We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 December 2011
The question of how much apocryphal Gospels were rebutted, suppressed or even destroyed in antiquity is a question of perennial interest, both popular and scholarly. The present article makes no attempt at any sort of complete answer to this question, but has the rather more modest aim of analyzing the various testimonia—from antiquity into the middle ages—that make explicit reference to a “Gospel of Thomas.” This article will not touch on the numerous allusions to, or quotations of, the contents of this Gospel, but will be confined to treatments of the title (hence “named testimonia”). The impetus for this particular investigation is of course the presence, at the end of the second tractate of Nag Hammadi Codex II, of a colophon reading “The Gospel according to Thomas.”1 Given the controversial contents of this Gospel, and the equally controversial place that it occupies in scholarly reconstructions of Christian origins, Thomas's reception in antiquity has been widely discussed since the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices (see n. 2 below).
1 As is well known, this Nag Hammadi tractate is also paralleled in POxy 1, 654 and 655, one of which (POxy 654) refers to the disciple Thomas, although none preserves a title of the work.
2 Harold W. Attridge, “Appendix: The Greek Fragments,” in Nag Hammadi Codex II,2–7: Volume One (ed. Bentley Layton; NHS 20; Leiden: Brill, 1989) 95–128, esp. 103–9. Attridge is echoed in Francis T. Fallon and Ronald Cameron, “The Gospel of Thomas: A Forschungsbericht and Analysis,” ANRW II, 25,6 (1988) 4195–51, at 4204, and followed by others such as Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press, 1990) 77–78; Matteo Grosso, 
. Aspetti della ricezione del Vangelo secondo Tommaso nel cristianesimo antico (Ph.D. diss., University of Turin, 2007) 24–38. For an early sketch of the evidence, see Henri-Charles Puech, “Une collection de paroles de Jésus récemment retrouvée: L’évangile selon Thomas,” Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. Comptes Rendus (1957) 146–66, esp. 149–52.
Some of Attridge's examples are instances of reference to content, rather than to the title, and so are not taken into consideration here. Jerome's translation of Origen (Attridge 7a) is also not included as a separate item.
4 Almost all the dates given are approximate, and are c.e.
5 Hippolytus Werke. Dritte Band. Refutatio Omnium Haeresium (ed. Paul Wendland; GCS 26; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1916) 83. On the vexed question of the authorship and date, see the discussion in Allen Brent, Hippolytus & the Roman Church in the Third Century: Communities in Tension before the Emergence of a Monarch-Bishop (Leiden: Brill, 1995) 115–367. Probably still the most widely cited attack on the attribution to Hippolytus is Pierre Nautin, Hippolyte et Josipe. Contribution à l’histoire de la littérature chrétienne du troisième siècle (Paris: Cerf, 1947).
6 Brent, Hippolytus & the Roman Church, 289: “El. was completed before the death of Callistus in 222.”
7 From the beginnings of Thomas research, see Robert M. Grant, “Notes on the Gospel of Thomas,” VC 13 (1959) 170–80; William Schoedel, “Naassene Themes in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas,” VC 14 (1960) 225–43; Étienne M. J. M. Cornélis, “Quelques éléments pour une comparaison entre l’Évangile de Thomas et la notice d’Hippolyte sur les Naassènes,” VC 15 (1961) 83–104, esp. 89–92. More recently, there is José Montserrat-Torrents, “Le notice d’Hippolyte sur les Naassenes,” in Studia Patristica (ed. Elizabeth A. Livingstone; vol. 17; Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1982) 231–42, and Maria Grazia Lancellotti, The Naassenes: A Gnostic Identity among Judaism, Christianity, Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Traditions (Forschungen zur Anthropologie und Religionsgeschichte, 35; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2000) 317–48 on the Gospel of Thomas, and passim on the unity of Hippolytus's notice.
8 Attridge, “Appendix: The Greek Fragments,” 103.
9 Gos. Thom. 11.2 is parallelled in Ref. 5.8.32, and Alastair Logan, The Gnostics: Identifying an Early Christian Cult (London: T&T Clark, 2006) 78, considers that the “Naassene Preaching” has “clear allusions to the ascetic Nag Hammadi Gospel of Thomas” (esp. Gos. Thom. 114) in Ref. 5.8.44–45. A very thorough discussion of other instances of Thomas in the Refutatio can be found in Grosso, 
, 65–139.
10 I am grateful to Professor Catherine Osborne for putting me on to this general strategy of Hippolytus in the Refutatio.
11 For the text, see Die Homilien zu Lukas in der Übersetzung des Hieronymus und die griechischen Reste der Homilien und des Lukas-Kommentars (ed. Max Rauer; Origenes Werke, 9; GCS 35; Berlin: Akademie, 1959) 5, ll. 9–11. On the date, see the various views described in Origen: Homilies on Luke (ed. and trans. Joseph T. Lienhard; The Fathers of the Church, 94; Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1996) xxiv, as well as the translation of our passage in the same volume (5–6).
12 See e.g., Matteo Grosso, “Osservazioni sui testimonia origeniani del Vangelo secondo Tommaso (in Luc. hom. I,1; contra Celsum VIII,15; in Jer. hom. lat. I,3; in Jesu Naue hom. IV,3),” Adamantius 15 (2009) 177–94; Stephan Witetschek, “Going Hungry for a Purpose,” JSNT 32 (2010) 379–93; Stephen C. Carlson, “Origen's Use of the Gospel of Thomas” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, New Orleans, 24 November, 2009) forthcoming.
13 Gos. Thom. 23: Peri tou Pascha II.6.3; Gos. Thom. 69: Hom. Lev. 10.2; Gos. Thom. 82: Hom. Jer. L. I (III) 3 and Hom. Josh. 4.3. For the reference to Gos. Thom. 69, I am indebted to Witetschek, “Going Hungry for a Purpose.”
14 Origen is not concerned that the four nt Gospels were written first; rather he envisages a period in which a number of Gospels were written: “The Gospels we have were chosen from among these gospels and passed on to the churches.” Hom. Luc. 1; trans. Lienhard, Origen: Homilies on Luke, 5.
15 Scio quoddam evangelium, quod appellatur secundum Thomam, et iuxta Mathiam; et alia plura legimus … (“I know of a certain Gospel, which is called ‘According to Thomas,’ as well as one according to Mathias; and we have read a number of others …” [Rauer, ed., Homilien zu Lukas, 5, ll. 8–11]).
16 Scholia in Lucam 1 (date unknown) in PG 17:312B: 
. Compare also Joseph Sickenberger, Titus von Bostra: Studien zu dessen Lukashomilien (TU NF VI; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1901) 143, who gives this text from ms Marc. 544: 
. This sentence comes in a scholion to Luke attributed to Titus of Bostra and Origen, but clearly it closely resembles Origen.
17 Eusebius Werke. Zweiter Band. Die Kirchengeschichte I–V (ed. Eduard Schwarz; GCS 9.1; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1903) 252.
18 
also has the sense of pseudonymity in the discussion of works falsely attributed to Plato in Platonic circles: see Diogenes Laertius, VP 3.62.
19 Schwarz, Kirchengeschichte I–V, 253: sed et de illis sciendum est, quae sub nomine apostolorum ab haereticis proferuntur, velut Petri et Thomae et Matthiae et ceterorum similiter apostolorum quae appellant euangelia, sed et Andreae et Iohannis atque aliorum apostolorum Actus, quod nusquam prorsus in scriptis veterum, eorum dumtaxat, qui apostolis successerunt, aliqua mentio eorum aut commemoratio habetur.
20 PG 33:500B.
21 PG 33:593A.
22 Cyril may not be inconsistent here: the title 
in 4.36 may refer to the title “Gospel” being false, rather than being a reference to falsely attributed authorship.
23 Jürgen Tubach, “Die Thomas-Psalmen und der Mani-Jünger Thomas,” in Il Manicheismo. Nuove Prospettive della Richerca. Quinto congresso internazionale di studi sul Manicheismo (ed. Luigi Cirillo and Alois van Tongerloo; Manichaean Studies 5; Turnhout: Brepols, 1997) 397–416, at 401, 409: “der Mani-Jünger Thomas ein Phantom ist, und es ihn nie gegeben hat … . ein Phantom der häresiologischen Literatur der Antike, da man sich nicht vorstellen konnte und wollte, dass ein Apostel Autor von häretischen Schriften sei.” Also on the skeptical side are F. Forrester Church and Gedaliahu G. Stroumsa, “Mani's Disciple Thomas and the Psalms of Thomas,” VC 34 (1980) 47–55.
24 See Samuel N. C. Lieu, Manichaeism in Mesopotamia & the Roman East (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World, 118; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 264.
25 Didymos der Blinde. Kommentar zum Ecclesiastes. Teil I.1. Kommentar zu Eccl. Kap. 1,1 – 2,14 (ed. Gerhard Binder and Leo Liesenborghs; Papyrologische Texte und Abhandlungen 25; Bonn: Habelt, 1979) 22. For pessimism about the possibility of a precise dating, see xiii.
26 S. Hieronymi Presbyteri Commentariorum in Mattheum Libri IV (ed. David Hurst and Marc Adriaen; CC, SL 77; Turnhout: Brepols, 1969) 1; also PL 26:17A.
27 Sc. make it clear that, as Luke 1:1 says, “many have undertaken, etc.”
28 Sancti Ambrosii Opera. Pars Quarta. Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucan (ed. C. (Karl) Schenkl; CSEL 32:4; Leipzig: Freytag, 1902) 10–11.
29 Carolus de Boor, Neue Fragmente des Papias, Hegesippus und Pierius in bisher unbekannten Excerpten aus der Kirchengeschichte des Philippus Sidetes (TU 5; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1888) 169 (no. 4).
30 PG 28:432B.
31 Text: Ernst von Dobschütz, Das Decretum Gelasianum de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis (TU 38; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1912) 11 and commentary on 295–96. See also Wilhelm Schneemelcher, ed., New Testament Apocrypha (translation ed. Robert McL. Wilson; vol. 1: Gospels and Related Writings; rev. ed.; Cambridge, U.K.: James Clarke, 1991) 1:38–40.
32 Dobschütz, Decretum Gelasianum, 295.
33 Decr. Gel. 5; Dobschütz, Decretum Gelasianum, 12, with comment on 302. See further The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English Translation (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993) 645–51.
34 PG 86-1:1213C.
35 It is not completely clear, however, which Philip is in view here. “Philip” could be the Philip who was one of the twelve, or Philip the Evangelist (Acts 6:5; 8; 21:8) or a fusion of the two (for which see Polycrates, apud Eusebius, HE 5.24.2). On this, see Richard J. Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006) 440–42. If Philip is thought of as belonging more to the Acts of the Apostles, then coming after Thomas is more natural.
36 Puech, “Une collection de paroles de Jésus récemment retrouvée,” 149, notes this connection in his discussion of the Pistis Sophia.
37 PG 86-1:21C.
38 PL 92:307C.
39 Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos (ed. P. Bonifatius Kotter; vol. 3; Patristische Texte und Studien 17; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1975) 113.
40 See Andrew Louth, St John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) 203–7 on the second treatise, and 205 on the taunt of Leo and the reference to Thomas.
41 Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio (ed. Giovanni Domenico [J.D.] Mansi; vol. 13; Florence: Zatta, 1767) 293B.
42 These Acts are translated into Latin by the colourful Anastasius the Librarian, ca. 872 c.e. (for this section, see PL 418C).
43 Scriptores Hiberniae Minores. Pars I (ed. Robert E. McNally; CCSL 108B; Turnhout: Brepols, 1973) 133 (text). On the date, McNally comments: “The series of glosae and questiones here is representative of an aspect of the Irish tradition of biblical exegesis as it developed on the continent in the late eighth century at a time before the Carolingian renaissance had become fully effective” (131).
44 PL 95:1533B.
45 Scholia in Dionysii Thracis artem grammaticam (ed. Alfred Hilgard; Grammatici Graeci I/3; Leipzig: Teubner, 1901) 565–86, at 568, and xxxvii for the date.
46 Nicephori Archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani opuscula historica (ed. Carolus de Boor; Leipzig: Teubner, 1880) 135; also PG 100:1060B. On the question of the date, see Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha, 1:41.
47 Nicephori Archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani, 133; also PG 100:1057B.
48 One manuscript even has 
(1700 lines), the same length as the book of Proverbs! Harnack made the same judgment about the size, though about the Infancy Gospel. See Adolf von Harnack, Die Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1897) 1:1, 16. The situation might be alleviated a little, if there was material from Thomas intended to go in the blank pages in Codex II; even this, however, would still not make Thomas nearly as long as Nicephorus reckons it.
49 The numbers of characters were counted for nt books by using the NA27, and stripping out all breathings, accents, etc. as well as spaces; the characters were counted by Microsoft Word. Coptic counts similarly, with the texts from J. Warren Wells's Sahidica text. There are all sorts of factors (e.g., the use of nomina sacra, uncertainty over passages such as the pericope adulterae or the ending of Mark) which make the counts inaccurate as totals for ancient manuscripts, but the aim here is merely to come up with approximate and relative lengths.
50 PG 110:556C. The date is known from the fact that George's work extends from creation to 842 c.e.
51 See 1 Keph. 12. For translation, see Iain Gardner and Samuel N. C. Lieu, Manichaean Texts from the Roman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 263.
52 PG 110:556A.
53 Denise Papachryssanthou, “Les sources grecques pour l’histoire des Pauliciens d’Asie Mineure I. Pierre de Sicile. Histoire des Pauliciens,” Travaux et mémoires 4 (1970) 3–67, at 31; also PG 104:1265C.
54 Compare the attribution to “Alogius” above (§ 13).
55 Jean Gouillard, “Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie,” Travaux et mémoires 2 (1967) 1–316. For the anathemas, see “Appendix III. Les anathèmes parasites de Ma, fol. 74–75,” 306–13; also see the supplementary introduction at 17–18. On the date, see 305.
56 Gouillard, “Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie,” 308, 304.
57 A Manichaean connection of some kind is likely. There is a collection of Epistles of Mani, and the number five is a Manichaean favorite.
58 
.
59 Wanda Wolska-Conus, “Les sources grecques pour l’histoire des Pauliciens d’Asie Mineure III. Photius: Récit de la réapparition des Manichéens,” Travaux et mémoires 4 (1970) 99–173, at 137; also PG 102:41B.
60 The language is awkward here, but probably refers to Sisinnius as Mani's successor (compare § 22).
61 Douwe Holwerda and Herman J. Scheltema, eds. Basilicorum libri LX, Series B. Scholia (Scripta Universitatis Groninganae; Groningen: Wolters, 1959) 4:1268.
62 On the date of the Basilica and its scholia, see Thomas E. van Bochove, To Date and Not to Date (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1996) 107–21.
63 For the text, see Kirsopp Lake, Texts from Mount Athos (ed. Samuel R. Driver; Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastica, vol. 5, part 2; Oxford: Clarendon, 1903) 173. I take the date from Ulrich Becker, Jesus und die Ehebrecherin. Untersuchungen zur Text- und Überlieferungsgeschichte von Joh. 7.53—8.11 (Berlin: Alfred Töpelmann, 1963) 145. See also discussion in Alfred Schmidtke, Neue Fragmente und Untersuchungen zu den judenchristlichen Evangelien. Ein Beitrag zur Literatur und Geschichte der Judenchristen (TU 37; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1911) 149–50: this is marred, however, by his assumption that Eusebius knew the contents of the Gospel of Thomas.
64 Becker, Jesus und die Ehebrecherin, 145, and even more so on 148–49.
65 For the text, see Gerhard Ficker, Die Phundagiagiten. Ein Beitrag zur Ketzergeschichte des byzantinischen Mittelalters (Leipzig: Barth, 1908) 161, and 274 for the date. I owe this reference to a mention in Antonio Rigo, “I Vangeli dei Bogomili,” Apocrypha 16 (2005) 163–98, at 165.
66 Aleksandur Milev, Gruckite zitija na Kliment Ochridski (Sofia, 1966) 76–146, at 102.
67 Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson, eds., The Fifth Gospel: The Gospel of Thomas Comes of Age (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1998); Nicholas Perrin, “Thomas: The Fifth Gospel?” JETS 49 (2006) 67–80.
68 Corpus Iuris Canonici I. Decretum magistri Gratiani (ed. Emil Friedberg; Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1879) 38.
69 PL 161:280C.
70 Peter Abailard. Sic et Non: A Critical Edition (ed. Blanche B. Boyer and Richard McKeon; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976–1977) 108–9, at 109.
71 Boyer and McKeon, Sic et Non, 91.
72 Panagiotes N. Simotas, 
(Analecta Vlatadon 42; Thessalonica: Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies, 1984) 270.
73 See n. 16 above.
74 For the text, see Angelico Guarienti, Catena Aurea in Quattuor Evangelia I. Expositio in Matthaeum et Marcum (Turin: Marietti, 1953) 6. On the date, see Aidan Nichols's Introduction to the reprint of Newman's translation: Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea. Volume 1: St. Matthew (Southampton: The Saint Austin Press, 1997) v.
75 It must be borne in mind, however, that this observation necessarily relies on confidence in the textual traditions of both Jerome and Aquinas on a small point of spelling.
76 For the text, see Angelico Guarienti, Catena Aurea in Quattuor Evangelia II. Expositio in Lucam et Ioannem (Turin: Marietti, 1953) 6. The Luke commentary was finished sometime between the completion of Matthew and Thomas's death in 1274.
77 Translation here from Michael E. Stone, “Armenian Canon Lists VI: Hebrew Names and Other Attestations,” HTR 94 (2001) 477–91, at 485; there is also a French translation in Marie-Félicité Brosset, Histoire chronologique par Mkhithar d’Aïrivank (St.-Pétersbourg: Commissionnaires de l’Académie impériale des sciences, 1869) 22. For the original text, see Hagop S. Anasyan, Armenian Bibliology, 5–18th Centuries (Erevan: Academy of Sciences, 1959) 1:xl [in Armenian]. For the date, see the more extensive discussion of Mechitar in Michael E. Stone, “Armenian Canon Lists III: The Lists of Mechitar of Ayrivankc (c. 1285 c.e.),” HTR 69 (1976) 289–300.
78 It is noted by Dobschütz, Decretum Gelasianum, 295, following Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlicher Literatur 1:1, 16, and Theodor Zahn, Forschungen zur Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Canons. Teil V, I. Paralipomena (Erlangen: Deichert, 1893) 109–14, 121–23, and 115–57 generally. More recent treatments of the testimonia to Thomas, however, have not made reference to it.
79 The reference to the Epistle of Barnabas is odd, given that the list later has the Letter of Barnabas as a separate entry; it is odd that the epistle of Jude is identified as an apocryphon; an epistle of Thomas is, as far as I am aware, unknown elsewhere. Stone proposes an elegant solution to the problem of the apocryphal epistle attributed to Jude, namely that “of Judas and of Thomas” should be read as referring to a single letter “of Judas Thomas.”
80 Stone, “Armenian Canon Lists VI,” 484. He notes Vardan vardapet (d. 1270), the Canon of Gregory of Tatew, and some anonymous lists. There is also an unpublished appendix in the dissertation version of Christoph Burchard, Untersuchungen zu Joseph und Aseneth (Ph.D. diss., Göttingen, 1961) 481 (non vidi).
81 For the date (1723–24 c.e.), see Stone, “Armenian Canon Lists VI,” 486.
82 PG 145:888C.
83 For the text, see Origenes Werke IV. Der Johanneskommentar (ed. Erwin Preuschen; GCS; Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1903) 561–62.
84 Carlson, “Origen's Use of the Gospel of Thomas.”
85 Jesus changed the name of Simon to Cephas/Peter (John 1:42); the apostle John is not called such in John's Gospel, but presumably assumed by Origen to be called the beloved disciple; James is not named thus in John's Gospel, and so may be assumed by Origen to have a different nomenclature there: both James and John are referred to, but only as “the sons of Zebedee” in John 21:2; similarly John's Gospel is the only Gospel to mention the name “Cephas” in connection with Peter. Also noteworthy in this connection is Justin, Dial. 106, which thematizes Jesus’ changing of the disciples’ names.
86 Text and (slightly modified) translation from Carl Schmidt and Violet MacDermot, Pistis Sophia (NHS 9; Leiden: Brill, 1978) 71–72 (= alt. 142, 144).
87 Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur, 1:166–67.
88 In addition to the references to Philip already in examples above, see Pan. 26.13.2–3 and there are two other references in Wesley W. Isenberg, “Introduction,” in Nag Hammadi Codex II,2–7: Volume One, 132.
89 See e.g., the references to the “five trees” in PS 1:1, 10; 2:86, 93, 96.
90 For text and translation, see Iain Gardner, Anthony Alcock and Wolf-Peter Funk, Coptic Documentary Texts from Kellis. Volume 1 (Oxford: Oxbow, 1999) 157, 160, and 9 n. 18 for the date.
91 See Alcock and Funk, Coptic Documentary Texts, 79, for brief comment on the works mentioned in these Kellis letters.
92 On the use of Thomas in Manichaean literature, see Ernst Hammerschmidt, “Das Thomas-evangelium und die Manichäer,” OrChr 46 (1962) 120–23; Paul A. Mirecki, “Coptic Manichaean Psalm 278 and Gospel of Thomas 37,” in Manichaica Selecta: Studies Presented to Professor Julien Ries on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (ed. Alois van Tongerloo and Søren Giversen; Manichaean Studies, 1; Leuven: International Association of Manichaean Studies and the Centre of the History of Religions, 1991) 243–62; Hans-Joachim Klimkeit, “Apocryphal Gospels in Central and East Asia,” in Studies in Manichean Literature and Art (ed. idem and Manfred Heuser; NHMS 46; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 189–211; Wolf-Peter Funk, “Einer aus tausend, zwei aus zehntausend. Zitate aus dem Thomasevangelium in den koptischen Manichaica,” in For the Children, Perfect Instruction: Studies in Honor of Hans-Martin Schenke (ed. Hans-Gebhard Bethge et al.; NHMS 54; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2002) 67–94; Peter Nagel, “Synoptische Evangelientraditionen im Thomasevangelium und im Manichäismus,” in Das Thomasevangelium: Entstehung–Rezeption–Theologie (ed. Jörg Frey, Jens Schröter, and Enno E. Popkes; BZNW 157; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008) 272–93. Also noteworthy is Grosso, 
, 277–304, and n.b. Grosso's list on 303, which expands considerably the number of possible influences of Gos. Thom. upon Manichaean literature.
93 E.g., Gos. Thom. incipit + 1/ Mani, Epistula Fundamenti, fr. 2 (mid-third cent.) = Augustine, Contra epistulam fundamenti 11: see Sancti Aureli Augustini De utilitate credendi: De duabus animabus. Contra Fortunatum. Contra Adimatum. Contra epistulam fundamenti. Contra Faustum (ed. Joseph Zycha; CSEL 25/1; Vienna: Tempsky 1891) 193–248, at 206; Gos. Thom. 44 and 2 Keph. 416:12–16/2 Keph. 417:25–29 (late third cent.); Gos. Thom. 47/ PsBk I 179:24–27; Gos. Thom. 37/ PsBk II 278: 99:26–30 (end of third cent.); Gos. Thom. 17 and M 789=M 551 (date uncertain) /So 18220 (seventh–ninth cent.?); Gos. Thom. 23/ 1 Keph. 285.24–25 (late third cent.) / M 763, r II, 24–28 (date uncertain).
94 Gos. Thom. 5.1 in 1 Keph. 163:28–29 (late third cent.): “Indeed, concerning the mystery that is hidden from the sects, the saviour cast an allusion [to] his disciples: ‘Understand that which is before your face and that which is hidden from you will be revealed to you.’ ”
95 For the text, see Zycha, Sancti Aureli Augustini De utilitate credendi etc., 751–52. For the date, see Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (London: Faber, 1967) 184.
96 Augustine makes no mention of Thomas in his reply (which comes in 30.5–6).
97 Hans-Gebhard Bethge and Jens Schröter, “Das Evangelium nach Thomas” in Nag Hammadi Deutsch: 1. Band. NHC I,1 – V,1 (ed. Hans-Martin Schenke, Hans-Gebhard Bethge and Ursula Ulrika Kaiser; GCS NF 8; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001) 151–81, at 152.
98 For the text, see Éthérie: Journal de voyage (ed. Hélène Pétré; SC 21; Paris: Cerf, 1971) 162, and 14–16 for the discussion of the date.
99 Uwe-Karsten Plisch, The Gospel of Thomas (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2008) 19, 21.
100 Pétré, Éthérie, 163, with n. 4.
101 OLD 99. So, rightly, Plisch, Thomas, 21.
102 Pace also Plisch, Thomas, 21: “about St. Thomas.”
103 A very common view: see e.g., Gilles Quispel, “Syrian Thomas and the Syrian Macarius,” VC 18 (1964) 226–35, at 234; Birger A. Pearson, Ancient Gnosticism: Traditions and Literature (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007) 267.
104 PL 20:502A.
105 The list of rejected works here is referred to extensively later: see PL 56:505A; 67:248C; 84:652B–C; 130:705B.
106 For text and discussion, see Walter Ewing Crum, “Coptic Anecdota (II. Severus and the Heretics),” JTS 44 (1943) 179–82.
107 Jean Darrouzès and Vitalien Laurent, Dossier grec de l’Union de Lyon (1273–1277) (Archives de l’orient chrétien 16; Paris: Institut Français d’Études Byzantines, 1976) 564–73, at 566.
108 According to Lancellotti, Naassenes, 1, there is only one other reference to the Naassenes after Hippolytus, and that is in a derivative passage in Theodoret of Cyr.
109 As noted above, rightly or wrongly I have not followed Attridge in regarding Jerome's translation as a distinct testimonium.
110 Nichols, “Introduction,” in Catena Aurea, 1:v.
111 See Tony Chartrand-Burke, The Infancy Gospel of Thomas: The Text, its Origins, and its Transmission (Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 2001) 118, 249, 270.
112 See also Chartrand-Burke, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, 15, 16.
113 See e.g., Gilles Quispel, “ ‘The Gospel of Thomas’ and the ‘Gospel of the Hebrews,’ ”NTS 12 (1966) 371–82, at 371–72. Kendrick Grobel, “How Gnostic is the Gospel of Thomas?” NTS 8 (1962) 367–73, was already similarly skeptical. Cyril C. Richardson, “The Gospel of Thomas: Gnostic or Encratite?” in The Heritage of the Early Church: Essays in Honor of Georges Vasilievich Florovsky (ed. David Neiman and Margaret A. Schatkin; Rome: Pont. Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1973) 65–76, prefers “Encratite,” though does not exclude some Gnostic leanings. For more recent critical voices, expressing what is now essentially a consensus, see Antti Marjanen, “Is Thomas a Gnostic Gospel?” in Thomas at the Crossroads (ed. Risto Uro; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998) 107–39; April D. DeConick, The Original Gospel of Thomas in Translation (New York: T&T Clark, 2006) 4.
114 E.g., 1 Tim. 3.16: 
and Barn. 5.6: 
115 Hammerschmidt, “Das Thomasevangelium und die Manichäer,” 120–23, argues that the appeal of Thomas to the Manichees lay in connection between the “twin theology” and the conversion of Mani.
116 On the other hand, some Syriac literature (e.g., the Acts of Thomas) does betray knowledge of the contents of Thomas, so this point cannot be pressed too far.
117 For the testimonia to G. Jud. in Irenaeus, Epiphanius and Theodoret, see Simon J. Gathercole, The Gospel of Judas: Rewriting Early Christianity (Oxford: OUP, 2007) 114–31. On the absence of reference to G. Mary, see Christopher M. Tuckett, The Gospel of Mary (OECGT; Oxford: OUP, 2007) 3.
118 Martin McNamara, The Apocrypha in the Irish Church (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1975) 118–19; Frederick M. Biggs, The Apocrypha: Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture (Instrumenta Anglistica Mediaevalia 1; Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007) 56.
