Note 10 — Chapter XV · THE METHOD OF M. LOISY

In this matter, as about the Infancy generally, the apocryphal gospels are as rich in detail as the canonical are poor. Again and again does Joseph figure in them as a working carpenter, or plough-maker, or house-builder.10 The words of Origen might imply that it was from some such source that Celsus drew his statement that Jesus was a carpenter; and yet none of the preserved apocrypha speaks of Jesus as working at carpentry save by way of such miracles as that of the elongation of the piece of wood. Having regard to the mythical aspect of the whole, we suggest an easily misinterpreted Gnostic source for the basis. For some schools of the Gnostics, the Jewish God was the Demiourgos, the Artisan or Creator, a subordinate being in their divine hierarchy. The word could mean an artisan of any kind; and architector, the term in the Latin version of Thomas, points to a reflex of the idea of “creator” which attached to the Gnostic term.