‘Christian children all must be / Mild, obedient, good as He.’
‘Once in Royal David’s City’,
19th-century hymn
‘He is killing our children’
A parent laments the behaviour of Jesus,
Infancy Gospel of Thomas, c. 2nd century AD
Even when Jesus was small, the villagers realized there was something unusual about him. Perhaps it was because he showed a certain confidence – bordering on arrogance – in the way he spoke to adults. Or perhaps it was due to the way his parents, Mary and Joseph, treated him: with a respect that at times seemed to verge on anxiety.
Or perhaps it was because he killed people.
Jesus’ miracles hadn’t started in a terrible way. Indeed, the first miracle, which would be spoken of for centuries everywhere from Alexandria to Arabia, was one of great charm. One Sabbath day, when he was just five years old, Jesus was playing alongside other village children in the ford of a brook. As young children love to do, he was diverting the rushing water into pools. Once the pool had been formed, the water cleared.
Yet, if one looked closely, there was something slightly strange about the way the water was behaving. It was not obeying the laws of nature as it ran and flowed and cleared. It was instead obeying the command of this boy: he gave the word, and the water changed its course.
Tiring of that game, Jesus began another. Taking some of the soft clay from the muddy edges of the water, he started to sculpt it into little sparrows, twelve in all. At that moment a man happened to walk past and saw what he was doing. Angry that Jesus was profaning the Sabbath in this way, the man went to Joseph and reported what he had seen. Joseph came to the boy. Why, he asked him, was he doing ‘on the Sabbath things which it is not lawful to do?’ Jesus didn’t answer Joseph directly. Instead, he clapped his hands and cried out, ‘Be gone!’ to the sparrows.1 And, chirping, the sparrows flew away.
Had the events of that day stopped there, they would have been remarkable enough. But they did not.
A young boy who had been watching all this came forward, took a willow stick, broke the dams that Jesus had created and let the waters out. Jesus turned on him in a fury. ‘You insolent, godless ignoramus!’ he said. ‘What harm did the pools and the water do to you?’ In a rage, Jesus carried on. ‘Behold,’ he said. ‘Now you also shall wither like a tree, and shall bear neither leaves nor root nor fruit.’2 The curse was opaque, but its effects were clear. For, immediately, that once healthy little boy became withered and deformed.
Worse was to come.
Not long after the incident at the stream, Jesus was passing through his village when another small boy ran past and bumped him on the shoulder. It may have been an accident; it may not. Either way, Jesus was once again angered and uttered an ominously oblique curse. ‘You shall not go further on your way.’3 His meaning became clear a moment later: the little boy fell down dead.
These are the words of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.