ON LOVE; PART XDXIX

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.

(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.“

In the last essay we began our discussion on the fifty fifth saying from the Gospel of Thomas and we noted the similarity to the combined versions of Matthew and Luke regarding these same words from the Master. Here in this saying we find greater evidence of the individual nature of the apostles’ writing styles, their recollection of the Master’s words and what they individually took from His words as being of enough importance that they would write them into their own works which we call the gospels. As in the previous idea regarding the poor, these words from Thomas’ Gospel are very close in nature to the accepted gospels but this sense of closeness should not be the measurement of the authenticity of his writing. As we see here the two synoptic versions do not agree together either and it seems to be this matching of Thomas’ to one or another of the accepted that has captured the attention of the commentators. From our view there is little certainty as to who wrote what nearly two thousand years ago and this does not matter; we accept these writings of the New Testament as our written record of Jesus Life on this Earth and of His teachings and the little differences that we see are not obstacles but are rather opportunities to delve deeper into the Master’s meaning as recollected by the apostles and as processed by their own personalities in the world. Hence we see “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:6) as an expansion on the idea above from Thomas and the words from Luke saying: “Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20). Here the idea of Spirit helps us to understand that the Master IS NOT speaking about the materially poor who ARE NOT attendant to or focused on the things of God and we see this as confirmed by the words of Luke who begins this saying with  “And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said“; here we get the True sense of this by KNOWING, that he is speaking to those who have forsaken ALL and become poor from a worldly perspective for the sake of the Kingdom. In this we should try to see that the Master is speaking to His disciples in the presence of the multitude and herein is their lesson; that they too will be blessed as they forsake the world for the Kingdom of God. Here in Thomas version we have the idea of heaven from Matthew, which is his preference in speaking and perhaps the Master’s as well, and we have the structure of Luke which is sans the idea of the Spirit and in the combination of the three we have the Truth unabashed.

Of course this is not how the commentators on Thomas writing see this which we saw a few posts back as they mostly seem to seek ways to discredit these writings as copies of the accepted and Gnostic in nature and here again we should add that the alternate view of the Gnostic is ofttimes closer to the Truth than is the doctrine developed by mainstream Christianity….and closer to our views as well. In the fifty fifth saying we have much the same ideas at play; the ideas from Thomas are a sort of combination of the words we read in Matthew and in Luke and can here lend some reality to the overall idea of these words from the Master. Here we must remember that words change over time as does their usage and the word rendered as hate in both Luke and in Thomas is an example of this idea. We do not KNOW, except from dictionaries and lexicons, what the True intent was in the Master’s True words, we do not KNOW if He called this that we love mother, father, etc less than Him or that He called this that we hate them but in the Truth of His sayings we KNOW that they must mean the same thing and, based upon our more modern understanding of the word hate, we must lean here toward the ideas of Matthew where we love them less. This IS NOT a difficult conclusion and only requires our recollection of the Master’s words on Love and our point here is the difference in the choice of words by the apostles, that they are choosing words that in that day are equivalent but which are changed by translation and usage over the centuries: this same is True in many places that we have discovered in scripture and likely in many that we have not. And of course the interpretations of those who comment also has a large effect upon those readers who see them as authorities.

We see some of this in the ideas of the cross as we find them in this saying; many believe that this IS a reference to the cross of the crucifixion although the idea of the crucifixion is unheard of before this and we can assume that this IS so but, at the same time, it does not matter as this IS NOT the idea that the Master is teaching His disciples and would be disciples. Jesus IS teaching them the they must follow Him, follow His example and follow in His way and here perhaps the idea from Thomas’ Gospel were we read “take up his cross in my way” as Lambdin and the Interlinear render this makes greater sense. The reality is that they take up the burden that He has taken and while much of this is not a burden from the perspective of the Soul, it likely IS from the perspective of the man in the world and especially the would be disciple. Regardless of the fact that they are disciples and aspirants, they are still, as we see in our example of the Apostle Peter, thinking and acting somewhat as men in the world. They are not complete and it IS in this light that the Master tells Peter after the final supper that: “But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren” (Luke 2232). If then we can see this idea of the cross as the act of following the Master ‘in His way‘, we can then see the reality of this saying on discipleship and the Kingdom of God. We can see deeper into this from another similar saying on the cross which is also thought by many to pertain to the crucifixion; we read:

• “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).
• “And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34).
• “And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

The common thread in these sayings in that one who desires to be as Him, to come after Him, must deny himself and then follow Him and from our perspective these ideas are effectively the same. One CAN NOT come after Him without this denying and following, one CAN NOT follow Him without denying himself and one CAN NOT take up his cross without doing both. Here we can clearly see this idea of taking up one’s cross but this IS a difficult thing for the man in the world and here we find one of the parimary places where doctrine intercedes to dilute His words and make them more acceptable. John Gill writes on this that:

 if any man will come after me: that is, be a disciple and follower of him, it being usual for the master to go before, and the disciple to follow after him: now let it be who it will, rich or poor, learned or unlearned, young or old, male or female, that have any inclination and desire, or have took up a resolution in the strength of grace, to be a disciple of Christ, let him deny himself: let him deny sinful self, ungodliness, and worldly lusts; and part with them, and his former sinful companions, which were as a part of himself: let him deny righteous self, and renounce all his own works of righteousness, in the business of justification and salvation; let him deny himself the pleasures and profits of this world, when in competition with Christ; let him drop and banish all his notions and expectations of an earthly kingdom, and worldly grandeur, and think of nothing but reproach, persecution, and death, for the sake of his Lord and Master: and take up his cross; cheerfully receive, and patiently bear, every affliction and evil, however shameful and painful it may be, which is appointed for him, and he is called unto; which is his peculiar cross, as every Christian has his own; to which he should quietly submit, and carry, with an entire resignation to the will of God, in imitation of his Lord: and follow me; in the exercise of grace, as humility, zeal, patience, and self-denial; and in the discharge of every duty, moral, or evangelical; and through sufferings and death, to his kingdom and glory. The allusion is, to Christ’s bearing his own cross, and Simeon’s carrying it after him, which afterwards came to pass ⁸.

Here we see the idea of following as restricted to those with the Master at this time rather than the timeless idea of ‘coming after Him‘ as seeking to be as He IS. In denial we find the caveat of  denying those things only when in competition with Christ rather than to understand that in Truly ‘coming after Him‘ one would not be focused at all in the things of the world, competing or not. In the cross we see here the idea of bodily harm and affliction; however, Mr. Gill also points us to a Truth as he does say that it IS: his peculiar cross, as every Christian has his own; to which he should quietly submit, and carry, with an entire resignation to the will of God, in imitation of his Lord; in this is the essence of the denial and the Truth of coming after Him; and, in the end here, we have the idea of the allusion which is an assumption only and is of no import whatsoever as following Him IS to keep His words.

In the rest of this fifty fifth saying we do have the reality that we must NOT hold any above the Master but this IS NOT that we Love Jesus as is commonly understood, it is that we do not hold anyone above our desire to be His disciple, we do not hold anyone nor anything above our drive to allow the Christ Within to flourish in our Life. This IS the meaning of that Love idea as used here and this is seen in the reality of the Master’s telling us: “If ye love me, keep my commandments”  and again that: “If a man love me, he will keep my words” (John 14:15, 23). Perhaps here we can see a reason for Luke’s and Thomas’ use of the word rendered as hate as well; so as not to cast this as to Love the Master alone. These sayings ARE on the art of discipleship and they ARE also on the Truth of attaining the Kingdom. This we have said many times is this blog, that the idea of discipleship and of being accounted worthy of the Kingdom ARE the same and we use these sayings, the version from Matthew, to show us this as in His words “ is not worthy of me” which we see as this criteria of Loving less and taking up one’s cross. Both ideas mean just this from our perspective: that in this we are accounted worthy of the Kingdom. Among the differences of these renderings from Matthew, Luke and Thomas we find this idea somewhat clarified for us as Thomas uses the ideas of hate from Luke and the idea of “worthy of me” from Matthew in combination. In this ALL we should try to see that the idea of worthy is a self-imposed working out of the dynamic of discipleship, that no one appoints a man to such position but a man assumes this position by doing what is required, by keeping His words; here worthy takes on the role of accomplishment. By doing what is required one 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 this makes of a man a “disciple indeed“.

Our next saying, the fifty sixth is rather unique as there is nothing quite like this in the accepted gospels although the idea behind this may be found therein. While it may seem a bit convoluted, there is a basic sense to these words. As we will see from the commentary there is another saying that is quite similar to this one and in light of this we should look at these together here and then again when we come upon the other saying:

• (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.“
• (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.”

Now there are times when ideas are repeated in the synoptic gospels as well and usually this is the repetition of of ideas that are of singular importance to the writer and to the Master. Some of the commentary here tells us:

• Robert M. Grant and David Noel Freedman write: “Knowing the world is equivalent to finding a corpse (or, in the parallel Saying 80, a body); this knowledge and this discovery are evidently regarded as good, for the world is not worthy of the discoverer (cf., Hebrews 11:38, and page 77). Knowing the world, then, must be truly knowing it for what it is. But we must also consider one more saying (109). The world is not worthy of the one ‘who will find himself.’ We conclude that Saying 57 [56], like these variants we have cited, is based on the verse which in Matthew (10:39; cf., Mark 8:34-35) follows the verses cited in Saying 56 [55]. ‘He who finds his soul [life] will lose it, and he who loses his soul for my sake will find it.’ Either Thomas simply mystifies his readers by speaking of a corpse or he uses ‘corpse’ as the equivalent for ‘body’ and hence for ‘self.’ The Naassenes used ‘corpse’ of the spiritual man (Hippolytus, Ref., 5, 8, 22).” (The Secret Sayings of Jesus, p. 164).
• F. F. Bruce writes: “To say that the world is not worthy of someone (cf. Hebrews 11.38) is to commend him; therefore (strange as it may seem) to find a corpse is praiseworthy. The Naassenes, according to Hippolytus, spoke of the spiritual body as a ‘corpse’. [The reason for this strange use of ‘corpse’ was that the spiritual essence is ‘buried’ in the body as a corpse is buried in a tomb (Hippolytus, Refutation v.8.22).] But the analogy of Saying 111 (‘as for him who finds himself, the world is not worthy of him’) suggests that here ‘corpse’ means ‘body’ as used in the sense of ‘self’. If so, we may have a cryptic parallel to the canonical saying about gaining the world and losing one’s own self, or vice versa (Luke 9.24f.; Matthew 16.25f.), which follows a saying about denying self and taking up the cross (cf. Saying 55).” (Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, p. 135).
• Stevan Davies writes: “Gos. Thom. 56 is a scribal alteration of saying 80, the word ptoma having been substituted for soma.” (http://www.misericordia.edu/users/ davies/thomas/jblprot.htm).
• Funk and Hoover write: “The fact that there are two versions suggests that some such saying might have circulated previously in an oral form. Yet both sayings deprecate the created world in a way that is typical of Thomas (27:1; 110; 111:3) and atypical of Jesus. Furthermore, the notion that the world is evil, or corrupt, and is to be shunned is common in other gnostic writings. The Fellows therefore concluded that this saying, in both its forms, originated in early Christian circles such as the one that produced the Gospel of Thomas. It represents gnostic tendencies of one branch of the Christian movement.” (The Five Gospels, p. 505).
• Gerd Ludemann writes: “Thomas 80 corrsponds to Thomas 56, the only difference being that there we have ‘body’ instead of ‘corpse’. For Thomas this world is a sphere opposed to God. So the commandment is to abstain from it (21.1). But the Gnostic must first recognize it as an anti-world in order to be able to turn to the true life. Cf. Gospel of Philip 93: ‘This world is an eater of life. Because of this, none of those who are nourished on the [truth] will die. Jesus came from that place and brought food from there. And to those who wished he gave [life, so that] they will not die.'” (Jesus After 2000 Years, p. 618).

There is of course a basic misunderstanding of the nature of the world in most of these commentaries above. Mr. Ludemann sees a part of this in his comment of the world opposed to God and this is something that is carried forward in the accepted New Testament as we read in the writings of the Apostles Paul, John and James:

• “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness” (1 Corinthians 3:18-19).
• “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” (1 John 2:15-17)
• “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, 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).

In these sayings and others like them we should be able to see the Master’s idea from Thomas perspective, 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.

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/