeter fragment contains a total of 13 lines in Greek, with about 10 letters in each line. Researchers believe that it was created in Egypt during the late antiquity.
In the found fragment of the apocryphal Gospel the episode is told ostensibly from childhood of the Savior when it has molded from clay 12 figures of sparrows on Saturday, Joseph the Betrothed has reproached it for it, and Christ has clapped in hands - and all clay figures of birds have come to life and have flown away.
