ON LOVE; PART CDLXXVII
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.
(102) Jesus says: “Woe to them, the Pharisees, for they are like a dog sleeping in a cattle trough, for it neither eats nor [lets] the cattle eat.“
(103) Jesus says: “Blessed is the person who knows at which point (of the house) the robbers are going to enter, so that [he] may arise to gather together his [domain] and gird his loins before they enter.“
(104) They said to [Jesus]: “Come, let us pray and fast today!” Jesus said: “What sin is it that I have committed, or wherein have I been overcome? But when the bridegroom comes out of the wedding chamber, then let (us) fast and pray.“
(105) Jesus says: “Whoever will come to know father and mother, he will be called son of a whore.“
(106) Jesus says: “When you make the two into one, you will become sons of man. And when you say ‘Mountain, move away,’ it will move away.“
(107) Jesus says: “The kingdom is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them went astray, the largest. He left the ninety-nine, (and) he sought the one until he found it. After he had toiled, he said to the sheep: ‘I love you more than the ninety-nine.’“
(108) Jesus says: “Whoever will drink from my mouth will become like me. I myself will become he, and what is hidden will be revealed to him.“
In the last essay we began our look at the one hundred fourth saying from the Gospel of Thomas. Reviewing the available commentary showed us that there was a rather common view that this is related to the fourteenth saying and through this to the questions asked in the sixth saying but after our analysis we have dismissed these ideas as we see the relationship only in regard to the subject matter itself and basics of the teaching. While the current saying may draw somewhat upon the ideas of the fourteenth, this is the extent of the relationship in our view and we explained this in the last essay by pointing out that the fourteenth is a saying with a single purpose that IS addressed to the disciple who is out and about on his own, without the Master to guide him.
- Jesus tells them that “if they take you in” that they should then “eat what they will set before you” thereby showing His point in saying “If you fast, you will bring forth sin for yourselves“.
- In regard to prayer the Master tells them that “if you pray, you will be condemned” and in the end of this saying we find the reality of this in His saying to them “Heal the sick among them! For what goes into your mouth will not defile you. Rather, what comes out of your mouth will defile you” and in this we can read the idea that He IS saying to heal them; he IS NOT saying that they should pray for them which would be looked at condemningly if the prayer did not bring about the healing. Perhaps this was, as it is today, a common thought, that prayer can bring about healing and so it may but there IS NOT the consistency in this that there IS in the KNOWING without a doubt that the person IS healed attitude of the disciple.
- Finally we come to almsgiving about which the Master says “And if you give alms, you will do harm to your spirits“. Here there is no explanatory dialogue but we DO KNOW the reality of this from the His other teachings. As a part of His instructions for discipleship He tell us “whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath , he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33) and this is confirmed for us by the Apostle Peter who queries the Master saying: “Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee” (Matthew 19:27). In this we should be able to see that the disciple has naught to give in alms and were he to do so, were he to have something, it would do him harm.
In these ideas we should be able to see the reality of this fourteenth saying, that the first part IS NOT the answers to the questions from the sixth saying but that the first part is directly related to the second part in a ‘how to act’ and ‘why you should do so’ scenario. Regarding the sixth saying, that this is also related to our current one by some of the commentary, we ourselves have a new view that we expressed in the last essay. Where we before saw this saying as an example of the Master’s not answering the questions asked directly and that perhaps there is some Truth in the ideas of others that the sixth and the fourteenth are perhaps confused, we now see as questions asked and an answer given albeit an answer that is purposely obscure. The questions are straightforward as they ask Jesus “Do you want us to fast? And how should we pray and give alms? And what diet should we observe?“; and the answer is straightforward as well as He tells them “Do not lie. And do not do what you hate“. In this answer we find the reality of their need to eschew the doctrines and traditions against which the Master often speaks; that if they are praying or fasting or giving in accordance with the traditions and the doctrines then they are in a state of dishonesty as they are doing those things that they KNOW are no longer the right things to do, or rather, not the right things to do for the traditional reasons. The Master elsewhere has told them how to pray and how not to, He has told them about the fasting habits and how they are hypocrisy and He told them the disciples’ Truth about almsgiving; and, if one understands the teaching and follows the Master, doing these things are a lie and to do them would be doing what is hated. The final part here is explanatory of the doing of the disciple, that whatsoever he does “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“…the disciple KNOWS the Truth in his own heart and Soul.
In these thoughts we see anew the sixth saying and confirm it has none effect on the fourteenth and we also come to see that neither is related to the current saying in any but a superficial way as they are on a similar subject matter. The current saying is offered in a totally different context and before we go to our thought on this we should just repeat our point that we closed with in the last post; some of the commentary points to the idea that the Master rejects prayer and fasting but this is no more True here than it is in the synoptic gospels where the context IS that it IS the form of the prayer and the fasting that is rejected; it IS the doctrinal and traditional reasons that the Master objects to. In our current saying we have the Master being asked to participate in prayer and fasting and we can assume that this is His disciples asking but we DO NOT KNOW this from the text. In His answer is a lesson, a teaching to the questioners, regarding their request and the reality here can be found in the idea that if one IS leading the life of the disciple, if one is beyond the temptations of the things of the world, that there IS NO need for prayer and fasting. He combines this with the ideas that we find in the synoptic gospels that so long as the Master IS with them that they need not do any such thing and that there is ample time to do these things afterward. We must understand the ideas here that are behind prayer and fasting in that day and which largely continue unabated to today; the common thought is to pray for some reason and whether this be for the favor of the Lord or as a way of atonement for a wrong done, the Master has NO need to participate and neither does the disciple who IS firm in his stand with the Master. Similarly one may fast as a sacrifice, as a way to better realize God and to draw closer, and here again the Master has no such need to do so especially when one remember’s His words that “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). And for the disciple this dynamic IS the same; by virtue of being a disciple one IS expressing the Will of God, the Love and the Power of the Soul, through his Life in the world.
And here we can relate this saying to the sixth and the fourteenth; from the perspective of prayer and fasting as regards the traditions and the doctrines of the Jews. This IS clearly wrong in the Master’s view and if we can see these ideas from Thomas as authentic gospel we can see that he KNOWS the teachings and while he does not say them in the same way as the other gospel writers, he is bringing forth the same ideas. If however we believe that these are later writings by another who uses the name of Thomas we can see much the same thing, that he has had access to the gospel writers’ works and weaves them into his own. In either view there are three separate and distinct teachings here in these sayings. First that the disciple NOT follow in the traditions and the doctrines of the Jews; second, that in being out on His own that he should respect the rules set forth of having nothing, of accepting what is offered and not ‘shopping’ for the better offer or refusing a thing to eat that one may not like, and that healing IS healing, it IS NOT praying for the sick; and third distinct teaching IS that if one IS the Master or His disciple these common ideas of prayer and fasting ARE NOT for Him nor for him, there IS NO benefit save to put on a show for others which one, as a disciple, DOES NOT do.
These ideas of prayer and fasting are still with us today as men pray for a large variety of reasons and here our own reality says that the energy spent in prayer and in fasting can be better spent in striving to keep His words and that in striving there is real benefit to ALL while in the prayer and fasting the benefit is mostly to the self. We should remember here His instructions on prayer, on how not to do so as well as on the prayer itself as He offered to us what has come to be KNOWN as the Lord’s Prayer. In this prayer we should see that there IS naught for the self that IS NOT offered to others and that the perspective is US and WE and NOT me and mine. We address the nature of the Lord’s Prayer in our Prayer and Meditations section and in various posts and we say here again that the ongoing controversy of whether it IS the words themselves that Jesus gives us that are to be used, or that it IS the form of the prayer, does not matter if the understanding of the form is that it IS selfless and prays only for the corporate body of ALL men, in ALL races, ALL religions, ALL creeds and the totality of whatsoever other form of separation mankind has created. As to alms, the Master’s words and intent are very clear; they are found in His criteria for discipleship and they are found in the reality of the Great Commandment and the Golden Rule.
Our next saying, the one hundred fifth, is a strange one as it seems to say a particularly carnal thing and appears to have no True spiritual value. This of course CAN NOT be the reality here as there must be some redeeming value to His words. All of the translations here are the same except Doresse who frames the last part as a question: “Jesus says: “He who knows father and mother shall he be called: Son of a harlot!?“; and in this one can perhpas find an easier explanation. However in view of the Interlinear rendering of this as “they-will-refer to-him as “the-son o f(the)harlot”, this idea of a question does not work. From the Interlinear we find that both the phrase “they will refer” and the word rendered as harlot are used here in this saying only and in this we get no help as there is no other reference. The available commentary on this includes:
- Marvin Meyer writes: “This saying may be interpreted as a recommendation that one despise one’s physical parents; compare sayings 55; 101. Book of Thomas 144,8-10 declares, ‘Damn you who love intercourse and filthy association with womankind.’ In Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.23.2, evidence may be provided for another interpretation of the saying. There Irenaeus explains that Simon the Magician’s associate Helena, a prostitute from Tyre, was understood to be the divine thought that was incarnated in body after body and that even became a whore, though she is actually ‘the mother of all.’ In a similar vein, the myth of the soul as presented in the Nag Hammadi text Exegesis on the Soul explains how the soul is raped and abused in the body and how the soul falls into prostitution. Origen may give reason to consider yet another interpretation of the saying. In Against Celsus 1.28; 32 Origen cites the tradition that Jesus was the illegitimate child of Mary, who ‘bore a child from a certain soldier named Panthera.’ It is known from a gravestone that a Sidonian archer named Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera was in fact stationed in Palestine around the time of the birth of Jesus. In this regard perhaps compare John 8:41.” (The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, p. 106).
- F. F. Bruce writes: “The point of this saying may be quite problematical. It may imply the denial that Jesus entered the world by such a supposedly unworthy manner as being born of woman. On the other hand, Jesus may be complaining that he himself, who knows his true Father and to be God (cf. John 8.18 ff.) – and possibly his true mother to be the Holy Spirit, as in the Gospel according to Hebrews – is nevertheless stigmatised as being ‘born of fornication’ (according to a probably mistaken interpretation of John 8.41). [The Jews’ protest in John 8.41 (‘we were not born of fornication’) arises from their suspicion that Jesus was repeating Samaritan calumnies about the origin of the Jewish people (cf. verse 48, ‘you are a Samaritan’).]” (Jesus and Christian Origens Outside of the New Testament, p. 151).
- Funk and Hoover write: “Parentage played a more important role in individual identity in antiquity than it does in modern Western societies. In Jewish-Christian disputes over Jesus, the charge was often made that Jesus was the illegitimate child of Mary and a Roman soldier. Most of the Fellows took Thomas 105 to refer to that charge and dispute. If this is indeed the allusion, then Jesus is made to speak here about himself and the special relation that he has to the Father (Thom 61:3) and the Mother (101:3), in both the literal and metaphorical senses. The saying then expresses early Christian reflection on the parentage of Jesus in the context of disputes with rival Judean groups.” (The Five Gospels, p. 526).
Except for the opening statement from Mr. Meyer, there is nothing in these commentaries that is of any use to us. They speak of how the Church Fathers see this and how some of the more mystical apocrypha may view these ideas but these comments are beyond the reality of the saying itself which must still be discerned. That Jesus us the illegitimate son of Mary and a Roman soldier does not warrant our attention; it is but a meaningless diversion as we address the Life of Christ Jesus, the fullness of the Love and Power of God in form. We may be able to find some relationship to the ideas of the fifty fifth and the one hundred first sayings but we will here need a better understanding of the intent of knowing as well as some better idea of the use of the word harlot. The purpose of the fifty fifth and the one hundred first IS rather clear, they are the Master’s instructions on discipleship and are similar in form and the same in intent as the words from Matthew and from Luke; we discussed all of these ideas a few days back in our look at the one hundred first saying. There is no room in any of these sayings for the idea of a harlot nor can they be taken away from the reality of discipleship.
If we must envision that this saying is rightly translated, then we must reckon that it has no True spiritual import but is rather said against some apparently common sexual perversion in that day and but even here we would have difficulty understanding the role of the father. We can relate this sexual perversion to one of the Apostle Paul’s Epistles where he speaks about a similar thing: “It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife” (1 Corinthians 5:1). In this there is much left to the individual to discern although we do KNOW that this is a physical and sexual perversion; we do not KNOW that this “father’s wife” IS the man’s mother nor do we KNOW if the father is alive or dead; we only KNOW the ideas presented and the harshness of the apostle’s judgement against this person. If in this same regard, the Master’s words are more muted as He does not condemn the doer of this deed by relegates the mother to be known as a harlot or, as some of our other translators render this, as a whore or a prostitute. Again, we are at a loss to understand the role of the father here.
If there is a deeper parabolic meaning here in this saying, we DO NOT yet see it and while many of these sayings from Thomas Gospel were difficult to discern, we did get a glimpse of His meaning in most all and were able to offer some rational ideas based upon our own views of Life and of the Master. Here, the best we can do is to see this in relation to these words from Paul which are offered in a brief chapter which we repeat here:
“It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife. And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person” (1 Corinthians 5:1-13).
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.
We are using yet another mantram as our new Quote of the Day and this is again one that we have posted many times. Here in the form of an affirmation we should be able to understand the intent which IS to make these realities as part of our everyday thinking and our everyday understanding of our nature. Here again, as we see in our words above on the Mantram of Unification, we have the same dynamics: Love, service and healing. Here however the motivation IS more upon the idea of service and when we can see that this service is offered in Love and that this service IS one of healing we can Truly understand this affirmation.
Affirmation of the Disciple
I am a point of light within a greater Light.
I am a strand of loving energy within the stream of Love divine.
I am a point of sacrificial Fire, focussed within the fiery Will of God.
And thus I stand
I am a way by which men may achieve.
I am a source of strength, enabling them to stand.
I am a beam of light, shining upon their way.
And thus I stand.
And standing thus, revolve
And tread this way the ways of men,
And know the ways of God.
And thus I stand.
From previous posts we repeat that today’s Quote of the Day is called the Affirmation of the Disciple and is spoken from the perspective of the Soul and not from that of the man in form. It is the Soul that we are in this life on Earth, housed in this ‘temple’ of flesh and it is the Light of the Soul that must flow through this ‘temple’ in order that we may say with the Christ “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33) which is our goal and our destiny. Speaking then as the Soul we affirm our reality and true existence in God and in His Three Aspects of Light and Love and His Will. As this Light and Love and Will flow through our conscious personalities and forms we, as disciples, take on the nature of the second stanza being able to offer to the world a better way through our service and our Love for all, encouragement to righteousness through our strength of purpose, and the Light which shines in accordance with the Master’s instructions to “Let your light so shine before men” (Matthew 5:16) and illuminates the Path. Finally we realize that we are standing in this world and walking as men but, as conscious Souls in form, we know the way and the ways of God and are able to say with the Christ that “I am not of this world” (John 8:23).
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/
