The Gospels, part 15: The Gospel of Thomas

An "unsteady" text and asceticism

When we seek to understand The Gospel of Thomas, we must approach it cautiously. At the outset, we even need to be careful referring to it as a “Gospel,” since that term usually designates a narrative of Jesus’ life, teachings, deeds, death and resurrection – the stuff, in other words, that characterizes the canonical four. That said, the early churches produced quite a few Gospels – for example, The Gospel of the Hebrews, The Gospel of Truth, The Gospel of Peter, The Gospel of Philip, The Gospel of the Egyptians, The Gospel of Mary (Magdalene), The Infancy Narrative of Thomas (not to be confused with the work we will be discussing below), and so on – all of them written later than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all of them of some historical value, a number of them reflecting the peculiar doctrinal concerns of early Christian fringe groups. (Despite the current tendency to speak of differing “christianities,” we should be circumspect in this regard. There were no “christianities” as such in the earliest centuries, but one emerging “Jesus tradition” with a wide variety of offshoots, some of which seem to have coalesced over time and some of which – the “Thomasine” tradition included – that were either absorbed or disappeared entirely).

What we refer to as The Gospel of Thomas could be more accurately referred to as “The Hidden Sayings of the Living Jesus Spoken to Thomas” or some such title, seeing that that is how its opening lines present its contents. (When we see the term “hidden,” incidentally, we should assume that the text was intended to be read by those considered practiced enough in their faith to understand its meaning, metaphors, and allusions. [1]) Nor should we take Thomas’s claim to authenticity — as coming from the “living Jesus” — at face value. The only extant version of the book we possess is a “late” translation in Coptic (discovered at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945), dating to the mid-fourth century, of a Greek text that was already in existence, it appears, much earlier. We do have available to us fragments of that Greek text, discovered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt in 1897 and 1903, broadly dated to c. 130-250. Some scholars have speculated, based on internal evidence, that there may have been an even earlier Syriac text of Thomas. Whether or not that was the case, there is reason to believe that its origins may lie in Palestine, Syria, or Asia Minor and that it was – at least, in embryonic form – a Jewish-Christian sayings collection; the text’s reverence for the authority invested in James the Just suggests as much. [2]

There are a few notable differences between the earlier Greek fragments and the later Coptic version of Thomas. What these textual discrepancies indicate is that the supposedly “complete” version we have, which exists only in Coptic, is not only a (sometimes awkward) translation but an edited version, apparently adjusted along doctrinal lines in some passages. This should alert readers to the fact that the Coptic Thomas cannot be fully trusted as it stands; it is a late “unsteady” or “fluid” text that evolved and was altered – and possibly added to – over a long period. That simple fact may disappoint those who have placed undue weight on the contents of the Nag Hammadi version, sometimes going so far as to regard that text as a more authentic source than our first-century canonical Gospels for understanding “the historical Jesus,” sometimes seeing in it a forgotten wellspring of mystical insight that could somehow “reboot Christianity” in our own day. Still, given how much attention this truly fascinating text has already received over the last few decades, it’s worth our while to give it ours, however briefly. Nor should it be assumed that, in addition to the parallel material it shares with the canonical Gospels, it doesn’t contain any hitherto unknown “sayings” that go back to Jesus (it may indeed), or – in terms of personal spirituality – that there is nothing of worth to glean from it (handled cautiously, there undoubtedly is some). As we shall see, there is good reason to suspect that early Christian ascetics, especially in Egypt (where both the Greek fragments and the Coptic text were discovered), found it spiritually valuable and – it’s quite plausible – added their touches to the text.

Before proceeding, for those who haven’t a translation of the Coptic Gospel of Thomas at hand, a version of it is accessible at this website. For those wishing to compare a (somewhat unsatisfactory) online translation of the Greek fragments from Oxyrhynchus with the Nag Hammadi text, a comparison can be found by clicking here. Lastly, I will post again a link to the video that I believe provides the most sober appraisal of the book. I urge you to view it before proceeding with my cursory comments because what follows presumes the information it contains and saves me the trouble of repeating it:

All told, The Gospel of Thomas contains 114 short sayings or “logia” (none of them exceeds 26 lines) and they can be categorized as follows. Some are “proverbs, precepts, maxims, terse aphorisms or short exhortations.” [3] Other sayings are benedictions and maledictions. [4] Others are parables, such as we find in the Synoptic Gospels. [5] Still others are Jesus’ replies to those posing questions. [6] Finally, as Edgar Hennecke says:

it is convenient to make among the logia here collected a less formal distinction. Many are more or less identical with, or related to, sayings in the canonical Gospels. Nevertheless, with very few exceptions, even those which are most closely related to the canonical logia do not reproduce them literally; they show variations of detail, or are formulated in a very different way, and sometimes the situation too is altered. Some are more developed than the corresponding Synoptic sayings or parables [see logia 47, 64,]… In contrast to these examples, other sayings are shorter and more concise than their Synoptic parallels [see logion 63]… In other cases, diverse Synoptic elements appear to have been combined together. A curious example is provided by Logion 16…, of which the second half, apart from an expansion at the end, is an obvious abbreviation of Lk. 12:52f., so much so indeed that it is scarcely comprehensible without reference to the Lucan passage… [emphasis added]

Rather than Thomas being a very early alternative source for Jesus’ original sayings, then, the evidence suggests that the author(s)/editors knew the Synoptic tradition or their sources, as well as other sources, drew from them, and edited the sayings as they saw fit. Since Hennecke cites logion 16 in the quote directly above, we may note one significant feature of it, which is repeated throughout the text: the use of the noun μοναχός  (monachos = “solitary one”/ “monk”):

Jesus said, “Possibly people think that I have come to cast peace on the world (cf. Matt. 10:34 and Lk. 12: 51), and they do not know that I have come to cast divisions upon the earth (Lk. 12:51): fire (Lk. 12:49), sword (Matt. 10:34), and war. For there shall be five in a house: three shall be against two and two against three, father against son, and son against father (see Lk. 12:52 f.), and they shall stand as solitary ones.”

Milan Vukomanović, in a fascinating article on Thomas’s use of the word monachos (his article can be read in its entirety by clicking here), makes the case that The Gospel of Thomas evolved within early Egyptian ascetic – i.e., monastic – communities. Noting that the emergence of Christian asceticism in Egypt was a gradual process, incorporating within its burgeoning ascetic philosophy Jewish “Wisdom” and Platonist elements from the Alexandrian context (remember, for instance, the Jewish Philo of Alexandria in the first century and the Christian Clement of Alexandria in the second), finding its climax in the fourth century with the desert ascetics, he sees the text of Thomas as evolving within that tradition. “One course of this inquiry into the Egyptian trajectory of Thomas,” Vukomanović writes, “could perhaps lead from the earliest stages of consolidation of Jewish Christianity in Egypt, to the monastic asceticism of the desert fathers as the culminating point of such a development.” In his view (which I find persuasive), the “Pachomian” (named for St. Pachomius, the “father” of cenobitic monasticism in Egypt) “type of monastic community… could have composed the Coptic version (translation) of GTh. Indeed, several scholars have already associated this community with the compilation of the Nag Hammadi codices.” Vukomanović concludes that, in its original form, “the GTh reached Alexandria from Palestine or Asia Minor, where it had already been in circulation in the first half of the second century.” Subsequently, it was modified to suit the Egyptian ascetic context. One of those modifications appears to have been the insertion or elaboration of the ideal of the solitary ascetic (the “monk”) in the text. To date, in point of fact, we have no texts earlier than Thomas that employ the word monachos as a noun.

This brings us back to the differences that exist between the earlier Greek fragments and the Coptic version. René Falkenberg, in an illuminating article (which can be read by clicking here), compares logion 4 in Greek with the Coptic translation.

The Greek version reads: “[Jesus said,] ‘A m[an old in day]s will not hesitate to ask a ch[ild seven day]s old about his place in [life and] he will [live.] For many of the f[irst] will be [last and] many of the last will be first and […].’”

The Coptic version reads: “Jesus said, ‘The man old in days will not hesitate to ask a small child seven days old about the place of life, and he will live. For many who are first will become last, and they will become solitary ones.’”

Falkenberg, after presenting evidence of the logion’s relatedness to sayings preserved in the canonical Gospels, shows how such a text would have resonated in the Pachomian monastic context, in which certain forms of behavior exemplified the monastic ideal (“they will become solitary ones” could simply mean “they will be authentic monks” – the sort of phrase one finds repeated by, for instance, Evagrius of Pontus in his ascetic writings). Falkenberg writes:

Interestingly, such emphases in the Coptic fit a monastic context well, since monastic readers would recognize such wording from their everyday life. The senior person (“the old/elder [ⲡϩⲗ̄ⲗⲟ]”) is the title of an experienced monk (or even a monastic leader), and the junior person (“a little, young child”) could refer to a monk in training, not necessarily a young person but a newcomer to the monastic group, as Melissa H. Sellew has pointed out when comparing Thomas with the Apophthegmata Patrum. In monastic literature, an ‘elder’ is far more honourable than an untrained ‘young’ person. Yet, we have an intriguing example of the opposite in the Bohairic Life of Pachomius, where Pachomius asks his future successor, Theodore, to attend the instruction of his fellow monks:

“When he came to [our father] who stood (ⲟϩⲓ ⲉⲣⲁⲧϥ) speaking God’s word to the brothers, Pachomius immediately took him by the hand in the midst of the brothers and said to him, “Stand (ⲟϩⲓ ⲉⲣⲁⲧⲕ) here and speak the holy words of God.” Although unwillingly, he began to speak in front of all the brothers who stood (ⲟϩⲓ ⲉⲣⲁⲧⲟⲩ), including our father Pachomius who listened too like the brothers. Immediately some among them, out of pride, were angry and returned to their houses without listening to the Lord’s word. They said, “He is young (ⲕⲟⲩϫⲓ) in age, but it is us who are elders (ϧⲉⲗⲗⲟ), and it is to him that he gives order to instruct us!” In fact, Theodore was 33 the day our father made him stand (ⲧⲁϩⲟϥ ⲉⲣⲁⲧϥ) to give the instruction, knowing that he was farther advanced than they.”

This passage replays quite closely the scenario of logion 4 with the two persons of either “old (ϩⲗ̄ⲗⲟ)” or “little/young (ⲕⲟⲩⲉⲓ)” age. In the Bohairic Life, the “elders (Bo. ϧⲉⲗⲗⲟ = Sa. ϩⲗ̄ⲗⲟ)” are also in need of instruction from the “young (Bo. ⲕⲟⲩϫⲓ = Sa. ⲕⲟⲩⲉⲓ)” Theodore. Even if he here is 33 years old, he clearly is a junior compared to the more senior monks but nevertheless “farther advanced than they.” Just after this passage, Pachomius scolds the angry elders for not paying attention to Theodore, and even quotes the New Testament saying, “Anyone, who may receive a little one (ⲟⲩⲁⲗⲟⲩ, Gr. παιδίον) in my name, receives me” (Matt 18:5).23 If we read logion 4 in such a monastic setting, the present passage of the Bohairic Life may also indicate whom the final sentence of logion 4 refers to when saying, “and they will be single ones,” since both the old and the young would be “single ones (ⲟⲩⲁ ⲟⲩⲱⲧ)” in such a context.

And, as noted above, “and they will be single ones” could mean, quite plausibly, “and they will be true monks.” Falkenberg continues by analyzing logion 30 in the two versions. Here are the texts:

Greek: [Jesus says, “Wh]ere they are [three (persons), they are] godless, but where o[ne] is alone, I say I am with him”; raise the stone, there you will find me, split the wood, there I am.” [7]

Coptic: Jesus said, “Where there are three gods, they are gods; where there are two or one, I am with him.”

First, Falkenberg notes, “the two texts differ not only in wording and length but also in meaning, where scholars find coherence in the Greek but consider the Coptic almost incomprehensible” (emphasis added; this should remind us that the Coptic version – the allegedly “complete” version – cannot be relied upon to be either an accurate translation or as presenting unalloyed sayings of Jesus). He notes, second, that the Greek version appears to depend on Matthew 18:20. Falkenburg writes:

Our first concern is the Greek, which in the main seems dependent on the saying in Matthew, “Where two or three (τρεῖς) gather together in my name, there I am (ἐκεῖ εἰμι) among you” (18:20). Matthew presents here an early cultic service setting with the promise that Christ will be present when a minimum of two persons meet in his name. Since the Greek Thomas prefers one instead of more persons, only one person is promised closeness to Christ (“I am with him … you will find me”); such an intimacy is not possible for a group of people (“[three … are] godless”)…

[W]e can confirm that the Greek makes more sense than the later Coptic translation. In his study on logion 30, Harold W. Attridge sums up the main findings in the text:

“Instead of an absolutely cryptic remark about gods being gods [in the Coptic], the fragment [in Greek] asserts that any group of people lacks divine presence. That presence is available only to the “solitary one.” The importance of the solitary (μοναχός) is obvious in the Gospel. Cf. Sayings 11, 16, 22, 23, 49, 75 and 106. This saying must now be read in connection with those remarks on the “monachos.”

In other words, the Coptic version of The Gospel of Thomas is probably not commenting, however obliquely, on the doctrine of the Trinity when it mentions “three gods” (as some have posited). Rather, it appears simply to be an unintelligible rendering – at least, it is unintelligible to us – of the Greek original. The original was championing – over against the collective – the ascetic ideal of the solitary one, to whom “the living Jesus” will reveal himself. One is reminded of the words of the desert father, Abba Alois: “Unless a man says in his heart, Only I and God are in the world, he shall not find rest.” [8]

Finally, this monastic ideal picks up on an early Christian ascetical understanding of sexuality and gender, the goal of which was to transcend biological distinctions. We see the seeds of such an ideal in Luke’s version of an exchange between Jesus and the Sadducees. There Jesus says, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those accounted worthy of sharing in that Age and in the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage [note the wording here – it could be taken as an inducement to embrace celibacy, something that is explicit in Matt. 19:11-12], for they cannot even die any more, for they are the equals of angels, for they are God’s sons, being sons of the resurrection” (Lk. 20:34-36; emphasis added; compare Matt. 22:23 ff.; Mk. 12:18 ff.). Relatedly, one might compare Paul’s words in Galatians 3:28, his exhortation to celibacy in 1 Corinthians 7:1, 6-8, and the 144,000 male virgins in Revelation 7:3-8; 14:1 – the “monastic” ideal appears quite early.

In light of the passage from Luke above, I believe we can be certain that when Thomas, in turn, speaks of “knowing oneself,” it is picking up on this precise theme; it means “knowing oneself as a son of God”: “When you know yourselves, then shall you be known, and you shall know that you are the sons of the living Father. But if ye do not know yourselves, then you are in poverty, and you are poverty” (logion 3; emphasis added). And “the sons of God” are those who, being “solitary ones,” have transcended gender (and other) differences; they are “like the angels,” “sons of the resurrection” (meaning, they are no longer defined by biological standards). So it is that logion 22 reads:

Jesus said to them, “When (ϩⲟⲧⲁⲛ) 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 you shall do that in order to make the male and the female into this single one (ⲫⲟ⳿ⲟⲩⲧ ⲙⲛ̄ ⲧⲥϩⲓⲙⲉ ⲙ̄ⲡⲓⲟⲩⲁ ⲟⲩⲱⲧ), so that the male will not be male and the female not female, when (ϩⲟⲧⲁⲛ) you make eyes instead of eye, hand instead of hand, foot instead of foot, image (ϩⲓⲕⲱⲛ⳿) instead of image, then (ⲧⲟⲧⲉ) you shall enter [the king]dom.”

The kernel of this saying – “the two will be(come) one… the male and the female… etc.” – appears to be an authentic saying of Jesus, found in other early Christian texts. It is quoted in the mid-second-century text known as II Clement (12:2): “For when the Lord himself was asked by someone when his kingdom would come, he said, ‘When the two shall be one, and the outside as the inside, and the male with the female neither male nor female.’” (The author goes on, in 12:5, to interpret the saying: “And by ‘the male with the female neither male nor female’ he means this, that when a brother sees a sister he should have no thought of her as female, nor she of him as male.”) [9] Similarly, Clement of Alexandria, in his Stromata (iii, 13), presents the same saying, citing The Gospel of the Egyptians (note that these two texts are, like both the Greek and Coptic versions of Thomas, Egyptian). Again, what we discern in this saying of Jesus are the roots of what would grow into the ideal of the monk.

And this same idea informs what is for some readers the most unappealing of the logia in Thomas – the final logion in the book, in fact: logion 114:

Simon Peter said to them: Let Mary go forth from among us, for women are not worthy of the life. Jesus said: Behold, I shall lead her, that I may make her male, in order that she also may become a living spirit like you males. For every woman who makes herself male shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Given that the Jesus of the older, canonical Gospels (and, for that matter, the authentic epistles of Paul) never suggests that women are deficient or must become “male,” it seems likely that Thomas 114 is an adulterated logion attributed to Jesus. However, its intention (especially in light of logion 22) appears to be something other than merely misogynistic; the implication is that – ascetically – both sexes can transcend their sexual distinctions. In the desert tradition of Egypt and Palestine, however, we do have instances of female monastics who, as best they could, intentionally made themselves masculine in appearance and behavior. We find in Thomas 114, perhaps, both the echo of a noble ideal espoused by Jesus (the ascetic calling to transcend sexual distinctions, the body’s biological demands, and identifying one’s essential self — one’s “soul” — in terms of gender) and the beginnings of that ideal’s historical distortions.

In conclusion, what one makes of The Gospel of Thomas depends on how one approaches it. If one wishes to find in it a “Jesus” more authentic, more “inclusive,” more “spiritual” – and so on – than the multifaceted Jesus of the four canonical Gospels, one is bound to be disillusioned in time. Thomas presents us with no such alternative, no matter how intriguing or stimulating many of the logia in it are. The canonical Gospels became canonical (the word “canon” means something by which we measure other things) for good reason: they were the texts that the vast majority of Jesus-followers treasured above the rest. They represented, despite their respective differences, the Jesus they considered authentic, the original apostolic deposit, the tradition as written. The Jesus of Thomas, in comparison, is an elusive figure, evading easy categorization (not necessarily a bad thing, since Jesus as we find him in all the primary texts – as I have said before – evades all the neat categories dear to “Jesus historicism”). Its value is indisputable; its spirituality is not as surprising, stimulating, or refreshing, however, as some would have us believe. Those familiar with the early history of Christian asceticism/monasticism should especially not be surprised by it, given that the text was marked by that development in Christianity during its evolution.

One final word. The “Jesus” of Thomas is more rigorous, more – one might say – spiritually “elitist” than the Jesus of the four canonical Gospels. I, for one, can appreciate some of what I see in the former; I do, however, find inestimable value – mercy, forgiveness, charity, healing, encouragement, and resurrection, for example – in the latter.

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[1] For example, logion 7 – “Blessed is the lion which the man shall eat, and the lion become man; and cursed is the man whom the lion shall eat, and the lion become man” – is easier to understand when one knows that “lion” in ascetic Christian literature can refer either to the devil (not likely in this case) or to one’s “animal passions” (much more likely in this instance). If the latter, it’s a case of one’s rational/spiritual “inner man” conquering the unruly desires and actions, rather than one being consumed by them.

[2] Logion 12: “The disciples said to Jesus: We know that thou wilt go from us. Who is he who shall be great over us? Jesus said to them: In the place to which you come, you shall go to James the Just for whose sake heaven and earth came into being.”

[3] See Hennecke, New Testament Apocrypha, Volume One: Gospels and Related Writings (Philadelphia, 1963), pp. 288 ff. Examples of these are logia 25, 41, 42, 56, 67, 80, 90, 92.

[4] Examples are logia 49, 58, 69, 87, 102, 112.

[5] Examples are 97 and 98.

[6] Examples are 12, 13, 18, 21, 43, 53, 60, 61, 72, 79, 114.

[7] The latter part of this logion appears in the Coptic version in logion 77b.

[8] Apophthegmata Patrum, XI, 5. Cf. Chadwick, editor, Western Asceticism (Philadelphia, 1957), p. 132.

[9] Apostolic Fathers I, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge MA/London, 1985), pp. 147, 149.