Henry Imler July 12th, 2008

Earlier we have seen that it is not wise to mess with Jesus in apocryphal literature.  Either he kills you for brushing his shoulder in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, or he sells your sorry butt into slavery if you don’t go be a missionary where he wants you to be a missionary in the Acts of Thomas.

Well it looks like you don’t wanna mess with his twin, Judas Thomas, either.  In the 6th and 7th chapters of the Acts of Thomas we find Thomas and the dude who bought him at the wedding feast of the king’s only daughter.  Thomas refuses to look up at a free man who is standing over him.  A cupbearer comes over and smacks (smote)him on his face.  Thomas then looked at him and says: My God will forgive you this in the world to come, but in this world He will show His wonders on the hand which smote me, and I shall see it dragged along by a dog.” Then, in completely disjointed act, he begins to sing a beautiful song in Hebrew about the marriage day of the Church and Christ.

Later on in chapter 8 we pick the story back up:

And the cupbearer had gone down to the fountain to draw water, and a lion happened to be there, and rent him and tore him limb from limb.  The the dogs were carrying off his limb singly, and a black dog carried off his right hand, which he had raised against [Thomas] and brought it into the midst of the banquet-room.

People kinda freak out at this point.  A flute-girl breaks her flutes and starts tell everyone that this is either God or an apostle of God and even the king himself asks for the apostle to pray for his daughter.  By the way, this episode is how Thomas became in such good favor with the king that the king let Thomas screw the himself over in chapters 17-21.

Pretty crazy stuff, eh?

• Christianity , Humor , Religion , apocryphal literature
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