Johannine Sayings in Thomas (Prof. Mirkovik)

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Raymond Brown, Robert Grant and many other scholar came up with the view that the Gospel of Thomas is a 2nd century Gnostic work. On the other hand, Helmut Koester sees the Gospel of Thomas as a first century independent reinterpretation of the sayings tradition. The Gospel of Thomas was written about the same time as the canonical gospels, since it does not presuppose the developed Gnostic cosmogony we know from the Gnostic writings of the second century. It is a collection of sayings like the Proverbs, Ben Sira, or the Wisdom of Solomon. While Koester correctly identifies the genre of Thomas as the sayings of a sage, or Logoi Sofwn, he does not consider the consequences of such a definition. The difference is that the Gospel of John was preserved for the patristic Church by an ecclesiastical redactor. Thomas Christianity was “lost” when it crossed the borders of the Roman empire and went deeper into Mesopotamia and further east to India. heological similarities between John and Thomas are often dismissed to quickly. It is not a coincidence that Thomas appears as a “flesh and blood” character only in John. In the fourth gospel, Thomas appears seven times. In the Synoptic, his name appears only in the lists of the twelve. The similarity between John and Thomas lies in their portrayal of Jesus as a fully self-conscious sage – redeemer whose words and judgments are true and flawless. Both gospels claim: to understand Jesus and his words is to achieve salvation.

Raymond Brown, nevertheless, established the fact that the gospels of John and Thomas have some common material. He explains this common material by presupposing that the redactor of Thomas borrowed from John. Koester’s book “Ancient Christian Gospels”, analyzes in detail the relationship between the Gospels of John and Thomas. The strength of Koester’s position lies in his careful literary analysis. He follows the development of Early Christian literary forms (sayings, dialogues, narratives, full-blown gospels) through their mutual influence and complicated interrelationship. Koester argues that the Gospel of Thomas and the discourses of John’s gospel belong to a trajectory based primarily on sayings. In many instances, “John and Thomas interpret the same traditional sayings, albeit with the use of quite different hermeneutic principles.” The most radical step in interpretation of John-Thomas relationship was undertaken by Gregory Riley. He argues, convincingly in my opinion, that there was a close interaction between the two communities in Syria.

Johannine sayings in Thomas, that is, on similarities between John and Thomas. The number of the Johannine sayings in Thomas is defined by Raymond Brown’s pioneering article. Furthermore, both Koester and Brown agree that the Gospel of Thomas has a number of “Johannine sayings.”

1. THE SAYINGS TRADITION IN JOHN AND THOMAS
2. The Sitz im Leben for both sayings is the oral tradition of wandering holy men and women and their disciples. The followers are supposed to preserve, or interpret the saying of the master. The audience is not limited only to the immediate disciples, but also to “anyone – whoever” which, in this case, means local sympathizers. The parallel is here obvious since the same words are used in the Greek fragments and in the Gospel of John.

1. The sayings which attributes the salvific power to the word(s) of Jesus occur in both gospels. The difference, however, is stressed to much by Koester. In John a believer has to “keep” (thrh,sh ) the word. In Thomas a believer is the seeker, the interpreter (ecermhneia). This is clarified immediately in the saying # 2: “Let the one who seeks not stop seeking until one finds…” Thus, from the very beginning (GTh 1 & the Prologue of John) we know clearly what is required of a believer to achieve salvation. The requirements are not that different, since the words of Jesus guarantee eternal life. Both gospels use the term Father for God. The saying #3 offers a parallel in the usage of the phrase “Living Father” which occurs only in John among the canonical gospels. This might be an indication of a connection between the two communities, although the expression ‘Living Father’ more probably testifies about the common environment in which both gospels were written
2. Parallels: In the parallels we see the importance of knowledge. In Thomas one has to know oneself to recognize the living Father. In John the knowledge of the Father come with the recognition of Jesus as the Redeemer. Only the sayings will not be enough, according to what the Samaritan women says. The polemic in GJn 4:42 might have been against Thomas Christians who relied more on the sayings than the Johannine group. John 8:13 shows that there was a counter-charge against claims to superior knowledge of wandering ascetics. The Pharisees argue that self-knowledge is not a valid criterion. The evangelist agrees with the GTh and rejects the argument of the Pharisees. In John, however, this self-awareness is, by and large, limited to Jesus, although the Paraclete open the way for the wandering ascetics in Johannine community to speak in the name of Jesus. The believers are saved by acknowledging the self-consciousness of the Savior, not by developing their own selfunderstanding like in Thomas. Both sayings parallel a notion of cataleptic impressions (fantasiai katalhptikai) in Stoic epistemology which indicates that the phenomenon of a divine human was the pattern of religious expression across the Mediterranean. What distinguishes a sage from an ordinary person is that a sage is aware which impression is true and which false. For a sage all knowledge is self-knowledge because it relies on rational power to recognize true (cataleptic) impressions.

Parallels:

The terms ge,rwn and xLlo signify, not only an old man, but an old man of wisdom, a teacher, a divine human, later in the monastic tradition, the leader of the community. John and Thomas make a pun out of the combination of terms, old man, wise man, children. The setting of both sayings is the contrast between institutional authority and the wisdom of wandering ascetics. One usually connects ge,rwn and xLlo with Syrian and Egyptian monks of the third and fourth century, but this is far from the truth. Divine human was a religious phenomenon, since the late Hellenistic period. Both sayings call for comparison with Matthew’s saying: Who is the Greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven? In Thomas there is an absence of the Johannine idea of rebirth. Thomas is closer to the Matthean idea of being humble like children. It should be noted that the Matthew passage belongs to M (Matthew special material) which point again in the direction of Syria.

Parallels:

Here we have a parallel between John, Thomas and (M) Matthean special material. The origin of the saying is a common lore about fishing on which each evangelist adds his own theological twist. In John, the “fishing” is futile without Jesus and leads to the recognition of Jesus. In Thomas, a fisherman is a seeker for the “large fish.” Jesus is not mentioned, except for the fact that this is a saying of Jesus who thus becomes an instructor. Matthew uses the same lore, but introduces the notion of the kingdom of heaven. The fisherman is the Son of Man who will separate good from bad fish. John uses the image of fishermen to construct the resurrection appearance. If we assume the composition of GMt in Antioch and the origin of Matthew special material from the same city, we can conclude that the origin of the lore was from areas around the Sea of Galilee.

Parallels:

This is the final punch-line of Jesus, after Peter, Matthew, and Thomas have failed to recognize who Jesus really is. Again, as in the previous parallel, John and Thomas use the common lore to construct an event in the life of Jesus. The saying #13 is typical of Thomasine theology of the knowledge of the salvific words (water) of Jesus. In John, Jesus in the dialogue with the Samaritan women speaks completely in line with Thomasine theology. The semblance is not just on the level of imagery of water, but also on the level of theology. However, John later defines that “water” (“living water” in Jn 4:10) is a recognition that Jesus is the Word of God (Jn 4:42).

Johannine Jesus, in the dialogue with the Samaritan women speaks again in Thomasine dictum. Raymond Brown sees the saying #15 as Gnostic, because it denies that Jesus is born of an earthly mother. This is inaccurate for two reasons, first Jesus does not speak here of himself, but rather about the absolute transcendence of the Father. Second, like in Job 15:14 the expression ‘not born of woman’ simply means nobody.

In Thomas the language of ‘coming into being’ symbolizes gathering of knowledge of the words of Jesus and their subsequent interpretation. In John, it is Jesus who is before Abraham. Further, the comparison between the discourse about vine and the branches and the trees in paradise in Thomas shows how both use the common imagery of the tree to develop their theology. Koester suggests that both dwell on the synoptic tradition: (Q 3:9) “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” I see in the usage of a common image, a common Sitz im Leben, namely, a wandering sage is looking at a tree and wonders about knowledge. In Thomas, earthly trees is contrasted with heavenly trees. In John the tree is a symbol of the bond between the sage and the disciples. In Q the tree that does not bear good fruit is a symbol of this world. We can also notice characteristic redactional tendencies of Thomas and John. The parallel is here that both gospels uses the setting of a dialogue to say something about the beginning. What they have to say is quite similar, namely that the ‘beginning’ (the creation of the world?) is a work of an evil principle. Both statements are equally harsh to interlocutors, who are in Thomas the disciples and in John, the Jews (Judaeans). Since in the beginning was the devil and there was not truth before Jesus, the creation comes from an evil principle. The following parallel deals with a similar issue.

There are many parallels in these two sections and they are best explained by presupposing the Sitz im Leben of a wandering divine human. Johannine expression, ‘not born of blood nor of the will of the flesh’ reminds us of the Thomasine expression, ‘not born of woman.’ GTh 28 parallels the large section of the Johannine prologue. We do not have the notion of double predestination in Thomas like in the Johannine prologue. Thomas starts the tradition which will finally develop into the notion of restoration of all things (apokatastasij twn pantwn), the idea featured so prominently in Origen. In this passage Thomas comes close to the notion that eventually everybody will be saved ‘when they shake off their wine,’ that is, when they reject their ignorance. In contrast John develops the idea of double predestination; saved are just those who had received Jesus and damned are those who had not (Jn 8:24 …you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he). For Thomas the sinners are just drunk; When they sober up “they will repent.”

Other parallels: