ON LOVE; PART XDXIV

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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.“

The third part of the ideas below in the Quote of the Day on the Values to Live by is the Spirit of Cooperation—based on active goodwill and the principle of right human relationships; and as we approach United Nations Day we should try to understand and to see the need for this Spirit in world affairs and, to be sure, in most ALL affairs of human interaction. As we discussed with the first two Values, A Love of Truth and A Sense of Justice, this third one can be seen in the overall idea of the Golden Rule as well and we should understand here that although we have set forth these Values here as guidelines in the relationships of countries and governments in the United Nations, they are at the same time individual human principals first and that they must have their due effect upon the individual and every size group in religion, in politics, in business, in all Life in this world. It is only through our individual appreciation of the meaning of these Values that they can and will become the adopted way in man’s conduct in right human relations. This idea of Right Human Relations is the battle cry for the concept of GoodWill as it IS the very implementation of GoodWill in the world of men. And Right Human Relations is at the heart of the Spirit of Cooperation, and it is fueled by our realization of the Value and the import of the Golden Rule which we state as ‘Do unto others as you would have others do unto you‘ and which IS stated by the Master as these ideas as recorded by His apostles:

• “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12).
• “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise” (Luke 6:31).

And this IS NOT just a Christian concept as it predates the Advent of the Master; this is a concept of the Inner Man in ALL religions and cultures who profess the sayings of an Avatar of God. We read: (*)

• “Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.” This is the Translated saying of Confucius who predates the Christ by about 500 years.
• In a more spiritual sense we read this from Laozi who brought the religious philosophy of Taoism to China more than 500 years before Christ: “The sage has no interest of his own, but takes the interests of the people as his own. He is kind to the kind; he is also kind to the unkind: for Virtue is kind. He is faithful to the faithful; he is also faithful to the unfaithful: for Virtue is faithful.“
• Laozi also says that we should “Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss” which is better intended for the common man.
• This undated saying is part of a discourse in a most ancient Hindu scripture: “by self-control and by making dharma (right conduct) your main focus, treat others as you treat yourself.“- Mahābhārata Shānti-Parva
• From Ancient Greece we find these proverbs by Philosophers in this country dating from the time of Christ to about 500 years earlier:
  • “What you do not want to happen to you, do not do it yourself either. ” – Sextus the Pythagorean.
  • “Do not do to others what would anger you if done to you by others.” – Isocrate
  • “What thou avoidest suffering thyself seek not to impose on others.” – Epictetus
• From Buddhist teachings which are ALL from the Buddha who lived more than 500 years before the Master we find:
  • “See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do? He who seeks happiness By hurting those who seek happiness Will never find happiness.”-Dhammapada on Violence ⁵
  • “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”—Udanavarga
• Also predating the teaching of the Christ we find these ideas in the apocrypha of the Old Testament:
  • “Do to no one what you yourself dislike.” —Tobit 4:15
  • “Recognize that your neighbor feels as you do, and keep in mind your own dislikes.“—Sirach 31:15

All of this merely shows that this thought, this idea of the Golden Rule preexists Christianity and IS an intended way of Life for the man who chooses to follow God. There are several approaches to this; the idea of do TO others, the idea of doing FOR others; each because it IS the right thing to do based upon one’s own ideas of how he would himself be treated. the latter idea of FOR is our understanding of this in the Christian way of the Christ and many of the other traditions as well; this is the positive force for Right Human Relations. Others see this in a more negative tone as one should not do to others as one would not want done to himself and here we should understand that this idea is included in the former. Yet others consider these ideas to be the same as the ‘ethic of reciprocity‘ so called but from our perspective this IS NOT the intent of the Master and likely not of any of these other sages and philosophers either. Here again we find the idea presented by Emmet Fox as he says in part that “The important point about the Golden Rule is that I am to practice it whether the other fellow does so or not“** This IS the Master’s intent, there IS NO reciprocity intended.

And so to the idea of cooperation as we read in this idea of the Value of the Spirit of Cooperation; there is no room for this idea of reciprocity in True cooperation; cooperation is giving not negotiating, cooperation is a part of that Love of Truth and is offered in that Sense of Justice; cooperation IS seeing another’s perspective and, so long as it is not harmful to any, acceding to it as one would want his own perspective accommodated. This DOES NOT mean that we go about cooperating with what is wrong and harmful but rather with all things that are not selfishly driven. In the unselfish understanding of the Good, the Beautiful and the True this idea of cooperation is the a fundamental part of the concept of GoodWill and its implementation through Right Human Relations. This Spirit of Cooperation IS at the very heart of the Golden Rule as we offer this sense of GoodWill and Right Human Relations to ALL.

Returning to our work on the Gospel of Thomas, we have posted above the next several sayings which represent the balance of the first half of the sayings in this apocryphal book of the New Testament. Our last saying, the fiftieth was composed of a series of questions that the disciples may be asked and the answers or type of answers that the Master is instructing the disciples to use ‘should they be asked‘. We noted in our discussion that these ideas are being conveyed to the disciples as a teaching in how to answer this type of question in a parabolic manner as these proposed answers most surely ARE. Here we adopted the understanding that the teaching is the predominant factor in this saying and that the disciple would or would not be asked is secondary and, we posted in the end the idea of the Master’s saying that we should: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you” (Matthew 7:6). In this is our fundamental idea about this saying, that the disciple should protect the mysteries which have been revealed to him from being spread to those who CAN NOT yet understand them or even glimpse their meaning. This of course is not the idea of the New Testament commentary of John Gill which we posted yesterday nor is it likely to be that of other commentators either; for us this idea fits well with the Master’s own way of speaking in parabolic terms even to His own disciples as we read in the Apostle John’s Gospel: “These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father“. Here, from this revelation by the Master and His repeating of some of His previous sayings about Himself and His relationship to God, the disciples reply that “Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not  that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God“; to this the Master answers them saying “Do ye now believe?” (John 16:25, 29-31) and through this dialogue we can but wonder how Jesus meant that final answer as we KNOW of their continued doubting.

The point here is that the Master’s tone was ever parabolic and as we KNOW from His words this is especially True in His dissertations to the people where at times He or the writers begin His words with the notation that what follows IS a parable, and while sometimes this definition of His saying is not offered, we can see by its nature that it IS. In the epistles of the apostles we see the same general trend of sayings that are unexplained or steeped in obscure language and it is our view that this is taught them by the Master and this teaching of how to answer IS what we are seeing in this saying from Thomas’ Gospel and that this IS the reality of the saying on things holy and pearls being cast before swine. It is apparently easy to miss the parabolic note of many of the Master’s sayings as we noted in the last essay using John Gill’s ⁸ words and here we reflect on two other commentators ideas on this saying before we move on:

• The Commentary Critical and Explanatory of the Whole bible tells us: Give not that which is holy unto the dogs–savage or snarling haters of truth and righteousness. neither cast ye your pearls before swine–the impure or coarse, who are incapable of appreciating the priceless jewels of Christianity. In the East, dogs are wilder and more gregarious, and, feeding on carrion and garbage, are coarser and fiercer than the same animals in the West. Dogs and swine, besides being ceremonially unclean, were peculiarly repulsive to the Jews, and indeed to the ancients generally. lest they trample them under their feet–as swine do. and turn again and rend you–as dogs do. Religion is brought into contempt, and its professors insulted, when it is forced upon those who cannot value it and will not have it. But while the indiscriminately zealous have need of this caution, let us be on our guard against too readily setting our neighbors down as dogs and swine, and excusing ourselves from endeavoring to do them good on this poor plea ⁸. While we are unsure as to what they mean by the priceless jewels of Christianity, we can likely assume that these commentators are seeing this much as we do.
• Marvin Vincent in his Word Studies tells us this: That which is holy (τὸ α’ γιον); The holy thing, as of something commonly recognized as sacred. The reference is to the meat offered in sacrifice. The picture is that of a priest throwing a piece of flesh from the altar of burnt-offering to one of the numerous dogs which infest the streets of Eastern cities. Pearls before swine (μαργαρίτας ε’ μπροσθεν των χοίρων); Another picture of a rich man wantonly throwing handfuls of small pearls to swine. Swine in Palestine were at best but half-tamed, the hog being an unclean animal. The wild boar haunts the Jordan valley to this day. Small pearls, called by jewellers seed-pearls, would resemble the pease or maize on which the swine feed. They would rush upon them when scattered, and, discovering the cheat, would trample upon them and turn their tusks upon the man who scattered them ⁴. Here we see much the opposite and a commentary that more resembles the ideas of John Gill from the last post.

The Master here is relating the idea of dogs and swine as they are understood to people; not in a derogatory way but in a parabolic way and perhaps He is saying that one should not give meat of the sacrifice to the dogs nor should one try to fool the swine but His meaning IS that one should not offer one’s revelations to those who would abuse them to their own selfish ends and not to cast them haphazardly to those who CAN NOT or WILL NOT understand them. There is another point here for us to consider; Matthew thought this saying important enough to write it in his gospel for us and, in the words from Thomas, the apostle sees those words from the Master in this same way.

The next saying is the fifty first and this is another that is seemingly unique to Thomas’ Gospel and while is is outwardly obscure, there is great meaning here. Here again in the confusion of the translated word as repose or as rest, there are several translations:

• “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” (Patterson and Robinson(.
• “On what day will the rest of the dead come into being, and on what day will the new world come? He said to them: What you await has come, but you do not know it” (Blatz).
• “When will the repose of the dead come to pass, and when will the new world come?” He said to them, “That (repose) which you (plur.) are waiting for has come, but for your part you do not recognize it” (Layton).
• “On what day shall rest come to those who are dead, and on what day shall the new world come?” He said to them: “This <rest> that you wait for has (already) come, and you have not recognised it” (Doresse).
• ““When will the repose of the dead come about, and when will the new world come?” He said to them, “What you look forward to has already come, but you do not recognize it”” (Lambdin).
• ““When will the rest for the dead take place, and when will the new world come?” He said to them, “What you are looking forward to has come, but you don’t know it”” (Patterson and Meyer).

In these several different renderings there are several different ways to view this saying. Is this the <resurrection> of the dead? Is this a reference to the rest of the dead and when they should come into being? Is this repose as we discussed in the last essay, as peace, stillness, tranquility and harmony, or is this strictly rest as others assume? We have several choices here which are complicated by other questions like what would the rest of the dead be insofar as persons that can come into being and what is the rest that could come for the dead if they are already at rest. The Interlinear gives us this rendering of these Coptic words: “Said-they t o-him, v i z-his-disciples, this: which day is-the-repose of-those-who-are-dead coming-into-being? And which day is-the-world new coming? Said-he to-them this: that-one which-you(pl)-look outward for-her, she-has-come. But you(pl), you(pl)-know not her“. In ALL, a very confusing group of translations.

The commentary on this saying IS as confusing as the saying in some parts; we post some of these here:

• Robert M. Grant and David Noel Freedman write: “The question is Thomas’s equivalent for the Pharisee’s question about the coming of the kingdom in Luke 17:20; the answer is like the answer in Luke 17:21: ‘The kingdom of God is within you.’ Because, like the earthly Jerusalem (Luke 19:42, 44), the disciples are still blind, they do not (fully) recognize its presence – in Jesus.” (The Secret Sayings of Jesus, p. 161).
• R. McL. Wilson writes: “Of the latter Bartsch observes that Gnostic Umbildung is unmistakable, and that the idea of the ‘new world’ comes form such works as 2 Peter (iii. 13) and Revelation (xxi. 1); but the motif of the disciples’ lack of understanding is definitely old. Bauer at one point offers an interpretation which would explain logion 51 in the context of the earthly life of Jesus, but quotes also a Naassene text which shows how the version in Thomas might have developed.” (Studies in the Gospel of Thomas, p. 82).
• F. F. Bruce writes: “The theme of ‘rest’ is carried on from Saying 50. But the expectation of rest after death is here transformed into an assurance that the Gnostic has attained true rest already. This kind of transformation, not unlike that which Paul describes ironically in 1 Corinthians 4.8, is sometimes referred to as an ‘over-realised eschatology’ (cf. 2 Timothy 2.18).” (Jesus and Christian Origens Outside the New Testament, p. 133).
• Funk and Hoover write: “The question posed in v. 1 employs the characteristic Thomean term ‘rest’: this term is a synonym for salvation in Thomas (see 50:3; 60:6; 90; in addition, the Greek fragment of Thomas 2 adds the additional verse: ‘and having reigned, one will rest.’) The term ‘rest’ with a similar meaning is not unknown in other texts, both Christian (Matt 11:28-29; Rev 14:13) and Judean (Sir 51:26-27), but it carried special significance among gnostic Christians and Platonists. To achieve ‘rest’ meant to find one’s place again in unity with the highest God. (In developed gnostic systems, at the beginning was the incomprehensible, invisible, eternal, and ungenerated Forefather, Depth; Depth gave rise to a female counterpart, Silence. Together they produced the next pair of Aeons, which eventuate in fourteen such pairs, each pair with lesser power and memory of its origin than the previous pair. At the lowest level is Wisdom and the creator God. Salvation consists in reascending the ladder of divine emanations and rejoining the godhead.)” (The Five Gospels, p. 502).

There is not much help here from our perspective although the ideas of Funk and Hoover, while being overly technical according to Gnostic doctrine, do offer that deeper sense that is covered in the end of this saying…that what is waited for is already come.

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!

• ⁵ The Dhammapada Translated by Thomas Byrom 1888
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
• ⁸  Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com
• ¹⁴ The Gospel of Thomas; Translated by Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson; http://gnosis.org/
• *  Quotations from Wikipedia contributors. “Golden Rule.”; Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 14 Oct. 2013.