This beatitude ("blessed..." statement) is typical of the kind of cryptic language common among the gnostics. A human becoming something else is a reflection of the Greek ideal of leaving the sinful flesh behind in favor of something spiritual. We will see this idea again and again throughout Thomas, especially in saying 114 at the very end. This saying may also reflect the lapsi phenomenon of the early church (those who lapsed or fell away during persecution) from the standpoint that a person who goes to the lions in the arena is under a curse. There were those who would do anything, even renounce their faith in Jesus, rather than go to the lions.
8 He also said, "The kingdom is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of small fish. The wise fisherman found a fine big fish among them, so without bothering he threw all the small fish back into the sea and chose the big fish. He who has ears, let him hear." [Matthew 13:47-48]
In Matthew's account of the Parable of the Net, the fish are not "big" and "small" but rather "good" (Greek καλος) and "bad/spoiled" (Greek σαπρος).
9 Jesus said, "Now the sower went out, took a handful and scattered them. Some fell along the path; the birds came and gathered them up. Some fell on rock, did not take root in the soil, and did not produce ears. Other (seed) fell among thorns; which choked the seed(s),¹ and worms ate them [Cp. Deut. 28:39]. And others fell on the good soil and produced good fruit: it bore sixty or a hundred and twenty times what was sown." [Matthew 13:3-8; Mark 4:3-8; Luke 8:5-8]
¹ In the Gospels, the parable says "plants" rather than "seeds."
The Parable of the Sower is one of the three parables told three times in the Gospels, and in Matthew, Mark and Luke it is always the first parable Jesus tells -- probably it was the very first parable that the Lord ever told (John's gospel contains no parables at all). In the Bible, it is accompanied by an extended explanation about how to interpret it; no such explanation is here. Notice that where in the Gospels Jesus says "100, 60 or 30 times" (Mark inverts the order; Luke only says "100 times") the Gospel of Thomas says "60 or 120 times."
10 Jesus said, "I have sent fire upon the world, and see, I am guarding it until it blazes." [Luke 12:49; Cp. Amos 1:4, 7, 10, 12, 14; Malachi 4:1].
Again there is a kind of hidden gnostic message here with Jesus being made to say that the fire he has sent is not yet at work in the world.
11 Jesus said, "This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away [Matthew 24:35; Mark 13:31; Luke 21:33; cp. 1 John 2:17]. 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?"
This completely obscure passage is meant to portray the kind of hidden knowledge the gnostics boasted about. There isn't any comfort here; no promise of the resurrection, no assurance of forgiveness. This is no Christian passage, but a cryptic enigma meant to disturb the reader.
12 The disciples said to Jesus, "We know that you will depart from us. Who will be our leader?" Jesus said to them, "Wherever you are, you are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being."
The point of this statement is the supremacy of James (Jesus' brother). The last statement would be tantamount to blasphemy taken as it stands, except that Jesus could say the same thing about any single believer.
13 Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to someone; tell me whom I am like." Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a righteous angel." Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher." Thomas said to him, "Master, my mouth is completely unable to say what you are like." Jesus said, "I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become drunk by the bubbling spring I have measured out." Then he took him aside and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?" Thomas answered, "If I tell you one of the things he told me, you will pick up stones and stone me; and a fire will leap out of the stones and burn you up."
This last passage is thoroughly apocryphal. Never in any account of Jesus' life does he indulge in a question like "Tell me what I am." This is a twisted version of "Who do people say that I am?" (Matthew 16:13; Mark 8:27; Luke 9:18). In the Gospels, Peter follows this with his great confession, "You are the Christ of God." Here in Thomas, Jesus' answers to the hesitant and confused apostles are cryptic and accusatory -- even threatening. This is not Jesus.
The "three things" that the author imagines Jesus recounting to Thomas as secret things and are never revealed. This is typical of gnostic teaching, which emphasizes secret things. In this way, gnosticism is similar to modern cults where secret mysteries are treasured.
In other ancient gnostic writings, there are references to "three words," often a reference to the name of the Triune God. A document called "True Wisdom" (Pistis Sophia, 136) mentions yao, yao, yao (= yod yod yod), the first letter of God's name written three times. The yod is the "jot" or "smallest letter" Jesus mentions in Matthew 5:18. The early Church father Hippolytus talks about the words Kaulakau, Saulasau and Zeesar as being three powerful words ("do and do, rule on rule, a little here a little there" from the Hebrew of Isaiah 28:10, see Hipp. Adv. Haer. 5,8,4).
But the Gospel is not hidden. The truth about Jesus is not a secret. It is revealed and open for all to see. John put it this simply:
This is the testimony:
God has given us eternal life, and this life is his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5:11-12).
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