ON LOVE; PART CCCLXXVI

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.

(22)  Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples: “These little ones being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom.”  They said to him: “Then will we enter the kingdom as little ones?” Jesus said to them: “When you make the two into one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside and the above like the below – that is, to make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male will not be male and the female will not be female – and when you make eyes instead of an eye and a hand instead of a hand and a foot instead of a foot, an image instead of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom].“

(23) Jesus says: “I will choose you, one from a thousand and two from ten thousand. And they will stand as a single one.”

(24) His disciples said: “Show us the place where you are, because it is necessary for us to seek it. He said to them: “Whoever has ears should hear! Light exists inside a person of light, and he shines on the whole world. If he does not shine, there is darkness.”

(25) Jesus says: “Love your brother like your life! Protect him like the apple of your eye!” ¹⁴

In the last post we completed our look at the twenty first saying by the Master in the Gospel of Thomas. This saying covered many different topics from the perspective of the synoptic gospels and in the way that it is written as an answer to the question of what the Master sees in His disciples, it does at first appear quite disjointed in its own right. However, it has been our experience so far that these questions asked of Jesus are seldom answered directly or even at all. Here the answer begins as a True answer but then becomes a dissertation directed at the disciples regarding how it is that they should act and be in their role as they go about as little children in a field that is not theirs; how they should go about as disciples. The answer is of course parabolic and there are likely several meanings that can be taken from this all; ours is in accordance with the teachings of the Master in the accepted gospels albeit expanded somewhat to accept the language that we have here in Thomas recollection or what some believe is the creation of someone else who understood the Master’s words in this way. We should repeat here again that most ALL these sayings do not follow along with the ideas of church doctrine and tradition and some are not interpretable according to doctrine in the same way as the accepted gospels which themselves are ofttimes see differently than their True intent. Of course this IS our opinion of the situation as we do not see much of the Master’s teachings in the same way as does doctrine and tradition and perhaps this is why we can more easily see the points made in this work attributed to the Apostle Thomas. Repeating the twenty first for clarity as we summarize:

(21)  Mary said to Jesus: “Whom are your disciples like?” He said: “They are like servants who are entrusted with a field that is not theirs. When the owners of the field arrive, they will say: ‘Let us have our field.’ (But) they are naked in their presence so as to let them have it (and thus) to give them their field.” “That is why I say: ‘When the master of the house learns that the thief is about to come, he will be on guard before he comes (and) will not let him break into his house, his domain, to carry away his possessions.’ (But) you, be on guard against the world! Gird your loins with great strength, so that the robbers will not find a way to get to you.” “For the necessities for which you wait (with longing) will be found. There ought to be a wise person among you! When the fruit was ripe, he came quickly with his sickle in his hand, (and) he harvested it. Whoever has ears to hear should hear.”

The question posed and the short answer end with the idea that they are as little children entrusted with a field which saying is framed as dwelling in or settling in a field in other translations. This idea of little children is clear as the Master does teach us that we must be as such to be accounted worthy of the Kingdom and since the disciples are so accounted, they must per force be as little children. We see the field as the world or more so as the consciousness of the world, both individual and corporate, as it is in consciousness that the disciple must stand and where man’s spiritual struggles are wrought out. The disciple is in the world field as the teacher and his message is of Repentance as we read in Mark’s Gospel where he tells us of the time when the apostles are sent out into the world saying: “And they went out , and preached that men should repent” (Mark 6:12). There are other verses that speak of these things, of the intent that the disciples should work in the fields of Life and reap as many as possible, bringing them to Repentance; we read:

• “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16).
• “After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come. Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. Go your ways: behold , I send you forth as lambs among wolves” (Luke 10:1-3).
• “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours” (John 4:36-38).

The first and the second are from similar events spoken of differently by the apostles and we should note the sentiment of the first, that they be “harmless as doves“; here we can see their reaction to those who push back in Thomas’ rendition of the disciples in the field as the lords of the field say in essence ‘leave me alone’ and this either individually or corporately. These men DO NOT want the disciples in their field teaching them and prodding them to Repent and to listen to their own Inner calling; here we see the Master’s way, that the disciple should give back the field and leave them. And we see the disciples response, as “harmless as doves” they comply with the wishes of the lord of the field and stand naked, unassuming, meek, humble, much like the little child. In the last saying from John’s Gospel we see the greater fullness of the Master teaching on discipleship and the role of the disciple in the world.

In the last essay we discussed the rest of these word from the Master as He continues to answer the question with comments that are not pertinent but which contain a teaching that may explain the previous idea of the lords of the field who do not want the presence of the disciple nor his words. Here the Master tells us that it is only when the lord of the field may deem the end is near that he will accept the words of Life; until then they are unimportant to him. The Master paints this in His parabolic way so as to show that the lord will protect his house or will come to the reality of God when he sees the thief or the end is in sight and He tells this as a matter of fact. And this is much like the parables of the accepted gospels except the perspective is different as we discussed in the last essay where we noted as well that the admonition to be ready is to His disciples as it IS here in Thomas’ gospel. In Matthew the idea is simply to be ready “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh” (Matthew 24:44) while in Thomas the caution is greater and extends to not only being ready spiritually but to being strong and on guard against the wiles of the world and the men who may come at them. Jesus adds here as well the thought that the help that they had relied upon, the Master Himself, will be taken away by these same forces of the world of men; this is how we read the final idea from the Interlinear Version which says: “because the help which you look outward for her, they will fall on her“.

We come now to our next saying, the twenty second saying from the Gospel of Thomas, and here we find another that is steeped in obscurity. The beginning line starts as a continuation of the idea of the little children that we have been discussing but the Master here continues in His parabolic way to express aspects of the nature of the disciple, the man accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God. Some of the available commentary tells us:

• Robert M. Grant and David Noel Freedman write: “Infants (as in Sayings 3, 21, and 38) may be compared with those who enter into the kingdom (cf., John 3, 3.5). But entering the kingdom means more than becoming childlike. The two must become one; all earthly differences must be obliterated, including – especially – those of sex. Sayings very much like this one are preserved in the Gospel of the Egyptians, in 2 Clement 12:2, and in the Martyrdom of Peter (see pages 78-79). The unity of Christian believers in the body of Christ is, of course, based on the New Testament. Doresse (pages 155-56) cites John 17:11, 20-23; Romans 12:4-5; 1 Corinthians 12:27; Ephesians 2:14-18; and he points out that in Ephesians 5:32 the unity of Adam and Eve (i.e., of human marriage) is referred to ‘Christ and the Church.’ It is perhaps more important to notice that in Galatians 3:28 Paul says that ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free men, neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’ This kind of unity looks back to the first creation story in Genesis, where ‘man’ is male and female; it is the second creation story that sharply differentiates Eve from Adam. The original state of creation is to be reached through spiritual union. Man is not to be man; woman is not to be woman (though according to Saying 112 she is to become man – i.e., fully human in a spiritual sense).” (The Secret Sayings of Jesus, pp. 143-144).
• R. McL. Wilson writes: “The idea that only the childlike can enter the Kingdom of God is, of course, familiar from the canonical Gospels. It may be added that this saying is one of the few which have anything in the nature of a narrative setting, although whether the words which introduce the saying derive from genuine tradition or were constructed for the purpose is matter for debate. Certainly all that follows the disciples’ question is far removed from the canonical portrait of Jesus. Yet even here there is a basis in the New Testament: as Grant and Freedman note, listing passages cited by Doresse, the unity of believers in the body of Christ is based on New Testament teaching. They also quote Paul’s words in Galatians iii.8: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. Such a passage as this must serve to confirm the view that one element at least in the development of Gnosticism is a re-interpretation of Christian teaching.” (Studies in the Gospel of Thomas, p. 31).
• F. F. Bruce writes: “This is an expansion of the canonical saying: ‘whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it’ (Luke 18.17; cf. Matthew 18.3). But the expansion suggests the abolition of sex distinction (cf. Sayings 4, 11, 106): as infants are devoid of sex awareness or shame, so should the disciples be. In the Gospel according to the Egyptians words like these are spoken by Jesus to Salome. We may recognize a Gnostic interpretation of Paul’s words: ‘there can be no male and female’ (Galatians 3.28). The replacement of physical eyes, hand and foot by corresponding spiritual members is probably a gloss on the saying in Mark 9.43-48 (cf. Matthew 5.29 f.; 18.8 f.), which similarly follows words about children.” (Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, p. 123-124).
• Bruce Chilton writes: “The ascetic emphasis of Christianity in Edessa was a profound influence on Thomas; a central saying (saying 22), for example, stipulates that one must be neither male nor female in order to enter the kingdom. A denial of sexuality is manifest.” (Pure Kingdom, p. 69).
• Funk and Hoover write: “The initial saying (v. 2), which is earlier than any of the written gospels, is followed, in Thom 22:4-7, by interpretive rephrasing. One enters life by recovering one’s original self, undivided by the differences between male and female, physical and spiritual. The theme of unifying opposites is well known from later gnostic texts. This surrounding commentary on v. 2 was designated black as the work of the Thomas community.” (The Five Gospels, p. 487).

These commentaries are, as are many that we have seen, devoid of any true analysis of the Master’s purported words and leaning to comparing them as Gnostic works and to doctrine. There are several other comments that are verbose and confusing and which relate these words to other Egyptian writings and to other apocryphal and early Church Fathers’ writings that we are not familiar with. As we begin our own look at this saying we should note that these ideas need not be construed as the same thought, that the idea of children IS NOT truly about children at all as we have been discussing, and that disciple’s question: “will we enter the kingdom as little ones?” shows that they do not yet understand the concept or else it is offered to further the teaching. Based upon our view that the disciples are confused and bewildered by much that the Master tells them parabolically as is noted in several places in the accepted gospels, we would lean to the former idea which is explained somewhat by the Master in the Gospel of the Apostle John where He says: “These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father” (John 16:25); this the Master says near the end and it is likely safe to assume that this confusion continues until the disciples are each individually able to shift their own focus sufficiently to allow the Light of the Soul to make ALL things clear. Here we should remember that it is on the last journey of the Master to Jerusalem, close to the end of His time with the disciples, that the brothers James and John are seeking the special favor of the Master which is for us a rather clear sign that they as yet do not quite understand their role as disciples of the Lord.

Here we should try to understand the dynamic with which the disciples and the Master are involved; so long as He is with them they rely upon Him; they can go forth and heal and teach because He tells them that they can. These things they believe and they believe to the point of KNOWING but at the same time they are confused by the Master’s parabolic words regarding the deeper meanings and the mysteries that they have not yet been able to realize. In this we can see that part of the twenty first saying that we summarize above: “because the help which you look outward for her, they will fall on her” which we see clearly as the same idea; that the Master will no longer be with them as their help and their support, they will be on their own. It is from their own Souls that revelation comes and this is as True for the disciples as it is for us today; the teachings of the Master serve only to allow for the man to change his focus from the ways of the self to the ways of God and this by degree and on an individual basis and we should understand here that the writing of the apostles in the gospels is based in the way that they perceive Life and the effect of the Master’s teaching on that Life. Jesus IS NOT trying to change their view on God, He IS only trying to change their view of the commandments and the role of the True disciple of the Lord and to instill in them ALL that sense of Love that is the most necessary part of one’s spiritual journey.

It is in His parabolic way of teaching that we should see the reality as well of the Holy Spirit who we can understand as the activity of the Christ Within in the Life of the disciple and the aspirant and that the way that the Master approaches this teaching is based in the way that He sees their acceptance of it. This IS in turn based in the reality that this must come to them as revelation and that this revelation will come to them by degree when they cease their reliance upon Him being at their side. And we can see most ALL of this in the Life of the Apostle Peter who is for us our ready symbol of the trials of the disciple who must overcome the self and the thoughts based in the self and in the world and to see ONLY his True focus upon the things of God.

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.

Today’s quote of the day is a repeat of the Mantram of Unification which is an affirmation of the Oneness of the human family from the perspective of the disciple and the aspirant and any who hold these ideals as important. In this we find the essence of the two ideas that we have discussed from Values to Live By and that these are firmly grounded in the desire to Love not hate; to serve and not exact due service and to heal and not to hurt. It is Love shown as Truth and justice that is at the heart of this mantram.

Mantram of Unification

The sons of men are one and I am one with them.
I seek to love, not hate;
I seek to serve and not exact due service;
I seek to heal, not hurt.

Let pain bring due reward of light and love.
Let the Soul control the outer form, and life and all events,
And bring to light the love that underlies the happenings of the time.

Let vision come and insight.
Let the future stand revealed.
Let inner union demonstrate and outer cleavages be gone.
Let love prevail.
Let all men love.

The Mantram of Unification is a meditation and a prayer that at first affirms the unity of all men and the Brotherhood of Man based on the Fatherhood of God. The first stanza sets forth several truly Christian ideals in Unity, Love, Service and Healing. The second stanza is a invocation to the Lord and to our own Souls asking that from the pain (if there can truly be any) incurred in focusing on the Spirit and not the world will come Light and Love into our lives and that we begin to function as Souls through our conscious personalities. We ask that the spiritual control of our lives will bring to light for us the Love that underlies world events; a Love that the world oriented man will not see working out behind the scenes and also that the Love that we bring forth, individually and as a world group, can be seen by all and ultimately in all. Finally, in the last stanza we ask for those things that are needed for Love to abound. Vision and insight so that we can direct our attention properly; revelation of the future in the sense that all can see the Power of Love in the world; inner union so that we do not fall back into the world’s ways, that we faint not; and that a sense of separation, the antithesis of brotherhood, ends as we know it today. Let Love Prevail, Let All Men Love.spiritual control of our lives will bring to light for us the Love that underlies world events; a Love that the world oriented man will not see working out behind the scenes.

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/