Thomas, “the Israelite philosopher,” as he called himself, author of the Pseudo-Thomas which is said to date from the second century, appears to have been a Jewish convert belonging to one of the innumerable “heretical” sects of the earliest times. It may be guessed, therefore, that the Pseudo-Thomas was first written in Syriac, though the text we possess is in Greek. It is considered the model on which all the other Gospels of the Infancy were founded, but the Arabic variant contains so much divergent matter as to make it probable that the writer drew on some other early source which has not been preserved. Mohammed was acquainted with this Arabian Gospel, and Mohammedans did not cease to venerate the sycamore-tree at Matarea under which the Arabian evangelist states that the Virgin and Child rested, till it died about a year ago. The Pseudo-Thomas contains some vindictive stories, which were modified or omitted in the other versions: probably they are all to be traced to Elisha and his she-bears: a theory which I offer to those who cannot imagine how they arose. A curious feature in these writings is the scarcity of anything actually original; the most original story to be found in them is that of the clay sparrows, which captivated the East and penetrated into the folk-lore even of remote Iceland. Notwithstanding the fulminations of Councils, the apocryphal Gospels were never suppressed; they enjoyed an enormous popularity during the Middle Ages, and many details derived solely from these condemned books crept into the _Legenda Aurea_ and other strictly orthodox works. The “Little Child” of Isaiah’s prophecy was the cause of troops of wild beasts being convoked to attend the Infant Christ. Lions acted as guides for the flight into Egypt, and it is mentioned that not only did they respect the Holy Family, but also the asses and oxen which carried their baggage. Besides, the lions, leopards, and other creatures “wagged their tails with great reverence” (though all these animals are not of the dog species, but of the cat, in which wagging the tail signifies the reverse of content). This is the subject of an old English ballad:— “And when they came to Egypt’s land, Amongst those fierce wild beasts, Mary, she being weary, Must needs sit down to rest. ‘Come, sit thee down,’ said Jesus, ‘Come, sit thee down by Me, And thou shall see how these wild beasts Do come and worship Me.’”