2. Apocryphal Text - The Gospel of Thomas

The apocryphal gospels are an enormously vast reality. In addition to the apocryphal ones of the Old Testament, there are those of the New Testament. We said in the previous meeting that the concept of apocryphal means a secret book, hidden, and then this term was used to indicate generically all the texts that do not fall within the biblical canon.

When we speak of 'apocrypha of the New Testament,' we refer to ancient writings, subsequent to the writings of the New Testament, that is, from the second century and henceforth that they have a literary form similar, in some way, to canonical writings. These texts are very abundant. We have, for example, the edition—the best in my opinion— prepared by Professor Mario Erbetta, in four volumes (in Italian) The first volume contains the Gospels and the Jewish-Christian and Gnostic texts; the second volume contains the stories of the childhood, of the Passion, of the Assumption of Mary. Then there are the 'Apocryphal Accounts'—narratives from the life of the apostles, the Apocryphal Letters and Revelation.

Therefore, the material is enormous, extremely varied, fruit of literary fantasy, of theological reflection, which is very similar to novels. As in the narrative of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles certain information was missing, texts were added, often with religious intent, which filled the gaps, but they are fictional novels. They were not considered canonical because they were marginal, related only to a small or very late environment.

Not to speak in general, I would like to give an example with a very important text. In the first volume of this collection of the apocrypha of the New Testament, we find the oldest texts. We can speak of three categories of apocryphal texts among the most ancient: the Agrapha, the Judeo-Christian texts and the Gnostic Gospels. Let's look at them one by one.

The concept of 'agrafon': it means unwritten and defines some words of Jesus that are not preserved in the texts of the Gospel. In the New Testament there are some words attributed to Jesus that are not present in the Gospels. Let us take an example from the Acts of the Apostles, in chapter 20:35. Luke, who writes the book, has Paul say in one of his homilies that Jesus said: "It is more blessed to give than to receive.” This phrase is not in the Gospels. It is a ‘logion,’ mentioned in Acts, but not in the Gospel.

We also found variations in the manuscripts of the Gospels; some manuscript text added some expressions that are not considered authentic. There are also quotes from the Fathers. In some patristic writings we have references to words spoken by Jesus that are not documented in either the Gospels or the other writings of the New Testament.

Perhaps the Fathers received them from the oral tradition. Clement of Alexandria, for example, in his book entitled Stromata, mentions this saying (logion) of Jesus, "Asks for great things and you will be given the small ones too.’ It could easily be a saying of Jesus, but it is not in the canonical texts, so it belongs to that wide world of the apocrypha. This is the first example of an ágrapha.

The second type is the Judeo-Christian Gospels, that is, literary production linked to Jewish environments who became Christians, but remained Jews; are called Judeo-Christians to indicate both positions. We know these texts through quotes from the Fathers: The Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of the Ebionites, that is, of the poor. These are texts that had a very limited fate. Written in Palestinian territory, by groups that remained Jewish, but have not accepted the preaching of Jesus and composed their own religious documentation. The oldest Fathers who were in contact with this environment, knew these texts and in some cases, have taken a few sentences, and then taking here and there from the texts of the Fathers, we have vaguely reconstructed these ancient texts.

Much more important for the extension and the quantity are the Gnostic texts. We know this Gnostic world, with an abundant literary production, especially from the testimony of Irenaeus of Lyon who wrote a monumental work entitled 'Adversus haereses' – Against Heresies, published in 180 AD. Irenaeus is Bishop of Lyon in France, but he is a native of Smyrna, near Ephesus, in the area where John lived, where the fourth Gospel, the book of Revelation, were born, therefore, has a first-hand knowledge of the apostolic milieu. Irenaeus realized that many texts were circulating in the Christian environment that they were misleading and therefore mentioned and refuted them.

The first book of his great work is the presentation of the main works of the Gnostic world. The second book is the detailed refutation and presentation of the theories in an attitude of refutation. From the third to the fifth book he does a work of reconstruction and presents an authentic Catholic dogma from the foundation of the four canonical gospels. Irenaeus' work, with these quotes, made the Gnostic world known. ‘Gnosis', in Greek, means knowledge; the so-called gnosticism is a huge and varied movement, with pre-Christian origins but has found in the Christian environment a fertile ground and from some theological positions, especially John's, had appeared thinkers, authentic philosophers or theologians, or by merging together 'theosophists', who have developed reflections about the meaning of the world, about the cosmic structure, about the possibility of salvation through knowledge.

There was a very important archaeological discovery in 1946, in a village in Upper Egypt, in the monastery 'Chenoboskion,' in the region of Nag Hammadi. A library was accidentally discovered, mostly with texts written in Coptic language which was the evolution of the ancient Egyptian. Coptic is a deformation of the Greek Αίγύπτιος Aigyptios, which means 'Egyptian.' It has an alphabet that resembles Greek, a bit like Cyrillic for Russia. It is an alphabet that started from Greek and added some signs, but the language is completely different because it is a mythical language, a late evolution of the ancient Egyptian language.

These texts of the third, fourth and fifth centuries, in Coptic language, were translations of the oldest original texts, even from the second and third centuries written in Greek, but unknown. Something was known through Irenaeus and other ancient authors who had quoted them. In 1946 this archaeological discovery brought to light an entire library, albeit in Coptic translation, and so we have the possibility to know directly the texts of this community.

Among the many books that have been found, the one that scholars believe is the most important, is the 'Gospel of Thomas,' studied by many authors with special attention to its content. So, let us try to understand what it is; it is a text called 'gospel,' but it does not resemble the canonical Gospels, but to a form older than the canonical Gospels, because it is only an anthology of sayings, a collection of phrases, 114 phrases listed in no precise order, simply an anthology of words attributed to Jesus.

It begins: "These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymus Judas Thomas wrote down. And he said, "Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death." This is the introductory title. The first logion follows: Jesus said, "Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All." There is no story. In the entire text, attributed to Thomas, there is no account of events or works done by Jesus, only sayings.

This is the first. How can we evaluate it? It could be an original text. The text we found in Nag Hammadi is in Coptic and is late, but it is a translation. The original Greek was from the end of the first century, beginning of the second century, very ancient, very close to writing of the canonical Gospels. In fact, analyzing all this text, we find that there are sayings which are very different from each other, some are similar to those found in the Synoptic Gospels, others are not. There is a different traditional conservation, but the saying is the same as in the Gospels.

There is a second category of sayings that could be authentic, that is, they are consistent with the form in which Jesus spoke, do not teach strange doctrines, are not esoteric, that is, reserved for that restricted environment of Gnostic believers who are locked up in a sect of initiates. Finally, there are other sayings that are numerous or incomprehensible, that is, they are formulated with a language that says nothing to the uninitiated, or with very strange statements.

The Gospel of Thomas is a beautiful apocryphal gospel document. It is a text that was not discarded by the Church, condemned and burned, but it marginalizes itself because it was born into a restricted environment. It was born in a community who still had contacts with the apostolic tradition, so much so that mentions many of Jesus' teachings documented in the apostolic writings, but to this authentic traditional base other material was added, fruit of reflection. This author or authors who produced the text added their own material. The work was not disclosed, it was read in that environment, it did not even reach all of Egypt.

Irenaeus knows this because he is a great researcher. He promised to take a census of all this material, but Irenaeus had no authority inside the church. Let us not forget that, at that time, the Roman Empire persecuted the Christian world several times, there was no link between the civil power and the ecclesiastical structure; the bishops were marginal people in the Roman world, they had no authority and therefore Irenaeus wrote a book, he simply did not have the power to collect the texts he didn't like and burn or destroy them. In fact, those texts were marginal and remained marginal, known only in the environment where they were born, and those books disappeared.

In that monastery where they had been translated into Coptic and preserved, they ended up being a single copy. When the monastery was destroyed, those texts remained buried there and were brought to light in 1946, while the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, Mark and John were translated into all languages, chosen by all the churches of the world, uninterruptedly, for two thousand years. There is a big difference. We cannot put the two texts on the same level, because the Gospel of Thomas is a particular text, the result of a restricted environment. It was not known or understood by anyone outside of the author's environment.

Let's try to give some examples of a 'logion'. We have one, 107, for example, where we find a well-known parable. I will read you the text from the Gospel of Thomas: "Jesus said, ‘The kingdom is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them, the largest, went astray. He left the ninety-nine sheep and looked for that one until he found it. When he had gone to such trouble, he said to the sheep, 'I care for you more than the ninety-nine.'" We recognize retouching, there are variations, but basically the text is that of the evangelical tradition. Let us say that this parable, common to Matthew and Luke, absent in Mark, belongs to a collection of logia that scholars have defined as source Q, from 'quelle' in German, 'the source' of this direct anthology. It was probably an anthology similar to the Gospel of Thomas.

To the second category could belong logion 82, which is not found in the Gospels nor in the writings of the New Testament, but it could really be Jesus'. "Jesus said, "He who is near me is near the fire, and he who is far from me is far from the kingdom." It is an enigmatic saying, but quite understandable; it belongs to the typical language of Jesus: he who is close to him is close to the kingdom because Jesus is the kingdom in person, but also, to be close to him is like being near a fire. It is possible to get burned, we need to be careful or let ourselves go for this flame of love that surrounds us. We find, instead, other verses where we face to a typically Gnostic way of speaking that is different from that of the Gospels.

The third saying: "Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty." We recognize in some way an evangelical language, but there is also a strangeness, an insistence on knowledge, an almost psychological intimate discourse.

Reading the seventh logion we are not able to comment on it: "Jesus said, "Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man; cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man." What does it mean? That the lion is the image of the bad guy, the strong guy? If you go with a bad guy you become a bad guy, but you can also change the bad guy and make him become good like you. It may mean this or it may mean something else ...

Logion 19: "Jesus said (it always starts the same way): Blessed is he who came into being before he came into being. If you become my disciples and listen to my words, these stones will minister to you. For there are five trees for you in Paradise which remain undisturbed summer and winter and whose leaves do not fall. Whoever becomes acquainted with them will not experience death." Here we recognize that there are esoteric references, allusions to realities that we do not know well, that go far beyond the canonical evangelical realm.

These texts must be known; if someone has the desire to find them, you can easily find them translated into English and also abundantly commented. And it is good to read them; instead of cultivating doubts by imagining that there are special things that the Church wanted to hide. Read them carefully, you will see for yourself the differences between the canonical Gospels and these; and one can also understand why the four canonical Gospels have been accepted by all, read, commented and used in the liturgy and these in turn have remained the heritage of a small group.

I'm going to read the last 114, it's the one that closes all the text: "Simon Peter said to him, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life." Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven." Here the concept of woman is considered synonymous with inferior, imperfect; to be saved, woman must become into a man. Simon Peter would like to expel Mary Magdalene because she does not deserve life. Jesus promises to make her a man. There is definitely no positive evaluation of the woman, nor any reference to Jesus' marriage. On the contrary, the Gnostic world despises matter and considers it bad.

The feminine element is always read as a synonym for material, imperfect and inferior. The level needs to be raised, the woman has to become a man in order to become a living spirit. Woman-man-angel, there is an ascent in the scale of beings. It is strange that these texts are used by those who want to value all these aspects of femininity and sexuality, because these values are greatly despised in the tradition of the Gnostics.