I've already done that.mlinssen wrote: ↑Tue Aug 02, 2022 5:31 amNo, because nothing in Thomas points to that. If you think it does, please do present a compelling caseLeucius Charinus wrote: ↑Tue Aug 02, 2022 5:08 amAnother way of interpreting this is via the Platonic analogy of the tripart psyche of man:... and the lion of logion 7 MUST be a symbol of freedom, as no one can yoke a lion.
Here: viewtopic.php?p=139663#p139663
I find this author's case quite compelling.
Gospel of Thomas Logion 7 Unravelled - An Intertextual Approach to a locus vexatus
by Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta
https://www.academia.edu/15050427/Gospe ... us_vexatus
p.130
Socrates' memorable simile of the many-headed beast, the lion and man was relatively well-known in Late Antiquity, [60] as the testimony of Philo, Alcinous, Eusebius, and Plotinus clearly shows. [61] It is so much so that even the Nag Hammadi codices include a Coptic version of the alleged hypotext of logion 7, namely the section of the Platonic Republic (588-89) analyzed above, demonstrating the interest that it created in Gnostic circles. This Coptic version introduces such important changes into its source that it can be considered the work of a redactor rather than a translator, who appears to have simply used the Platonic text as an excuse for his own Gnostic redaction. [62]
Interestingly, in spite of initially referring to the three constituents of the human soul, the Coptic free version tends to distinguish two parts within man, namely an animal-like and a reasonable part [63] ("For the image of the lion is one thing and the image of the man another [64]), and to present the relationship between them as a conflict, just as the Gospel of Thomas does: [65]
But what is profitable for him (sci!. the man) is this: that he cast down every image of the evil beast and trample them along with the images of the lion. But the man is in weakness in this regard. And all the things are weak. As a result he is drawn to the place where he spends time with them ... And with strife they devour each other among themselves.
Footnotes:
60 According to Dillon, Middle Platonists, 302-3, Plato's passage might even have influenced the popular division between "wild" and "tame" passions in the first century B.C.E., as shown by the testimony of Philo, QG 2.57.
61 On Philo of Alexandria, see previous note; for Alcinous, Didask. 186.15-29 with John Dillon, Alcinolls: The Handbook of Platonism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 196-97; for Plotinus, Enn. 1.1.7, 14-21; Eusebius, Praep. ev. 11.46.2-6.
62 Tito Orlandi, "La traduzione copta di Platone, Resp. IX, 588b-589b: Problemi critici ed esegetici," Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei: Rendiconti: Classe di Scienze morali, storiche efilologiche 32 (1977): 54.
63 Plato, Resp. 588a-589b (NHC VI,5) 51.11-23: "Then is it not profitable for him who speaks justly?" "And if he does these things and speaks in them, within the man they take hold firmly. Therefore especially he strives to take care of them and he nourishes them just like the farmer nourishes his produce daily. And the wild beasts keep it from growing."
64 Plato, Resp. 588a-589b (NHC VI,5) 49.34--35.
65 Plato, Resp. 588a-589b (NHC VI,5) 50.24--30.
Socrates' memorable simile of the many-headed beast, the lion and man was relatively well-known in Late Antiquity, [60] as the testimony of Philo, Alcinous, Eusebius, and Plotinus clearly shows. [61] It is so much so that even the Nag Hammadi codices include a Coptic version of the alleged hypotext of logion 7, namely the section of the Platonic Republic (588-89) analyzed above, demonstrating the interest that it created in Gnostic circles. This Coptic version introduces such important changes into its source that it can be considered the work of a redactor rather than a translator, who appears to have simply used the Platonic text as an excuse for his own Gnostic redaction. [62]
Interestingly, in spite of initially referring to the three constituents of the human soul, the Coptic free version tends to distinguish two parts within man, namely an animal-like and a reasonable part [63] ("For the image of the lion is one thing and the image of the man another [64]), and to present the relationship between them as a conflict, just as the Gospel of Thomas does: [65]
But what is profitable for him (sci!. the man) is this: that he cast down every image of the evil beast and trample them along with the images of the lion. But the man is in weakness in this regard. And all the things are weak. As a result he is drawn to the place where he spends time with them ... And with strife they devour each other among themselves.
Footnotes:
60 According to Dillon, Middle Platonists, 302-3, Plato's passage might even have influenced the popular division between "wild" and "tame" passions in the first century B.C.E., as shown by the testimony of Philo, QG 2.57.
61 On Philo of Alexandria, see previous note; for Alcinous, Didask. 186.15-29 with John Dillon, Alcinolls: The Handbook of Platonism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 196-97; for Plotinus, Enn. 1.1.7, 14-21; Eusebius, Praep. ev. 11.46.2-6.
62 Tito Orlandi, "La traduzione copta di Platone, Resp. IX, 588b-589b: Problemi critici ed esegetici," Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei: Rendiconti: Classe di Scienze morali, storiche efilologiche 32 (1977): 54.
63 Plato, Resp. 588a-589b (NHC VI,5) 51.11-23: "Then is it not profitable for him who speaks justly?" "And if he does these things and speaks in them, within the man they take hold firmly. Therefore especially he strives to take care of them and he nourishes them just like the farmer nourishes his produce daily. And the wild beasts keep it from growing."
64 Plato, Resp. 588a-589b (NHC VI,5) 49.34--35.
65 Plato, Resp. 588a-589b (NHC VI,5) 50.24--30.