Once Again on the Story about Jesus the Dyer

Abstract

For a long time, a number of religious stories of Early Christian Apocrypha, including the so-called Infancy Gospels, have been on the periphery of the mainstream evolution of Christianity; yet changing, they sometimes penetrated even into other cultures (e.g., Islam). Among them is a tale about the miracle worked by the child Jesus at the dyers workshop, namely: with one dye he dyed clothes in different colors (as a variant: he made clothes of different colors white). Reviewing all multilingual versions of the story, the essay tentatively attempts to trace its origin.