Monthly Archives: August 2013

ON LOVE; PART CCCLII

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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.

(1) And he said: “Whoever finds the meaning of these words will not taste death.“

(2) Jesus says: “The one who seeks should not cease seeking until he finds. And when he finds, he will be dismayed.  And when he is dismayed, he will be astonished.  And he will be king over the All.“

(3) Jesus says: “If those who lead you say to you: ‘Look, the kingdom is in the sky!’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you: ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fishes will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are the children of the living Father. But if you do not come to know yourselves, then you exist in poverty, and you are poverty.” ¹⁴

In the last two posts we looked at the first three sayings attributed to the Apostle Thomas from the Gospel of Thomas and we found many similarities to the four accepted gospels insofar as the intent of the sayings. From the first we found that the idea of finding the meaning can relate to the admonition of the Master that is offered in a similar tone saying that “If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death” (John 8:52) and, while we may not have framed it thus, finding the meaning of His words would necessarily be to keep His words; there is little other possibility in this. On the matter of “not taste death” or never taste it, we are yet befuddled and, we can only assume as we did when we discussed this that the meaning here in in the realization of Truth of the eternal Life of the Soul and the KNOWING that there is no death for the consciousnesses nor for the Life with which we enliven the human body. Of necessity the body dies but since we ARE NOT this body, we never die; this is a revelation and a realization and not some allusion to any function of the human form. The second saying above is, as we discussed, the same basic saying that we find in the words of the Master that tells us to “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Luke 11:9) except it IS a bit more explicit as it tries to tell us that whatsoever we find in seeking and asking and knocking will be so radically different from what one has come to KNOW, that he will be astonished, and even dismayed and troubled but ALL, from the perspective of the discoveries of the man in the world. And, when we find ALL we will be king over ALL and, as other translations paint it, we will reign over ALL as we will have “overcome the world” which IS our objective and our Goal. 

The third saying which we covered in some detail yesterday is ever so closely related to the Master’s words that tell us the same saying: “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). Again, Thomas shows this as a bit more descriptive saying by the Master but we should see that His view of the sky and birds and of the sea and fishes is well incorporated into the ideas from Luke’s Gospel of “Lo here! or, lo there!” which can be deemed to mean everywhere that the Kingdom IS NOT. We noted the added idea of God is “outside of you” as well and we remarked that this was the common understanding of the day which may be why Luke does not included these words. We also spent much time on the idea of poverty and here we must understand that the common view that this poverty or the riches spoken of by the Master and His apostles in many places in scripture, ARE NOT riches of wealth and possessions NOR IS it these that are reflected in the idea of poverty by Thomas. We find in the simplicity of the Master’s words here from Thomas Gospel the reality that without KNOWING God and without KNOWING the God Within a man is poor, he IS bereft of both True spiritual understanding and Wisdom. We noted several sayings from the Apostle Paul that give is this sense of poverty which we should see in the same Light as the True understanding of the these words that are found at the end of the Parable of the Rich Fool: “God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be , which thou hast provided ? 21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:20-21). Ponder on this.

We come now to the our next group of sayings from Thomas’ Gospel and we should note here that we are seeing these words for the first time as well having not read this text beforehand and that many of these sayings can take on a strange quality as we see them for the first time and try to relate them to the Master’s words as we KNOW them from the accepted gospels and epistles. One such strange saying is this next one, number four:

(4) Jesus says:  “The person old in his days will not hesitate to ask a child seven days old about the place of life, and he will live. For many who are first will become last, and they will become a single one.“

(5) Jesus says: “Come to know what is in front of you, and that which is hidden from you will become clear to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not become manifest.“

(6) His disciples questioned him, (and) they said to him: “Do you want us to fast? And how should we pray and give alms? And what diet should we observe?“
Jesus says: “Do not lie. And do not do what you hate. For everything is disclosed in view of <the truth. For there is nothing hidden that will not become revealed. And there is nothing covered that will remain undisclosed.“ 

(7) Jesus says: “Blessed is the lion that a person will eat and the lion will become human. And anathema is the person whom a lion will eat and the lion will become human.” ¹⁴

Here we must say that there is little to be understood at first view of these words and, coming to this saying which we CAN NOT rightly discern, we did look for and find some available commentary by men purported as scholars on another website (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/thomas/), but we can find nothing regarding his saying that makes any sense to us at ALL as there appears that none of the commentators have the same vision of Life as we do. We did learn however that the theme of “single one” repeats somewhat through Thomas’ text and perhaps we can find some greater meaning as we proceed. We are then left to our own devices as we are most times and here we should look first at the Master’s view of children who, while never quite so young seven days, is one that Jesus holds out as an example of what it is that we should be like in our lives here in this Earth. We have these ideas from the Master in the synoptic gospels:

• Two times in a short span of gospel time in the Apostle Matthew’s Gospel does the Master refer to children for His disciples edification; first as the result of the disciples contention over who would be greatest among them where we read “And Jesus called a little child unto him , and set him in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:2-4). Here is the comparison between the little child, the innocent and trusting and humble little child, and the True disciple who expresses these same qualities and whatsoever other a little child expresses; and yes, it likely takes innocence, trusting and much other virtue, especially Love, to be able to express oneself as Truly humble. Not long after this, upon the Master’s arrival at the “coasts of Judaea beyond Jordan” we read this: “Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:1, 13-14). Here we should note that it is His same disciples as were present in Galilee above are present here and ARE who rebuked the children and here they receive yet another lesson in which children play a central role and He teaches them that the very nature of a disciple, whose heart IS ever in the Kingdom, is the same as these children; that they possess the qualities of the man accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God and discipleship. Here we can try to see that discipleship and the Kingdom are yet more than keeping His words as law but that they must be lived as well and that through them one must overcome ALL of the ways of the world. In the Apostle Mark’s Gospel this same idea is presented a bit differently and as a combination of sorts of these two sayings from Matthew: “And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein” (Mark 10:13-15).
• Although the same series of verses from the Apostle Matthew are included in this next selection, we keep this separate because of it perspective on the idea of angels and we bring this together with another saying by the Master from the Apostle Luke’s Gospel that speaks on angels and the Kingdom as well; first from Matthew we read “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven” Matthew 18:10) Here we should see the idea of the little child whose angel ever beholds the face of the Father. This IS a deep saying which, if properly understood, would be like one for which Thomas’ Gospel is derided by many. Common understanding of this verse IS either muted or seen as confirmation of the existence of guardian angels, those angels that here would be assigned to look over the child. For this there IS NO scriptural foundation and a look around the world at the plight of children can show how insufficient or overly selective this idea can be. In our parlance this angel IS the Soul who is spoken about in this way as a matter of Truth from the perspective that the Soul of man, the Soul that IS man, never leaves the Father’s presence as he tries to wrest the attention of the human form and personality which is using his consciousness away from the things of the world and onto the Truth of God. In the child who is yet unmolested by the effects of the illusion and the glamour of Life in the world, this same angel is perhaps yet in some True communication with his form or else is not yet engrossed in the need to wrest back the attention of the consciousness. This IS of course a reality that one can only Truly see and understand by revelation and until that time this must remain as it is, a glimpse of Truth which can intelligently be seen in a much more realistic Light than the premise of the guardian angel. In Luke’s Gospel we read this saying that is in regard to a different subject but which at the same time brings this idea of angel to our greater understanding; speaking of those who marry we read: “But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection” (Luke 20:35-36). The KEY words here are of course “accounted worthy“, that state in which one is able to express his divinity through Life in the world and who thereby has attained the Kingdom; the Master here is speaking of that final perspective of the True disciple who has overcome ALL and need not “die any more” these, are then “like the angels” which is the more right rendering of this Greek word isaggelos. Can we see here the same perspective on angels as we have above; that the little child is pure and of the Kingdom and the True disciple is pure as well and able to return consciously to the Kingdom?
• Finally we have this reference: “But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented“. The Master utters these words in the middle of his dissertation about John the Baptist, between telling the people that the Baptist was indeed the same Soul as the Prophet Elias and admonishing them regarding how that in John’s purity of Life the rulers and their followers said of him that “He hath a devil” while at the same time saying of the Master’s way in the world that He is “a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners“, before closing out His remarks on the Baptist saying “But wisdom is justified of her children” (Matthew 11:16-17, 18, 19). Vincent tells us that the word rendered as children should be seen as: Diminutive, little children ⁴ which is Jesus normal meaning in speaking of children and while this is not defined we should understand this as young and perhaps in some places even as children at heart; it is nonetheless at some age before the lose their innate innocence and trusting and humble heart. It is suggested that the Master’s point here in using the children is to illustrate his point regarding the judgement of people, that they are never pleased or never satisfied with the leading actions of others and this does make some sense in this context. Here perhaps we should try to see the innocence and the humble attitude of the little child as the Master’s point that it IS this attitude that men should follow and not the hardened and separatist attitude of judgement that they do employ in regard to John and to the Master Himself. The closing words are a bit more muddled as in different source texts there are apparently different Greek words used, this is generally shown by Vincent but in this case it is not. It seems the newer translations render the idea of deeds. or works or even actions as the way of justifying Wisdom as opposed to the idea above from King James of “justified of her children” and here, can likely see this same meaning in both if we can understand that the idea of children brings the reality of Wisdom innate and unmolested by the world; bringing then actions or deeds that are Wise.

In ALL of this we did nothing with our subject verse from Thomas’ Gospel but we do have a greater foundation for the idea of the child in the Master’s word usage to build upon in trying to discern just what is meant by “The person old in his days will not hesitate to ask a child seven days old about the place of life, and he will live. For many who are first will become last, and they will become a single one.” The mystery of the child is not so much a mystery as it is an example of the nature of the disciple insofar as his outward attitude; that it should be as the child who has not yet been drawn into the world of things, the child who IS yet humble and innocent and trusting plus whatsoever other virtues such a one would possess.

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.

Repeating a Quote of the Day from the past that has some significance in relation to what we are discussing here, that the Kingdom of God and therefore God is within us ALL. Here Lord Tennyson poetically tells us just how close God Truly IS and how it is that we touch Him

Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet

Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.

(Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809–1892)

From the poem The Higher Pantheism which puts forth the authors spiritual belief. Whether we agree with him or not, the quote if spiritually perfect for all of Christianity as well as any other world religion.

For us today this saying shows us the closeness of the spiritual self to the Father and then too the closeness of the spiritual self with the personality of man. We may like to think of God as something outside and above but the reality, as we have seen in so many of the sayings of the Master, is that God is with us and in us and we need only to let ourselves be drawn. And, if we can use these words from the Gospel of Thomas here we can perhaps see much: “When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are the children of the living Father.“

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• ² New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ³ Strongest Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible – 2001
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
• ¹⁴ The Gospel of Thomas; Translated by Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson; http://gnosis.org/