ON LOVE; PART XDVIII

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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

In the last essay we began our look at the ideas presented in the forty seventh saying from Thomas’ Gospel and we found this saying to be a combination of several from the synoptic gospels but again sans the context. We broke this saying down into its component parts for discussion:

• “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“

We went on to list out the similar ideas from the synoptic gospels and briefly discussed the differences and here we will take on one part at a time for discussion beginning where we left off yesterday which was in regard to the last two verses from Thomas Gospel on the new wine and the patched garment. In our view these are very deep ideas that the Master is offering to us in the form of parables and, in Luke’s version, he takes the time to clarify this saying “And he spake also a parable unto them” (Luke 5:36) before he begins the Master’s words on the sewing the old cloth into the new garment and putting the old wine into new bottles. Of course it should be understood that these are parables which should be seen without Luke’s words and in this we should see that there can be a variety of interpretations. John Gill tells us in his Exposition of the Bible this from Matthew’s version that: These words are, by ( Luke 5:36 ) called a “parable”, as are those in the following verse; and both are commonly interpreted of the unreasonableness and danger of putting young disciples upon severe exercises of religion, as fasting, &c: and it is true, that young converts are to be tenderly dealt with, as they are by Father, Son, and Spirit, as the disciples were by Christ, and the first Christians were by the apostles: and some things in these parables may seem to agree; as that these austerities should be represented as “new”, and as burdensome and troublesome, and the disciples as weak, and easily staggered: but then there are others that will not bear; as that the disciples should be compared to “old garments, and old bottles”; when they were “young” converts, and men “renewed” by the Spirit and grace of God, and had on the beautiful robe of Christ’s righteousness; and that such severe exercises, under the notion of religion, should be signified by “new wine”, which generally designs something pleasant and agreeable: nor were the disciples unable to bear such severities, who very probably had been trained up in them, and been used to them before their conversion; and could now as well have bore them as John’s disciples, or the Pharisees, had they been proper and necessary; but the true reason why they were not required of them, was not their weakness, or danger of falling off, and perishing, of which there were none; but because it was unsuitable to their present situation, the bridegroom being with them. But our Lord, in this parable of putting “a piece of new”, or “undressed cloth”, such as has never passed through the fuller’s hands, and so unfit to mend with ⁸.

Mr. Gill’s thoughts here are from the very first verse and there are many like words included for the rest of this saying and the next as well as in regard to the versions from Mark and Luke; the gist of his argument and example are however in this excerpt which ties these words by the Master to His ideas of fasting that precede it. Our view here is much different as we see that there is a universal lesson in regard to the ideas of the new and the old which should be applied to the discipline of the fasting as a tradition of the Jews in that day but this only by example. The universality of the sayings are that whenever there is something that is new, as in this new dispensation of Love that the Master is bringing to mankind, that it can not be used with the old, it must stand apart. Here, in two comparisons regarding fabric we should see that the old traditions of fasting and praying and alms giving as we found in Thomas 14 CAN NOT be woven into the fabric of the new, they are out of place and, as Thomas tells us “a tear will result“. The synoptics say this same thing from the other perspective as one CAN NOT patch the old with the new and this can be seen in the same light; that ideas of the new dispensation CAN NOT be woven into the fabric of the old which is that the Love and the attitudes on Life that the Master is teaching are not compatible with the traditions of the Jews against which the Master ofttimes rails. And perhaps there is even a deeper idea to be seen here; that it is not only the traditions of the Jews that CAN NOT be added to by the new teachings but rather it is the entirety of their view of the law and the commandments. We can see this in the Master’s efforts to change the way that the law is viewed and applied in the Sermon on the Mount as He discusses Love and adultery, divorce and lending, prayer and fasting and giving and, while some will hold that the practice of the Jews in these things are their traditions, we can say as well that this IS what had become the religion and that rather than trying to patch this with pieces and parts from the Master’s new teachings, it would be better to ignore the old and begin anew. Of course this did not happen and if one can look at the ideas of Christianity today, one would see a mix of both the old and the new and the confusion that this has created is perhaps responsible for the fact that the Christian principals of the Christ have NOT been applied throughout history.

Can we see the ideas behind the Master’s teaching of the old patching the new as Thomas sees this and the new patching the old as we see in the synoptic gospels? And can we imagine what would have happened if the Master’s parable had been differently understood? Similarly with the idea of of wine; the new wine representing the new dispensation ushered in by the Christ, is not to be put into the framework, the bottles, that had contained the old wine as the very ideas on Life as found in the old are not compatible with the teaching of the Master where the ideas of Love are applied to all things. Thomas again sees this a bit differently and he takes the idea in both directions as his recollection and understanding of the Master’s words saying that one does not put the new into the old as do the synoptic writers and then adding that it is equally foolish to try to put the old wine into new wineskins; in the former the skins will burst and in the latter the wine will be spoiled. While we do not KNOW the behavior of wine and wineskins, this is not the issue; the issue is in the words as spoken in their parabolic form and taken to the reality that we discuss above. To put the new teaching into the old framework or to put the old ideas, the old wine,  into the new framework are equally undoable. The synoptic writers tell this in only one way but Thomas words can be assumed as the apostles tell us that you CAN NOT put the new wine into the old bottles and that you must put the new wine into new bottles which is, according to the Master’s words, the only way that the new teachings will properly work….in the newness of the heart away from the doctrines and the traditions and the religion of the Jews.

The next part for our discussion is in the idea of drinking old and new wine and in this idea, the preference for the old, is another great parabolic lesson that is missed by many. In Luke we find the saying that “No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith , The old is better” (Luke 5:39) and it is in the completeness of this by Luke that we can best understand the saying from Thomas; “No person drinks old wine and immediately desires to drink new wine“. These do say the same thing and our help in understanding is in the idea that the man who drinks the old “saith, The old is better“. This end part is alternately translated as “the old is good” based upon other sources but for us either word will work well for us here. We should note that our understanding of these idea on the garment and the wine are not as they were early on in our posts (In the Words of Jesus parts 143-144) but have evolved to what we see here today and while those idea from the past are not wrong, these are better and perhaps we can see some of the Master’s point in this view. For so many people it is extremely difficult to change and to accept what is new and this is True in most every facet of Life in this world. Here in relation to the sayings from the synoptic gospels we have established the ideas of the using of the new with the old or the old with the new as NOT being the right way according to the Master’s words and here in this final saying on the matter in Luke’s Gospel the Master gives reason why some would not choose to move from the old to the new but would choose rather to combine them. The old is comfortable, it is known and it is understood while the new is mysterious and unknown and when the man chooses the old saying that “The old is better” or that “the old is good“, this is his saying that he does not want to change, that what he has is ‘good enough’ and there is no need in his mind to risk whatever comfort the old offers. The Master’s words here and in Thomas are a reflection on the ways of men in the world.

The final part of this saying is one that we have often used in our blog and especially that part which the Apostle Thomas leaves out: “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:13). In this part the explanation of the parabolic ideas of serving two masters is resolved for us so that there is and can be no misunderstanding of what the Truth is. Of course, misunderstanding abounds as this idea of mammon is attributed to wealth and possessions only while the Truth is that by degree mammon is whatsoever there is of the world that one spends his time and attention on, his focus. Here in Luke and in Matthew the understanding should be that these two things are incompatible and that one CAN NOT focus on both at the same time; the Master paints the result as animosity toward the one or the other as it interferes with one’s solemn focus. This is that if the Soul’s prompting is inhibiting one’s ability to do as he will in the world, call this conscience, then the man will come to despise the conscience; conversely as well, as a man begins to heed the prompting of the Soul he will come to despise the desires and the attractions of the personality to the things of the world. Thus, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” becomes the Truth for the man who focuses upon either and this is especially burdensome for the aspirant. and perhaps even some degree of discipleship as we read in the stories of Peter, who by his very nature is ‘seeing double’. The point here is that one CAN NOT do both with any success and Thomas paints this for us in real Life with his recollection of the Master’s idea in his presentation of mounting two horses or drawing two bows. In a way these ideas as Thomas combines them in this saying can be see in this fashion; that the old and the new are the masters in this parable and that one CAN NOT go headlong into either one while still attending to the other and that these CAN NOT be mixed as in the new wine in the old bottle or the old wine in the new. While we do not see this in these words as we understand them from the syoptic gospels, perhaps this IS how Thomas’ vision sees these ideas.

The next saying is another that has some similar ideas in the accepted gospels but in this case these ideas are not framed in quite the same way. There may be however a way to reconcile these ideas in the Master’s own words. This forty eighth saying and the similar sayings from the synoptic gospels are:

• “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.” (Thomas 48).
• “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you” (Matthew 17:20).
• “If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you” (Luke 17:6).
• “And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. 23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed , and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass ; he shall have whatsoever he saith” (Mark 11:22-23).
• “Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed , and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done” (Matthew 21:21).

From our perspective, these ALL do say the same thing but before we look at this, let us look at some of the available commentary on this saying from Thomas:

• Robert M. Grant and David Noel Freedman write: “In form this saying is quite similar to Saying 103, where two, becoming one, become sons of men; they say, ‘Mountain, be removed!’ and it moves. We should infer that making peace with one another is the same thing as becoming one, and it also means becoming ‘sons of men.’ Doresse (page 175) notes that the combination then resembles Matthew 5:9; ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.’ (Thomas as usual removes a mention of God.) There is another way of viewing Saying 49 by itself. It clearly begins with something like Matthew 18:19 (‘if two of you agree on earth’), and this verse is parallel to Mark 11:24; but the second part of the saying is parallel to the preceding verse in Mark. One must suppose that the author of Thomas gave close study to gospel parallels, or that he relied on an earlier document in which the parallels had been combined – such as the Diatessaron of Tatian, probably written between 150 and 170.” (The Secret Sayings of Jesus, p. 160).
• R. McL. Wilson writes: “In point of fact, Matthew xviii. 19 is not parallel to Mark xi. 24, and Quispel has claimed that neither Thomas nor the Diatessaron is dependent on the other; both rather go back to a common tradition. A pre-Tatianic harmony, if one existed, might have been used by Thomas, but the Diatessaron itself would in fact appear to be too late, considering the general character of the sayings in this gospel. Moreover, account must be taken of the point made by Puech, that this saying might appear to be no more than a combination of Matthew xviii. 19 and xxi. 21, but for the fact that it occurs also in the Syriac Didascalia, and therefore seems to belong to a distinct tradition. Quispel ascribes this form of the saying to the Gospel according to the Hebrews, and a variant form which appears in logion 106 to the Gospel of the Egyptians: ‘When you make the two one, you shall become sons of man, and when you say: “Mountain, be moved,” it will be moved.'” (Studies in the Gospel of Thomas, p. 79).
• F. F. Bruce writes: “This is reminiscent of the promise of an affirmative answer to the prayer of any two who ‘agree on earth about anything they ask’ (Matthew 18.19). A similar promise in Mark 11.24, which does not specify ‘two’, is preceded by the words: ‘whoever says to this mountain, “Be taken up and cast into the sea”, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him’ (Mark 11.23). The Gospel of Thomas either conflates the two passages, or depends on an earlier compilation or Gospel harmony which conflated them.” (Jesus and Christian Origens Outside the New Testament, p. 132).
• J. D. Crossan writes: “Both Gos. Thom. 48 and 106 retain the apodosis concerning moving the mountain, but each has changed the protasis in different ways. My hypothesis is that the original protasis was about combined (double) prayer but (a) in 48 it now concerns peaceful coexistence and (b) in 106 it now concerns primordial undifferentiation, both of which are hermeneutical variations on that original theme. Neither text has any mention of the mountain being cast into the sea, which was also omitted from Matthew’s conflation of Aphorism 122 (Q/Matt. 17:20b = Luke 17:5-6) and Aphorism 23 (Mark 11:23 = Matt. 21:21) in Matt. 17:20. I do not see any direct contact between Matt. 17:20 and Gos. Thom. 48 or 106, but simply a common tendency to mute just a little the startling hyperbole of the aphorism’s promise.” (In Fragments, pp. 107-108).

None of these approaches the reality of the sayings found in the synoptic gospels and perhaps this is tied to a lack of understanding about the idea of faith of the mustard seed and likely faith in general as presented in the accepted gospels; and the reality of the Soul expressing through form understanding that Thomas seems to be presenting.

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!

• ⁸ Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com
• ¹⁴ The Gospel of Thomas; Translated by Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson; http://gnosis.org/