Gospel of Thomas Saying 13

[gnostic ken]

Gospel of Thomas Saying 13

13 Jesus said to his disciples,
"Compare me to something and tell me what I am like."

Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a just messenger."

Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher."

Thomas said to him,
"Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to say what you are like."

Jesus said, "I am not your teacher.
Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated
from the bubbling spring that I have tended."

And he took him, and withdrew, and spoke three sayings to him.
When Thomas came back to his friends they asked him,
"What did Jesus say to you?"

Thomas said to them,
"If I tell you one of the sayings he spoke to me,
you will pick up rocks and stone me,
and fire will come from the rocks and devour you."

http://www.misericordia.edu/users/davies/thomas/Trans.htm
..................................................

(13) 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 intoxicated
from the bubbling spring which I have measured out."
And he took him and withdrew and told him three things.
When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him,
"What did Jesus say to you?"
Thomas said to them,
"If I tell you one of the things which he told me,
you will pick up stones and throw them at me;
a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up."

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gthlamb.html
..................................................

13.)
Jesus addressed his disciples:
Compare me to someone.
Tell me whom i resemble.
Simon Peter said:
Like a just Angel.
Matthew answered:
Like a wise philosopher.
But Thomas replied:
Truly Master, my mouth
Cannot bring itself to utter comparisons.
AND Jesus said:
I am no longer your master.
You have drunk from the bubbling fountain
which i brought,
and you are drunk.
He took Thomas aside,
and said three words to him.
When Thomas returned,
his companions asked:
What did Jesus tell you?
And he replied:
If i related even one of the words
he told me, you would gather stones,
and hurl them at me, whereupon fire would leap from
the stones,and burn you.

http://home.epix.net/%7emiser17/johnson.html
...................................................

13. Y'shua says to his Disciples: Make a comparison to me, and tell
me whom
I resemble.
|| Shimon Petrosº says to him: Thou are like a righteous angel. ||
Matthewº
says to him:
Thou are like a philosopherº of the heart. || Thomas says to him:
Teacher,
my mouth will
not at all be capable of saying whom thou are like. || Y'shua says:
I'm not
thy teacher,
now that thou have drunk, thou have become drunken from the bubbling
spring
which I
have measured out. And he takes him, he withdraws, he speaks three
words to
him:

ahyh ashr ahyh

I-Am Who I-Am

Now when Thomas comes to his comrades, they inquire of him: What did
Y'shua
say to
thee? || Thomas says to them: If I tell you even one of the words
which he
spoke to me,
you will take up stones to cast at me--and fire will come from the
stones to
consume you.
(the Name does not appear in the papyrus, but can be inferred; Ex
3:14, Lev
24:16, Mk
14:62, Lk 6:40, Jn 4:14, 15:1, Th 61b, 77, cp. Odes of [St.] Solomon
11:6-9--'I drank and
was inebriated with the living water that does not die'; note also the
infinite gematria of Ex
3:14159...)

http://www.metalog.org
................................................

(13)
(1) Jesus said to his disciples: "Compare me, and tell me whom I am
like."
(2) Simon Peter said to him: "You are like a just messenger."
(3) Matthew said to him: "You are like an (especially) wise
philosopher."
(4) Thomas said to him:
"Teacher, my mouth will not bear at all to say whom you are like."
(5) Jesus said: "I am not your teacher. For you have drunk, you have
become intoxicated at the bubbling spring that I have measured out."
(6) And he took him, (and) withdrew, (and) he said three words to him.
(7) But when Thomas came back to his companions, they asked him:
"What did Jesus say to you?"
(8) Thomas said to them: "If I tell you one of the words he said to
me,
you will pick up stones and throw them at me,
and fire will come out of the stones (and) burn you up."

[wer1soul]

Hello Ken

 

As Christ represents a higher part of ourselves so too the disciples can be seen as parts journey towards Christ.

Llike in the last saying where to me, James is our desire for the light.

In this saying, Peter is that part of us that see's Christ as a spiritual power between us and the creator.

Matthew is that part of us that takes a more earthly view of Christ as a wise teacher or philosopher.

Thomas is that part of us that see's Christ as incomparable to anything spiritual or earthly, only as a master we want to discover.

Clive.

[gnostic ken]

Hi Clive, 

Wow, that's really good. I'm going to have to remember that.

Ken

[gnostic ken]

Fri Oct 3, 2003 11:35 am, I said:

The truth will really shock you. It won't be what you expect at all.

Fri Nov 16, 2007 7:07 am, itsallrozee said:
well, jesus replies that he is no ones master because in the words
of krisnamurti "be your own light. be your own teacher" the three
sayings that he told thomas are unknown, but because of thomas'
reaction when asked about them, i would say jesus burst some dogmatic
bubbles! He may have said things like, yahweh is an egoccentric brat
or i am the older brother of belial!, the saying is revealing there
is no personal saviour but oneself and he goes on to elaborate that
in the exhuberance of hearing the truth, (drunk with it) they are
honoring jesus the man, but haven't understood that it's the christ
that is speaking and the christ they are seeing..

Fri Nov 16, 2007 3:41 pm, Steve said:
3 sayings: I am The One.
You are The One.
We are The One.
Messengers are sent from someone else.
Wise philosophers try to think their way through.
The Cosmic Bartender is not my master, but who I
really am. A toast: "To Life!"
-Steve

Fri Nov 16, 2007 4:24 pm, gravesab said:
For me, this also speaks of personal experience, each person
had a difference experience of the person, Jesus and also
had different needs of him... Hence their different
responses..
I think also it makes a statement about state of readiness,
or open-ness to the message based on experience...

Thomas, who is sometimes called doubting Thomas, and made
fun of a bit because he didn't take things necessarily on
faith but expereience...
Maybe Jesus felt he questioned, but did not absolutely
rebuff....just a thought I had... Maybe Jesus actually liked
that he questioned things - as any good gnostic would do!
lol


I can't help but think maybe Thomas was told that he would
see Jesus alive after his death and doubt him... and Thomas
didn't want to tell the others for fear of reprisals....or
being outcast by the group.

Ann

Fri Nov 16, 2007 6:14 pm, Gnostic Tom said:
I can't help but think that "Thomas"
thought of Jesus as docetic
while the "Peter" disciples thought of
Jesus as flesh and blood. The story
was inserted that "Thomas" could not
believe unless he could reach out and
touch Peter's material Christ. He was
not "in the same house" with the other
disciples. And so to "Thomas" it was
put to him to "reach out and touch" Christ.
"Oh, forgive my unbelief" he smirked,
and notice that he never actually did
touch Christ in the story. The others
were convinced that they had won "Thomas"
over by showing him the flesh and blood
Jesus, the Jesus that had appeared to them
in their house, with the doors locked,
just walked right through the wall and
was there. "Oh, forgive my unbelief"
Doubting Thomas repeated as he vanished
himself from their midst and headed out
for India never to return.

G n o s t i c T o m
http://www.geocities.com/gnostictom/

Fri Nov 16, 2007 5:36 pm, gortoz77 said:
forget jesus , the jesus soul has had
many births after his crucifiction . As has the christ
soul . You see ann , this is from me to you .....
once a soul comes into contact with matter , it cant escape .
Its trapped . Try to understand that , and you will
understand very very much . If you already knew this , take
it as a reminder . Your in the same boat as jesus .We all
are .
From Gort

Fri Nov 16, 2007 9:52 pm, bhuzes said:
Gort,
I don't believe that the Jesus soul ever existed. I think it is a
story that was written to help us recognize that there is a Christ in
everyone.

Brenda

Sat Nov 17, 2007 10:50 pm, P3nn said:
I understand the OT in the same light with the NT as a hellenized rewritting
of the OT using Grecoroman rather than Hebrew symbolism ;)

MP
p3nn

Sat Nov 17, 2007 11:16 pm, gravesab said:
I watched a NGEO program once where basically Constantines mother
(St. Helen) basically walked around Jeruselem and designated
places and things as Jesus's Bithplace and other things
haveing to do with the story... Don't forget Romans were
pagans, so there is actually alot of pagan symbolism (i.e
the halos replacing the sun) that Christendom just pasted
their symbol over.

Ann

Sat Jan 24, 2009 2:52 pm, I said:
What was Jesus? "Was Jesus a historical sage? Or was he a character in a Gnostic
myth?

My own answer is it is not the answer that is important. It is the
question.

Asking yourself the question helps free the mind from dogma. It helps
break the hold of two thousand years of mind control.

Note that by asking yourself the question I don't mean simply thinking
of it as ridiculous and dismissing it out of hand. I mean approach it
seriously and be willing for your final answer to be undecided..."

IMO this is what it means to crucify Christ. We hang our ideas about
Jesus on a cross and kill them. Then we resurrect the living Christ."

I think this saying was designed to prod the student into questioning
the myth, to get the student to ask him/herself "What exactly is
this 'Jesus' I am learning about?"

Sat Jan 24, 2009 3:00 pm, I said:

"Jesus Is A Hidden Name" in the "Gospel of Phillip" on page 264
of "The Gnostic Bible" also here.

"Jesus is a hidden name, Christ is an open one. So Jesus is not a
word in any tongue but a name they call him. In Syriac he Christ is
messias, in Greek he is christos. All languages have their own way of
calling him. Nazarene is the revealed name for what is secret."

Taken literally this statement is nonsense. "Yeshua" was a word. It
did have a meaning.

But look at this as allegory. Is it saying "Jesus" the man was not
real? It is the Christ within that is real?

IMO.

Ken

Tue Feb 9, 2010 4:17 pm, Sam said:

Gist:

The cast;
rock = foundation = knowledge - leads to understanding.
fire = refinement = nuance - leads to wisdom.

The plot;
When folk hear & heed inner-guru
they gnow oneness-of-all-things is true.
Once doubt dispelled... wisdom engulfs you.

wisdom = unselfish use of knowledge.

itso,
sam

11 Feb 2011 Clive said:

One way to look at it is--
When we gain some insight into the teachings of Christ, egoism can make us think that we are Gods messengers, our egoism also leads us to believe that we can be wise philosophers. This can't be helped, after all we live in a corporeal world where egoism rules.
However, we can only touch the base of the spiritual world where love rules, at our spiritual level we are so far short of Christs degree that we are unable to say what he is like.
Its said - A sage only names what he has attained. Meaning, in spirituality we can only talk about things up to the level we have reached.

[wer1soul]

Thanks for the nice words Ken, hope I don't let myself down with this post.

 

I think the message here is that Christ is not an external power,something seperate from ourselves like a master or teacher or holy messenger.

He's actually part of our own being, our perfect part, distanced from us only because of our current imperfections, willing us to correct ourselves and become that perfect part of us called Christ.

[gnostic ken]

Sun Jan 24, 2010 3:18 pm, Gnostic Tom said:

the more you get it, the more you participate in it,
and the less you fit in with those who don't get it.

Simon Peter is thinking in terms of getting the message,
of having blind faith in, mental agreement with Jesus.

Matthew takes it to the next level, of receiving a philosophy,
a mindset to think in, a religion to play in.

Thomas steps over the edge to the realm beyond words,
beyond the ability to explain his experience.  Thomas
has drank from the cup, identified with Jesus on a deeper
level.  The non-gnostics can't understand Thomas now.

Early Gnostics saw three types of Christians,
hylic (material), psychic (mental), and pneumatic (spiritual).
I think the three disciples here stand in for these three
levels of initiation.

Tom

 

Tue Feb 2, 2010 6:00 pm, I replied:

Hi Tom,
Yeah, that sounds about right to me. The three do fit the profile of the three
levels of understanding.

In modern words, literalist, spiritual person and one who has experienced What
Is directly.

IMO.

Ken