Gospel of Thomas, coda 12
“His disciples said to Jesus, ‘We will know will leave us. Who will be our leader then?’ Jesus responded, ‘Wherever you are, turn to Jacob (James) the Just, for his sake the sky and the earth came into being.’”
This is a very practical coda that concerns who will succeed Jesus as leader of his community or group. Jesus designates Jacob who is James, his brother. James has a reputation for righteousness, thus his name “the just” and is deserving of leading the community or group in his own right.
Other sources will speak of Peter and James sharing leadership of the Jerusalem Church and being responsible for the outer circle and teaching of the community, of John and Mary the Mother being responsible for the inner circle and teaching, and Mary Magdalene of the secret knowledge. To say that this was how the church at the time of Jesus’ passing as being so organized seems to me an effort to conflate these sources in such a way that is not suggested by Thomas.
But why were the sky and the earth created for James? The heavens and earth exist as a matrix through which human kind can be illuminated, that divine light passing from the highest heaven to earth to transform human beings and human society so that it is infused with divine light and is, as such, enlightened. The veils of darkness and ignorance are thus removed and the light that exists within human beings and human society in revealed.
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