Gospel of Thomas

The man old in days will not hesitate to ask a little child of seven days about the place of life.

The Gospel of Thomas (also known as the Coptic Gospel of Thomas) is a non-canonical sayings gospel. It was discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945 among a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library. Scholars speculate the works were buried in response to a letter from Bishop Athanasius declaring a strict canon of Christian scripture. Most scholars place the composition during the second century, while some have proposed dates as late as 250 AD and others have traced signs of origins to 60 AD. Almost two-thirds of these sayings resemble those found in the canonical gospels and its editio princeps counts more than 80% of parallels. Experts speculate that the gospel's other sayings were added from Gnostic tradition.

Quotes

I have cast fire upon the world, and see, I am watching over it until it blazes.

• Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All.
  • 2 (tr. Thomas O. Lambdin, 1977)

• If those who lead you say, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty.
  • 3 (tr. Thomas O. Lambdin, 1977)

• The man old in days will not hesitate to ask a little child of seven days about the place of Life, and he will live.
  • 4 (tr. A. Guillaumont et al, 1959)

• Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered.
  • 6 (tr. Thomas O. Lambdin, 1977)

• I have cast fire upon the world, and see, I am watching over it until it blazes.
  • 10 (tr. Bentley Layton, 1987)

• This heaven shall pass away and the one above it shall pass away, and the dead are not alive and the living shall not die.
  • 11 (tr. A. Guillaumont et al, 1959)

You have become intoxicated because you have drunk from the bubbling spring that I have tended.

• Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me with someone and tell me whom I am like."
  Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a just angel."
  Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher."
  Thomas said to him, "Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to say whom you are like."
  Jesus said, "I am not your teacher. You have become intoxicated because you have drunk from the bubbling spring that I have tended."
  • 13 (tr. Marvin W. Meyer, 1984)

• The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us how our end will come to pass." Jesus said, "Then have you laid bare the beginning, so that you are seeking the end? For the end will be where the beginning is. Blessed is the person who stands at rest in the beginning. And that person will be acquainted with the end and will not taste death.
  • 18 (tr. Bentley Layton, 1987)

• When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter [the Kingdom].
  • 22 (tr. Thomas O. Lambdin, 1977)

• Within a person of light there is light which lights the whole world. When this light does not shine there is darkness.
  • 24 (tr. William G. Morrice, 1997)

• If you do not abstain from the world you will not find the kingdom. If you do not make the sabbath a sabbath you will not behold the father.
  • 27 (tr. Bentley Layton, 1987)

• I stood at rest in the midst of the world. And unto them I was shown forth incarnate; I found them all intoxicated. And I found none of them thirsty. And my soul was pained for the children of humankind, for they are blind in their hearts and cannot see. For, empty did they enter the world, and again empty they seek to leave the world.
  • 28 (tr. Bentley Layton, 1987)

• His disciples said, "When will You become revealed to us and when shall we see You?"
  Jesus said, "When you disrobe without being ashamed and take up your garments and place them under your feet like little children and tread on them, then [will you see] the Son of the Living One, and you will not be afraid".
  • 37 (tr. Thomas O. Lambdin, 1977)

• Whoever blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and whoever blasphemes against the Son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven either on earth or in heaven.
  • 44 (tr. Thomas O. Lambdin, 1977)

• His disciples said to Him, "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."
  • 51 (tr. Thomas O. Lambdin, 1977)

• Consider the one who is alive while you are alive, lest you die and then seek to behold that one—and you will not be able to behold.
  • 59 (tr. Bentley Layton, 1987)

He who knows the All but fails to know himself lacks everything.

• He who knows the All but fails to know himself lacks everything.
  • 67 (tr. A. Guillaumont et al, 1959)

• If you bring forth that within yourselves, that which you have will save you. If you do not have that within yourselves, that which you do not have within you will kill you.
  • 70 (tr. A. Guillaumont et al, 1959)

• It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the All. From me did the All come forth, and unto me did the all extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find Me there.
  • 77 (tr. Thomas O. Lambdin, 1977)

• Why have you come out into the desert? To see a reed shaken by the wind? And to see a man clothed in fine garments like your kings and your great men? Upon them are the fine [garments], and they are unable to discern the truth.
  • 78 (tr. Thomas O. Lambdin, 1977)

• Whoever has become acquainted with the world has found the body, and the world is not worthy of the one who has found the body.
  • 80 (tr. Bentley Layton, 1987)

• Why do you wash the outside of the cup? Do you not understand that he who made the inside is also he who made the outside?
  • 89 (tr. A. Guillaumont et al, 1959)

• You read the face of the sky and of the earth, but you have not recognized the one who is before you, and you do not know how to read this moment.
  • 91 (tr. Thomas O. Lambdin, 1977)

• The Kingdom of the [Father] is like a certain woman who was carrying a jar full of meal. While she was walking [on] a road, still some distance from home, the handle of the jar broke and the meal emptied out behind her on the road. She did not realize it; she had noticed no accident. When she reached her house, she set the jar down and found it empty.
  • 97 (tr. Thomas O. Lambdin, 1977)

The Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it.

• Whoever has found the world and become rich, let him deny the world.
  • 110 (tr. A. Guillaumont et al, 1959)

• Woe to the flesh that depends upon a soul. Woe to the soul that depends upon flesh.
  • 112 (tr. Bentley Layton, 1987)

• His disciples said to Him, "When will the Kingdom come?"
  [Jesus said,] "It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying 'Here it is' or 'There it is.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it."
  • 113 (tr. Thomas O. Lambdin, 1977)

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1

• [Λέγ]ει [᾿Ιησοῦς, ὅη]ου ἐὰν ὦσιν [β οὔκ] ε[ἰσι]ν ἄθεοι, καὶ [ὅ]που ε[ἷς] ἐστιν μόνος, [λέγω, ἐγώ εἰμι μετ᾿ αὐτ[οῦ·] ἔγει[ρ]ον τὸν λίθον κἀκεῖ εὑρήσεις με, σχίσον τὸ ξύλον κἀγὼ ἐκεῖ εἰμι.
  • Jesus saith, Wherever there are (two), they are not without God, and wherever there is one alone, I say, I am with him. Raise the stone, and there thou shalt find me; cleave the wood, and there am I.
  • Logion V (tr. Grenfell and Hunt, 1904)

• Λέγει Ἰησοῦς, οὐκ ἔστιν δεκτὸς προφήτης ἐν τῇ πατρίδι αὐτ[ο]ῦ, οὐδὲ ἰατρὸς ποιεῖ θεραπείας εἰς τοὺς γινώσκοντας αὐτόν.
  • Jesus saith, A prophet is not acceptable in his own country, neither doth a physician work cures upon them that know him.
  • Logion VI (tr. Grenfell and Hunt, 1904)

• Λέγει Ἰησοῦς, πόλις ᾠκοδομημένη ἐπ᾿ ἄκρον [ὄ]ρους ὑψηλοῦ καὶ ἐστηριγμένη οὔτε πε[σ]εῖν δύναται οὔτε κρυ[β]ῆναι.
  • Jesus saith, A city built upon the top of a high hill and stablished, can neither fall nor be hid.
  • Logion VII (tr. Grenfell and Hunt, 1904)

Quotes about the Gospel of Thomas

• Third Quest researchers show a significantly greater interest in extracanonical Christian literature than did First and Second Quest writers. The Gospel of Thomas and the Nag Hammadi literature figure most prominently in current Jesus study, with other New Testament Apocrypha books like the Gospel of Peter not far behind. Only classical sources on Jesus are an exception to this trend; the Third Quest too does not deal with them in depth. Only a few large-scale recent treatments of Jesus deal with evidence from classical sources. In sum, the last twenty years have arguably seen more interest in, and debate about, the historical Jesus outside the New Testament than any comparable period in the last two centuries.

• Robert E. Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament. An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids/Cambridge 2000. ISBN 978-0-8028-4368-5, pp. 4-5.

• [T]he gnostic Gospel of Thomas relates that as soon as Thomas recognizes him, Jesus says to Thomas that they have both received their being from the same source...Does not such teaching—the identity of the divine and human, the concern with illusion and enlightenment, the founder who is presented not as Lord, but as spiritual guide—sound more Eastern than Western? Some scholars have suggested that if the names were changed, the "living Buddha" appropriately could say what the Gospel of Thomas attributes to the living Jesus. Could Hindu or Buddhist tradition have influenced gnosticism?
  • Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980) pp. xx–xxi

Translations

• Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt, New Sayings of Jesus and Fragment of a Lost Gospel from Oxyrhynchus (New York and London: for the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1904)

• A. Guillaumont, H.-Ch. Puech, G. Quispel, W. Till and Yassah ʿAbd al Masīh, The Gospel According to Thomas: The Coptic Text Established and Translated (New York: Harper & Bros, 1959)

• Thomas O. Lambdin, The Gospel of Thomas, in James M. Robinson (ed.) The Nag Hammadi Library in English (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977). Digitised, and somewhat revised, for The Gnostic Society Library, The Gnosis Archive [1]

• Marvin W. Meyer, The Secret Teachings of Jesus: Four Gnostic Gospels (New York: Random House, 1984)

• Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations and Introductions (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987)

• William G. Morrice, Hidden Sayings of Jesus: Words Attributed to Jesus Outside the Four Gospels (London: SPCK, 1997)

See also

• Nag Hammadi library
• Gospel of Philip