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Early Christian Writings
Gospel of Thomas Saying 0
Previous-Gospel of Thomas Home-  Next You can view this web page along with Grondin's Coptic/English Interlinear in frames.
 Nag Hammadi Coptic Text  BLATZ 
[Prologue.] These are thesecret words which theliving Jesus spoke, andwhich Didymus JudasThomas wrote down.
 LAYTON 
[Prologue.] These are theobscure sayings that theliving Jesus uttered andwhich Didymus JudeThomas wrote down.
 DORESSE 
[Prologue.] Here are thesecret words which Jesusthe Living spoke, and whichDidymus Jude Thomaswrote down.
Oxyrhynchus Greek Fragment  DORESSE - Oxyrhynchus
Here are the [secret] words which Jesus theLiving spoke an[d which were transcribed by Didymus Jude] Thomas.
 ATTRIDGE - Oxyrhynchus
(Prologue) These are the [secret] sayings[which] the living Jesus [spoke, and whichJudas, who is] also Thomas, [wrote down].
 Funk's Parallels
POxy654 Prologue, Matt 1:1,Mark 1:1, InThom 1, Book of Thomas theContender II 138.1-4,ApJas 1:1-2.
Visitor Comments
Please use the commentfeature to share your insights. Thank you for visiting!- Peter KirbyThe proper name Thomas isderived from the root verbtïm, which means, became paired or twin.- thomasAlas, these sayings have far too much of a sectarianattitude. These tendenciesare also present (in myopinion) in the Gospel of John, but here they reallystand out: it's "us" versus"the rest", and those othersare ignorant. The gospel of Thomas has its historicmerits, but is toonarrowminded to be"believable" in these days.
Scholarly Quotes
Marvin Meyer writes: "The incipit, or opening of the document, provides what ismost likely the earlier version of the title. A second, later title is given at the end of the document: 'The Gospel According to Thomas.' A similar incipit opens another document from the Nag Hammadi Library, Book of Thomas 138, 1-4: 'The hiddensayings that the savior spoke to Judas Thomas, which I, Mathaias, in turn recorded. Iwas walking, listening to them speak with each other.'" (
The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus
, p. 67)Marvin Meyer suggests that "the living Jesus" is "probably not the resurrected Christas commonly understood, but rather Jesus who lives through his sayings." (
TheGospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus
, p. 67)Joseph A. Fitzmyer writes: "
logoi
: The use of this word to designate the 'sayings' of Jesus in these fragments should be noted. Nowhere do we find
logia
used of thesesayings; Grenfell and Hunt were, therefore, not accurate in entitling the preliminary publication of Oxy P 1
 Logia Iesou
, which did not, of course, become apparent untilthe discovery of Oxy P 654. From the time of Herodotus on
logion
meant 'oracle', 'asaying derived from a deity'. In the LXX it denotes the 'word of God', having lost theGreek nuance of 'oracle' and acquired that of OT revelation. In this sense we find it inActs 7:38; Rom 3:2; 1 Pt 4:11; Heb 5:12 (see G. Kittel,
TDNT 
4, 137-41). In A.Resch's collection of Agrapha (TU 30 [1906]) we find the word used only twice, andin each case it refers to the OT. See further J. Donovan,
The Logia in Ancient and  Recent Literature
(Cambridge, 1927). The use of 
logoi
here for the sayings of Jesuscan be compared to Mt 15:12 and especially to Acts 20:35,
mnemoneuein te tonlogon tou Kyriou Iesou hoti autos eipen
. See also Clement of Rome,
 Ad. Cor.
13:1;
 
- BrunoI disagree with Bruno,respectfully. It's not "us"versus "the rest" inasmuch asit is the discovery by eachone of us that which thewhole cannot comprehend.Individuals have to realizetheir place and importance.As one who reads andunderstands the Bible gainsinsight despite others notdoing so, the same is true for one who understands thesesayings. There is animportant balance betweenknowing these truthsinwardly and sharing themoutwardly.- tworoadsJesus combined the prpheticand teachership functions.Which do these utterances belong to? Those who have been through the hurlyburlyof a genuine teaching school,which a group under ateaching master is, willrecognise these recordedutterances not all of which by any means were intendedfor public consumption. Tointerpret them literally or byscholarship may not prove amethod of universalapplicability, valuablethough such approaches arein their own contexts.- Thief37The reputed (and possiblyactual) author of the Gospelof Thomas was Judas, thetwin brother of the "livingJesus" if not that of the"risen Christ." The name"Didymus Judas Thomas" --"Twin Judas Twin" --46:7 (ed. K. Bihlmeyer, pp. 42, 60) for the use of this word to designate the sayingsof Jesus. Now that we know that the Greek fragments belong to a text of the
Gospel according to Thomas
, there is no longer room for the speculation that possibly theycontain part of the
 Logia
on which Papias wrote his commentary or of the
 Logia
thatMatthew collected (Eusebius,
 Hist. Eccl.
3, 39, 1 and 16). Consequently, it is better not to refer to the sayings either in the Oxyrhynchus fragments or in the Coptic
Gospel According to Thomas
(where the word used is
 sage
, 'word, saying') as
logia
,
 pace
R. North (
CBQ
24 [1962] 164, etc.)." (
 Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament 
, pp. 366-367)F. F. Bruce writes: "'Jesus the living one' probably means 'Jesus the ever-living one'.It is common form in Gnostic Gospels to represent the esoteric teaching or 
 gnosis
which they contain as delivered by Jesus to his chosen disciples during hisappearances to them after he was raised from the dead. But there is no esotericflavour about the sayings collected in the
Gospel of Thomas
; many of them can be paralleled from the canonical Gospels (especially Luke) and many others are of thesame matter-of-fact order. Perhaps it was not the sayings themselves but their interpretation in the circle from which the
Gospel of Thomas
came that the compiler regarded as 'secret'. As for the threefold name Didymus Judas Thomas, Didymus isthe Greek word for 'twin' and is used in the Gospel of John (11.16; 20.24; 21.2) toexplain Thomas, which is the Aramaic word for 'twin' (
t'oma
). In Syriac Christiantradition he is identified with the 'Judas not Iscariot' who belonged to the company of the Twelve: in the Old Syriac Gospels the question of John 14.22 is said to have been put to the Lord by 'Judas Thomas'." (
 Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the NewTestament 
, p. 112)R. McL. Wilson writes: "Of the general character of the text it must suffice to say for the moment that it was found in a Gnostic library and contains little or nothing whichcould not be adapted to a Gnostic use. The opening words, again, might be thought tosuggest a Gnostic origin: 'These are the secret words which the living Jesus spake.'The work, that is, purports to contain esoteric teaching delivered, like other similar revelations, by the risen Lord in the period between the Resurrection and theAscension. It may be, however, that too much should not be made of this, since theGreek word APOKRUFOS did not always have the disparaging sense which later  became attached to it. In Gnostic circles it was used of books the contents of whichwere too sacred to be divulged to the common herd, and it was in fact the hereticalassociations which it thus came to possess which led to its use as a term of disparagement. In the Nag Hammadi library, for example, one document bears thetitle Apocryphon or Secret Book of John, another that of Apocryphon of James, andseveral Gnostic gospels contain solemn warnings against imparting their contents toany save the deserving, or for the sake of material gain." (
Studies in the Gospel of Thomas
, pp. 11-12)Joseph A. Fitzmyer writes: "We may ask in what sense the sayings of Jesus in thiscollection are to be regarded as 'secret' (for it is obvious that
apokryphos
does nothave the later pejorative meaning of 'apocryphal' here), when many of the sayingscontain words which Jesus pronounced openly and publicly. The 'hidden' character israther to be found in the manner of interpretation which is found in this collection.The quotation from Hippolytus [Elenchus 7, 20] above tells us of 'hidden words' thatMatthias had learned from the Saviour in private. This reveals a tradition which
 
describing the receiver emphatically refers to that blood brother. Thus: "Theseare the secret sayings whichthe living Jesus spoke, andwhich (his) twin [known as]Judas (the) twin wrotedown." Whom but Yehuda,the closest blood brother of Yeshu'a -- his twin! -- wouldhave been taken aside andconfided in so closelyconcerning the real meaningof the latter's message? Andwhom but Yehuda would beso threatening to the later cult of the perpetual virginityof Mary -- mother of at leastsix, if Mark and Matthew areto be believed -- that hewould not only be unfairlymarginalized (as were hissiblings Ya'akov, Yosa,Shim'on, Miryam andShlomit) by "Christian"redactors unconcerned withtruth, but villified as theultimate traitor? Thisapocryphal gospel is likelycloser to the origins behindthe Hellenized myths of "Jesus the Christ" than theSynoptics or Johanninewritings, and surely morerevealing of "His" intendedmessage than anythingwritten by Paul or Luke. Nowonder it was excised fromthe catholic "canon" so early.How fortunate for us that thetrue teaching of the manYeshu'a -- who has becomeall but mythologized by twomillenia of revisionist blatherings by far lesser mortals -- has not been lostsight of completely.- Qapaundoubtedly is to be traced to Mt 13:10-11, where Christ himself distinguished between the comprehension of the disciples and that of the crowd. The thirteenthCoptic saying illustrates this idea, moreover, when Jesus takes Thomas aside to tellhim three words which he is not allowed to repeat to the other disciples. In this verysaying we learn that eternal life is promised to him who succeeds in discovering thereal meaning of the sayings in the collection. This probably refers to the differentapplication or interpretation which is given to even the canonical sayings that are setin a different context. Such shifts in meaning were undoubtedly part of the esotericinterpretation which is intended by 'hidden' or 'secret'." (
 Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament 
, p. 368)
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