IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 861

ON LOVE; PART CDL

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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.

(76) Jesus says: “The kingdom of the Father is like a merchant who had merchandise and found a pearl. That merchant is prudent. He sold the goods (and) bought for himself the pearl alone. You too look for his treasure, which does not perish, (and) which stays where no moth can reach it to eat it, and no worm destroys it.“

(77) Jesus says: “I am the light that is over all. I am the All. The All came forth out of me. And to me the All has come.” “Split a piece of wood – I am there. Lift the stone, and you will find me there.“

(78) Jesus says: “Why did you go out to the countryside? To see a reed shaken by the wind, and to see a person dressed in soft clothing [like your] kings and your great/powerful persons? They are dressed in soft clothing and will not be able to recognize the truth.“

(79) A woman in the crowd said to him: “Hail to the womb that carried you and to the breasts that fed you.” He said to [her]: “Hail to those who have heard the word of the Father (and) have truly kept it. For there will be days when you will say: ‘Hail to the womb that has not conceived and to the breasts that have not given milk.’”

(80) Jesus says: “Whoever has come to know the world has found the (dead) body. But whoever has found the (dead) body, of him the world is not worthy.“

(81) Jesus says: “Whoever has become rich should be king. And the one who has power should renounce (it).“

In the last posts we have come across the word ascetic in the commentaries on the sayings from the Gospel of Thomas and we should here make a statement of why these ideas ARE NOT an accurate assessment of the apostle’s words. An ascetic IS one who IS enjoined by particular lifestyle which is characterized by a number of different views as we see in these definitions:

• Webster’s 1828 version tells us that the ascetic IS: adj; Retired from the world; rigid; severe; austere; employed in devotions and mortifications; noun; 1. One who retires from the customary business of life, and devotes himself to the duties of piety and devotion; a hermit; a recluse. 2. The title of certain books, on devout exercises; as the ascetics of St. Basil ¹.
• Webster’s 1913 edition tells us: adj; Extremely rigid in self-denial and devotions; austere; severe; noun; In the early church, one who devoted himself to a solitary and contemplative life, characterized by devotion, extreme self-denial, and self-mortification; a hermit; a recluse; hence, one who practices extreme rigor and self-denial in religious things ¹.
• Today’s modern dictionary tells us that ascetic means: noun; 1. a person who dedicates his or her life to a pursuit of contemplative ideals and practices extreme self-denial or self-mortification for religious reasons. 2. a person who leads an austerely simple life, especially one who abstains from the normal pleasures of life or denies himself or herself material satisfaction. 3. (in the early Christian church) a monk; hermit. As adjective 4. pertaining to asceticism. 5. rigorously abstinent; austere: an ascetic existence. 6. exceedingly strict or severe in religious exercises or self-mortification ⁷.

These are Western definitions, Eastern definitions are even more severe, of the meaning of this word which is noted in the ideas that the commentaries on the Gospel of Thomas are trying to get across in saying that Thomas teachings and the Gnostic way lean in this direction. Parts of the early church did likewise lean toward this discipline as their interpretation of the ways of the Apostles as noted in the Book of Acts and, from our perspective, misrepresented from the earliest times; we read: “And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration.Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:1-4). Here, in the idea of the Twelve, that they “give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word“, IS likely found the foundation for the ideas of the ascetic lifestyle that would ensue. Additionally, this same idea of asceticism can be derived by some from the very teachings of the Master who tells us to forsake ALL and to follow Him. In the course of time the True ascetic has become seen as a recluse or a hermit and this IS NEVER the True teaching of the Master who shows us by His own example what this idea of forsaking means in the Life of the teacher and the spiritual guide and this IS what He teaches to His disciples; that they are to go forth with nothing; teaching and healing and graciously accepting whatsoever is offered to them in accommodation and food. The attitude of the Master is that we “take no thought” (Luke 12:22) and while this seems to be a difficult thing to understand, these few words define the attitude of the disciple and the aspirant much more clearly than the ideas found it this word ascetic.

The Way of the disciple IS NOT an attitude of asceticism but an attitude of NOT focusing upon the things of the world and the presumed needs of the self in the world. And here is our distinction, that ALL of the accepted gospels contain these same ideas that are thought to be Gnostic asceticism and that most of the Christian world has rightly rejected this lifestyle as the Way to God. Unfortunately this has been replaced by an equally misunderstood reality of Life where it is thought and taught that the Lord wants us to be happy and plentiful from a carnal perspective and some have taken this, especially in more recent times, to the idea that the Lord wants the man in the world to be rich and this especially for the believer who gives. There IS a reality in the Master’s words that is so often misconstrued by most doctrine to tell us that it IS in this Life that a man should prosper and the Truth of His words are lost in this misrepresentation where perhaps the only choices were seen in times past as the Life of the ascetic or the Life in the world. It is likely this misunderstanding of these choices that has created the doctrinal shift to the misconstruing of His words and the creation of doctrine that offers cover to the man who CAN NOT or WILL NOT accept the ascetic Life and here we should realize that this was NEVER the choice to begin with. The choice has ever been in keeping His words or in following the ways of the flesh and somehow doctrine has been able to shift this to its own seemingly real ideas that one can keep His words while following the ways of the flesh. This IS of course NOT True.

And this IS the teaching of the gospels and of the Gospel of Thomas as well and the Truth can be found throughout the New Testament from the simple admonition to “take no thought” (Matthew 6:25), to the most profound words that tells us to: “seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you”  (Luke 12:31) which things ARE those same of which He tells us to “take no thought” about; and we should note here that Matthew recalls this saying as even more profound as he includes two additional ideas as he tells us that the Master says “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). Here we should ever remember that this idea of seeking the Kingdom is found in keeping His words and doing the Will of the Father which are one and the same thing and we read this clearly as well in His saying that: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). And we should not forget here that the epistles are filled with these same ideas of which we will present these two today:

• “know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4).
• “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Romans 8:7).

It should be clear here that in these ideas from Thomas’ Gospel there is no more an ascetic nature than there is in the accepted gospels nor in the teaching of the apostles. There is not nor has there been a Truth to the following of this lifestyle as in this, if performed as the hermit or the recluse, there is only the way of the self and this regardless of a Life of prayer and devotion. Yes, to be sure those who follow in this lifestyle will get their reward but this may not be that which they are seeking; the reality of the Kingdom is intimately tied to keeping His words which ARE words of one’s expression of the divinity of man to the world of men and that flowing forth of Love and of Light and of the fruit of the Spirit in ALL that one does. And here we should read the Master’s words that tell us “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples” (John 15:8) as our instruction that we “bear fruit” and we should understand that we do not this for the self in the world but as our service to ALL of mankind.

We did not intend to go so far down this path today but it is important for the aspirant to understand these ideas and to not get caught up in the ideas of the ascetic lifestyle nor in the commentaries that may suggest that this is the Gnostic idea of reaching God or that this is the tendency of the teaching of the Apostle Thomas. As we discussed in the last essay, the ideas of these commentaries on this saying DO mostly miss the point of the Master’s words and this same point is given in the Gospel of Luke. The point IS that the Master is deflecting from Himself any ideas that He Himself IS blessed by way of His birth and the same for His mother because she bore Him and suckled Him. The message here is simply that the blessed, and we must understand this in the depth of the Master’s using this idea and not the common notion of happy or of wonderful, ARE those who keep the words of God or, as Thomas frames this, “those who have heard the word of the Father (and) have truly kept it“. Again, the ideas that are appended to the end of this saying may or may not have been uttered by the Master at this time; we only KNOW that Thomas chose to include them here as a commentary where the idea is shown that bearing a child IS NOT a divine function; it is in keeping His words that one finds divinity. In Luke this is said as the Master is in procession to that place called Calvary and in Matthew the similar thought is offered as the Master visits the Temple at Jerusalem near the end. And we should remember here that in Thomas’ recollection of this saying, as well as in Luke’s, that the phraseology is that it IS the people who will say among themselves this thing of woe; that as these things happen they will regret having children or, as this is framed, will think better of those who have NOT brought children into the world to suffer this end.

Our next saying from the Gospel of Thomas is a repetition of another that is worded slightly different. In the fifty sixth saying the wording used was corpse while here in the eightieth the idea is of “the body“. There are some differences in translation here which, since this saying is short, we will present:

• Jesus said: “He who has known the world has found the body; and he who has found the body, the world is not worthy of him” (Blatz).
• Jesus said, “Whoever has become acquainted with the world has found the body, and the world is not worthy of the one who has found the body” (Layton).
  Jesus says: “He who has known the world has fallen into the body, and he who has fallen into the body, the world is not worthy of him” (Doresse)
• Jesus said, “He who has recognized the world has found the body, but he who has found the body is superior to the world” (Lambdin).
• Jesus says: “Whoever has come to know the world has found the (dead) body. But whoever has found the (dead) body, of him the world is not worthy” (Patterson and Rombinson).
• Jesus said, “Whoever has come to know the world has discovered the body, and whoever has discovered the body, of that one the world is not worthy” (Patterson and Meyer).
• Said -J S72 this: “Whoever-has-known-the-world, he-has-fallen upon-the-body; > whoever-has-fallen, hwvr, upon-the-body, the-world be-worthy of-him not” (Interlinear Version).

In the more that apparent affiliation with the fifty sixth saying which we read as: “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” (Thomas 56), perhaps we an see the importance that Thomas places on understanding these words. This rendering is from our standard Patterson and Robinson version and it is likely that the idea of corpse in this saying caused them to render this as “dead body” in our current saying. So that we can view this as apples and apples, let us look here at the interlinear rendering of the fifty sixth which says: “Said-JS52 this: 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“. While there IS a slight difference in the rendering of this the meaning and the intent appear to be the same and here for us the meaning IS the same as well which we see as: ‘to KNOW the world is to KNOW the body nature of the man, this body nature IS dead to the Truth of one’s spiritual reality; conversely, one who has found the Truth of the body, the Truth that it IS a dead thing, has moved beyond the world, he IS superior to this world‘ as this is rendered by  Lambdin for both sayings. Again, we should try to see that the apostle thinks that this idea is so important that he offers us these words from the Master two times. The available commentary on this saying includes:

• Bentley Layton writes: “This saying is nearly identical with no. 56, which likens the world to a ‘corpse’ (Greek ptoma) rather than the body (Greek to soma).” (The Gnostic Scriptures, p. 394).
• Helmut Koester writes: “Understanding the world – a thing that is really dead – leads inevitably to a proper understanding of the body and corporeal existence. Becoming superior to the world involves deprecation of the flesh in favor of the spirit.” (Ancient Christian Gospels, p. 126).
• Funk and Hoover write: “Jesus did not depreciate the world, so far as we can tell from the body of lore identified as coming from him. But in Thomas’ version of Christianity, this seems to be a standard theme. Note, for example, the saying recorded in Thomas 110: ‘The one who has found the world, and has become wealthy, should renounce the world’ (further, compare Thom 27:1 and 111:3). These sayings represent a branch of the Christian movement that grew increasingly ascetic as time passed. Asceticism does not comport with the Jesus who was accused of being a glutton and a drunk (Luke 7:34).” (The Five Gospels, p. 517).
  

Mr. Koester seems to have a better idea of the reality of this saying as he takes it to the spiritual realm and offers some True commentary while Layton merely states the obvious while Funk and Hoover are way off base in their understanding and again we see here the reference to the ascetic lifestyle. However, perhaps Funk and Hoover have come across a point of Truth that can help us to better understand the idea of “take no thought” as we discuss above as they note that the Master does live as a man in the world. Here their note that He IS “accused of being a glutton and a drunk” is to our own point, that the Life of asceticism IS not the way of the Master, nor His disciples, and this IS NOT their teaching either; nor is this the teaching of the Master according to Thomas. If we can see the reality as we paint it above, that it IS the nature of the focus of the thoughts, the attitudes and the actions of the man in the world which matters, we can see a greater part of the ultimate Truth. And in this Truth we find that this ascetic lifestyle IS NOT the order of the True Christian and neither is the converse of this. The Truth is that one lives his Life according to the word of God, that he seeks the Kingdom and that he strives toward that strait gate and, in so doing the affairs of the world will take care of themselves without them becoming or remaining the focus of one’s Life in the world. This IS NOT the ascetic as we see above in our definitions nor as we envision this in the history of the church; man IS NOT intended to shy away from participation in the ways of the world, he IS intended to conduct himself however with no thought for the betterment of the self in the world. He is intended to “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” and ALL else will take care of itself. In this IS the Truth of faith.

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.

As the Lord’s Prayer is given to us by the Christ for our use 2000 years ago, the Great Invocation, according to esoteric sources, was give from Him as well and whether we believe that this IS True or not we should look at this prayer as containing the same selfless invocative style as does the Lord’s Prayer and then any that are modeled after their style. We again encourage ALL to read and reread this Great Invocation and our comments as in these words can be found keys to our spiritual reality.

From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth into the minds of men.
Let Light descend on Earth.

From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into the hearts of men.
May Christ return to Earth.

From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide the little wills of men–
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.

From the centre which we call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.

This prayer is a part of our Prayers and Meditations section and there is much information about it there and in our discussion of it in the Quote of the Day section of In the Words of Jesus parts 128-132

The above Invocation or Prayer does not belong to any person or group but to all Humanity. The beauty and the strength of this Invocation lies in its simplicity, and in its expression of certain central truths which all men, innately and normally, accept—the truth of the existence of a basic Intelligence to Whom we vaguely give the name of God; the truth that behind all outer seeming, the motivating power of the universe is Love; the truth that a great Individuality came to earth, called by Christians, the Christ, and embodied that love so that we could understand; the truth that both love and intelligence are effects of what is called the Will of God; and finally the self-evident truth that only through humanity itself can the Divine Plan work out.

Like the Lord’s Prayer, this invocation is a World Prayer which is as all that a prayer is intended to be. It is a prayer for the uplifting of the Human Family out of the mire of materialism and selfishness. The Lord’s Prayer asks nothing for the individual praying it but asks that its benefits be for US and for WE which is why it was given by the Christ as a prayer and as a model over 2000 years ago. This invocation is also attributed to the Christ who, as He promised, has never left us; He, through channels that we do not readily understand, has Himself instructed His disciples to distribute this prayer and to encourage its use as a world prayer and as an aid in preparing the world for His return.

The first three stanzas of this prayer should be understood as reflecting the effective potencies of the Trinity which is God and which, when brought down to an individual level, the Trinity which is Man. His Will, His Love and His Light we should seen as the Potent Powers of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• ¹ Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913
• ⁷ Dictionary.com Unabridged based on Random House Dictionary – 2011
• ¹⁴ The Gospel of Thomas; Translated by Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson; http://gnosis.org/