Gnosis: Self-Knowledge as Knowledge of God - Part 4

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

We concluded Part 3 with:

 

(P.137) Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to the disciples, 'These

infants being suckled are like those who enter the Kingdom.' They said to him,

'Shall we, then, as children, enter the Kingdom?' Jesus said to them, 'When you

make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside

like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and

the female one and the same...then you will enter [the Kingdom].' [42]

 

(The Gnostic Gospels - P.137)

 

Here is Part 4.

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

Gnosis: Self-Knowledge as Knowledge of God - Part 4

 

(P.137) Yet what the 'living Jesus' of Thomas rejects as naive - the idea that

the Kingdom of God is an actual event expected in history - is the notion of the

Kingdom that the synoptic gospels of the New Testament most often attribute to

Jesus as his teaching. According to Matthew, Luke, and Mark, Jesus proclaimed

the coming Kingdom of God, when captives shall gain their freedom, when the

diseased shall recover, the oppressed shall be released, and harmony shall

prevail over the whole world. Mark says that the disciples expected the Kingdom

to come as a cataclysmic event in their own lifetime, since Jesus had said that

some of them would live to see 'the kingdom of God come with power'. [43] Before

his arrest, Mark says, Jesus warned that although 'the end is not yet', [44]

they must expect it at any time. All three gospels insist that the Kingdom will

come in the near future (though they also contain many passages indicating that

it is here already). Luke makes Jesus say explicitly 'the kingdom of God is

within you'. [45] Some gnostic Christians, extending that type of

interpretation, expected human liberation to occur not through actual events in

history, but through internal transformation.

 

For similar reasons, gnostic Christians criticized orthodox views of Jesus that

identified him as one external to the disciples, and superior to them. For,

according to Mark, when the disciples came to recognize who Jesus was, they

thought of him as their appointed King:

 

(P.138) And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea

Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, 'Who do men say that I am?' And

they told him, 'John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others one of the

prophets.' And he asked them, 'But who do you say that I am?' Peter answered

him, 'You are the Christ.' [46]

 

Matthew adds to this that Jesus blessed Peter for the accuracy of his

recognition, and declared immediately that the church shall be founded upon

Peter, and upon his recognition of Jesus as the Messiah. [47] One of the

earliest of all Christian confessions states simply, 'Jesus is Lord!' but

'Thomas' tells the story differently:

 

Jesus said to his disciples, 'Compare me to someone and 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

wholly incapable of saying whom you are like.' Jesus said, 'I am not your

master. Because you have drunk, you have become drunk from the bubbling stream

which I have measured out.' [48]

 

Here Jesus does not deny his role as Messiah or as teacher, at least in relation

to Peter and Matthew. But here they - and their answers - represent an inferior

level of understanding. Thomas, who recognizes that he cannot assign any

specific role to Jesus, transcends, at this moment of recognition, the relation

of student to master. He becomes himself like the 'living Jesus', who declares,

'Whoever will drink from my mouth will become as I am, and I myself will become

that person, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him.' [49]

 

Gnostic sources often do depict Jesus answering questions, taking the role of

teacher, revealer, and spiritual master. But here, too, the gnostic model stands

close to the psychotherapeutic one. Both acknowledge the need for guidance, but

only as a provisional measure. The purpose of accepting authority is to learn to

outgrow it. When one becomes mature, one no longer needs any external authority.

The one who formerly took the place of a disciple comes to recognize himself as

Jesus' 'twin brother'. Who, then, is Jesus the teacher? 'Thomas the Contender'

identifies him simply as 'the knowledge of the truth'. [50] According to the

'Gospel of Thomas', Jesus refused to validate the experience that the disciples

must discover for themselves:

 

They said to him, 'Tell us who you are so that we may believe in you.' He said

to them, 'You read the face of the sky and of the earth, but you have not

recognized the one who is before you, and you do not know how to read this

moment.' [51]

 

(P.139) And when, in frustration, they asked him, 'Who are you, that you should

say these things to us?' Jesus, instead of answering, criticized their question:

'You do not realize who I am from what I say to you.' [52] We noted already

that, according to 'Thomas', when the disciples asked Jesus to show them where

he was so that they might reach that place as well, he refused, directing them

instead to themselves, to discover the resources hidden within. The same theme

occurs in the 'Dialogue of the Savior'. As Jesus talks with his three chosen

disciples, Matthew asks him to show him the 'place of life', which is, he says,

the 'pure light'. Jesus answers, 'Every one [of you] who has known himself has

seen it.' [53] Here again, he deflects the question, pointing the disciple

instead toward his own self-discovery. When the disciples, expecting him to

reveal secrets to them, ask Jesus, 'Who is the one who seeks, [and who is the

one who] reveals?' [54] he answers that the one who seeks the truth - the

disciple - is also the one who reveals it. Since Matthew persists in asking him

questions, Jesus says that he does not know the answer himself, 'nor have I

heard about it, except from you'. [55]

 

The disciple who comes to know himself can discover, then, what even Jesus

cannot teach. The 'Testimony of Truth' says that the gnostic becomes a 'disciple

of his [own] mind', [56] discovering that his own mind 'is the father of the

truth'. [57] He learns what he needs to know by himself in meditative silence.

Consequently, he considers himself equal to everyone, maintaining his own

independence of anyone else's authority: 'And he is patient with everyone; he

makes himself equal to everyone, and he also separates himself from them.' [58]

Silvanus, too, regards 'your mind' as 'a guiding principle'. Whoever follows the

direction of his own mind need not accept anyone else's advice:

 

Have a great number of friends, but not counselors....But if you do acquire [a

friend], do not entrust yourself to him. Entrust yourself to God alone as father

and as friend. [59]

 

The Gnostic Gospels

(Long Buried And Suppressed, The Gnostic Gospels Contain

The Secret Writings Attributed To The Followers of Jesus)

Chapter 6, Pg. 137-139

Elaine Pagels

Phoenix Publishers - St. Martin's Lane, London

ISBN 13: 978-0-7538-2114-5

 

Notes:

 

[42] 'Gospel of Thomas' 37.20-35, in NHL 121.

 

[43] Mark 9:1; cf. Mark 14:62.

 

[44] ibid., 13:5-7.

 

[45] Luke 17:21.

 

[46] Mark 8:27-9.

 

[47] Matthew 16:17-18.

 

[48] 'Gospel of Thomas' 34.30-35.7, in NHL 119.

 

[49] ibid., 50.28-30, in NHL 129.

 

[50] 'Book of Thomas the Contender' 138.13, in NHL 189.

 

[51] 'Gospel of Thomas' 48.20-25, in NHL 128.

 

[52] ibid., 40.20-23, in NHL 122.

 

[53] 'Dialogue of the Savior' 132.15-16, in NHL 233.

 

[54] ibid., 126.5-8, in NHL 231.

 

[55] ibid., 140.3-4, in NHL 236.

 

[56] 'Testimony of Truth' 44.2, in NHL 410-11.

 

[57] ibid., 43.26, in NHL 410.

 

[58] ibid., 44.13-16, in NHL 411.

 

[59] 'Teachings of Silvanus' 97.18-98.10, in NHL 352.