ON LOVE; PART XDVII

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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.

(46) Jesus says: “From Adam to John the Baptist, among those born of women there is no one who surpasses John the Baptist so that his (i.e., John’s) eyes need not be downcast.  But I have also said: ‘Whoever among you becomes little will know the kingdom, and will surpass John.’”

(47) Jesus says: “It is impossible for a person to mount two horses and to stretch two bows. And it is impossible for a servant to serve two masters. Else he will honor the one and insult the other. No person drinks old wine and immediately desires to drink new wine. And new wine is not put into old wineskins, so that they do not burst; nor is old wine put into (a) new wineskin, so that it does not spoil it. An old patch is not sewn onto a new garment, because a tear will result.“

(48) Jesus says: “If two make peace with one another in one and the same house, (then) they will say to the mountain: ‘Move away,’ and it will move away.“

(49) Jesus says: “Blessed are the solitary ones, the elect. For you will find the kingdom.  For you come from it (and) will return to it.“

(50) Jesus says: “If they say to you: ‘Where do you come from?’ (then) say to them: ‘We have come from the light, the place where the light has come into being by itself, has established [itself] and has appeared in their image.’If they say to you: ‘Is it you?’ (then) say: ‘We are his children, and we are the elect of the living Father.’If they ask you: ‘What is the sign of your Father among you?’ (then) say to them: ‘It is movement and repose.’” ¹⁴

We completed our look at the forty sixth saying from the Gospel of Thomas in the last essay and we did find that except for the part about the eyes that this is much the same as the sayings presented by Luke and Matthew in the accepted gospels. We noted that this part has some very different translations and by the placement of punctuation one can take many different meanings and, while we DO NOT KNOW the Truth, we do discount the renderings that offer this as the eyes being broken, destroyed or lost as this does not fit with our vision of the tenor to a saying from the Master. The other ideas of eyes not being downcast, nor averted, nor lowered is equally unclear for us and it is also unclear in these renderings, which are listed in In the Words of Jesus part 816, to whom this idea of eyes pertains; John or the “no one who surpasses John“. For this part we have adopted the Interlinear Version which frames this idea as “From \-Adam, upto Johann the Baptist, among the begotten of women, no one is raised up above Johann the Baptist, so that to break(lower) (viz!) his eyes” and in this we try to see that in the equality of heaven, that place were there is no one greater according to the Master’s teaching and in the realm of the Earth where the Baptist, according to his accomplishments in the world, is elevated to that Kingdom, that therefore none can be higher, that one need not look up to John nor John down to others.

In the last essay we looked at this next part as though the idea is that this is reflecting on John as a man in the world and we cited a previous essay where we also used this thought to explain this saying from the synoptics which render this idea of being greater in much the same way as we read: “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” (Matthew 11:11). Here, while it may be True from the worldly perspective as we previously understood this, there may also be that deeper understanding of the Kingdom of God where this idea of eyes and the added Coptic viz which is a contraction for: to wit, that is, namely  ¹, could be seen as Thomas’ way to express this idea which is perhaps simply that John KNOWS these things. In this final part we could have a contradiction to what we see in the other sayings from the Master unless we can understand this as that He intended this to be as we understood this in the last essay, that the first reference of “among the begotten of women, no one is raised up above Johann” is to say that there IS NONE greater and we can take this from most any level, and, in the last reference of “however, this he who will come to be among you he being a little one, he will know the Kingdom and will be raised up above Johann“, we should see the idea from Matthew “he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” as stated according to the vision of Thomas where becoming the little one is the accomplishment of the Kingdom as we read in Thomas’ other sayings. Then, according to our logic, this one will be in the Kingdom and thereby be greater than the man John as seen in the world; we CAN NOT find a better way to say this according to the Master’s other teachings.

This confusion however is not limited to these words from Thomas where, while we do have the added mystery of the eyes, there is much the same intent as we find is in the synoptic versions; and then, much the same problems in understanding this as well. Our next saying, the forty seventh, seems to be a combination of thoughts that are found in the accepted gospels and presented here in Thomas’ unique way along with some expansion of the Master’s thoughts. We will break this down into parts as:

• “It is impossible for a person to mount two horses and to stretch two bows. And it is impossible for a servant to serve two masters. Else he will honor the one and insult the other“
• “No person drinks old wine and immediately desires to drink new wine“
• “And new wine is not put into old wineskins, so that they do not burst; nor is old wine put into (a) new wineskin, so that it does not spoil it“
• “An old patch is not sewn onto a new garment, because a tear will result“

Remembering our point that if this Gospel of Thomas is to be seen as the work of the Apostle that we must see these sayings as Thomas’ recollection of the Master’s words; we do note the differences in presentation and the expansion of some thoughts and the seeming misplacement of others and in this we should here also remember that such differences also exist across the three synoptic versions. Some of the commentary on this saying tells us:

• F. F. Bruce writes: “The canonical saying about the impossibility of serving two masters (Matthew 6.24; Luke 16.13) is here amplified by two illustrations from life, and followed by sayings contrasting the old order and the new, sufficiently similar to Luke 5.36-39 (cf. Mark 2.21 f.; Matthew 9.16 f.), but with secondary deviations. The canonical counterparts do not speak of pouring old wine into new wine skins, or of patching a new garment with an old piece of cloth. These deviations are probably deliberate: the true Gnostic will not allow his new doctrine to be encumbered with relics from the past.” (Jesus and Christian Origens Outside the New Testament, p. 132).
• Robert M. Grant and David Noel Freedman write: “An old patch is not put on a new garment; here Thomas changes the thought from that of the new patch and the old garment (Luke 5:36; Matthew 9:16; Mark 2:21), presumably because he is thinking of life in the new world (Saying 52).” (The Secret Sayings of Jesus, p. 159).
• Gerd Ludemann writes: “As v. 3 certainly came about from the use of Luke [5.39], the same conclusion follows for vv. 4-5. Thomas has reversed the order of Luke, which he has in front of him, as he had placed v. 3 with the key word ‘wine’ after vv. 1-2, and now Luke 5.37 automatically presented itself as the next sentence with the same key word.” (Jesus After 2000 Years, pp. 613-614).
• Funk and Hoover write: “The order of sayings about patch and garment and wine wineskins is reversed in Thomas from the way they appear in the synoptic gospels. According to the saying in Thom 47:3-4, one does not pour young wine into old wineskins, since the old skins might burst, and one does not trust mature wine to young wineskins, since new skins tend to make the wine spoil. The synoptic version has undergone a Christian transformation, because the new has now been equated with the new Jesus movement. The version found in Mark 2:22 exhibits that transformation: ‘And nobody pours young wine into old wineskins, otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and destroy both the wine and the skins. Instead, young wine is for new wineskins.’ Concern for mature wine, such as we find in Luke 5:39 (‘nobody wants young wine after drinking aged wine’), has disappeared; attention is riveted on the fate of the new. The old wineskins represent the Judean religion, new wine the spirit-filled headiness of the Christian movement. The Thomas version was given the highest weighted average because there is no hint of a Christian revision of the saying.” (The Five Gospels, pp. 499-500).
• J. D. Crossan writes of 47b: “From the combination of Mark and Thomas there arises the strong possibility that this double aphorism was originally a double-diptych or quadruple-stich aphorism with each diptych in reversed parallelism (abb’a’). This must be considered not only for Gos. Thom. 47b(2) on wine (Turner and Montefiore: 65; and see especially Nagel), but for both Gos. Thom. 47b(2 and 3) on wine and on cloth (Quispel, 1957:194-195). Thus the double diptych involved (a) a combination of two metaphors: cloth-patching and wine-storing; (b) with a different set of categories for each; (c) in chiastic arrangement: unshrunk/shrunk//shrunk/unschrunk and new/old//old/new. Two processes worked upon the original structure: (d) an internal process whereby the new/old categories eventually prevailed over the unshrunk/shrunk, and (e) an external process that found it appropriate to retain the new/old aspect but not the old/new side of each diptych. Finally, (f) the internal process has changed Thomas even more than Mark (where ‘unshrunk’ is still present), but the external process, with its concern for Jesus as the new, has changed Mark and Luke mcuh more than Thomas (where ‘old/new’ is twice present). The only vestiges of old/new still visible in Mark or Luke is its residue within that concluding and unnecessary comment about ‘new win/new wineskins.’ But here, of course, old/new has become new/new.” (In Fragments, pp. 125-126).

There are many confusing thoughts here in these commentaries and some seem to be rather unnecessary comparisons when the view is that these do all say much the same things. Let us look here at the presentation from the accepted gospels of each of these ideas from Thomas.

For the first part we have similar sayings in both Luke and Matthew and our first idea of note here is that Thomas leaves out what we see as the most important words: “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” which IS the final idea that we see the Master trying to convey to us. This message is in the rest of the text but the emphatic thought is here in these words of choice. Thomas does add for us however two real time examples of why this works.

• “It is impossible for a person to mount two horses and to stretch two bows. And it is impossible for a servant to serve two masters. Else he will honor the one and insult the other” (Thomas 47:1-2)
• “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).
• “No servant 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” (Luke 16:13).

This next idea about wine is found in the Gospel of Luke only among the synoptics though there is a reference to this idea in the Gospel of John where, based upon the ideas from Luke and from Thomas we can see that the Master made ‘old wine’ or ‘good wine’ from the water.

• “No person drinks old wine and immediately desires to drink new wine” (Thomas 47:3)
• “No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith , The old is better” (Luke 5:39).
• “Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk , then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now” (John 2:10).

This next part has counterparts in all three of the synoptic gospels and there is similarity among the four renderings of the Master’s words except that Thomas expands the idea to the saying about old wine in new wineskins. Since the whole idea here has naught to do with wine, it may be difficult to see the relevance of Thomas’ added statement.

• “And new wine is not put into old wineskins, so that they do not burst; nor is old wine put into (a) new wineskin, so that it does not spoil it” (Thomas 47:4).
• “Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break , and the wine runneth out , and the bottles perish : but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved” (Matthew 9:17).
• “And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled , and the bottles will be marred : but new wine must be put into new bottles” (Mark 2:22).
• “And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled , and the bottles shall perish . But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved” (Luke 5:37-38).

The final idea here is also found in the three synoptic gospels where it generally is placed before the words on wine. Here Thomas reverses the process of patching or rather the idea of what is patched with what and this, like the added idea of wine, creates some confusion regarding what these sayings mean.

• “An old patch is not sewn onto a new garment, because a tear will result” (Thomas 47:5).
• “No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse” (Matthew 9:16).
• “No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse” (Mark 2:21).
• “No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old ; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent , and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old” (Luke 5:36).

Beginning with the last two verses from Thomas, those on the patch and on the wine, we should remember that these ideas are tied to the preceding verses on fasting by those who interpret the synoptic gospels as this order is found in the three. Thomas however gives us no context and while this in itself gives us a degree of uncertainty, we should also see that his presentation may not fit into what we have discerned from these sayings. We used these ideas as part of our discussion on the fourteenth saying from Thomas which reads as:

Jesus said to them: “If you fast, you will bring forth sin for yourselves. And if you pray, you will be condemned. And if you give alms, you will do harm to your spirits. And if you go into any land and wander from place to place, (and) if they take you in, (then) eat what they will set before you. Heal the sick among them! For what goes into your mouth will not defile you. Rather, what comes out of your mouth will defile you” (Thomas 14:1-5).

Here the Master seemingly speaks against fasting and pray and giving alms which in itself is not the case from our perspective; it is rather fasting and praying and giving as do the Jews in their own traditions. It is in this light then that we see these ideas of new patch on old cloth and new wine in old skins and in our presentation we spelled out these ideas against the fourteenth saying; In the Words of Jesus part 777. Here today in this forty seventh saying we still see our ideas from this essay regarding these ideas and it is here that we should note that there may be some difficulty regarding the way that Thomas frames his recollection of the Master’s words. In our view from the synoptic versions the caution to the disciple is that he NOT try to marry the Master’s new teaching into the old traditions of the Jews; that is that they not take these new revelations and try to make them but addendum to the Jewish doctrine. Similarly with the wine where the Master tells us that we must put these new revelations into new bottles that are free of the tainted ideas of the old. This is from our perspective a very important lesson for them in that time, but this was seemingly missed by the early church and in our view is not seen clearly yet today.

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!

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