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Review of Simon Gathercole, The Gospel of Thomas: Introduction and Commentary, Texts and Editions for
New Testament Study 11 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2014). ISBN 978-90-04-19041-2

The Gospel of Thomas, a mysterious collection of 114 ‘sayings’ of Jesus extant in a single Coptic
manuscript from Nag Hammadi and three Greek papyrus fragments from Oxyrhynchus, continues to
attract vast amounts of scholarly energy in the quest to understand the volatile second century – early
Christianity’s ‘laboratory’ (C. Markschies). Simon Gathercole, whose previous articles and monographs on
the Gospels of Thomas and Judas amply illustrated his qualifications for the task, here presents his
impressive 740-page commentary on this slender text. Although its brief Preface (rightly) disclaims
comprehensiveness, this is clearly now the definitive landmark treatment for many years to come.

Gathercole is on the one hand consistently in dialogue with other leading commentaries like those of
DeConick, Hedrick, Plisch, Pokorny, Nordsieck, Valantasis and others (oddly not Fieger 1991, despite his
appearance in the bibliography). At the same time, however, he charts his own course in seeking to take
this collection seriously as a whole, on its own terms and in its own context, as a relatively coherent
religious document at home in the second century. In doing so, this welcome approach deliberately
departs from others that have prioritised Thomas’s compositional or tradition history, its relationship to
the Synoptic problem, or any supposed access it grants to the ‘real’ historical Jesus.

Part of the strength of this commentary lies in its highly accessible if also almost deceptively simple
structure: a clearly laid out 180-page introduction extensively treats the major critical issues, while the
next 440 pages work sequentially through each of the 114 logia. The volume closes with a thorough
(uncategorized) 54-page bibliography as well as indexes of citations, modern authors and subjects.

The Introduction itself constitutes a highly serviceable monograph-length treatment of major critical
issues. It could usefully be read alongside Gathercole’s own 2012 monograph on The Composition of the
Gospel of Thomas (Cambridge University Press), whose subject matter is less fully treated here. Chapter
1 introduces the Greek (P.Oxy. 1, 654, 655) and Coptic (NHC II, 2) manuscripts and their circumstances of
discovery, recently much queried in the case of Nag Hammadi. Chapter 2 offers a handy comparison and
contrast of the Greek and Coptic texts, suggesting that differences between them are sometimes
exaggerated, that the second-century Greek original closely resembled the text of the Oxyrhynchus
fragments, and that – pace DeConick – there is no evidence to suggest an early ‘rolling corpus’. Chapters
3 and 4 constitute the intellectual core of this Introduction, and its most distinctive contribution.
Gathercole catalogues, but does not here discuss, 48 ‘named testimonia’ (i.e. explicit attestations) of
Thomas from late antiquity until the fourteenth century, 39 of them deemed ‘fairly clear’. This list
doubles the extent of Harold Attridge’s earlier compilation, and is based on Gathercole’s fuller
presentation in ‘Named Testimonia to the Gospel of Thomas: An Expanded Inventory and Analysis’,
Harvard Theological Review 105 (2012): 53-89. Chapter 4 cautiously traces Thomasine influence in late
antique and medieval ‘references’, sagely allowing that perhaps not all is Thomas that appears to glitter
in allusion to one or another of its sayings. The original language of the Gospel of Thomas is then, with
greater confidence, established as Greek (Chapter 5). Somewhat more inconclusively, the provenance is
found to be either Syria or Egypt, the date of composition ‘around’ the Antonine era (138-192), its
authorship unknown (but neither apostolic nor Manichean), its genre mixed, and its structure marked by
clusters and keywords but without thereby establishing any strong contextual linkage (Chapters 6- 9). The
very useful chapter 10 offers a whistle-stop tour of theological topics including the Father, the Kingdom,
Creation, the World, the Body, Christology, self-knowledge and salvation. Discipleship is here explored
above all under the headings of ‘union’ (of self, gender and Christ) and of asceticism, but also related to
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social ethos and the view of outsiders. A brief but important chapter appendix (168-75) explains why
Thomas cannot rightly be seen as either Gnostic or Encratite. Finally, chapter 11 addresses in brief the
much debated question of Thomas’s relationship with the New Testament and the historical Jesus,
concluding that there is dependence on Matthew, Luke and Paul, and that any relevance to historical
Jesus research is negligible.

There then ensues the commentary, strictly structured along the standard list of 114 logia, with longer
units subdivided as commonly accepted (following the Berliner Arbeitskreis für koptisch-gnostische
Studien). In each case the Coptic and (where available) Greek text is followed by the author’s translation,
interpretation and further exegetical notes. This section of the volume is marked by focused linguistic and
philological strengths as well as concise, measured and fair-minded negotiation of the exegetical and
critical difficulties. Although experts will find it well worth reading in full, this sequence also lends itself
particularly well to its most likely use as an accessible and indispensable reference work on Thomas.
Time after time, one finds long-standing textual problems and debates engaged invariably with critical
patience, clarity and sane elucidation – from the Gospel’s setting and self-declared secrecy in the
Prologue via the Adamic ‘male androgyny’ of 22 and the pantheistic-sounding 77 (and 30) to the baffling
conclusion on a note of eschatological misogyny at 114.

Part of a reviewer’s task is to find fault, but the present writer struggled to find much of consequence.
Three issues may be singled out as inviting further debate, drawing above all on the impression of a
certain imbalance in the treatment of major critical questions as reflected in the Table of Contents.

First, Gathercole’s ‘named testimonia’ section is an outstanding achievement of textual excavation, even
if only a tiny handful are brought to bear on the actual commentary (e.g. on logia 7, 52, and 97). This
substantial expansion of previous inventories of this kind helps the reader appreciate the sheer diversity
and volatility of the appropriations this ‘Protean’ (p. 89) text has experienced. That said, in a few
instances Gathercole’s unannotated catalogue seems a little optimistic. Several entries did not
immediately impress themselves on the reviewer as ‘fairly clear’ matches for this text of Thomas – as
opposed to, say, textually uncertain Thomasine gospels like those associated with Naassenes or the
Manicheans (whose extant writings do not in fact reference Thomas by name) , or for that matter related
writings including the Infancy Gospel or the Acts of Thomas. Gathercole himself acknowledges this
difficulty perhaps somewhat cursorily (p.60). But it seems significant that not a single direct quotation of
any kind surfaces after Hippolytus’ textually uncertain Naassene reference, and that neither Irenaeus nor
even the heresiologist-in-chief Epiphanius names Thomas (so rightly Gathercole 2012, 85). There is also
the knotty question of how many later sources in any sense attest Thomas itself or merely a ‘legacy’
polemical trope – about Manichees, say, or as inherited via the Gelasian Decree. Indeed Gathercole 2012,
86, has previously acknowledged that ‘the association with Manichaeism is no doubt part of the reason
why mention of Thomas is preserved for so long,’ sometimes recycled vis-à-vis the Bogomils. Might not
several of these ‘testimonia’ amount to little more than the contemporizing condemnation of a generic
heresy preserved in aspic, at once conventional and uncontroversial, evocative far more of the big bad
wolf than of any literary or historical reality?

A second query concerns the balance of critical issues addressed. While nearly a third of the introduction
deals with this question of subsequent attestation, we find only an inconclusive 8 pages on the Gospel’s
provenance, 13 on date and authorship, 7 on genre, etc. These are all matters of some import for the
interpretation of this text. And given contemporary scholarship’s significant transatlantic divide on issues
like date and literary dependencies, the relatively limited engagement with the tradition-historical
questions may strike some readers as unsatisfactory. One might like to have heard more about the
relationship with the Synoptics and with John, for example. This perceived lack is perhaps partly the
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result of having (rightly) hived off a good deal of this discussion in his 2012 CUP volume, and partly due to
the (perfectly reasonable) decision to foreground the interpretation of the text as it stands in the second
century. Nevertheless, by itself this does leave certain aspects of the argument looking a little under-
resourced, even vis-à-vis otherwise speculative attempts to rehabilitate earlier theories about an ‘early’
Thomas as a Q-like sayings collection that shaped the composition of the synoptic gospels. (Previously
associated with the Jesus Seminar, this theory has recently re-emerged in slightly altered form in Francis
Watson’s Gospel Writing (2013), a book cited fleetingly in the introduction and in reference to logia 13,
92 and 94, but which may have appeared too late for fuller consideration.)

Thirdly, there is perhaps also a question of whether the staccato shape of the treatment, presenting each
logion in a separate chapter, makes the overall effect more like scholia or sequential critical notes rather
than a commentary in more familiar mode. Gathercole rightly recognizes of course that as a sayings
gospel this text tends to elicit either too much or too little attention to matters of context: this may
indeed be an impossible balance to get right, although one might wonder if his own presentation tends to
underplay continuities a little.

There is excellent interaction with Greek, Coptic as well as scholarship in German and other modern
languages (including regular consideration of M. Grosso’s 2011 commentary in Italian and J.-É. Ménard’s
older 1975 offering in French). This reader was impressed by the reassuringly consistent accuracy of
Gathercole’s comprehensive philological engagement, referencing and critical apparatus, and by the
refreshing rarity of minor typos (e.g. pp. 54 88 ,‫‘ הנוץרים‬Albingensian’, 309n9 ‘congrés’, 672
‘Altenberger’).

This admirable volume deserves our warm congratulations. It clearly stands now as the go-to-
commentary and key point of reference for research on the Gospel of Thomas.

Markus Bockmuehl

Draft rev 11.7.2015