Jesus said, “This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away. The dead are not alive, and the living will not die. In the days when you consumed what is dead, you made it what is alive. When you come to dwell in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?”
11th Saying in the Gospel of Thomas
“That rifle on the wall of the labourer’s cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.”
– George Orwell
“The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.”
– Thucydides
This is a great little piece that provokes thought. I choose to overlook the reference to natural selection that occurs (oddly I might add) near the middle of the narrative. How Carl could compose this without seeing the presence of God in man’s long journey escapes me.
Of the roughly three hundred bishops in attendance at the Council of Nicea, two bishops did not sign the Nicene Creed that condemned Arianism. Emperor Constantine also ordered a penalty of death for those who refused to surrender the Arian writings, his words:
“In addition, if any writing composed by Arius should be found, it should be handed over to the flames, so that not only will the wickedness of his teaching be obliterated, but nothing will be left even to remind anyone of him. And I hereby make a public order, that if someone should be discovered to have hidden a writing composed by Arius, and not to have immediately brought it forward and destroyed it by fire, his penalty shall be death. As soon as he is discovered in this offence, he shall be submitted for capital punishment.
Emperor Constantine against the Arians
“I am a man: little do I last and the night is enormous
But I look up: the stars write
Unknowing I understand: I too am written,
and at this very moment someone spells me out.”
– Octavio Paz
Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He comes forth like a flower and is cut down: he flees also as a shadow, and continues not.
Job 14
The 7th Saying in the Gospel of Thomas is entirely different than words spoken by Jesus in the New Testament. It says:
(7) Jesus said, “Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man.”
Rather than try and understand this saying by replacing the word ‘lion’ with a word or phrase and then determining if the saying remains true on both sides of the parable (blessed is a lion and cursed is a man), lets step back from that mechanical approach and ask if this saying provides insight into the spiritual world that God created and our relationship to Him in that realm? If we can, then an interpretation of the 7th Sayings could be:
God created spiritual powers and forces for man to subdue and wield; they enhance and complete the man and both are returned to God and live in the Kingdom. Should these forces consume and subdue the man he falls away from God and the powers return God.
I have heard that no great undertaking should begin without first asking for God’s blessing. This is doubly so here as we endeavor to discover more of our God and what requirements/responsibilities, if any, He would assign us.
The paths taken by each of us in this life are many, solitary and unique. Life is different for each man and we live it alone save the spirit of God. It can be no other way. Along a path in my walk of life I came across the Gospel of Thomas. And so my sincere prayer to God is that I can understand what he would have me know through this work.
Along this path, one of life’s many, I pause to dip my toes in the waters that flow within the Gospel of Thomas —here—
In book VII of ‘The Republic’ Plato crafts a narrative between Socrates and Plato’s brother, Glaucon. It’s a thought provoking piece that, written roughly 400 years before the birth of Christ, is commonly referred to as ‘The Allegory of the Cave’. A paraphrase of the Cave and an caffeine induced correlation to Christ on the cross– here
The Blind Men and the Elephant is a famous Indian fable that tells the story of six blind sojourners that come across different parts of an elephant in their life journeys. In turn, each blind man creates his own version of reality from that limited experience and perspective.
I thought the fable was particularly emblematic of why Christs disciples may have had trouble defining him. More here.
