Makarios
Another of our untranslated and untranslatable Greek words
in Thomas is makarios. It is still used in Greece as a personal
name, for example Archbishop Makarios. It is used also in the beatitudes of the N.T. Gospels, where
it is almost always rendered as 'blessed'. This rendering of the
word can be very misleading, for it can be confused with 'blest',
an entirely different word. The difference lies in the person concerned.
A state of blessedness exists within a person; being blest involves
another person outside oneself.
Makarios is
used ten times in our ancient version of Thomas. It is one of the
most frequently used words, and therefore of significance to Jesus.
Its use is, however, rather different from the other two untranslated
words.
The
corresponding word in Aramaic, which Jesus would have used when
speaking to the Jews, is tubwayham. Aramaic is a much
more flexible language than Greek, and this word can mean happy,
content, blissful, fortunate, delighted—where that word
can suggest great happiness, prosperity and abundant goodness.
Thomas must have chosen makarios to translate this into his Greek.
We
must assume that when Jesus was speaking to the Hellenists, he
chose to use makarios. But what we have to be careful of is that
he would have used that word with the mind-set that is inherent
in the middle-Eastern languages with all their flexibility.
Thus makarios
cannot be directly translated into English. Grammatically it
is an adjective—a
makarios person or a makarios state of being. Hence in the 'Jesus
untouched' book it is translated
as 'happy' particularly in the phrase 'happy is he who ...' (meaning
also she who ... ), from which we could get the noun happiness.
But it is recognized, and it must be realized, that this can also
be misleading, for happiness can be so easily confused with jollity.
We can get further by thinking of it as happiness-or-bliss, words
permanently linked together as in the Sanskrit practice of sandhi,
where the important feature is that the combination carries more
significance, and usually an enhanced meaning, than the individual
words themselves. It's a case of two plus two making more than
four.
There is another
word that comes near the meaning—joyousness.
However really to get nearer the meaning one needs to think of
the phrase 'happiness-or-bliss or joyousness'.
When seen in this way makarios becomes a pointer to a state of
being, which is not only experienced within the self but is also
an attribute of the Self. It is a manifestation of the very essence
of Oneself. This Oneself is the individual personal experience
of Oneness.
Real Happiness is a manifestation of the Real Self, and its
source is within us. It does not have to be given us, it does not have
to be made, we do not have to make it, we only need to become aware
of it.
Thus it becomes
relevant to quote from the lower half of page 122 in the 'Jesus
untouched' book:
"Makarios is joy or bliss, associated
with a profound contentment that leads to a repose. It appears
as a poise and radiance. It is derived from a condition or state
of being within. It may be regarded as a flowering of the Self,
so that in any of the sayings 'Happy is he who does so-and-so'
it is a pointer towards coming to an awareness of what lies within.
Thus the emphasis, both here and in the sayings of Jesus, stems
directly from happiness being one of the facets of the jewel that
comprises spiritual Truth."
Herein lies, at a very profound and meaningful level, a correspondence
between Thomas and advaita Vedanta.
H.McG.R
Essays
- Hidden & Clues
The Gospel of Thomas starts with 'These are the hidden logia'.
Admittedly this not said by Jesus, nevertheless the key-word is one used
frequently by him, therefore it behoves us to recognize
the intended meaning and its implications. It turns out that
it may be one of the words of the lost language of parables that
carries a distinctive meaning.
- Coherence
In 'Jesus untouched by the Church' the description of an experiment of sorting cards to make groups
of sayings with like-for-like meanings, it is written "it was discovered
that a coherent set of spiritual Teachings were revealed"
- Searching
Gospel of Thomas is for people who are searching—searching
for inner peace, tranquillity, timeless certainties, happiness and
joyousness in this life, in the here and now. It is for those who
at some time in their lives even if not now search for answers to
mankind's most fundamental questions "From whence did I come? To
where will I go?" It may even go some way to give solace to those
who search for release from suffering—the greatest scourge
of mankind.
- Stone
Maurice Nicoll, one of the great spiritual teachers of the West
during our times, writes in his book 'The New Man' (1950) "All sacred
writings contain an outer and an inner meaning. Behind the literal
words lies another range of meaning, another form of knowledge.
According to an old-age tradition, Man was once in touch with this
inner knowledge and inner meaning"
- Monakhos
There are three significant words in Thomas that have come down
to us in untranslated Greek. We cannot tell whether they were originally
spoken in Aramaic, but by their very nature that seems unlikely.
Therefore they were spoken by Jesus in Greek, and it means that
when he used them he was speaking to the Hellenists. Thomas did
not have to translate them, they were not translated into Coptic,
and they cannot be translated into English. All we can do is to
try to grasp the meanings that Jesus intended.
- Metanoia
This is another Greek word used by Jesus that has come down
to us without ever having been translated is Métanoïa. Nor, like
the other two, can it be adequately translated into English.
We just have to try to seek out the meaning Jesus intended.
- Makarios
Another of our untranslated and untranslatable Greek words
in Thomas is makarios. It is used in the beatitudes of the N.T. Gospels, where
it is almost always rendered as 'blessed'. This rendering of the
word can be very misleading, for it can be confused with 'blest',
an entirely different word. The difference lies in the person concerned.
A state of blessedness exists within a person; being blest involves
another person outside oneself.
- Empty Desert
In our little island in a temperate climate we can have no real
awareness of an empty, uninhabited desert. Wherever you are a
person or house is likely to be seen. Whichever way you look
there will be trees and beyond them some hills will arise. But
even though the climate of Palestine was more temperate in Jesus'
time, he and all his listeners must have been fully aware of
the desert around them and deeply aware of its emptiness.
- Knowing not Belief
Here is a typical Teaching that was discovered in the Gospel. In 'Jesus untouched by the Church' the sayings
that are relevant to this particular Teaching are grouped together,
without being in any way altered. These are typeset to show they are our words, not those of Jesus.
They are merely to prompt the reader's understanding, but it is for the
reader to discern the real significance of the Teaching.
- Happiness and Joyousness
Happiness is one of the themes Jesus speaks of most often in the Gospel
of Thomas. Only knowing and finding occur more often. The theme of happiness
comes in ten of the sayings, which are scattered
throughout the Gospel. What it must imply is that as Jesus and
his disciples travelled around during his ministry, this must
have been a frequently recurring theme. It may be unexpected
that Jesus spoke of it so often—but there are many aspects
of the Gospel of Thomas that come as a surprise to us.
