The Gospel of Thomas
Collection

www.gospelofthomas.INFO

Searching

The 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.

For those persons who are attached to any of the established Christian Churches it is not appropriate. Its Teachings are too much at variance with the doctrines on which their certainties are built, so that its study can only lead to its rejection.

For those, particularly amongst academics who assert or assume that it derives from some anonymous writer or sect in the early centuries of our era, this search becomes merely an interesting exercise without the power and answers that some others search for.

Nor is there any evidence that it answers a need in anyone attached to any of the other major religious traditions. This may well be because it is associated not with the avatars Moses, Mohammed, Krishna, Buddha, Guru Singh, Confucius, but with Jesus.

For those who search for qualities of life from material possessions, physical activities, intellectual pursuits it will have no impact, for it works at a different level of the personality.

The word used in our ancient manuscript is Coptic CHINE which is rendered as 'seek', and occurs eleven times in logia 2.2, 18.5,24.3, 28.10, 38.7, 59.5, 60.16, 76.8, 92.2,7,107.6. In all but three of those logia it is coupled with NCA giving the rendering 'seek after'. So this frequent occurrence shows that for Jesus searching was a paramount route to the spiritual.

In fact, it is more than that, for it provides a motive and a direction for that journey. Spiritual awareness comes about not by sitting idle, waiting for something to descend from on high, or for some sudden great revelation to occur spontaneously or be engendered by some charismatic person. As the journey is presented to us in Thomas we are told a vital constituent is our seeking.

The Teaching in Thomas however goes further still. For associated with seeking is finding. Two Coptic words are used KINE and HE and there appears to be no difference in their meaning or significance. These occur no less than twentynine times, so from the numerical point of view are the most frequently used in the entire Gospel.

So the message that Jesus is trying to give us is that if we are willing to search—in his way—this will be followed by finding. There are even four sayings in which this association or linking of seeking and finding are explicit:

#2   Let him who seeks not cease from seeking until he finds;
#38 (a contrasting negative) There will be days when you seek after me and you will not find me.
#92 Seek and you will find.
#94 He who seeks shall find,

Such is the strength in Thomas of this emphasis on finding that it has prompted the use of the word 'shall' in its old English sense of its being a command. It is appropriate to feel that when we diligently search in Thomas for the spiritual treasures to be found there we will be commanded to find them.

H.McG.R.
Written 10 - 11 April 2003

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.