A word on the #metamorphosis:
Starting and Transition State always stand in stark contrast and are often opposed to each other.
Outcome follows Transition but always is an illogical consequence.
Action drives Outcome.
Starting state enables Action, Action enables Transition state
And as such, Thomas presents us with a very logical step-by-step process that ends with the Transition State - and has a seemingly unrelated Outcome as the real result
The model is flawless
Thomas logion 5
5. IS said know him who is within the presence of your(SG) outward face and he who is hiding to you(SG) will uncover outward to you(SG). There is not anyone Indeed who, while he is hiding, will not reveal outward.
The 'him' and 'he-who' always points to a masculine noun, and it could be an object or a person. I have chosen to always translate it with a person, in order to tickle the imagination
Does it fit, could it fit? You be the judge
#GospelOfThomas #Commentary #Academic
Meaning
There is something going on in your direct vicinity, and you don't even know it - and there is also someone or something hiding, and these two may or may not be one and the same. Can someone in the presence of your "(outward) face", perhaps even re-presenting you, be hiding at the same time? And can someone who is really very hidden, gone into hiding perhaps, not be in the presence of your face? Both are possible, and perhaps we will learn that these two are one and the same, or not
SPOILER ALERT
As the text will demonstrate, the one in the presence of your face is the slaveowner, the Ego - and the one hiding is the original you, the One that once was: the living father
You learn about the first one by self observation, which naturally is directed towards the inside; your inside
Do notice the singular You here, of which there are only a handful of uses when directed towards the audience
The next logion is intimately connected to this one
Thomas logion 6
6. His Disciples questioned him; they said to him: do you desire that we Fast, and what is the manner we will pray, we will give Alms, and we will Observe what within food?
IS said: do not tell lies, and he who you hate, do not make him be: they all are uncovering outward within the presence of the heaven.
There is not anyone Indeed while he is hiding, who will reveal outward not; and there is not anyone, while he is covering, who will remain with lack of him being uncovered.
Meaning
There are two messages here, and the first is again about religion, and again its instructions are rejected, very vehemently to be honest: lies and hate are covered up yet will uncover in the presence of the singular heaven, the one of religion. The second message is about quite something else: someone or something is hiding - but there will be revealing and uncovering, and when comparing the two words it becomes clear what it takes for that to happen:
(CONTINUED)
open your eyes and there will be revelation, revealing of that which is hiding; take something away and there will be uncovering of that which is covered.
The disciples enter the proverbial stage in this logion and are depicted as ignorants (sic) asking the wrong questions - and that is exactly their role, and they will perform it ad nauseam, and the compassionate reader will come to pity them
Thomas logion 7
IS said a Fortunate is the lion this one which the human will eat him
and of-the-lion being becomes man.
And he befouled, the human, this one who the lion will eat him
and the lion will come to be human.
An infamous brain twister, yet with an easy solution: the first ϣⲱⲡⲉ ⲣⲣⲱⲙⲉ is a noun-composite verb combination, the second is verb-predicate: ϣⲱⲡⲉ ⲣ ⲣⲱⲙⲉ - hence the futurum ⲛⲁ- there to put one on the right track
Meaning
This entire logion, even when translated correctly, entirely depends on the interpretation of what the lion stands for. I really am convinced that he represents freedom, ferocious lordship, the impossibility to be tamed yet most especially the property of never having worn a yoke nor ever going to do so - in short: a lion is always free, never a slave to anyone or anything. But I have nothing to go on in the text at this point, and there is nothing outside the text to go on either
And besides all that, the primary question is how to eat a lion, before any of this becomes useful in any way - and I suspect that the main goal of this logion is to function as some sort of test:
will the reader be "free" enough to think outside the box and at least manage to solve the syntactical riddle? Or will he royally fail this test and change the text instead of his attitude, way of thinking, and perception - and by doing so be destined to not make sense of any of the remainder?
Thomas logion 8
And he said: the human is comparable to - Prologue
a fisher, become man of heart/mind, who has cast his dragnet to the Sea. - Subject
He drew her up from the Sea while she was being full of fish, little within upper part of their heart/mind. - Starting state
He fell to a good great fish. - Action
The fisher, become man of heart/mind, cast all the little fish outward, downward to the Sea. - Transition state
He chose the great fish - Exempt from toil. - Outcome
(CONTINUED)
He whom there are ears within him to hear, let! him hear. - Epilogue
Another metamorphosis, and it even contains two sub metamorphoses
And he said: the human is comparable to - Prologue
a fisher, become man of heart/mind, - Subject
who has cast his dragnet to the Sea. - Starting state (Σ)
He drew her up from the Sea - Action (α)
while she was being full of fish, little within upper part of their heart/mind - Transition state (T)
He fell to a good great fish. - Outcome (Ω)
The fisher, - Subject
become man of heart/mind, - Starting state (Σ)
cast all the little fish outward, downward to the Sea. - Action (α)
He chose the great fish - Transition state (T)
- Exempt from toil. - Outcome (Ω)
He whom there are ears within him to hear, let! him hear - Epilogue
This is how grand Thomas really is, how intricately wrought his text is - and the metamorphoses drive the interpretation beyond the shred of a doubt:
There is no Great Good fish - it is merely an illusion
Meaning
The Seeker must become wise, and realise that the proverbial Sea, that of "schools of thought" or, in brief, any and all other movements outside of religion only are filled with little, trivial, insignificant fish. And such is easy to do by discarding all of those (little fish) and see what remains, at which point a gaping void will manifest:
make the Choice that there is no Great Fish - and the fisherman will be separated from suffering, it will be the start to his salvation
ⲭⲱⲣⲓⲥ ϩⲓⲥⲉ is pivotal, 'Exempt-from toil'. Notice that the fish (that is now no longer Good but just Great) is chosen: a choice is made here which in itself is Exempt-from toil - and everything that is Exempt-from toil is worthless, precisely because everything that is valuable takes effort.
Yet ⲭⲱⲣⲓⲥ ϩⲓⲥⲉ also means 'Free-from suffering' and by making the choice that there is no Great Good fish the wise human is exactly that
The fish is merely an illusion
Thomas logion 9
IS said: lo behold he came forth, - Prologue
he who throw-sows; - Subject
he filled his hand, he cast. - Starting state
Whilst some fell upon the path, the birds came, they gathered them; - Action (α1)
some another they fell upon the Rock and they did not take root downward to the earth and they did not put forth heads of grain, upward to the heaven; - Action (α2)
and some another they fell upon the Acacias-nilotica; they choked the seed, the worm ate them; - Action (α3)
(CONT)
and some another fell upon the good earth, - Action (α4)
he gave Fruit upward to the heaven, good; - Transition state
he came of sixty to arrow and hundred twenty to arrow. - Outcome
The parable of the sower undoubtedly is the start to the Quest of the Seeker.
The last word is not 'measure' but 'arrow': this man shoots, ejaculates - just like Atum does, and similarly he fills his hands with the produce.
Yes - all figuratively speaking?
Meaning
The Seeker "comes" out of his comfort zone, and throws ideas around, wide in the open, far away from himself - those ideas come from deep within where the kingdom lies, and it signifies his act of creation; he fills his empty hands with what comes up.
The Proverbial Path doesn't provide fruitful ground; nor does monotheism; nor does Egyptian polytheism - but the "good earth", that does give good Fruit.
Very much of it even, as its "one plus two" handfuls greatly surpass the empty hands
Most importantly, do note that the 'good' seemed to belong to the fish in logion 8 but now appears to belong to the earth as well as the Fruit (and most certainly not the singular heaven), and the word will occur one last time in logion 57 where it marks the essence of it all that is introduced in this logion: the seed
Take your good seed, cast it away from you, and where it lands on good soil it will produce good Fruit: follow the growth, the blossom, the Fruit - and you will have your harvest
Thomas logion 10
IS said: did I cast a fire upon the World and lo behold, I guard him until he blazes.
Thomasine ambiguity at its best: both World and fire are masculine nouns, so what is guarded, and what will blaze?
Only interpretation helps out there: ⲕⲟⲥⲙⲟⲥ has the primary meaning of 'order', and its secondary meaning of 'decoration' discloses its function: we order that which we perceive as chaos, we paint a neat little decoration of our World and hang that in front of the real world
CNT
Relation to previous logia
Logion 10 is a follow-up on 9, where the good earth was located because it is the only place that produces good Fruit. It was the first step of discovery in the Quest: something has been found and now a hole is punched in the mental models, and the grand Aha-Erlebnis of logion 8 has been succeeded by another one, a much smaller one perhaps yet one that creates; a process of growth, fertilisation, and the good earth producing good Fruit attests to that
Thomas logion 11
IS said: this heaven will make be Lead astray, and she who above her will make be Lead astray, and they who are dead they are not living, and they who are living they will not die.
The days you ate him who is dead, you made him be - he who is living.
Whenever you should come to be in the light, who is it that you will make be him?
In the day you had been made one, did you make be the two;
whenever, However, you should come to be two, who is it who you will make be him?
Meaning
We ate what is dead yet consider ourselves to be alive, but we aren't; and in this process we created the two: we caused the hiding of the One that we were and we created another one who we (now) consider to be living: it is us who caused this situation to exist.
By building one's entire existence on top of those dead ideas, one now also is dead himself, two - Separated, dualised; and if one comes to realise that, what will one do?
Thomas logion 12
The Disciples said to IS: we know you will go from the hand of us; who is who that will make be great upward upon us?
IS said to them: the place you have come therein, you will go toward Jacob the Righteous; this one has the heaven with the earth come to be because of him.
Jacob the Righteous points to the Jacob of Genesis, the poster child of Judaism. A character full of deceit and treachery who tricked his brother and father, & others
Meaning
The Disciples pose another question to Thomas, and again it is an open one, attesting to their complete lack of prior thought about any of it - and not only that, Thomas portrays their complete inaction, as their only intent expressed is one of being "mastered"; if not by IS, then who does he have in mind as his successor? IS lashes out with full force, highly likely at the entire Judaic dream, by dismissing them to the Jacob of Isaac and Rebecca, also known as Israel.
The heaven and the earth is a mystery that isn't addressed nor solved by anyone - save for me
https://www.blueletterbible.org/ylt/gen/28/12-22/s_28012
It likely serves as an extra identifier of this Jacob
Thomas logion 13
IS said to his Disciples: compare me, and say it to me: I resemble whom?
Simon Peter said to him: you resemble a Righteous Messenger.
Matthew said to him: you resemble a human Philosopher, man of heart/mind.
Thomas said to him: oh writer, Wholly my mouth will receive him not that says it: you resemble who?
IHS said: myself; your writer not. Since you drank, you became drunk from the Fountain which boils; this one I myself have measured her.
(CONTINUED)
And he took him, he Withdrew; he said to him three words.
After that Thomas However came to his friends, they questioned him: what has IS said to you?
Thomas said to them: if I should say to you one in the words he has said to me, you will carry stone and you cast to me, and a fire comes from the stones, and she* burns you.
Meaning
Does the Fountain boil because IS associates himself with fire* in logion 82, and is either of those two the reference of the feminine ⸗ⲥ (she*) which will burn~ the Disciples, or is it pure jealousy instead - or both? And are the three words indeed 'father, child, Spirit who-is pure', and does that really matter? And what does it mean to 'measure' a Fountain? And what does Withdraw really mean?
The Commentary is 600 pages for a good reason, and this just meant to give an impression
Thomas logion 14
IS said to them: if you should Fast, you will beget to you a sin;
and if you should pray, they will Condemn you;
and if you should give Alms, you will make be a Bad one of your Spirits.
And if you should go inward to a certain earth and you walk in the Lands, if they should Accept you; he who they will place him at you: eat him.
They who are sick of their heart/mind, Heal them.
(CONTINUED)
He who will go Indeed inward in your mouth he will defile you not, Rather he who is coming from your mouth; he is he who will defile you.
Meaning
Thomas once again rejects general religious and specific Judaic habits, in harsh and fierce words: sin, condemn, turning your Spirits into something bad. Can he use stronger language than that? Hardly so, I would think.
It is safe to consume whatever or whoever is put before you by those mysterious people in the Lands who Accept you.
(CONTINUED)
Do note the similarities between these Lands, ⲭⲱⲣⲁ, and the previous logion where either Thomas or IS or both Withdraw, ⲁⲛⲁⲭⲱⲣⲉⲓ.
The Commentary contains a chapter titled "Relation to previous logia" for each logion, and the relations between all become demonstrated in that way: #Thomas is a completely coherent text where one #logion builds on top of another, time and again
It is just no #Christian text at all, whatsoever. Anti-religious, yes that it is: and this logion loudly attests to that
Thomas logion 15
IS said: Whenever you should behold him who isn't begotten from woman, bend yourself upon your face and worship him; he who therein is your father.
A fine example of the choice presented for translating ⲡⲉⲧ: does it say "he-who" or "that-which"? Throughout Thomas I always translate it with the former, and leave it to the reader to judge to which extent that fits
Meaning
A tiny little logion with a superior and magnificent message: you are the father - the One you have never seen. You can beget him, sire him, "father" him - bring him forth, into the light, make him manifest.
And now that you realise this, what indeed is it that you will do with the 'him' of logion 11, the one made out of dead things - because this right here is that moment where you "become two", where you realise that you in fact are two:
the father, and "you"
It will take a while before Thomas addresses the two that we currently are, namely the #Ego and #Self: ϫⲟⲉⲓⲥ and ϩⲙϩ̅ⲁ̅ⲗ̅, generally translated with master/lord and slave/servant; for my translation I have picked slaveowner and slave
Thomas indeed is a psychoanalytical text that is countless centuries ahead of its time, and while it does use IS it is not about #Jesus nor about #Christianity, nor about anything in the New Testament
Thomas precedes all that
Thomas logion 16
IS said: Perhaps they think, the humans: I have come to cast a Peace upon the World, and they know not: I have come to cast some divisions upon the earth; a fire, a sword, a War.
There are five Indeed that will come to be in a house; there are three that will come to be upon two, and two upon three: the father upon the child and the child upon the father, and they will stand to their feet in case they been made Single-One.
Meaning
IS is being slightly ironic although Thomas is deadly serious about the effects of what he will do: tear not your World apart like in logion 10, but your house: your other illusion, fata morgana, collection of perception - yet this time of you yourself. It will be divided forever, hopefully, until there is only One: the monachos, the Single-One, he who was first, before you were the you that you think you are: the father - he is what you once was, before you can remember
(CONTINUED)
Thomas logion 17
IS said: I will give to you him who no eye beheld and him who no ear heard and him who no hand touched and who did not come up on the heart/mind of human.
Again, does the masculine pointer ⲡⲉⲧ refer to a person or a thing? Grammar allows for both.
And yes, Paul has the infamous parallel in 1 Cor 2:9, but there are well over 70 parallels between Thomas and the canonicals
Meaning
The meaning is short and simple and to be literally taken for what it says, for a change; something unheard of, unseen, untouched, and unthought of: that is the knowledge that Thomas will impart on the reader, and he has already done so to a considerable extent
And indeed, it is not an object, but a person: Thomas promises to restore the living father in us - but not without our considerable help and effort
Thomas logion 18
The Disciples said to IS: say it to us; our end, she will come to be in what manner?
IS said did you uncover Indeed outward the Beginning in order that you will seek after the end:
in the place which the Beginning therein, the end will come to be therein.
A Fortunate, he who will stand to foot in the Beginning, and he will know the end and he will not taste death.
Meaning
The Disciple bashing continues and Thomas counters their mundane predicament: why seek-after the end in vain, as you haven't even considered looking for the Beginning? And perhaps he tries to motivate them for a change, by using repetition in combination with the word ⲙⲁⲕⲁⲣⲓⲟⲥ: Fortunate he who stands to his feet in the Beginning, and he will not taste death.
Will they bite?
Do note the exemplary use of Greek vs Coptic: ⲁⲣⲭⲏ here, uniquely, as opposed to ϩⲏ in logion 19 and 21
Thomas logion 19
IS said: a Fortunate, he who has come to be at the beginning prior to he comes to be.
If you should come to be to me Disciple and you hear my words, these stones will make be Serve to you.
Have you Indeed therein the five trees in Paradise; they move not within summer or winter and not usually their leaves fall outward;
he who will know them he will not taste death.
A logion that has lead all to wild assumptions; while it all is simple
Meaning
Do note the native Coptic for beginning, opposed to the Greek loanword Beginning in the previous logion. Pay the utmost attention to every detail, if you want to learn what Thomas says: these are not just coincidental variants.
Para'disos points to division, consult δισσός.
What tree doesn't move throughout all seasons nor drop his leaves?
A dead one
Thomas states that our concept of Paradise is a dead and divisive one, and the 'five' here points to logion 16: the result of divisions
Thomas logion 20
The Disciples said to IS: say it to us; the reign of king of the heavens, she is comparable to who? he said to them: - Prologue
she is comparable to a grain of mustard, - Subject
being few More than all the seeds. - Starting state
Whenever However if she should fall upon the earth which they do work, - Action
habitually he puts forth outward a great branch - Transition state
and he comes to be Protection of birds of the heaven. - Outcome
Meaning
The kingdom of the heavens is rare, and rare or 'few' are those who enter as well: as few as mustard grains are used as seeds. The all-important Action in this metamorphosis shows what must be undertaken: the earth must be worked upon, that is the quintessential action. If done so, that same earth - and not the grain of mustard! - will put forth, outward, a great branch.
And that branch, or earth, as they both are masculine, will offer Protection from the proverbial birds of the heaven
#GospelOfThomas #Summary 0-20
Logion 1 invites the reader to interpret these words; it is evident that they can't be taken at face value and it is likely that there are hidden meanings in them, precisely as logion 0 suggests.
Logion 2 reveals a moment of revelation that follows one of finding, and also demonstrates the metamorphosis model that I have discovered in Thomas.
Logion 3 points us to the inside: that is where the kingdom is, and she is "of your eye", a matter of perception.
(1/15)
She is not in the singular heaven that represents religion, nor in the Sea that represents all other schools of thought.
Logion 4 symbolically relates to the start of duality: at a very young age, hence why the old man delays not in stopping the baby from growing up - theoretically speaking, of course.
Logion 5 tells us how the Ego dominates our "outward presence", and that there is someone else hiding behind him - and that is the father, as we will learn.
(2/15)
Logion 6 starts a long series of disciple bashing as it is their role to act as sock puppets for Judaism, demonstrating their gullibility, lack of thinking, complete inaction, and utter incapability of even hearing what IS says to them - and Thomas combines this logion with pointing to the previous one: you can bend the knee to religion and perform lies and so what you hate there, but eventually you are like everyone else; dominated by your Ego who has pushed the living father back in
(3/15)
Logion 7 is a test to see whether the reader is prepared to shift boundaries, and to play with the words in front of him: read nouns in stead of verbs and vice versa, and make sense of the text without thinking that there are typos. Logion 7 is useless as all of it depends on what the lion represents, but it does teach us that what we eat becomes part of us - and that is the essential message.
Logion 8 then wraps up this exciting first chapter, and presents the great illusion:
(4/15)
there is no Great Good fish, nothing that is on the outside can give us answers. Do note very carefully that said fish is "fallen to", discovered - not found. And then the wise fisherman removes all the little fish from the net filled with little fish, and discovers what really is: the net naturally turns up empty.
When unwilling to accept that then perhaps you're just a fisherman, not wise yet; keep this in the back of your head while you continue your fishing elsewhere.
(5/15)
Logion 9, like a good teacher, then instructs us how we can truly discover: by "coming forth", creating like Amun, and observing where it is that our ideas catch on: and while the fish turned out to be no longer good, the earth now has that label. Find fertile ground for your ideas that come from deep within, like semen does, where the kingdom resides.
Logion 10 displays the first barrier that we run into, namely the World, that dollhouse-like Decoration,
(6/15)
that pleasant image of the real world that we satisfy and busy ourselves with. It is false, wrong, and must not merely burn but be set ablaze: obliterated entirely.
Logion 11 again rejects religion, as it renounces the singular heaven: it will lead astray. North importantly it tells us that we created the two ourselves, the Ego and Self, while we were one - and that one will return it to be the living father, whose "children" we indeed are as logion 3 disclosed.
(7/15)
We are the Ego and Self, created by ourselves, and as such we are children of the living father who is our original You, Us, Me
Logion 12 once again rejects Judaism and discipleship and points to Jacob the Righteous, son of Isaac and Rebecca - the treacherous poster child of the Tanakh.
Logion 13 shows how enlightenment works: there will be no words for anything, and it will make your "comrades" jealous - yet it all is driven by the fiercely boiling Fountain, a fiery source.
(8/15)
Logion 14 again rejects Judaism, again via its mindless obedience to senseless habits, yet also tells us to continue consuming even now we know that what we eat becomes part of us (7) and that we have eaten what was dead (6) - and that sickness is the result of it all, which we must Heal. And most importantly we can safely consume anything because it is not the input that matters, but the output: it is our decisions and actions that make us who we are.
(9/15)
Logion 15 discloses where our father is: it is someone not of flesh and blood, someone we have never met before, and it is a persona rather than a person. "Bend self on your face" points to logion 6 again where both words appear for the first time, and we must bend our Ego, flex him, if we want to contact the father.
Logion 16 again plays the number game: we are the children of the father, and we are two. Include the father and that makes three, and we will have to battle ourselves
(10/15)
Martijn Linssen