Thomas the Apostle

== Writings ==
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{{blockquote|Let none read the gospel according to Thomas, for it is the work, not of one of the twelve apostles, but of one of [[Mani (prophet)|Mani]]'s three wicked disciples.|[[Cyril of Jerusalem]], ''Catechesis'' V (4th century)}}

In the first two centuries of the Christian era, a number of writings were circulated. It is unclear now why Thomas was seen as an authority for doctrine, although this belief is documented in Gnostic groups as early as the ''[[Pistis Sophia]]''. In that Gnostic work, [[Mary Magdalene]] (one of the disciples) says:

{{blockquote|Now at this time, my Lord, hear, so that I speak openly, for thou hast said to us "He who has ears to hear, let him hear:" Concerning the word which thou didst say to Philip: "Thou and Thomas and Matthew are the three to whom it has been given… to write every word of the Kingdom of the Light, and to bear witness to them"; hear now that I give the interpretation of these words. It is this which thy light-power once prophesied through Moses: "Through two and three witnesses everything will be established. The three witnesses are Philip and Thomas and Matthew"|''Pistis Sophia'' 1:43}}

An early, non-Gnostic tradition may lie behind this statement, which also emphasizes the primacy of the [[Gospel of Matthew]] in its [[Aramaic]] form, over the other canonical three.

Besides the ''[[Acts of Thomas]]'' there was a widely circulated ''[[Infancy Gospel of Thomas]]'' probably written in the later 2nd century, and probably also in [[Syria]], which relates the miraculous events and prodigies of Jesus' boyhood. This is the document which tells for the first time the familiar legend of the twelve sparrows which Jesus, at the age of five, fashioned from clay on the Sabbath day, which took wing and flew away. The earliest manuscript of this work is a 6th-century one in [[Syriac language|Syriac]]. This gospel was first referred to by [[Irenaeus]]; Ron Cameron notes: "In his citation, Irenaeus first quotes a non-canonical story that circulated about the childhood of Jesus and then goes directly on to quote a passage from the infancy narrative of the [[Gospel of Luke]].<ref>{{bibleverse|Luke|2:49|KJV}}</ref> Since the Infancy Gospel of Thomas records both of these stories, in relative close proximity to one another, it is possible that the [[apocryphal]] writing cited by Irenaeus is, in fact, what is now known as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Because of the complexities of the manuscript tradition, however, there is no certainty as to when the stories of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas began to be written down."

The best known in modern times of these documents is the "sayings" document that is being called the [[Gospel of Thomas]], a noncanonical work whose date is disputed. The opening line claims it is the work of "Didymos Judas Thomas" – whose identity is unknown. This work was discovered in a [[Coptic language|Coptic]] translation in 1945 at the Egyptian village of [[Nag Hammadi]], near the site of the monastery of Chenoboskion. Once the Coptic text was published, scholars recognized that an earlier Greek translation had been published from fragments of [[papyrus]] found at [[Oxyrhynchus]] in the 1890s.