ON LOVE; PART CCCLXXXVII
ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•Α
GoodWill IS Love in Action
ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•Α
The Gospel of Thomas
These are the hidden words that the living Jesus spoke. And Didymos Judas Thomas wrote them down.
(30)Jesus says: “Where there are three gods, they are gods. Where there are two or one, I am with him.“
(31) Jesus says: “No prophet is accepted in his (own) village. A physician does not heal those who know him.“
(32) Jesus says: “A city built upon a high mountain (and) fortified cannot fall, nor can it be hidden.“
(33) Jesus says: “What you will hear with your ear {with the other ear} proclaim from your rooftops. For no one lights a lamp (and) puts it under a bushel, nor does he put it in a hidden place. Rather, he puts it on a lampstand, so that everyone who comes in and goes out will see its light.“
(34) Jesus says: “If a blind (person) leads a blind (person), both will fall into a pit.”14
In the last essay we concluded our discussion of the twenty-ninth saying and this is another rather obscure one from the perspective of what we may have come to expect in the reporting of the Master’s words by His apostles. We looked at two versions which, while they are quite similar, differ in one aspect that may be of importance in the final analysis.
- Patterson and Robinson and the other regular translations that we use said much the same as: “If the flesh came into being because of the spirit, it is a wonder. But if the spirit (came into being) because of the body, it is a wonder of wonders. Yet I marvel at how this great wealth has taken up residence in this poverty“.
- The Interlinear Version says: “If the flesh come to be because of spirit, a wonder (it) is; if spirit however, because of the body, a wonder wondrous (it) is. “Rather, I myself become amazed at this, that how this great richness was placed in this poverty“.
Other differences here are in the idea of Jesus being amazed or that He marvels as there are other renderings which translate this as “I wonder“, this however we should discount as wonderment is not a logical perspective for the Christ to have in this regard. The difference cited above is that this great richness or great wealth, or treasure as Paul calls this in our closing saying yesterday from 2 Corinthians, is dwelling in or is placed in this human form on the Earth. While it is True that the Soul dwells in the body from one perspective, the better reality is that the Soul IS the Life of the body; it is not merely and occupant and from this perspective the idea of placed in is of more value to our understanding. It is the objective of the Soul to Transform his own Life in this world to become the expression of his own Light, Love and Power rather than the carnal expression that the man in the world invariably begins his mature Life with. While this may seem an insignificant difference, there is a point here; the Soul, the Life of the True man, chooses his place of incarnation with the intent of accomplishing his own goal of Transformation and in this sense he places himself into what he believes to be a suitable environment where he can overcome the carnal instincts and the nurturing. It is in this regard that the Master remarks on His amazement that the form Life, the carnal Life in the world becomes so unsuitable and this IS, from a spiritual perspective, the poverty into which the Soul has placed himself and from which he has not yet been able to overcome the wiles of the flesh; the illusion and the glamour of Life in the world.
The first part of this saying is the more understandable and yet here there is mystery as well as we are not accustomed to the tone that the Master takes except in the reports of the Master’s words from Thomas’ Gospel and here again we should reflect on our premise that the ideas and the thoughts of the Master are colored by the personality style of the apostle who is writing as each sees and hears things according to his own psyche; there is no standard view that ALL must share. This is also True in the translations and the renderings of His words by those who interpret the apostle’s words, not only in this purported work by Thomas, but our accepted bible as well. This we have noted throughout our essays as the doctrinal bent of the translators and here in this idea we can see that this is so from the perspective that the words are rendered by ALL men, the apostles, the translators and the commentators, according to what they believe and what they KNOW…their own unique perspectives. Then here in this saying and in the last we have a kind of play on words that says that is is a wonder that the bodies of men are created for the use of the indwelling Spirits, here is a perspective of dwelling as we say above, and this Truly is a miracle; that the self aware and self conscious Souls which are the True man can work that consciousness and awareness through the human form and become, if you will, that form in time and space while at the same time never losing his True divine identity. Most of this is of course but our own understanding of Life but the Master does comment on this wonder and goes on to say that it would be a wonder of wonders if it were the opposite as is commonly believed by men in the world; that they are this form Life and that some part of this, the Soul, will continue after death; in this idea of wonder of wonders is the Masters sense of the incredulity of this explanation of Life which He confirms for us in the next part of the saying regarding the treasure and the poverty.
In the ending of the last essay we left the entirety of the Apostle Paul’s words to the Corinthians and while the idea was to bring forth the same thought that we find in Thomas, the whole of the saying gives us the greater context. That “we have this treasure in earthen vessels” leaves us with the same idea as above; the form is for the use of the Spirit and, from the perspective of the Life of the disciple, this spiritual or divine part, the Soul, IS the treasure and the earthen vessel is the body which the Master offers to us in His parabolic way as poverty; devoid of the spiritual presence afforded by one’s focus upon that aspect of Life which IS in Paul’s words here “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:7, 6).
Our next saying, the thirtieth, is another that is rather obscure and there is little of similarity in the accepted gospels save one short and much misunderstood saying. Most all of the translations of this are the same except for one which we will post below along with the Interlinear and the Greek fragment which is longer and different in context:
- “Where there are three gods, they are gods. Where there are two or one, I am with him.” (Patterson and Robinson)
- “Where there are three divine beings they are divine. Where there are two or one, I myself dwell with that person.” (Layton)
- “The place which has three gods there, in god they are; the place which has two or one, I myself exist with him.” (Interlinear Version)
- “[Jesus sa]id, [“Wh]ere there are [th]r[ee] t[hey ar]e [without] God. And [w]here there is only o[ne], I say, I am with hi[m]. Li[f]t the stone and there you will find me. Split the wood and I am there.” (Greek fragment; Bernhard).
- Jesus says: “Where there are [two (?) they are] not without God, and where there is one, I say <to you>, I am with him. Raise the stone, and there thou wilt find me; split the wood: I am even there!” (Greek fragment; Doresse).
- [Jesus said], “Where there are [three], they are without God, and where there is but [a single one], I say that I am with [him]. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there. Split the piece of wood, and I am there.” (Greek fragment; Attridge).
We should note here in the three variations of the Greek that one of them is markedly different; Doresse renders two instead of three and renders “not without God” where the others render “without God”. Also, the numbering from the Coptic is not in the original text and does no apply to the Greek where it used for matching only and here in this single Greek verse is a combination of the thirtieth and the seventy seventh from the Coptic text. We should note here that the Coptic and the Greek, while on the same subject, are also seemingly different in context. At best here we can find confusion; the belief is that the Greek fragments precede the Coptic which was copied from the Greek and in this we should likely consider the Greek as the text to discuss but, having said this, what of the other sayings for which there is no Greek fragment? We can only work with what we have and in this case we may be able to make better sense of the Greek than the Coptic. Let us begin by looking at some to the comments on the Coptic version:
- J. D. Crossan writes: “Put mildly, that is not very clear, and we are cast back on the Greek of Oxy P 1, lines 23-27. Harold W. Attridge’s recent study of that papyrus under ultraviolet light led him to the following restored translation: ‘Jesus said, “Where there are three, they are without god, and where there is but a single one I say that I am with him.”‘ He concludes that, ‘instead of an absolutely cryptic remark about gods being gods, the fragment asserts that any group of people lacks divine presence. That presence is available only to the “solitary one.” The importance of the solitary (monachos) is obvious in the Gospel. Cf. Sayings 11, 16, 22, 23, 49, 75, and 106. This saying must now be read in connection with those remarks on the “monachose.”‘ (156).” (Four Other Gospels, p. 78).
- Robert M. Grant and David Noel Freedman write: “This saying is found in different versions, Greek and Coptic. The Greek speaks of some number of persons – more than one – who are not without God (if the fragmentary text has been correctly restored; perhaps it should read, ‘Wherever there are two, they are without God’), and goes on to say, ‘And where there is one alone, I say, I am with him.’ Then it adds the last sectino of Saying 77 (Coptic). The Coptic, on the other hand, says that three gods are gods, and that where there are two or one, Jesus is with him. The second half of the saying is fairly easy to explain. It looks like a Gnostic version of ‘Where there are two or three gathered in my name, there am I in their midst’ (Matthew 18:20); as a Gnostic, Thomas reduces the numbers. Which version is really the original can hardly be determined; the medieval Cathari seem to have quoted a combination of both versions. ‘Where there was one of his little ones, he would be with him; and where there were two, similarly; and where there were three, in the same way’ (v. Dollinger, Beitrage zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters, II, page 210). The remark about the gods may possibly involve a criticism of Christian doctrine as tritheism; according to the Coptic text, Christians may be worshipping three (mere) gods (for ‘God’ as possibly inferior to Jesus, see Saying 97).” (The Secret Sayings of Jesus, p. 149).
- Funk and Hoover write: “Thom 30:1-2 is the Thomean version of Matt 18:20 (‘Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, I will be there among them’). Here, however, the solitary one merits God’s presence, not the two or three gathered together. This Thomean idea is found also in thom 4:3; 22:5; 23:2 (also compare 16:4; 49:1; 75). In this respect, the Gospel of Thomas is obviously anti-institutional: it rejects the community (the minimum requirement for which was two or three) as the basic unit in favor of the solitary individual.” (The Five Gospels, p. 490).
- Marvin Meyer writes: “In the New Testament, compare Matthew 18:19-20. In other early Christian literature, compare Ephraem Syrus, Exposition on the Harmony of the Gospel 14: ‘Where there is one, there also am I, or someone might be sad from lonely things, since he himself is our joy and he himself is with us. And where there are two, there also shall I be, since his mercy and grace overshadow us. And when we are three, we assemble just as in church, which is the body of Christ perfected and his image expressed.’ In a medieval inquisition record that recounts the confession of Peter Maurinus, it is said that ‘where there was one little one of his, he himself would be with him, and where there were two, similarly, and where there were three, in the same way.'” (The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, pp. 82-83).
We will deal with the last part of the Greek version when we come to that part in the Coptic so that for now we have only the matching parts with which to deal. First we do not see the idea of the Trinity in either version as the Trinity is not three gods or Gods but ONE only and this is an idea that the Master never Truly speaks of. The relation to the ideas from Matthew should also be discounted as there the context is in the Master’s speaking to His disciples alone and in regard to “Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth” which is an obscure saying in its own right. Here in Matthew’s Gospel we should try to see that in these disciples are those who have the Love and the Power of the Soul flowing through them and in this sense they would be of one accord. Here, perhaps in and view of confirming support for the elimination of doubt, the Master tells them that when two of these disciples agree on a thing through the Love and Power of their individual Souls, that it will be right and will be accomplished; then comes that saying that some believe related. The whole saying goes thus:
“Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:18-20).
Can we see the idea here of the disciple; that in his own Power can he can accomplish great things, the greater things that the Master tells us of? Can we see that Jesus clarifies this to say as well that when they can act in full accord with each other as disciples, that what they deem as right IS right because it is based in the Wisdom from above and testified to by another? And can we see the reality of the last part where they are to realize that as Souls in form gathered together, they have the multiplied benefit of the Christ Within each of them….the same Christ acting within two or three? Now what things they should bind or loose is unclear as is those ideas upon which they would agree on and ask for. We should note here that this does not preclude the ability to act alone as we see in the first verse but, as we said, the Master likely includes these multiples as a way to overcome the confusion and the doubt that can come upon them as new disciples. We do not see here any relationship to these words that we are considering from Thomas’ Gospel.
Looking at the Coptic version as it is the more difficult, we are reminded of that saying from Psalm 82 which is repeated by the Master to the Jews in the Gospel of John; In the Psalm we read “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes” (Psalm 82:6-7). Here in this short Psalm the writer is acclaiming the righteous judgement of God and bewailing the judgments of men and admonishing them to act justly; then, in our quoted lines he reminds them as the voice of God that they too are gods if they could but realize the Truth. In John’s Gospel the Master is addressing those Jews that intended to stone him for claiming to be the Son; we read this: “Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said , Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do , though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him” (John 10:34-38). Here we should see that no matter what one thinks of the Psalm, the fact that the Master uses it as His point is of significance in our own understanding of ourselves. Doctrine however does not see these ideas as we do preferring to see the idea of the Psalm as directed as the magistrates and judges in that day only rather than the unjust generally and account the Master repeating of this to those same type persons although there is no reference in the text except that they were the Jews at the Temple, on Solomon’s Porch, at the time of the festival and it appears from the few references to this area that it was a place for the common people. Again we find the trend of doctrine to limit and constrict the words of the Master rather than to see them in their fullness and while this may not even bear on our saying from Thomas, it is an important point as the Master chooses to repeat this.
If we can accept here the idea that “ye are gods“, and understand that even if this is rendered as angels or rulers in the Psalm it IS spoken of by the Master as theos which IS the Greek word that DOES NOT mean angel nor ruler, it only means god or God, then we may have a glimpse of the meaning of this saying in Thomas’ Gospel. Of course there is more to this as we have to understand as well like the ideas of two or three or one though these numbers may not have a True significance. If we can look at the three as a number that means many, we can likely see the state of the man focused in the world; he is serving mammon which for him this is his god or gods as in this idea of mammon there are as many facets as one can imagine. Mammon covers the desires and the thoughts and the attitudes and the actions of the man in the world where we remember the Master’s words that tell us” No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24). What then of “Where there are two or one, I am with him“? We can see here our own idea of duality; that when a man has come to Repentance and changed his focus to the things of God, that He is come to that special place where he sees the Truth and strives toward it while at times being taken back by the attachment and the attraction of the world; here we can see the two. And then, when the striving has completed its course, the duality is done and the man can stand as one, as a single unified being who is expressing the Love and the Power of the Soul, the God and the Christ Within, through his form. Can we see in the two and in the one how the Christ is with that man on his journey to the strait gate?
We can make this same sense of the Greek fragment albeit without the duality that we face ourselves as aspirants.
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
| Aspect of God |
Potency |
Aspect of Man |
In Relation to the Great Invocation |
In relation to the Christ |
|
GOD, The Father |
Will or Power |
Spirit or Life |
Center where the Will of God IS KNOWN |
Life |
|
Son, The Christ |
Love and Wisdom |
Soul or Christ Within |
Heart of God |
Truth |
|
Holy Spirit |
Light or Activity |
Life Within |
Mind of God |
Way |
Note on the Quote of the Day
This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment.
O Thou Who givest sustenance to the universe,
From Whom all things proceed,
To Whom all things return,
Unveil to us the face of the true Spiritual Sun
Hidden by a disc of golden Light
That we may know the Truth And do our whole duty
As we journey to Thy sacred feet.
As with any ancient manuscript from a foreign land, there are many interpretations and translations of The Gayatri available. The version that appears here comes to us in every day English and without the need to have a Sanskrit reference as a key; it is constructed so that all can understand it and use it.
The Gayatri is really quite simple and straightforward in the form that we have here. It begins, as does the Lord’s Prayer, with an acknowledgement of the Majesty of God as the Giver of all Life and as our Source of all things. We ask only one thing in this prayer; that the true spiritual light of God be unveiled to us so that we may see it clearly. The Sun is the giver of light and life to our planet and all that is on it and, just as each of our forms veils the Spirit within, we ask to see and to know the Light that is behind the Sun that which we see.
In saying this we believe that by seeing the true Spiritual Light that we will be able to see and to know the Truth that is in that light. This is the Light that the Buddha and then the Christ brought to us through their lives on Earth. This is the Light that shines in our hearts from our own spiritual selves, the Christ Within.
We close by acknowledging that we have a duty to God, to our brothers and to His Plan and it is this duty that we will perform when we realize the truth as we journey back to God.
Others have said about this prayer that “The Gayatri is one of the oldest invocations, or mantrams, know to man. It carries the power of purpose, the plan of love and the light of truth. It reveals human relationships as vertical alignment with the source of all Energy and horizontal service in the right use of energy. It is a potent tool for use with the inflow of new age energies” (from The Gayatri prayer card of World Goodwill; NY, NY).
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!
- 14 The Gospel of Thomas; Translated by Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson; http://gnosis.org/
