ON LOVE; PART CCCLXXI

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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.

(18)  The disciples said to Jesus: “Tell us how our end will be.”  Jesus said: “Have you already discovered the beginning that you are now asking about the end? For where the beginning is, there the end will be too. Blessed is he who will stand at the beginning. And he will know the end, and he will not taste death.”

(19) Jesus says: “Blessed is he who was, before he came into being. If you become disciples of mine (and) listen to my words, these stones will serve you.  For you have five trees in Paradise that do not change during summer (and) winter, and their leaves do not fall. Whoever comes to know them will not taste death.”

(20)  The disciples said to Jesus: “Tell us whom the kingdom of heaven is like!”  He said to them: “It is like a mustard seed.  <It> is the smallest of all seeds.  But when it falls on cultivated soil, it produces a large branch (and) becomes shelter for the birds of the sky.”

(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.” ¹⁴

In the last essay we looked at this eighteenth saying from the perspective of the reality that we should find in the word eternal Life. In the view of some this idea is a one-sided affair as they see the definition of everlasting in place of the definition of eternal and this view is supported by the doctrinal approach that counts eternal Life as never ending but does not look at the reality of the word which includes within its scope never beginning. Again we are faced here with the thought that Life is this form and it has a beginning at birth and while many may believe that other doctrinal perspective of predestination, these ideas are seldom combined; that one is conscious and aware before the birth from the womb, or even conception, and this IS Life. There is a saying in the words of the Prophet Jeremiah that gives us this understanding in biblical terms as he repeats the “word of the Lord“; Jeremiah says: “Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jeremiah 1:4-5). We should of course understand that this idea is not only to the prophet but to ALL men and there is a deep reality in this saying. This idea of foreknowing is repeated for us by the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Romans and in that Eighth Chapter that we have found is filled with many of the mysteries of Life; here Paul, speaking about those who are called, tells us: “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29). This is of course seen, as is the idea above from Jeremiah, as that there are those who are preselected to be called into His service and while this IS NOT our point here we will add that this idea is contrary to that other reality, that “there is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:11). Our point here is that if there can be foreknowledge and there can be predestination then there must be Life before the womb and this is, as least in its appearance, eternal Life.

There is no depth to this teaching on predestination but there is specific doctrine in parts of the church based upon the few sayings in the epistles that discuss this. Our perspective on this idea of preselection and predestination is of course grounded in our belief that the Soul, the True man IS, in the Kingdom of God and  IS part and parcel of God from the perspective of Life in this Earth and that the Spirit, which is the essence of the True man, is part and parcel of the greater essence of God that reaches beyond this planetary scheme. These ideas are a part of the Grand Mystery of Life that is locked away and which only becomes visible to the man who seeks and searches and who strives toward that High Calling of discipleship; for us, we get but an occasional glimpse which IS, from our perspective, much more suitable to our overall understanding than ARE the doctrines that distort and separate people into the called and the NOT and distorts, as well the entirety of the idea as it concerns the man who, like the prodigal son, wastes the greater part of his Life but comes to the Father’s house in the end. These ideas as seen in doctrine are for the most part intenable. That there IS predestination and preselection can be seen as a Truth from the perspective of reincarnation; in the incarnation of men who have some specific purpose which idea likely applies to the disciples and many of those that they taught as this was necessary for the working out of the Plan. This IS NOT however the working of a single Supreme being who we call God, but, as we have ofttimes said, it IS the working of the Soul himself who has achieved some degree of control of his worldly nature and returns with the ability to control again and to serve some new purpose and we should understand that this control IS discipleship and that the whole of this works according to the ongoing Life and the accumulated spiritual collateral of the individual Soul and not an arbitrary choosing of one over another by Our God who “is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34).

There IS then a reality here to this idea of eternal Life that goes forward and backward that the doctrines do not see and the teachings of the Church will have a hard time explaining the idea of always was along side of the idea that this eternal Life is a gift of God or of Christ; in this understanding only everlasting will work. But everlasting IS NOT the Truth of eternal as Our God IS eternal….He has always been. Again we should understand that this is a difficult idea for the finite mind to grasp and to comprehend and this IS True in the affiliated concept of infinity as well.

All this being said, we should be able to relate the timelessness of eternity and the ultimate boundless reality if infinity to these words from the Master in the Gospel of Thomas. Here we see that the beginning and the end of the same, they are ONE. His words that “where the beginning is, there the end will be too” reveals little but the idea of the mystery and if we look at this from the perspective of the True disciple, the True KNOWER who sees ALL, who IS with the Master able to say “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33), we will see the depth of his understanding and his ability to KNOW and to “stand at the beginning“, to “know the end“, and in this get a glimpse of that greater Truth that is beyond our concepts of time and space here in this physical world….the eternal now. This is the fullness of the realization of eternal Life and in this state of KNOWING, the disciple “will not taste death“.

This next saying, the nineteenth is particularly obscure. From the perspective of doctrinal Christianity it is likely gibberish and this is likely the tone of the commentary as well. For us, we can see a link to the prior saying and some references to the relationship between the form and personality in the world, and the Spirit and Soul Within. All of our available translations do say more or less the same thing but the interlinear gives us one rather important difference in the second verse which is rendered variously as:

• “If you become disciples of mine (and) listen to my words, these stones will serve you” (Patterson and Robinson).
• “If you exist as my disciples and listen to my sayings, these stones will minister unto you” (Layton).
• “If you should be to me disciples and listen to my words, these stones will become servants to you” (Interlinear Version).

The interlinear version here is much like the interlinear of any language that gives word by word translation without the translated language’s grammatical corrections nor corrections for style or readability. Here, in this Coptic to English version, this is what we have but this is not generally True of bible translations as they are usually keyed to some accepted translation so that the words do not flow in the same order. Here, we have a True interlinear that gives us the rendering above which is much different than “if you become disciples“; here the idea is more that if you act as disciples and listen. We prefer this of course because in our view is that the Master’s audience are already disciples and if this were not so He would not likely be giving them such obscure language; and His message is never to confound. So then here we will adopt this understanding of the question which is not far from the Layton rendering of “exist as my disciple“.

Looking at the available commentaries on this saying we find:

• Jean Doresse writes: “Cf. the Gospel of Philip (Coptic text of Codex X of Chenoboskion) where this formula also appears; and St Irenaeus, who quotes it under the form: ‘Happy is He who was before becoming man.’ And in the New Testament, John VIII, 58: ‘Before Abraham was, I am.'” (The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics, p. 372).
• F. F. Bruce writes: “The one who existed before he was born is Jesus himself, who ‘came from the Father and entered into the world’ (John 16.28). Saying 19a is quoted by other early Christian writers: Irenaeus and Lactantius quote it as a prophetic utterance of Jeremiah. [Irenaeus, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 43; Lactantius, Divine Institutions iv.8. The words may have occurred in an apocryphal work, no longer extant, ascribed to Jeremiah.]” (Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, p. 121). “The reference to the stones in Saying 19b is reminiscent of the turning of stones into bread in the temptation narrative (Matthew 4.3; Luke 4.3). The five trees have the property of the unfailing ‘tree of life’ in Revelation 22.2; they are five in number perhaps because they are envisaged as spiritual counterparts to the five natural senses. [The Gnostic treatise Pistis Sophia makes repeated mention of the ‘five trees’ in the ‘treasurey of the light’.]” (Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, p. 122)
• Marvin Meyer writes: “Perhaps compare John 8:58. Lactantius, Divine Institutes 4.8 writes, ‘For we especially testify that he (that is, Christ) was born twice, first in the spirit and afterwords in the flesh. Whence it is thus said in Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” And also in the same work, “Fortunate is one who existed before being born,” which happened to no one else except Christ.’ Irenaeus, Proof of the Apostolic Preaching 43, offers the following: ‘And again he says, “Fortunate is one who existed before becoming human.”‘ Gospel of Thomas saying 19 may not be referring to Christ at all in this beatitude. Rather, the sense of the saying could be that anyone who existed before being born should be declared fortunate. Compare the saying of Jesus in the Nag Hammadi Gospel of Philip 64,10-12: ‘Fortunate is the one who exists before coming into being. For one who exists has been and will be.'” (The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, p. 77). “The five trees in paradise are mentioned frequently in gnostic texts, ordinarily without explanation or elaboration. In Manichaean Psalm Book 161,17-29, it is said that various features of life and faith are put together in groups of five. This section opens with the statement, ‘For [five] are the trees that are in paradise [. . .] in summer and winter.’ On the trees in paradise according to Genesis, see Genesis 2:9.” (The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, pp. 77-78)
• Robert M. Grant and David Noel Freedman write: “The fourth-century apologist Lactantius treats the first sentence of this saying as a prophecy uttered by Jeremiah (Div. inst., 4, 8); in the Epideixis (43) of Irenaeus, however, it is ascribed to Jesus (cf., J. P. Smith, St. Irenaeus: Proof of the Apostolic Preaching, page 182, note 207). Like Jesus, who ‘was’ (John 1:1-2) before he ‘became’ incarnate (John 1:14), his disciples, who hear his words because they themselves are ‘of God’ (John 8:47), remain in him and have his words remaining in them; therefore whatever they ask will take place for them (John 15:8). Stones can become bread (Matthew 3:3; Luke 3:3), or fire can come out of stones (Saying 13). Thomas probably has in mind the creation of food out of stones (cf. also Matthew 7:9: ‘What man of you, if his son asks him for bread – will he give him a stone?’), for he goes on to speak of the five never-failing trees in paradise. These trees, mentioned in Pistis Sophia (chapters 1 and elsewhere) and among the Manichees, are probably trees which give spiritual sustenance to the five spiritual senses. They are the trees of life like the single one mentioned in Revelation 22:2 (cf., the Gospel of Eve[?] in Epiphanius, Pan., 26, 5). They must be spiritual, since Thomas says that ‘he who will understand them will not taste death.’ To understand them is thus equivalent to ‘keeping the word’ of Jesus (John 8:52).” (The Secret Sayings of Jesus, p. 139).
• R. McL. Wilson writes: “Grant and Freedman interpret the somewhat cryptic logion 19 by referring to Johannine texts, but while this is certainly illuminating for our understanding of the saying it is doubtful whether we have here genuine allusions or only a similarity of thought. The comparative absence of Johannine elements may indeed be significant, particularly in a Gnostic document. The associations of this saying are, however, with the later Gnostic and Manichaean literature rather than with our Gospels, although part of it was known to Irenaeus.” (Studies in the Gospel of Thomas, p. 83).
• Helmut Koester writes: “For the Gnostic understanding it is crucial to know that one’s own origin lies before the beginning of earthly existence. John [8:58] consciously avoids this application of divine origin to all believers and restricts it to Jesus as the revealer.” (Ancient Christian Gospels, p. 118).

Here the commentary is more along the lines of comparison to existing Christian doctrine that just comparing the Master”s words to Gnostic literature. If we can look at this saying in the parabolic way that it is offered we can likely find some interesting points regarding this idea of five trees and some True relevance in the idea of the seasons. As we close for today we should try to see that this first line “Blessed is he who was, before he came into being” is based in the same thoughts that we have above regarding the eighteenth saying where we can see our own understanding of the reality of the True man, the Soul, as existing before his birth in the world and the doctrinal understanding of this in the ideas of foreknowledge and presestination.

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/