Theology Today - Vol 17, No. 3 - October 1960 - BOOK REVIEW - The Gospel According To Thomas & The Secret Sayings Of Jews

405 - The Gospel According To Thomas & The Secret Sayings Of Jesus

The Gospel According To Thomas
Coptic Text Established and Translated by A. Guillaumont,
H.-Ch. Puech, G. Quispel, W. Till and Yassah Abd Masih
62 pp. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1959. $2.00.

The Secret Sayings Of Jesus
By Robert M. Grant in Collaboration with David Noel Freedman
With an English Translation of the Gospel of Thomas by William R. Schoedel
206 pp. Garden City, N. Y., Doubleday & Co., 1960. $3.50.

There has been a good deal of talk recently about the Gospel of Thomas, not only in academic circles but also in the daily press, and the latter publicity was not too conducive to scholarly research. It is gratifying that finally not only the Coptic text should have been published in an excellent critical edition (and at a very reasonable price, for that!) but also that two English translations should have seen the light in brief succession. In the whole there is very little difference between the two, because in both instances the translators were more anxious to offer an accurate literal rendering than to modernize or interpret the text by means of a translation. There are minor differences, of course. The European translators have, for instance, in No. 3 "the man old in days" who is advised to learn from a child of seven days, whereas Dr. Schoedel renders it "the old man in his days." Although the latter is a literally correct translation, the meaning is more clearly expressed in the critical edition, because the contrast is between old age and infancy, both of which are understood symbolically. The saying does not foretell what will happen in the life time of the old man. In turn, Schoedel is superior to the other translation, for example, in No. 9, where in the Parable of the Soils it is said of the seed which fell on the rocks that "it put forth no ears up to heaven" whereas the Europeans have: "it did not produce ears." In their attempt to make intelligible a Coptic idiom, the translators have in fact demythologized it. The Gospel of Thomas shares with the Fourth Gospel the frequent use of ambiguous expressions. While in common language the Coptic phrase did not mean more than is said in the critical edition, Dr. Grant rightly points out that in its context "up to heaven" is used emphatically. The seed which the heavenly sower broadcasts is to ascend from the earth up to heaven. It is rather unfortunate that the two translations have adopted different systems of numbering of the text, one counting 112 sayings and the other one 114. Since the Coptic text must form the basis of all future study, it will be advisable to follow its editors, even though their division of the originally undivided text may sometimes appear to be arbitrary.

Drs. Grant and Freedman discuss in the first half of their book historical problems related to the Gospel of Thomas, while the second half is a

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detailed commentary. The opening chapters survey the early history of Gnosticism and they read in part like an appendix to Dr. Grant's recent book of Gnosticism. However, the extensive quotations from the Gospels to the Hebrews, the Egyptians and of Peter, the Oxyrhynchus Papyri and some recently discovered Gnostic sources may serve a good purpose in a popularizing book. This reviewer thinks, however, that more important than a discussion of possible sources of the Gospel of Thomas would have been a detailed investigation of its relation to the Gospel of Truth, particularly since both belong to the library of Nag Hammadi. They are certainly more closely related to each other than the Gospel of Thomas is to the Gospel of Peter. Many of the enigmatic sayings in the Gospel of Thomas seem to fit into the total picture of true existence through gnosis found in the Evangelium Veritatis.

The designation "gospel" will astonish the modern reader, because the Gospel of Thomas has little in common with our canonical Gospels, for it records none of the events in the life of Jesus or any of his deeds. It confines itself to giving an extensive collection of sayings of the Lord. But we know that underlying the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, too, were not only Mark's Gospel whose story pattern they adopted but also collections of sayings of Jesus. It is the similarity with such works that has prompted some scholars to ascribe a relatively early date to the Gospel of Thomas, or at least to the underlying original nucleus of this anthology of sayings of Jesus. According to Papias the original work of Matthew, which he regarded as the beginning of Gospel literature, consisted of such a collection of words of the Master. It must be kept in mind that in the second century the term euangelion designated primarily God's saving message and its continuation in the Church rather than a type of book.

The manuscript begins with the statement: "These are the secret words which the Living Jesus spoke and Didymus Judas Thomas wrote." The "Living Jesus" is obviously understood here, as by other writers of the second century, as referring to the living Word of God, especially manifested in Jesus, yet not confined to his earthly life. Thus not only statements made by him during his historical ministry but also insights received by Christians in ecstasy or a state of spiritual elation could therefore be regarded as sayings of Jesus, as can be learned from the opening statement of the Revelation of John.

That the Apostle Thomas himself should have received or recorded the contents of this book is not very likely. We have fragments of a number of works of the second century ascribed to apostolic authors. There may be a grain of truth in such ascriptions. The written Gospels were preceded by a period of oral transmission both of the teachings of Jesus and

407 - The Gospel According To Thomas & The Secret Sayings Of Jesus

of important episodes of his life. In that process each of the Apostles will probably not only have emphasized the things he particularly remembered, but also have given his own comments. We are too easily inclined to overlook the fact that the oneness of the primitive Church was rooted in the common allegiance to, and belief in, the person of Jesus, rather than in a set of doctrines or a confession of faith. The primitive homologia "Jesus is the Lord" or "Jesus is the Messiah (Christ)" left ample room for interpretation. Nevertheless, for lack of other evidence, we are not able to tell whether any of the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas actually goes back to that Apostle.

Similarly, when the opening statement of the Gospel of Thomas continues: "Whoever finds the explanation (or interpretation, hermeneia) of these (secret) words will not taste death," the newly discovered gospel does not thereby adopt an entirely new and unheard-of approach to the sayings of Jesus. Protestant theologians are too easily inclined to identify the literal meaning of the Gospels ivith triviality, and it is taken for granted that the perspicuity of Scripture means that any Biblical passage can be understood perfectly at first reading. No wonder that so many exegetes should be shocked by Jesus' reference to the secret (mysterium) of the Kingdom of God that is withheld from those outside (Mk. 4: 11 and par.). However, the early Church right down to the second century was aware of the fact that in the life of Jesus God had revealed the secret of his saving purpose, and that even for religious people, like the Pharisees and the disciples, it was hard to comprehend both the mind of God and tile manner in which He carried out his plan. Papias, who lived in the first half of the second century, reports that the Sayings of the Lord, which Matthew had first set forth in writing, had been the object of manifold interpretation, which Papias continued in his own commentary. Papias was not as stupid or as primitive as his modern critics, including Dr. Grant, think. As evidence of their harsh judgment these scholars usually quote a statement which according to Papias goes back to the Apostle John. He says therein that in the age to come there will be a vine having ten thousand stems, and each stem ten thousand branches, and each branch ten thousand twigs, and on each twig ten thousand grapes, each of them yielding twenty-five measures of wine.

Such an image does not disclose a crass materialism as the early Christian opponents of apocalypticism and their modern followers hold. It only reveals the peculiarity of apocalyptic language. In it degrees of quality are expressed by increase or decrease of quantity. In Mk. 10: 30 we have a close parallel, when Jesus promises to his followers who have abandoned house and brothers and sisters and mother and father and children and fields that they will receive them back a hundredfold. Such

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promise understood literally makes no real sense, whereas it holds out goods for the believers which are a hundred times more valuable than the objects sacrificed by them for Jesus' sake. In a similar way the apocalyptic passage quoted by Papias refers to Christ who is the true vine of David, and to the people of God, who are His vineyard. Thus it describes the immense effects of the work of Jesus, and the increase of the Church which is beyond human imagination. Hence the fact that the Gospel of Thomas plainly states that its sayings require a special interpretation is nothing unique, and it is not by itself a sign of a late date.

Dr. Grant attempts in general chronologically to ascertain the origin of Gnosticism by relating it to the original eschatological hopes of the primitive Church. Starting from the preponderance of eschatology in the primitive Church he holds that the Christians (following in that matter their Jewish teachers) turned eventually to the Gnostic ideal of a timeless existence, when they realized that there was no likelihood of an immediate fulfilment of their expectations. In view of the fact, however, that some of the constitutive elements of Gnosticism are already found in Paul's Epistles and John's Gospel, and even in the Dead Sea Scrolls, as Dr. Grant himself points out, one hesitates to see in the alleged eschatological disappointment the reason for the origin of Gnosticism. There is more than a grain of truth in Harnack's contention that Gnosticism was an acute Hellenization of Christianity. Where the great savant erred was in considering Gnosticism the pure outcome of Greek philosophy applied to the Christian message. As Dr. Grant shows convincingly the roots of Gnosticism are found in Hellenistic Judaism, where an attempt was made to express the Jewish faith in a form compatible with Greek philosophy. However, as can be learned from Philo, every effort was made to keep in touch with the Biblical revelation. The same attitude is taken by the New Testament writers. But obviously such tendency would lose its vigor, when adopted by people who had grown up in paganism, and whose first contact with the Biblical religion was through Christianity.

Gnosticism properly speaking is a process in which the Biblical elements are de-Judaized, as can be seen particularly in the absence of conscious references to the Old Testament. But paradoxically the Biblical substance itself is retained. The Gospel of Thomas is quite instructive for this change. Amazingly one encounters there a saying (No. 12) in which James, the brother of the Lord, is designated as the providential head of the Church, a view characteristic of Palestinian Jewish Christians. Similarly, we read of the misgiving Peter felt about the presence of women in the Church, a typically Jewish prejudice (No. 114). On the other hand, however, there is no reference to the Old Testament except dis-

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paraging remarks concerning the prophets (No. 52), while a number of specifically Hellenistic ideas are found. Thus, for instance, here as in the Gospel of Truth individual existence is condemned as the source of all of man's fatal misunderstandings. Because people exist by themselves, they consider their individual existence the basis of all meaning. But time and again Jesus is warning his disciples that from such a starting point people will be led to overrating the significance of earthly differences, for example, those of sex, social standing, age, or education. Remedy lies in people's returning to their origin which is God himself, and in realizino, that since all things were made by him they are all united in his creative will. Thus their differences have no significance for the Gnostic. With such a view the New Testament notion of oneness is lost, however, because in the New Testament it is based upon the belief that in a world created by God all things have their specific function for each other and for the whole. Unity is accomplished when people love each other in their diversity. However, the basic view of the Gospel of Thomas is not pantheistic, as Dr. Grant suggests. As in all Gnostic systems we encounter here the painful awareness of alienation from God.

Recent students of Gnosticism have rightly pointed out that their predecessors were prejudiced by the way the ancient Fathers had described this heretical movement. It does not in the first place give expression to the desire to form a metaphysical or theosophical system, but rather it is an existential attitude. In that respect, Gnosticism is something very modern. But it brings also out the inability of existentialism to do justice to the New Testament message. Since the Gnostic thinks very highly of his own existence and since he pretends to know what it means truly to exist, he does not need a redeemer frorn sin and guilt. Whatever he had done in his past, was conditioned by error and ignorance. In turn, what the non-gnostic lacks, is knowledge rather than forgiveness. One must not be deluded by the fact that in the Valentinian gnosis Jesus is called the Saviour. His saving work consists in bringing to his followers the knowledge of what true existence is like. Quite consistently, therefore, the Gospel of Thomas speaks of the Kingdom without qualification rather than of the Kingdom of God, because to these people the term designates their personal status rather than the manifestation and exercise of God's kingship. They reign, because they stand in sovereign independence over all the other creatures. This is the Stoic attitude to which Paul also refers in I Cor. 4: 8.

Otto A. Piper
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey