THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS & A TALE OF TWO HETERODOXIES Stan Ousley, Jr.
© Symphony of Love Ministries
Santa Fe, NMINTRODUCTION:
In an interesting new book BEYOND BELIEF - The Secret Gospel of Thomas (2003: Random House ISBN 0-375-50156-8), religion scholar Elaine Pagels sketches tensions between two early peripheral and possibly quasi-Gnostic groups of "pneumatic" or esoteric Christians: the Thomas Christians who revered the Gospel of Thomas and the early Johannine Christians. In her book, these two groupings, both out of the mainstream of late first century Christianity, are seen as forerunners of later heterodox factions in the early church. In Pagels' account, it was Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons ca. 180 AD, who would become a prototype of the "defender of orthodoxy." As struggles between factions and perceived threats from "charismatic" Christians challenged a fragile ecclesiastical structure, the issue became "God's Word or Human Words?" and although not directly stated, Pagels implies that the Gospel of John would appropriately supplement the Synoptic Gospels and Pauline epistles. It would elevate Jesus to the "Word made flesh" and the "light of the world" that orthodox theologians needed to counter Gnostic sects. Pagels writes that "Irenaeus, in turn, believed that he practiced true Christianity, for he could link himself directly to the time of Jesus through Polycarp, who personally had heard Jesus' teaching from John himself." Therefore, "Irenaeus was among the first to champion this gospel and link it forever to Mark, Matthew, and Luke" [Pagels, p. 81]. Pagels asserts that John's Gospel became the lenses - esoteric lenses of sorts - through which the Synoptic Gospels were interpreted. Although it is not clear that the Gospel of Thomas was a contender, it would be seen as too individualistic and idiosyncratic for orthodox dogmatists. At the time of Constantine, the New Testament canon and the Nicene Creed were formulated. And in disobedience to Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria who ordered the destruction of non-approved texts, Egyptian Coptic monks hid the Gospel of Thomas and other non-canonical writings. Until its rediscovery at Nag Hammadi in the 1940's, it was obscured from church history.
Pagels sketches early tensions between the Thomas Christians and the Johannine community. It is debatable that either group was purely or even mostly "gnostic" except in the sense that they had "esoteric" interpretations and semi-secret teachings, evidenced in the Gospel of Thomas and in chapters 13 to 17 of John's Gospel. Thomas gets a "bad press" in John's Gospel. He is "doubting Thomas," and Pagels emphasizes that the Johannine account has him "absent" when the other ten remaining disciples (after the betrayal by Judas) encounter a risen Jesus and receive insight from the Holy Spirit and are "commissioned" to spread the Gospel. The implication, says Pagels, is that Thomas wasn't there and did not have equal status with the others. And John, in contrast, is "the disciple whom Jesus loved," and his special relationship with Jesus (even after Jesus' physical crucifixion), questioned by Peter in John 21:21, is that John is to remain in a special status (John 21: 22-23) - the risen Jesus asks Peter "What is that to you?"
Both groups were historical prototypes of heterodox Christian communities. A schism developed in the early Johannine community, outlined in the First Epistle of John and described by the late Raymond Brown in his book The Community of the Beloved Disciple - The Life, Loves, and Hates of an Individual Church in New Testament Times (1979: Paulist Press, ISBN 0-8091-2174-3). In his book The First Christian Centuries (2001: Inter Varsity Press, ISBN 0-8308-2677-7), Paul McKenzie writes that it was "fine distinctions" rather than blatant "Gnostic theories" that characterized Thomas Christians (and perhaps John's community before it was "mainstreamed") and took followers beyond the latent Gnostic views of Paul (see McKenzie, pp. 151 - 189).
Esoteric Christians would seem to be the preferred term for early pneumatics according to McKenzie. Pagels uses the term "spiritual" Christians. Brown suggests that "The Johannine writings and some elements of Johannine thought are attested in the second century, but after the Epistles there is no further trace of a distinct and separate Johannine community" (Brown, p. 145). But the pre-existence of Christ as the Logos was adapted by, or grafted onto, the developing Pauline Dogma needed to counter Gnostic versions of pre-existence, Pagels would assert. Equally important, it was the orthodox interpretations of John and not more heterodox ones (later embraced by New Thought Christianity) that prevailed. Father Brown writes: "If the author's [author of the Gospel of John and the Epistles] branch of the Johannine community gradually merged with the Apostolic Christians [implying they were originally distinct!] into the Great Church, it brought with it the high Johannine christology of pre-existence, precisely because in his struggle with the secessionists the author of the Epistles had safeguarded that christology against any interpretation that would lead to docetism or monophysitism." (Brown, p. 146) Yet, Brown observes, "the very fact that a Paraclete-centered ecclesiology had offered no real protection against schismatics ultimately caused his followers to accept the authoritative presbyter-bishop teaching structure which in the second century became dominant in the Great Church but which was quite foreign to Johannine tradition" (Brown, p. 146).
McKenzie sums up the official view that the Church offered adequate Gnosis or knowledge. "When Jesus spoke about "knowledge" he was referring to the thing which he also called "the kingdom of heaven" or "kingdom of God." This is the background of claims by Great Church writers including Clement of Alexandria that the Christian is the real Gnostic." (McKenzie, p. 153) In the second and third centuries, the challenge was not so much from Gnostics but from what we would call "Charismatics." From Paul and The Didache we see that prophecy and "charismata" or Gifts of the Spirit were accepted in early communities. Orthodoxy would provide an interpretive framework for such phenomena, but it could not handle "esoteric" teachings nearly as well.
THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS - A BRIEF ANALYSIS:
In this study, I use Marvin Meyer's translation (The Gospel of Thomas, 1992: Harper San Francisco, ISBN 0-06-065581-X). Many of the "sayings of Jesus" presented in this text are also found in the Synoptic Gospels, but at times with variations. For example, in the Gospel of Thomas, the disciples cast their nets into the lake, and bring in many small fish and one large fish. The small fish they discard, keeping the big one. The implication is that those with the "secret knowledge" are represented by the symbol of the big fish, valued above the small fish.
Other sayings are more esoteric, and possibly Gnostic. The Gnostic idea was that the physical is lesser than the spiritual. From verse 7, we read: "Jesus said, 'Fortunate is the lion that the human will eat, so that the lion becomes human. And foul [cursed] is the human that the lion will eat, and the lion will become human.'" (Meyer, p. 25) In an explanatory footnote, Meyer writes that "In gnostic literature the ruler of the world is sometimes said to look like a lion." (Meyer, p. 71) It is also pointed out that Plato, in The Republic, hypothesizes a soul of three parts: a beast, a lion, and a human being. The reason (human) must master the passions (lion). But an equally severe dualism, in a different theological context, is found in Pauline writings. From the KJV version, Paul writes in Romans 8: 6-7 "For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither can be."
But to Thomas, redemption occurs when two become one within us, and not through a sacrifice by Jesus as Christ on a Cross. In the context of Circumcision and Uncircumcision, Paul writes in Ephesians 2: 14-16 (KJV) that the "sacrifice" of Christ is essential: "For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain [two] one new man, so making peace; And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby." In the context of verse 70 of Thomas, that we are saved from within, five verses from that account show a divergent way of two becoming one and overcoming separation or enmity.
The process, central to Thomas' teachings, is that redemption comes from within. Verse 70 reads in translation: "Jesus said, 'If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you.'" (Meyer, p. 53) Meyer believes the theme of two becoming one may refer to that which came out of the primordial union as substance in form or the physical, and it will be reunited (and thus redeemed). "By extension, this oneness can designate an integrated existence beyond all the divisive features of human life " (Meyer, p. 70). The enigma, contrary to the Synoptic sayings, in verse 4 is: "For many of the first will be last and will become a single one" (Meyer, p. 23). The "Gnostic twist" is that the First-born (of Spirit, similar to "Only Begotten" or monogenes in John) will be the last to survive and become one with the primordial union. In verse 22, Jesus says one enters the Kingdom "when you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]" (Meyer, p. 35). The chosen "will stand as a single one" (verse 23, Ibid.). In verse 48, we see a practical application of the reconciliation of the two into one, interpreted metaphysically. "Jesus said, 'If two make peace with each other in a single house, they will say to the mountain, 'Move from here,' and it will move" (Meyer, p. 48). Much in Thomas "extends" our understanding of Synoptic versions of Jesus' teachings. As "a house divided against itself cannot stand," it is the consciousness of oneness fully realized or expressed through us and not the "faith" that moves the mountain. Likewise, from verse 106: "Jesus said, 'When you make the two into one, you will become children of humanity [the son of Man], and when you say, "Mountain, move from here," it will move.'" (Meyer, p. 63)
In verse 5, we see a variation on the theme that the invisible is revealed - but we understand it by understanding the visible manifestation, another New Thought understanding. "Jesus said, 'Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.'" (Meyer, p. 23) This amplifies the teaching "By their fruits, ye shall know them." We could say that it is by the out-picturing of one's thoughts we see the invisible in the visible; we are known and the hidden (invisible Spirit) is disclosed.
Another twist occurs in verse 6. The disciples ask if they should fast, pray, give to charity, observe a special diet? Jesus' reply is "Do not lie and do not do what you hate, because all things are disclosed before heaven." (Meyer, p. 25) The focus again is internal, not external.
Teachings on the primordial Light and the possibility that we do not need any external mediator to "know" the light or be at-one with it, distinguished Thomas from the "light of the world" teachings in John. In verse 18, Jesus answers questions about the end time by refocusing the disciples to the beginning. Jesus responds "Fortunate is one who stands at the beginning: That one will know the end and will not taste death." And in verse 19, Jesus adds "Fortunate is one who came into being before coming into being." The difference from John's first chapter is that Jesus, or Christ as Jesus, alone is not The Word that is eternal life; we can all go to the beginning, or what Thomas calls "creation before Creation" and Muslim Sufis call HU-Allah, or "the Beyond the beyond." In the OT, it was possibly Melchizedek (the priestly archetype, perhaps of "The Ancient of Days"), veiled in anthropomorphism and tribal mythology. In verse 24, the disciples ask Jesus to "show us the place where you are, for we must seek it." Jesus responds "Whoever has ears should hear. There is light within a person of light, and it shines on the whole world. If it does not shine, it is dark." (Meyer, p. 35)
In Thomas, it is not Jesus as the personification of the Christ symbol that brings the light. The light itself, rather than Jesus as Christ, becomes "the kingdom of heaven" found within, or what John would embody exclusively in Jesus when he has Jesus saying "I am the light of the world." The "credo" of Thomas is found in verse 50:
"Jesus said, 'If they say to you, where have you come from' say to them 'We have come from the light, from the place where the light came into being by itself, established [itself], and appeared in their image.' If they say to you, 'Is it you?' say, 'We are its children, and we are the chosen of the living father.' If they ask you, 'What is the evidence of your father in you?' say to them 'It is motion and rest.'" (Meyer, p. 43)
CONCLUSION:
At one level of understanding, John and Thomas are not diametrically opposed if one applies a New Thought symbolic-metaphysical understanding to the symbols in John's Gospel. Those interpretations are discussed in another essay by this writer. However, the orthodox interpretation of John "distinguishes" Christ as the one and only Word made flesh, the one and only Light of the world, and the one and only "Only Begotten" - and thus Jesus supposedly says "no one can come to the Father except by me." But in Thomas, we can see that perhaps the "exclusive claims" John makes were not the esoteric teaching of Jesus, if indeed, Jesus had "hidden" teachings. At another level of understanding, I can see that "New Thought Christianity" is in a lineage of "metaphysical" or "gnostic" Christian perspectives going back to the first century. And at an even more expansive level of understanding, we might see that New Thought is, itself, a "wisdom teaching" with practical applications. Certainly Divine Science is more than what it evolved into institutionally: "a Christian denomination." I am coming to see Divine Science in an "original" or "origin-focused" sense as the knowledge of the Divine that transcends all religions, while being expressed and comprehended in varying degrees of completeness in many religions and at a level beyond religions. An ongoing understanding grasped by decades of New Thought teachers is that the "New Thought" is not new, and it embodies Universal Spirituality. That does not make it "less Christian," but "more Christian."
John was "mainstreamed" and Thomas was not. But both the Thomas Christians and the Johannine Christians illustrate diversity (not heresy) in the earliest church. Pagels concludes her book with a discussion of orthodoxy and heresy (history is written by the victors!) as "acts of choice." She writes that: "What I have come to love in the wealth and diversity of our religious traditions - and the communities that sustain them - is that they offer the testimony of innumerable people to spiritual discovery." (Pagels, p. 185)
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