Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/260

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the remarks prefixed to the former recension of the Gospel of Thomas, little remains to be said. This is a briefer collection of the same stories, commencing when Jesus was five years old and ending when he was eight. The details, however, are not always the same in the two books. If the longer text of this false Gospel contains less than some ancient copies, it is to be supposed that, for one reason or another, transcribers and editors only appropriated so much of it as suited their purpose. This shorter copy is inserted here to show how little importance was really attached to documents of this kind. That it was so is manifest from the extraordinary freedom which was taken with them, altering, abridging, omitting, or adding to them at pleasure. To such an extent was this carried that probably the restoration of a single original text of this class is beyond all hope of attainment. The shorter Thomas was first published by Tischendorf.