It’s odd how we can look at something many times and think that we know the nature of the thing; that we have learned all that we can about an object, phrase, or concept only to find later we may have been blind to its true nature. Perhaps we become so familiar with those things that surround us that we no long really think of them in any meaningful way. They become furnishings or structures in our lives that no longer command our interest, things no longer worthy of our thoughts.
The 4th saying in the Gospel of Thomas has me thinking along those lines; that we become too familiar with the ‘furnishings’ in our lives. You know, the essence of a thing can slip right past us while leaving us with the false belief that we have mastered its meaning or understand its nature.
The 4th saying: “The person old in days won’t hesitate to ask a little child seven days old about the place of life, and that person will live. For many of the first will be last, and will become a single one.”
Beyond the esoteric message within this saying, what had completely slipped past me was the term ‘place of life’ ( in Doressee’s translation ‘Place of Life’). I had always thought that the author was alluding to ‘meaning’ or ‘purpose’ or ‘reason’ for life. As we look at every translation of the saying (translations, reader thoughts, and scholarly quotes here) it reads ‘place’. It may very well be that he was speaking of an actual place. The saying could then mean that the child knows of the place that the aged has somehow lost awareness of.