“In saying 51 his students ask when the rest for the dead and new world will come, and the response is this has already happened but they don’t realize it.”
There are few, far too few, accurate translations of Thomas around and those by the usual suspects certainly don’t qualify.
they said to him, viz. his Disciples: what day will the Repose come to be of they who are dead, and what day is the new World coming? he said to them:
that one that you look outward toward, she came: Rather, you yourselves do not know her
A transliteration from the Coptic, only a little distance from the word-for-word.
“She came” is indeed what the text says, and ‘the Repose’, ⲧ ⲁⲛⲁⲡⲁⲩⲥⲓ̉ⲥ, is indeed an explicitly feminine Greek loanword in this case.
The World, ⲡ ⲕⲟⲥⲙⲟⲥ, is an explicitly masculine Greek loanword in this case. Copts have unconventional ideas about the gender of Greek loanwords, hence this addition. Philip for instance uses the masculine article but considers the Spirit, ⲡⲛⲉⲩⲙⲁ, to be feminine (and even virginal).
So this here is Thomas telling the disciples that their Repose (which is of the dead, see just a few words earlier in Logion 50) has already come. Naturally, there will be no new world in Thomas, who calls for the destruction of the World.
What we see here is yet another case of disciple bashing: “you, my dear disciples, are sitting smack in the middle of the Repose of the Dead, and you don’t even realise it!”.
Likewise, Logion 18 is the only one to use the Greek loanword for Beginning, ⲁⲣⲭⲏ, whereas in the next Logion and everywhere else the native Coptic is used, (ⲉ)ϩⲏ. Greek loanwords usually have a higher metaphorical meaning in Thomas, as becomes clear when we look at the logia that combine both languages, such as e.g. the biting sarcasm on circumcision in Logion 53.
The Beginning in Logion 18 points to our psychological beginning, it is not a merely physical / biological beginning. It has everything to do with duality, and Jungian Ego vs Self, and we do indeed need to Heal ourselves from the Separation (Logion 74) so that we can overcome this sickness (Logion 74 again, when translated for what it says).
Thank you so much for your comment! I’ve been familiar with your work for a few years, but it was a wonderful reminder to go through your commentary again more closely, which is wonderful.
I especially love to see someone out there pointing out both (a) the gender neutrality consideration for terms that would have been binary in Aramaic (esp in light of saying 22) and (b) the importance of the Greek loanwords. On the latter point, the implications of using eikon across the work, especially in saying 22′s “eikons in place of eikons” has such huge import relative to a Platonist view of the Thomasine cosmology.
Do you have plans to publish a commentary for the other sayings?
In terms of interpretation of the work, with it being one of my main personal special interests over the past few years, I might even be able to offer up a consideration in turn.
Hands down the most important realization as I was analyzing the text was that the Naassenes in Pseudo-Hippolytus’s Refutations were paraphrasing Lucretius’s “seeds of things” without seeming to realize it in their discussion of ‘seeds’ as “indivisible points as if from nothing” which “make up all things.” This prompted a read through of De Rerum Natura with close attention to Thomasine parallels, and it was striking.
For example, in Miroshnikov, The Gospel of Thomas and Plato after covering the prior work in philosophical reads of the text (which notably never looked at Epicureanism), he stated regarding sayings 56 and 80: “In other words, a Stoic reading of the Gospel of Thomas does not seem to have any particular advantage over an Epicurean reading of the Gospel of Thomas nor, for instance, that from the perspective of an Isis worshipper.” And then goes on to dedicate two chapters to trying to tie these sayings to Plato’s “living world.”
And yet if we just barely glance at Lucretius in book 5 lines 64-67:
> To resume: I’ve reached the juncture of my argument where I Must demonstrate the world too has a ‘body’, and must die, Even as it had a birth.
This, in conjunction with the Thomasine over-realized eschatology in saying 18 or the aforementioned 51 makes the specific terminology of the kosmos as a ‘carcass’ make so much more sense in 54. The Sadducean overlaps with Epicureanism, the 1st century Talmud quote about “why do we study the Torah? To know how to answer the Epicurean” all point to the likelihood that the Lucretian foundations in Thomas and the Naassenes were culturally relevant at the time of composition.
The text obviously doesn’t endorse the view of the Epicurean finality of death, but it seems to touch on a lot of the underlying concepts (such as the dependence of the soul on the body, or the idea of the spirit arising from the flesh occurring first) while arguing for a different conclusion though its embrace of nonlinear events.
In any case, if it’s been a while since you’ve read through Lucretius, I can’t recommend a re-read enough if Thomas is still your jam. Quite the revelatory context for things that for too long have been dismissed as ‘Gnostic’ weirdness and now just ‘proto-Gnostic’ weirdness.
And again, thank you for your comment and your wonderful contributions to the broader knowledge of this far too under-regarded text!!
“In saying 51 his students ask when the rest for the dead and new world will come, and the response is this has already happened but they don’t realize it.”
There are few, far too few, accurate translations of Thomas around and those by the usual suspects certainly don’t qualify.
they said to him, viz. his Disciples: what day will the Repose come to be of they who are dead, and what day is the new World coming? he said to them: that one that you look outward toward, she came: Rather, you yourselves do not know her
A transliteration from the Coptic, only a little distance from the word-for-word. “She came” is indeed what the text says, and ‘the Repose’, ⲧ ⲁⲛⲁⲡⲁⲩⲥⲓ̉ⲥ, is indeed an explicitly feminine Greek loanword in this case. The World, ⲡ ⲕⲟⲥⲙⲟⲥ, is an explicitly masculine Greek loanword in this case. Copts have unconventional ideas about the gender of Greek loanwords, hence this addition. Philip for instance uses the masculine article but considers the Spirit, ⲡⲛⲉⲩⲙⲁ, to be feminine (and even virginal).
So this here is Thomas telling the disciples that their Repose (which is of the dead, see just a few words earlier in Logion 50) has already come. Naturally, there will be no new world in Thomas, who calls for the destruction of the World. What we see here is yet another case of disciple bashing: “you, my dear disciples, are sitting smack in the middle of the Repose of the Dead, and you don’t even realise it!”.
Likewise, Logion 18 is the only one to use the Greek loanword for Beginning, ⲁⲣⲭⲏ, whereas in the next Logion and everywhere else the native Coptic is used, (ⲉ)ϩⲏ. Greek loanwords usually have a higher metaphorical meaning in Thomas, as becomes clear when we look at the logia that combine both languages, such as e.g. the biting sarcasm on circumcision in Logion 53. The Beginning in Logion 18 points to our psychological beginning, it is not a merely physical / biological beginning. It has everything to do with duality, and Jungian Ego vs Self, and we do indeed need to Heal ourselves from the Separation (Logion 74) so that we can overcome this sickness (Logion 74 again, when translated for what it says).
For a verifiable translation of Thomas, see the interactive interlinear https://www.academia.edu/42110001
For very detailed commentary on the logia (up to Logion 55), see https://www.academia.edu/46974146
Martijn Linssen
Hi Martijn,
Thank you so much for your comment! I’ve been familiar with your work for a few years, but it was a wonderful reminder to go through your commentary again more closely, which is wonderful.
I especially love to see someone out there pointing out both (a) the gender neutrality consideration for terms that would have been binary in Aramaic (esp in light of saying 22) and (b) the importance of the Greek loanwords. On the latter point, the implications of using eikon across the work, especially in saying 22′s “eikons in place of eikons” has such huge import relative to a Platonist view of the Thomasine cosmology.
Do you have plans to publish a commentary for the other sayings?
In terms of interpretation of the work, with it being one of my main personal special interests over the past few years, I might even be able to offer up a consideration in turn.
Hands down the most important realization as I was analyzing the text was that the Naassenes in Pseudo-Hippolytus’s Refutations were paraphrasing Lucretius’s “seeds of things” without seeming to realize it in their discussion of ‘seeds’ as “indivisible points as if from nothing” which “make up all things.” This prompted a read through of De Rerum Natura with close attention to Thomasine parallels, and it was striking.
For example, in Miroshnikov, The Gospel of Thomas and Plato after covering the prior work in philosophical reads of the text (which notably never looked at Epicureanism), he stated regarding sayings 56 and 80: “In other words, a Stoic reading of the Gospel of Thomas does not seem to have any particular advantage over an Epicurean reading of the Gospel of Thomas nor, for instance, that from the perspective of an Isis worshipper.” And then goes on to dedicate two chapters to trying to tie these sayings to Plato’s “living world.”
And yet if we just barely glance at Lucretius in book 5 lines 64-67:
> To resume: I’ve reached the juncture of my argument where I Must demonstrate the world too has a ‘body’, and must die, Even as it had a birth.
This, in conjunction with the Thomasine over-realized eschatology in saying 18 or the aforementioned 51 makes the specific terminology of the kosmos as a ‘carcass’ make so much more sense in 54. The Sadducean overlaps with Epicureanism, the 1st century Talmud quote about “why do we study the Torah? To know how to answer the Epicurean” all point to the likelihood that the Lucretian foundations in Thomas and the Naassenes were culturally relevant at the time of composition.
The text obviously doesn’t endorse the view of the Epicurean finality of death, but it seems to touch on a lot of the underlying concepts (such as the dependence of the soul on the body, or the idea of the spirit arising from the flesh occurring first) while arguing for a different conclusion though its embrace of nonlinear events.
In any case, if it’s been a while since you’ve read through Lucretius, I can’t recommend a re-read enough if Thomas is still your jam. Quite the revelatory context for things that for too long have been dismissed as ‘Gnostic’ weirdness and now just ‘proto-Gnostic’ weirdness.
And again, thank you for your comment and your wonderful contributions to the broader knowledge of this far too under-regarded text!!
Best,
Kromem