ON LOVE; PART CDLVIII
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.
(82) Jesus says: “The person who is near me is near the fire. And the person who is far from me is far from the kingdom.“
(83) Jesus says: “The images are visible to humanity, but the light within them is hidden in the image. {} The light of the Father will reveal itself, but his image is hidden by his light.”
(84) Jesus says: “When you see your likeness you are full of joy. But when you see your likenesses that came into existence before you – they neither die nor become manifest – how much will you bear?“
(85) Jesus says: “Adam came from a great power and a great wealth. But he did not become worthy of you. For if he had been worthy, (then) [he would] not [have tasted] death.“
(86) Jesus says: “[Foxes have] their holes and birds have their nest. But the son of man has no place to lay his head down (and) to rest.“
(87) Jesus says: “Wretched is the body that depends on a body. And wretched is the soul that depends on these two.“
(88) Jesus says: “The messengers and the prophets are coming to you, and they will give you what belongs to you. And you, in turn, give to them what you have in your hands (and) say to yourselves: ‘When will they come (and) take what belongs to them?’” 14
As we continue our discussion of the eighty seventh saying we should remember that in this obscure saying there is a resounding Truth that is not seen by those who look at this in any doctrinal way. We should remember as well that this word wretched may not mean what we believe it to mean and while others render this as unfortunate and miserable, we should see as well that these ideas ARE a part of what we ourselves posted as the definition of the original word, wretched. We should note here as well that as a Soul, one CAN NOT be wretched according to our definition of: Very miserable; sunk in, or accompanied by, deep affliction or distress, as from want, anxiety, or grief; calamitous; woeful; very afflicting 1 except perhaps that in some way a Soul should be woeful or perhaps in deep affliction or distress, as from want. These ideas however are also unlikely from our perspective and as we understand the Soul; the Soul is that divine part of the man, an aspect of Life that KNOWS and understands; the Soul is the divine manifestation of the essential Spiritual Being that IS man and who IS part and parcel of God. The Soul then, being as this divine part, IS NOT going to feel NOR experience any of these purely human and worldly emotions. This being said we see that according to the Interlinear Version the word that is rendered as wretched IS a Greek word and, in our view as observer, this appears to be similar to the Greek word, talaiporos, as we find in the selection from the Apostle Paul with which we closed the last essay. In the second instance of this word here is a difference in the structure from the first use in this saying which we do not understand but which are attributed to the same Greek or Coptic word by all. This being said, we must assume that the word is wretched and that it IS the meaning of the word that must be seen as to be an idea that would be pertinent to the Soul.
We should see here as well that this word that is rendered as Soul is used in four sayings and in each we can see the meaning of the Inner Life; we use the Blatz rendering of all for consistency:
- In saying twenty five it is used to say: “Jesus said: Love your brother as your soul; watch over him like the apple of your eye“.
- In saying twenty eight this word is used to say: “Jesus said: I stood in the midst of the world, and I appeared to them in the flesh. I found them all drunk; I found none of them thirsting, and my soul was afflicted for the sons of men“
- Our current saying tells us that: “Wretched is the body which depends on a body, and wretched is the soul which depends on these two“.
- Finally the one hundred twelfth saying tells us that: “Jesus said: Woe to the flesh that depends on the soul; woe to the soul that depends on the flesh“
In these sayings should be able to see the intent of the word Soul as it is used by Thomas, that this is the Inner man. We also get some help here in our understanding of this word that is rendered as wretched and how it may apply to the Soul as here we find those same ideas that we picked out from the whole definition above that we surmised could apply to the Soul even while our own understanding says that these emotions should NOT apply. Perhaps we have again a place where there are not sufficient words to reflect the True ideas of these things from the Soul’s perspective and that among these three ideas of wretched, of woeful and of affliction or distress we can come to some understanding of the view of the Soul for our current saying. We should also see there that there is a significant similarity between the current saying and one hundred twelfth which is not mentioned except in passing by any of the commentators that we posted yesterday.
Taking these ideas of duality from the one hundred twelfth saying, along with the idea of he as we discovered in the last essay, plus the understanding of wretched as woeful or deep affliction or distress, as from want, we can come to a better understanding of our subject saying. Again the idea of he as separate from the body is an important part of our vision as this defines the dual nature of the man in the world as well as the idea in the end of the two; this understanding of he in the Interlinear comes to us as: “a-wretched-one is-he, the-body which-depends on-a-body, and a-wretched-one is-she, the-\ -soul which-depends on-these, the-two“. Here, taking this from the end to the beginning, we can see this idea of woe; woe to the Soul that relies upon the Life of the personality in the body for any spiritual benefit. The Soul, living through and expressing himself through the personality and the body is the way of salvation….there IS NO other. We can KNOW here that the Soul must act as the Inner force of Truth and that the personality consciousness must accept this and change his focus from the body, the man in the world, to focus upon the Soul, the God Within. This IS the journey of man who is striving in the world. Can we see this? As with many things spiritual, there are many ways to view this separation of Life into aspect parts of divinity and the expression or intended expression of those aspects in one’s Life in the world. The Truth however remains, there IS separation and here we should try to see that the body, the two references to the body, are not the divine but are the vehicles of intended expression of the divinity which IS the Soul.
Here then in this first part this idea of wretched, as we define it, can be seen as applying to one’s Life in the world when the personality, the psychic body if you will, is relying on itself, on its own complex nature of form and psyche, for his salvation; from a spiritual perspective this IS a wretched state of being. Furthermore, for a Soul to have this same reliance is in Truth a non sequitur and the statement itself is likely offered to show this absurdity. One’s spiritual salvation must be from the expresision of the Soul Life through the phenomenal appearance of the man in the world; it CAN NOT be accomplished by the form Life in its own way as the form’s focus IS ONLY upon the self and the self in the world. Perhaps here in these ideas we can see the Truth of the doctrinal understanding of accomplishing salvation in ‘one’s own strength’, that one CAN NOT do this without God’s help. These ideas are based in the Apostle Paul’s sayings where, in the misunderstanding of his words like “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13), they fail to see the reality of the God Within, the Soul. Likewise in sayings such as “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8) this same doctrinal message is gleaned while in the reality of the total context this means quite another thing as it is the center point of that Truth that a man focused upon the world CAN NOT achieve this salvation which ONLY comes as he can express the Love and the Power of the Soul through form. In our view then this IS the idea behind this saying from Thomas Gospel; that to rely on the body to bring the body to salvation is wrong from ALL points of view; it IS only through the agency of one’s own divine aspect, the Soul.
Our next saying, the eighty eighth, is another that seems steeped in obscure language with an unclear message and again there is no similar saying in the accepted gospels. This IS also another where the way that it is rendered and framed can determine one’s understanding of what it is saying; we post our normal translations as:
- Jesus said: “The angels and the prophets will come to you, and they will give you what is yours. You also, give them what is in your hands, and say to yourselves: On what day will they come to take what is theirs?” (Blatz).
- Jesus said, “The messengers and the prophets are coming to you (plur.), and they will give you the things that you possess. And you, too – give them the things that you have, and say among yourselves, ‘When are they coming to take their own?’” (Layton).
- Jesus says: “The angels and prophets are coming to you; they will give you the things that belong to you. You, give them what you possess, and say: ‘When will they come and take what is theirs?‘” (Doresse).
- Jesus said, “The angels and the prophets will come to you and give to you those things you (already) have. And you too, give them those things which you have, and say to yourselves, “When will they come and take what is theirs?” (Lambdin).
- Jesus says: “The messengers and the prophets are coming to you, and they will give you what belongs to you. And you, in turn, give to them what you have in your hands (and) say to yourselves: ‘When will they come (and) take what belongs to them?’” (Patterson and Robinson).
- Jesus said, “The messengers and the prophets will come to you and give you what belongs to you. You, in turn, give them what you have, and say to yourselves, ‘When will they come and take what belongs to them?‘” (Patterson and Meyer).
- Said-JS80 this: “the-angels-come upto-you(pl) with-the-prophets, and they-will-give to-you(pl) those-which-have-you(pl)-them,>and you(pl) also-\-yourselves, those-who-are-of-\-you(pl), give-them to-them &-you(pl)-speak to-you(rselves) this- “Which-day is-it(m)-they-come &()take-he-who-is-theirs?“” (Interlinear Version).
From the construction of the Interlinear we can see some confusion as the parenthetical words are added and are not from the Coptic as regards the idea of you becoming yourselves and the m further on appears to be in the Coptic but does not make any sense to the translators. To this we should add the idea from the Interlinear that says “they-will-give to-you(pl) those-which-have-you(pl)-them” which is rendered by Blatz as “and they will give you what is yours” and then by Lambdin as “and give to you those things you (already) have“. Finally we have the similar idea that we had in the last saying as the Interlinear reflects he at the end while the translators retain the idea as the subject is some kind of possession. There is not much commentary on this most confounding saying:
- Robert M. Grant and David Noel Freedman write: “Angels are the messengers of the Son of Man, e.g., in Matthew 13:41. They give man his true self, the kingdom. It is not clear what the prophets have to do with this. Perhaps the emphasis is on what men give the prophets, for ‘many prophets . . . desired to see what you see and did not see it’ (Matthew 13:17; Luke 10:24). The day on which they come and take their own is presumably the day of death; compare Luke 12:20 (in the parable of the rich fool, Saying 64): ‘This night they will require your soul [life] from you.'” (The Secret Sayings of Jesus, p. 183).
- F. F. Bruce writes: “The question at the end is reminiscent of the message received by the rich fool in Luke 12.20: ‘This night your soul is required of you’ (cf. Saying 63). On the day when mortal life ends the heavenly messengers give men their proper heritage (the kingdom of the Father).” (Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, p. 146).
- Marvin Meyer writes: “This saying may discuss interactions with itinerant prophets or with heavenly messengers. The word angelos used in the Coptic may be translated either ‘messengers’ or ‘angels.’ In the Jewish scriptures and the New Testament, this word may designate either sort of messenger; at times it may indicate a prophet or a human emissary. In the Discourses of Epictetus a Cynic philosopher may be called a ‘messenger’ of Zeus to humankind.” (The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, p. 102).
There is not much help here in understanding this saying and the link to the Parable of the Rich Fool is not pertinent in our view and neither is the reference to the words from Matthew nor Luke. From our perspective the whole idea of relating this to death is at least partly in error as there IS NONE that will come to take either the man or those spiritual things that he may have except for his own Soul and this need not require death. Although we DO NOT KNOW Grant and Freedman’s intent in saying that the angels give man his true self, the kingdom, we can see this as the role of the Soul: to give the man in the world the realization of his True Self which IS ever in the Kingdom of God. In previous essays we have looked at the idea that the angels of which the Master speaks ARE the Sons of men who are ever in His Presence; we touched this in several ways:
- First in the revelation by the Master to the Pharisees and the Sadducees regarding to whom the wife would belong in the ‘resurrection’; from Luke’s Gospel we read the Master’s words as: “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). We should note here that there is a single word used in the Greek in place of the phrase “are equal unto the angels” and this IS the word isaggelos. In Matthew’s version this IS written in the Greek to say that they are as or like angels and it is this same sentiment that should be used in Luke that they are as or like angels; the idea of equal is a translators convention that is not used by all. In our own understanding it is these who have been accounted worthy to attain the Kingdom and the True resurrection where there is no longer a need be reborn who are angels and these are, at the same time, those Souls that have overcome the world. Here again is our own objective and our goal.
- Next we have that saying of the Master in regard to the innocent children, little children as we have previously discussed; Jesus says: “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 have the idea that in this children who are not yet ‘polluted’ by the ways of the world are yet as Souls in heaven and in communion with the Father and while this IS likely True throughout one’s Life in the world, it IS ONLY the exclusive view of the little child.
- From our perspective there are two ways to view this idea of angels; one is those Souls in the Kingdom who ARE NOT incarnated at any given time and the other is as the angel that IS the Soul of Man and who we should understand as the ‘reaper’ in such sayings as “And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven” (Mark 13:27). Can we see this idea? that the Souls of men shall gather His elect and that this IS done in a constant way as each man in the world can be accounted worthy.
This IS of course our view of Life, of man in the world, of the Soul and of angels and we should note here that ALL that IS believed about angels in scripture is from the conventions of men; there IS NO explanation of this phenomena offered in Truth by the Master nor by His apostles. Here then if we can look at this idea of angels in this saying from Thomas as the relationship between a man and his Soul and if we can see the idea of prophets as teachers sent from God if you will we can perhaps find some reality in this saying. Can we try to see here the idea that the angel IS the Soul, the Soul in the Kingdom and that the activity of the Soul in the Life of the Man, the Holy Spirit, can be that teacher, that prophet? We close here for today with this reminder that these sayings ARE parabolic and that they ARE spoken by the Master in a way as to obscure the Truth behind the outer words. We close also with this saying from the Apostle John which we have discussed several times before and which points us to our ideas on this saying. The very idea of the Soul and his agency as the Holy Spirit ARE what IS spoken of in these words:
“But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things……the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him” (1 John 2:20, 27).
If the angel is the Soul and the prophet is that teacher, the Holy Spirit and the anointing, then we can indeed make sense of this most obscure saying.
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 we repeat the Mantram of Unification as our Quote of the Day and we should note the very Christian ideals that are embraced by these words; not the doctrinal Christian ideals but rather the ideals annunciated in the words of the Master and of His apostles. This idea of ONENESS IS a component part of the Love that the Master teaches as He tells us that we should Love ALL and this ideal is repeated by His apostles who clarify it and expand upon it in their pronouncement that we should NOT show respect to persons that we should not prefer one above another, and this of course includes groups of persons who may differ from us in color, in nationality, in religion….in any way. We are told this by the apostles who tells us that God DOES NOT show such favor to individuals nor to groups as we read that “there is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:11) which IS here offered in the context that ALL are treated equally. There are several instances of this saying interweaved with the idea that we should Love our brother, our neighbor and one another as these ideas are framed and, with this stated concept of this respect, we should be able to glimpse what we have been preaching here in this blog and which is the Truer nature of this Love. We should understand that in our zeal to be among His disciples that we must pay keen attention to the totality of the Master’s words which tell us that we should “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33) and it is in this reality that we should understand this idea of respect, that if this is the Way of God that it should be the way of man as well. And, if this were not clear enough, the straightforward words of the Apostle James helps us saying “if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors” (James 2:9).
This IS the greater Truth of this Mantram of Unification; that we understand the reality of our ONENESS, our essential Unity, that we Love as the Master teaches, that we allow the Inner man, the Soul, to be the controlling force in our lives; that we come to see the Truth, that we break down the walls of illusion and glamour and eliminate ALL things that separate us from the Truth and from each other. And that we Love and encourage that Universal Love which is our essential destiny by our own example and in ALL that we say and do.
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!
- 1 Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913
- 14 The Gospel of Thomas; Translated by Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson; http://gnosis.org/
