ON LOVE; PART XDXX

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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The Gospel of Thomas

These are the hidden words that the living Jesus spoke. And Didymos Judas Thomas wrote them down.

(51) His disciples said to him: “When will the <resurrection> of the dead take place, and when will the new world come?” He said to them: “That (resurrection) which you are awaiting has (already) come, but you do not recognize it.”

(52) His disciples said to him: “Twenty-four prophets have spoken in Israel, and all (of them) have spoken through you.” He said to them: “You have pushed away the living (one) from yourselves, and you have begun to speak of those who are dead.“

(53) His disciples said to him: “Is circumcision beneficial, or not?” He said to them: “If it were beneficial, their father would beget them circumcized from their mother. But the true circumcision in the spirit has prevailed over everything.“

(54) Jesus says: “Blessed are the poor. For the kingdom of heaven belongs to you.“

(55) Jesus says: “Whoever does not hate his father and his mother cannot become a disciple of mine. And whoever does not hate his brothers and his sisters (and) will not take up his cross as I do, will not be worthy of me.“

(56) Jesus says: “Whoever has come to know the world has found a corpse. And whoever has found (this) corpse, of him the world is not worthy.“

(57) Jesus says: “The kingdom of the Father is like a person who had (good) seed. His enemy came by night. He sowed darnel among the good seed. The person did not allow (the servants) to pull up the darnel. He said to them: ‘Lest you go to pull up the darnel (and then) pull up the wheat along with it.’ For on the day of the harvest, the darnel will be apparent and it will be pulled up (and) burned.“

There are some religious doctrines that teach that the world IS an illusion and that the True Life is the spiritual Life but from our perspective this IS NOT an accurate assessment of Life nor of God. That there IS illusion is a part of our own philosophy as can be easily seen in our writing and we add to this illusion that sense of glamour which serves to solidify man’s subjection to the illusions of Life in this world. The Apostle Paul calls this illusion and glamour by the name of vanity but this is not according to the common ideas attached to that word. For a better understanding of the word that Paul uses and which is rendered into English as vanity we use Vincent’s explanation which sheds much light upon our understanding of the idea presented. As we often do, we read again the apostle’s words to the Romans: “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:20-21). On this Vincent tells us of the Greek word here rendered as vanity that: Here, therefore, the reference is to a perishable and decaying condition, separate from God, and pursuing false ends for a deeper understanding of Vincent’s ideas see In the Words of Jesus part 353 and 646). In this understanding of the idea behind the Greek word mataiotes we should be able to see our ideas of illusion and of glamour and the effect that these have on the perception of mankind in the world. 

Here then is our reality; the world IS NOT an illusion but the perception of it in the carnal minds of men is illusory and this is our view if the idea behind this fifty sixth saying from the Gospel of Thomas which tells us that when a man comes to KNOW the world, the reality of the world from a spiritual perspective, he finds that his previous view of it was wrong; here Thomas is translated that it becomes to this man a corpse while other saying, the eightieth, renders this as that this man has found the body and in this we see that while the word appears to be corpse in the fifty sixth, this same idea is presented as body in the eightieth. The various renderings of the fifty sixth are:

• “He who has known the world has found a corpse; and he who has found a corpse, the world is not worthy of him” (Blatz).
• “Whoever has become acquainted with the world has found a corpse, and the world is not worthy of the one who has found the corpse” (Layton).
• “He who has known the world has fallen into a corpse; and he who has fallen into a corpse, the world is not worthy of him!” (Doresse).
• “Whoever has come to understand the world has found (only) a corpse,  and whoever has found a corpse is superior to the world” (Lambdin).
• “Whoever has come to know the world has found a corpse. And whoever has found (this) corpse, of him the world is not worthy” (Patterson and Robinson).
• “Whoever has come to know the world has discovered a carcass, and whoever has discovered a carcass, of that person the world is not worthy” (Patterson and Meyer)
• “Whoever-has-known-the-world, did-he-fall on -a-corpse, and whoever-has-fallen upon-a?-corpse, the-world be-worthy of-him not” (Interlinear Version).

Again, the eightieth is essentially the same with the substitution of the word corpse with the word body although some have chosen to render as dead body and this IS likely influenced by the fifty sixth saying. From our perspective the idea here of corpse or body matters little as in a way these are for us synonymous in this usage. Discovering the Truth of the world or of the body in the world will give the man the understanding that this IS NOT the True Life; this is the message. That the body is considered as dead or considered as just the body and is of no importance; it IS the idea of the Truth as expressed by Lambdin that is of significance here and this idea can be seen in the literal rendering that of the man who comes to KNOW this Truth, the world is not worthy; he IS superior. Here we can repeat our words from the close of the last essay saying that: the world is to be seen as a dead thing from a spiritual perspective, that there is naught that the world has to offer that is of any use to the divine Life of the man in the world and, that when a man can come to understand this, he places himself in a place relative to the Christ and to those ideas that we see in the fifty fifth saying. Here we see the reality of the man who is “worthy of me“, the man who, by doing what is required, has allowed the Christ Within to work through form; thus bringing the reality of the Kingdom into the Life of the man in the world and in this idea the man NOT so focused IS NOT worthy. The same ideas apply to the body of the eightieth saying.

In the ideas that we presented from the apostles’ epistles in the last post are the general understanding given to the world; the Wisdom of the world is of no use to the man who is seeking spiritual reality and neither is Love for the word nor friendship with the world and these ideas should be seen in their fullest. The things of the world and the ways of the world are ideas that ARE to be overcome and of this the Master whom we follow tells us that “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33); this IS our goal and our objective, this IS our duty in Life here on this Earth, to overcome our attractions and our attachments to the world and to see through the illusion and the glamour which we can do as we live in the Light and as we “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father” (Matthew 5:16). The simple message here in this saying is that when we can KNOW the world and understand the Truth of illusion and glamour, that we will see Life as it Truly IS and realize that we are superior to the carnal existence and that that existence is no longer worthy to hold us in the world. Here in this realization the disciple comes to KNOW the Truth, that the world IS and continues to be subjected to the vanity and it will be delivered as we read above in our words from Paul. The Buddha’s words from the Dhammapada section on the World can help us to understand these realities and to see the Truth in this saying from Thomas: The Buddha says:

Do not live in the world, In distraction and false dreams. Outside the dharma. Arise and watch. Follow the way joyfully through this world and beyond. Follow the way of virtue. Follow the way joyfully Through this world and on beyond! For consider the world – A bubble, a mirage. See the world as it is, And death shall overlook you. Come, consider the world, A painted chariot for kings, A trap for fools. But he who sees goes free. As the moon slips from behind a cloud And shines, So the master comes out from behind his ignorance And shines. The world is in darkness. How few have eyes to see! How few the birds who escape the net and fly to heaven! ⁵

Here in the Buddha’s words we find the greater idea of the illusory nature of the world and, as we have seen in these words before, the rarity of the man who of whom we read above from Thomas’ Gospel, the man of whom the Master says: “Whoever has come to know the world has found a corpse“. If we come to KNOW the world, we come to KNOW the Truth.

The next saying from the Gospel of Thomas is the fifty seventh and this represents the halfway mark through the one hundred fourteen sayings that we have recorded in this Coptic text. This saying IS a parable and although it is framed a bit differently, it is the same as the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares from the Gospel of Matthew which is one of the few parables that are explained by the Master to His disciples. The two versions of this are:

• From Thomas: “The kingdom of the Father is like a person who had (good) seed. His enemy came by night. He sowed darnel among the good seed. The person did not allow (the servants) to pull up the darnel. He said to them: ‘Lest you go to pull up the darnel (and then) pull up the wheat along with it.’ For on the day of the harvest, the darnel will be apparent and it will be pulled up (and) burned” (Thomas 57).
• From Matthew: “Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up ? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn” (Matthew 13:24-30).

The commentary on this saying from Thomas includes:

• Robert M. Grant and David Noel Freedman write: “This saying is a summary of the parable found in Matthew 13:24-30, without any significant variants – except that Thomas substitutes ‘kingdom of the father’ for ‘kingdom of heaven.’ It is odd that the tares are allowed to grow up with the wheat, since the little fish are thrown away in Saying 7; but this problem is explained in the parable itself. Thomas omits the explanation of the parable which is given in Matthew 13:37-43, no doubt because he has his own.” (The Secret Sayings of Jesus, p. 165).
• R. McL. Wilson writes: “The Matthean parable is one of those ‘so vividly told that it is natural to assume that they arise out of some actual occurrence.’ In Thomas the vivid detail has been omitted, and only the main points retained. This condensation would appear to indicate a later stage of development than that represented by the canonical parable, but does not decide the question whether we have here a summary made from Matthew or independent access to the same tradition at a later point. Grant and Freedman see no significant variants except the substitution of ‘Father’ for ‘heaven,’ but Quispel finds four agreements with the Diatessaron against Matthew. For Gnostic use of the parable Bauer refers to the eschatological ‘harvest,’ which provided the occasion for many Gnostic speculations. The passage of Heracleon’s commentary to which he points had already been noted in this connection by Cerfaux.” (Studies in the Gospel of Thomas, pp. 91-92)
  Joachim Jeremias writes: “It will be seen that the ending is shorter than in Matthew, who, anticipating his allegorical interpretation, may . . . have somewhat over-elaborated the separation of wheat from tares (v. 30).” (The Parables of Jesus, p. 224).
• Funk and Hoover write: “Although the version in Thomas lacks the appended allegorical interpretation, there is a distant echo of the final apocalyptic judgment made explicit in Matthew. This note is alien to Thomas, so it must have been introduced into the Christian tradition at an early date, probably by the first followers of Jesus who had been disciples of John the Baptist. Thomas retained the parable because it suggested, for his readers, that there were two kinds of persons in the world, those ‘in the know’ (members of the sect) and those dull of hearing.” (The Five Gospels, p. 505).
• Gerd Ludemann writes: “The logion has a close parallel in Matt. 13.24-30. Here Thomas 57 clearly presupposes the Matthaean version. First, the course of events is told more succinctly and is to be understood as an abbreviation, for secondly, there is no mention of the sowing of the seed (Matt. 13.24), the process of growth (Matt. 13.30a), and especially the suggestion of the servants that they should pull up the weeds immediately (Matt. 13.27), although a remnant of that has been left, namely the owner’s answer (v. 3). In other words, this answer presupposes the conversation with the servants (Matt. 13.27-28). Thomas twists the parable to see non-Gnostics and Gnostics depicted in the weeds and in the good seed in order to emphasize the dualism between the two. Thomas has preserved the reference to the harvest (v. 4) in order to emphasize the lasting separation.” (Jesus After 2000 Years, pp. 618-619).

Mr. Ludemann’s idea of the Gnostic and the non-Gnostic as the wheat and the tares should be discounted as there IS NO implication of this and this idea in itself is much the same as saying that it would be the Christian and the non-Christian. The duality here IS NOT in this separation of religions but in the separation of the man following the Lord verses the man who IS NOT following the Lord; in this the idea is seen that the seed sown by the Father IS the seed of the Kingdom….those who keep His words. Funk and Hoover touch upon this same erroneous idea and also see the apocalyptic angle that is more apparent in Matthew’s version and as a distant echo in Thomas’. In Matthew this eschatological angle is only Truly visible in the interpretation that the Master offers to His disciples, an interpretation which itself is a parable. We of course do not see this same eschatological idea here, at least not as the True meaning of this parable and this we have discussed in previous essays. These other comments are in regard to the similarity with the way this is presented by Matthew and Mr. Grant’s comment on the seventh saying which seems misplaced as there is no relation to those ideas here. We discuss this in In the Words of Jesus parts 768-769 as the eighth saying from Thomas; there is an apparent dual numbering system for Thomas Gospel as this is not the first time that we have found this type of difference in the references of the commentaries.  The Master’s own interpretation of this parable in Matthew’s Gospel IS, as we say above, a parable in itself and in the ideas presented by Thomas we can better understand the whole of the Master’s message.

Here we can see that the world IS the field and in this field there is wheat and there are growing weeds, or darnel or tares as this is alternately rendered; the idea of darnel is an assumption not stated as the saying is clearly weeds according to the Interlinear. In darnel we have a plant that resembles wheat until it IS matured and this is likely why this reference is used. The point to be taken here is that one would not pluck up the weeds early as it IS difficult to tell them apart from the wheat and one would not want to pluck up the wheat as well. So they are allowed to grow together and in this we can see men in the world, men who are keeping His words and men who are not and since they are for a time so similar it is unwise to disturb the field and risk harm to those who do keep His word. Here we should remember that ALL things spiritual work by degree and that this can be seen in the way this wheat and these tares are allowed to grow together as even if one appears to be a tare, it only takes that Repentance to make one wheat. Here in this interpretation it is illogical to see and view of eschatology because the nature and the field plus the distribution of the wheat and the tares is in constant flux, it is ever changing and the ideas that are in the Master’s interpretation would only hold for those who may be in the field at the end. Hence the parabolic nature of the interpretation itself which is stated as:

“Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear” (Matthew 13:36-43).

In this we should be ever so careful as to rightly understand the translation of the words used and as we close today we center on the Greek word kosmos which is rendered here as world giving this interpretation its apocalyptic tone. This word can mean many different ideas pertaining to the world ranging from this Earth, to the Universe to the idea of mankind and even the idea of the gentiles. In addition we should note here in this interpretation that the angels will gather the tares “out of his kingdom” and while this can be assumed to be the Earth, that this IS the kingdom of the Son of man, this again is but an assumption upon which is built the doctrines of the end. We should remember here that these ARE parables.

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.

Values to Live By

A Love of Truth—essential
for a just, inclusive and progressive society;

A Sense of Justice—recognition
of the rights and needs, of all.

Spirit of Cooperation—based
on active goodwill and the principle of right human
relationships;

A Sense of Personal Responsibility—for
group, community and national affairs;

Serving the Common Good— through
the sacrifice of selfishness. Only what is good for all
is good for each one.

The world of the future depends on what each one of us chooses to do today.

From a previous essay and Quote of the Day we reprise these words:  It is interesting to note that the ideas of the Quote of the Day embody much of the Master’s teachings and can set the stage for the beginning of each man’s revelation and realization of the Light of the Soul; that is, that by the intentional practice of these ‘rules’ of conduct one can put himself in the position of a follower of the Master and an keeper of His word and this regardless if he has ever heard of the Christ or wants to be affiliated with any ideas Christian. By keeping these sound principals of Life in mind and practicing them a man can lift himself up above and beyond the world of men and into the world of the Good, the Beautiful and the True as it exists for those in whom the Christ Within, the God Within, is awakened. Ponder on this.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
• ⁵ The Dhammapada Translated by Thomas Byrom
• ¹⁴ The Gospel of Thomas; Translated by Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson; http://gnosis.org/