Gospel of Thomas makes Jesus' godhood a secret.

[rakovsky]

..........................................................................
When the scholars turn to the Gospel of Thomas, which some think traces to 1st to early 2nd c. Christian teachings, they sometimes notice that it doesn't have the normal gnostic idea of a good Superior God and a lower demiurge, and so some eveb question if it's gnostic. They also question whether it portrays Jesus as God Himself. One of the curious things I noticed though was in Saying 13. It seems to portray the teaching that Jesus was God as a secret, only shared openly with a limited circle, much as the Gospel of Mark does.

Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like."
Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a righteous angel."
Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher."
Thomas said to him, "Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like."
Jesus said, "I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out."
And he took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?"
Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up."

The three words I expect were אני מי שאני. They mean "I am that I am", and refers to God's words in the Torah to Moses identifying Himself. Jesus' assertion in the Passion story "I am" offended his judges whereupon they called for his death. This can explain why Thomas said that the words would make people stone him, but that out of the stones would come the punishing fire against the persecutors. That those were the three words would make sense because in Judaism, the name of God is normally ineffable - not spoken aloud. This would help explain the whispering, the passing of it in secret.

Also, Jesus is called an angel, a philosopher, a master. What else could there be? Christ and God and a friend. It seems that whatever Jesus told Thomas was an answer in that vein - what kind of person or being he was. Identifying himself with God would fit.

The ECW commentary notes:

It's easy to see that Jesus spoke three words in Hebrew to Thomas, in English this is the meaning of these words: "I am who I am."
...

Pistis Sophia 136 mentions Yao Yao Yao, the Greek version (with three letters, given three times) of the ineffable name of God;
(The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, pp. 74-75)

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... mas13.html

IMHO the three words are Kaulakau, Saulasau, Zeesar known to be sacred amonng the Naassenes.
See http://www.gnostic.org/gnosis.htm

Andrew Criddle

I considered this to be a possibility, but there are some reasons why I think it's not the case.
First, theoretically both triplets can be found in gnostic writings, Yao Yao Yao (the ineffable name of God) being the other.
Second, if you check the discussion that Jesus is answering, it's about the identity of Jesus. Each person has a different idea of who Jesus is, but none of them say God. Then Jesus takes Thomas aside and tells him a secret threesome. This threesome, based on the context would answer who Jesus REALLY is. Kaulaku S. Zeesar does not do this, it's not a person's or being's name.
Third, the statement by Jesus would serve as an identification grammatically. Who are you? "I am God" or "I am that I am"(in Hebrew) would work, whereas "Who are you?" "K.S.Z." would not fit as neatly grammatically.

[DCHindley]

IMHO the three words are Kaulakau, Saulasau, Zeesar known to be sacred amonng the Naassenes.

Andrew, were you thinking of Marvin Meyers' Glossary in Willis Barnstone & Marvin W Mayer, The Gnostic Bible?

Kaulakau, Saulasau, Zeesar Three words derived from the Hebrew of Isaiah 28:10, 13: sav la-sav, savla-sav, kavla-kav, kav la-kav, ze’ir sham, meaning uncertain, translated in the revised Standard Version as follows:
“it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
line upon line, line upon line,
here a little, there a little.”

Referred to as words of power in the Naassene Sermon.

Sometimes these words are linked to the three words or sayings of Gospel of Thomas 13.

As you know, the three words are from Hippolytus, Bk 5 ch 3 (ANF vol 5, translated by J. H. MacMahon):

These are the three tumid expressions (of these heretics), Caulacau, Saulasau, Zeesar, 385 i.e.,
[Caulacau, that is,] Adam, who is farthest above;
Saulasau, that is, the mortal one below;
Zeesar, that is, Jordan that flows upwards.

385 The commentators refer to Isa. xxviii. 10.

Epiphanius,Hæres., xxv., mentions these expressions, but assigns them a different meaning.
Saulasau is tribulation,
Caulacau hope, and
Zeesar “hope, as yet, little.”

[See my [general editor of the ANF series A. Cleveland Coxe's] note on Irenæus, p. 350, this series, and see Elucidation II.]

I couldn't quite make sense of what Hippolytus was trying to say. Elucidation II in the ANF volume with Hippolytus (vol 5) was a bust, as he simply quotes two authorities, but in the original French and Latin, and it seems he felt they confirmed his smug dismissal of the term in other works of his.

The Irenaeus reference (ANF vol 1) was kind of worth following up on.

Irenaeus [Refutation of all Heresies] 1.24.5 (ANF volume 1 translated, I think, by Alexander Roberts) has:

They [i.e., Saturninus and Basilides] also affirm that the barbarous name in which the Saviour ascended and descended, is Caulacau.295

295 This sentence is wholly unintelligible as it stands in the Latin version. Critics differ greatly as to its meaning; Harvey tries to bring out of it something like the translation given above.

[This name [i.e., Caulacau] is manufactured from a curious abuse of ( קו לקו ) Isa. xxviii. 10–13, which is variously understood.

See (Epiphanius ed. Oehler, vol. i.) Philastr., p. 38.]

Epiphanius Panarion Heresy #25.4, had the following to say (I am citing Frank William's translation, 2nd ed 2009):

(4) “Kaulakau,” is in Isaiah, and is an expression in the twelfth vision, where he says, “Await tribulation upon tribulation, hope upon hope, a little more a little more.”
(5) I am going to give the Hebrew words themselves here in full, word for word as they are written.
“Tsav l’tsav, tsav l’tsav,” means “tribulation upon tribulation.”
“Qav l’qav, qav l’qav” means “hope upon hope.”
“Z’eir sham, z’eir sham” means, “Await a little more a little more.”

The LXX compared to the Hebrew of Isa 28:10 & 13 might help make things less confusing, but just barely:

JPS Isaiah 28:10	WTT Isaiah 28:10	LXA Isaiah 28:10	LXT Isaiah 28:10
For it is	כי	Expect thou
precept by precept, precept by precept, [Tsav l’tsav, tsav l’tsav = Saulasau]	צו לצו צו לצו	affliction on affliction,	θλῖψιν ἐπὶ θλῖψιν
			προσδέχου
line by line, line by line [Qav l’qav, qav l’qav = Caulacau, or Kaulacau];	קו לקו קו לקו	hope upon hope,	ἐλπίδα ἐπ᾽ ἐλπίδι
here a little, there a little [Z’eir sham, z’eir sham = Zeesar].	זעיר שׁם זעיר שׁם׃	yet a little, and yet a little,	ἔτι μικρὸν ἔτι μικρὸν

JPS Isaiah 28:13	WTT Isaiah 28:13	LXA Isaiah 28:13	LXT Isaiah 28:13
And so the word of the LORD is unto them;	והיה להם דבר־יהוה	Therefore the oracle of God shall be to them	καὶ ἔσται αὐτοῖς τὸ λόγιον κυρίου τοῦ θεοῦ
precept by precept, precept by precept, [Tsav l’tsav, tsav l’tsav = Saulasau]	צו לצו צו לצו	affliction on affliction,	θλῖψις ἐπὶ θλῖψιν
line by line, line by line [Qav l’qav, qav l’qav = Caulacau, or Kaulacau];	קו לקו קו לקו	hope on hope,	ἐλπὶς ἐπ᾽ ἐλπίδι
here a little, there a little [Z’eir sham, z’eir sham = Zeesar];	זעיר שׁם זעיר שׁם	yet a little, and yet a little,	ἔτι μικρὸν ἔτι μικρόν
that they may go,	למען ילכו	that they may go	ἵνα πορευθῶσιν
and fall backward,	וכשׁלו אחור	and fall backward;	καὶ πέσωσιν εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω
and be broken,	ונשׁברו	and shall be in danger,	καὶ κινδυνεύσουσιν
and snared,	ונוקשׁו	and they shall be crushed	καὶ συντριβήσονται
and taken.	ונלכדו׃	and shall be taken.	καὶ ἁλώσονται

Thomas said to them, "If I say to you (plur.) one of the sayings that he said to me, you will take stones and stone me,

and fire will come out of the stones and burn you up."

If the "three words" in GoT 13 are possibly dependent upon mid to late 2nd century CE heretics, that final clause "and fire will come out of the stones and burn you up," seems to me to be an editorial comment. The "and" serves the function we usually attribute to "but," or a Greek men ... de type construction, making this clause explanatory in some way or a contrast to the first statement that "If I say to you (plur.) one of the sayings that he said to me, you will take stones and stone me."

I was reminded of the earlier thread about fire coming from the temple ruins that devours the workmen, and have to wonder if this is an anachronism useful for dating the Coptic GoT to after the time of the aborted attempt to rebuild the Judean temple by Julian the Apostate [ca 331–363 C.E.]?

DCH

[rakovsky]

If the "three words" in GoT 13 are possibly dependent upon mid to late 2nd century CE heretics, that final clause "and fire will come out of the stones and burn you up," seems to me to be an editorial comment. The "and" serves the function we usually attribute to "but," or a Greek men ... de type construction, making this clause explanatory in some way or a contrast to the first statement that "If I say to you (plur.) one of the sayings that he said to me, you will take stones and stone me."

I was reminded of the earlier thread about fire coming from the temple ruins that devours the workmen, and have to wonder if this is an anachronism useful for dating the Coptic GoT to after the time of the aborted attempt to rebuild the Judean temple by Julian the Apostate [ca 331–363 C.E.]?

DCH

Can you prove better that "AND" /men de .. is an inherently explanatory construction?
In English and Russian for example, we have sentences of and/whereas/but, but they aren't inherently explanatory.
"A skyscraper is tall, but/and/whereas a mouse is small."
It's simply a comparison, but even if the part about the mouse were not included, one could still understand fully what the first part meant.
So it looks like comparison, not necessarily explanation.

More importantly, maybe we can say that a comparison is actually an explanation of something anyway, so my next question for you is, let's say that this is an editorial comment as you proposed, then does this somehow better support the theory that the part about fire from stones is about the 4th century Temple fires?

The part about fire coming from the Temple stones in patristic traditions (I think Cyril's time) and the part about the stones burning the attackers in G.Thomas bears a strong resemblance, and I can see how a late 4th c. Coptic text could get that part from the Tradition.
Otherwise, it seems a bit confusing how the stones could burn the attackers up, whereas the patristic story of the fires would make it sound clear.

My guess is what could have happened in real life is that people tried to rebuild the Temple, but saboteurs set the wood construction on fire.

[Secret Alias]

Kaulakau = 242, Saulasau = 222, Zeesar = 287

But it is worth noting that at Qumran (perhaps just like Basilides) the root of Kaulakau קָ֣ו which is the very value of 106 or 'Most High' (עלאה) used throughout the Book of Daniel (or near contemporary Hebrew).

Daniel 3:26 out, you servants of the Most High God,
Daniel 4:2 which the Most High God
Daniel 4:17 may know That the Most High is ruler
Daniel 4:24 is the decree of the Most High, which
Daniel 4:25 you recognize that the Most High is ruler
Daniel 4:32 you recognize that the Most High is ruler
Daniel 5:18 O king, the Most High God granted
Daniel 5:21 he recognized that the Most High God
Daniel 7:25 out against the Most High and wear down

The connection with Daniel is important because the Marcosians seemed to have an attachment to that text. Moreover the appearance of a vav is noteworthy given the mystical significance of this letter in the sect.

Note Schniedewind points to the mystical presence of קָ֣ו in Psalm 19:

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their Qav goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.

The various translations of the text render this word "voice" qol but as the author notes:

in Qumran Hebrew Qav becomes the primordial pattern or archetype for language and speech. The translation of Qav as "pattern" would be sufficient, except that it is clear that the sectarian theology of predestination colors their use of the term"

The rest of the article is worth reading:

https://books.google.com/books?id=6EOWM ... an&f=false

The idea then that the heretics identified this קָ֣ו with Jesus is very significant and points to a very ancient understanding preserved and passed along through later heretical Christianity.

[iskander]

Forgiving someone's sins was God's prerogative
Today the forgiving of sins is the prerogative of Catholic priests and Luther said the priest is not necessary . This constituted a heresy and still does. The reaction of a religious authority is not a defining event and it could not make neither a God nor a devil out of an autonomous man.

Baptism of repentance offered by another autonomous man :
John the baptizer is an ascetic proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John is forgiving sins.!!!???. And individuals went out to him to be forgiven. Jesus is one of those men who seek forgiveness from a' quack' .
Mark tells the story of a Jewish dissenter struggling against the power of the clerics of his time and place. He is like Jan Hus and Martin Luther , for example. Why was Jesus baptized? He was a religious man who believed ' in the world to come' and its associated consequences, but could no longer accept the atoning sacrificial system of the temple. Both Hus and Luther were obedient servants of the papacy before turning 'heretics'.

The Way to god according to Jesus :
John offered an alternative path to eternal happiness if only if man/woman could transfer the faith in the temple ceremonial to the simpler ceremony offered by John. Jesus discovered that ' faith' was the solution for every person. He accepted the purifying water-- cleansing water is a very common finding in different religions-- and later he settled for the 10 commandments and the mercy of God. Luther must have travelled along a similar path towards his rejection of extra ecclesiam nulla salus and its associated consequences.


Or take for example the opening of Mark:
Isaiah is hoping for a religious revival ; a holy man who will sanctify the nation. One who is preparing the way for the one who will preach The Way of Hashem.
Isaiah is not of any importance for us since both the announcer and the lecturer are men.



We will leave the Eucharist out of this for now .

I am not sure if you are making the case that he was not seen as divine in Mark, but what I want to offer in this thread is a new reason to think that Mark sees him this way: "the mystery" aspect of early Christianity that comes across in Thomas' gospel.
We already know that Mark and Thomas claimed that there were certain things that Jesus showed, did, or taught to a small group of apostles and followers, including healings and the teaching that he was Christ and the Transfiguration, just to name a few. For example, in the Transfiguration story, afterwards Jesus says to the apostles not to tell people about this until later.

So if you were just sitting at the Sermon on the Mount or listening to Jesus talk near the sea of Galilee, you might never pick up on stuff like the Transfiguration or the idea that he was the Messiah. There are only three times I think in the gospels where Jesus revives someone who was dying or dead, so even those things weren't done that commonly. So this is what I mean about one image publicly and then something else for the disciples. Mark and Matthew were the two earliest gospels, and so it's reasonable for me to see one or both of them reflecting the earlier public sense of mystery and hiddenness and puzzles with the secret meanings behind.
When I am reading through the gospel of Thomas, I have a greater sense of how much the parables and riddles reflect the style of the earliest Christian teachings, since I can go check and see how alot of those Thomasine sayings show up in the NT already.

So this is what I think, it's not like Mark was written in AD 40 and then Matthew and the others were written in AD 120 and they had totally different ideas of whether Jesus was God or not. I just think that in the case of Mark there is deliberately more hiddenness. Same thing with the resurrection. The revival process and the appearances to the apostles are never narrated in Mark, even though Mark practically tells the reader that those things happened. Mark does lead the reader to think that Jesus' body reenlivened and physically left the tomb. I think that due to the chiastic style, the resurrection matches up with the virgin birth, but neither of those are narrated in Mark because I think they are deliberately not and it's left as a holy mystery.

Jesus left no other declaration of his divinity that the no declaration of Thomas in the gospel of Thomas? Since the gospel of Thomas is not a part of the Canon , it is impossible to give any credit to nothing at all.

Jesus willingly submitted to the worst man could do, but he did not dare reveal the Truth about himself?

Jesus as a man :

Hey guys I'm an agnostic Christian and basically what I mean by that is I am undecided on Christianity but I admit my bias for wanting it to be true. Are Christians justified in their belief? Why do you guys reject Jesus as God? You guys are like the smart ones so if you guys are the ones studying these manuscripts and you still are not even convinced at all by Christ then why should I or any other Christian be? I want to be a Christian, but I want it to be an intellectual decision and not one derived on nothing but blind faith.

There is no need to make Jesus a 'God' for Christianity to be a functional religion. Even now, the death and resurrection of the man Jesus is as attractive as the death and resurrection of the God Jesus.

If one understands Jesus as "a God" one fails to grasp Christianity.


http://metacrock.blogspot.com/

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2023&start=10

[davidbrainerd]

Jesus left no other declaration of his divinity that the no declaration of Thomas in the gospel of Thomas? Since the gospel of Thomas is not a part of the Canon , it is impossible to give any credit to nothing at all.

Jesus willingly submitted to the worst man could do, but he did not dare reveal the Truth about himself?

Maybe GThomas is simply an ironic attack on Christianity.

[DCHindley]

Can you [Mr. DCH] prove better that "AND"/men-de .. is an inherently explanatory construction?

In English and Russian for example, we have sentences of and/whereas/but, but they aren't inherently explanatory.

"A skyscraper is tall, but/and/whereas a mouse is small."
It's simply a comparison, but even if the part about the mouse were not included, one could still understand fully what the first part meant.

So it looks like comparison, not necessarily explanation.

More importantly, maybe we can say that a comparison is actually an explanation of something anyway,

Not knowing Coptic, I was just guessing. There is a GoT interlinear out there.
http://gospel-thomas.net/gtbypage_112702.pdf

If[ei]-I-should-\-speak to-you(pl) one of-the-words he-has-spoken() to-me, you(pl)-will-take-stones & ( )cast (them) at-me,

and[auw] (will)(a)fire come out of-the-stones, &(she-will)-burn you(pl).

I'm looking at various Coptic grammars for info on the use of "ei" with "auo" but so far I am not finding anything useful, other than to learn that "ei" (if) does not have to imply anything about fulfillment of the statement ("if I tell you ...), and that "auo" simply means "and." I don't know if Michael Grondin is a member here or not, but with luck some member might be familiar enough with Coptic grammar to comment.

so my next question for you is, let's say that this is an editorial comment as you proposed, then does this somehow better support the theory that the part about fire from stones is about the 4th century Temple fires?

The part about fire coming from the Temple stones in patristic traditions (I think Cyril's time) and the part about the stones burning the attackers in G.Thomas bears a strong resemblance, and I can see how a late 4th c. Coptic text could get that part from the Tradition.

Otherwise, it seems a bit confusing how the stones could burn the attackers up, whereas the patristic story of the fires would make it sound clear.

My guess is what could have happened in real life is that people tried to rebuild the Temple, but saboteurs set the wood construction on fire.

I don't know what might have caused the fires that were said to have come from the foundations of the temple and harming those who were digging. This was discussed somewhere on BC&H not too long ago, and it seemed that most of us thought that it was caused by methane gas coming up from the long dormant sewer system that drained out of the temple area where sacrifices were made down to the base of the foundation wall in the valley of Hinnom. Across from this outlet and the valley was the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane.

When it was functioning, I am sure what went in was offal (animal guts and organ meats) and that whatever came out at the outlet was somewhat like the residues and liquid discharge from a modern septic tank. There may have been some way to periodically dig out the sediments in the decomposition chamber(s) to use as fertilizer. The land down-creek of the Temple was notoriously fertile, possibly as a result of this outlet.

DCH

[rakovsky]

Jesus willingly submitted to the worst man could do, but he did not dare reveal the Truth about himself?

In one of the gospels, Jesus cryptically reveals to the Sanhedrin that he is God by saying "I am".

However, you ask a good question. In Gethsemane in the gospels, he is sad that he has to undergo this, but he submits to his father's will. He says at one point that he or God could send down an army of angels. He explains to the disciples in Luke 24 that not only do the scriptures predict it, but the Christ had to be crucified.

46 And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:

For him to forcibly and unquestionably prove to them that he was God would erase the test and labor that he needed to endure.

In the gospel story, in the beginning, Satan tempts him with the world's power, and then at Gethsemane an angel comes to comfort him. And then you have the Transfiguration story with Moses and Elijah. Clearly the gospel potrays to the reader that he is someone who if the Lord wanted to, the Lord could forcibly protect with angels. And so then the question must be why didn't the Lord God forcibly and unquestionably prove to the enemies that Jesus was God or otherwise had such a consciously, angelically exalted status for His Father God?

[rakovsky]

Jesus left no other declaration of his divinity that the no declaration of Thomas in the gospel of Thomas? Since the gospel of Thomas is not a part of the Canon , it is impossible to give any credit to nothing at all.

Jesus willingly submitted to the worst man could do, but he did not dare reveal the Truth about himself?

The issue also goes back to the enemies' mocking of him: "He saved others, but he couldn't save himself".
The gospel writers are fully aware of the seeming conflict between the miraculous powers and eschatological role ascribed to Jesus and the fact that he did not prove to his opponents that he was God or otherwise save himself from experiencing the Cross.

[iskander]

Jesus willingly submitted to the worst man could do, but he did not dare reveal the Truth about himself?

In one of the gospels, Jesus cryptically reveals to the Sanhedrin that he is God by saying "I am".

However, you ask a good question. In Gethsemane in the gospels, he is sad that he has to undergo this, but he submits to his father's will. He says at one point that he or God could send down an army of angels. He explains to the disciples in Luke 24 that not only do the scriptures predict it, but the Christ had to be crucified.

46 And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:

For him to forcibly and unquestionably prove to them that he was God would erase the test and labor that he needed to endure.

In the gospel story, in the beginning, Satan tempts him with the world's power, and then at Gethsemane an angel comes to comfort him. And then you have the Transfiguration story with Moses and Elijah. Clearly the gospel potrays to the reader that he is someone who if the Lord wanted to, the Lord could forcibly protect with angels. And so then the question must be why didn't the Lord God forcibly and unquestionably prove to the enemies that Jesus was God or otherwise had such a consciously, angelically exalted status for His Father God?

God or man is of no importance to me. I much prefer a Christian Britain than a Muslim, Brahmin, Mosaic or Theravada Britain.
Long live Parliament the protector of us all !