IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 801

ON LOVE; PART CCCXC

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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.

(30)Jesus says: “Where there are three gods, they are gods. Where there are two or one, I am with him.“

(31) Jesus says:  “No prophet is accepted in his (own) village. A physician does not heal those who know him.“

(32) Jesus says: “A city built upon a high mountain (and) fortified cannot fall, nor can it be hidden.“

(33) Jesus says: “What you will hear with your ear {with the other ear} proclaim from your rooftops. For no one lights a lamp (and) puts it under a bushel, nor does he put it in a hidden place. Rather, he puts it on a lampstand, so that everyone who comes in and goes out will see its light.“

(34) Jesus says: “If a blind (person) leads a blind (person), both will fall into a pit.”¹⁴

Our subtitle of ON LOVE has been at the top of our essays now for 390 posts and we have left it there regardless of the current topic. This is because ALL is ON LOVE as when we speak of Truly spiritual matters, LOVE is per force the topic. “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16) should become our mantra if Life in this world as LOVE IS the beginning and the end of our spiritual reality and it covers ALL of Life from its activity as the cohesive force that holds ALL things in place to the higher ideas of brotherhood, harmony and Unity as they become the psychic version of the physical effect. The Apostle Paul tells us in our much referenced eighth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans that: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28) and while this may mean certain things to the average Christian, the deeper reality IS in the words themselves as they are stitched together by the apostle. That ALL things work to together is that True harmony that is an outward and inward sign of Love in the Life of the man who Loves God and we should remember that the Master tells us clearly how one can Love God as He says “If ye love me, keep my commandments” and then, so that we Truly understand His intent, He repeats this again saying “If a man love me, he will keep my words” (John 14:15, 23). Hence our reality that “them who are the called” are those who Love Him, they are those who keep His word. How then do we see that harmony, this working together? By its link to those other words of Unity and brotherhood. Unity of Soul and the expression of the Soul to the world which affords us that sense of the Unity of ALL things in God; and brotherhood as the man sees himself in others and understands their plight and, shining his own Light upon their Way fulfills the Great Commandment of the Lord that we Love God who IS Love and that we Love also our neighbor, that we Love ALL men, not as brothers only, but as we DO Love ourselves, and we do this by affording them any and all provision that we would afford ourselves.

And for those who believe that they Love God and who believe that they are among the called, the Apostle John gives us this test as he says: “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:20-21). Regardless of what one may believe about the Master’s teachings on Love, no matter how one may constrict this to only those he deems deserve his Love, the Master’s intent IS clear to ALL who intelligently look at His words and the words of His apostles. The bottom line IS that if a man Truly seeks spiritual advancement, if one Truly desires the Kingdom of God or if one IS Truly desirous of being His disciple, IT IS ONLY THROUGH THE GATEWAY OF LOVE that he can achieve. While ALL of these ideas that we discuss about Life and the Kingdom may be interesting they are of NO use to us if we are not practicing or striving to practice this Love which is the paramount part of our keeping His words and this He tells us by defining the Great Commandments on Love as such and telling us that “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:40), and “There is none other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:31). And to this ALL we add ourselves the idea of GoodWill, that this is the way par excellence to practice that Love because GoodWill IS Love in Action.

Returning to our discussion of the thirty second saying from the Gospel of Thomas we should try to see the Love that is encapsulated in these words or rather in the right interpretation of these words. As the Master, the disciple must stand strong in relation to ALL that may come against him and he must stand tall, not in height as one would suppose based on the example, but rather in Spirit and here we should take this idea from the Master’s words in Matthew’s Gospel as they apply to the disciples standing as well as the next idea that he not be hid; we read: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Here we can further interpret the Master’s saying from Thomas to say that the disciple IS the one that stands tall, which is to let his Light shine for ALL to see, and the one who stands strong, cloaked in the armor of God, against ALL that can come against him. And that he CAN NOT fall and it is in this standing that he CAN NOT be hid but CAN rather fulfill the words of the Master as He refers to John the Baptist saying: “He was a burning and a shining light” (John 5:3 ). In this ALL we can see the reality of the Master’s words saying: “No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light” (Luke 11:33); here we should see that the Light IS the disciple and the candlestick is his standing strong, not in secret,  tall and unhid and that as “a burning and a shining light” he offers himself in service to God and through God to ALL men. Additional insight into these ideas can be found in the accepted gospels where the Master speaks about these ideas of not being hidden:

• Speaking to His disciples about persecution and about ALL that may come against him in the world of men, as most ALL will disagree with the disciples presentation of Love, the Master says: “And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come. The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household? Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known. What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops“. Can we see the relationships here; nothing hid, speaking in the Light and from high places and most of all staying strong as we see in the Master’s conclusion of these sayings: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell”  (Matthew 10:22-28). And we should note here that in our understanding there IS NONE to fear as there ARE NOT any who are be “able to destroy both soul and body in hell“
• In Mark’s Gospel there is not the same dramatic approach to the saying but it is rather just related to the Light that we should not hide; the effulgence of the disciple should be visible to ALL which is the gist of the end part of our subject saying from Thomas Gospel as well. Here in Mark we read: “And he said unto them, Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? and not to be set on a candlestick? For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear” (Mark 4:21-23).
• In Luke’s Gospel the ideas are split with the saying above from Mark being said by the Master in a different place in Luke as we see above. Luke reports a combination then of the ideas from Matthew, the Master’s thoughts on things hid and a picture of those other things against which the disciple must stand strong. We read: “he began to say unto his disciples first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him” (Luke 12:1-5). In Matthew the disciple stands against persecution and those that will seek to do harm while here in Luke we have the idea of the psychic attack from the Pharisee, from his leaven that can serve to dissuade a man from the Truth. Here we must understand that until that point of True discipleship where one can proclaim with the Master that “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33) their is always the possibility of falling back into the ease of carnal living and it this that the Master warns against. Here also we read that ending part in different way; here the words are to not fear him who can kill the body but who have nothing else that they can do and the added part that we should fear the one who after,  has the power to cast into hell and here, in the Truth of the Life of the disciple, this one IS only the disciple himself who may have fallen back under the pressures of living in the world. There IS NO ONE else who could do such harm and both here and in the above we should liken hell to living again in the illusions and the glamour of the world from the perspective of the disciple.

It is ALL of this that can be found in those simple words from the Gospel of Thomas as they reflect Jesus parabolic instructions to the disciple that he must stand tall and stand strong and not be hid but rather be a Light, a server, unto the world and here we should try to understand that Thomas is recording the Master’s words and that it is in their completeness that we find Life and not in the individual sayings that have but limited meaning especially as they are parabolic statements that must be rightly discerned.

The next saying, the thirty third, is another that is familiar from our reading of the accepted gospels and it is related to the prior saying in the same way that our thoughts above are related to the thirty second. This saying is a combination of those ideas that we have above on Light, on hearing and on not being hid and perhaps it would have been better to leave these ideas above for use in this particular saying. What we should see here is the inter relatedness of ALL of these ideas that the Master gives us and this regardless of source. Much of the differences between Matthew, Luke and Mark above are reconciled in the saying from Thomas except that is this saying there is no reference to the idea of not fearing the man who can kill the body. As we note the relationship of ALL of these ideas with along with those others on Light, we should also see the relationship between the two parts of this saying from Thomas:  “What you will hear with your ear {with the other ear} proclaim from your rooftops. For no one lights a lamp (and) puts it under a bushel, nor does he put it in a hidden place. Rather, he puts it on a lampstand, so that everyone who comes in and goes out will see its light” and the last saying as well insofar as being strong, tall and unhid. Commentary on this saying includes:

• Marvin Meyer quotes Clement of Alexandria in Miscellanies 6.15.124.5-6 for an esoteric interpretation of a similar saying: “‘And what you hear in the ear’ – that is, in a hidden manner and in a mystery, for such things are said, figuratively, to be spoken in the ear – ‘proclaim,’ he says, ‘upon the rooftops,’ receiving nobly and delivering loftily and explaining the scriptures according to the canons of truth. For neither prophecy nor the savior himself declared the divine mysteries in a simple manner, so as to be easily comprehended by ordinary people, but rather he spoke in parables.” (The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, p. 83).
• Funk and Hoover write: “This saying is probably a corruption of the saying found in Q and incorporated into Luke 12:3//Matt 10:27. The Q saying was judged to be a Christian formulation (further, consult the notes on the verses in Luke and Matthew). The saying in Thomas makes no sense as it stands.” (The Five Gospels, p. 492).
• Jack Finegan writes: “Here the completion of the saying [compared to the Greek fragment] enables us to see that the entire text combined the materials of Mt 10:27 = Lk 12:3 in the first part, with the materials of Mt 5:15 = Lk 11:33 and Lk 8:16 in the second part, with additional variations of a minor character. Not only are two separate Synoptic sayings, one about hearing and one about lighting a lamp, brought together but the respective versions of Mt and Lk are interwoven to provide a specially good example of the phenomenon which is frequent enough not only in these texts but also in the church fathers of this period, the phenomenon which has been called that of the ‘compound text.’ Whether this means that the materials were quoted from memory, or that there was a deliberate attempt at harmonization of the NT text, is difficult to say.” (Hidden Records of the Life of Jesus, p. 251).
• Gerd Ludemann writes: “The simile of the lamp often occurs in the New Testament: Matt. 4.21/Matt 5.15; Luke 8.16; 11.33. ‘Hidden place’ takes up ‘hidden’ from Logion 32. This is likely to have been conditioned by the Matthaean sequence, for there we have the same word from Thomas 32 in Matt. 5.14, whereas it does not occur in the verse (Matt. 5.15) which corresponds to Thomas 33.2.” (Jesus After 2000 Years, p. 607).
• R. McL. Wilson writes: “Grant and Freedman see here nothing but a combination of sayings from our Gospels, and note that the Naassenes used the same combination in the reverse order. It should be observed, however, that the second part occurs definitely in the Lucan form. If Thomas drew logion 32 from Matthew, why did he switch to Luke for his version of a saying contained in the next verse? Quispel has noted parallels to the Diatessaron here, and suggests that it is simpler to assume that Tatian knew either logion 33 or something like it than that he borrowed bits and pieces here and there from all three Synoptics.” (Studies in the Gospel of Thomas, p. 75)

In this variety of comments we have one that calls this a corruption of an imaginary text and others that seek to investigate its authenticity; one, Mr. Ludermann, notes the relationship to the prior saying. For us there is a continuity of thought, not words, from the thirty second to the thirty third that is constructed in much the same way that we assigned the ideas from Matthew 5:14-16 to the thirty second from yesterday and these sayings above today. It is in the combination of not being hid as a Light or as a city, each representing the disciple, along with the strength or fortitude of being able to withstand ALL that comes against one including his own carnal thoughts, that the disciple stands tall as the high mountain or on the rooftops and shines forth that Light by proclaiming ALL Truth, those things that he hears in the ear, “with the other ear” that hears that Wisdom from above, for ALL. And this Truth is the Truth of Love, the Truth of the Kingdom and of Repentance; the Truth that it is in keeping His words that a man moves closer to God. In the combination of ALL these thoughts we have the reality of the disciple which is spoken by parable so that the man who hears must rightly discern the Truth for himself.

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.

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.

O Thou Who givest sustenance to the universe,
From Whom all things proceed,
To Whom all things return,
Unveil to us the face of the true Spiritual Sun
Hidden by a disc of golden Light
That we may know the Truth And do our whole duty
As we journey to Thy sacred feet.

As with any ancient manuscript from a foreign land, there are many interpretations and translations of The Gayatri available. The version that appears here comes to us in every day English and without the need to have a Sanskrit reference as a key; it is constructed so that all can understand it and use it.

The Gayatri is really quite simple and straightforward in the form that we have here. It begins, as does the Lord’s Prayer, with an acknowledgement of the Majesty of God as the Giver of all Life and as our Source of all things. We ask only one thing in this prayer; that the true spiritual light of God be unveiled to us so that we may see it clearly. The Sun is the giver of light and life to our planet and all that is on it and, just as each of our forms veils the Spirit within, we ask to see and to know the Light that is behind the Sun that which we see.

In saying this we believe that by seeing the true Spiritual Light that we will be able to see and  to know the Truth that is in that light. This is the Light that the Buddha and then the Christ brought to us through their lives on Earth. This is the Light that shines in our hearts from our own spiritual selves, the Christ Within.

We close by acknowledging that we have a duty to God, to our brothers and to His Plan and it is this duty that we will perform when we realize the truth as we journey back to God.

Others have said about this prayer that “The Gayatri is one of the oldest invocations, or mantrams, know to man. It carries the power of purpose, the plan of love and the light of truth. It reveals human relationships as vertical alignment with the source of all Energy and horizontal service in the right use of energy. It is a potent tool for use with the inflow of new age energies” (from The Gayatri prayer card of World Goodwill; NY, NY).

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/