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A Jesus for the East: Monism in the Gospel of Thomas | Jeff Crandall

A Jesus for the EastMonism in the Gospel of Thomas

A PROJECTSUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTABY

Jeffrey Douglas Crandall

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THE DEGREE OFMASTER OF LIBERAL STUDIES

May 2001


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UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

This is to certify that I have examined this copy of a masters project by

Jeffrey Douglas Crandall

and have found that it is complete and satisfactory in all respects,and that any and all revisions required by the final

examining committee have been made.

Name of Faculty Advisor

Signature of Faculty Advisor

Date

Name of Second Faculty Advisory

Signature of Second Faculty Advisor

Date

GRADUATE SCHOOL


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Jeffrey Douglas Crandall 2001


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Table of Contents

PROCESS PAPER

Introduction..........................................................................................................................1

The Compleat Scholar Course .............................................................................................2

The Curriculum: The Gospel of Thomas Study Guide.............................................................5

Section 1: The Discovery and Nature of Thomas................................................................7Sections 2 and 3: Themes in Thomas ................................................... .............................8

Theme 1: Thomas Prologue and Not Tasting Death.....................................................9Theme 2: The Kingdom Sayings ................................................... ........................... 10Theme 3: Personal Revelation and Salvation................ ............................ .................. 15Theme 4: Thomas Community and the Elect....... ............................ ........................... 16

Theme 5: Motion and Rest.................................................... .................................... 18Theme 6: Becoming a Child ................................................. .................................... 19Theme 7: The Living Father ................................................. .................................... 20Themes 8-11: Asceticism and World-Negation ................................................. ......... 23Theme 12: Thomas Christology .................................................... ........................... 32Theme 13: Apocalyptic and Eschatology ................................................. .................. 34

Section 4: Thomas and the New Testament........................ .............................................. 37Section 5: Thomas, Hellenized Judaism, and Gnosticism .................................................. 39Section 6: Monism in Thomas.............................................................. ........................... 41Study Guide Appendices................................................. .............................................. 42

Process Paper Conclusion..................................................... .............................................. 42

Thomas Theology: My Final Thoughts ................................................... ........................... 44

APPENDIX A: TheGospel of Thomas and Taoist Monism................................................. 50

The Way of The Kingdom: A Taoist Reading of the Gospel of ThomasIntroduction ................................................... ....................................................... ......... 50The Monistic Universe: Moving from Categories to Completion............. ........................... 51Kingdom/Tao: The Ever Appearing/Disappearing Presence........... .................................... 56Great Understanding vs. Little Understanding ........... ............................ ........................... 59Living Without Possessing ................................................ .............................................. 62Conclusions ................................................... ....................................................... ......... 64

PROCESS PAPER NOTES.................................................. .............................................. 66

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR PROCESS PAPER................................................... 69

GOSPEL OF THOMAS STUDY GUIDE ................................................... .................. 72


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Copyright 2001 Jeff Crandall | http://www.jeffcrandall.com

Introduction

The following paper describes my final project for the Master of Liberal Studies program at

the University of Minnesota. This project is divided into two separate sections: a creative

projectthe Gospel of Thomas Study Guideand this process paper, which helps to

contextualize my creative project and presents some of my research conclusions. I created the

Gospel of Thomas Study Guide as a research and interpretive tool for students in a course I taught

in January and February 2001 for the Compleat Scholar, an adult education program at the

University of Minnesota. I developed both the Gospel of Thomas course and the study guide

using the research I had compiled for a future book on the theological and historical implications

of the Gospel of Thomas, a recently discovered text from early Christianity. Now that the study

guide is complete, I intend to use it in future courses and seminars, as well as to offer it to other

instructors and religious institutions via a web site I am developing for the study of the Gospel of

Thomas (www.gospelofthomas.org).

Believing that I would be finished with my final project by January 2001, I contacted the

Compleat Scholar after discussing the possibility of teaching in the program with Dr. DonnaMae

Gustafson, my final project professor. I proposed a course on the Gospel of Thomas and

submitted a program description. The Compleat Scholar accepted my course and, after meeting

with the program director, I was asked to teach test preparation courses for the GMAT, the GRE,

and the LSAT. My course on the Gospel of Thomas was scheduled for the winter session and I

began teaching test preparation courses in November.

While preparing for the Thomas course, I decided to create a glossary of terms related to the

study of Thomas that students could use as a reference tool. This glossary eventually blossomed

into the study guide I prepared for the students. Once I started looking through my notes for terms

and definitions, I realized that I had compiled copious amounts of information that would be

useful to anyone wishing to unravel Thomas 114 sayings. While much of this research,


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especially the categorization of sayings, is original work, I had also compiled a great deal of

information from secondary publications on Thomas that would help to create a balanced

presentation of current scholarship; therefore, I included some of this secondary material in the

study guide. In addition to secondary scholarship, I also decided to include a section on monistic

theology, an area not typically explored by Thomas scholars, because my own conclusions

centered on monism as the predominant theology of the gospel. In addition to the section on

monism, I thought it would be helpful to present sections on the historical and inter-textual

relationships between Thomas and Gnosticism, Judaism, and Christianity.

Even without preparing all of my conclusions in a research paper format, I believe that my

study guide reflects the depth of my research and the amount of time I have put into organizing

my work. In order to complete my research and the study guide, I had to rigorously explore

several disciplines, all of which pertain to my overall work in the MLS program. In short, my

research and reading list includes Postmodernism, Classical Philosophy, Classical Studies, New

Testament Studies, Judaism, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Taoism, Buddhism, Comparative

Religion, Mysticism, and Psychology. Moreover, the format of the study guide itself adds the

interdisciplinary element of Education to the aforementioned list.

The Compleat Scholar Course

In the Winter of 2001, I taught a six week course for the Compleat Scholar program called

Radical Thinking in Early Christianity: Discovering the Lost Gospel of Thomas. As a part of

teaching this seminar, I put together a series of lectures and a study guide to assist students

reading the Gospel of Thomas. The intent of the study guide was to provide students with

information about the histor ical context in which Thomas was likely written and to familiarize

them with theological concepts related to Thomas. The following is the course description I wrote

with editorial assistance from Claire Walter-Marchetti, director of the Compleat Scholar Program:


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In the mid-fourth century, the Gospel of Thomas was lost to the world whensomeonepresumably a sect of Christian monkshid an entire library ofChristian manuscripts in the Egyptian desert. Unlike other surviving Christiantexts, the Gospel of Thomas is a sayings gospel, entirely composed of quotesattributed to Jesus. And unlike others, Thomas does not present a plot,crucifixion, resurrection, miracles or apocalyptic warnings. In fact, Thomas

rejects these notions and instead focuses on the mystical transformation of eachindividuala theme aligning this work more closely with Buddhism thansurviving Christian religion. Surprisingly, many scholars now argue that Thomas

preserves the most primitive versions of many of Jesus sayings. What does the1945 recovery of this text mean to the history of early Christianity? Formerly,this subject was hotly debated by only a small group of scholars. However, withrecent translations into many languages, Thomas is now available to peoplearound the world. Through lecture and discussion, we will explore the historyand meaning of this amazing archaeological discovery.

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The primary concern I had in developing this course was to be able to address a breadth of

complex theological issues without overwhelming students who are not well versed in New

Testament Studies and who have not immersed themselves in Comparative Religion courses. I

found this task particularly daunting, because Thomas has theological strands reaching in many

directions, including into Gnostic ism, Hellenized Judaism, Christianity, Hermeticism, and a type

of Monism that resembles Buddhism or Taoism. Because I conceived the class as a survey course

on Thomas and Thomas relationship to related religious traditions, I decided to survey the

religious movements related to Thomas rather than focusing intently in one area. I believed that it

was more important to expose the students to the vibrant religious activity in the ancient Near

East than to leave students with the impression that the Thomas is merely a Gnostic variant of

orthodox Christianity.

In addition to examining the relationships between Thomas and other religious texts, the

course also focused on several recurring themes in Thomas including, among others, the kingdom

of the father, personal revelation and salvation, asceticism and world-negation, Thomas

Christology, and Thomas eschatology. These themes are not only important in Thomas, but they

also help to establish Thomas theological relationship to the texts and traditions surrounding it. I

found that focusing on particular themes was the easiest way to help Thomas speak across the


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centuries in a familiar enough mode to engage modern students, many of whom have a

background in modern Christianity, but not in classical or New Testament studies. Focusing on

specific themes also kept the class close to the text by providing a natural ground for discussion.

In contrast, the comparative sections of the course required much more lecturing and explanation

on my part, especially the session we spent discussing Gnosticism!

After teaching the course, I was invited by the Compleat Scholar to teach another course in

the Spring 2002; consequently, I am currently developing a course description for a related course

on Thomas and Taoism, which will be a theme-based course with a short introduction to Thomas

and the Taoist texts. The primary intent of this course will be to explore the relationships between

a series of parallel themes in Thomas and two Taoist philosophical textsthe Tao te Chingand

the Chuang Tzu. Because it is clear that I regard Thomas as a tangible, historical link between

what is typically regarded as western and eastern theology, the following will be presented as the

primary question for the students of the course: Does Thomas represent a historical, theological

link between the monistic religions of the East and the theistic religions of the West? The

Thomas and Taoism course will cover a great deal of the research I excised from my Thomas

survey course. Moreover, in addition to the new Compleat Scholar course, I have also been

approached about lecturing on Thomas at the Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis,

so I will also use sections of the study guide as handouts for that lecture and in the event I that I

am asked to give any more lectures on the Gospel of Thomas.


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The Curriculum: The Gospel of Thomas Study Guide

I chose to divide the Gospel of Thomas Companion Study Guide into six sections because the

course I taught met for six sessions. In the actual class, I covered the material from Section 4:

Thomas and the New Testament, during the second and third weeks; however, after we

concluded the course, I rearranged a few sections, because I believed they would have been more

effective if I had introduced them in a different order. It also took me a night and a half to finish

my introduction to Thomas, because students were very curious about Thomas legitimacy as an

ancient text and did not realize, among other things, the depth of Thomas relationship to the New

Testament gospels.

The primary intent of the study guide is to give students several windows into what might

otherwise remain an obscure and historically implausible presentation of Jesus. After introducing

the Gospel of Thomas to several friends, I realized that those most familiar with the Jesus of the

New Testament were the ones who found Thomas Jesus most alien. Some of these friends

regarded Thomas Jesus as fraudulent and unbelievable within the context of their own faith.

Their primary complaint about Thomas Jesus is that his words are too esoteric and

philosophically laden to be understood by the masses, the people to whom their Jesus is supposed

to preach (apparently, this problem is mitigated in John by the close proximity of the synoptic

gospels). In addition, Thomas Jesus preaches salvation to the few rather than the many, which is

a concept that does not resonate, for instance, with the evangelical-centered faith of many

Christians. Consequently, without supplying a context for the study of Thomas, I feared that

many readers would simply reject Thomas on its face because it does not immediately resonate

with the Jesus of their faith.

And yet, I knew something that many of my friends did not; I knew that several scholars

believe that Thomas Jesus more closely resembles the historical Jesus than the New Testaments

Jesus does. However, rather than creating a face-off between Thomas Jesus and the New


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Testaments Jesus, I thought it best to present a historical and theological context for the study of

Thomas, including its discovery, scholarship on its composition, important theological themes,

and its relationship to several relevant religious movements. My intent was not to replace the

New Testaments Jesus with Thomas Jesus, but to present the historical relevance and

theological mystery of the Gospel of Thomas itself.

There are several factors that set Thomas apart from other literature produced by the Jesus

movement, both in terms of its form and its theology. In terms of form, Thomas is a sayings

gospel, a gospel genre composed entirely of wisdom teachings presented without an

accompanying narrative; Thomas is the only extant gospel of this kind in the Jesus literary

tradition. The only similar text in the tradition is the Q Gospel, a hypothetical source gospel

reconstructed by scholars from similarities between sayings found in Matthew and Luke. The

discovery of Thomas has helped to bolster arguments in support of the existence of the Q Gospel,

because Thomas confirms that early Christians used the sayings gospel form. Moreover, the

mutual support generated through form criticism and intertextual comparison of these two texts

provides strong evidence that these gospels belong to one of the earliest strata of the Christian

literary tradition.

Thomas is also theologically unique from the traditions surrounding it. Even though it shares

some theological characteristics with the orthodox canonical material and the heterodox Gnostic

material, its overall theology does not fit well in either the orthodox or heterodox theological

tradition. Thomas also does not merely occupy the border between the orthodox and heterodox

texts. Unlike the orthodox and known heterodox varieties of Christianity, Thomas is solely

concerned with the living Jesus (Thomas Prologue2

) and not the crucified or resurrected Jesus;

consequently, Thomas represents an independent theological tradition rather than an

amalgamation of known orthodox and heterodox ideas. Moreover, unlike the New Testament

gospels, Thomas is decidedly anti-eschatological and apocalyptic only in the context of personal


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revelation and transformation. In fact, in Thomas 113, Jesus corrects his followers who are

waiting for the end of the present age and the arrival of the kingdom of the Father; in short, he

tells them to change their focus from the social (historical) to the personal (primordial):

His followers said to him, When will the kingdom come?It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, Look, here it is, or

Look, there it is. Rather, the fathers kingdom is spread out upon the earth, andpeople do not see it.

Thomas intra-worldly Jesus, father, and kingdom go well beyond the realized eschatology

occasionally found in the New Testament, in which the end times and social transformation has

already begun but not yet ended. Instead, Thomas focuses on an intangible kingdom that is right

in front of our nosesthe kingdom is inside you and it is outside you (Thomas 3)and

eternally presentHave you discovered the beginning, then, so that you are seeking the end?

For where the beginning is, the end will be (Thomas 18). Thomas kingdom and its Jesus are

strongly centered in the mundane, earthly world, and there is little in the text to distract the reader

from this immediacy. It is this worldly focus that distinguishes Thomas from the traditions

surrounding ittraditions that, in one way or another, posit a God/Kingdom/Father that is

separate from human beings and the world of the living. In other words, the Gospel of Thomas is

a monistic text surrounded geographically and historically by dualistic religions (i.e., Judaism,

Christianity, and Greek, Roman, and Egyptian polytheism).

The following is a section-by-section explanation of the Gospel of Thomas Study Guide.

Section 1: The Discovery and Nature of Thomas

I developed Section one to orient students to the historical and archaeological issues relevant

to the discovery and dating of Thomas. The chief concerns of this section were to present a

timeline of events related to the study of Thomas; related archaeological discoveries, such as the

discovery of the Greek fragments of Thomas at Oxyrhynchus, Egypt; a list of formal literary


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features that distinguish Thomas from the canonical gospels; a laundry list of concepts related to

Christian theology present and not present in Thomas; and the culmination of ancient, mainstream

Christianitythe Nicene Creedwhich helps to establish theological differences between

mainstream Christianity, Gnosticism, and Thomas, during the first few centuries C.E. I also

developed an introductory lecture to accompany this section that presented scholarship on the

composition and unique formal qualities of Thomas.

Sections 2 and 3: Themes in Thomas

I developed sections two and three to highlight a series of important themes related to the

study of Thomas, especially in regard to how Thomas aligns with and distinguishes itself from its

Christian, Jewish, Gnostic, and Monist counterparts. My primary intent in these sections was to

expose students to sayings clustered around particular themes that help to reveal Thomas

prevailing theology, which is discernable in spite of the fact that Thomas is a discursive text that

places the responsibility of interpretation and synthesis on the reader. I regard these themes as

pointed tools with which students can compare theological concepts that religious texts often

present indirectly or symbolically.

In teaching the course, I covered Thomas and the New Testament before I covered

Themes in Thomas. I thought that this organization would be a good strategy because Thomas

shares many sayings with the New Testament gospels and I believed that this overlap would

create a natural bridge to understanding Thomas theology. In retrospect, I believe that the class

would have flowed more naturally if we had covered Themes in Thomas before Thomas and

the New Testament, because students were not properly introduced to Thomas individual

theology before moving onto intertextual comparisons. In the future, I would save the intertextual

comparisons for the later weeks and focus on Thomas themes in the weeks following my general

introduction of the text. I have rearranged the study guide to reflect this change of opinion. By


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covering Thomas themes first, students can get oriented to the theological implications of the

text before confronting dissimilar ideas. My primary oversight was to overestimate students

general awareness of New Testament scholarship and their familiarity with the New Testaments

presentation of Jesus.

In the following section, I will identify the themes I highlighted in the study guide and why I

chose to highlight them. My own conclusions, while relevant to the compilation of the study

guide and to my own research, were not as relevant to the actual content study guide itself,

because the study guides purpose was to help students arrive at their own conclusions about the

text; however, for the purposes of this paper, I have supplied many of my own conclusions,

because these conclusions help to explain why I included each theme in the study guide.

Theme 1: Thomas Prologue and Not Tasting Death

The first theme area highlights two separate topics: Thomas prologue and sayings related to

not tasting death. Thomas prologue provides a wealth of information that many scholars have

used to establish Thomas date and location of composition. The ostensible name of the author of

the text, Judas Thomas Didymos, can be translated Judas the twin (Aramaic) the twin (Greek).

This curious repetition of the term twin in both Aramaic and Greek provides some evidence for

a second century Syrian provenance for the text. In his book, Four Other Gospels: Thomas,

Egerton, Secret Mark, Peter, John Dominic Crossan explains:

The most important indication of provenance is the very peculiar name of itsapostolic author, Judas the Twin, which in Greek is Judas Didymos, in AramaicJudas Thomas, and in bilingual redundancy is Judas Thomas-Didymos or somesuch triad. On the one hand, this conjunction of Judas Thomas-Didymos never

appears in the New Testament. In John 11:16, 20:24, 21:2 the name is Thomas,called Didymos. And in John 14:22 when he is called Judas he is identifiedsimply as Judas (not Iscariot). On the other hand, one of the Old Syriactranslations of John 14:22 gives that as Judas Thomas. That points the waytowards Syriac-speaking Syria as the geographical area where Thomas the Twinwas of supreme importance. But this can be specified even more closely because


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it was around Edessa, situated on the Euphrates tributary, the Daisan, that thisapostle was known precisely as Judas the Twin (brother of Jesus).

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Because the name ascribed to the text offers the most direct evidence of provenance, Thomas is

most often regarded as a product of a first or second century, ascetical Christian sect from Syria.

Thomas prologue also establishes two other important features of the gospelthe sayings

included are (1) the hidden sayings of (2) the living Jesus. The manner in which these

sayings are hidden is an important concept to consider as one interprets these sayings, because a

prevalent theme in the text is the effective hiddenness of that which should be manifestthe

kingdom. Moreover, the prologue accurately states that the sayings in Thomas contain only the

words of living Jesus and, in fact, Thomas does not include any explicit references to Jesus

death or resurrection. This exclusive focus on the living Jesus is rare, if not unique, among the

texts of early Christianity. Moreover, Thomas focus on the living Jesus reflects the overall

theology of the text, which is centered in the primordial, timeless now of the living rather than in

the temporality of culture, religion, and meaning that is established in human society.

Consequently, the features of the text introduced in the prologue are significant factors to

consider as one studies this text.

Furthermore, Thomas 1 establishes the readers responsibility to interpret the hidden meaning

of the sayings. Thomas 1 reads, Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not

taste death. Consequently, not tasting death is at least one explicit goal of the text and it is

offered as the reward to those who discover the meaning of Thomas sayings. In the study guide,

I ask students to consider how the reader should regard the concept of not tasting death. Should

one consider not tasting death as equivalent with supernatural, eternal life (orthodox) or the end

of the suffering caused by death and/or the fear of death (similar to monistic concepts found in

Buddhism and Taoism).


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Theme 2: The Kingdom Sayings

Although not tasting death is the explicit goal of ones performance of the text, the major

thematic device used in Thomas to help readers visualize this goal is the kingdom, which is also

called the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of the father. The kingdom sayings provide a

spatial and temporal metaphor that is much easier for one to contemplate than not tasting death;

however, while the metaphor of the kingdom is a common motif in Christianity, Thomas use of

kingdom is not equivalent with the New Testaments general use of the same metaphor. Unlike

the New Testament gospels, which posit an apocalyptic, socio-historical eschaton that brings

about the kingdom of God, Thomas focuses almost exclusively on the individuals change of

perception in apprehending a kingdom that is already manifest. To help students come to terms

with this important symbol in Thomas, I arranged the kingdom sayings in four thematic

categories: Where is the kingdom and when will it come? What is the kingdom like? How can

one enter the kingdom? and Who may enter the kingdom?

Where is the kingdom and when will it come?

This question is answered most clearly by Thomas 113: It will not come by watching for it.

It will not be said, Look, here it is, or Look, there it is. Rather, the fathers kingdom is spread

out upon the earth, and people do not see it. In Thomas 113, the kingdom is presented as a

manifest, primordial reality that cannot be fully apprehended by the senses or by normal modes of

perception and reason. Thomas 113 does not represent the realized eschatology of Luke, because

Thomas kingdom is not related to a socio-historical eschaton; in fact, Lukes occasional

references to a realized kingdom (e.g., Luke 17:20-21) might well mirror Thomas primordial

kingdom rather than the reverse. Thomas 3 also places the kingdom in the presence of the here

and now and yet is careful not to bring the kingdom within the spatio-temporal realm of objects

or things. In Thomas 3, Jesus says, If your leaders say to you, Look, the kingdom is in heaven,


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then the birds of heaven will precede you. If they say to you, It is in the sea, then the fish will

precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside you and outside you. It is clear from Thomas 3 that

the kingdom includes Jesus followers (inside you) as well as the manifest world (outside

you), but that the kingdom itself is neither of these things. The kingdom is not to be found in a

place or a person, but it is inclusive of both.

What is the kingdom like?

This question is answered by several parables that typically describe the kingdom as

something very small that has the potential to become large and powerful if it is apprehended and

used appropriately. One of the more telling What is the kingdom like? parables is Thomas 109:

Jesus said, The kingdom is like a person who had a treasure hidden in his fieldbut did not know it. And [when] he died, he left it to his [son]. The son [did] notknow (about it). He took over the field and sold it. The buyer went to plowing,[discovered] the treasure, and began to lend money at interest to whomever hewished.

Thomas treasure parable is related to Matthew 13:44, which maintains a curiously similar

presentation. In both Thomas and Matthews version of this parable, the kingdom is something

we currently possess (it is hidden in the field we own), but we must work to find it before we can

actually take advantage of the particular gifts it brings to us (in the case of treasure, this is

money). Therefore, it is only after we seek for and find the kingdom that we can use it for our

own benefit (in the parable the person lends money at interest). Each of the fields owners

already possess the treasure, just as we possess the kingdom, but it is only the owner who digs up

the treasure who actually knows what he possesses. And it is that owner who uses the treasure to

his own benefit. This interpretation of Thomas 109 is consistent with Thomas 113; however, in

the treasure parable, Jesus offers a method by which one can know what one already possesses.

This method is merely a restatement of the seek and find sayings, such as Thomas 2, Let one

who seeks not stop seeking until one finds. Thus, Thomas kingdom is something hidden even in


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its apparent presence and bringing it to the foreground takes effort and perseverance. Moreover, a

reverse version of Thomas 109 is presented in Thomas 97, the parable of the jarone of two new

parables found in Thomas. In the parable of the jar, a woman begins her journey with the

kingdom (the meal in the jar) in her possession, but spills it behind her [along] the road as she

walks home. When she arrives at her house, she put[s] the jar down and [discovers] that it [is]

empty. Because of her inattentiveness, the woman gradually loses the kingdom, which she

possessed at the outset and what was once full is now empty and quite useless to her.

How can one enter the kingdom?

This question is answered by several related sayings, including Thomas 22, one of the most

monistic sayings in Thomas:

Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to his followers, These nursing babiesare like those who enter the kingdom.

They said to him, Then shall we enter the kingdom as babies?Jesus said to them, When you make the two into one, and when you make the

inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, andwhen you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be malenor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in placeof a hand, a foot in place of foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter

[the kingdom].

Thomas 22 indicates that there is a definite process by which one prepares oneself to enter the

kingdom. Moreover, the question Jesus followers ask, rather than simply being ignored by Jesus

is, in fact, elaborated on in a way his followers likely would not have anticipated. Even though

Jesus never explicitly says it, the process he outlines in Thomas 22 is the process by which one

becomes a baby or child againthe very question asked by his followers. By changing our

perception of and relationship to the world, we can fully know, appreciate, and take advantage of

our participation in the primordial kingdom. The process Jesus outlines in Thomas 22 is the

familiar monistic concept of collapsing or resolving difference. When we recognize that

categories and oppositions are not essential elements of the world around us, but instead


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functional distinctions created in our own reflection upon what is, we can begin to let go of these

provisional realities and become truly open to an authentic experience of life. And the more we

can let go of provisional realities, the more fully we can experience the unmediated kingdom. In

Thomas, our unmediated existence in the kingdom is equated with infancy. When we resolve the

conflict created in our own reflection upon what is, we once again make the two into one. In

other words, we dismantle our dualistic, conscious reflection, so that our ongoing, timeless,

participative experience of the primordial kingdom (or Tao, source, etc.) comes to the foreground.

In Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, Ken Wilber refers to this monistic, participative experience as

the non-dual state in which we receive our first taste of the real world. He writes:

The real world is not given to you twiceone out there, one in here. Thattwiceness is exactly the meaning of duality. Rather, the real world is given toyou once, immediatelyit is one feeling, it has one taste, it is utterly full in thatone taste, it is not severed into seer and seen, subject and object, fragment andfragment. It is a singular, of which the plural is unknown. You can taste themountain; it is the same taste as your Self; it is not out there being reflected inherethat duality is not present in the immediateness of real experience. Realexperience, before you slice it up, does not contain that dualityreal experience,reality itself, is nondual. You are still you, and the mountain is still themountain, but you and the mountain are two sides of one and the sameexperience, which is the one and only reality at that moment.

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Wilber explains the mechanics of the non-dual state as a matter of experience, perception, and

reflection. In our everyday experience of the world, we simultaneously exist in both the dual and

the non-dual states. In fact, we cannot exist outside of the non-dual state, because it is the ground

of our existencethe right now or immediacy of our experience in the world. The dual state

occurs when we subsume the right now in our ongoing reflection on and categorization of our

experiences in the world. In our dual state, our primary task is to make meaning or sense out of

our experiences and, in order to do this, we need to delimit the non-dual by bringing it into

some sort of meaningful existence for us. Since we cannot delimit all of our experiences in the

world, our non-dual existence is necessarily reduced and split into parts that are brought to the

foreground and that recede to the background. Moreover, the stuff of experience we bring into the


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realm of meaning remains meaningful only within the dualistic mechanics of meaning; the

meanings we ascribe to the non-dual world cannot be said to exist in any meaningful way outside

of that particular system. As Chuang Tzu puts it, Understanding stops when it has reached what

it does not understand.5 Consequently, when Jesus tells his disciples that they cannot enter the

kingdom until they can make the two into one, . . . make the inner like the outer and the outer

like the inner, and the upper like the lower, he is telling them that they need to abandon duality

for a state in which all things are of the same stuff. This is the primordial, non-dual, monist,

singular, unshattered first taste to which Wilber refers.

Who may enter the kingdom?

This question is answered fairly satisfactorily in the sayings related to the preceding question

(i.e., those who can accomplish what Jesus instructs them to do in Thomas 22); however, there

are a few sayings in Thomas that seem to describe those who may enter the kingdom as a chosen

or elect group. The characteristics of this group are that they are poor, alone, chosen, from the

kingdom they will return to, not buyers or merchants, and not female or male. In the theme area

Thomas Community: The Elect, the concept of a predestined elect is covered more thoroughly,

but it is important to note that however one looks at Thomas, those who may enter the kingdom

are a select group of individuals who are definitely not from the most prestigious classes of

society (unless they are willing to give up their social status!).

Theme 3: Personal Revelation and Salvation

The sayings in this area focus on the individuals role in salvation. In Thomas, salvation is

achieved individually rather than socially, which is an important distinction to make between

Thomas (as well as the Gnostics) and the emerging Christian orthodoxy during the first centuries

C.E. Rather than positing Gods dramatic intervention in the affairs of human historya scenario


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in which only the Christian prepared surviveThomas shifts the focus entirely to the

individual and away from the anticipation of supernatural intervention. Thomas 51 provides a

good example of how Thomas Jesus subverts the apocalyptic expectations of his followers:

His followers said to him, When will the rest for the dead take place, andwhen will the new world come?

He said to them, What you look for has come, but you do not know it.

In Thomas 51, Jesus followers present a common first century Judeo-Christian apocalyptic

scenario in which a general resurrection of the dead takes place. In his reply, Jesus completely

revises this scenario by shifting the burden of change from the extra-worldly (or merely external)

back onto his followers themselves. It is clear from the followers question that Jesus idea of

rest for the dead and the new world are not visually apparent, since they do not believe these

changes have come to pass. In fact, it seems that Jesus followers will need to use something

other than their senses to perceive the rest for the dead and the new world to which Jesus

refers. As in Thomas 113 (the fathers kingdom is spread across the earth) and Thomas 109 (the

treasure parable), what is soughtthe new world, the treasure, the kingdomhas already come

to pass. In fact, the things that Jesus followers seek have likely been accessible all the time.

Thus, the new world (i.e., the kingdom) is in the same state as the treasure in Thomas 109; the

availability of the kingdom to those who seek it is one of the most consistent messages in

Thomas, for there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, and there is nothing covered that

will remain undisclosed (Thomas 6).

Theme 4: Thomas Community and the Elect

I included the theme Thomas Community and the Elect to provide a counter-position to my

own ideas about the origins and uses of the text. While I personally do not believe Thomas

presents an articulated hierarchy of initiates, I found Bruce Lincolns ideas on the subject

interesting, especially if Thomas was a product of an ascetical Christian sect from second century


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Syria, which is exactly what many scholars argue.6

Although Lincolns hypothesis is not

implausible, I used elements from his article because they help to illustrate how scholars usually

erect histories around known contexts rather than opening the historical space for new

possibilities. It also illustrates how easily new information can be subsumed within those known

historical contexts, even if much of the new information does not exactly fit into any known

context. Even though Lincoln is a careful scholar who understands that his ideas are provisional,

it appears that many scholars like him are so interested in finding a home for Thomas that they

are willing to stretch the sayings into uncomfortable positions to fit the mold.

However, the concept of a chosen group merits some individual attention, because it echoes

the concept of a predestined elect, which is a decidedly dualistic concept that would problematize

a monistic reading of Thomas. The most problematic saying in this group is Thomas 49, in which

Jesus says, Fortunate are those who are alone and chosen, for you will find the kingdom. For you

have come from it, and you will return there again. Thomas 49 seems to imply a type of

predestination in which only certain people are from the kingdom in the first place and, therefore,

it is only those people who will find their way back there again. No matter how one reads Thomas

49, it is undeniably elitist in the sense that the salvation Thomas offers is available only to a select

few. Nevertheless, it is important to distinguish whether Thomas 49 refers to a pre-destined elect

or simply to the small group of people who can accomplish the return to the kingdom from which

we all have come. It may be that seen in retrospect those who accomplish the return look as if

they were made of the right stuff in the first place. It is a razor-thin distinction, yet since Thomas

does not generally appear to support the idea that only those who are chosen should be reading

and interpreting these sayings (e.g., Thomas 1 and 2 appear to support a more democratic, ad hoc

group), it is important to be careful not to rashly apply a potentially foreign concept like

predestination to the text. Instead, we should consider how the text of Thomas treats this subject

generally.


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Theme 5: Motion and Rest

I included the theme motion and rest because this enigmatic theme is repeated several times

in Thomas and it connects Thomas with Jewish wisdom speculation on the first chapters of

Genesis. The concept of rest, however, is not unique to Thomas; it has analogs in the Jewish,

Christian, and Gnostic traditions. For example, Thomas 86 appears to be directly related to the Q

saying found in Matthew 8:20 and Luke 9:58. In Thomas 86, Jesus says, [Foxes have] their dens

and birds have their nests, but human beings have no place to lie down and rest. However, the

concept of rest presented in Thomas 86 may not be related to the concept of motion and rest

articulated by Jesus in Thomas 50. In Thomas 50, Jesus says, If they ask you, What is the

evidence of your father in you? say to them, It is motion and rest. Thomas 50 appears to link

Thomas to the first creation story in Genesis. It is widely known that in the first creation story,

God creates for six days and rests on the seventh, the Sabbath. If the sign of the father in Jesus

followers is motion and rest, motion and rest likely refers to the creative activity of the father as

described in chapter one of Genesis. This may also be why Jesus says in Thomas 27, If you do

not fast from the world, you will not find the kingdom. If you do not observe the sabbath as a

sabbath, you will not see the father. Because the sabbath represents Gods day of rest after the

intense activity of creation, it may well be that Thomas 27 is directly linked to Thomas 50 in that

those who find the kingdom are the ones who directly participate in the fathers creative activity

and subsequent rest. Moreover, since observing the sabbath as a sabbath appears to be the only

Jewish law explicitly advocated in Thomas (although Thomas sabbath should not necessarily be

taken as equivalent with the Jewish Sabbath), Thomas 27 appears to be in need of further

explanation, which is precisely what Thomas 50 provides.


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Theme 6: Becoming a Child

The theme of becoming a child is directly related to the possibility of apprehending and

entering the kingdom of the father. It is clear that throughout Thomas the place of children is

elevated above the status of adults (Thomas 4, 22, 37, 46); nevertheless, the goal of Jesus

followers, presumably adults, is to somehow overcome their adulthood and become a child again.

While some of the references to children in the text are not explicitly related to this theme, such

as in Thomas 28 when Jesus refers to people as the children of humanity, a few are quite

explicit. In Thomas 46, Jesus says, But I have said that whoever among you becomes a child will

know the kingdom and will become greater than John [the Baptist]. Becoming greater than John

and, later, more powerful than Adam (Thomas 85) seems like a pretty tall order; however,

according to Jesus in Thomas 46, the very act of becoming a child is powerful enough to bring

about the knowledge of the kingdom, something neither Adam nor John the Baptist had known.

In Thomas 4, Jesus provides a clue that might help to explain this theme. In Thomas 4, Jesus says,

The person in old days would not hesitate to ask a little child seven days old about the place of

life, and that person will live. Admiring the tabula rasa of newborns was not a new concept in

Jesus time just as it is not a new concept today; however, the significant detail in this saying is

the age of the child who, if he is a boy, will be circumcised on the following day according to

Jewish custom (Genesis 17:12). The importance of this detail is that the seventh day is the last

day the child remains symbolically unsocialized and totally open to an unmediated experience of

life. Until he is eight days old, the childs experience is presumably not mediated by culture,

language, meaning, thought, or reflection. The child remains naked, undecided, and receptive in

the pre-circumcision moment.

In Thomas 37, Jesus says, When you strip without being ashamed and take your clothes and

put them under your feet like little children and trample them, then [you] will see the child of the

living one and you will not be afraid. The idea that by casting off ones clothes an adult may


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become a child again provides more details about the importance of the infants tabula rasa in

Thomas 4, because the prospect of casting off ones clothes offers this tabula rasa to adults. In

Thomas 37, Jesus followers symbolically reject that which socially and conceptually constrains

them by stripping off their clothing. Without their clothing, they are naked, fearless, unworldly

and, as such, they are able to apprehend the child of the living one, who may be construed as

Jesus, but it is more likely that it is actually themselvesidentical to Jesus, subsumed within the

All (Thomas 2, 22, 108). It is as if Thomas 37 seeks to reverse the moment in Genesis 3:7 when

Adam and Eves eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig

leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.7

The use of clothing (also in Thomas 21) as

the symbol of self-awareness, fear, and worldliness certainly helps to link Thomas to the Genesis

creation stories.

Theme 7: The Living Father

In the entire Gospel of Thomas, the Coptic term for god is only used twice. In his article

Kingdom of Heaven or Kingdom of God, Dieter Mueller explains:

W. Schrage in his discussion of the two alternatives (Kingdom of God, Kingdomof the Father) . . . pointed out against Fitzmyer that there is not a single instance(sic) for the use of Kingdom of God in the whole Gospel of Thomas(Evangelienzitate, 258).

At first sight, the last argument might seem irrefutable, as it is in full agreementwith Gnostic theology, where God is a word not for the Lord, but for theDemiurge. It is therefore carefully avoided in the Coptic text, and occurs only inlog. 30 and 100, where the being referred to as God seems to hold a positioninferior to Jesus. Wherever the Kingdom is mentioned, the Coptic versiondisplays a marked preference for the absolute use of this term (log. 3, 22, 27, 46,49, 82, 107, 109, 113), but occasionally substitutes either Kingdom of the

Father (log. 57, 76, 96-98, 113) or Kingdom of Heaven (log. 20, 54, 114).8

According to Mueller, Thomas use of God is consistent with Gnostic theology, in which the

term is used to denote the creator demiurge and not the ultimate reality of the father. It does

appear that Thomas maintains some such distinction, because the Coptic term for God is used


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only in two places, both of which appear to relegate God to a lesser status than Jesus. In

Thomas 30, Jesus says, Where there are three deities [gods], they are divine. Where there are

two or one, I am with that one. And in Thomas 100, Jesus says, Give Caesar the things that are

Caesars, give God the things that are Gods, and give me what is mine. In Thomas 100, Jesus

appears to be establishing a hierarchy of importance, from Caesar to God to himself. But, of

course, the word for God here is not equivalent with the term father, which is used exclusively to

represent the ultimate reality in the gospel; therefore, Jesus appears only to be placing himself

above the Greek and Jewish systems and not above the father. Consequently, because father is

used in a manner that distinguishes it from God or gods, it is important to approach this concept

openly. It seems clear from the distinctions made in Thomas 100 that the father should not be

conflated with Yahweh without some investigation into the concept. It is also important not to

equate without investigation Thomas distinction between God and father with the Gnostic

use of these terms.

In Gnostic systems, the father is absolutely transmundane, separate from our earthly reality,

non-interfering, and hidden from us. According to scholar Hans Jonas, this separation is the

primary feature of Gnostic thought. In The Gnostic Religion, Jonas writes:

The cardinal feature of gnostic thought is the radical dualism that governs therelation of God and world, and correspondingly that of man and world. The deityis absolutely transmundane, its nature alien to that of the universe, which itneither created nor governs and to which it is the complete antithesis: to thedivine realm of light, self-contained and remote, the cosmos is opposed as therealm of darkness. The world is the work of lowly powers which though theymay immediately be descended from Him do not know the true God and obstructthe knowledge of Him in the cosmos over which they rule.

9

A major concern regarding the use of father in Thomas is if the father is regarded as

absolutely transmundane or if the father essentially belongs to or composes the world of

creation. If the father is radically separate from the world of creation, Thomas theology would be

dualistic and, therefore, in this regard, it would more closely resemble Gnostic theology;


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however, if the father is mundane, intra-worldly, and essentially bound-up in the world of

creation, then Thomas theology is likely monistic.

In Thomas, the father is often referred to as the living father. Moreover, Jesus and his

followers are referred to as living the child of the living one (Thomas 37), living spirits

(Thomas 114), and the chosen of the living father (Thomas 50). This association with the

living closely connects Jesus and his followers with the father. In fact, in some sayings, it is

difficult to distinguish between Jesus self-references and his references to the fathera point

that may be more revealing than confusing. A few sayings also appear to place the living father

or, at the very least, the kingdom of the father, in the immediate presence of Jesus and his

followers. In Thomas 3, Jesus mocks those who reduce the fathers kingdom into a reified, spatio-

temporal reality. He says, If your leaders say to you, Look, the kingdom is in heaven, then the

birds of heaven will precede you. If they say to you, It is in the sea, then the fish will precede

you. Rather, the kingdom is inside you and outside you. If the kingdom is inside you and

outside you, then it is in ones presence, even if it cannot easily be reduced into a thing in our

reflection upon it.

In Thomas 52, Jesus speaks of the living one in their presence when his followers say to him,

Twenty-four prophets have spoken in Israel, and they all spoke of you. Jesus replies, You have

disregarded the living one who is in your presence and have spoken of the dead. Jesus may be

referring to himself or to the father when he speaks of the living one in Thomas 52;

nevertheless, one would presume that, at the very least, the living one in Thomas 52 refers to

one who is within the kingdom and, thus, living from the living one. If that living one is in

their presence in the same manner in which the fathers kingdom is in Thomas 113 (the fathers

kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it), then the living one in Thomas

52 is not transmundane in the dualistic, gnostic sense; rather, it is trans-conceptual in the monistic

sense. The living one or living father, which I equate with the concept of the kingdom, is


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present, yet not fully manifest in ones senses (except, perhaps, when one knows the kingdom,

which may be the case in Thomas 19 where the five trees in paradise may correspond to the five

senses). The living father in Thomas appears to be something quite different from both Yahweh

and the hidden God of the Gnostics, because it takes the role of a wellspring or source that does

not intervene specifically in human affairs. Because Thomas refers to the father as both the

living father and the living one, it is likely that father in Thomas should be regarded as a

wellspring or source of life and fecundity rather than as a hidden source whose access is

facilitated by a world-negating asceticism. In Thomas 111, Jesus says, The heavens and the earth

will roll up in your presence, and whoever is living from the living one will not see death. Living

from the living one is clearly an activity in which one engages during lifein the living,

breathing worldand this activity does not appear to involve a rejection of the world of the

living, except perhaps the trappings of human society that block our access to an authentic

experience of the living one. In other words, one cannot live from a living one that is radically

separate; one may, in the Gnostic sense, attempt to free oneself from the lowliness of the created

world and make the journey back to the light of the true father. But one cannot look to (Thomas

59) and live from (Thomas 111) what is fundamentally absent and hidden. There are simply too

many textual clues that place Thomas father in the immediacy of the now to argue that

Thomas father resembles the hidden father of the Gnostics.

Themes 8 - 11: Asceticism and World-Negation

One of the largest areas of agreement among scholars is the presence of a strict asceticism in

Thomas. As in other important areas, I am in qualified disagreement. It is clear, however, that

some brand of asceticism is advocated in the text and that the nature of this asceticism is one of

the keys to deciphering what Thomas asks of its readers. The majority position is clearly


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articulated by John Dominic Crossan in his bookFour Other Gospels: Shadows on the Contours

of the Canon. He writes:

What Thomas demands is not some periodical fasting from food but a permanentfasting from sex, as in Gos. Thom. 27, If you do not fast as regards the world,

you will not find the Kingdom. In all this, Thomas is profoundly basic to thetraditions of sexual asceticism in eastern Syria just as later it would fit wellwithin the Pachomian monastic movement in Upper Egypt.

10

Like many scholars, Crossan regards Thomas use of the concept world as literally referring to

the created world rather than figuratively referring to worldliness. Of course, he does so with

some compelling evidence. Most scholars in the field believe that Thomas repudiates the body,

sexuality, and the created world, in addition to money, wealth, and power. The evidence for their

conclusions is found in sayings such as Thomas 29, If the flesh came into being because of the

spirit, it is a marvel, but if spirit came into being because of the body, it is a marvel of marvels.

Yet I marvel at how this great wealth has come to dwell in this poverty. Thomas 29 is a difficult

saying to overcome if one takes the position that Thomas does not repudiate the body, but rather

is asking us to recover our bodies by recovering our senses. Nevertheless, this is the conclusion

drawn by James Hesig in his article, Recovering the Senses: Against the Asceticisms of the

Age. He writes:

Setting the senses beyond the mortifying influence of conventional modes of perceptiondoes not mean transcending the world but being in the world but not of it, to use worldsfamiliar from the Gospel of John. Hence, Jesus advises his disciples to protect themselvesfrom those who would invade their dwelling (sayings 21, 35, 103). The recovery,exercise, and safeguard of the senses from the deprivations of habit is an essentialingredient to insight, if not a measure of its truth: I shall give you what no eye has seenand no ear heard and no hand has touched and what has never occurred to the humanmind (saying 17). What Jesus promises is no more noncorporeal than it is nonmental. Itis a heightened experience of mind and body.

11

Hesigs conclusions fly in the face of the majority of scholarship about Thomas asceticism, yet

his interpretation comes with the force of theological consistency as well as a handful of powerful

counter-examples.


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In Thomas 6, Jesus followers ask him, Do you want us to fast? How should we pray?

Should we give to charity? What diet should we observe? These pointed questions are likely

aimed at Jewish practices, which include dietary restrictions and alms giving. Jesus replies to his

followers, Do not lie, and do not do what you hate, because all things are disclosed before

heaven (Thomas 6), and in one sentence replaces these Jewish practices with a version of the

golden rule. He tells them to be honest and to live by their own principles, presumably whether

those principles lead his followers to eating or fasting, praying or getting drunk. Moreover, in

Thomas 14, Jesus actually warns his followers about the dangers of what might be regarded as

ascetical religious activity. He says, If you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves, and if you

pray, you will be condemned, and if you give to charity, you will harm your spirits. It is possible

to read both Thomas 6 and 14 as indications that Jesus denounced false religious piety; however,

if one is to imagine that Thomas comes from a rigorously ascetical sect from Syria, one must also

imagine that the members of that ascetical sect periodically fasted and prayed, even if they did

not give to the poor. It seems highly unlikely that the instructional materials for such a sect would

include prohibitions against what one would imagine are amongst the primary activities of that

sect. In Thomas 104, Jesus followers once again bring up the subject of praying and fasting.

They say to Jesus, Come, let us pray today and let us fast. And once again, Jesus rebuffs them.

He says, What sin have I committed, or how have I been undone? Rather, when the bridegroom

leaves the wedding chamber, then let the people fast and pray. For the sake of this argument

[i.e., bracketing off the intriguing symbolism of bridegroom and wedding chamber], the

importance of this passage is that it contains Jesus second explicit denouncement of fasting and

praying. Because these pronouncements are so explicit, their clarity makes for a much tougher

argument for those scholars who wish to lump Thomas in with the ascetical texts of the second

century. And, to make their argument even more difficult, Jesus offers no explicit counter-

instructions to his followers regarding any specific ascetical practice in the entire text of Thomas.


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Instead of religious asceticism, what Jesus does offer are sayings denouncing various forms

of worldliness. Most of his attacks in this area are against buyers, merchants and moneylenders.

In fact, Jesus appears to draw a hard line between those who have money and those who do not,

although he appears to reserve special vehemence for those in the mercantile class. In Thomas 64,

Jesus simply says, Buyers and merchants [will] not enter the places of my father. And in

Thomas 78, Jesus questions a group of people, Why have you come out to the countryside? To

see a reed shaken by the wind? And to see a person dressed in soft clothes, [like your] rulers and

your powerful ones? They are dressed in soft clothes, and they cannot understand truth. If one

thing is clear about this text, it is that money and the trappings that accompany it are definite

disadvantages to anyone who wants to enter the kingdom. Yet, warnings against money, power,

influence, and worldliness do not equate to a world-negating asceticism; therefore, it is important

to make an appropriate distinction between the created world and the worldliness that Jesus

denounces in Thomas 64, 95, 78, 63, and 65. Almost as a direct answer to Thomas 78, in which

Jesus rails against the clothes of the rich, Jesus says in Thomas 36, Do not worry, from morning

to evening and from evening to morning, about what you will wear. As was the case with

clothing in the sayings related to Becoming a Child, clothing in Thomas 36 also serves as the

symbol of worldliness. Clothing is an apt symbol because people use clothing to determine social

hierarchy, thus determining how they relate to one another. Stripping ourselves of our clothing

and, more importantly, of our concern about clothing, symbolically (and to some degree, literally)

takes us outside of this hierarchical social system. Our lack of concern for the trappings of society

is the very source of our freedom from it. Moreover, being naked in the created world does not

mean that we reject our sensuality, our sexuality, and the beauty of the world around us; in fact, it

likely means precisely the opposite.

In Thomas 114, Simon Peter says, Mary should leave us, for females are not worthy of life.

And Jesus responds to him, Look, I shall guide her to make her male, so that she too may


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become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter

heavens kingdom. Aside from presenting a bit of difficulty for those of us who do not believe

that Thomas is a male -centered text, Thomas 114 offers the most explicit reference to androgyny

in the text (see also Thomas 22). In The Birth of Christianity , John Dominic Crossan writes:

The ideal state imagined by the Gospel of Thomas is that of the primordial humanbeing, Adam as one, as single and unsplit, as neither male nor female, as asexual.First came the split, thence came the sexes, thence came sin. The Gospel ofThomas is about returning to that inaugural moment at the dawn of creation,

before sin, before serpent, before split.12

On its own, it would seem that Thomas 114 strongly supports Crossans argument. And, to some

degree, I agree with Crossans assessment of the text. In the context of Thomas, the act of making

Mary male definitely brings to mind the Adam and Eve story. It is as if Jesus is going to put the

rib that became Eve back into Adam, thus making her male once again. However, a notable

feature of this saying occurs when Jesus says, every female who makes herself male will enter

heavens kingdom. Now, it is clear from the rest of Thomas that simply being male does not

qualify one for heavens kingdom. In fact, in Thomas 22, both men and women must make the

two into one, the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and

. . . the male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be

female. Instead of reading Thomas 114 as contradictory to Thomas 22, it is quite easy to see that

both sayings speak to one and the same practice, the act of collapsing difference. In Thomas 114,

Jesus glibly plays with Simon Peters final misunderstanding of Jesus message. Consequently,

while it is true that Mary can only enter the kingdom by becoming male, it is just as true that

Simon Peter can only enter by becoming femalethe real point is that, like everything else, the

male and female need to become a single one.

Now, one has the choice of looking upon this collapsing of difference as merely advocating

androgyny, sexual abstinence, etc., or looking at it in the larger context of Thomas 22 in which all

categories are collapsed. It would seem that, based on Thomas 22, the text makes a more


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encompassing statement than returning men and women to their inaugural moment at the dawn

of creation, before sin, before serpent, before split.13

In fact, it seems more to the point that

Thomas interprets the Garden of Eden creation story as the fundamental worldly intrusion upon

our pristine existence in the kingdom. In the first creation story, when God completes his act of

creation and rests on the seventh day, no one is in strife and no one is in need of anything.

However, the Garden of Eden story is laden with strife from the outset. First God forms man out

of the earth and not in his likeness. Next, God makes rules about what Adam can and cannot do,

an activity that is strikingly familiar to the process of socialization. In the Eden story, God also

seems to be aware that his creationwhich has supplanted a system in Genesis that was already

workingis fundamentally flawed; Moreover, God wants to make sure Adam does not find out

what this flaw is. Yet, the flaw that is so crucial to the Eden story is not an issue in the first

creation story, because there is no hierarchy established between God and humans in that story. In

the Eden story, however, God fears that his creation will be undermined if Adam becomes like

God himself. In Genesis 3:20-21, God says, See, the man has become like one of us, knowing

good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat,

and live forever.

Are humans made in the likeness of God or not? In Genesis second creation story, we are not

created in the likeness of God; instead, we are from dust and to dust we shall return (Genesis

3:19). But, in Thomas 61, Jesus says of himself, I am the one who comes from what is whole. I

was given from the things of my father. And in Thomas 77, Jesus also says of himself, I am the

light that is over all things. I am all: From me all has come forth, and to me all has reached. Split

a piece of wood, I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there. Aside from be ing

noticeably pantheistic, Thomas 77 and Thomas 61 place Jesus in the company of the father and

indicate that Jesus is, in some manner, of the father. In fact, Thomas 77 rather explicitly equates

Jesus and the father, because Jesus speaks of himself as the ultimatethe all. It is important to


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note that in Thomas Jesus is also made of the same substance as his followers. This point is

clearly driven home in Thomas 108 in which Jesus says, Whoever drinks from my mouth will

become like me; I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to that

person. It is not difficult to draw the line from herethe father, Jesus, and those who drink from

his mouth (i.e., discovers the interpretation of these sayings) are one and the same. In Thomas,

we are not created from the dust of the earth; we are made in the likeness of the father.

Thus, instead of returning us to the androgynous beginnings of Adam, Thomas places us in

the center of the first creation storyman, woman, God, animals, the things of the worldliving

together in harmony. This is why Jesus says of Adam in Thomas 85, Adam came from a great

power and great wealth, but he was not worthy of you. For had he been worthy, [he would] not

[have tasted] death. If Adam is not worthy of Jesus followers, then they must be greater than

Adam. Because Adam is born of a great power, he, like Jesus and his followers, was born in the

condition of the first creation story; however, his authentic condition is masked by his socialized

condition in the second creation story. The serpent attempts to alert Adam about Adams true

condition, but Adam (and Eve) never fully understand the truth of their existential circumstance

before God (the demiurge?) thwarts them. Thus, their attempt to fully recognize the ultimate

reality is never fulfilled. Adam and Eve never realize that God and man are made of the same

stuff. Instead, Adam and Eves act of betrayal creates a chasm between God and man, woman and

man, man and animal, etc. This is the dualistic world into which we are born and socialized. And

it is precisely this world that Thomas seeks to cast off. It is not androgyny that Jesus asks his

followers to find, but a state of authentic living in which differences like male and female are not

significant. Consequently, in Thomas 22, Jesus does not simply stop at unification of the male

and female; unification is merely the first step. Jesus also tells his followers that they need to

make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in

place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]. Thus, the goal of Thomas 22 is not to


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create a featureless background in which all things recede into a wash of nothingness; rather, the

goal is better articulated as the state of being in which one allows things to be without imposing

the weight of meaning upon them. Androgyny, then, is but a half step toward a much larger goal

of the text, which resides in the first creation story. The goal of Thomas is the end of death,

suffering, and strife, which correlates with our authentic state of being in the kingdom.

Even though Thomas is clearer about its rejection of worldliness than it is about the rejection

of the world itself and does not appear to present sexual androgyny as an ultimate, the gospel

does contain a handful of challenging ascetical passages. Nevertheless, much of the ascetical

material in Thomas (Thomas 27, 42, 56, 80, 110, and 111) can be explained as confrontations

between worldliness (world) and living authentically (kingdom), a theme that is consistent with

Thomas monistic theology. Therefore, in Thomas 27, when Jesus says, If you do not fast from

the world, you will not find the kingdom, it is not difficult to interpret the world Jesus

denounces as the delimited world of human social behavior. Moreover, this interpretation gives

fasting from the world a much more specific meaning than fasting in general (Thomas 6, 14, and

61), which is denounced by Jesus. In Thomas 27, fasting from the world is simply another way of

saying precisely what Jesus tells his followers in Thomas 36, Do not worry, from morning to

evening and from evening to morning, about what you will wear. Jesus does not want his

followers to be preoccupied with the trappings that engage them in the world of social strife,

because every social advantage, every step into the realm of money and power, only serves to

further impede ones recognition of the authentic state of being. In Thomas 39, it appears that

Jesus believes the Pharisees and scribes are blocked in such a manner, even though they have

seen the truth. Jesus says, The Pharisees and the scribes have taken the keys of knowledge and

hidden them. They have not entered, nor have they allowed those who want to enter do so. Why

have the Pharisees not entered the kingdom? Because they will have to give up their social status

to do so. In Thomas, world should not be confused with the created world or life itself; unlike


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later Gnostics, Thomas Jesus is much more concerned with the corrosive effects of power and

privilege than he is with basic, human sensuality.

Yet not every saying in Thomas fits easily into a limited asceticism that promotes kingdom

(the natural or given) over and against world (the artificial, hierarchical, and fabricated). While

Thomas use of world is consistent, and it is easy to substitute the term worldliness for world

in the text, the use of body, spirit, flesh, and soul in Thomas 29, 87, and 112, is more difficult to

bring into a monistic frame. In Thomas 29, Jesus says, If the flesh came into being because of

the spirit, it is a marvel, but if spirit came into being because of the body, it is a marvel of

marvels. Yet I marvel at how this great wealth has come to dwell in this poverty. Oppositions

such as flesh and spirit are not foreign to monistic theologies; however, their existence as

provisional realities or the products of a troubled, dualistic mindset are typically highlighted.

However, in Thomas 29, one may interpret flesh and spirit as fundamental categories of being. In

this case, the flesh/spirit opposition is equivalent to the poverty/wealth opposition and,

consequently, Thomas 29 fits nicely within a dualistic, world-negating motif. However, the

rhetorical point of the saying is marvel and not the opposition of poverty and wealth; therefore,

these two partsflesh and spiritbelong together, are revealed together, and are born from each

other. When one reads the saying in this way, the wealth of the spirit is revealed through the flesh

and, even more surprisingly, the hidden wealth of the flesh is revealed through the spirit.

Consequently, this poverty refers to neither flesh or spirit but to an understood target that is not

identified in the sayingperhaps the corrupted world from which Thomas offers salvation. When

flesh and spirit are interpreted as belonging together, then the monistic potential of the saying

opens up.

Similarly, Thomas 87 and 112, sayings that closely echo Thomas 29, also appear to present a

world-negating motif. In fact, all three sayings all appear to be deeply related. In Thomas 87,

Jesus says, How miserable is the body that depends on a body, and how miserable is the soul


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that depends on these two. And again, in Thomas 112, Jesus says, Damn the flesh that depends

on the soul. Damn the soul that depends on the flesh. It is difficult to determine which is the core

saying, but it is clear that these sayings have some common root. In Thomas 112, the flesh/soul

juxtaposition is similar to the flesh/spirit distinction in Thomas 29. In Thomas 112, soul is not

privileged over flesh nor flesh over soul; they are presented as categories, but they are made equal

in the balanced saying. Therefore, although it is brief and enigmatic, Thomas 112 can be

interpreted similarly to Thomas 29, except that the relationship between flesh and soul is not

clarified; nevertheless, the saying does not appear to conflict with the monistic thrust of the

gospel. However, the oppositions presented in Thomas 87 are difficult to explain in the context of

the gospel as a whole; soul appears to be privileged over body, but the use of body twice in the

saying is clearly enigmatic. Without more explanation, it is difficult to discern if Thomas 87

introduces dualistic oppositions and body denying, world-negating asceticism into an otherwise

monistic theology.

Theme 12: Thomas Christology

I decided to introduce the theme of Thomas Christology to highlight the characteristics

attributed to Jesus in Thomas. A primary question in this section is whether Jesus nature is

unique or if he is essentially made of the same stuff as his followers. Another related

consideration is the relationship between the natures of Jesus and the father; if Jesus and the

father are intimately connected, what are the implications of this connection on Thomas

theology? In Thomas 61, Jesus is given from the things of [his] father, but Jesus does not want

his followers to regard his position as unique and unattainable (Thomas 108, whoever drinks

from my mouth will become like me). Consequently, one must imagine that the apparent

divinity Jesus possesses in Thomas 61 is a characteristic shared by all who can discover the

interpretations of his sayings (Thomas 1). And because these attributes are shared by both Jesus


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and his followers, it is important to consider the metaphorical possibilities of the passages that

apply larger-than-life attributes to Jesus. In fact, since Jesus performs no miracles or specific

supernatural acts in the text, it is not difficult to take these sayings as monistic metaphors. This is

especially the case in Thomas 77 (I am the light that is over all things), which was described

above. In Thomas 77, Jesus directly articulates his own divinity within the context of a monistic

ultimate; in his vision, he has become that ultimatethe very source and power of life. If you

split a piece of wood, he is there; if you lift up the stone, you will find him there (Thomas

77). Consequently, when Thomas 82 (Whoever is near me is near the fire, and whoever is far

from me is far from the kingdom) is read in the context of Thomas 77, it is not difficult to

understand that Jesus sees himself as equivalent with the father and the

-A-Jesus-for-the-East-Monism-in-the-Gospel-of-Thomas.pdf

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