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)
by opposing those two, the Ego and Self, to that same us where the father has a presence. And we will need fire, to be fierce, and we will need a sword, that divides - and it will be War.
Logion 17 warns or promises us that it will be revolutionary, revelation, what we will get: and indeed, the deeply psychological insights and messages of Thomas were two millennia ahead of its time.
Logion 18 again rebukes the disciples, and tells us where the solution to our problem lies:
(11/15)
far back in our lives, at the Beginning - the moment we came into this world.
Logion 19 points to that other beginning, the native Coptic word instead of the Greek loanword of logion 18 - and this points to logion 4, and the fact that we weren't ceased from growing up. If you stood firmly in the Beginning you saw the end come by but did not partake in it, and you were Fortunate. You became before the end came by, and the end is where we identifiy, split, separate into duality:
(12/15)
that is the end of You and the beginning of the two, Ego and Self, slaveowner and slave.
And again Thomas ridicules Judaism by labelling their divided dream, their Para'dissos, as barren: dead trees is all that is in there, and they divide - and the number five points to logion 16.
Logion 20 then finally continues to show what to do, and links back to 9 via the word 'good': the fertile soil that our seed feel on must be worked, so that it will produce a great "branch"
(13/15)
that will become a Protection for us, from those religious birds of the singular heaven
Thomas is extremely coherent if one reads him with an open and empty mind: he is not about Jesus, now about the NT, not about Christianity: he precedes all that. Thomas is Tao, Zen, Buddhist, spiritual, psychological, and all about the inside, the inside, the inside.
Thomas ridicules the disciples for a good reason, because none of us needs a master -
(14/15)
and IS lashes out at Thomas in logion 13 when he calls him master / writer: we all write our own script, we are slaves to no one
We must be fearless, shameless, lawless - our own master and nobody else's
(15/15)
#GospelOfThomas #Commentary #Academic #Summary #Non-duality #Buddhism #Christianity #Chrestianity #Salvation #Mystery #Ego #Self #Jung #Tao #Zen #NagHammadi #Coptic #Egypt #Wisdom #Philology #Psychology #Translation #Interpretation
Thomas logion 21
ⲙⲁⲣ.ⲓ.ϩⲁⲙ said to IS: your Disciples resemble who? he said:
they resemble some young children that are visiting a field which theirs not is.
Whenever if they should come, the slaveowners of the field, they will say it: dismiss your field to us;
themselves they make naked of their presence outward to cause them to dismiss her to them and they give their field to them.
(The parable follows next)
Therefore I say it: - Prologue
if he should understand, the slaveowner in house; - Subject
he is coming, the man who steals, - Starting state
he will be awake prior to he comes and not permit him - Action
to excavate inward to his house of his reign-of king, - Transition state
that he carries his House-gear. - Outcome
(The logion continues after this)
Meaning
The Commentary spends pages 201 through 222 on this logion, and I can only fail to be concise here.
We, in our new role of Seeker, are the man who steals - and we must tread lightly in order to not awake the slaveowner, the Ego. We must take away his house gear that he uses to decorate our house with - and whenever we fail, when the Fruit splits, we must cover it up again
And while our Need forces us to look outside, we mustn't - or we will attract attention from those around us
Thomas logion 22
IS beheld some little persons that take milk; he said to his Disciples:
these little persons who take milk, they are comparable to they who are going inward to the reign of king; they said to him: well then, we been made little persons, we will go inward to the reign of king.
IHS said to them: Whenever if you should make be the two one, and if you should make the inside part in the manner of the outside part, and the outside part in the manner of the inside part,
(CONTINUED)
and the part of the heaven in the manner of the part of the ground;
So-that you will make be the male with the woman to that one single, in order that will not the male make be male and the woman make be woman, Whenever if you should make be some eyes to the place of an eye, and a hand to the place of their hands, and feet to the place of feet, an Image to the place of an Image;
Then you will go inward to the reign-of king.
Thomas logion 23
IS said: I will choose you, one from thousand and two from ten thousand, and they will stand to their foot in case they been made one single.
The most difficult logion for me, that doesn't fit with the role of IS: he does nothing in the entire text, nor should he - nor can he.
Yet I can't make anything else from it, regardless of how I fill the lacuna in ⲥⲉ[ⲧ]ⲡ, the nominal form of 'choose' that apparently goes with ⲧⲏⲛⲉ
Meaning
In my view it is impossible that IS does any choosing for any of us: we all have to make up our own minds ourselves.
Highly likely this is a pun on the Tanakh given the similarities with the 4 exact numbers occurring in Deuteronomy 32:30, and it expresses the scarcity of those "chosen" by IS, as well as affirming that they have to become Single-ones (make the two one).
Does the 1/1,000 point to the father, and 2/10,000 to the children? Likely, but how?
It doesn't make sense to me
Thomas logion 24
His Disciples said: show us the Place which you therein; Since the Necessity to us is to cause us seek after him.
He said to them: he whom there are ears within him, let! him hear:
there is light existing within the inside of a man of light and he makes be light all the World;
in case he does not make be light, a darkness is.
Greek loanwords are always capitalised as they convey a higher metaphysical meaning (cf. Koepke)
Meaning
The Disciples crave to know how to get at where they deem IS to be, and IS responds:
We create our World, it is nothing but an Image inside our head, and as such we can make anything out of it that we want.
Do you think that the whole World is doomed, damned, destined for death? Et voilà, that self-fulfilling prophecy will come true, of course.
Do you think that it is a pretty place where people prance about in pleasantries? Likewise, your will is your command
Only you shape your World
Thomas logion 25
IS said: love your(SG) brother in the manner of your Soul, make be Guard him in the manner of the pupil of your eye.
The whole question here centers around: who is your brother? And why does Thomas use the singular You here? And why the Soul, and pupil of eye?
I'm being ironic, of course: the shortest Thomasine sayings sometimes are harder than the longer ones
Meaning
A short logion full of Greek loanwords; the Soul is Life Essence in the general sense, and most precious and essential to life. The pupil of the eye is hard to relate to the Tanakh (and any other sources) and it is likely that the emphasis on the pupil puts the focus on its mirror-like aspect; it discloses information about this alleged "brother": it is (an image of) ourself.
Then who is this brother? Is it the father, the Ego, or even a third?
The next logion answers that
Martijn Linssen