ON LOVE; PART CCCXCVII
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.
(35) Jesus says: “It is not possible for someone to enter the house of a strong (person) (and) take it by force unless he binds his hands. Then he will loot his house.“
(36) Jesus says: “Do not worry from morning to evening and from evening to morning about what you will wear.“
(37) His disciples said: “When will you appear to us, and when will we see you?” Jesus said: “When you undress without being ashamed and take your clothes (and) put them under your feet like little children (and) trample on them, then [you] will see the son of the Living One, and you will not be afraid.“
(38) Jesus says: “Many times have you desired to hear these words, these that I am speaking to you, and you have no one else from whom to hear them. There will be days when you will seek me (and) you will not find me.“
(39) Jesus says: “The Pharisees and the scribes have received the keys of knowledge, (but) they have hidden them. Neither have they entered, nor have they allowed to enter those who wish to. You, however, be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves!“.14
In the last essay we discussed the purported words of the Master in the thirty eighth saying from the Gospel of Thomas. This saying is rather straightforward and, as we said yesterday, these do appear to be two separate thoughts combined into one saying and this perhaps by the writer or by the translators, which, we can not tell and it really does not matter. The first part reveals that the disciples had ofttimes desired to hear His words, those that He is telling them or is about to tell them, and we can take from this that the Master is repeating words that they had heard and wanted to hear again or that this is a more nebulous idea where Jesus KNOWS that they want to hear a certain thing and that he is finally going to tell them. We opt here for the former, that He is repeating again His teaching and perhaps this time with a bit more clarity than the last and we take this from the following thought that tells them that they have none other to hear these things from save the Master Himself. If one can imagine the Truth of being in His company, one would have to imagine a steady stream of teaching and of focus upon the things of God and the Way of the disciple as in every opportunity for interaction with others, including His disciples, that we find in the New Testament, we find words of teaching or clarifying or correcting. Today, and since His departure from physical presence on the Earth, we have not had this privilege or so it seems to many but, if we can try to understand His words as reflecting not only on Him as a divine person in form on the Earth but also as that divine person that is within each of us as the Christ Within, we would be able to understand as well that we have access to these same words and still, in effect, they are only from Him. This of course goes back to our understanding that there IS NO ONE that can teach anything of a spiritual nature to another, there is only the ability to have someone’s teaching open up a channel of realization or of revelation of Truth and, likely most of the time, the realization or the revelation are not quite the same as the teaching one received.
The Apostle John makes this clear for us as He tells disciples and aspirants that “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“. It is this anointing that IS that divine part of everyman, his Soul, his Christ Within; and in this second chapter of his epistle the apostle is trying to convince his readers to not lose sight of this understanding as he offers ideas like “he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also. Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father” (1 John 2:27, 23-24). And for what it is that we have heard from the beginning, that helps the man to his further realizations and revelations, we go to the beginning of the Gospel of John where speaking of the Christ we read: “In him was life; and the life was the light of men…..That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:4, 9). This is of course one of the greater secrets in these days 2000 years ago, secrets that are revealed only to those who are among His disciples and perhaps aspirants; secrets that are revealed to the waking consciousness by this Light which IS the Light of the Soul and which Light is the secret itself. And here we should note that just as we can not find words and a frame of mind to express the Truths that we may understand and those others that we can glimpse, so in these days the same and perhaps in this we can see the reason for some of the more nebulous ideas that we get from the apostles. The Apostle Paul tells us of this mystery in his words that we often post saying: “the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:26-27).
It is of course by one’s focus that he is able to realize the divine Truths and his own sense of divinity; the words that we hear and that we read can only serve to put us in a position to receive; here we understand that in the focus of a man upon the carnal Life in the world there is no divine revelation. It is only in one’s focus, even part time focus as found in the Life of the aspirant, that can bring True revelation and realization of the Truths with that vision of the Good, the Beautiful and the True. And, speaking personally, if the degree of revelation received as an aspirant is such that we have these words and these ideas about which we write, one can only imagine the degree of such when our focus is single-minded; this IS the growth of the Kingdom within from the smallest seed to the great tree.
The last part of this thirty eighth saying is rather straightforward and is similar to the ideas we find in John’s Gospel where the Master tells His disciples that He will be leaving them as a physical presence. In yesterday’s essay we noted how this idea is so alien to the disciples that they do not understand it even after the resurrection and that although they are told several times of what was to happen they still questioned and were still confused. According to how we read and understand scripture, the disciples do not Truly come into their own until after the Master is ascended and they no longer have His physical presence to rely upon. And perhaps this IS part of the lesson to the succeeding generations, that no matter what or who is one’s teacher, one can not succeed until one is out of his shadow and receiving the fullness of revelation and realization on his own which IS what we are forced to do. Here we see perhaps the relationship between the two parts of this saying; that while the aspirant and the disciple long for the words from the teacher and the Master, that it is not until one is alone that he can Truly receive. Being alone is however not enough and we should rather see this as John portrays saying: “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight” (1 John 3:22). Here we see that keeping His words and doing right are the key ingredients in our recipe for achieving our spiritual reality and, we should ever remember, that when we ask, we are asking our own Christ Within and in such asking is the reality of our focus upon the things of God. The Apostle James gives us this same idea from different perspective saying: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:5-8). James’ point here is the same and from the point of view of one’s focus upon the things of God, that it is in the steadfastness of this focus that a man can and does receive and, here we receive Wisdom which is realization and revelation; the greater the focus, the greater the single-mindedness, the greater the revelation.
When we can as men relate ALL things of God to the reality of the Christ Within and understand that this IS the source of our revelation and our realization and that the Soul IS the way of communication with ALL things that are Truly spiritual and divine, we can begin then to earnestly walk on that Path to the strait gate that opens into the Kingdom of God. And while the apostles may have understood this differently, the effect is the same; while they write about the direct action of God in the Life of the man, they write of this full KNOWING that the point of contact is one’s own Soul and while they may not have used different words they do ALL understand it as did Paul: as the “ Christ in you, the hope of glory“.
Our next saying is the thirty ninth and this is a compilation of several ideas that we find in the accepted gospels. We should look at this in its parts and relate them to our understanding of the same from our New Testament”
- “The Pharisees and the scribes have received the keys of knowledge, (but) they have hidden them. Neither have they entered, nor have they allowed to enter those who wish to“.
- “You, however, be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves!“
Before we begin however let us look at some of the available commentary on these words:
- Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 2.30.1 states: “Similarly also he attacks the scribes and Pharisees during the last period of his teaching, charging them with improper actions and incorrect teaching, and with hiding the key of knowledge that they received, handed down from Moses, by which the gate of the heavenly kingdom may be opened.”
- F. F. Bruce writes: “The saying (the Greek original of which is preserved fragmentarily in P. Oxy. 655. 3) is practically identical in its first part with Luke 11.52 and in its second part with Matthew 10.16b. The ‘knowledge’ (gnosis) of the first part was probably interpreted in a Gnostic sense; the same idea is expressed in Saying 102. As for the second part, the Naassenes or Ophites (from the Hebrew and Greek words for ‘serpent’, nahash and ophis respectively) may have seen special significance in the ‘prudence’ of the serpent.” (Jesus and Christian Origens Outside the New Testament, p. 129).
- Joseph A. Fitzmyer writes: “While E. Jacquier (RB 15 [1918] 117) was inclined to regard this saying as authentic, it is much more likely that in its present form it is a conflation of two canonical sayings.” (Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament, p. 414).
- R. McL. Wilson writes: “Fitzmyer thinks this a conflation of two canonical sayings, but once again it may be doubted if the solution is quite so simple. The scribes and Pharisees (in that order) come from Matthew, the key (singular) of knowledge from Luke; but Luke has ‘taken away the key’ and the saying is addressed to the scribes. Moreover, the final sentence of this section again comes from Matthew; Luke has ‘prevented’ for ‘did not allow.’ In addition, the text of Thomas shows some relation to the quotations of this saying in various documents of early Christian literature. Harnack and Michelson had already linked the Greek fragment with the ps.-Clementines. Here the possibility of independent tradition would accordingly appear to merit further investigation.” (Studies in the Gospel of Thomas, pp. 75-76).
- Funk and Hoover write: “This saying [Sly as a snake], which may have been proverbial, is a paradox: it advises one to be both a dove and a snake at the same time, which is a combination of two incompatible things. Its paradoxical character commended it to the Fellows as something Jesus might have said. On the other hand, the contexts in both Matthew (10:16) and Thomas afford no clues to how Jesus may have applied it. The admonition may refer to the combination of shrewdness combined with modesty.” (The Five Gospels, p. 495). “Matthew and Thomas direct this saying against Pharisees and scholars; Luke against legal experts. In Thomas the saying is a warning; in Matthew and Luke it is a condemnation. Matthew accuses the Judean leaders of slamming the door of Heaven’s domain in people’s faces; in Luke and Thomas the leaders are accused of confiscating the key or keys of knowledge and preventing others from discovering them. The ‘keys of knowledge’ probably referred to special rules used to interpret scripture, possibly to confirm a particular sectarian understanding.” (The Five Gospels, p. 495).
Sometimes the comments that we read leave us wondering about the perspective that is taken by these presumably Christian men and today the comments from Funk and Hoover leave us in this state. The Master’s use of these metaphors is intended just as that, and the idea of sly is not apparent in any of the translations where we find the Coptic word rendered as wise, prudent, shrewd and in the interlinear as cunning; none of these serves up the same ideas as does sly which implies deviousness. This aside, these commentaries are more about the comparisons of the words here to the words of the accepted gospels in an effort to find authenticity rather than to find meaning and cross-meaning. In the accepted gospels we find these ideas:
- Pertaining to the first part, “The Pharisees and the scribes have received the keys of knowledge, (but) they have hidden them Neither have they entered, nor have they allowed to enter those who wish to“; we read:
- “But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in” (Matthew 23:13).
- “Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered” (Luke 11:52).
We should note here that it matters not that these are addressed to scribes and Pharisees or to lawyers as these are all meant to refer to those who interpreted the laws of Moses for the people. Here these men have the key, they have the True meaning of the law and they have, over generation after generation, chosen to interpret these laws into ways that benefit the man in the world rather than lead themselves and their charges to the gates of the Kingdom. And this is the point of our constant discussion about doctrine; both then and yet now so many of those who have accepted the responsibility to be teachers and leaders, those that have assumed authority, are more concerned with their own pronouncements of doctrine than they are about the original Truths of the Word of God and they teach their doctrines as though they are this Word. In this they do not enter and in this they have not allowed others to see the Truth and this by a combination of denying that there is greater Truth than doctrine and by dissuading followers from looking elsewhere for Truth.
- On the second part, “You, however, be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves!” we should note that the Master is speaking to His disciples and trying to show them to be the converse of the lawyer, the scribe and the Pharissee; that they do not get bound by doctrines but be able to find the Truth in the pronouncements of ALL. Here we can see James’ idea of Wisdom from above, that they should use ALL their resources and be “wise as serpents” which class of creature IS often used as a symbol of Wisdom based in ancient tradition; way back in the opening chapter of Genesis we read “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made“ (Genesis 3:1), and this idea subtil should be understood as prudent and crafty 2. In the synoptic gospels we read: “Behold , I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Here, Vincent tells us: Wise (φρόνιμοι); So A.V. and Rev. Denoting prudence with regard to their own safety 4; which makes much sense in this context but this is more than for their personal safety which we can see from the presentation in Thomas were it pertains also to their accepting anything of the doctrines of the scribe, the Pharisees and the lawyer and here we are reminded of the Master’s telling His disciple that they should ever “Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (Luke 12:1). The other idea from this saying is that the disciples should be as “innocent as doves” which is said in Matthew as “harmless as doves“; while different words are used here they both should invoke the same understanding from us today and in this the idea of the little child who IS innocent and trusting, harmless and humble, unassuming and meek and, as we recently found, unashamed. In Matthew this is how the Master intends them to be as He sends them out and in Thomas this is His caution to them as a part of His instructions on the ways of the Pharisee and the scribe, on how they color the Truth by doctrine which is their leaven.
The Greek fragments for this saying are limited to words and letters that can only be stitched together by using the Coptic as a guide and are of no independent use in our discussion of this 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.
We repeat here a Quote of the Day that we spent much time with over the course of our essays. In this affirmation we find the Truth of discipleship as we have been ever been expressing and here we can relate our themes of the last few days; “take no thought” for the things of the world and that we approach the Kingdom and discipleship in the nature of the little child, in humbleness, meekness, unashamed in any way and unassuming. The message that this imparts for us today IS that it IS the Soul that is at work in the world of men as it expresses to some degree the purpose, power and the will through Life in this world. These words are from a meditation offered to his students by our Tibetan brother and in which we find greater understanding of the message of the Master. This IS Truly the way of the disciple.
My Soul has purpose, power and will; these three are needed on the Way of Liberation.
My Soul must foster love among the sons of men; this is its major purpose.
I, therefore, will to love and tread the Way of Love.
All that hinders and obstructs the showing of the Light must disappear before the purposes of the Soul.
My will is one with the great Will of God; that Holy Will requires that all men serve.
And unto the purposes of the Plan I lend my little will.
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!
- 2 New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
- 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/
