# Anti-covenantal View of Children



## Scott (Feb 9, 2005)

Below is an excerpt from the Acts of Thomas, an ancient fake document about the life of Thomas. Part of its purpose was to encourage chastity and the avoidance of marriage. The excerpt below depicts Jesus (who is supposed to be the twin brother of Thomas) meeting with bride and groom on the wedding night before consumation. He is exhorting them to not consumate the marriage but to live chaste lives. 

I found the description of children interesting. Given low birth rates in America, I suppose this view might be common.
Notice that the supposed Jesus warns that children become useless, possessed by devils, foolish, diseased, and immoral.

Anyway, I am just passing this along as a curiosity. It struck me as particularly strange.



> 11 And the king desired the groomsmen to depart out of the bride-chamber; and when all were gone out and the doors were shut, the bridegrroom lifted up the curtain of the bride-chamber to fetch the bride unto him. And he saw the Lord Jesus bearing the likeness of Judas Thomas and speaking with the bride; even of him that but now had blessed them and gone out from them, the apostle; and he saith unto him: Wentest thou not out in the sight of all? how then art thou found here? But the Lord said to him: I am not Judas which is also called Thomas but I am his brother. And the Lord sat down upon the bed and bade them also sit upon chairs, and began to say unto them:
> 
> 12 Remember, my children, what my brother spake unto you and what he delivered before you: and know this, that if ye abstain from this foul intercourse, ye become holy temples, pure, being quit of impulses and pains, seen and unseen, and ye will acquire no cares of life or of children, whose end is destruction: and if indeed ye get many children, for their sakes ye become grasping and covetous, stripping orphans and overreaching widows, and by so doing subject yourselves to grievous punishments. For the more part of children become useless oppressed of devils, some openly and some invisibly, for they become either lunatic or half withered or blind or deaf or dumb or paralytic or foolish; and if they be sound, again they will be vain, doing useless or abominable acts, for they will be caught either in adultery or murder or theft or fornication, and by all these vvill ye be afflicted.
> 
> But if ye be persuaded and keep your souls chaste before God, there will come unto you living children whom these blemishes touch not, and ye shall be without care, leading a tranquil life without grief or anxiety, looking to receive that incorruptible and true marriage, and ye shall be therein groomsmen entering into that bride-chamber which is full of immortality and light.


----------



## heartoflesh (Feb 9, 2005)

Whoever wrote that had a real chip on their shoulder.


----------

