Gospel of Thomas - coda 1

Gospel of Thomas
As I didn’t have adequate registration for my class Sunday afternoons, I will simply share my reflections every day or two on one coda or verse of the Gospel of Thomas.   This Gospel is a sayings gospel that was discovered at Nag Hamadi in Egypt around 1945.  It is dated late first century or early second century.  Its sayings likely circulated as oral tradition as early as Mark and no later than John and may have even rivaled John.  Like the Gospel of John influences the reading of Matthew, Mark and Luke, a reading of Thomas could alter your understanding of those Synoptic Gospels.  Feel free to comment.

Saying 1
“These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.  And he said, ‘whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death.

Another translation replaces the word “secret” with “hidden.”

Stevan Davies says that meaning of the sayings is “hidden” within them as “leaven is hidden in dough” (Saying 96) or “a treasure might be hidden in a field.”

He says that the “Gospel of Thomas is optimistic that what is hidden will be revealed.” (Sayings 5, 6, 108.)

These are not sayings meant to be kept secret from people.  Half of them are found in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke which were widely circulated by the time Thomas was written.

Says Davies, “Interpret Jesus’ sayings in this Gospel, and you will experience immortality.   The correct interpretation is not the goal, but the means to the goal, the discovery of the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Think of the Gospel of Thomas is a book of spiritual exercises, the sayings being riddles that need to be solved.  And the secret isn’t in the final answers, but in the effort to find the answers.

There are different ways to read scripture.  There is the outer “exoteric” reading.  There is the inner “esoteric” meaning.  And there is the “secret” or hidden meaning.  It doesn’t matter if you are reading one of the scriptures in the Bible or one of the later discovered gospels like Thomas; there are different levels to understanding scripture.  Or we might say there are different types of readers.

The exoteric reading is a literal, physical, or obvious reading of the scripture.   It is at the level of the material body.   Such a reading is by a person who is rather concrete in his understanding.  “Secret” means, “kept from someone.”  “Living” means “physically present.”  “Didymos Judas Thomas” is a proper name.  “Interpretation” means “the proper understanding.”  “Not experience death” means “the physical body won’t die.”

The esoteric reading is a psychological, metaphoric, symbolic reading of the scripture.  It is at the level of the psyche or mind or soul.  Such a reading is by a person who is psychological and insightful but in a mental kind of way. “Secret” here means beneath the surface or inner.  “Living” here is certainly isn’t physical.   “Living” is experience “as if” Jesus was really there and “meaningful.”  One might say, “Jesus lives on in me by my faith in him.”  This is a psychological, cognitive, mental or imaginative reality.  What’s in a name?   “Didymos Judas Thomas” isn’t just a proper name.  Didymos and Thomas are words that mean twin.   To be a twin is to be like someone or identical to someone.  DJT is like Jesus or Christ-like. “Interpretation” refers decoding the symbolic representation, figuring out the metaphor.  To “not experience death” is to attain the experience of living on beyond death.

The secret or hidden reading is the reading this gospel is alluding to.  It is a spiritual reading of the scripture.   It is at the level of the spirit, the level of God, or the level of true Self.  Such a reading is by a person who is spiritually awake or enlightened.  “Secret” or “hidden” in this sense means “that which is always there but which one is unaware of.”  This is the level of “who you really are in essence.”  The “Living Jesus” in this sense means “the Christ within you,” “the Christ you really are.”  It is that which is always alive and never dies.  You are not your body.  You have a body.  You are not your mind.  You have a mind.  You are not your soul.  Once you have created it you have a soul.  You are spirit.  You are one with the One Reality.  To be a twin is to be identical.  In this case Didymos Judas Thomas is Jesus’ twin.  This is not to say that he came out of Mary’s womb at the same time as Jesus.  This is not to say that he shares the same thoughts of Jesus.  This is to say that he shares the same mind, consciousness and being as Jesus.  The correct interpretation is not the outcome of thinking, reason or intellect but of experience, the experience of seeking, finding, and knowing.   “To not experience death” is discover and realize your deathless state, the substratum of your existence.  

Reading Thomas impacts my reading of the Gospel of John.  To be “born again” or “born from above” or as the Gospel of John defines the experience itself, “to be born in the spirit” is to wake up to who you really are in the realm or reality of God.  The Self never dies, either was it ever born.  Thomas will lead its reader to a realization of the reader’s true identity as a child of God in unity with God as one experiences one’s self in the physical and mental world.  Thomas is not interested in its reader believing in Jesus but being like Jesus real in this ultimate sense.